Now Bjarni is entirely taken up with the idea of getting back to Greenland. Where is he? He has been sailing for a long time in an attempt to get westward; he is probably to the west of his destination. Moreover there is an unknown shore to the west or north of him, to which he must give a wide berth. The visible change in the altitude of the Pole-star or the mid-day sun, and the difference in the length of the day, are data which show an experienced sailor that he is a long way too far south. He must get away from the unknown coast into the open sea, and he must go east and north. Sailing therefore on a course slightly to the north of east, he sights in two days another land, the south-western projection of Nova Scotia, ‘low-lying, and covered with wood.’ This is not the least like Greenland: he sails away again on the same course. The shore, trending here to the northward, sinks out of sight, but after about 500 miles of open sea covered in three ‘dægr’ he sights some part of the south coast of the Avalon peninsula of Newfoundland. It is a bleak-looking coast, and there are icebergs about; moreover, though Bjarni’s reckoning still makes him too far south, the crew have already been grumbling, and it must be proved to their satisfaction that this is not Greenland. As regards the ice, I am of course aware that the saga uses the word ‘jökul’, which suggests glaciers, and it may well be that this is an embroidery on the part of the author, accustomed to associate glaciers with any desolate landscape. ‘Jökul’, however, can also mean merely ice, and is so used in Gretti’s Saga and elsewhere. Icebergs, according to _the King’s Mirror_, were known to Greenlanders as ‘falljöklar’. There may be some confusion here. Still, there would be bergs about, and the appearance of the country would be more Arctic; the place had better be explored a bit. Accordingly Bjarni follows the coast till he convinces himself and his crew that this place is merely an island. Probably he came to this conclusion on rounding the Avalon peninsula; possibly he sailed as far as Cape Freels or slightly further. It is less likely that he sailed through the Strait of Belle Isle, and so conclusively demonstrated the insular character of Newfoundland, for, if so, he could hardly have avoided sighting the Labrador coast, which he evidently never saw. That the Norsemen, without carrying their investigation so far, should have come to the conclusion that what they saw was an island is not in the least remarkable, when it is remembered that for nearly 100 years after its rediscovery Newfoundland was regarded, owing to the broken and indented character of its coastline, as an archipelago, and is so depicted on the earlier charts.[99]