﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK 1 59 



17.— REVIEW OF DR. NANSEN'S CONCLUSIONS 

 The more significant of Dr. Nansen's ' observations in regard to 

 the Norsemen in America have been briefly considered in relevant 

 parts of the foregoing chapters. He has certainly added some 

 valuable items of fact and gathered a most welcome array of ancient 

 and medieval description, folk-lore, and mythology concerning de- 

 lightful islands, real or fancied, such as the fourteenth, fifteenth, six- 

 teenth and seventeenth century maps show to us plentifully and the 

 beliefs concerning which have long been known in a general way to 

 readers interested in such topics. Perhaps he has not sufficiently set 

 forth the great contrast between the florid and preposterous extrav- 

 agances of the Celtic sea stories and the sanity of the exploring part 

 of Thorfinn Karlsefni's story, and of all that concerns him, indeed, 

 Leif's story also, wherein can be found only a bare hint of the occult, 

 such as people even of our own time never quite wholly and conclu- 

 sively disbelieve. He may have made it even more nearly certain 

 if possible than before that the Celtic and Scandinavian sea tales, 

 meeting in Ireland and Iceland, had a moderate reciprocal influence ; 

 but if the Icelanders were indebted mainly to Ireland for the name 

 and story of Wineland, it seems entirely probable that their borrowing 

 would have included in great measure the distinctive extravagances 

 of Bran, Maelduin, St. Brandan, and their kind. It almost passes the 

 bounds of possibility that the saga-man who wove the spectral marvels 

 and picturesque magic of his own people into the Greenland part of his 

 narrative should have ignored all the prodigies and impressive insular 

 unrealities of the Irish writings and traditions if really familiar with 

 them and drawing from that source in the exploring part of his story 

 — and have confined himself almost entirely to matter-of-fact items, 

 which fit with such astonishing accuracy the probable American shore- 

 line of his time and the absolute certainties of American vegetable and 

 animal life. The voyage record seems to be an accurate report, 

 detailed though brief, as sensible and as credible in all essentials as 

 any modern official document. 



Dr. Nansen asserts that the Norsemen " steered straight across the 

 Atlantic itself and discovered North America " ; 2 that the " open 

 craft of the Norwegian Vikings, with their square sails, fared north 

 and west over the whole ocean, from Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen 

 to Greenland, Baffin's Bay, Newfoundland and North America " ; 3 



a Fridtjof Nansen: In Northern Mists. Arctic Exploration in Early Times; 

 translated by Arthur G. Chater; New York, 191 1, vol. 2, pp. 58-62. 



2 Ibid., p. 234. 



3 Ibid., p. 248. 



