IN NORTHERN MISTS 



(22) Finally, among the most different people on earth, from 

 the ancient Greeks to the Icelanders, Chinese, and Japanese, we 

 meet with similar myths about countries out in the ocean and 

 voyages to them, which, whether they be connected with one 

 another or not, show the common tendency of humanity to adopt 

 ideas and tales of this kind. 



But even if we are obliged to abandon the Saga of Eric 

 the Red ^ and the other descriptions of these voyages as 

 historical documents, this is compensated by the increase 

 in our admiration for the extraordinary powers of realistic 

 description in Icelandic literature. In reading Eric's Saga 

 one cannot help being struck by the way in which many of 

 the events are so described, often in a few words, that the 

 whole thing is before one's eyes and it is difficult to believe 

 that it has not actually occurred. This is just the same 

 quality that characterizes our Norwegian fairy-tales: all 

 that is supernatural is made so natural and realistic that it 

 is brought straight before one. The Icelanders created the 

 realistic novel; and at a time when the prose style of Europe 

 was still in its infancy their prose narrative often reaches the 

 summit of clear simplicity. In part this may doubtless be ex- 

 plained by their not being merely authors, but men of ac- 

 tion; their presentment acquired the stamp of real life and 

 the brevity that belongs to the narrator of things seen. 

 And to this, of course, must be added the fact that, as a 

 rule, the tales were sifted and abridged by generations of oral 

 transmission. In later times this style became corrupted by 

 European influence. 



After I had given, on October 7, 1910, the outlines 

 of this examination of the sagas of the Wineland voyages 

 before the Scientific Society of Christiania, attention was 



1 It should be remarked that the beginning of this saga, dealing with the 

 discovery of Greenland by Eric the Red, is taken straight out of the Landnama- 

 bok, and is thus much older. 

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