[45-1] Reeves's translation. In _Origines Islandicae_, Vol. II., p. 598, this saga is called "The Story of the Wineland Voyages, commonly called The Story of Eric the Red."
[45-2] The original word for "Brief History" also means "section," "episode," "little story," _i.e._, extract or abbreviated account.
[46-1] About 985 (983-986). One vellum of the _Landnama-bok_ (Book of Settlements) says sixteen, the other fifteen years.
[46-2] Bishop Frederick was from "Saxland" (Saxony). According to the Kristni-Saga he came to Iceland "in the summer when the land had been settled one-hundred-and-seven winters," _i.e._, in 981. He made but little headway in preaching Christianity.
[47-1] _Hafgerdingar_ (sea-rollers) are supposed to have been earthquake waves, and the lines evidently refer to such tidal-waves caused by an unusually severe earthquake in the year 986. See Reeves, p. 180, (63). The prose sense of the stave is: "I beg the blessed friend of the monks to further our voyage. May the Lord of the heavens hold his hand over me."
[49-1] "Certainly a marvellous coincidence, but it is quite in character with the no less surprising accuracy with which the explorers of this history [_i.e._, the Flat Island Book narrative] succeeded in finding 'Leif's-booths' in a country which was as strange to them as Greenland to Biarni." (Reeves.)
[50-1] Earl Eric ruled in Norway from 1000 to 1015.
[52-1] These two words designate positions of the sun at two points of time. Early commentators got much more definite results from this observation than later ones, with scientific assistance, have succeeded in getting. Largely on the basis of it, Rafn (in _Antiquitates Americanæ_), concluded that Vinland was in Rhode Island. Both Storm and Reeves, after detailed investigation, declare that it cannot be shown from this passage how far to the south Vinland was located. Captain Phythian, U.S.N., who has given the question careful consideration, says: "The data furnished are not sufficiently definite to warrant a more positive assertion than that the explorers could not have been, when the record was made, farther north than Lat. [say] 49°." See Reeves, p. 181, (66).
[56-1] Evidently an incorrect statement. _Landnama-bok_, the authority on genealogical matters, says: "His son was Thorbiorn, father of Gudrid who married Thorstein, son of Eric the Red, and afterwards Thorfinn Karlsefni." Thori Eastman (the Norwegian) is not mentioned in the _Landnama-bok_.