The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525Weise, Arthur James
History
The Discoveries of America to the Year 1525
Weise, Arthur James
America -- Discovery and exploration
[45] The traditions of the voyages of Bjarni, the son of Herjulf, and
of Leif, the son of Eric the Red, are contained in a large folio of
manuscripts found in the seventeenth century, in a monastery on the
island called Flatö, north of Breidafjörd, in Iceland. This book of
Flatö was purchased, about the year 1660, by Bishop Brynjulf Sveinson
of Skalholt, in Iceland, and was sent by him as a gift to King Frederic
III. of Denmark, and is now in the Royal Library of Copenhagen. A part of
the inscription on the first page of the volume bears this translation:
“This book, Jónn, the son of Hakon, owns.... The priest, Jónn, the son
of Thord, wrote out the narrative concerning Eric, the traveller, and
the histories of each of the Olafs; and the priest, Magnus, the son of
Thorhall, wrote out that which follows, also that which precedes, and
illuminated the whole. God Almighty and the Holy Virgin Mary bless those
who wrote and him who dictated.”
It is supposed that these traditions, which are finely engrossed in
Icelandic on vellum, contained in the Codex Flateyensis, were compiled
between the years 1387 and 1395.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 1-4.
[46] _Thaettir af Eireki Rauda ok Graenlendingum._
[47] _Bjarni leitadi Graenlands._—Antiq. Amer. pp. 17-25. Discovery of
America. Beamish, pp. 47, 48.
[48] From _hella_, a flat stone.
Certain writers believe that Newfoundland was called Helluland by the
Northmen. The island lies about six hundred miles south of Greenland.
[49] Nova Scotia is supposed by some writers to be the region named
Markland by the Northmen. It is about four hundred miles southwest of
Newfoundland.
[50] _Hèr Hefr Graenlendinga Thátt._ Antiq. Amer. pp. 26-40. Discovery of
America. Beamish, pp. 59-70.
[51] Narrative of an expedition to the east coast of Greenland, sent by
order of the king of Denmark, in search of the lost colonies, under the
command of Captain W. A. Graah, of the Danish royal navy. Translated from
the Danish by the late G. Gordon Macdougall, F.R.S.N.A., for the Royal
Geographical Society of London. London, 1837. pp. 106, 107.
[52] “_Meira var thar jafndaegri enn á Graenlandi edr Íslandi, sól hafdi
thar eyktarstad ok dagmálastad um skamdegi._”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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