ave
included one more paragraph (the succeeding one), which gives an
approximate date to the colonization of Greenland: "Ari, Thorgil's son,
says that that summer twenty-five ships sailed to Greenland out of
Borgfirth and Broadfirth; but fourteen only reached their destination;
some were driven back, and some were lost. This was sixteen [S: fifteen]
winters before Christianity was legally adopted in Iceland." That is, in
about 985, as Christianity was accepted in 1000 (or 1001). There is a
possible variation of a year in the usually accepted date. See _Origines
Islandicae_, I. 369.

[20-1] "Winter-night-tide" was about the middle of October.

[23-1] The home of Eric the Red, in the Eastern Settlement.

[24-1] This was evidently the first time that the voyage from Greenland
to Norway was accomplished without going by way of Iceland, and was a
remarkable achievement. The aim was evidently to avoid the dangerous
passage between Greenland and Iceland.

[24-2] A reference to some strange happenings in the winter of 1000-1001
at the Icelandic farmstead Froda, as related in the Eyrbyggja Saga.

[25-1] Of the year 999. See next note.

[25-2] King Olaf ruled from 995 to 1000. He fell at the battle of Svolder
(in the Baltic) in September, 1000. It was in the same year that Leif
started out as the King's missionary to Greenland. See p. 43, note 1.

[25-3] A wild cereal of some sort. Fiske is convinced that it was Indian
corn, while Storm thinks it was wild rice, contending with much force
that Indian corn was a product entirely unknown to the explorers, and
that they could not by any possibility have confused it with wheat, even
if they had found it. There is, moreover, no indication in this saga that
they found cultivated fields. Storm cites Sir William Alexander,
_Encouragement to Colonies_ (1624), who, in speaking of the products of
Nova Scotia, refers, among other things, to "some eares of wheate, barly
and rie growing there wild." He also cites Jacques Cartier, who, in 1534,
found in New Brunswick "wild grain like rye, which looked as though it
had been sowed and cultivated." See Reeves, p. 174, (50).

[25-4] Supposed to be maple.

[26-1] Also called Thorhild.

[27-1] That is, were near Ireland.

[28-1] The display of an axe seems to have been thought efficacious in
laying fetches. See Reeves, p. 171, (39), citing a passage from another
saga.

[30-1] Thorfinn Karlsefni, the explorer of the Vinland expeditions, w