NORTH AMERICA. 



705 



according to the genealogical tables appended to 

 the volume referred to, is lineally traced to Thor- 

 finn and Gudrida. Among these we may mention 

 professor Finn Magnussen, a native Icelander, now 

 established at Copenhagen, one of the most distin- 

 guished Icelandic savans of the day, and Thor- 

 waldsen, the great sculptor. After other adven- 

 tures and contests with the natives, which are re- 

 lated with great particularity, Thorfinn returned 

 with his party to Greenland. After a few years 

 spent there, he purchased an estate in Iceland, in 

 1015, where he passed the rest of his life, as did 

 Snorre, his American born son. After the death 

 of Thorfinn, and the marriage of her son, Gudrida 

 made a pilgrimage to Rome. The family remained 

 distinguished for wealth, influence, and intelli- 

 gence. Thorlak, the grandson of Snorre, was 

 raised to the episcopal rank, and was of great 

 repute for his learning. He compiled a code of 

 the ecclesiastical law of Iceland, which is still 

 extant ; and is very likely to have been the person 

 who committed to writing the Sagas, or traditions 

 of the voyages and adventures, of which we have 

 given a brief abstract. 



In the year 1011, another voyage was made to 

 Vinland by Helge and Finnhoge, two brothers 

 from Iceland, who were joined by Thorward and 

 his wife Freydisa; but our limits oblige us to omit 

 the tragical incidents of the expedition. It may 

 be observed here, that the Straumey of the preced- 

 ing voyages is supposed by the editor of the Anti- 

 quitates to be Martha's vineyard ; Straumfirth to be 

 Buzzard's Bay; and Hop to correspond with mount 

 Hope Bay, the seat of king Philip. 



For the residue of the eleventh century there 

 are no accounts of voyages from Greenland to the 

 newly discovered region. It is matter of conjec- 

 ture only, that a continuous communication was 

 kept up. In the year 1 121, bishop Eric of Green- 

 land embarked on a missionary voyage to Vinland, 

 of which the result is not known. In 1285, a new 

 land west of Iceland is said to have been discov- 

 ered by two missionaries from that island. This 

 new land is supposed to have been Newfoundland; 

 and mention is made of a voyage from Greenland 

 to Markland as late as 1347. 



Such is the purport of the historical evidence 

 contained in the volume referred to of the early 

 discovery of America by the Northmen. We have 

 retained many particularities of detail of little in- 

 trinsic importance, as they form a striking charac- 

 teristic of the narrative, and contribute essentially 

 to the means of judging of its authenticity. About 

 one half of the volume consists of two narratives, 

 which constitute the two most important chapters 

 of the work. The first may be called the history 

 of Eric, the first settler of Greenland, and the 

 second, which is a longer performance, is the his- 

 tory of Thorfinn the Hopeful, who conducted the 

 most important expedition to Vinland. 



We have already observed, that the great fact 

 asserted in these Icelandic accounts, is in itself in 

 no degree improbable. That the greatest navigat- 

 ing people, who, before the invention of the mari- 

 ner's compass, traversed the ocean, and who are 

 known to have visited every part of the North 

 sea, should, in their voyages to Iceland, Greenland, 

 and Ireland, have been carried by northeastern 

 winds to the coast of North America, is so far 

 from being unlikely, that it is almost impossible it 

 should not have taken place. With the settle- 

 ment of Greenland the first step, of course, was 



VI 1. 



taken toward the discovery of the American con- 

 tinent. If not a part of that continent, it is sepa- 

 rated from it only by a narrow arm of the sea. 

 Ten degrees of latitude, on the coast of Labrador, 

 lie within a radius of 650 miles from Cape Fare- 

 well. The distance from the same cape to New- 

 foundland is not greater than that from Iceland to 

 Greenland; from Norway to Iceland; or from 

 Norway to the northwestern coasts of England. 

 To pilots, accustomed to make the last-named 

 voyages, and in strong and substantial vessel*, 

 such as we know were built by the Scandinavian 

 shipwrights, (whose mythic prototype, Volundr, 

 was deemed, by the enthusiasm of a simple age, to 

 be endowed with more than mortal skill,) there is, 

 certainly, nothing extraordinary or formidable, ia 

 running down from Cape Farewell in Greenland to 

 Newfoundland. 



The ancient accounts of these voyages contain 

 nothing which, when rightly considered, ought to 

 impair their substantial credibility on the score of 

 extravagance. They present many of the charac- 

 teristics of the legendary tales of rude ages ; of the 

 narratives of credulous mariners, relating their ex- 

 ploits in distant and newly-discovered countries. 

 The German, Tyrker, whose discovery of the 

 grape gave the name of Winland to the region, is 

 represented as having lost his way from the exhil- 

 arating effect of the fruit which he had eaten, and 

 recovering himself but slowly on his return. In 

 the image of a German sea-rover intoxicated with 

 eating fox grapes, there is indeed a ludicrous ex- 

 travagance. So, too, the savage who shot Thor- 

 vvald, is described as a one-legged animal, a pheno- 

 menon which awakens a burst of poetical admira- 

 tion on the part of one of the company. On the 

 death of Thornstein, in Greenland, while his wife, 

 Gudrida, is holding the lyke-wake, the dead body 

 enters into a conversation with her, and relates 

 her future fortunes in the style of the epic visions 

 of Greece and Rome. These are the ornaments, 

 with which a traditionary tale is clothed by min- 

 strels and rhapsodists; they are the superstitions 

 of a credulous age ; they are the romantic crea- 

 tions of weather-beaten mariners, sitting with their 

 skinny-handed cronies, around a drift-wood fire, 

 for the live-long Arctic night, and rehearsing the 

 wonders of the sea. Rude but vigorous fancy 

 redeems the frozen and homely poverty of real 

 life. The poor seaman's cabin, excavated under 

 the comfortable lee of a glacier, one half sunk into 

 a frozen soil, the other covered with eternal snow, 

 warms and flashes up with a strange pageantry. 

 Its inmates have seen spirits dancing on the north- 

 ern lights ; they have beheld wild eyes glaring out 

 of the ice-blink; have looked, with amazement, at 

 the sea serpent, as he curls up and overtops the 

 mainmast ; have cast their anchor into the small 

 ribs of the kraken ; and, losing their way, have 

 wandered into that dreadful Hafgerding, or place 

 in mid ocean, where the waters rise up like moun- 

 tains, on the- three sides of a dreary plain, from 

 which there is no escape to the astonished mariner. 

 Regarding the age and the region, in which these 

 Icelandic traditions must have circulated for two 

 or three generations, we think they have suffered 

 less than could have been expected from the cre- 

 dulity and extravagance, the superstition and the 

 ignorance, of their narrators. 



With regard to matters of a different kind, it 

 must be admitted that there are some points, in 

 which the traditions are inexact. The descrip- 

 2 y 



