‘After which island (Wineland)’, said he (King Svein), ‘no habitable land is found in that ocean, but all that is beyond is full of intolerable ice and utter darkness (_immensa caligine_). Of which matter Marcianus thus bears record, saying, “Beyond Thule, one day’s sail, the sea is frozen solid (_concretum_).” This was lately tested by the most enterprising Harald, prince of the Norsemen, who, when investigating with his ships the breadth of the northern ocean, hardly escaped with safety from the awful gulf of the abyss, by turning back, when at length the bounds of the earth where it ends (_deficientis_) grew dark before his eyes.’ Professor Yngvar Nielsen, in an article entitled _Nordmaend og Skraelinger i Vinland_ (Norske Geografiske Selskabs Aarbog for 1904), argues that the voyage here referred to was possibly another attempt to find Wineland. He sees, too, a possible connexion with the Hönen runes, since Harald hailed from Ringerike, from which district the unknown hero of the inscription would seem also to have come. This connexion is evidently too fanciful to be taken seriously, though, if Harald’s voyage had Wineland as its objective, the possibility is not altogether excluded. It is true that the voyage of the Norwegian king is reported in a context which links it closely with Wineland, and it seems at first sight unlikely that Harald would have organized an expedition of so unprofitable a nature as a mere scientific exploration of the Arctic Ocean. On the other hand, the words ‘_latitudinem septentrionalis oceani perscrutatus_’ do seem to suggest that the object was arctic exploration, and, since Adam considers Marcianus’s remarks about the sea beyond Thule as relevant, we are not justified in concluding that Harald’s voyage was any more intimately connected with the question of Wineland. Of the theory which associates Wineland with the arctic regions something remains to be said later. (See p. 294). Here we may merely observe that there does not appear to be any reliable evidence to connect Harald’s voyage with the subject of Wineland, particularly as the experiences related, if they amount to more than a sailor’s yarn, are suggestive of the ice-floes and long night of the Polar regions. _Ideas of Icelandic Geography._ An Icelandic geography preserved in various manuscripts of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries contains a reference to the lands discovered in America, which, in its fullest form, runs as follows: