Norsemen’s route from Greenland to Wineland. 191 
i.e. by Rivière du Sud —. We understand their great number, and we 
understand why they came from the south. It also seems to appear in 
the saga that the Norsemen had a clear understanding that the home- 
land of these Skrælings was situated to the south of Höp, and that the 
regions to the north of Höp were waste country or “Udmark.” By this 
may be indicated that when the Norsemen again left Höp, going north- 
wards, and found 5 Skrælings asleep down by the sea, they at once con- 
cluded that these people were outlaws banished from their country. 
We furthermore understand how the Norsemen could live for years 
on Straumey, that is to say Hare Island, without being molested by the 
Indians. During the winter these stayed inland, and the groups which 
during the summer came down to the coast here and there for fishing 
_ were not very inclined to venture out in their small river-boats to an is- 
land lying in the middle of the 20 km broad and rapid Straumfjord; 
and it appears from the saga into the bargain, that there was not good 
fishing during the summer at the island. Moreover it was not inside the 
mouth of the St. Lawrence but out on the coast of the Gulf of St. Law- 
rence that Cartier on his voyages met Indians engaged in summer fishing. 
Besides, we have, as known, a later example of an expedition having 
spent the winter on a North American coast, where the interior surely 
was populated ; it was the Dane, Jens Munk, who spent the winter 1619— 
20 near the mouth of Churchill River without being visited by the Cree 
Indians, or any other native tribe. 
Before I continue with the saga I will just mention a circumstance 
of a more especially ethnographic nature. It certainly does not directly 
concern the saga, but it has been mentioned in this connection, and has 
excited no slight interest. It is the supposed relationship between the 
ancient Norsemen’s ball-game Knattleikr and the well known ball-game 
of the different tribes of Indians, especially in north-eastern North Ame- 
rica, which, under the name of Lacrosse, has been taken up and favoured 
by the French Canadians. 
It was the Norwegian scholar EBBE HERTZBERG! who in 1904 wanted 
to prove that there was an astonishing resemblance between these 
two games, in so far as one knows them in their original forms, or how 
they were played respectively by the ancient Norsemen and by the In- 
dians before the European colonization. This view, meanwhile, has been 
contested by Brérn BJARNARSON?, who will not at all admit of there 
being such congruity between Knattleikr and Lacrosse that there can 
be any possibility of a relationship. 
Starting from the stand-point of a relationship, Hertzberg came to 
the conclusion that it was the Indians who had been taught the game by 
1 EBBE Hertzperc. Nordboernes gamle Boldspil (the Norsemen’s ancient ball- 
game); Hist. papers dedicated to Professor Ludvig Daa; Christiania 1904. 
2 Взбвм Bsarnarson, Nordboernes legemlige Uddannelse 1 Oldtiden; Copen- 
hagen 1905. 
