Stone Age Columbus

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yes, there is a school of thought now that the first Norse visitors to North America were following a route known to them through the Irish monks

whether or not the Irish monks were following a route known to them through the Picts, who knows!

Cheers
Andy

Irish monks were definitely on Iceland before the Norse.

'taint just the Irish. There are accounts of Breton monks sailing west to an island with a golden mountain and a golden town. The Arabs were at it too, sailing across 'the sea of perpetual gloom' to a land of thirty thousand islands and unforseen horrors.

From Eirik's Saga, two skraeling boys tell Thorfin Karlsefni's men that " There was a country across fron their own land where the people went about in white clothing and uttered loud cries and carried poles with patches of cloth attached. This is thought to have been Hvitramannaland."

Now that could be just medieval chroniclers' invention, but perhaps not. It does sound an awful lot like how natives might perceive chanting monks carrying religious banners.

Hvitramannaland means literally "White Men's Land" and in Landnamabok there is a reference to Hvitramannaland which was said "to lie six days' sail west of Ireland". Magnus Magnusson writes that "there may well be a connexion between this reference and the Tir na bhFear bhFionn (Land of the White Men) of Irish legend. Another Norse saga - Haukbok- names this western land as "Greater Ireland""

Something of substance there surely?