THORFINN KARLSEFNI 33 



The ditties of Thorhall are most important j in fact, 

 they are the oldest sources we possess about these 

 events. In the first ditty it is to be noted that he com- 

 plains that he has not tasted a drop of wine, and in 

 the second that he urges his men to go home. His 

 declaration that he was going to seek Vinland was 

 only a blind. He merely pretended that he was going 

 to follow the Gaspe Peninsula towards the southwest 

 in search of Vinland j and from the account of Thor- 

 finn's voyage in search of Thorhall it appears that 

 the former knew of that plan and therefore went in 

 that direction, as Halldor Hermannsson has sug- 

 gested and as I think is right. It is possible that Thor- 

 hall and others considered the St. Lawrence a narrow 

 strait through which one could go and reach Vinland. 

 If he had sailed far enough up the St. Lawrence, he 

 would also have found grapevines. Steensby considers 

 that Leif Ericsson's Vinland was to be sought there, as 

 well as Thorfinn's Hop, where he and his men found 

 the grapevines, in support of which he points out that 

 Cartier found such quantities of grapes on the Isle 

 d'Orleans that he named it Isle de Bacchus.^* The last 

 part of the narrative about Thorhall, namely their 

 slavery in Ireland and reports of it by Norse traders, 

 is not at all unlikely. 



As to the narrative dealing with Thorfinn and his 



^* See Steensby, 'Norsemen's Route, pp. yzff. 



