4 THE VINLAND VOYAGES 



Storm, who has made the best edition of the Saga^ and 

 also written an important treatise on the subject/ ex- 

 pressed the opinion that the Saga was written in Snse- 

 f ellsness, Iceland. It seems certain that the author was 

 familiar with that part of the country, and there is 

 every reason to believe that some portions of the Saga 

 are traceable to Ari Thorgilsson the Learned, and 

 probably also to Sturla Thordarson, the historian. 

 There may have been saga writers also in the Monas- 

 tery at Helgafell during the first quarter of the thir- 

 teenth century such as the two abbots Ketil Hermunds- 

 son and Hall Gissursson. One may infer that much 

 of the subject matter in the Saga was derived directly 

 from the narratives of the two principal characters in 

 it, Thorfinn Karlsefni and his wife, Gudrid. At the 

 conclusion of the "Tale of the Greenlanders" there 

 is a statement to the effect that Karlsefni had supplied 

 most of the material relating to the Vinland voyages. 

 This is probably true, although the veracity of the 

 narrative, as set forth in the Tale, is doubtful, a matter 

 that will be referred to later. 



It must be noted that much material similar to that 

 included in the Saga of Eric the Red is woven into 



^ Eiriks saga rauda og Flat0bogens GrcEnlendingathdttur^ Copen- 

 hag^en, 1891. 



* In Aarb0ger for Nordisk Oldkyndighed og Historie, 1887, pp. 

 293-372. An English version in Memoir es de la Societe Roy ale des 

 Antiquaires du Nordy 1884-89, pp. 307-370. 



