﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK 69 



of Eric accidentally discovered Wineland as already stated. Thorstein, 

 his brother, failed in an attempt to reach it the next year and returned, 

 marrying Gudrid soon afterward. That winter he died. After a 

 time she married Thorfinn Karlsefni and set out with him for Wine- 

 land. They reached in succession Helluland, Markland, the peninsula 

 of Keelness, the Wonderstrands and Straumey and Straumfiord of the 

 sea currents. They made their home for the winter, first in a bay 

 behind Straumey, then on the island itself ; finally on both, getting 

 the benefit of both regions. In the spring they went south, finding 

 another bay or loch called Hop by them, into which a river flowed, 

 passing thence by a strait to the sea. Here they spent a year, but 

 at last had to leave on account of the hostility of the natives. They 

 returned to Straumey and spent another year there unmolested, 

 incidentally exploring the other side of Keelness, apparently the 

 southeast shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, including a part of 

 what is sometimes called the Acadian Bay. Here Thorvald their 

 helmsman, another son of Eric, was killed by an archer of great 

 activity, whom they thought abnormal. Quarrels among them- 

 selves about the married women caused their return to Greenland, 

 thence to Iceland. Biarni, one of Thorfinn's noblest companions, 

 went down at sea on the way, having given his life in a sinking ship 

 for that of an unworthy follower. 



The Flateybook saga, it would seem, rewards this Biarni by making 

 him, not Leif, the accidental discoverer of Wineland, he being on the 

 way from Iceland to Heriulfsness in Greenland, following his father 

 Heriulf — a relationship unknown to Landnamabook. He touched 

 three lands, evidently meant for those of Karlsefni taken in reverse 

 order, the upper part of Wineland being first found. Biarni did not 

 die, but safely reached the shore in front of his father's house, on his 

 first approach to Greenland, an improbable achievement often sub- 

 stantially repeated in this saga. Leif blamed Biarni for not landing on 

 any shore that he discovered, so he borrowed Biarni's ship and sailed 

 forth to remedy the error. He found the three " lands," this time in 

 north-to-south order, and built, " Leif's-booths " on the shore of a bay, 

 which seems a composite of the southern Hop and the northern bay 

 behind Straumey. He returned to Greenland for no reason given, 

 picking up Thori the Eastman and his wife Gudrid from a wreck on 

 the way. 



Next, Leif s brother Thorvald borrowed the ship and the Wine- 

 land house and reached the latter without any recorded difficulty. 

 From this abiding place he explored the coast westward a long way 

 and afterward explored eastward also to Keelness, turned that cape. 



