den norske forfatter, der skrev
'Historia Norvegiae' og som foruden Adam vel ogsaa bar kjendt de
hjemlige sagn om Vinland, maa have anseet beretningen for
fabelagtig og derfor forbigaaet den; han kjendte altfor godt
Gronland som et nordligt isfyldt Polarland til at ville tro
paa, at i naerheden fandtes et Vinland." Storm, in _Aarboger for
Nordisk Oldkyndighed_, etc., Copenhagen, 1887, p. 300.]

[Footnote 256: See below, p. 386.]

* * * * *

[Sidenote: Summary of the argument.]

To sum up the argument:--we have in Eric the Red's Saga, as copied by
Hauk Erlendsson, a document for the existence of which we are required
to account. That document contains unmistakable knowledge of some
things which mediaeval Europeans could by no human possibility have
learned, except through a visit to some part of the coast of North
America further south than Labrador or Newfoundland. It tells an
eminently probable story in a simple, straightforward way, agreeing in
its details with what we know of the North American coast between Point
Judith and Cape Breton. Its general accuracy in the statement and
grouping of so many remote details is proof that its statements were
controlled by an exceedingly strong and steady tradition,--altogether
too strong and steady, in my opinion, to have been maintained simply by
word of mouth. These Icelanders were people so much given to writing
that their historic records during the Middle Ages were, as the late Sir
Richard Burton truly observed, more complete than those of any other
country in Europe.[257] It is probable that the facts mentioned in
Hauk's document rested upon some kind of a written basis as early as the
eleventh century; and it seems quite clear that the constant tradition,
by which all the allusions to Vinland and the Skraelings are controlled,
had become established by that time. The data are more scanty than we
could wish, but they all point in the same direction as surely as straws
blown by a steady wind, and their cumulative force is so great as to
fall but little short of demonstration. For these reasons it seems to me
that the Saga of Eric the Red should be accepted as history; and there
is another reason which might not have counted for much at the
beginning of this discussion, but at the end seems quite solid and
worthy of respect. The narrative begins with the colonization of
Greenla