^34 Proceedings oj the Royal Irish AcaUemij. 



or craiibenies, " Vinber."' Dr. Nansen is very probably right io thinking 

 that Leif s real discoveries got embellished with touches from accounts of 

 southern lands.* The tales of Eric the Eed, his relations and friends, could 

 hardly have failed to reach the Irish in forms such as we read in the tales of 

 " The Finding of Vinland the Good." Bjarne,' Erie's friend (c. 986), is said 

 to have started from Iceland to Greenland, to have been lost in a fog, and 

 reached an unknown laud. His lale led Eric's son, Leif (who had been sent 

 by that terrible royal missionary, King Olaf Tryggveson, from Wendland to 

 Greenland " to proclaim the Faith "'), to borrow a ship, and sail down the 

 unknown coasts^ of Helluland (Labrador), Markland (?Newfoundland), and 

 Vinland" (?near Boston). His brothers, Thorwald and Thorsteiu, followed, 

 in 1002 and 1005, then (though some doubt) Leif's brother-in-law, Karlsefne,' 

 with Thorwald, who was shot by the dark-skinned natives,and buried on Keelness 

 (Kialaruess).^ Leif found a wrecked crew on a skerry, and we hear of tempest- 

 driven men' reaching America. Thorkell (we are told) was driven by a gale 

 from Vinland to Ireland, and died there in slavery, while Gudlaug (c. 1015- 

 1030), trading with Dublin, was blown westward to the unknown land, so 

 was Bjorn Ashbrandsson,'" who met the first of the Irish in America. In 

 1011 Helge and Finnboge, coming from Norway, met a certain Freydisa, and 

 went to "Leif's booths in Vinland," while the year after the battle of 

 Clontarf, Karlsefne brought his son Snorro, just born in Vinland, back to 

 Iceland, where their descendants long flourished. 



Ireland is again in contact with America in the saga," which tells how 



' N. Denys in 1650 found grapes as large as nutmegs, but rather acid, growing wild. Indian 

 rice grows wild in Nova Scotia. Fischer, loc. cit., p. 98. 



-"In Northern Mists," vol. i, p. 384. Some have gone so far as to suppose that the Norse 

 voyaged south svard along tlie coast of Europe, naming their landing-places Helluland, Markland, and 

 Vinland down to Spain ! This presupposes a strange ignorance in the race that wasted from the 

 end of the eighth century all the islands and coasts of western Europe. Professor Gelcich, 

 " Materialien," p. 104, cited by Fischer, p. vi, 



^ Reeves rejects the Bjarne story. Its hero is not named in the genealogies and topographies, or 

 the historic Sagas — luilike Leif and his contemporaries. ("Finding of Wineland the Good.") 



* Krisni Saga. See "In Northern Mists," vol. i, p. 384. 



^ See map of Sigurd Stephanus, an Icelander, on Plate XXI. 



* Vinland must not be confused with Finland and "Wendland. 



'Nansen rejects the Karlsefne voyages. ("In Northern Mists." See also Geographical 

 Journal, xxxviii, p. 557, and xxxix, p. 26.) 



* Kialarness, so called from the keel of a wreck on its shore when first discovered — a striking 

 statement. (" Finding of Wineland," p. 43.) 



' We overrate the difficulty of such events, liembo's " History of Venice," vii, p. 257, tells how a 

 boatful of American Indians was found near England ; Herrero (" Hist. Gen.," dec. i, lib. i, cap. 2). 

 of two canoes of strangers drifted to the Azores ; Wallace (" Islands of Orkney," 1700, p. 60), of a 

 Greenlander in a canoe reaching Orkneys. See also Rev. Sabine Baring-Gould, " Curious Myths," 

 p. 527. 



10 " Eyrbiggia Saga." 



" Landnamabok, 81 (" Settlement of Iceland," tiansl. Rev. T. EUwood). 



