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284 Thorgills looked up and spoke in the silence:

“My King, I would say, touching this new land, there are sagas that my father learned from his father, and they tell of the voyages of the Irish monks to this land of the West. The sagas say that the men in the new land spoke the tongue of Brendan and held the faith of Patrick. In the sagas they call the new land the ‘Irland it Mikla’ meaning that it was a greater Ireland. It is a land of mighty rivers and green hills, of vine and fruit and grain, and the waters around are warm as if touched by the breath of perpetual summer. So sing, my King, the old Norse bards of the land in the West where the Irish monks, in their leathern-bound osier boats sailed in those summer seas. It was from these same Irish monks, who preached so many centuries ago in the north lands, that the Norse scalds first learned to read and to write runes and to play the harp and sing sagas that tell the deeds of their warriors and heroes to the music of verse and rhyme.”

“O that I could journey to this land!” cried King Olaf, who had been listening breathlessly. “I have heard that Leif Ericson, the son of Jarl Erik hath been so delighted with the tales that Bjarne hath told that he hath declared he will go himself and find this land. I have promised him ships and men. Leif Ericson is a Christian; and I have urged him to take priests with him, to bring the people of this strange land to the Christian faith. I would that I