high forehead and a short nose. His eyes were big and rolling. He had
lived with Eric for many years, and had taken care of Leif when he was a
little boy. So Leif loved him.

Now one day they had been wandering about and all came back to camp at
night except Tyrker. When Leif looked around on his comrades, he said:

"Where is Tyrker?"

No one knew. Then Leif was angry.

"Is a man of so little value in this empty land that you would lose
one?" he said. "Why did you not keep together? Did you not see that he
was gone? Why did you not set out to look for him? Who knows what
terrible thing may have happened to him in these great forests?"

Then he turned and started out to hunt for him. His men followed,
silent and ashamed. They had not gone far when they saw Tyrker running
toward them. He was laughing and talking to himself. Leif ran to him and
put his arms about him with gladness at seeing him.

[Illustration: "_He pointed to the woods and laughed and rolled his
eyes_"]

"Why are you so late?" he asked. "Where have you been?"

But Tyrker, still smiling and nodding his head, answered in German. He
pointed to the woods and laughed and rolled his eyes. Again Leif asked
his question and put his hand on Tyrker's shoulder as though he would
shake him. Then Tyrker answered in the language of Iceland:

"I have not been so very far, but I have found something wonderful."

"What is it?" cried the men.

"I have found grapes growing wild," answered Tyrker, and he laughed, and
his eyes shone.

"It cannot be," Leif said.

Grapes do not grow in Greenland nor in Iceland nor even in Norway. So it
seemed a wonderful thing to these Norsemen.

"Can I not tell grapes when I see them?" cried Tyrker. "Did I not grow
up in Germany, where every hillside is covered with grapevines? Ah! it
seems like my old home."

"It is wonderful," Leif said. "I have heard travelers tell of seeing
grapes growing, but I myself never saw it. You shall take us to them
early in the morning, Tyrker."

So in the morning they went back into the woods and saw the grapes. They
ate of them.

"They are like food and drink," they cried.

That day Leif said:

"We spent most of the summer on the ocean. Winter will soon be coming on
and the sea about Greenland will be frozen. We must start back. I mean
to take some of the things of this land to show to our people at home.
We will fill the rowboat with grapes and tow it behind us. The ship we
will load with logs from these great trees. That will be a welcome
shipload in Greenland, where we have neither trees nor vines. Now half
of you shall gather grapes for the next few days, and the other half
shall cut timber."

So they did, and after a week sailed off. The ship was full of lumber,
and they towed the rowboat loaded with grapes. As they looked back at
the shore, Leif said:

"I will call this country Wineland for the grapes that grow there."

One of the men leaped upon the gunwale and leaned out, clinging to the
sail, and sang:

    "Wineland the good, Wineland the warm,
    Wineland the green, the great, the fat.
    Our dragon fed and crawls away
    With belly stuffed and lazy feet.
    How long her purple, trailing tail!
    She fed and grew to twice her size."

Then all the men waved their hands to the shore and gave a great shout
for that good land.

For all that voyage they had fair weather and sailed into Eric's harbor
before the winter came. Eric saw the ship and ran down to the shore. He
took Leif into his arms and said:

"Oh, my son, my old eyes ached to see you. I hunger to hear of all that
you have seen and done."

"Luck has followed me all the way," said Leif. "See what I have brought
home."

The Greenlanders looked.

"Lumber! lumber!" they cried. "Oh! it is better stuff than gold."

Then they saw the grapes and tasted them.

"Surely you must have plundered Asgard," they said, smacking their lips.

At the feast that night Eric said:

"Leif shall sit in the place of honor."

So Leif sat in the high seat opposite Eric. All men thought him a
handsome and wise man. He told them of the storm and of Wineland.

"No man would ever need a cloak there. The soil is richer than the soil
of Norway. Grain grows wild, and you yourselves saw the grapes that we
got from there. The forests are without end. The sea is full of fish."

The Greenlanders listened with open mouths to all this. They turned and
talked to Leif's ship-comrades who were scattered among them.

Leif noticed two strangers, an old man who sat at Eric's side and a
young woman on the cross-bench. He turned to his brother Thorstein who
sat next to him.

"Who are these strangers?" he asked.

"Thorbiorn and his daughter Gudrid," Thorstein answered. "They landed
here this spring. I never saw our father more glad of anything than to
see this Thorbiorn. They were friends before we left Iceland. When they
saw each other again they could not talk enough of old times. In the
spring Eric means to give him a farm up the fiord a way. It seems that
this Thorbiorn comes of a good family that has been rich and great in
Iceland for years. And Thorbiorn himself was rich when our father knew
him, and was much honored by all men. But ill luck came, and he grew
poor. This hurt his pride. 'I will not stay in Iceland and be a beggar,'
he said to himself. 'I will not have men look at me and say, "He is not
what his father was." I will go to my friend Eric the Red in
Greenland.'

"Then he got ready a great feast and invited all his friends. It was
such a feast as had not been in Iceland for years. Thorbiorn spent on it
all the wealth that he had left. For he said to himself, 'I will not
leave in shame. Men shall remember my last feast.' After that he set out
and came to Greenland.

