154 H. P. STEENSBY. 
than Flateyarbök’s record, he also maintained that it was of far greater 
importance than the last mentioned, as a historical source. 
Storm compares point by point the two records, and finds that they 
are bound to be the same incidents which are the subject to both of 
them. On the other hand he points out that Graenlendingapättr is filled 
with improbabilities, and therefore expresses “the conjecture, that when 
Gra&nlendingapättr was written down the main parts of the tradition 
were already greatly obscured and weakened, and that the author had 
eked the tradition out with his own invention.” Therefore, — he says — 
must the geographical descriptions and statements, which only depend 
on the райг, “be accepted with great care and only be used where they 
can be adapted to Eric the Red’s saga.” 
Storm’s construction, which was excellently founded on textual 
criticism, was universally accepted by historians and philologists. In 
the mean time, as already mentioned, Fridtjof Nansen had, in 1911, 
urged quite a different construction, since he was of the opinion that he 
could prove that both records are more immediately to be read as histo- 
rical novels, composed of saga and more or less uncertain traditions. 
Moreover, the former Danish naval officer, later on Professor at the 
State Massachusetts Institute of Technology, WILLIAM HOVGAARD tried 
to assert in his book “The voyages of the Norsemen to America” [New 
York 1915] that both records were of equal value as sources. 
It is certain, however, that neither Nansen’s construction nor Hov- 
gaard’s opinion can be maintained. In the “Aarboger for Nordisk Old- 
kyndighed” [Copenhagen 1916] Finnur Jønsson has already written 
a treatise in which he refutes Hovgaard on this point, and asserts in, as 
it seems, a completely convincing manner that Storm was absolutely 
correct in his judgment of the mutual value of the two sources and in 
the circumstance of their mutual age. Finnur Jönsson is, moreover, of - 
the opinion that he is able to prove that the author of Grænlendinga- 
pattr must have had some knowledge of Eric the Red’s saga (in a written 
form he can hardly have known it). 
Finnur Jönsson has come to the conclusion that “the pattr is a 
spontaneous product of obscure, confused, and incoherent traditional 
reminiscences (or fragments)” On the other hand he examines, point 
for point, the handling in the saga’s description of events, and finds 
that “the whole presentation is coherent and nearly all the points of 
such a nature that one has difficulty in raising objections against it.” 
With regard to the saga’s geographical descriptions of countries and 
” localities, he also finds that they bear the impress of accuracy, and can- 
not be utterly unfounded. 
I will not go further into the details of this discussion, which turns 
upon the textual criticism of the two main sources of the Wineland voy- 
ages. I, myself, have nothing to add with regard to textual criticism 
beyond this, that I cannot see otherwise than that Gustav Storm and 
