We note with some sadness the disappearance of the runic rock of Noman’s Land, yet this is as proper an ending as any for a me­morial to Leif Eriksson which scholars say Leif or any of his men never carved. Noman’s Land is an island of romance and mystery, and has been these many years, but all its tales seem to have an ironic ending.

 

There is a gaping hole not far from Stony Point on that island where a Vineyarder dug for treasure which he neier found. A little distance away is a pond which another practical man tried to join with the sea and convert into a sort of harbor, but when he had his ditch completed most of the water ran out of the pond and there was not enough left for any useful purpose.

 

Another story has come down of two seamen who were rowing ashore on Noman’s, and how one of them looked over the side of the boat and saw a rich treasure on the bottom. Planning to return and retrieve all the wealth for himself, he did not say a word to his com­panion; but when he went back a little later he could not find the treasure again, and no one has ever found it since. What the hurri­cane did to the runic rock was doubtless done a generation ago to this gold, which, but for too much greed, a hard -Working man might have put to use.

 

It used to be said that the sheep on Noman’s Land — and there were a great many of them in the old days — were all deaf because of the ‘incessant roaring of the breakers on the shore. We never verified this, but it is all of a piece with that curious turn of Noman’s Land life and history. A lonely, seaward, fascinating, unconquerable is­land, is this little one where, it may be, the blood of the Icelanders was shed at the dawn of recorded history.