Note 13 — HOW LEIF THE LUCKY FOUND VINELAND THE GOOD

The story is taken from the Saga of Eric the Red, and from the Flatey Book in Mr. Reeves's Finding of Wineland the Good (Clarendon Press, 1890). The discovery of Vineland was made about the year 1000. The saga of Eric the Red was written about 1300-1334, but two hundred years before, about 1134, Ari the learned mentions Vineland as quite familiar in his Íslandingabók. There are other traces of Vineland, earlier than the manuscript of the Saga of Eric the Red. Of course we do not know when that saga was first written down. The oldest extant manuscript of it belonged to one Hauk, who died in 1334.