Allusions to Vinland in other documents.]

As we have no clue, however, beyond the internal evidence, to the age or
character of the sources from which Hauk copied, there is nothing left
for us to do but to look into other Icelandic documents, to see if
anywhere they betray a knowledge of Vinland and the voyages thither.
Incidental references to Vinland, in narratives concerned with other
matters, are of great significance in this connection; for they imply on
the part of the narrator a presumption that his readers understand such
references, and that it is not necessary to interrupt his story in order
to explain them. Such incidental references imply the existence, during
the interval between the Vinland voyages and Hauk's manuscript, of many
intermediate links of sound testimony that have since dropped out of
sight; and therefore they go far toward removing whatever presumption
may be alleged against Hauk's manuscript because of its distance from
the events.

[Sidenote: Eyrbyggja Saga.]

Now the Eyrbyggja Saga, written between 1230 and 1260, is largely
devoted to the settlement of Iceland, and is full of valuable notices of
the heathen institutions and customs of the tenth century. The
Eyrbyggja, having occasion to speak of Thorbrand Snorrason, observes
incidentally that he went from Greenland to Vinland with Karlsefni and
was killed in a battle with the Skraelings.[245] We have already
mentioned the death of this Thorbrand, and how Freydis found his body in
the woods.

[Footnote 245: Vigfusson, _Eyrbyggja Saga_, pp. 91, 92. Another
of Karlsefni's comrades, Thorhall Gamlason, is mentioned in
_Grettis Saga_, Copenhagen, 1859, pp. 22, 70; he went back to
Iceland, settled on a farm there, and was known for the rest of
his life as "the Vinlander." See above, pp. 165, 168.]

[Sidenote: The abbot Nikulas, etc.]

Three Icelandic tracts on geography, between the twelfth and fourteenth
centuries, mention Helluland and Vinland, and in two of these accounts
Markland is interposed between Helluland and Vinland.[246] One of these
tracts mentions the voyages of Leif and Thorfinn. It forms part of an
essay called "Guide to the Holy Land," by Nikulas Saemundsson, abbot of
Thvera, in the north of Iceland, who died 1159. This Nikulas was curious
in matters of geography, and had travelled extensively.

[Footnote 246: Werlauf, _Symbolae ad Geogr. Medii AEvi_,
Copenha