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hollows, and wherever there was hilly ground there
were vines.” And later the saga adds: “Now they
remained there that winter. No snow came there, and
all of their livestock lived by grazing.” Both of
these things are possible, for New England
occasionally has mild winters, which Fernald’s Vinland
north of the St. Lawrence certainly does not have.
In one of his lectures on the Vinland Voyages, I
remember having heard John Fiske refer to the
winter of 1890 as such a winter.
Now, if by the investigations of American scholars
these very plausible accounts of the saga can be
made to fit the region of Grand Manan Island, and
can be established beyond a reasonable doubt in the
minds of scholars, as I think they can, then Dr.
Nansen’s attack on the Vinland sagas in their
essential historical phases, falls to the ground.
It is within the province of Norse scholarship to
determine which of the Vinland sagas conforms best
to the accepted facts of Norse history and conditions.
And it is also for scholars versed in Norse and
general European history, literature and traditions to
determine to what extent there are legendary
elements in the Vinland sagas. But it is for American
scholars (or at least for scholars thoroughly
conversant with American geographical and ethnological
conditions) to determine whether the descriptions
of the Vinland sagas fit the American shores; and it
is also for them to determine whether the natives
described in the sagas were, beyond a reasonable
donbt, American Indians. But it is evident that if
the region of Grand Manan Island was Karlsefni’s
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