﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK IOI 



Spanish vessels of the time of Columbus." Laing * gives similar 

 testimony. One of the largest on record was King Olaf's Great 

 Serpent, a hundred and fifty feet in the keel. 



Colonel Higginson 2 has described this type, from a fine specimen 

 yielded up nearly intact by the northern sands. I quote only a little : 



She was seventy-seven feet eleven inches at the greatest length and sixteen 

 feet eleven inches at the greatest width .... and would draw less than four feet 



of water As a whole this disinterred vessel proved to be anything but the 



rude and primitive craft which might have been expected. It was neatly built 

 and well preserved, constructed on what a sailor would call beautiful lines and 



eminently fitted for sea-service Many such vessels may be found depicted 



on the celebrated Bayeux tapestry This was not one of the very largest 



ships, for some of them had thirty oars on each side (instead of its sixteen) 



and vessels carrying from twenty to twenty-five were not uncommon 



Probably the sail was much like those still carried by large open boats in that 

 country, a single square on a mast forty feet long. 



Thus equipped, Thorfinn could go quite literally on the wings of 

 the wind. Henceforward, at least as far as the Bay of Fundy, we 

 have the benefit of their log and sailing directions. Leif has given 

 us no such aid, but there was no such motive in his case. He had 

 stumbled on his great good fortune, and probably acted mainly from 

 impulse in skirting the shore awhile, and touching here and there for 

 specimens, before hurrying home to evangelize Greenland. Thorfinn, 

 however, aimed at permanency, and it was most important to note 

 closely the route which must be retraced in sending tidings and 

 establishing communication with the parent colony, and which all 

 reinforcements must follow. It is plain sailing in the saga as in 

 reality, with merely some uncertainty as to the exact intervals of time 

 and distance intended. In that the swiftness of the wind-driven 

 ships of course must be considered. 



The saga tells us : 



Thence they sailed away be}'ond the Bear Isles with northerly winds. They 

 were out two doegr; then they discovered land, and rowed thither in boats, 

 and explored the country, and found there many flat stones [hellur], so large, 

 that two men could well spurn soles upon them [i. e., lie at full length upon 

 them sole to sole] ; there were many Arctic foxes there. They gave a name 

 to the country and called it Helluland. 



Thence they sailed two " doegr," and bore away from the south toward the 

 south-east and they found a wooded country and on it many animals ; an island 

 lay there off the land toward the south-east ; they killed a bear on this, and 

 called it afterwards Biarney [Bear Isle] ; but the country Markland [Forest- 

 land]. When two "doegr" had elapsed, they descried land, and they sailed 

 off this land ; there was a cape [ness] to which they came. They beat into the 

 wind along this coast, having the land upon the starboard [right] side. This 



1 Heimskringla, Laing's Introduction, vol. 1, p. 160. 



2 Higginson and MacDonald : History of the United States Ed. 1905. pp. 

 30 et seq. 



