﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK I3I 



It is interesting to follow these early visitors in even their slight 

 exploration of the shore of that vast Gulf of St. Lawrence, which, with 

 the Uniped, so weighed on their disquieted fancy; but we cannot 

 gather anything as to distance or previous locality more than has 

 been stated already. The calculation or conjecture simply bears out 

 the statement that " they sailed for a long time " in their previous 

 nearly equal journeying across the Gulf of Maine. 



The commendations of their second Wineland home — " the country 

 was attractive," " every brook was full of fish," " no snow whatever," 

 and the like — may be taken with a slight allowance for hyperbole in 

 matters of detail. Why should not these Norsemen speak a little 

 loosely in praising, as well as other people? Many brooks, if not 

 all, are really crowded with some kinds of fish in the spawning season 

 along the coast. Yellow perch were formerly dipped out of them 

 in quantities east of the Chesapeake; herring are often snagged 

 by the hook or scooped up with the dip-net when they throng the 

 water at the Little Falls of the Potomac, and alewives are said to 

 run in multitudes up Narragansett Bay. The special method of 

 catching flounders (which hug the bottom) in pits between tides is 

 said by Munro's History of Bristol 1 to be still in practice there. As 

 to the game, I was told of several recent instances of deer being 

 seen near Mount Hope, and the region must once have been a hunter's 

 paradise. There are years when, by all accounts, hardly any snow 

 falls in this neighborhood, and Thorfinn may have happened on one 

 of these. 



The winter-grazing of stock has been claimed in one of the sagas for 

 an especially bountiful field — the prize of a murderous controversy — 

 in Iceland itself. More precisely, a recent writer 2 bears witness : 



The Faroe Islands, surrounded by rocky barriers and dangerous whirlpools, 

 are like those dragon-guarded islands of fable upon which, when the circle of 

 enchantment was passed, the invader found pleasant gardens and balmy airs. 

 .... The air of the islands is mild the year round, so that even in winter cattle 

 and sheep are herded without shelter, and snow so seldom lies upon the land 

 that the grazing is practically uninterrupted. 



From this to the " absolutely no snow " of the saga is no great 

 interval. Perhaps in all such cases we should suspect a slight 

 involuntary " diminution of the record." 



This winter grazing, as a ranchman of the far northwest informs 

 me, is practised even in Alberta, where the weather varies quite 

 suddenly from Arctic severity to a very trying heat and moisture. 



1 W. H. Munro : History of Bristol, R. L, p. 22. 

 2 E. M. Bacon: Henry Hudson, p. 112. 



