NO. 12 THE WINELAND VOYAGES — SWANTON II 



less reason for criticizing the Flat Island Book because it represents 

 later voyagers to Wineland as having reached without difficulty the 

 cabins Leif had erected there. If one is to be literalistic he might 

 cavil at the Saga for saying that "Leif landed in Ericsfirth" on his 

 return from Wineland as too specific, and that is the only landfall 

 given for Thorstein after he had tossed about on the ocean all sum- 

 mer. Nor does Karlsef ni seem to have had any difficulty in reentering 

 Streamfirth on his return from Wineland. Must one supply com- 

 plete logbooks of all the Norse voyages ? 



Equally unreasonable is the attack on the Flat Island Book 

 chronicle because it says that Biarni settled in Greenland and "gave 

 up his voyaging," yet proceeds immediately afterward to relate a 

 visit he made to the court of the King of Norway. The sentence on 

 which this criticism is based runs as follows : "Biarni now went to 

 his father, gave up his voyaging, and remained with his father while 

 Heriulf lived, and continued to live there after his father." Now, 

 the "voyaging" that he gave up was plainly his annual trading expe- 

 ditions, and it is not said that he "continued to live" at Heriulfsness 

 until his death. He made his home there, but the wording does not 

 exclude visits to other countries. 



My experience with narratives of this kind has taught me that, while 

 corruptions and confusions are common, absolute fictions are rare and 

 usually of a kind to be identified with comparative ease. I am inclined 

 to think, therefore, that there is something other than pure fiction 

 behind this story of Biarni. Iceland lay nearer the American main 

 than Norway, and if we can believe that Leif came to America from 

 Norway across the entire breadth of the North Atlantic, its discovery 

 by a voyager from Iceland does not seem incredible. We may well 

 doubt the time scale assigned to him and the accuracy of his Green- 

 land landfall, as reported, and marvel at his seeming want of curi- 

 osity regarding the lands he observed, but we must not expect too 

 much of chroniclers of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and on 

 the last point recollect that the summer was far advanced and voy- 

 aging on the northern seas in winter greatly dreaded. 



I would give up Biarni more readily were it not that the story of 

 Leif's voyage contained in the supposedly more reliable Saga of 

 Eric the Red is almost as amazing, in some ways even more so. 

 If Biarni was blown out of his way as far as the New England coast, 

 he covered about 2,400 statute miles, but it is not necessary to sup- 

 pose that he got farther than Newfoundland, a voyage of about 

 1,600 miles, whereas Leif apparently crossed the full breadth of the 

 North Atlantic nonstop, and even if we suppose he did not get farther 



