DARING OF THE NORTHMEN. 



Ill 



He was a wealthy merchant of Iceland, the heir of Danish, 

 Swedish, and Norwegian princes. He visited Greenland in 

 1006, where he married Gudrida, the widow of an Icelandic 

 adventurer, and in 1007 sailed, in three ships and with one hun- 

 dred and sixty men, upon a voyage to Vinland. His wife went 

 with him, and, in the autumn of the same year, bore him a son 

 named Snorri, who was, of course, the first of European blood 

 born in America. From him the celebrated Swedish sculptor 

 Thorwaldsen was lineally descended. Thorfinn remained here 

 three years, and had many, communications with the aborigines. 

 A singular result of this relation may perhaps be traced in the 

 names successively given to one spot. The Northmen called one 

 of their settlements Hop, and the Puritans, six centuries later, 

 found that the Indians called it Haup. It would appear that 

 they had continued, in their own tongue, the appellation 

 bestowed upon the place in the Norse language. The Puritans 

 anglicized it, and called it Mount Hope. 



We have no accounts of any further voyages made by the 

 Northmen to America. The records were preserved in the lite- 

 rature of the island, but the memory of them gradually faded 

 away from the popular mind. 



Several writers claim for these early navigators a degree of 

 merit beyond that which they are willing to accord to Columbus. 

 They reply to the argument that Bjarni's discovery of the 

 American coast was merely accidental, as he had started in 

 search of Greenland, that Columbus' discovery of America was 

 accidental also, as he started in search of Asia, and as he 

 believed the land to be Asia to the day of his death. "Besides," 

 they say, "how different were the circumstances under which 

 the two voyages were made ! The Northmen, without compass 

 or quadrant, without any of the advantages of science, geo- 

 graphical knowledge, personal experience, or previous discoveries, 

 without the support of either kings or governments, — which 

 Columbus, however discouraged at the outset, eventually obtained, 



