Difficulties and dangers of sea travel are certainly mentioned later
in this saga and in many places in Old Norse literature: shipwrecks,
drownings, losing one's way, storms (natural and supernatural), etc.
See Gordon Selection 5, note 11 for an alarming description of giant
waves off Greenland! Come to think of it, according to the saga,
Greenland was originally sighted by Úlfr kráka after being driven off
course. Maybe the lack of incidental detail here is a case of "no
news is good news". That's not to dispute the idea that travel by sea
along the coast of Norway may have been easier and quicker than going
overland.


--- In norse_course@yahoogroups.com, "Fred and Grace Hatton"
<hatton@...> wrote:

>
> In the series of lectures on DVD (The Teaching Company) on the Vikings,
> Prof. Kenneth Harl says that travel by water was so easy for the

Vikings and

> generally speaking so arduous overland in Norway with its rugged

terrain,

> that in some cases the story goes, " they put out to sea and then they
> arrived" - - poof!
>
> And actually in the second part of the second chapter of Eirik, it

was just

> so.
> Þeir Þorbjörn og Styr og Eyjólfur fylgdu Eiríki út um eyjar og

skildu með

> hinni mestu vináttu.
>
> Next thing you know he has arrived in Greenland. In fact when I was
> translating it, I had to double check because I thought at first he was
> still milling around islands in Iceland.
>
> Is the professor's theory right or is it the case that the writers

had less

> experience in sea travel than overland and didn't think to put in

various

> ordeals encountered at sea?
>
> Grace
>
> Fred and Grace Hatton
> Hawley Pa
>