It is worth while noticing how full the narrative is of nautical phraseology and details of interest to sailors only. This confirms one’s impression of its genuineness, as of course the story, if true, must originally have been told by Bjarni or one of his sailors. The lowering and hoisting of sails, the necessity for reefing on the voyage home, together with such expressions as ‘distinguish the airts’ or, as in our translation, ‘get their bearings’, ‘left the land to port and let the sheet turn towards it’, ‘turned the bows from the land’, ‘the land was laid’, i.e. lost below the horizon (landit var vattnat), give this part of the story an extremely nautical colour, while they add little to the general interest of the tale. Moreover we get course and distance in the greatest detail, except during the period of fog, when the sailors themselves could have had no knowledge of what was happening. The simplest way of dealing with this voyage is to plot it backwards from Greenland. The outward journey is but vaguely indicated, as that of a ship struggling unsuccessfully on a westerly course against northerly gales, and confused by fogs and many days of drifting. The ship was presumably provisioned for a dangerous voyage into unknown seas, yet appears to have been running short of water and other necessaries before the end; one is consequently justified in assuming a really long period for the duration of these adverse influences. The voyage home is, however, recorded with the utmost precision.