Two of the arguments which I have already used apply with equal force to this part of the question. Thorstein, as the husband of Gudrid, who subsequently became by her marriage with Karlsefni an Icelandic heroine, was a person necessary to an Icelandic version of the story. So was Leif, because his voyage, however and whenever accomplished, was the reason of Karlsefni’s subsequent exploration. But Thorvald was a person in no way interesting to Icelanders; he had gone to Greenland with his father, probably as a child, and was ‘out of the story’. The other point is the normal trend of tradition. The important voyage, to Icelanders, was Karlsefni’s, and it was likely in the ordinary course, like Aaron’s serpent, to swallow up all minor rivals, whose continued existence was not necessary to its own. The Flatey Book version of Thorvald’s adventures and death appears to me therefore infinitely more satisfactory than the other, and the objections to it seem to have but little weight. _Freydis._ All that has been said hitherto applies to the second voyage of Freydis. After Karlsefni’s return to Iceland his interest in Greenland and in Wineland ceased, and with his own ceased naturally the interest of the normal Icelandic historian and audience. ‘And that is the end of this story’, says the author of Eric the Red’s Saga, as he lays down his pen, having got Karlsefni safe at home, and his Icelandic descendants duly chronicled. What happened in Greenland later on is no concern of his. But life in Greenland went on, and it cannot in any way be said to follow that nothing happened in the family of Eric because nothing has been recorded in a saga dealing mainly with a different person. Those who would attack the authenticity of this voyage must take other ground, and show from the story itself that it is inherently impossible. The task has no doubt been attempted, but it seems to me that the saga emerges successfully from the ordeal. The conduct of Freydis and her husband as described in the Flatey Book is entirely consistent with their characters as delineated in the rival version. I am wholly unable to follow the reasoning of Laing, who considers this incident in itself incredible, though others seem to share his view. The independence and power for evil possessed by an Icelandic wife of the saga period are well illustrated in the Njál Saga, where the wives of Njál and Gunnar respectively carry on a bloody vendetta with complete immunity to themselves, but at no inconsiderable expense to their reluctant but powerless husbands, who, though on terms of complete amity, are continually forced to pay each other compensation for the murder of members of their households perpetrated by third parties on the instigation of these women.