﻿88 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



which ended for the while in his being driven on the Hebrides. He 

 remained there a considerable time awaiting fair winds, and " became 

 enamored of a certain woman named Thorgunna," of rare intel- 

 ligence. When Leif was preparing to depart Thorgunna asked to be 

 permitted to accompany him. 



Leif enquired if she had in this the approval of her kinsman. She replied 

 that she did not care for it. Leif responded that he did not deem it the part 

 of wisdom to abduct so high-born a woman in a strange country, " and we so 

 few in number." " It is by no means certain that thou shalt find this to be the 

 better decision " said Thorgunna. " I shall put it to the proof, notwithstand- 

 ing," said Leif. [Then she notified him of their expected child, adding:] 

 " And though thou give this no heed, yet will I rear the boy, and send him to 

 thee in Greenland, when he shall be fit to take his place with other men. And 

 I foresee that thou wilt get as much profit from this son as is thy due from 

 this our parting ; moreover, I mean to come to Greenland myself before the 

 end comes." Leif gave her a gold finger-ring, a Greenland wadmal mantle 

 and a belt of walrus-tusk. This boy came to Greenland, and was called Thor- 

 gils. Leif acknowledged his paternity, and some men will have it that this 

 Thorgils came to Iceland in the summer before the Froda-wonder. However, 

 this Thorgils was afterwards in Greenland, and there seemed to be something 

 not altogether natural about him before the end came. Leif and his com- 

 panions sailed away from the Hebrides, and arrived in Norway in the autumn. 



A Thorgunna, lately arrived in Iceland, is intimately connected 

 with the portents of Frodis- water in the Eyrbyggja Saga — prodigies 

 and hauntings charged to her occult power after death, and very 

 deeply impressing the popular imagination. 



Of this sorry little romance or incidental tragedy little need be 

 said. But we get a glimmering view of the harrowed soul of the 

 forsaken woman, which was conceived of as inflicting prodigious 

 punishment even after death. 



However, having successfully left her out of the main current 

 of his story, " Leif went to the court of King Olaf Tryggvason, who 

 could see that Leif was a man of great accomplishments " and 

 promptly converted him into a zealous Christian (Leif did not, how- 

 ever, make amends) and at last committed to him the conversion of 

 the other Greenlanders, at the same time that he sent the missionary 

 Gizur on that errand to Iceland. 



In the following very brief passage we have our only account 

 of his Wineland discovery, except the notices already quoted and 

 it is most natural that inquirers should direct all side lights on 

 every word of it, eager to extract the full meaning. Only we should 

 beware of a strained ingenuity, the temptation to perverse original 

 paradox, or a too narrow and specialized view : 



