The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 by Various
page 59 of 584 (10%)
page 59 of 584 (10%)
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[20-1] "Winter-night-tide" was about the middle of October.
[23-1] The home of Eric the Red, in the Eastern Settlement. [24-1] This was evidently the first time that the voyage from Greenland to Norway was accomplished without going by way of Iceland, and was a remarkable achievement. The aim was evidently to avoid the dangerous passage between Greenland and Iceland. [24-2] A reference to some strange happenings in the winter of 1000-1001 at the Icelandic farmstead Froda, as related in the Eyrbyggja Saga. [25-1] Of the year 999. See next note. [25-2] King Olaf ruled from 995 to 1000. He fell at the battle of Svolder (in the Baltic) in September, 1000. It was in the same year that Leif started out as the King's missionary to Greenland. See p. 43, note 1. [25-3] A wild cereal of some sort. Fiske is convinced that it was Indian corn, while Storm thinks it was wild rice, contending with much force that Indian corn was a product entirely unknown to the explorers, and that they could not by any possibility have confused it with wheat, even if they had found it. There is, moreover, no indication in this saga that they found cultivated fields. Storm cites Sir William Alexander, _Encouragement to Colonies_ (1624), who, in speaking of the products of Nova Scotia, refers, among other things, to "some eares of wheate, barly and rie growing there wild." He also cites Jacques Cartier, who, in 1534, found in New Brunswick "wild grain like rye, which looked as though it had been sowed and cultivated." See Reeves, p. 174, (50). |
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