Norsemen’s route from Greenland to Wineland. 197 
was three years old when they left. They had a southerly wind when 
they sailed away from Wineland. They then came to Markland, where 
they met 5 Skrelings, the one of whom was bearded, the two women, 
and the two children. They took the boys, but the others escaped, and 
the Skreelings sank down into the earth. They took these two boys with 
them, they taught them the language, and they were christened. They 
called their mother Vethillde, and their father Uvege. They said that 
two kings ruled over the Skrælings, the one of them was called Avall- 
damon but the other Valldidida, furthermore that there were no houses. 
The people lived there in grottos or caves. They said that a country lay 
on the other side, just opposite their own country, where people lived 
who wore white garments, and who carried poles in front of them, to 
which laps were fastened, and they shouted loudly; and people believe 
that it is Hvitramannaland or the great Ireland.” 
With the exception of the last lines this account which mostly treats 
with the return journey gives an especially clear and sober impression. 
This last remark about “the white men’s country” and great Ireland 
is evidently an irrelevant and non-historical interposition of a legend 
known in Iceland, which originated from Ireland. One must not therefore 
try to find this “Hvitramannaland”’ or great Ireland in America, as older 
authors have tried to do. Gustav STORM’s! unravelling of the saga leaves 
hardly any doubt of its being a sort of spectral Ireland, and of our being 
able altogether to efface the passage in question from our reflections. 
There remains, then, the record itself about the return voyage 
from Straumfjord besides the information about Snorri’s birth and about 
the contests during the last winter. There are hardly any difficulties 
with regard to the return voyage. In any case the geographical infor- 
mation agrees very well with a coastal navigation from the mouth of 
the St. Lawrence River along the south coast of Labrador to the Strait 
of Belle Isle and further north. 
Karlsefni and his companions went northwards before a south wind, 
and we must imply that they followed the Furdustrands. Thereafter 
they came to the region which, on the voyage out, they had named 
Markland. That means the country towards and near the Strait of Belle 
Isle. Here they met 5 Skrelings, seized upon the two boys, whilst the 
others escaped and sank into the earth. Perhaps this signifies that they 
disappeared into their earth houses, or into caves in the ground.? 
The question which specially presents itself in connection with this 
is whether Indians or Eskimos are meant by these Skrælings. One will 
not be able to settle this problem by geographical comments, as at the 
Strait of Belle Isle we are at a point which has been reached by Indians 
from the south and by Eskimos from the north. In any case Eskimos 
have formerly lived in the neighbourhood of the Strait of Belle Isle, 
+ С. Storm, 1. c., р. 355 et seq. 
2 Cf. DANIEL BRUUN, l.c. р. 70. 
