Note 663 — Chapter II

So plain a matter as the length of the longest summer day would indubitably point to an absolute parallel of latitude as determining the site of Vinland, if there was no doubt in the language of the saga. Unfortunately there is a wide divergence of opinion in the meaning of the words to be depended upon, even among Icelandic scholars; and the later writers among them assert that Rafn (Antiq. Amer. 436) and Magnusen in interpreting the language to confirm their theory of the Rhode Island bays have misconceived. Their argument is summarized in the French version of Wheaton. John M’Caul translated Finn Magnusen’s “Ancient Scandinavian divisions of the times of day,” in the Mémoire de la Soc. Roy. des Antiq. du Nord (1836-37). Rask disputes Rafn’s deductions (Mass. Hist. Soc. Proc., xviii. 22). Torfæus, who is our best commentator after all, says it meant Newfoundland. Robertson put it at 58° north. Dahlmann in his Forschungen (vol. i.) places it on the coast of Labrador. Horsford (p. 66) at some length admits no question that it must have been between 41° and 43° north. Cf. Laing’s Heimskringla, i. 173; Palfrey’s New England, i. 55; De Costa’s Pre-Columbian Disc., p. 33; Weise’s Discoveries of America, 31; and particularly Vigfússon in his English-Icelandic Dictionary under “Eykt.”