2 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. I07 



came out, and gave the literary world a summary of the Icelandic accounts of 

 the Wineland voyages. 



Rafn also attempted to identify those points on the North Ameri- 

 can coast at which the Norse voyagers had touched. From this time 

 on the voyages were mentioned in all works dealing with the history 

 of America or the territories along its northeastern seaboard, and 

 Rafn's conclusions were widely accepted until a critical examination 

 of the sources was undertaken by Gustav Storm, whose work ap- 

 peared in 1887. Shortly afterward, in 1890, the narratives were made 

 available to English and American scholars in the original and in 

 translation by Arthur M. Reeves, along with the results of Storm's 

 investigations. 



There are three principal original documents describing the Wine- 

 land voyages, but two of these differ only in details and are regarded 

 as essentially one narrative to which the name of the Saga of Eric 

 the Red has usually been given, although the real hero of the story is 

 Thorfinn Karlsefni, and its heroine his wife Gudrid. The third 

 document is a compilation called usually the Flatey Book or Flat 

 Island Book, the preparation of which dates from a somewhat later 

 period. Storm's researches resulted in establishing to the satisfaction 

 of most scholars the vastly greater reliability of the Saga, thereby 

 reversing the attitude which, following Rafn, had hitherto prevailed. 

 This conclusion was not always accepted, however, and in particular 

 a Danish naval officer, William Hovgaard, in a work entitled "The 

 Voyages of the Norsemen to America" (1915), maintained that the 

 two narratives were of equal value. He was promptly answered by 

 Finnur Jonsson, and Storm and Jonsson have been followed by all 

 the more careful students of the Wineland expeditions. Their at- 

 tempts to determine what points on the American main were visited 

 by Leif and Karlsefni have been based upon the Saga to the practical 

 exclusion of the story in the Flat Island Book. Storm's conclusions 

 are undoubtedly justified as giving a judicious appraisement of the 

 relative value of the two sources, yet I submit that adverse criticism 

 may be overdone. A hostile critic might work as much havoc with 

 the Saga as others have with the story of the Greenlanders, and in 

 my study of the voyages which follows I have tried to weigh the 

 value of the two sources as justly as possible. 



If one of two documents dealing with certain historical events is 

 taken as an infallible guide and everything which diverges from it is 

 rejected, the truth may be obscured although the document chosen is 

 the better of the two. In the present instance I hold that students are 



