[Footnote 206: "Hvorki skorti thar lax i anni ne i vatninu, ok staerra lax enn their hefdhi fyrr sedh," i. e. "ibi neque in fluvio neque in lacu deerat salmonum copia, et quidem majoris corporis quam antea vidissent," id. p. 32.] [Footnote 207: "Helgir fiskar," i. e. "sacri pisces," id. p. 148. The Danish phrase is "helleflyndre," i. e. "holy flounder." The English _halibut_ is _hali_ = _holy_ + _but_ = _flounder_. This word _but_ is classed as Middle English, but may still be heard in the north of England. The fish may have been so called "from being eaten particularly on holy days" (_Century Dict._ s.v.); or possibly from a pagan superstition that water abounding in flat fishes is especially safe for mariners (Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ ix. 70); or possibly from some lost folk-tale about St. Peter (Maurer, _Islaendische Volkssagen der Gegenwart_, Leipsic, 1860, p. 195).] [Footnote 208: "Sva var moerg aedhr i eynni, at varla matti ganga fyri eggjum," i. e. "tantus in insula anatum mollissimarum numerus erat, ut prae ovis transiri fere non posset," id. p. 141. Eider ducks breed on our northeastern coasts as far south as Portland, and are sometimes in winter seen as far south as Delaware. They also abound in Greenland and Iceland, and, as Wilson observes, "their nests are crowded so close together that a person can scarcely walk without treading on them.... The Icelanders have for ages known the value of eider down, and have done an extensive business in it." See Wilson's _American Ornithology_, vol. iii. p. 50.] [Sidenote: Northern limit of the vine.] From the profusion of grapes--such that the ship's stern boat is said on one occasion to have been filled with them[209]--we get a clue, though less decisive than could be wished, to the location of Vinland. The extreme northern limit of the vine in Canada is 47 deg., the parallel which cuts across the tops of Prince Edward and Cape Breton islands on the map.[210] Near this northern limit, however, wild grapes are by no means plenty; so that the coast upon which Leif wintered must apparently have been south of Cape Breton. Dr. Storm, who holds that Vinland was on the southern coast of Nova Scotia, has collected some interesting testimony as to the growth of wild grapes in that region, but on the whole the abundance of this fruit seems rather to point to the shores of Massachusetts Bay.[211] [Footnote 209: {"Sva er sagt at eptirbatr theirra var fylldr af vinberjurn."} { So it-is-said that afterboat their was filled of vine-berries.} Rafn, p. 36.]