li 



There were three ships in all with HO men. Their stay 

 in America lasted three years. For various reasons, they did 

 not succeed in founding a colony over there, perhaps especially 

 because the aggressive attitude of the natives made the conditions 

 too uncertain for them. After the plans for colonization had 

 been given up, they returned to Greenland, bringing with them 

 from .Mar к I and two Skræling children whom they had taken 

 captive. ''They taught them [the Icelandic] language and baptized 

 them", says the saga. 



The accounts of Vineland, Markland, and Helluland which 

 are preserved in the sagas are in the main to be traced back 

 to the participants in Thorfinn's expedition who returned home. 

 If there have been later expeditions to these lands from Green- 

 land or Iceland, we have at all events no certain historical 

 accounts of them. The designation Skræling s was probably 

 first used as a general name applied to the native population 

 found on the coasts of Markland and Vineland. With respect 

 to the situation of these lands, the lately deceased Norwegian 

 historian, G. Storm, has come to the result that Vineland 

 corresponds to the present Nova Scotia together with Cape 

 Breton Island, Markland (i. e. the woodland) to Newfoundland, 

 Helluland to Labrador or possibly the northernmost part of 

 Newfoundland*). 



old Icelandic manuscripts in the University Library in Copenliagen: 

 I) Hauksbok (AM 544) wriUen by Haukr Erlendsson about 1320, ed. by 

 Det kgl. nordislie Oldskriftselskab, Copenhagen 1892—1896, 2) MS. AM 

 ftbl, 4*° dating from the IJ'b C, whose original must have been written 

 before 1300. — The accounts contained in Flateyarbok and in the so- 

 calied GrœnJendinga Jjåttr are not to be depended upon. — Eiriks 

 Saga Rau5a, cd. by G. Storm, Copenhagen, 1S!<1. 

 ") Gustav Storm: "Studier over Vinlandsrejserne, Vinlands geografi og 

 ethnografi." Aarböger for nordisk Oldkyndighed, 2n<i series, ^2^^^^ vol., 1889. 

 — A. M. Reeves: "The Finding of Wineland the Good". London 1890. 

 Jos. Fischer: "Die Entdeckungen der Normannen in Amerika". Freiburg 

 1902. "The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America". London 1903. - 

 The latitude of Vineland has been calculated on the basis of the sagas 

 statements by the astronomers Geelmuyden and PhUhian (America), who 



