LII
NO LONGER BLIND
Two years had passed since Thorgills went to the Holy Land in search of King Olaf. In the quiet cloisters of the Convent of Nidaros, Maidoch led a busy, though secluded life. A few months after the defeat at Svolder, the news came from Iceland that the Christian religion had been formally adopted by the state. Closely following this was the return of Leif Ericson, from his voyage to the wonderful new land of the West. Leif had taken Bjarne’s ship and some of the crew that had been with Bjarne on his first voyage, and on the second trip they had remained some time in the new land, which they called “Vinland” from the quantity of grapes found there.
Aastrid, the abbess, heard these rumors with sadness in her heart; thinking how rejoiced King Olaf would have been at the entire conversion of Iceland, and at the reports of Leif Ericson finding again Bjarne’s beautiful land, to which the Faith might be carried.
“O my brave King!” the abbess said to herself, “thou didst make Leif a Christian, and thou didst bid him carry the tidings of Christ to this far land,
