xiv THE VINLAND VOYAGES 



destined to a discovery by the citizens of a re- 

 public. 



The eventual discovery of the North American 

 mainland hinges upon a fashionable practice of the 

 day, that of man killing, which, like cocktail shaking 

 in the later America, was against the law but was 

 indulged in by the best people. A Norwegian, Thor- 

 vald Asvaldsson, killed too many of his neighbors, 

 or at least killed some who had too much influence, 

 and was outlawed. He went abroad with his family 

 and settled in Iceland. 



In this exiled family was a boy with red hair named 

 Eric. When he grew up in Iceland, where man kill- 

 ings were quite as fashionable as in Norway, he, like 

 his father, killed people that were too influential and 

 in 982 was exiled for a three-year period. 



There was a rumor that about eighty years before 

 this a sailor named Gunnbjorn had seen some skerries 

 in the ocean to the west of Iceland. Instead of com- 

 monplace outlawry spent perhaps in the British Isles, 

 Eric the Red decided to sail in quest of these skerries, 

 discovered or rediscovered Greenland, and explored 

 its west coast for the three years of his sentence. 



During the third year of exploration, as the saga 

 tells us, Eric formed a plan of colonization. He had 

 a genius for advertising that made him prophetically 

 American. For the narrative says he conceived that 



