OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 607 



of the Northmen to Helluland (Newfoundland), to Markland 

 (the mouth of the St. Lawrence and Nova Scotia), and to 

 Vinland (Massachusetts), have been separately printed, 

 accompanied by able commentaries/* The length of the 

 voyage, the direction of its course, and the times of the rising 

 and setting of the sun, are all minutely detailed. 



Less certainty appertains to the traces which have been 

 supposed to be found of a discovery of America before the 

 year 1000 by the Irish. The Skralinger related to the 

 Northmen settled in Vinland, that further southward, beyond 

 the Chesapeake Bay, there dwelt " white men, who clothed 

 themselves in long, white garments, carried before them poles 

 to which cloths were attached, and called with a loud voice." 

 This account was interpreted by the Christian Northmen to 

 indicate processions, in which banners were borne accom- 

 panied by singing. In the oldest sagas, the historical narra- 

 tions of Thorfinn Karlsefne, and the Icelandic Landnama book, 

 these southern coasts, lying between Virginia and Florida, 

 are designated under the name of the Land of the White 

 Men. They are expressly called Great Ireland (Irland it 

 mikla\ and it is maintained that they were peopled by the 

 Irish. According to testimonies which extend to 1064, before 

 Leif discovered Vinland, and probably about the year 982, 

 Ari Marsson of the powerful Icelandic race of Ulf the squint- 

 eyed, was driven in a voyage from Iceland to the south 

 by storms on the coasts of the Land of the White Men, and 

 there baptised in the Christian faith ; and not being allowed 

 to depart, was recognised by men from the Orkney Islands 

 and Iceland.f 



An opinion has been advanced by some northern antiqua- 

 rians that, as in the oldest Icelandic documents the first 



* The main sources of information are the historic narrations of Eric 

 the Bed, Thorfinn Karlsefne, and Snorre Thorbrandsson, probably writ- 

 ten in Greenland itself as early as the twelfth century, and partly by 

 descendants of settlers born in Vinland (Eafn, Antiquit. Amer., pp. vii. 

 xiv. and xvi). The care with which genealogical tables were kept was 

 BO great that that of Thorfinn Karlsefne, whose son, Snorre Thorbrands- 

 Bon, was born in America, has been brought down from 1007 to 1811. 



f Hvitramannaland, the land of the white men. Compare the 

 original sources of information, in Rafn, Antiquit. Amer., pp. 203-206, 

 211, 446-451 ; and Wilhelmi, Ueber Island, Hvitramannaland, &c v 

 s. 75-81. 



