SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

The Date of the Saga of the Greenlanders 63
inserted Greenland in place of the Faroe Islands. Finally
the Saga of Oldfr Tryggvason by the monk Oddr Snorrason
of l>ingeyrar, states that it is said that King Olafr
converted five lands and the inhabitants thereof. The
lands are then listed, but six, not five, names are given:
Norway, Shetland, the Orkneys, the Faroe Islands,
Iceland and Greenland.t" It seems clear that Oddr
Snorrason used two sources, one from each of the two
groups mentioned above. Leifr is not mentioned in any
of these works.
It will be seen from the above that the earliest historians
in Norway and Iceland knew nothing of the conversion
of Greenland by King Olafr. Indeed, the Historia
Norwegia: says that the Icelanders found and settled
Greenland and strengthened it with the Catholic faith.!"
This can hardly be understood in any other sense than
that the Icelanders were responsible for the conversion of
the Greenlanders. Later it appears that, through
misunderstanding, it came to be believed that King
Olafr had a share in this. From this it seems to follow
that Leifr's visit to Norway is probably unhistorical, as
is also his missionary activity in Greenland, since it is
connected with King our-. The monk Gunnlaugr
appears to be the original author of these tales. Leifr thus
did not discover Vinland on his way from Norway to
Greenland, and there remains no reason to doubt that the
Saga of the Greenlanders preserves the original and correct
account of the discovery of the new lands in the Western
Hemisphere.
When the author of the Saga of Eirikr chose to follow
Gunnlaugr's account of the discovery of Vinland, he had
to deviate in various matters from the Saga of the
Greenlanders. He had to omit completely the episode
about Bjarni Herj6lfsson, for this could in no way be
reconciled with Gunnlaugrs account. He had to alter
18 Olafs saga Tryggvasonar eftir Odd munk Snorrason (1932), 154, ISS.
17 Monumenta historica Norvegia:, 76.