THORFINN KARLSEFNI 57 



accompanied Thorfinn to Vinland or had personal 

 acquaintance with some member of the expedition.^* 



6* In his article in Timarit Thjodrcsknisfelags Islendinga, Winni- 

 peg-, Vol. I, 1919, pp. 25-65, Halldor Hermannsson points out that 

 the narrator on whose account the king- based his statements was pos- 

 sibly Gellir Thorkelsson (son of Thorkel and Gudrun Osvifssdottir) . 

 According to the Laxdzela Saga, he became ill in Denmark when he 

 was returning from Rome. He was ill for a long time and finally 

 died, probably in Roskilde, for there he is said to be buried. Many of 

 the Icelandic annals state that he died in 1073, and in the so-called 

 King's Annals it is recorded that he died at the age of 65. Accordingly 

 he was born in 1008} that is most likely, though the Laxdaela Saga 

 intimates that he was born in 1012, saying that he was twelve years 

 old when he first went abroad with his father. Scarcely two years 

 later Thorkel was drowned, and the annals give that date as 1026. 

 The Saga is not very dependable in this connection and does not agree 

 with other reliable sources. Gellir had a son Thorgils, whose son in 

 turn was the historian Ari the Learned. Another son of Gellir's was 

 named Thorkel, whom Ari quotes as the one who told him about the 

 settlement of Greenland, he having heard that story from one of the 

 men who accompanied Eric the Red thither. No doubt that man also 

 told Thorkel about the voyages to Vinland, whereby Gellir became 

 well acquainted with those narratives. Adam of Bremen wrote his 

 account, based upon the authority of King Svein, around 1070, at 

 least before 1072. Judging from the Laxdaela Saga, Gellir had not 

 returned to Denmark from Rome at that time. It is not likely that he 

 came back from the south until after Adam of Bremen's visit to King 

 Svein. Furthermore, it is not mentioned that Gellir was at the Danish 

 Court. Another man is more likely to have given Svein and his Court 

 the information about Vinland, namely Audun of the Westf jords, whose 

 story is told in the vellum manuscript of the Morkinskinna and the 

 Flatey Book. Audun had gone from the Westf jords in Iceland to Nor- 

 way and thence the next summer to Greenland, where he passed a 

 winter. The following summer he went again to Norway and from 

 there to Denmark. He spent some time with King Svein and later 

 went to Rome. He returned at Easter time the following year and 



