lusion. The settlers in Greenland did not at first
(nor for a long time) meet with barbarous or savage natives there, but
only with the vestiges of their former presence. But when Ari wrote the
above passage, the memory of Vinland and its fierce Skraelings was still
fresh, and Ari very properly inferred from the archaeological remains in
Greenland that a people similar (in point of barbarism) to the
Skraelings must have been there. Unless Ari and his readers had a
distinct recollection of the accounts of Vinland, such a reference would
have been only an attempt to explain the less obscure by the more
obscure. It is to be regretted that we have in this book no more
allusions to Vinland; but if Ari could only leave us one such allusion,
he surely could not have made that one more pointed.

[Footnote 248: Their "fundo thar manna vister baethi austr ok
vestr a landi ok kaeiplabrot ok steinsmithi, that es af thvi ma
scilja, at thar hafdhi thessconar thjoth farith es Vinland
hefer bygt, ok Graenlendinger calla Skrelinga," i. e.
"invenerunt ibi, tam in orientali quam occidentali terrae parte,
humanae habitationis vestigia, navicularum fragmenta et opera
fabrilia ex lapide, ex quo intelligi potest, ibi versatum esse
nationem quae Vinlandiam incoluit quamque Graenlandi Skraelingos
appellant." Rafn, p. 207.]

[Sidenote: Other references.]

But this is not quite the only reference that Ari makes to Vinland.
There are three others that must in all probability be assigned to him.
Two occur in the Landnama-bok, the first in a passage where mention is
made of Ari Marsson's voyage to a place in the western ocean near
Vinland;[249] the only point in this allusion which need here concern us
is that Vinland is tacitly assumed to be a known geographical situation
to which others may be referred. The second reference occurs in one of
those elaborate and minutely specific genealogies in the Landnama-bok:
"Their son was Thordhr Hest-hoefdhi, father of Karlsefni, who found
Vinland the Good, Snorri's father," etc.[250] The third reference occurs
in the Kristni Saga, a kind of supplement to the Landnama-bok, giving an
account of the introduction of Christianity into Iceland; here it is
related how Leif Ericsson came to be called "Leif the Lucky," 1. from
having rescued a shipwrecked crew off the coast of Greenland, 2. from
having discovered "Vinland the Good."[251