Page:The Finding of Wineland the Good.djvu/229

 desperate straits, and were clinging to a wreck, and he then found Wineland the Good.' [Heimskringla, ed. Unger, pp. 192, 196, 204.] The preponderance of evidence certainly points to the year 1000 as the year of Leifs discovery.

(6) Húsa-snotro-tré, ht. ' house-neat-wood.' The word húsa-snotra is of infrequent occurrence, and its exact significance has given rise to widely diverging opinions. Saxo Grammaticus renders it ' gubernaculum,' in an excerpt from Arrow-Odd's Saga [Book v, of Historia Danica, ed. P. E. Muller, Copenh. 1839, vol. ii. p. 251]. Torfæus, in his ' Historia Vinlandias ' [p. 28], renders the word ' coronis; ' ' vir quidam Bremensis coronidem ejus [husasnotra habetur] licitabat,' leaving us in doubt as to what he meant by 'coronis;' it may be conjectured, however, that he had in mind the same meaning which was subsequently given to the word by Biorn Haldorsen, in his dictionary, namely, ' coronis domus.' WerlauiF [Sjonbolae ad geographiam medii ævi, ex monumentis Islandicis, p. 14] translated the word, as it occurs in this passage, ' scopæ.' ' Fertur Thorfinnum Karlsefni scopas ex ligno sibi aptasse.' Vigfusson [Diet. s. v.] defines the word, 'house-neat,' 'house-cleaner,' inclining evidently to WerlaufTs interpretation, but quoting Finn Magnusen as having suggested the translation 'broom.' Fritzner [Diet. s. v.] defines the word 'a weather-vane, or other ornament, at the point of the gable of a house or upon a ship.' This interpretation of Fritzner's is confirmed by Dr. Valt/r Guðmundsson, in a critical study of the meaning of the word, wherein he shows the close relationship existing between the probable specific names for the parts connected with the ornamented point, occasionally vane-capped, both upon the peak of the house-gable and the peculiarly carved prow of the ship. That the names should have been used interchangeably for the similar object, in both house and ship, is the less remarkable, since we read of a portion of a ship's prow having been removed from a vessel and placed above the principal entrance of a house, that is, in some part of the gable-end of the dwelling

(7) This passage is somewhat obscure. It may, perhaps, indicate that the 'house-neatwood ' was obtained at Stream-firth, although it is stated in general terms in Flatey Book that the 'house-neat-wood' came from Wineland. If the meaning is, as suggested in this passage, that the 'house-neat' was hewed to the northward of Hop, the only intelligible interpretation of the following clause would seem to be that, although Karlsefni attained the region which corresponded with Leifs accounts of Wineland, he did not succeed, on account of the hostility of the natives which compelled him to beat a retreat, in accomplishing a thorough exploration of the country, nor was he able to carry back with him any of the products of the land. This author, it will be noted, records only the two voyages described in the Saga of Eric the Red, namely, Leifs voyage of discovery, and Karlsefni's voyage of exploration.

(8) Lit. the Uplanders, i.e. the people of the Norwegian Oplandene; a name given to a district in Norway comprising a part of the eastern inland counties.

(9) Olaf the White is called in the Eyrbyggja Saga 'the greatest warrior-king in the western sea,' [mestr herkonungr fyrir vestan haf]. This expedition, in which he effected the capture of Dublin, appears to have been made about the year 852. [Cf. Munch, Norske