"Is not Gudrid beautiful? And she is wise. I mean to marry her, if her
father will permit it."

Now Leif settled down in Greenland and became a great man there. He was
so busy and he grew so rich that he did not think of going to Wineland
again. But people could not forget his story. Many nights as men sat
about the long fires they talked of that wonderful land and wished to
see it.

[Decoration]

Wineland the Good

On an autumn, a year or two after Leif came home, Eric and his men saw
two large ships come to land not far down the shore from the house.

"They look like trading ships," Eric said. "Let us go down to see them."

"I will go, too," Gudrid said. "Perhaps they will have rich cloth and
jewelry. It is long since I had my eyes on a new dress."

So they all went down and found two large trading ships lying in the
water. A great many men were on the shore making a fire.

"Welcome to Greenland!" called Eric. "What are your names and your
country?"

Then a fine, big man walked out from among the men and went up to Eric.

"I am Thorfinn," he said, "a trader. I sailed this summer from Iceland
with forty men and a shipload of goods. On the sea I met this other
ship from Iceland. The master is Biarni. Come and look at my goods."

So he rowed Eric and Gudrid out and they went aboard his boat. Thorfinn
opened his chests and showed Eric gleaming swords and bracelets and axes
and farm tools. But before Gudrid he spread beautiful cloth and gold
embroidery and golden necklaces. As they looked, he told of doings in
Iceland and asked of Greenland.

"We never see such things as these in this bare land," Gudrid said, as
she smoothed a beautiful dress of purple velvet. "I envy the women of
Iceland their fair clothes."

"There is no need of that," Thorfinn said, "for this dress is yours and
anything else from my chests that you like. Here is a necklace that I
beg you to take. It did not have a fairer mistress in Greece where I got
it."

"You are a very generous trader," Gudrid said.

Then Thorfinn gave Eric a great sword with a gold-studded scabbard.
After a while he took them to Biarni's ship. He also gave them gifts.
They all talked and laughed much while they were together.

"You are merry comrades," Eric said. "I ask you both and all your men to
spend the winter at my house. You can put your goods into my
storehouses."

"By my sword! a generous offer," said Thorfinn. "As for me, I am happy
to come."

Biarni and all the rest said the same thing. Thorfinn walked to the
house with Eric and Gudrid, while the other men sailed to the ship-sheds
and pulled their boats under them.

Then Thorfinn saw to the unloading and storing of his goods.

"Is this Gudrid your daughter?" he asked of Eric one day.

"She is the widow of my son Thorstein," Eric said. "He died the same
winter that they were married. Her father, too, died not long ago. So
Gudrid lives with me."

Now all that winter until Yule-time Eric spread a good feast every
night. There was laughter through his house all the time. Often at the
feasts the men cast lots to see whether they might sit on the
cross-bench with the women. Sometimes it was Thorfinn's luck to sit by
Gudrid. Then they talked gaily and drank together.

At last Yule was coming near. Eric went about the house gloomy then. One
day Thorfinn put his hand on Eric's shoulder and said:

"Something is troubling you, Eric. We have all noticed that you are not
gay as you used to be. Tell me what is the matter."

"You have carried yourselves like noble men in my house," Eric answered.
"I am proud to have you for guests. Now I am ashamed that you should not
find a house worthy of you. I am ashamed that when you leave me you will
have to say that you never spent a worse Yule than you did with Eric the
Red in Greenland. For my cupboards are empty."

"Oh, that is easily mended," Thorfinn said. "No house could feed eighty
men so long and not feel it. I never knew so generous a host before.
But I have flour and grain and mead in my boat. You are welcome to all
of it. You have only to open the doors of your own storehouses. It is a
little gift."

So Eric used those things, and there was never a merrier Yule feast than
in his house that winter.

When Yule was over, Thorfinn said to Eric:

"Gudrid is a beautiful and wise woman. I wish to have her for my wife."

"You seem to be a man worthy of her," Eric said.

So that winter Gudrid and Thorfinn were married and lived at Eric's
house.

One day Thorfinn said to Eric:

"I have heard much of this wonderful Wineland since I have been here. It
seems to me that it is worth while to go and see more of it."

"My son Thorstein and I tried it once," said Eric. "It was the year
after Leif came back. We set out with a fair ship and with glad hearts,
but we tossed about all summer on the sea and got nowhere. We were wet
with storm, lean with hunger and illness, and heartsick at our bad
luck."

"And yet," Thorfinn said, "another time we might have better weather. I
have never seen so fair a land as this seems to be."

Then he went to Leif and talked long with him. Leif told him in what
direction he had sailed to come home, and how the shores looked that he
had passed.

"I think I could find my way," Thorfinn said. "My heart moves me to try
this frolic."

He spoke to Gudrid about it.

"Oh, yes!" she cried. "Let us go. It is long since I felt a boat leaping
under me. I am tired of sitting still. I want to feel the warm days and
see the soft grass and the high trees and taste the grapes of this
Wineland the Good."

