Page:The Finding of Wineland the Good.djvu/242

 rather better data, although it is only possible to determine approximately the site of Hvarf; but the distance from Stad in Norway to Cape Horn in Iceland, can be determined accurately, and as this was the voyage, with which Icelanders were most familiar, it affords us a trustworthy standard of measurement, from which it is possible to determine the distance which was traversed in a sail of one 'dœgr;' and the discussion of the mooted question, whether the 'dœgr' of Rímbegla, and of King Olaf the Saint's Saga is the same as that of Landnáma, is not material to this determination. Having regard to the probable course sailed from Norway to Iceland, it would appear that a 'dœgr's' sail was approximately one hundred and eight miles. This result precludes the possibility, that any point in Labrador could have been within a sailing distance of two 'dœgr' from the Western Settlement. It has been noted that there are variations in the different manuscripts touching the comparatively little known voyage from Iceland to Ireland; if, similarly, there may have been such a variation in EsR, for example, 'tvau' (two) having been written for the somewhat similar 'ſiau' (seven), of an elder text, it then becomes apparent that the distance could have been traversed in a sail of seven 'dœgr.' Such corruption might have taken place because of lack of accurate knowledge to correct the error at the time in which our MSS. were written. The winds appear to have been favourable to the explorers; the sail of seven 'dœgr' 'to the southward,' from Greenland with the needful westering, would have brought Karlsefni and his companions off the Labrador coast. Apart from this conjecture, it may be said that the distance sailed in a certain number of 'dœgr' (especially where such distances were probably not familiar to the scribes of the sagas), seem in many cases to be much greater than is reconcilable with our knowledge of the actual distances traversed, whether we regard the 'dœgra' sail as representing a distance of one hundred and eight miles or a period of twenty-four hours.

(47) This may well have been the keel of one of the lost ships belonging to the colonists who had sailed for Greenland with Eric the Red a few years before; the wreckage would naturally drift hither with the Polar current.

(48) MS. Skotzka, lit. Scotch. This word seems to have been applied to both the people of Scotland and Ireland. The names of the man and woman, as well as their dress, appear to have been Gaelic, they are, at least, not known as Icelandic; the minute description of the dress, indeed, points to the fact that it was strange to Icelanders.

(49) Enn rauðskeggjaði, i.e. Thor. It has been suggested, that Thorhall's persistent adherence to the heathen faith may have led to his being regarded with ill-concealed disfavour.

(50) There can be little doubt that this 'self-sown wheat' was wild rice. The habit of this plant, its growth in low ground as here described, and the head, which has a certain resemblance of that of cultivated small grain, especially oats, seem clearly to confirm this view. The explorers probably had very slight acquaintance with cultivated grain, and might on this account more readily confuse this wild rice with wheat. There is not, however, the slightest foundation for the theory, that this 'wild wheat' was Indian corn, a view which has been advanced by certain writers. Indian corn was a grain entirely unknown to the explorers, and they could not by any possibility have confused it with wheat, even if they had found this corn growing wild, a conjecture for which there is absolutely no support whatever. [Cf. Schübeler,