If this runic inscription from Ringerike has been correctly copied and interpreted--which, as has been said, is uncertain--then this and Adam of Bremen's information from Denmark would show that Wineland was known and discussed in various parts of the North in the eleventh century, long before Icelandic literature began to be put into writing. But strangely enough, in the Norwegian thirteenth-century work, "Historia Norwegiæ," no mention is made of Wineland, although in other respects the author has made extensive use of Adam of Bremen's work; he merely states that Greenland approaches the African Islands, by which, as pointed out above (p. 1), he shows clearly enough that Wineland was regarded as belonging to the African Islands, or Insulæ Fortunatæ. The "King's Mirror,"[22] which gives a detailed description of Greenland, does not mention Wineland, although the author evidently held the view that Greenland approached the universal continent (i.e., Africa) on the south. The knowledge of it must soon have been forgotten in Norway, or it was regarded as a mythical country, while the tradition persisted longer in Iceland.
The last time we meet with the name of Wineland in connection with a voyage is in the "Islandske Annaler,"[23] where it is related in the year 1121 that "Eirikr, bishop of Greenland [also called Eirikr Upsi], went out to seek (leita) Wineland." But we are not told anything more of this expedition. The use of "leita" shows that Wineland was not a known country, it can only apply to lands about which legends or reports are current; just in the same way Gardar in the Sturlubók "went to seek ('fór at leita') Snælandz" on the advice of his mother, who had second sight (vol. i. p. 255), or Ravna-Floki "fór at leita Gardarshólms" (vol. i. p. 257), and Eric the Red "ætlaði at leita lands þess" which Gunnbjörn had seen, etc. (vol. i. p. 267). As soon as the way was known, it was no longer necessary to "leita" countries. If the voyage is historical, it may have been to seek for the mythical country, the happy Wineland that Bishop Eric set out, as St. Brandan in the legend sought for the Promised Land, and as, 359 years later, the city of Bristol actually sent men out to look for the happy isle of Brazil; but as the coast of America seems to have been known, it may apply to a country there, of which reports had come, and to which the name of the mythical country had been transferred. As Eric is called a bishop, it has been thought that this was a missionary voyage, which met with disaster [cf. Y. Nielsen, 1905, p. 8]; but who was there to be converted in an unknown land, for which one had first to "seek"? It would have to be the unknown Skrælings; but is this really likely, when we hear of no mission to the Skrælings of Greenland? There must have been enough of the latter to convert for the time being, if it had been thought worth the trouble. Nor do we know much more about this Eric Upsi.[24] Probably he was the same man who is called in the Landnámabók "Eirikr Gnupssonr Grönlendinga-byskup." It is possible that the see of Greenland was founded as early as 1110,[25] and that Eric was the first bishop of Greenland, and went out there in 1112,[26] but he cannot have been solemnly consecrated at Lund, like later bishops after 1124. It is possible that Eric was lost, for we hear no more of him, and in 1122 and 1123 the Greenlanders made efforts to obtain a new bishop, who was consecrated at Lund in 1124; but it is curious that nothing is then said about any earlier bishop; moreover, the entry in the annals about Eric dates at the earliest from the thirteenth century.