Then he talked with his men and with Biarni.

"We are ready," they all said. "We are only waiting for a leader."

"Then let us go!" cried Thorfinn.

So in the spring they fitted up their two ships and put into them
provisions and a few cattle. Some of Eric's men also got ready a boat,
so that three ships set sail from Eric's harbor carrying one hundred and
sixty men to Wineland. As they started, Gudrid stood on the deck and
sang:

    "I will feast my eyes on new things--
    On mighty trees and purple grapes,
    On beds of flowers and soft grass.
    I will sun myself in a warm land."

They sailed on and past those shores that Leif had spoken of. Whenever
they saw any interesting place they sailed in and looked about and
rested there.

They had gone far south, past many fair shores with woods on them, when
Gudrid said one day:

"This is a beautiful bay with a smooth, green field by it, and the great
mountains far back. I should like to stay there for a little while."

So they sailed in and drew their ships up on shore. They put up the
awnings in them.

"These shall be our houses," Thorfinn said.

They were strange-looking houses--shining dragons with gay backs lying
on the yellow sand. Near them the Norsemen lighted fires and cooked
their supper. That night they slept in the ships. In the morning Gudrid
said:

"I long to see what is back of that mountain."

So they all climbed it. When they stood on the top they could see far
over the country.

"There is a lake that we must see," Thorfinn said.

"I should like to sail around that bay," said Biarni, pointing.

"I am going to walk up that valley yonder," one of the men said.

And everyone saw some place where he would like to go. So for all that
summer they camped in that spot and went about the country seeing new
things. They hunted in the woods and caught rabbits and birds and
sometimes bears and deer. Every day some men rowed out to sea and
fished. There was an island in the bay where thousands of birds had
their nests. The men gathered eggs here.

"We have more to eat than we had in Greenland or Iceland," Thorfinn
said, "and need not work at all. It is all play."

Near the end of summer Thorfinn spoke to his comrades.

"Have we not seen everything here? Let us go to a new place. We have not
yet found grapes."

Thorfinn and Biarni and all their men sailed south again. But some of
Eric's men went off in their boat another way. Years afterward the
Greenlanders heard that they were shipwrecked and made slaves in
Ireland.

After Thorfinn and Biarni had sailed for many days they landed on a low,
green place. There were hills around it. A little lake was there.

"What is growing on those hillsides?" Thorfinn said, shading his eyes
with his hand.

He and some others ran up there. The people on shore heard them shout.
Soon they came running back with their hands full of something.

"Grapes! Grapes!" they were shouting.

All those people sat down and ate the grapes and then went to the
hillside and picked more.

"Now we are indeed in Wineland," they said. "It is as wonderful as
Leif's stories. Surely we must stay here for a long time."

The very next day they went into the woods and began to cut out lumber.
The huts that they built were little things. They had no windows, and in
the doorways the men hung their cloaks instead of doors.

"We can be out in the air so much in this warm country," said Gudrid,
"that we do not need fine houses."

The huts were scattered all about, some on the side of the lake, some at
the shore of the harbor, some on the hillside. Gudrid had said:

"I want to live by the lake where I can look into the green woods and
hear sweet bird-noises."

So Thorfinn built his hut there.

As they sat about the campfire one night, Biarni said:

"It is strange that so good a land should be empty. I suppose that
these are the first houses that were ever built in Wineland. It is
wonderful to think that we are alone here in this great land."

All that winter no snow fell. The cattle pastured on the grass.

"To think of the cold, frozen winters in Greenland!" Gudrid said. "Oh!
this is the sun's own land."

In the beginning of that winter a little son was born to Gudrid and
Thorfinn.

"A health to the first Winelander!" the men shouted and drank down their
wine; for they had made some from Wineland grapes.

"Will he be the father of a great country, as Ingolf was?" Biarni mused.

Gudrid looked at her baby and smiled.

"You will be as sunny as this good land, I hope," she said.

They named him Snorri. He grew fast and soon crept along the yellow
sand, and toddled among the grapevines, and climbed into the boats and
learned to talk. The men called him the "Wineland king."

"I never knew a baby before," one of the men said.

"No," said another. "Swords are jealous. But when they are in their
scabbards, we can do other things, even play with babies."

"I wonder whether I have forgotten how to swing my sword in this quiet
land," another man said.

One spring morning when the men got up and went out from their huts to
the fires to cook they saw a great many canoes in the harbor. Men were
in them paddling toward shore.

"What is this?" cried the Norsemen to one another. "Where did they come
from? Are they foes? Who ever saw such boats before? The men's faces are
brown."

"Let every man have his sword ready," cried Thorfinn. "But do not draw
until I command. Let us go to meet them."

So they went and stood on the shore. Soon the men from the canoes landed
and stood looking at the Norsemen. The strangers' skin was brown. Their
faces were broad. Their hair was black. Their bodies were short. They
wore leather clothes. One man among them seemed to be chief. He spread
out his open hands to the Norsemen.

