﻿90 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



nate, and by the abundant grapes fit for wine, of which the Danish 

 king told Adam of Bremen. 



Now it becomes important to understand what manner of men 

 were these enthusiastic observers of the vines and grapes. First, 

 we have Leif himself, with abundant personal experience in all the 

 northern countries at least, including intercourse with a king and his 

 court, giving him a range of wider knowledge. Then the Icelanders 

 and Greenlanders of his crew, some of whom would surely have 

 traded, wandered, or served in arms in southern Europe. Theirs was 

 the race that penetrated the Mediterranean to Lucca in the middle of 

 the fifteenth century ; that had overrun the vineyards of France and 

 looted its wine-making cities ; that later established itself as rulers 

 in the two Sicilies and conquered the Canary Islands for Spain; 

 the race that had already supplied soldiers and sailors to most 

 countries of Europe. Miklegard (Constantinople) " the great city," 

 the foremost center of the world's civilization for three centuries 

 thereafter, was more familiar to their minds than it is to ours, and in 

 a little time their men-at-arms were to be the palace-guards of its 

 emperors. Besides these, we must remember the priest and teachers, 

 who joined him in Norway and who were presumably not Icelandic 

 but continental European of some kind. Further along in the saga, 

 we find other outland ingredients, for : 



It was when Leif was with King Olaf Tryggvason, and he made him pro- 

 claim Christianity to Greenland, that the king gave him two Gaels; the man's 

 name was Haki, and the woman's Hsekia. The king advised Leif to have 

 recourse to these people, if he should stand in need of fleetness, for they were 



swifter than deer They were clad in a garment, which they called 



" kiafal," which was so fashioned, that it had a hood at the top,, was open at 

 the sides, was sleeveless, and was fastened between the legs with buttons and 

 loops, while elsewhere they were naked. 



This affidavit-like verbal photography and eye for costume mark 

 the description as by the hand that drew Thorbiorg, yet it was 

 probably only the hand of a romancer. They were afterward set 

 to find the grapes and wheat for Karlsefni in all their semi-nude 

 picturesqueness. I have elsewhere repeatedly indicated a belief that 

 this story as presented is worse than apocryphal. 



No doubt both Tyrker of the Flatey saga and this Haki have an 

 aggressively mythical air. The Wineland products no doubt im- 

 pressed popular fancy and may have seemed to call for special 

 distinction in the matter of their finding ; but whether both or either 

 of these stories be accurate, or wholly invented, or relate to matters 

 of fact ill understood, they reveal a general knowledge that these early 



