Note 655 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Forster finds a corruption of Norvegia (Norway) in Norumbega. Rafn finds the Norse elements in the words Massachusetts, Nauset, and Mount Hope (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., viii. 194-198). The word Hole, used as synonymous to harbor in various localities along the Vineyard Sound, has been called a relic of the Icelandic Holl, a hill (Mag. Amer. Hist., June, 1882, p. 431; Jos. S. Fay in Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xii. 334; and in Anderson, America not discovered by Columbus, 3d ed.).