"He is showing us that he has no weapons," Biarni said. "He comes in
peace."

Then Thorfinn showed his empty hands and asked:

"What do you want?"

The stranger said something, but the Norsemen could not understand. It
was some new language. Then the chief pointed to one of the huts and
walked toward it. He and his men walked all around it and felt of the
timber and went into it and looked at all the things there--spades and
cloaks and drinking-horns. As they looked they talked together. They
went to all the other huts and looked at everything there. One of them
found a red cloak. He spread it out and showed it to the others. They
all stood about it and looked at it and felt of it and talked fast.

"They seem to like my cloak," Biarni said.

One of the strangers went down to their canoes and soon came back with
an armload of furs--fox-skins, otter-skins, beaver-skins. The chief took
some and held them out to Thorfinn and hugged the cloak to him.

[Illustration: "_The chief held them out to Thorfinn and hugged the
cloak to him_"]

"He wants to trade," Thorfinn said. "Will you do it, Biarni?"

"Yes," Biarni answered, and took the furs.

"If they want red stuff, I have a whole roll of red cloth that I will
trade," one of the other men said.

He went and got it. When the strangers saw it they quickly held out more
furs and seemed eager to trade. So Thorfinn cut the cloth into pieces
and sold every scrap. When the strangers got it they tied it about their
heads and seemed much pleased.

While this trading was going on and everybody was good-natured, a bull
of Thorfinn's ran out of the woods bellowing and came towards the crowd.
When the strangers heard it and saw it they threw down whatever was in
their hands and ran to their canoes and paddled off as fast as they
could.

The Norsemen laughed.

"We have lost our customers," Biarni said.

"Did they never see a bull before?" laughed one of the men.

Now after three weeks the Norsemen saw canoes in the bay again. This
time it was black with them, there were so many. The people in them were
all making a horrible shout.

"It is a war-cry," Thorfinn said, and he raised a red shield. "They are
surely twenty to our one, but we must fight. Stand in close line and
give them a taste of your swords."

Even as he spoke a great shower of stones fell upon them. Some of the
Norsemen were hit on the head and knocked down. Biarni got a broken arm.
Still the storm came fast. The strangers had landed and were running
toward the Norsemen. They threw their stones with sling-shots, and they
yelled all the time.

"Oh, this is no kind of fighting for brave men!" Thorfinn cried angrily.

The Norsemen's swords swung fast, and many of the strangers died under
them, but still others came on, throwing stones and swinging stone axes.
The horrible yelling and the strange things that the savages did
frightened the Norsemen.

"These are not men," some one cried.

Then those Norsemen who had never been afraid of anything turned and
ran. But when they came to the top of a rough hill Thorfinn cried:

"What are we doing? Shall we die here in this empty land with no one to
bury us? We are leaving our women."

Then one of the women ran out of the hut where they were hiding.

"Give me a sword!" she cried. "I can drive them back. Are Norsemen not
better than these savages?"

Then those warriors stopped, ashamed, and stood up before the wild men
and fought so fiercely that the strangers turned and fled down to their
canoes and paddled away.

"Oh, I am glad they are gone!" Thorfinn said. "It was an ugly fight."

"Thor would not have loved that battle," one said.

"It was no battle," another replied. "It was like fighting against an
army of poisonous flies."

The Norsemen were all worn and bleeding and sore. They went to their
huts and dressed their wounds, and the women helped them. At supper that
night they talked about the fight for a long time.

"I will not stay here," Gudrid said. "Perhaps these wild men have gone
away to get more people and will come back and kill us. Oh! they are
ugly."

"Perhaps brown faces are looking at us now from behind the trees in the
woods back there," said Biarni.

It was the wish of all to go home. So after a few days they sailed back
to Greenland with good weather all the way. The people at Eric's house
were very glad to see them.

"We were afraid you had died," they said.

"And I thought once that we should never leave Wineland alive," Thorfinn
answered.

Then they told all the story.

"I wonder why I had no such bad luck," Leif said. "But you have a better
shipload than I got."

He was looking at the bundles of furs and the kegs of wine.

"Yes," said Thorfinn, "we have come back richer than when we left. But I
will never go again for all the skins in the woods."

The next summer Thorfinn took Gudrid and Snorri and all his people and
sailed back to Iceland, his home. There he lived until he died. People
looked at him in wonder.

"That is the man who went to Wineland and fought with wild men," they
said. "Snorri is his son. He is the first and last Winelander, for no
one will ever go there again. It will be an empty and forgotten land."

And so it was for a long time. Some wise men wrote down the story of
those voyages and of that land, and people read the tale and liked it,
but no one remembered where the place was. It all seemed like a fairy
tale. Long afterwards, however, men began to read those stories with
wide-open eyes and to wonder. They guessed and talked together, and
studied this and that land, and read the story over and over. At last
they have learned that Wineland was in America, on the eastern shore of
the United States, and they have called Snorri the first American, and
have put up statues of Leif Ericsson, the first comer to America.[15]

[Decoration]

FOOTNOTES:

[15] See note about Eskimos on page 199.

