Old Norse literature -- Translations into English; Sagas
12. [Karlsefni and his company] were now of opinion that though the
land might be choice and good, there would be always war and terror
overhanging them, from those who dwelt there before them. They made
ready, therefore, to move away, with intent to go to their own land.
They sailed forth northwards, and found five Skrœlingar in jackets of
skin, sleeping [near the sea], and they had with them a chest, and in
it was marrow of animals mixed with blood; and they considered that
these must have been outlawed. They slew them. Afterwards they came to
a headland and a multitude of wild animals; and this headland appeared
as if it might be a cake of cow-dung, because the animals passed the
winter there. Now they came to Straumsfjordr, where also they had
abundance of all kinds. It is said by some that Bjarni and Freydis
remained there, and a hundred men with them, and went not further
away. But Karlsefni and Snorri journeyed southwards, and forty men
with them, and after staying no longer than scarcely two months at
Hop, had come back the same summer. Karlsefni set out with a single
ship to seek Thorhall, but the (rest of the) company remained behind.
He and his people went northwards off Kjalarnes, and were then borne
onwards towards the west, and the land lay on their larboard-side, and
was nothing but wilderness. And when they had proceeded for a long
time, there was a river which came down from the land, flowing from
the east towards the west. They directed their course within the
river's mouth, and lay opposite the southern bank.
13. One morning Karlsefni's people beheld as it were a glittering
speak above the open space in front of them, and they shouted at it.
It stirred itself, and it was a being of the race of men that have
only one foot, and he came down quickly to where they lay. Thorvald,
son of Eirik the Red, sat at the tiller, and the One-footer shot him
with an arrow in the lower abdomen. He drew out the arrow. Then said
Thorvald, “Good land have we reached, and fat is it about the paunch.”
Then the One-footer leapt away again northwards. They chased after
him, and saw him occasionally, but it seemed as if he would escape
them. He disappeared at a certain creek. Then they turned back, and
one man spake this ditty:--
“Our men chased (all true it is) a One-footer down to the shore; but
the wonderful man strove hard in the race....[D] Hearken, Karlsefni.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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