Page:The Finding of Wineland the Good.djvu/249

 voyage, since out of the large number of ships, which set sail for Greenland at the same time, so few succeeded in reaching their destination.

(64) This has been assumed by many writers to have been Labrador, but the description does not accord with the appearance which that country now presents.

(65) Certainly a marvellous coincidence, but it is quite in character with the no less surprising accuracy with which the explorers, of this history, succeed in finding 'Leif's-booths' in a country which was as strange to them as Greenland to Biarni.

(66) This statement has attracted more attention, perhaps, than any other passage in the account of the Icelandic discovery of America, since it seems to afford data which, if they can be satisfactorily interpreted, enable us to determine approximately the site of the discovery. The observation must have been made within the limits of a region wherein, early in the eleventh century, the sun was visible upon the shortest day of the year between dagmálasla3r and cyktarstadr; it is, therefore, apparent that if we can arrive at the exact meaning of either dagtnálastadr or eyktarstadr, or the length of time intervening between these, it should not be difficult to obtain positive information concerning the location of the region in which the observation was made. We are informed by a treatise, inserted in the printed text of Rimbegla, written by Bishop John Arnason, that the method adopted by the ancient Icelanders for the determination of the various periods of the day, was to select certain so-called ' eyktmarks' [eyktamörk] about every dwelling, as, peaks, knolls, valleys, gorges, cairns, or the like, and to note the position of, and course of the sun by day, or the moon and stars by night, with relation to these ' eykt-marks .' The circle of the horizon having been thus artificially divided, in the absence of clocks or watches, certain names were assigned to the position which the sun occupied at, as we should say, certain 'hours' of the day; 'dagmálastaðr,' lit. 'daymeal-stead,' indicates the position of the sun at the ' day-meal,' which was the principal morning meal. We have, unfortunately, no accurate data which might enable us to determine the position of the sun at 'dagmálastaðr; ' such information we have, however, concerning 'eykt,' for it is stated, in an ancient Icelandic law-code, that ' if the south-west octant be divided into thirds, it is "eykt" when the sun has traversed two divisions and one is left untraversed ' ['þá er eykð er útsuðrsætt erdeild í þriðjunga, ok hefirsól gengna tváhluti, en einn ogenginn;' Kristinnréttr Þorláks ok Ketils, Copenh. 1775, p. 92. Cf. also Grágás, ed. Finsen, Copenh. 1852, Pt. I, p. 26]. There seems to be little room for question that the ' eykt ' of ' Kristinnréttr ' and the eyktarstadr of the Flatey Book are the same, and the statement of ' Kristinnrettr ' accordingly affords a clear and concise definition of the position of that point upon the horizon at which the sun set on the shortest day of the year in Wineland, and which the explorers called ' eyktarstaðr.' Nevertheless the rational and simple scientific application of this knowledge has been, until very recently, completely ignored, in the effort to reach, through this definition, the solution of the problem involving the exact clock-time of dagmdlastaSr and eyktarstadr and thus the hour at which the sun rose and set on the shortest Wineland day.

The widely divergent views of the leading writers upon this subject have been concisely summarized by Professor Gustav Storm, in a very able treatise wherein he points out the real value of the information, to be derived from the passage in ' Kristinnrettr.'