34 SMITHSONIAN MISCELLANEOUS COLLECTIONS VOL. IO7 



winter, and then went back to Greenland with the usual load of 

 grapes and wood. 



As these two narratives stand, apart from the beginning and end, 

 the second is the more probable, Unipeds not having yet attained 

 scientific status, and there being considerable mystery about the en- 

 trance and exit of this particular specimen. All the details in the Flat 

 Island Book story are credible except the warning voice, and this 

 might have been etherealized by the chronicler or might actually have 

 been heard in a dream by Thorvald. Although the sleep from which 

 the explorers were so rudely awakened is apparently supposed to 

 have been supernaturally induced, we may read into it an early 

 morning attack in accordance with Indian custom. Here, instead 

 of in Wineland, the Flat Island Book introduces skin canoes. It has 

 been assumed that the chronicler has transferred these from the 

 Wineland experiences, but, except for the superior reputation ac- 

 quired by the Saga, the reverse is the more probable, since skin canoes 

 are known historically in the north instead of the south. If the "flails" 

 of the Winelanders were spear throwers and they had slings, while 

 the Marklanders fought with bows and arrows, the condition was 

 exactly the reverse of what we should expect, spear throwers having 

 been known in historic times among the Eskimo but not in New 

 England. To be sure we do not know positively that the Markland 

 arrows were projected by bows, but this seems to have been assumed 

 by the chroniclers. The use of arrows here, be it noted, is affirmed 

 by both documents. Both the Uniped and the Skrellings use them. 



Mention was made above of the probable confusion between two 

 different stories of an encounter with five Skrellings and the possible 

 confusion of these with the story of the nine Skrellings met by 

 Thorvald according to the Flat Island Book narrative. While these 

 differ widely in details, there are suspicious cross-resemblances. In 

 two of them five Skrellings are mentioned. In one the Skrellings are 

 asleep, and the same may be assumed of the nine Skrellings who were 

 found under their canoes. In all cases the Norsemen attack them, 

 killing all in one case, and all but one in another, and capturing two in 

 a third. While one of these encounters is said to have taken place 

 between Wineland and Streamfirth, another is placed in Markland 

 and the third in or near Markland. 



After Karlsefni returned from the land of the Unipeds, he and his 

 company — 



passed the winter at Streamfirth. Then the men began to divide into factions, 

 of which the women were the cause ; and those who were without wives en- 



