his voyage of exploration to Wineland, that is to say in the summer of the 5'ear 1003. A longer time may well have elapsed after Gudrid's arrival before her marriage with Thorstein, and similarly it is even more probable that a longer inter'al elapsed between Thorstein's death and Gudrid's second marriage. The purpose of this conjectural chronology is to determine, if possible, a date prior to which Thorfinn Karlsefni's voyage to Wineland could not have been undertaken. While, therefore, it is altogether probable that this voyage was made after the year 1003, it does not appear to be possible, for the reasons presented, that it could have taken place before that year.
Problems suggested by the text of another version of the history of the discovery and exploration, namely, that contained in the Flatey Book, are considered elsewhere, as are also points of difference between that narrative and the history as set forth in the Saga of Eric the Red. It remains to be said, that the text of this saga does not present such difficulties as those which are suggested by a critical examination of the narrative of the Flatey Book. This version of the history of the discovery does contain, however, one statement, which is not altogether intelligible and which is not susceptible of very satisfactory explanation, namely, that ' there came no snow ' in the land which the Wineland explorers had found. This assertion does not consist with our present knowledge of the winter climate of the eastern coast of that portion of North America situated within the latitude which was probably reached by the explorers. The observation may, perhaps, be best explained upon the theory that the original verbal statement of the explorers was, that there was no snow in Wineland, such as that to which they were accustomed in the countries with which they were more familiar[1]. With this single exception there appears to be no statement in the Saga of Eric the
- ↑ Cf. post, Note No. 55, upon this passage in the saga.
of Iceland.' The fact, therefore, that the record of the voyage of Thorbrand's sons to Greenland does, in certain other late manuscripts, occupy the place which Vigfusson assigns it, would not seem to afford sufficient reason for establishing the date of this voyage, by the words of a subsequent passage, when, as has been stated, this passage does not indeed follow, but precedes the chapter in the oldest manuscripts now existing. If Snorri [and Karlsefni] sailed to Greenland immediately after the reconciliation, as Vigfusson conjectures, a fatal flaw in the chronology at once appears. By a comparison with the language of the Saga of Eric the Red, it will be seen that if Karlsefni and Snorri sailed to Greenland in 998 or 999, Karlsefni's voyage of exploration, which was undertaken in the year after his arrival in Greenland, would fall either in the year prior to that assigned to Leif's discovery of Wineland, or in the year of that discovery, both of which hypotheses are, of course, impossible. The simpler explanation, and one entirely consistent with the language of the Eyrbyggja Saga, would seem to be that the word ' after ' in the sentence, ' Thorbrand's sons went to Greenland after the reconciliation,' does not mean the same year or the next year after the reconciliation, but some time thereafter, and necessarily later than the year looi, the earliest date assignable for Thorstein Ericsson's ill-fated vo3-age, and which is also the date of the event immediately preceding this sentence in the elder texts of the Eyrb}ggja Saga. '
