words came to him, he spoke in his
native German, which none of them understood. Joy seemed to
have driven all memory of the language of the north from his
mind. It was plain that no harm had come to him. On the
contrary, he seemed to have stumbled upon some landfall of
good luck. Yet some time passed before they could bring him
out of his ecstasy into reason.

"I did not go much farther than you," he at length called
out, in their own tongue "and if I am late I have a good
excuse. I can tell you news."

"What are they?"

"I have made a grand discovery. See, I have found vines and
grapes," and he showed them his hands filled with the purple
fruit. "I was born in a land where grapes grow in plenty.
And this land bears them! Behold what I bring you!"

The memory of his childhood had driven for the time all
memory of the Norse language from his brain. Grapes he had
not seen for many years, and the sight of them made him a
child again. The others beheld the prize with little less
joy. They slept where they were that night, and in the
morning followed Tyrker to the scene of his discovery, where
he gladly pointed to the arbor-like vines, laden thickly
with wild grapes, a fruit delicious to their unaccustomed
palates.

"This is a glorious find," cried Leif. "We must take some of
this splendid fruit north. There are two kinds of work now
to be done. One day you shall gather grapes the next you
shall cut timber to freight the ship. We must show our
friends north what a country we have found. As for this
land, I have a new name for it. Let it be called Vineland,
the land of grapes and wine."

After this discovery there is little of interest to record.
The winter, which proved to be a very mild one, passed away,
and in the spring they set sail again for Greenland, their
ship laden deeply with timber, so useful a treasure in their
treeless northern home, while the long-boat was filled to
the gunwale with the grapes they had gathered and dried.

Such is the story of the first discovery of America, as told
in the sagas of the North. Leif the Lucky was the name given
the discoverer from that time forward. He made no more
visits to Vineland, for during the next winter his father
died, and he became the governing head of the Greenland
settlements.

But the adventurous Northmen were not the men to rest at
ease with an untrodden continent so near at hand. Thorvald,
Leif's brother, one of the boldest of his race, determined