[117] There is nothing in this to indicate that Tyrker was intoxicated, as some have absurdly supposed. In this far off land he found grapes, which powerfully reminded him of his native country, and the association of ideas is so strong, that when he first meets Leif, he breaks out in the language of his childhood, and, like ordinary epicures, expresses his joy, which is all the more marked on account of his grotesque appearance. Is not this a stroke of genuine nature, something that a writer, framing the account of a fictitious voyage, would not dream of?
[118] Grapes grow wild almost everywhere on this coast. They may be found on Cape Cod ripening among the scrub oaks, even within the reach of the ocean spray, where the author has often gathered them.
[119] In Peringskiold's _Heimskringla_, which Laing has followed in translating Leif's voyage for his appendix, this statement of the cutting of wood is supplemented by the following statement: "There was also self-sown wheat in the fields, and a tree which is called massur. Of all these they took samples; and some of the trees were so large that they were used in houses." It is thought that the massur wood was a species of maple. Others have declared that it must have been mahogany, and that therefore the account of Leif's discovery is false. They forget that even George Popham, in writing home to his patron from Sagadahoc, in 1607, says that among the productions of the country are "nutmegs and cinnamon." Yet shall we infer from this that Popham never saw New England?
[120] See Adam of Bremen's testimony in the Introduction.
[121] It will be noticed that they were close upon the Greenland coast.
[122] They were evidently Norwegian traders who were shipwrecked while approaching the coast and sailing for the Greenland ports.
[123] Gissur, called the White, was one of the greatest lawyers of Iceland. We read that "there was a man named Gissur White, he was Teit's son, Kettlebiarne the Old's son, of Mossfell [Iceland]. Bishop Isleif was Gissur's son. Gissur the White kept house at Mossfell, and was a great Chief."--_Saga of Burnt Nial_, vol. I, p. 146.
[124] Hialte was doubtless the same person who entered the swimming match with King Olaf. See Saga of Olaf Tryggvesson.