Note 14 — Chapter VI · THE NORSEMEN IN GREENLAND

Professor Rafn, and those who have followed him, thought Dagmalastad and Eyktarstad denoted hours of the day, and that the former was 8 a.m. and the latter 4 p.m. This gave nine hours for the duration of the shortest day, which would be in latitude 42° 21′ N. But Dagmal and Eykt were points of the horizon, not hours of the day. The Norsemen had no means of knowing the hours. In 1885 Professor Gustav Storm gave the correct interpretation of the passage, and showed that the position must have been south of 49° N., but not far to the south of that latitude. The inhabitants met with by the Norsemen in Markland and called by them Skrællings are held by Tholbitzer to have been Eskimos. In Vinland the natives appear to have been Algonquin Indians.