68 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. 59 



history were felt to be tolerably safe. Yet it seems to have been 

 almost suppressed for two centuries, Mr. Reeves's * diligent search 

 having discovered but one copy made from it, as against about thirty 

 made from the other two sagas, which, in general outline, chief 

 events and most minor details, are really one. It seems, then, that 

 the Flateybook saga never can have had much influence in its own 

 home until put forward in print by scholars of Continental Europe ; 

 whereas the earlier and simpler form of the narrative was accepted 

 as authentic not only by the descendants of the explorers but by their 

 Icelandic neighbors and fellow countrymen. 



Their styles afford another criterion ; it being well known that 

 hardly any literature is so directly, impressively, and nobly epic, 

 so Homeric in quality, as the early Icelandic sagas, but that, as always, 

 the first flush of power was succeeded after a time by greater (or 

 more obvious) self-consciousness and love of adornment, producing 

 good work, yet not so good as before and easily distinguishable. 

 Even in the English translation we must feel that the saga of Thorfinn 

 Karlsefni belongs to an earlier and nobler period than the Flatey- 

 book story. 



Scandinavian scholars, more intimately enlightened, bear this out 

 with emphasis. Storm insists that the composition of the latter saga 

 cannot long have preceded its copying, thus making the date perhaps 

 1350 to 1380; whereas he suggests 1270 for the other narrative ; and 

 the later consideration of Finnur Jonsson, an excellent authority, 

 quoted by Olson 2 with approval, carries this back to 1200 confidently. 



Embedded in that early prose are two epigrammatic fragments of 

 verse, which no doubt antedate all sagas, following a general law the 

 world over. Storm has shown that their metre indicates the eleventh 

 century and Reeves has pointed out a very archaic choice and form 

 of language. There has been difficulty in exactly determining the 

 meaning, and some variants in certain later copies apparently have 

 none in part, the sounds and forms persisting without it, through 

 reverence for tradition, as often happens everywhere. They claim 

 on the face of them to have been composed in Wineland during Karl- 

 sefni's expedition, and though no great reliance be placed on this, 

 we may be sure that they are the most nearly contemporary com- 

 positions on the subject (except his sailing directions embedded in 

 the saga) which we are ever likely to see. 



The framework of the two versions may be compared instructively. 

 According to " Eric the Red " and " Thorfinn Karlsefni," Leif the son 



'A. M. Reeves: The Finding of Wineland the Good. Appended Notes. 

 2 Julius E. Olson: Original Narratives of Early Amer. History, vol. i, notes. 



