island had, of course, long been known to Europeans, even when the Irish Culdees, those primitive and enthusiastic monks, made their way across the sea in the sixth or seventh century, seeking to secure absolute solitude for their meditations. If those monks carried with them a form of Christianity untainted by the influence of the Romish schism, the purity cannot have persisted very long. The hope, cherished for some time, by certain Protestants - Presbyterians especially

that in Iceland there had been preserved an absolutely primitive Christianity, has long since been dispelled. Just when Rome asserted supremacy in those regions, then so remote from European centres, is not clear, but in 1492, the very year of Columbus' first voyage, Pope Alexander VI issued a Bull* appointing a bishop of the see of Gardar, in Greenland. From about the middle of the eleventh century, Iceland had two bishops and doubtless from them went forth the influence into Greenland. But inasmuch as the entire population of the island now belongs to the Lutheran Church, it is evident that shortly after the Reformation the Roman Church lost its hold in Iceland.

From Iceland to Greenland is such a short span, it is inconceivable that those hardy Norsemen did not

* Bulla; the most authoritative official document issued by the pope of the Roman Catholic Church, or in his name. It is usually an open letter containing some decree, order, or decision relating to matters of grace or justice. It derives its name from the lead seal (Latin bulla) appended to it by a thread or band, which is red or yellow when the bull refers to matters of grace, and uncoloured and of hemp when it refers to matters of justice. On one side of the seal is the name of the pope who issues the bull, and on the other are the heads of Saints Paul and Peter.

soon cross the intervening sea. But even after it was discovered, Greenland was for a long time supposed to be a remarkable extension westward of the continent of Europe; and this belief was, for some centuries, strengthened rather than refuted by the experience of the explorers who, in the early years of the sixteenth century, reasoned that because the coast trended backward, that is towards the east, from Cape Dan, it would eventually join the European mainland.

Greenland may have been seen by the Norwegian Gunnbjörn, son of Ulf Kráka, very early in the tenth century; at least he is alleged to have declared he did So. It is admitted that in 982 A.D., "Eric the Red (Eiriki hinn raudi Thorvaldsson) sailed from Iceland to find the land which Gunnbjörn had seen, and he spent three years on its southwestern coasts exploring the country." Eric returned to Iceland in 985, and there is no accepted tradition that he or any of his followers crossed Davis Straits; but from what we know of the habits of the Greenland Eskimo, it is not unreasonable to suppose that those people knew of the land to the westward and told Eric about it.

But his son, Leifr Eriksson (Leif Ericsson of history) visited the Court of Norway in 999, when King Olaf Tryggvason was on the throne, and told the monarch about the new land in the far west. When Leif left Norway the king commanded him to proclaim Christianity in Greenland; the name having been chosen with the purpose of deceiving people into believing that the new country was an attractive place for colonists. It was on this outward voyage in 1000 A.D., when

bound for Greenland direct, without touching at Iceland, that Leif's ship was driven out of her course by heavy weather, and eventually reached the continent of North America, where he found wheat growing wild, vines, and “mösur" (maple ?) trees. To this yet newer land he gave the name "Vinland," "Vineland," or "Wineland the Good."

It is, however, to the account of Thorfinn Karlsefni's (flourished 1002 to 1007) expedition and his attempt to establish a colony somewhere in the region of Nova Scotia, that we must turn for the most plausible story of these early Norse discoverers. This twentieth century has added considerably to the literature that deals with the subject of the Saga of Eric the Red, and that known as The Flatey Book. The former is the more consistent of the two, and may now be read in an English translation, accompanied by copious notes. These sagas are supplemented, and their history measurably verified, by the narrative of Adam of Bremen, a student of history, who "visited the Danish Court during the reign of the well-informed monarch Svend Estridsson (1047 to 1076) and writes that the king 'spoke of an island (or country) in that ocean discovered by many, which is called Vinland, because of the wild grapes (vites) that grow there, out of which a very good wine can be made. Moreover, that grain unsown grows there abundantly (fruges ibi non seminatas abundare) is not a fabulous fancy, but is based on trustworthy accounts of the Danes.""* This passage offers important corroboration of the Icelandic accounts of the Vinland voyages, and * J. E. Olson, Enc. Brit. XIth, ed.

is, further, interesting "as the only undoubted reference to Vinland in a mediæval book written beyond the limits of the Scandinavian world."*

It is contended by some writers that these Norse discoveries exerted no real influence upon European knowledge of the world's geography in the Middle Ages, and that undoubtedly is a fact. It is declared that whatever information there was about new lands in the remote west (from Europe) was hidden away in sagas which very recent research has brought to light, translated, and edited so that we of the twentieth century possess knowledge which was not imparted to many Europeans of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. This, too, is quite correct; but if Adam of Bremen, "beyond the limits of the Scandinavian world," knew of Vinland, there was no substantial reason why others should not have had the same knowledge.

The suspicion is growing unto something approximating conviction that the famous navigators of the south of Europe ignored the efforts of the Norsemen, and persistently held that the Western Ocean washed the shores of Asia and that it was a determination to demonstrate the correctness of that opinion, thus refuting the Norsemen, which influenced them. I am not disposed to belittle in any way the grand achievement of Christopher Columbus, nor would I detract at all from the credit due to Giovanni Cabot; but I do think that had the exploits of Leif Ericsson and Thorfinn Karlesfni been given the publicity in Europe that they deserved, both the Italians, who have been named, would have * John Fiske, The Discovery of America.