SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

86 Saga-Book of the Viking Society
The Grcenlendinga saga mentions five successful
expeditions from Greenland to Vinland, but in Eiriks saga
these are made into two, that of Leifr and a second large
expedition to efiect a settlement in Vinland under the
leadership of Porfinnr Karlsefni. This voyage is a far
more splendid venture than the journeys of exploration
in the Gramlendinga saga, and the narrative is, moreover,
ornamented with poetical place-names and adventures. In
it Freydis Eiriksdottir saves the voyagers from a Skrceling
attack and they praise her achievement: therewith the
author frees the people of Brattahlif - and more
especially Leifr heppni, explorer and evangelist - from
a family disgrace.
Information about the voyages of Porfinnr and the
Greenlanders to North America about the year 1000 must
have been passed down in the family descended from
Porfinnr. Snorri Porfinnsson, born in Vinland, was the
great-grandfather of Brandr Ssemundarscn (died 120r),
bishop of Holar. It was in Brand's time, perhaps even
under his direction, that the Gramlendinga saga was
written. It has all the appearance of being a trustworthy
narrative - it is a little primitive in its presentation and
construction - and it must be the basis of our knowledge
of the Vinland voyages. This saga seems to belong to the
pre-lapsarian period of saga-writing, written before the
Fall which the composition of history as entertainment
and as propaganda betokened.
Professor ] ones is the first to make the Gramlendinga
saga the basis of an account of the voyages to Vinland.
His book marks a notable stage in the study of the
SUbject. There is much in his book that is pertinently
observed and excellently expressed; but his way of
following the text of the Gra:nlendinga saga and expanding
the narrative afterwards with excerpts from Eiriks saga
cannot be accepted as sound as long as it is not made clear
that the additions are probably nothing but thirteenthcentury
inventions.