NO. 12 THE WINELAND VOYAGES — SWANTON 21 



the Saga quoted above is correct. There is no mention of Keelness 

 here, but it is touched upon in this chronicler's account of the sup- 

 posed eadier expedition of Thorvald. We shall mention this again 

 but will insert here what concerns the naming of that cape. Accord- 

 ing to this narrative, then, the second summer Thorvald spent in 

 Wineland he — 



set out toward the east with the ship, and along the northern coast. They were 

 met by a high wind off a certain promontary, and were driven ashore there, and 

 damaged the keel of their ship, and were compelled to remain there for a long 

 time and repair the injury to their vessel. Then said Thorvald to his com- 

 panions : "I propose that we raise the keel upon this cape, and call it Keelness." 

 And so they did. 



To the eastward of this cape was a firth into which they afterward 

 sailed, and there Thorvald met his death. 



The Flat Island Book says that after leaving Markland, Leif and 

 his companions sailed for 2 doegr and came to an island on which was 

 dew as sweet as honey. The "2 doegr" and the crossing might be lined 

 up with the firth to the east of Keelness in the second version of the 

 Saga and so made to support it, just as the white sands of Markland 

 may be quoted in support of the first, but nothing is said in this place 

 of Keelness, and the island is more likely to reflect a memory of the 

 Stream Isle to be mentioned presently. I am inclined to accept the 

 first Saga version which is usually regarded as the more reliable, 

 and the two may be reconciled by assuming that the landfalls were 

 upon the same coast 2 doegr apart. 



The origin of the name Keelness raises an interesting question, 

 and here again it seems to me that the account given in the Flat Island 

 Book is the more probable. Evidently the keel is supposed to have 

 belonged to a European vessel, and the likelihood of such an article 

 drifting ashore from any European settlement is in the highest degree 

 unlikely. The ocean current on the west side of Baffin Bay runs south, 

 and if a keel drifted in from the Greenland settlements we must 

 suppose it was carried northwest by that branch of the Gulf Stream 

 which washes the west coast of Greenland and then south by the 

 Labrador Current for over a thousand miles, and that all this took 

 place between 985 or 986, when Greenland was settled, and the date 

 of Karlsefni's voyage, about 1003 — rapid work to have been accom- 

 plished within less than 20 years. It would seem that the same Labra- 

 dor Current must have inhibited pretty effectively the appearance of 

 a keel from Iceland, not settled until 874-930, or any region more 

 remote. If the keel was left by an earlier Norse expedition, and the 

 Saga is solely to be relied upon, it must have been that of Leif, in 

 which case Karlsefni and his companions should have learned of it 



