Norsemen’s route from Greeniand to Wineland. 179 
a lake into the sea. There were big shoals [“eyrar varu par miklar’’], 
wherefore they could not get into the river except at high-water. Karls- 
efni sailed in the mouth with his folk, and they called the place Hop. 
The found self-sown wheatfields on the land, in places where the 
ground was low-lying and swampy, but vines where the ground rose 
slightly. Every brook was filled with fish. They dug ditches there where 
the land began, and up to where the river reached its highest [1. e. 
at the high-water mark], and when the sea receded there were halibuts 
in the ditches. There were numbers of all sorts of animals in the forest.” 
This is such an explicit description of the place Нор, that it must 
be possible to find it and to prove it, provided we are on the right 
road with our reflections. 
Added to this is, that the designation Нбр provides a good lead. 
It is to be met with in Norway, Iceland, Greenland and in many other 
places where northern languages (especially Norse dialects) are spoken 
or have been spoken. W. Hovgaard! gives some plans showing various 
formations of hép from Iceland and the Orkney Islands, and says more- 
over: “In old Norse the term hop has a definite meaning, referring to 
an inlet, fiord, or harbor characterized by a narrow entrance, often the 
outlet of a river, and widening out inside, not far from the entrance, to 
a larger expanse of water, frequently a lake or lagoon, into which a river 
empties.” 
Further, attention must be drawn to another word which appears 
in the description, namely the word ”eyrar.” I shall quote W. Hovgaard, 
who depends in this case, as in several other linguistic respects, on the 
best authorities on languages, above all on Finnur J6Nsson (so far 
as the best definition of matters is concerned, the fact that Hovgaard 
canvasses the possibility of placmg Höp on the coast of New-England 
and comes to the result that a place somewhere or other in Newfound- 
land must be preierred plays no role). He says: “The term eyrar is 
applied to long narrow strips of sand and gravel formed at the entrance 
to rivers and fiords. In some cases they take the shape of spits or tongues 
projecting at right angles to the coast, often curving round at the end. 
Eyrar of this type are in English called “hooks,” and are found, for 
instance, on several western fiords in Iceland, at Provincetown on Cape 
Cod, and in many other places. In other cases eyrar are formed at the 
mouth of rivers, particularly on flat and sandy coasts. Here they take 
the shape of long and narrow beaches, separating a large expanse of 
shallow water, a pond or lagoon, from the sea. The beaches being broken 
by one or more channels, through which the river has an outlet, we have 
a combination of a höp with eyrar, such as described at the Höp of the 
Saga.” 
If we now with the assistance of “The St. Lawrence Pilot” [London 
1906] or with the sailing direetions of the American Hydrographie 
1 p. 468 and p. 475. 
