﻿72 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



before him, or either of the parchments from which they were copied. 

 More likely there was another copy or more than one, almost identical 

 in some parts — for whole sentences are practically repeated, though 

 not always in the same place — but with omissions, additions, and 

 changes ; and further traditional material, oral or written, may 

 have been worked in for the first time during transcription. Thus 

 Gudrid's antecedents and first appearance differ widely in the 

 accounts, as we have seen, but there is a close parallelism in the 

 episode of the western settlement, though some passages are not com- 

 mon to both. Undoubtedly we find greater dignity and deeper 

 tragedy in the Hauksbook version, particularly as concerns the 

 behavior of Gudrid herself in the grief and horror of that uncanny 

 death-night. It seems the elder form, but the other must have 

 developed early. Both put words of prophecy in Thorstein's mouth, 

 most reasonably explained as, at least in part, of later interpolation. 

 They display a knowledge of Gudrid's religious eminence toward the 

 close of her life and the subsequent prosperity of her family. 



The Flateybook Wineland saga is chiefly important as at least 

 partly independent testimony to much that is recorded in the others ; 

 and for some items which it adds that seem authentic. If all else 

 were lost, we might still learn from it of Helluland, Markland, 

 Wineland and Keelness, their relative position and their chief char- 

 acteristics ; the island north of the lower end of the land, which is 

 almost the direction of Grand Manan after rounding the south- 

 western tip of Nova Scotia ; the behavior of the tide and the great 

 shallows left on the ebb, suiting equally Thorfinn's great currents 

 and what may be seen now along the lateral bays and rivers of 

 the Great Bay of Fundy the fiord-indented mountainous shore of 

 New Brunswick and Maine just beyond ; the voyages of Leif and 

 Thorfinn; the birth of Snorri and the death of Thorvald, both 

 in Wineland; the savages who had furs to trade and were im- 

 provident in dealing, who took flight at the bellowing of a bull and 

 afterward attacked the settlers with fury ; the two days' sail between 

 Helluland and Markland and between Markland and Wineland — 

 with divers other matters alike in all versions. As added items we 

 have Thorfinn's stockade, a precaution which he would be likely to 

 borrow from his enemies after danger threatened ; the piling of 

 timber above a cliff, perhaps as now, where a shute or runway shows 

 at the north point of Grand Manan ; the tall and striking figure of 

 the hostile chief ; the wooden structure on an island, possibly a shed 

 or bin for wild rice gathered by Indian women, who are still the chief 

 garnerers of the northwest, and a much-expounded statement that 



