Bjarni, son of Herjulf, speeding westward from Iceland in 986, to spend the Yuletide in Greenland with his father, encountered foggy weather and steered by guesswork for many days. At last he sighted land, but a land covered with dense woods,--not at all the land of fiords and glaciers he was seeking. So, without stopping, he turned his prow to the north, and ten days later was telling his story to the listening circle before the blazing logs in his father's house at Brattahlid. The tale came, in time, to the ears of Leif, the famous son of Red Eric, and in the year 1000 he set out from Greenland, with a crew of thirty-five, in search of the strange land to the south. He reached the barren coast of Labrador and named it Helluland, or "slate-land;" south of it was a coast so densely wooded that he named it Markland, or "woodland." At last he ran his ship ashore at a spot where "a river, issuing from a lake, fell into the sea." Wild grapes abounded, and he named the country Vinland. THE STORY OF VINLAND[1] From "Psalm of the West" Far spread, below, The sea that fast hath locked in his loose flow All secrets of Atlantis' drownèd woe Lay bound about with night on every hand, Save down the eastern brink a shining band Of day made out a little way from land. Then from that shore the wind upbore a cry: _Thou Sea, thou Sea of Darkness! why, oh why Dost waste thy West in unthrift mystery?_ But ever the idiot sea-mouths foam and fill, And never a wave doth good for man, or ill, And Blank is king, and Nothing hath his will; And like as grim-beaked pelicans level file Across the sunset toward their nightly isle On solemn wings that wave but seldom while, So leanly sails the day behind the day To where the Past's lone Rock o'erglooms the spray, And down its mortal fissures sinks away. Master, Master, break this ban: The wave lacks Thee. Oh, is it not to widen man Stretches the sea? Oh, must the sea-bird's idle van Alone be free? Into the Sea of the Dark doth creep Björne's pallid sail, As the face of a walker in his sleep, Set rigid and most pale, About the night doth peer and peep In a dream of an ancient tale. Lo, here is made a hasty cry: _Land, land, upon the west!-- God save such land! Go by, go by: Here may no mortal rest, Where this waste hell of slate doth lie And grind the glacier's breast._ The sail goeth limp: hey, flap and strain! Round eastward slanteth the mast; As the sleep-walker waked with pain, White-clothed in the midnight blast, Doth stare and quake, and stride again To houseward all aghast.