Descriptive Notes

_House._ In a rich Norseman's home were many buildings. The finest and
largest was the great feast hall. Next were the bower, where the women
worked, and the guest house, where visitors slept. Besides these were
storehouses, stables, work-shops, a kitchen, a sleeping-house for
thralls. All these buildings were made of heavy, hewn logs, covered with
tar to fill the cracks and to keep the wood from rotting. The ends of
the logs, the door-posts, the peaks of gables, were carved into shapes
of men and animals and were painted with bright colors. These gay
buildings were close together, often set around the four sides of a
square yard. That yard was a busy and pleasant place, with men and women
running across from one bright building to another. Sometimes a high
fence with one gate went around all this, and only the tall, carved
peaks of roofs showed from the outside.

_Names._ An old Norse story says: "Most men had two names in one, and
thought it likeliest to lead to long life and good luck to have double
names." To be called after a god was very lucky. Here are some of those
double names with their meanings: "Thorstein" means Thor's stone;
"Thorkel" means Thor's fire; "Thorbiorn" means Thor's bear; "Gudbrand"
means Gunnr's sword (Gunnr was one of the Valkyrias[16]); "Gunnbiorn"
means Gunnr's bear; "Gudrid" means Gunnr's rider; "Gudrod" means
Gunnr's land-clearer. (Most of the land in old Norway was covered with
forests. When a man got new land he had to clear off the trees.) In
those olden days a man did not have a surname that belonged to everyone
in his family. Sometimes there were two or three men of the same name in
a neighborhood. That caused trouble. People thought of two ways of
making it easy to tell which man was being spoken of. Each was given a
nickname. Suppose the name of each was Haki. One would be called Haki
the Black because he had black hair. The other would be called Haki the
Ship-chested because his chest was broad and strong. These nicknames
were often given only for the fun of it. Most men had them,--Eric the
Red, Leif the Lucky, Harald Hairfair, Rolf Go-afoot. The other way of
knowing one Haki from the other was to tell his father's name. One was
Haki, Eric's son. The other was Haki, Halfdan's son. If you speak these
names quickly, they sound like Haki Ericsson and Haki Halfdansson. After
a while they were written like that, and men handed them on to their
sons and daughters. Some names that we have nowadays have come down to
us in just that way--Swanson, Anderson, Peterson, Jansen. There was
another reason for these last names: a man was proud to have people know
who his father was.

_Drinking-horns._ The Norsemen had few cups or goblets. They used
instead the horns of cattle, polished and trimmed with gold or silver or
bronze. They were often very beautiful, and a man was almost as proud
of his drinking-horn as of his sword.

_Tables._ Before a meal thralls brought trestles into the feast hall and
set them before the benches. Then they laid long boards across from
trestle to trestle. These narrow tables stretched all along both sides
of the hall. People sat at the outside edge only. So the thralls served
from the middle of the room. They put baskets of bread and wooden
platters of meat upon these bare boards. At the end of the meal they
carried out tables and all, and the drinking-horns went round in a clean
room.

_Beds._ Around the sides of the feast hall were shut-beds. They were
like big boxes with doors opening into the hall. On the floor of this
box was straw with blankets thrown over it. The people got into these
beds and closed the doors and so shut themselves in. Olaf's men could
have set heavy things against these doors or have put props against
them. Then the people could not have got out; for on the other side of
the bed was the thick outside wall of the feast hall, and there were no
windows in it.

_Feast Hall._ The feast hall was long and narrow, with a door at each
end. Down the middle of the room were flat stones in the dirt floor.
Here the fires burned. In the roof above these fires were holes for the
smoke to go out, but some of it blew about the hall, and the walls and
rafters were stained with it. But it was pleasant wood smoke, and the
Norsemen did not dislike it. There were no large windows in a feast hall
or in any other Norse building. High up under the eaves or in the roof
itself were narrow slits that were called wind's-eyes. There was no
glass in them, for the Norsemen did not know how to make it; but there
were, instead, covers made of thin, oiled skin. These were put into the
wind's-eyes in stormy weather. There were covers, too, for the
smoke-holes. The only light came through these narrow holes, so on dark
days the people needed the fire as much for light as for warmth.

_Foster-father._ A Norse father sent his children away from home to grow
up. They went when they were three or four years old and stayed until
they were grown. The father thought: "They will be better so. If they
stayed at home, their mother would spoil them with much petting."

_Foster-brothers._ When two men loved each other very much they said,
"Let us become foster-brothers."

Then they went and cut three long pieces of turf and put a spear into
the ground so that it held up the strips of turf like an arch. Runes
were cut on the handle of the spear, telling the duties of
foster-brothers. The two men walked under this arch, and each made a
little cut in his palm. They knelt and clasped hands, so that the blood
of the two flowed together, and they said, "Now we are of one blood."

