76 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



io. THE MOST AUTHENTIC WINELAND HISTORY 



Reeves, treating the two parallel sagas as practically one, has 

 presented an English version which follows the &quot; Thqrfinn Karl- 

 sefni &quot; Hauksbook almost exclusively in the text, giving by foot 

 notes the corresponding words of &quot; Eric the Red,&quot; where these 

 differ. It will be better to reverse this preference here, incidentally 

 mentioning such divergencies of the first named saga as may seem 

 helpful. 



Two centuries at least intervened between the events narrated and 

 the composition of the earliest form of the complete saga. We have 

 to consider, then, just what this word means and how far what it 

 stands for may be relied on after so long a time had elapsed. Saga, 

 we are told, meant story, broadly ; though a more restricted signific 

 ance is given by later usage ; and stories, of course, are of many kinds. 

 The Book of Ruth, Freeman s Norman Conquest, Mark Twain s 

 Innocents Abroad, and Henry James ghastly The Turn of the Screw, 

 are all undeniably stories. In early Iceland the case was the same. 

 The Heimskringla is an honest rendering of history on the great 

 scale, very picturesquely given, for a long line of northern kings, 

 in accordance with the tests and standards then available ; the Banda- 

 manna Saga is an almost dainty bit of comedy, with social and political 

 strategy for its fabric and an altogether delightful prodigal father, 

 artfully helpful at need, for its very most winning figure ; the 

 Volsunga Saga is perhaps the greatest of myth stories, with Shake 

 spearean dramatic qualities in all its later portion, as Andrew Lang 

 has written; the Saga of Nial the Burned one of the great works of 

 the world contains as sound and noble characterization as may be 

 found anywhere and the most complete of all presentations of the 

 practical working of early law ; the Grettir Saga is a Robin Hood 

 romance, touched with human sympathy and deepened to awful 

 tragedy by the haunting of evil eyes, dead and damned, never relent 

 ing, which bring fear where no fear was and force him to endure 

 the company of assassins rather than face the dark, so preparing his 

 inevitable doom ; the Saga of Cormac is a string of his poems or those 

 attributed to him, like so many beads, on a fine thread of wayward 

 northern love-story and travel ; and the same may be said of Gunnlaug 

 the Serpent Tongue, though in a more comforting and cheerful key. 

 The list of deviations might be very greatly increased without effort. 



In a field so varied every way, there should be room for a ship s 

 log and business-like statement of explorers notes, afterward filled 

 out with items and episodes derived originally from members of the 



