34 Gustav Hoım. 
month”). If Karlsefni has only been away on the voyage to Нор a 
few months and not a whole year we understand much better that 
immediately on returning to Straumsfjord he left with one ship in 
search of Thorhall (р. 25). If it had been a year after Thorhall’s departure 
it would have been perfectly hopeless to search him. 
It is not without reason that а doubt about wintering at Hop 
is expressed in the saga. When the saga narrator has spoken of the 
winter’s mildness, he has probably had a wrong intuition; as the 
summer had been much warmer than at home in the Bygd, it was 
reasonable to assume that the winter would also be warmer. 
If we compare the mean air temperature between Julianehaab 
(the Northmen’s Eystri Bygd) and Quebec, the result will be as follows. In 
July the temperature in Julianehaab is about + 8°C. and in Quebec 
+ 20°, and in January the temperature in Julianehaab is about — 6° 
and in Quebec — 11°. So in July it is about 12° warmer in Quebec 
than in Julianehaab, and in January it is about 5° colder in Quebec 
than in Julianehaab. If Karlsefni had wintered at Montmagny he could 
not have eluded noticing the severe winter there, not only in comparison 
to the warmth during the summer but also in comparison to the winter 
at home. As they spent the first winter further north in Straums- 
fjord, the saga relates, that the winter was severe which they were 
not prepared for (p. 23). They did not think that after the warm 
summer a winter would come that would be much severer than at 
home in the Bygd; therefore they had not laid up provisions for winter 
and they suffered want. In the surroundings of Quebec the summer 
is warmer than at the estuary of the river but the winter is not milder. 
The saga’s “some men” (p. 25) are on that account sure to be right 
when they say that Karlsefni came back during the same summer to 
the first wintering place in Straumsfjord?). The advantageous conditions 
mentioned about the winter’s climate at Hop are in all probability 
fictitious, and I can refer to what Hovgaard says about the inclination 
to exaggeration either by the discoverer himself or of a later saga narrator 
so as to improve the tale or emphasize the new country’s good qualities. 
If the Northmen have not wintered at Hop, the observations of 
the winter’s condition will be left out, and with them, I think, the chief 
complaint against Steensby having identified Hop with Montmagny 
near Quebec. 
1) In the manuscript M these two opinions are united, as instead of “verit 
i Hopi’ there is written “verit 1 hafi’? (on the sea voyage) for two months. 
2) When the wintering at Hôp is omitted the whole expedition has only 
lasted two years. The manuscript M does not state as Hauksbök does, that 
Karlsefni’s son Snorre was “three winters old” when they left Straumsfjord, but 
that he was “with his father” (p. 25). 
