﻿160 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



also that they visited Cape Breton (Keelness), the Wonderstrands 

 below it, and some point yet farther down the coast where they met 

 Indians and not Eskimo. He accepts their Helluland as probably 

 Labrador, Markland as Newfoundland, and, as above, the discovery of 

 the region called Wineland in the saga, though questioning the name 

 or its implication. 



He lays even an excessive stress, it seems to me, on the entry in 

 Icelandic annals, one at least being nearly contemporary, of the Green- 

 land ship driven by stress of weather to Iceland in 1347, her crew 

 reporting an intervening visit to Markland. But, after all, how can 

 he be sure that these seamen told the truth ? Why are they more trust- 

 worthy than Gudleif, whose visit to Biorn in some land of the west 

 has been mentioned already, except that he gives us tests of accuracy 

 which fail, and their meager story supplies no tests? Moreover, are 

 we quite sure of the accuracy of the first annalist and possible inter- 

 vening narrators ? The statement is a bare sentence or two in length, 

 credible enough in view of what we know from the saga and valuable 

 as cumulative corroboration. But it will not do for the historic cor- 

 nerstone of any evidence ; nor does it make Markland a whit more 

 historic that Helluland or Wineland. The main features of the ex- 

 ploring part of the saga tale are connected in a chain and of the same 

 degree of reliability. They must stand or fall together. 



If the name Wineland be objectionable, we might give up the 

 poetry of it without disaster. As above indicated, Dr. Nansen seems 

 to agree exactly and fully with our version of the itinerary of these 

 early explorers, at least as far as the Atlantic coast below Cape Breton 

 island and their temporary settlement in a more southerly Indian- 

 populated region, called Hop, in the saga. Beyond that he sum- 

 marizes his conclusions under the following twenty-two points which 

 it seems proper here to consider in succession, with some comments 

 from my own observations. Dr. Nansen says : * 



If we now look back upon all the problems it has been sought to solve in 

 this chapter, the impression may be a somewhat heterogeneous and negative 

 one ; the majority will doubtless be struck at the outset by the multiplicity of the 

 paths, and by the intercrossing due to this multiplicity. But if we force our 

 way through the network of by-paths and follow up the essential leading lines, 

 it appears to me that there is established a firm and powerful series of conclu- 

 sions, which it will not be easy to shake. The most important steps in this 

 series are : 



(1) The oldest authority, 2 Adam of Bremen's work, in which Wineland is 

 mentioned, is untrustworthy, and with the exception of the name and of the 



1 In Northern Mists, vol. 2, pp. 58 et seq. 



2 The Ringerike runic stone is not given here, as its mention of Wineland 

 is uncertain. 



