70 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



found and killed eight natives and sustained in the ship the resulting 

 attack of many canoes. An arrow from one of them killed him and 

 there is a pretty bit about his burial at Crossness. His party returned 

 to Greenland. 



Next, Thorfinn, having married Gudrid, sailed with her to find 

 Thorvald s grave, not Wineland in its own right. They were beaten 

 about and returned unsuccessful, squarely hitting in the first land 

 fall his home at Lysufirth far up the coast. He died, and she returned 

 to Ericsfirth and married Thorfinn Karlsefni in due course. 



They sailed, and found Leif s-booths and dwelt there. Gudrid gave 

 birth to Snorri. Indians came and they trafficked and fought with 

 them, but at last withdrew to Greenland from that hostility. Thorfinn 

 carried Wineland products to Europe and bought property near his 

 former home in northern Iceland, where he lived and died. 



Last of all, Freydis led an expedition to Leif s-booths, quarreled 

 with companions about occupancy and other things, and in the end 

 very wantonly and treacherously compassed the murder of a whole 

 ship s crew, chopping to death all the women, after capture, with her 

 own hand. She returned with a false tale, but Leif suspected and 

 tortured her followers into confession, though he spared her as his 

 sister, while predicting evil. 



It will be seen that the Flateybook saga substitutes five voyages 

 that reached Wineland for only two, using as additional leaders nearly 

 all the names made prominent in the earlier narrative. Necessarily 

 it has divided up Rarlsefni s experiences and geography and filled 

 them out with other matter to make them go around, thus causing 

 confusion. For the same reason and to be more exciting, minor items 

 and hints have been elaborated, sometimes with misunderstanding, 

 and in other instances with shifting of place. For example Thor 

 vald s death in battle, Christian sentiments and picturesque burial 

 the result of a wanton massacre properly punished seem to have 

 been worked up from two simple unconnected items in the saga of 

 Thorfinn Karlsefni, put together for dramatic effect ; and the mo 

 mentary frenzy of Freydis before the yelling Indians is interpreted 

 as furious malignity and developed into a nightmarish and quite 

 unbelievable episode. Perhaps, as Dr. Storm suggests, the reference 

 to quarrels over married women may have been another germ 

 in this case, though affording little material. 



In substituting a voyage from Iceland for a voyage from Norway, 

 the probability of an accidental view of America, as he points out, 

 has been destroyed. Greenland is so near Iceland that any one 

 missing its lower tip would discover and put about long before 



