Danish Greenland: its people and products by Hinrich Rink

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"Very doubtful and scanty remains have hitherto been found on the North American continent itself, which bear witness to its having been visited by voyagers from this side of the ocean, and even to its having been inhabited by European settlers several hundred years before the discovery of America by Columbus. Our sole knowledge of these ancient enterprises has been derived from the Icelandic sagas, or popular tales. These sources of inestimable value, on account of their having been written down at so early a period, when the events related in them were still fresh remembrance, though historical, exist of course only in a fragmentary condition, and bear the general character of popular traditions to such a degree that they stand much in need of being corroborated by collateral proofs if we are wholly to rely upon them in such a question as an ancient colonization of America."