Note 599 — Chapter II
Reading edition
Rink (Danish Greenland, p. 3) says of the sagas that “they exist only in a fragmentary condition, and bear the general character of popular traditions to such a degree that they stand much in need of being corroborated by collateral proofs, if we are wholly to rely upon them in such a question as an ancient colonization of America.” So he proceeds to enumerate the kind of evidence, which is sufficient in Greenland, but is wholly wanting in other parts of America, and to point out that the trustworthiness of the sagas of the Vinland voyages exists only in regard to their general scope.