Then each made this vow: "I will fight for my foster-brother whenever he
shall need me. If he is killed before I am, I will punish the man who
did it. Whatever things I own are as much my foster-brother's as mine. I
will love this man until I die. I call Odin and Thor and all the gods to
hear my vow. May they hate me if I break it!"

_Ran._ Ran was the wife of Aegir, who was god of the sea. They lived in
a cave at the bottom of the ocean. Ran had a great net, and she caught
in it all men who were shipwrecked and took them to her cave. She also
caught all the gold and rich treasures that went down in ships. So her
cave was filled with shining things.

_Valkyrias._ These were the maidens of Odin. They waited on the table in
Valhalla. But whenever a battle was being fought they rode through the
air on their horses and watched to see what warriors were brave enough
to go to Valhalla. Sometimes during the fight a man would think that he
saw the Valkyrias. Then he was glad; for he knew that he would go to
Valhalla.

An old Norse story says this about the Valkyrias: "With lightning around
them, with bloody shirts of mail, and with shining spears they ride
through the air and the ocean. When their horses shake their manes, dew
falls on the deep valleys and hail on the high forests."

_Odin's Ravens._ Odin had a great throne in his palace in Asgard. When
he sat in it he could look all over the world. But it was so far to see
that he could not tell all of the things that were happening. So he had
two ravens to help him. An old Norse story tells this about them: "Two
ravens sit on Odin's shoulders and whisper in his ears all that they
have heard and seen. He sends them out at dawn of day to see over the
whole world. They return at evening near meal time. This is why Odin
knows so many things."

_Reykjavik._ Reykjavik means "smoky sea." Ingolf called it that because
of the steaming hot-springs by the sea. The place is still called
Reykjavik. A little city has grown up there, the only city in Iceland.
It is the capital of the country.

_Peace-bands._ A Norseman always carried his sword, even at a feast; for
he did not know when he might need it. But when he went somewhere on an
errand of peace and had no quarrel he tied his sword into its scabbard
with white bands that he called peace-bands. If all at once something
happened to make him need his sword, he broke the peace-bands and drew
it out.

_Eskimos._ Now, the Eskimos live in Greenland and Alaska and on the very
northern shores of Canada. But once they lived farther south in
pleasanter lands. After a while the other Indian tribes began to grow
strong. Then they wanted the pleasant land of the Eskimos and the
seashore that the Eskimos had. So they fought again and again with those
people and won and drove them farther north and farther north. At last
the Eskimos were on the very shores of the cold sea, with the Indians
still pushing them on. So some of them got into their boats and rowed
across the narrow water and came to Greenland and lived there. Some
people think that these things happened before Eric found Greenland. In
that case he found Eskimos there; and Thorfinn saw red Indians in
Wineland. Other people think that this happened after Eric went to
Greenland. If that is true, he found an empty land, and it was Eskimos
that Thorfinn saw in Wineland.

FOOTNOTES:

[16] See note about Valkyrias on page 198.

Suggestions _to_ Teachers

Possibly this book seems made up of four or five disconnected stories.
They are, however, strung upon one thread,--the westward emigration from
Norway. The story of Harald is intended to serve in two ways towards the
working out of this plot. It gives the general setting that continues
throughout the book in costume, houses, ideals, habits. It explains the
cause of the emigration from the mother country. It is really an
introductory chapter. As for the other stories, they are distinctly
steps in the progress of the plot. A chain of islands loosely connects
Norway with America,--Orkneys and Shetlands, Faroes, Iceland, Greenland.
It was from link to link of this chain that the Norsemen sailed in
search of home and adventure. Discoveries were made by accident. Ships
were driven by the wind from known island to unknown. These two
points,--the island connection that made possible the long voyage from
Norway to America, and the contribution of storm to discovery,--I have
stated in the book only dramatically. I emphasize them here, hoping that
the teacher will make sure that the children see them, and possibly that
they state them abstractly.

Let me speak as to the proper imaging of the stories. I have not often
interrupted incident with special description, not because I do not
consider the getting of vivid and detailed images most necessary to full
enjoyment and to proper intellectual habits, but because I trusted to
the pictures of this book and to the teacher to do what seemed to me
inartistic to do in the story. Some of these descriptions and
explanations I have introduced into the book in the form of notes,
hoping that the children in turning to them might form a habit of
insisting upon full understanding of a point, and might possibly, with
the teacher's encouragement, begin the habit of reference reading.

The landscape of Norway, Iceland, and Greenland is wonderful and will
greatly assist in giving reality and definiteness to the stories.
Materials for this study are not difficult of access. Foreign colored
photographs of Norwegian landscape are becoming common in our art
stores. There are good illustrations in the geographical works referred
to in the book list. These could be copied upon the blackboard. There
are three books beautifully illustrated in color that it will be
possible to find only in large libraries,--"Coast of Norway," by Walton;
"Travels in the Island of Iceland," by Mackenzie; "Voyage en Islande et
au Gröenland," by J. P. Gaimard. If the landscape is studied from the
point of view of formation, the images will be more accurate and more
easily gained, and the study will have a general value that will
continue past the reading of these stories into all work in geography.

