Note 119 — SECTION III. HISTORICAL NOTES.[111]
Reading edition
Popular history, it has been seen, attributes the exploration to Eirikr Rauð (Eric the Red) in A.D. 982, some five centuries before the days of Columbus. Captain Graah, of whom more presently, speaks of a papal Bull by Nicholas V., who in A.D. 1448 declares Christianity in Greenland to date from 600 years back, thus removing the colonisation to A.D. 848. We have ample materials for determining the exact limits of the Northmen’s explorations by their precising the length of the day. For instance, at Vínland the sun at the winter solstice was above the horizon from Dagmál (7.30 A.M.) to Eykt (4.30 P.M.), which gives nine hours = N. lat. 41°.