﻿84 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



hidden pleasing dells of the inner firths. But he was thrown while 

 riding to embarkation, with some disabling injuries, and gave up 

 the project, averring that he saw it was not for him to discover any 

 more land than the region where he stood. 



Thorstein and his party, deprived of that wise leadership, went 

 sailing " cheerily out of Ericsfirth in high spirits over their plan." 

 But perhaps they started too far east or held a course too much 

 inclined that way ; for storms drove then into view of Iceland and 

 then southward until " the birds of Ireland " met them. After months 

 of being " driven hither and thither over the sea " they returned to 

 Greenland discomfited. Yet they did not fare ill. Eric greeted them 

 with a relieved chuckle, which still lingers in his Stevenson-like 

 words : " More cheery were we when we sailed out of Ericsfirth ; 

 yet we still live ; and it might have been worse." Gudrid gave 

 Thorstein the more effective solace of her heart and hand; going 

 with him soon afterward to a new home away up at Lysufirth, a 

 little below the present Godthaab. 



An epidemic visited their little community that winter and slew 

 Thorstein with others. When all seemed over, the outworn young 

 bride-widow went at last to lie down, but was awakened awfully 

 in the blackness by a voice announcing that her dead husband had 

 arisen in his bed and called for her. The messenger was his name- 

 sake and joint owner, Thorstein the Swarthy, overwhelmed for the 

 moment by that most hideous of Icelandic imaginings, a belief in 

 the evil possession or soulless revival of corpses, making these bodies 

 of loved ones the most malignant monsters. The blackness of it 

 must have been on her too, and far more dreadfully, yet he saw that 

 she would go notwithstanding and bade her cross herself as one 

 in uncanny peril. She declared her trust in God's protective good- 

 ness and went in. Then the awakening dead man, as they held him, 

 greeted her lovingly, telling her many things close in her ear which 

 no other heard. Soon, too, he spoke aloud for all to hear, foretelling 

 great things in her behalf, as had the prophetess, charging them to 

 take certain measures with a dead wizard's body for ending the 

 pestilence and to carry himself and other victims to Ericsfirth for 

 burial ; and in especial enjoined her not to marry a Greenlander. 

 Now this significant warning, fitting so aptly her later marriage to 

 an Icelander, who promptly went with her to Wineland, may be 

 considered a mere coincidence or a real cause of their adventurous 

 effort or a touch of later art maintaining the harmonies. Perhaps 

 the first suggestion is the least probable, but it does not greatly matter. 

 Gudrid sailed back with her dead, a grim voyage down the rocky 



