Anyhow, if Hvítramannaland was but six ‘dægra’ sail from Ireland it cannot really have been anywhere near Wineland, assuming the latter to be in America. If we follow the Eyrbyggja Saga in placing it to the south-west rather than the west of Ireland the distance is more suggestive of the Azores. Storm, however, is of opinion that the stories of Ari Marsson and Björn Asbrandsson are a perversion of Irish legends of the Christian occupation of Iceland, which a knowledge of the position and characteristics of that island had shifted to a different locality, retaining the distance (six ‘dægra’ sail) which, in the form ‘sex dierum navigatione’, is recorded by Pliny and adopted by Bede and Dicuil with reference to Thule. There seems much to be said for such a view, particularly as ‘Ireland the Great’ seems intended to convey the idea of an Irish colony (cf. Magna Græcia, &c.), and, if so, Hvítramannaland must be regarded as a mythical region. It by no means follows, however, that the statements attributed to the captive Skrælings must be placed in the same category. Whatever these statements may have conveyed to a Scandinavian audience, either contemporary or subsequent, there seems no reason for us to read into the description a procession of Christian priests, as so many commentators seem to have agreed in doing. Of course such statements as these, even when the captives had been ‘taught speech’, would be very liable to misinterpretation. It is not difficult, among the well-authenticated voyages of a later period, to find instances of native reports which were understood to convey notions the possibility of which must have originated in the mind of the questioner. Thus we find in the explorations of Jacques Cartier such passages as the following: ‘Donnacona had told us that he had been in the country of Saguenay, in which are infinite Rubies, Gold, and other riches, _and that there are white men, who clothe themselves with woollen cloth, even as we do in France_.’ Misunderstanding of answers to questions based on preconceived ideas may thus account for much, but, farther than this, accounts in themselves accurate may easily become coloured by a false association of ideas as the tradition passes from mouth to mouth. Thus in the present case it may well be that those who gave us the saga in its present form understood the statements of the Skrælings to imply the existence of some such Christian community as later commentators have imagined. But the statements themselves are capable of an explanation more consonant with fact. The dressed deerskin of the Indians, before being treated with smoke, is as white as a kid glove, and robes of this unsmoked material are not uncommon, particularly if intended for ceremonial use. I have myself seen coats of the Indians of Labrador decorated with a few unimportant lines and patterns in red paint which would have led me to say with perfect truthfulness of the wearer that he ‘wore white clothes’. As for the