NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA BABCOCK 67 



Whitesark the Hutisark of Olaus Magnus. But the composer of 

 the remote common original of the last two sagas may not have 

 remembered the earliest name or may have passed it by as unim 

 portant, and the passage does not occur in the Wineland-voyage 

 narrative, but in the preliminary account of the achievements of 

 Eric Raudi, which may rest on a different time basis. In any case 

 it would be a slight reed to lean on, supporting the burden of so much 

 contrary evidence. 



Likewise of the two Brands. The two parallel sagas say &quot; Bishop 

 Brand the elder,&quot; which of course could not have been written 

 before the second Bishop Brand w y as consecrated in 1263. The 

 Flateybook says &quot; Bishop Brand &quot; only, which might have been 

 written at any date after the consecration of the first Bishop of that 

 name and before that of the second one, but also may have been 

 written after the latter event, if the Flateybook saga-man happened 

 to lose sight of one bishop. Moreover this is in the genealogical tail 

 of the story, presumably added from time to time, as we see in 

 Hauk s case, and does not throw any more light on the date of the 

 body of the saga than a birth-entry or death-entry in a family Bible 

 throws on the date of the neighboring book of Genesis. 



Hauk Erlendssen might not notice the omission of the elder Brand 

 or of a mountain s obsolete name if he knew it but he was too 

 prominent and cordially interested a descendant of Thorfinn and 

 Gudrid not to be an authority probably the best one then living 

 on the family traditions of descent and achievement ; so his copying 

 and evident endorsement of the saga of Thorfinn Karlsefni is a 

 strong argument for its claims, as to all the main points at least, 

 though he should probably have given it the original name The Saga 

 of Eric the Red. 



In particular, how can we suppose him ignorant whether his 

 ancestress was the granddaughter of Vifil of Vifilsdale and went to 

 Greenland as an unmarried girl with her father Thorbiorn ; or 

 whether she was picked up, a kinless woman, by Leif from a wreck 

 at sea, together with an otherwise unknown and quite apochryphal 

 first husband, Thori the Eastman ? Either Hauk was thus incredibly 

 ignorant, or he wilfully falsified the record to glorify his ancestors, 

 or the version preferred by him is the right one. The former two 

 alternatives contravene his known standing and character, as well as 

 all the early writings (except the Flateybook) touching this subject; 

 the third has simply nothing but the Flateybook against it. 



This instance is characteristic of the latter s elaborated saga, which 

 must have been produced at so late a day that liberties with family 



