16 Gustav Houm. 
In Fridtjof Nansen’s great work: “In Northern Mists”") his opinion 
is, that it is possible that the Northmen had knowledge of America, 
but he has tried to shake the faith in the Saga tales of the Vinland 
voyages, and interpretated them as а mixture of legends and myths. 
Finnur Jönsson?), William Babcock?), Hovgaard and Gathorne-Hardy®) 
have strongly opposed this theory. 
Many authors who have dealt with the Vinland voyages are of 
the opinion that it is impossible to state the position of the places 
mentioned in the Sagas, unless decisive evidence of these places is to 
be found, which is more than improbable. Everything that one has 
thought could be a clue to the Northmen has been carefully examined, 
and one has come to the result that nothing is to be found which could 
remind us of a visit of the Northmen?). 
Most people can to a certainty agree to what the President for 
Societe des Americanistes de Paris, H. Vignaud says about the visits 
of the Northmen to America, namely: “Ils ont certainement decouvert 
et visité à plusieurs reprises une contrée que les Sagas nomment Wineland, 
mais dont il est impossible aujourd’hui de déterminer la situation”®). 
The last Danish paper written on this subject was the one written 
by the unfortunately so early deceased, Professor H. P. Steensby: 
“Norsemen’s route from Greenland to Wineland’””). He places both 
Leif’s Vinland and the country visited by Karlsefni at the tract about 
Montmagny (St. Thomas) in the neighbourhood of Quebec on the south 
bank of the St. Lawrence River. His method of settling the place is 
very attractive, namely in following, very closely, Karlsefni’s accounts 
of his voyage, as he takes it for granted that Karlsefni followed the 
coast-line as far as it is possible, and his opinion is that in that manner 
Karlsefni reaches Leif’s Vinland. 
If this or Fossum’s identification was correct it would be rather 
unnatural to raise a monument in Boston in memory of Leif’s SEE 
on America's mainland. 
1 
) London. 1911. 
>) Erik den Rødes Saga og Vinland. Historisk Tidsskrift. Kristiania. 1911. 
3) Early Norse visits to North America. Smiths. Misc. Coll. Washington. 1915. 
1) The Norse Discoverers of America. Oxford. 1921. 
) Hovgaard (ор. cit. р. 115) however differs a little in his opinion, in writing 
about some ruins found by Horsford in Massachusetts and presumed by him to 
date from the Norse time; he says that “the researches which some years ago were 
undertaken on the spot did not bring to light any positive evidence to substantiate 
this theory, but, on the other hand, there appears to be nothing absolute to dis- 
prove it”. 
6) Langlois: “La découverte de l’Amérique par les Normands au X° siècle” 
(La Géographie. Paris. 1922). 
7) "Meddelelser om Grønland”, Vol. LVI. København. 1917. 
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