Page:The Heimskringla; or, Chronicle of the Kings of Norway Vol 1.djvu/169

, 1707." This, however, has not been thought sufficient by modern antiquaries, and great research and talent have been expended in overlaying this simple documentary fact, on which alone the claim of the Icelanders to the priority of discovery rests, with a mass of documents of secondary importance and no validity. These are of secondary importance; because the circumstances which led to or happened upon these voyages, the family descent, or even identity of the adventurers, and the truth or falsehood of the details related, do not either confirm or shake the simple fact on which every thing rests,—that a discovery of a new land to the west and south was made and recorded, taken out of the mere traditionary state, and fixed in writing in 1387, or 100 years before Columbus's first voyage. They are of no validity; because, after Columbus's first voyage in 1492, the seafaring people in every country would be talking of and listening to accounts of discoveries, new or old,—imagination would be let loose,—and old sagas would be filled up and new invented; so that no document relative to this question is of real validity which is not proved at setting out to be older than 1492,—that is to say, not merely an older story which may have circulated in the traditionary state from the 10th or 11th century, but older than 1492 on paper or parchment. Saga antiquaries are sometimes given to confounding together in their speculations these two very distinct ages of their documents. The only document of this kind is the one pointed out by Torfæus in 1707, which is in itself good and sufficient, and beyond all suspicion; and to link it to documents of uncertain or suspicious date, or to details which may or may not be true, and which require the aid of imagination, prejudice, or good will to believe, as well as of sober judgment, is weakening, not strengthening, the