Trustworthy pictures of Norse houses and costumes are difficult to
obtain. In "Viking Age" and "Story of Norway," by Boyesen (G. P.
Putnam's Sons, New York), are many copies of Norse antiquities in the
fashion of weapons, shield-bosses, coins, jewelry, wood-carving. These
are, of course, accurate, but of little interest to children. Their
chief value lies in helping the teacher to piece together a picture that
she can finally give to her pupils.

Metal-working and wood-carving were the most important arts of the
Norse. If children study products of these arts and actually do some of
the work, they will gain a quickened sympathy with the people and an
appreciation of their power. They may, perhaps, make something to merely
illustrate Norse work; for instance, a carved ship's-head, or a copper
shield, or a wrought door-nail. But, better, they may apply Norse ideas
of form and decoration and Norse processes in making some modern thing
that they can actually use; for instance, a carved wood pin-tray or a
copper match holder. This work should lead out into a study of these
same industries among ourselves with visits to wood-working shops and
metal foundries.

Frequent drawn or painted illustration by the children of costumes,
landscapes, houses, feast halls, and ships will help to make these
images clear. But dramatization will do more than anything else for the
interpreting of the stories and the characters. It would be an excellent
thing if at last, through the dramatization and the handwork, the
children should come into sufficient understanding and enthusiasm to
turn skalds and compose songs in the Norse manner. This requires only a
small vocabulary and a rough feeling for simple rhythm, but an intensity
of emotion and a great vividness of image.

These Norse stories have, to my thinking, three values. The men, with
the crude courage and the strange adventures that make a man interesting
to children, have at the same time the love of truth, the hardy
endurance, the faithfulness to plighted word, that make them a child's
fit companions. Again, in form and in matter old Norse literature is
well worth our reading. I should deem it a great thing accomplished if
the children who read these stories should so be tempted after a while
to read those fine old books, to enjoy the tales, to appreciate
straightforwardness and simplicity of style. The historical value of the
story of Leif Ericsson and the others seems to me to be not to learn the
fact that Norsemen discovered America before Columbus did, but to gain a
conception of the conditions of early navigation, of the length of the
voyage, of the dangers of the sea, and a consequent realization of the
reason for the fact that America was unknown to mediæval Europe, of why
the Norsemen did not travel, of what was necessary to be done before men
should strike out across the ocean. Norse story is only one chapter in
that tale of American discovery. I give below an outline of a year's
work on the subject that was once followed by the fourth grade of the
Chicago Normal School. The idea in it is to give importance, sequence,
reasonableness, broad connections, to the discovery of America.

The head of the history department who planned this course says it is
"in a sense a dramatization of the development of geographical
knowledge."

Following is a bare topical outline of the work:

    Evolution of the forms of boats.
    Viking tales.
    A crusade as a tale of travel and discovery.
    Monasteries as centers of work.
    Printing.
    Story of Marco Polo.
    Columbus' discovery.
    Story of Vasco da Gama.
    Story of Magellan.

[Decoration]

A Reading List

GEOGRAPHY

NORWAY: "The Earth and Its Inhabitants," Reclus. _D. Appleton & Co., New
York._

ICELAND: "The Earth and Its Inhabitants," "Iceland," Baring-Gould.
_Smith, Elder & Co., London, 1863._

    "Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes." _Harper Bros., New York._

    "An American in Iceland," Kneeland. _Lockwood, Brooke & Co., Boston,
    1876._

GREENLAND: "The Earth and Its Inhabitants," Reclus. _D. Appleton & Co.,
New York._

    "Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes." _Harper Bros., New York._

CUSTOMS

"Viking Age," Du Chaillu. _Charles Scribner's Sons, 1889._

"Private Life of the Old Northmen," Keyser; translated by Barnard.
_Chapman & Hall, London, 1868._

"Saga Time," Vicary. _Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., London._

"Story of Burnt Njal" (Introduction), Dasent. _Edmonston & Douglas,
Edinburgh, 1861._

"Vikings of the Baltic, a romance;" Dasent. _Edmonston & Douglas,
Edinburgh._

"Ivar the Viking, a romance;" Du Chaillu. _Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York._

"Viking Path, a romance;" Haldane Burgess. _Wm. Blackwood & Sons,
Edinburgh, 1894._

"Northern Antiquities," Percy, edited by Blackwell. _Bohn, London,
1859._

Also the Sagas named on page 206.

