Page:The Finding of Wineland the Good.djvu/71

 daughter; in the words of the manuscript, 'Hallfrid was the name of the daughter of Snorri, Karlsefni's son; she was the mother of Runolf [Runólfr], the father of Brshop Thorlak.' Now Runolf was, indeed, the father of Bishop Thorlak, but he was the husband and not the son of Hallfrid. If we may suppose the heedless insertion of the word 'mother' in the place of 'wife,' the palpable error, as the text now stands would be removed. '

It has been conjectured that the Wineland History of the Flatey Book has been drawn from a more primitive source than the narrative of the discovery which has been preserved in the two manuscripts, Hauk's Book and AM. 557, 4to Two passages in the Flatey Book narrative lend a certain measure of plausibility to this conjecture. In the 'Short Story of Eric the Red' it is stated, that Eric called his land-fall in Greenland Midiokul [MibJ9kull], in the words of the history; 'this is now called Blacksark [Bláserkr].' In Hauk's Book this mountain is also called Blacksark; in AM. 557 4to, it is called Whitesark [Hvitserkr]; neither of these manuscripts, however, recalls the earlier name. Again, in the list of the descendants of Snorri, Karlsefni's Wineland-born son, appended to the 'Short Stoiy of the Greenlanders,' Bishop Brand is so called without qualification, while in both texts of the Saga of Eric the Red he is referred to as Bishop Brand the Elder [hin fyrri]. The second Bishop Brand ^vas ordamed m 1263. This fact, while it would, without the other evidence which we possess, establish a date prior to which neither Hauk's Book nor AM. 557, 4to, could have been written, seems, at the same time, to afford negative evidence in 'support of the claim for the riper antiquity of the source from which the Flatey Book narrative was drawn. However this may be, the lapses already noted, together with the mtroduction of such incidents as that of the apparition of the big-eyed Gudrid to her namesake, Karlsefni's spouse; the narrative of Freydis' unpalliated treachery; the account of Wineland grapes which produced intoxication, and which apparently ripened at all seasons of the year, of honey-dew grass, and the like, all seem to point either to a deliberate or careless corruption of the primitive history. Nevertheless, despite the discrepancies existing between the account of the Wineland discovery, as it has been presented in the Flatey Book and as it is given elsewhere, so striking a parallelism is apparent in these different versions of this history, in the chief points of historical interest, as to point conclusively to their common origin. Í/

The two disjoined 'accounts' of the Flatey Book, which relate to the Wineland discovery, are brought together in the translation which follows.