162 H. P. ae 
As I now will try to determine the site of this Wineland, I shall set 
to work in a simple fashion and rely on purely common geographical 
observations. 
Besides comparing the saga’s description of Wineland, and the way 
there, with the geographical conditions now known, I will take into con- 
sideration the distribution of land and water, the sea currants, the 
prevailing winds, and such like geographical outlines, which one must 
assume to have been of the same character as they are now-a-days. 
However, it must be emphasized that the first navigators, even 
from such geographical elements as those mentioned, may have got a 
somewhat different impression from that which we now might expect. 
Thus, the distribution of land and sea is relevant, for where we have 
maps to rely on they only knew that which they were able to see from 
their low decks. 
Finally there is a consideration which I believe to be of such import- 
ance as to deserve emphasis, and it is this, that Wineland had been dis- 
covered and again, later on, renavigated — probably even more than 
once —. The way to Wineland, therefore, can hardly be of the most casual 
character; one sees something in the way of a course or route. However 
poor in words the saga’s description of the way from Greenland to Wine- 
land may be, it is hardly poorer than the possibility that it was the 
opinion of the relater that the course to Wineland was in the main so 
rendered by him that the country could subsequently be refound. 
This consideration gets its intrinsic value when one bears firmly 
in mind that navigation had the character of coasting. If sailing could 
be kept to the coast, this was preferred. Even if the daring northern navi- 
gators ventured across the ocean to the Shetland and Faroe islands, and 
further on to Iceland and Greenland, the navigation, however, immedia- 
tely became coasting when they approached land. This view holds good 
in a quite especial degree when new land was in question. Thus along 
the coasts of Iceland and along those of Greenland, where the Norsemen 
from the Gunnbjörn’s skerries (possibly the region near Cape Dan in 
about 66° N. lat.) on the east coast followed the coast southwards round 
Cape Farewell to the eastern and western settlements, Eystribyggô and 
Vestribyggö. 
With regard to the navigation of America we must surely start from 
the same stand-point. The coastlines were guides for the ancient Norse- 
men, and they must also be ours. 
The saga now begins the account of the doings with a remark which 
at first sight seems curious and surprising, for which reason it also has 
been used as an argument to prove the falsity of the whole account, 
while in reality, on closer inspection, it only can inspire confidence in 
its genuineness. 
It is the remark that Karlsefni, who had equipped his ships in the 
eastern settlement, sailed northwards to the Vestribyggd, before he started 
