Notes

1*Somehow somebody changed the sense of the original spoken words. The Algonquin/ON words mean “all the gentle (people).”

Both the Recorder and the Editor may have recognized the common Algonquin word for fire, “tend,” and may have misunderstood “ako.” “Tend,” comes later in the verse but may have caused them to think of “cabin fires.” Also they may have thought that “ako” was “aki” meaning, “land.” (See third set of recorded sounds below.)

3*The original sounds are best deciphered as words meaning “fire(d) area (lands),” The “fire(d) land” words may have been the source of the “cabin fires” that the Recorder or the Editor wrote in the first phrase of this verse.

Charles Mann, in his book 1491, cites several sources who reported that the Indians (Algonquin/Old Norse) burned the grasslands of the Great Plains to improve the grass. Hardy broad leaf plants will usually intrude into an over grazed pasture. The broad leaves shade the grass and are poor fodder, (When I was a farm boy. before herbicides, I often mowed our pasture at the best time to kill the broad leaf plants.) The Norse in Greenland may have fired their overgrazed grass lands in an attempt to kill the broad leaf plants.

The difference between burning grass land in the Great Plains and in Greenland is spring moisture. The rainfall on the Great Plains peaks in April, May, and June. In Greenland the months of April, May, and June have the least moisture.

The logical time to burn to kill broad leaf plants is in the fall when the pasture plants have dried. But then the winter snow, the most likely source of Greenland moisture, might have been blown past by the winds and was not caught by grass which was not there. The low rainfall in the spring may have slowed the growth of the grass. So the Greenlanders attempt to control the broad leaf plants by burning may have created an ecological disaster resulting in the near death of the grass lands.

4*“n” morphing to “l” is common in Algonquin dialects.

5*Sherwin’s definition of “knekkja” included “abandonment” or “leave.” These words seem to mean that the common people had to abandon their burnt out land, which they did with discouragement.

Some modern historians have made hypotheses that the Norse animal culture would have destroyed the Greenland grass lands. These words appear to support their hypotheses.

Centuries later in luscious America, the Historian, the Recorder, and the Editor may not have perceived an ecological disaster as the cause for people to leave the land.

6* The sense of these words appear to be that the priest heard the people’s troubles and agreed with them to go to a different place.

7* The morphing process slipped in an “n” to “a” but also an “a” to “n” then “n” to “m” along with “b” to “p.” The dropped “p” may have happened at the recording session.