n his voyage home from
the coast of New England; possibly from that very Mount Hope Bay, which
seems to have borne the same name in the time of those old Norsemen, as
afterwards in the days of King Philip the last sachem of the Wampanong
Indians. He was going back to Greenland, perhaps for reinforcements,
finding, he and his fellow-captain, Thorfinn, the Esquimaux who then
dwelt in that land too strong for them. For the Norsemen were then on
the very edge of a discovery, which might have changed the history not
only of this continent but of Europe likewise. They had found and
colonised Iceland and Greenland. They had found Labrador, and called it
Helluland, from its ice-polished rocks. They had found Nova Scotia
seemingly and called it Markland from its woods. They had found New
England and called it Vinland the Good. A fair land they found it, well
wooded, with good pasturage; so that they had already imported cows, and
a bull whose lowings terrified the Esquimaux. They had found self-sown
corn too, probably maize. The streams were full of salmon. But they had
called the land Vinland, by reason of its grapes. Quaint enough, and
bearing in its very quaintness the stamp of truth, is the story of the
first finding of the wild fox-grapes. How Leif the Fortunate, almost as
soon as he first landed, missed a little wizened old German servant of
his father's, Tyrker by name, and was much vexed thereat, for he had been
brought up on the old man's knee, and hurrying off to find him met Tyrker
coming back twisting his eyes about--a trick of his--smacking his lips
and talking German to himself in high excitement. And when they get him
to talk Norse again, he says, 'I have not been far, but I have news for
you. I have found vines and grapes!' 'Is that true, foster-father?'
says Leif. 'True it is,' says the old German, 'for I was brought up
where there was never any lack of them.' The saga--as given by Rafn--has
a detailed description of this quaint personage's appearance; and it
would not be amiss if American wine-growers should employ an American
sculptor--and there are great American sculptors--to render that
description into marble, and set up little Tyrker in some public place,
as the Silenus of the New World.

Thus the first cargoes homeward from Vinland to Greenland had been of
timber and of raisins, and of vine-stocks which were not like to thrive.

And more. Beyond Vinland the Good there was said to be ano