Note 3 — Front matter
Reading edition
This statement rests on the interpretation of Professor Finn Magnusen, for which see "The Voyages of the Northmen to America," Prince Socely's ed., pp. 34, 126. Boston, 1877. The general description of the climate and the products of the soil are in harmony with this interpretation, but it has nevertheless been questioned. Other Icelandic writers differ from him, and make the latitude of the land-fall of Leif at 49° 55', instead of 41° 43' 10", as computed by Magnusen.
This later interpretation is by Professor Gustav Storm. Vide The Finding of Wineland the Good, by Arthur Middleton Reeves, pp. 181-185. London, 1890. These interpretations are wide apart. Both writers are represented to be able and thorough scholars. When doctors disagree, who shall decide? The sciolists will doubtless range themselves on different sides, and fight it out to the bitter end.
The truth is, the chronology of that period in its major and minor applications was exceedingly indefinite. The year when events occurred is settled, when settled at all, with great difficulty; and it is plain that the divisions of the day were loose and indefinite. At least, they could only be approximately determined. In the absence of clocks, watches, and chronometers, there could not be anything like scientific accuracy, and the attempt to apply scientific principles to Scandinavian chronology only renders confusion still more confused. The terms which they used to express the divisions of the day were all indefinite. One of them, for example, was hirdis rismál, which means the time when the herdsmen took their breakfast. This was sufficiently definite for the practical purposes of a simple, primitive people; but as the breakfast hour of a people is always more or less various, hirdis rismál probably covered a period from one to three hours, and therefore did not furnish the proper data for calculating latitude. Any meaning given by translators touching exact hours of the day must, therefore, be taken cum grano salis, or for only what it is worth.