Vinland

in American history, a region somewhere on the eastern coast of North America. Certain Icelandic manuscripts known as the Sagas describe a voyage of discovery made about the year 1000 by Leif Ericson, a hardy Norse navigator. According to these accounts, he found a delightful country which, from the abundance of grapes, he named Vinland. This region was visited repeatedly by the Vikings, then forgotten. Some have endeavored to identify Vinland with the bay-indented, vineembowered coast of Rhode Island, but its location is a matter of conjecture. It has been claimed that a knowledge of these Icelandic traditions of Vinland confirmed Columbus in his belief that land might be found by sailing westward from Spain.

They went aboard their ship again and sailed into a certain sound, which lay between the island and a cape which jutted out from the land on the north, and they stood in westering past the cape. At ebb-tide there were broad reaches of shallow water there, and they ran their ship aground there, and it was a long distance from their ship to the ocean; yet were they so anxious to go ashore that they could not wait till the tide should rise beneath their ship, but hastened to the land, where a certain river flows out from a lake. As soon as the tide rose beneath their ship, however, they took the boat and rowed to the ship, which they conveyed up the river, and so into the lake, where they cast anchor and carried their hammocks ashore from the ship, and built themselves huts there. They afterwards determined to establish themselves there for the winter, and they accordingly built a large house. There was no lack of salmon there, either in the river or in the lake, and larger salmon than they had ever seen before. The country thereabouts seemed to be possessed of such good qualities that cattle would need no fodder there during the winter. There was no frost there in the winters and the grass withered but little. The days and nights there were of more equal length than in Greenland or Iceland.

. . . Leif was a large and powerful man, and of most imposing bearing, a man of sagacity, and a very just man in all things.

It was discovered one evening that one of their company was missing, and this proved to be Tyrker, the Southern man. Leif was sorely troubled by this, for Tyrker had lived with Leif and his father a very long time, and had been devoted to Leif, when he was a child. Leif severely reprimanded his companions, and prepared to go in search for him taking twelve men with him. They had proceeded but a short distance from the house when they were met by Tyrker, whom they received most cordially. Leif observed at once that his foster-father was in lively spirits. Tyrker had a prominent forehead, restless eyes, small in the face, diminutive in stature, and rather a sorry-looking individual withal, but was nevertheless, a most capable handicraftsman. Leif addressed him and asked: "Wherefore art thou so belated, foster-father mine, and astray from the others?" In the beginning Tyrker spoke for some time in German, rolling his eyes, and grinning, and they could not understand him. But after a time he addressed them in the Northern tongue: "I did not go much further, and yet I have something of novelty to relate. I have found vines and grapes." "Is this indeed true, foster-father?" said Leif. "Of a certainty it is true," quoth he, "for I was born where there is no lack of either grapes or vines." They slept the night through, and on the morrow Leif said to his shipmates: "We will now carry on two occupations, and each day will either gather grapes, or cut vines, or fell trees, so as to obtain a cargo of these for my ship." They acted upon the advice, and it is said, that their afterboat was filled with grapes. A cargo sufficient for the ship was cut, and when the spring came, they made their ship ready, and sailed away; and from its products Leif gave the land a name, and called it Vinland. They sailed out to sea and had fair winds until they sighted Greenland.--Saga.