Of the certainty of the discovery there can be no
doubt: the Icelandic Chronicles are full and minute, not only respecting
it, but also respecting the transactions which took place among the
colonists, and between them and the natives. And Adam of Bremen, who lived
at this period, expressly states, that the king of Denmark informed him,
that another island had been discovered in the ocean which washes Norway,
called Vinland, from the vines which grew there; and he adds, we learn, not
by fabulous hearsay, but by the express report of certain Danes, that
fruits are produced without cultivation. Ordericus Vitalis, in his
Ecclesiastical History, under the year 1098, reckons Vinland along with
Greenland, Iceland, and the Orkneys, as under the dominion of the king of
Norway.
Where then was Vinland?--it is generally believed it was part of America;
and the objections which may be urged against this opinion, do not appear
to us to be of much weight. It is said that no part of America could be
reached in four days, the space of time in which the first discoverer
reached this land, and in which the voyages from Greenland to it seem
generally to have been made. But the west part of Greenland is so near some
part of America, that a voyage might easily be effected in that time. In
answer to the objection, that vines do not grow in the northern parts of
America, where Vinland, if part of this continent, must be fixed, it may be
observed, that in Canada the vine bears a small fruit; and that still
further north, in Hudson's Bay, according to Mr.
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