as much as was plunder. Leif, the son of that rough Red Eric who
first settled Greenland, made a famous voyage to Vinland, the
mainland of America. Like so many other voyagers he was bent on
finding a region where men could live happily and on filling his
boats with grapes, wood, or other commodities worth carrying
home.

In view of the energy of the Norsemen, the traces of their
presence in the Western Hemisphere are amazingly slight. In
Greenland a few insignificant heaps of stones are supposed to
show where some of them built small villages. Far in the north
Stefansson found fair-haired, blue-eyed Eskimos. These may be
descendants of the Norsemen, although they have migrated
thousands of miles from Greenland. In Maine the Micmac Indians
are said to have had a curious custom which they may have learned
from the vikings. When a chief died, they chose his largest
canoe. On it they piled dry wood, and on the wood they placed the
body. Then they set fire to the pile and sent the blazing boat
out to sea. Perhaps in earlier times the Micmacs once watched the
flaming funeral pyre of a fair-haired viking. As the ruddy flames
leaped skyward and were reflected in the shimmering waves of the
great waters the tribesmen must have felt that the Great Spirit
would gladly welcome a chief who came in such a blaze of glory.*

* For this information I am indebted to Mr. Stansbury Hagar.


It seems strange that almost no other traces of the strong
vikings are found in America. The explanation lies partly in the
length and difficulty of the ocean voyage, and partly in the