NORSE DISCOVERIES AND TALES.
The Discoveries of the Norsemen in America. By J. Fischer, S.J., and B. H. Soulsby. (H. Stevens, Son, and Stiles. 8s.)—Here we are given all the available information collected from sagas and early geographers. The first Northman to reach America was Leif, son of Eric the Red. He was returning to Greenland from Norway, where under the influence of Olaf (who died in 1000) he had become a Christian. Storms drove Leif out of his course, and he came to an unknown land, where he found vines and corn growing wild, and also great forests. This country he called Wineland. Not long after the return to Greenland of the first explorers, a second and colonising expedition was fitted out to find this wonderful land. Trouble with the natives, however, drove the settlers back to the Arctic seas. The question remains as to what part of the American coast was Wineland. We are told in the book we are noticing that in the seventeenth century a Governor of Nova Scotia speaks of wild vines and corn as being there, though they are no longer to be found. A very curious question is,—Did the Viking discoveries influence the fifteenth-century voyagers? There is no doubt that early geographers knew of Wineland. Adam of Bremen, who was alive in 1067, records that he learnt of the new country from Sven, King of Denmark. It is also known that some relations of the second voyagers to Wineland went to Rome. At the end of this interesting volume are to be found reproductions of early maps which are most curious.
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