MYTHOLOGY

The Prose Edda, "Northern Antiquities," Percy, edited by Blackwell.
_Bohn, London, 1859._

"Norse Mythology," Anderson. _Scott, Foresman & Co., Chicago, 1876._

"Norse Stories," Mabie. _Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago, 1902._

"Northern Mythology," Thorpe. _Lumley, London, 1851._

"Classic Myths," Judd. _Rand, McNally & Co., Chicago, 1902._

INCIDENTS

HARALD: Saga of Harald Hairfair, in "Saga Library," Magnusson and
Morris, Vol. I. _Bernard Quaritch, London; Charles Scribner's Sons, New
York, 1892._

INGOLF: "Norsemen in Iceland," Dasent in Oxford Essays, Vol. IV. _Parker
& Son, London, 1858._

    "Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroes." _Harper Bros., New York._

    "A Winter in Iceland and Lapland," Dillon. _Henry Colburn, London,
    1840._

ERIC, LEIF, AND THORFINN: "The Finding of Wineland the Good," Reeves.
_Henry Froude, 1890._

    "America Not Discovered by Columbus." Anderson. _Scott, Foresman &
    Co., Chicago, 1891._

CREDIBILITY OF STORY

Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America," Vol. I. _C. A.
Nichols Co., Springfield, Mass., 1895._

"Discovery of America," Fiske, Vol. I. _Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston,
1892._

OTHER SAGAS EASILY ACCESSIBLE

"Saga Library," 5 vols.; Morris and Magnusson. _Bernard Quaritch,
London; Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, 1892._ As follows:

    "The Story of Howard the Halt," "The Story of the Banded Men," "The
    Story of Hen Thorir." Done into English out of Icelandic by William
    Morris and Eirikr Magnusson.

    "The Story of the Ere-dwellers," with "The Story of the
    Heath-slayings" as Appendix. Done into English out of the Icelandic
    by William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson.

    "The Stories of the Kings of Norway, called the Round World"
    (Heimskringla). By Snorri Sturluson. Done into English by William
    Morris and Eirikr Magnusson. With a large map of Norway. In three
    volumes.

"Gisli the Outlaw," Dasent. _Edmonston & Douglas, Edinburgh._

"Orkneyinga Saga," Anderson. _Edmonston & Douglas, Edinburgh._

"Volsunga Saga," Morris and Magnusson. _Walter Scott, London._

"The Younger Edda," Anderson. _Scott, Foresman & Co., Chicago, 1880._

(A full bibliography of the Sagas may be found in "Volsunga Saga.")

[Decoration]

A Pronouncing Index

(_This index and guide to pronunciation which are given to indicate the
pronunciation of the more difficult words, are based upon the 1918
edition of Webster's New International Dictionary._)

 Aegir (ē´ jĭr)
 _Ȧ_rā´ bĭ _ȧ_
 Ärn´ vĭd
 Ăs´ gärd
 A̤ud´ bĭ ôrn
 A̤u´ dŭn

 Bĭ är´ nĭ

 Eric (ē´ rĭk)
 Ericsson (ĕr´ ĭk s_ŭ_n)
 Eyjolf (ī´ y[+o]lf)

 Faroes (fā´ rōz)
 fiord (fyôrd)
 Flō´ kĭ

 Grĭm
 Gŭd´ bränd
 Gŭd´ rĭd
 Gŭd´ rōd
 Gŭn_n_´ bĭ ôrn
 Gṳ´ t_h_ôrm
 Gyda (gē´ d[+a])

 Hä´ kĭ
 Hä´ k[+o]n
 Hälf´ dăn
 Hăr´ ăld
 Hä´ värd
 Hĕl´ ä
 Hĕl´ g[+a]
 Hẽr´ st_e_īn
 Holmstein (hōlm´ stīn)

 Ĭn´ gôlf
 Ī´ vär

 Leif (l[+i]f)

 Niflheim (n[+e]v´ 'l hām)

 Ō´ dĭn
 Ō´ läf
 Orkneys (ôrk´ nĭz)

 Rän
 Reykjavik (rā´ ky_ȧ_ vēk´)
 Rôlf

 Shĕt´ l_ă_nds
 Sif (sēf)
 Sighvat (sĭg´ văt)
 Snorri (snŏr´ r[+e])
 Sôl´ fĭ

 Thor (thôr)
 T_h_ôr´ bĭ ôrn
 T_h_ôr´ fĭnn
 T_h_ôr´ gĕst
 T_h_ôr´ hĭld
 T_h_ôr´ kĕl
 T_h_ôr´ l_e_īf
 T_h_ôr´ ôlf
 T_h_ôr´ st_e_īn
 Tyrker (tẽr´ kẽr)

 Văl hăl´ _lȧ_
 Valkyria (văl kĭr´ y_ȧ_)
 Vī´ kĭng

A GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION

 ā as in āle
 ă as in ădd
 _ă_ as in fin_ă_l
 ȧ as in ȧsk
 _ȧ_ as in sof_ȧ_
 ä as in ärm
 a̤ as in a̤ll

 ē as in ēve
 [+e] as in [+e]vent´
 ĕ as in ĕnd
 ẽ as in hẽr

 ī as in īce
 ĭ as in ĭt

 ō as in ōld
 [+o] as in [+o]bey´
 ŏ as in ŏdd
 ô as in lôrd

 ŭ as in ŭp
 _ŭ_ as in circ_ŭ_s
 ṳ as in rṳde

 ȳ as in flȳ

Silent letters are italicized.