42 THE VINLAND VOYAGES 



tion in the Saga, such as crags and capes. C. C. Rafn 

 advanced the same ideas in his great work, Antiquitates 

 Amerkanaey published in Copenhagen in 1837. The 

 similarity of the name Hop and Hope is interesting, 

 the bay taking its name from Mount Hope near by. 

 The pronunciation of the two names in English and 

 Icelandic is the same. How did the hill and the bay 

 receive that name? W. H. Munro, in his history of 

 Bristol,*^ has suggested the possibility that some of 

 Thorfinn's men had remained behind and taught the 

 name to the Indians. It would be difficult to prove 

 that J yet the origin of the name has not been satis- 

 factorily explained. 



Babcock was not certain that Hop was Mount Hope 

 Bay J he was almost as ready to believe that it was 

 farther north — south of Maine, however. It is rather 

 unlikely that Thorfinn and his men went south of 

 Cape Cod. It is not improbable that Hop was some- 

 where on the coast between Cape Cod and the north- 

 ernmost point of the coast of Maine, but no definite 

 place there has been plausibly suggested. 



Steensby seems to have much to support the state- 

 ment that Thorfinn and his men followed the coast 

 after having discovered Helluland. When they sailed 



*^ W. H. Munro, Tales of an Old Sea Port: A General Sketch of 

 the History of Bristol, Rhode Island, Including . . . an Account of the 

 Voyages of the Norsemen, Princeton, 191 7. 



