Abstract
THE evidence for the pre-Columbian discovery of North America by Norsemen depends essentially on two sagas: the Saga of Eric the Red, the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefni in Hauks-book; both of which are repeated with modifications in the Flateybook. The dates of the extant MSS. lie between 1300 and 1400 A.D.; the sagas themselves were probably composed about a century earlier; the main event, the discovery of Wineland by Leif the Lucky, occurred in or about 1000 A.D. Collateral evidence consists mainly in the references by other writers to the events recorded by the sagas, which, it is plain, were regarded as historical narratives.
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References
Early Norse visits to North America. By William H. Babcock. Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections, vol. lix., No. 19. Pp. iv+214, x plates. (1913.)
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Wineland the Good 1 . Nature 93, 136–137 (1914). https://doi.org/10.1038/093136d0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/093136d0