The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 Part 2

[17-2] On the western coast of Greenland, about 70 N. Lat.

[17-3] The saga up to this point is taken from Landnama-bok, the great Icelandic authority on early genealogy and history. It might well have included one more paragraph (the succeeding one), which gives an approximate date to the colonization of Greenland: "Ari, Thorgil's son, says that that summer twenty-five s.h.i.+ps sailed to Greenland out of Borgfirth and Broadfirth; but fourteen only reached their destination; some were driven back, and some were lost. This was sixteen [S: fifteen]

winters before Christianity was legally adopted in Iceland." That is, in about 985, as Christianity was accepted in 1000 (or 1001). There is a possible variation of a year in the usually accepted date. See _Origines Islandicae_, I. 369.

[20-1] "Winter-night-tide" was about the middle of October.

[23-1] The home of Eric the Red, in the Eastern Settlement.

[24-1] This was evidently the first time that the voyage from Greenland to Norway was accomplished without going by way of Iceland, and was a remarkable achievement. The aim was evidently to avoid the dangerous pa.s.sage between Greenland and Iceland.

[24-2] A reference to some strange happenings in the winter of 1000-1001 at the Icelandic farmstead Froda, as related in the Eyrbyggja Saga.

[25-1] Of the year 999. See next note.

[25-2] King Olaf ruled from 995 to 1000. He fell at the battle of Svolder (in the Baltic) in September, 1000. It was in the same year that Leif started out as the King's missionary to Greenland. See p. 43, note 1.

[25-3] A wild cereal of some sort. Fiske is convinced that it was Indian corn, while Storm thinks it was wild rice, contending with much force that Indian corn was a product entirely unknown to the explorers, and that they could not by any possibility have confused it with wheat, even if they had found it. There is, moreover, no indication in this saga that they found cultivated fields. Storm cites Sir William Alexander, _Encouragement to Colonies_ (1624), who, in speaking of the products of Nova Scotia, refers, among other things, to "some eares of wheate, barly and rie growing there wild." He also cites Jacques Cartier, who, in 1534, found in New Brunswick "wild grain like rye, which looked as though it had been sowed and cultivated." See Reeves, p. 174, (50).

[25-4] Supposed to be maple.

[26-1] Also called Thorhild.

[27-1] That is, were near Ireland.

[28-1] The display of an axe seems to have been thought efficacious in laying fetches. See Reeves, p. 171, (39), citing a pa.s.sage from another saga.

[30-1] Thorfinn Karlsefni, the explorer of the Vinland expeditions, was of excellent family. His lineage is given at greater length in the _Landnama-bok_ (Book of Settlements).

[31-1] Usually called Gudrid.

[32-1] There is doubt as to why the expedition sailed northwest to the Western Settlement. Possibly Thorfinn desired to make a different start than Thorstein, whose expedition was a failure. See Reeves, p. 172, (45).

[32-2] _Dgr_ was a period of twelve hours. Reeves quotes the following from an old Icelandic work: "In the day there are two _dgr_; in the _dgr_ twelve hours." A _dgr's_ sailing is estimated to have been about one hundred miles. There is evidently a clerical error in this pa.s.sage after the number of days' sailing. The words for "two" and "seven" are very similar in old Norse.

[33-1] The language of the vellum AM. 557 is somewhat different in this and the previous sentence. It does not say that "they sailed southward along the land for a long time, and came to a cape," but, "when two _dgr_ had elapsed, they descried land, and they sailed off this land; there was a cape to which they came. They beat into the wind along this coast, having the land upon the starboard side. This was a bleak coast, with long and sandy sh.o.r.es. They went ash.o.r.e in boats, and found the keel of a s.h.i.+p, so they called it Keelness there; they likewise gave a name to the strands and called them Wonderstrands, because they were long to sail by."

[33-2] AM. 557 says _biafal_. Neither word has been identified.

[33-3] Hauk's Book says "eider-ducks."

[34-1] The G.o.d Thor.

[35-1] The prose sense is: "Men promised me, when I came hither, that I should have the best of drink; it behooves me before all to blame the land. See, oh, man! how I must raise the pail; instead of drinking wine, I have to stoop to the spring" (Reeves).

[35-2] The prose sense is: "Let us return to our countrymen, leaving those who like the country here, to cook their whale on Wonder-strand."

From an archaic form in these lines it is apparent that they are older than either of the vellums, and must have been composed at least a century before Hauk's Book was written; they may well be much older than the beginning of the thirteenth century (Reeves). The antiquity of the verses of the saga is also attested by a certain metrical irregularity, as in poetry of the tenth and beginning of the eleventh centuries (Storm).

[35-3] In the next sentence the authority for this doubtful statement seems to be placed upon "traders."

[36-1] Note the word "hollows" with reference to the contention that "wild wheat" is "wild rice." See p. 25, note 3.

[36-2] "Skin-canoes," or kayaks, lead one to think of Eskimos. Both Storm and Fiske think that the authorities of the saga-writer may have failed to distinguish between bark-canoes and skin-canoes.

[36-3] The vellum AM. 557 says "small men" instead of "swarthy men." The explorers called them _Skraelingar_, a disparaging epithet, meaning inferior people, _i.e._, savages. The name is applied, in saga literature, to the natives of Greenland as well as to the natives of Vinland. Storm thinks the latter were the Micmac Indians of Nova Scotia.

[36-4] "Lescarbot, in his minute and elaborate description of the Micmacs of Acadia, speaks with some emphasis of their large eyes. Dr. Storm quite reasonably suggests that the Norse expression may refer to the size not of the eyeball but of the eye-socket, which in the Indian face is apt to be large." Fiske, _The Discovery of America_, p. 190.

[37-1] This would seem to place Vinland farther south than Nova Scotia, but not necessarily. Storm cites the Frenchman Denys, who as colonist and governor of Nova Scotia pa.s.sed a number of years there, and in a work published in 1672 says of the inner tracts of the land east of Port Royal that "there is very little snow in the country, and very little winter."

He adds: "It is certain that the country produces the vine naturally,--that it bears a grape that ripens perfectly, the berry as large as the muscat."

[37-2] An animal unknown to the natives. As Fiske suggests, "It is the unknown that frightens."

[38-1] A euphemism for pregnant; the original is _eigi heil_.

[40-1] Thus reaching the western coast of Cape Breton Island and Nova Scotia, according to Storm.

[40-2] The Norse word is _Ein-ftingr_, one-footer. The mediaeval belief in a country in which there lived a race of unipeds was not unknown in Iceland. It has been suggested by Vigfusson that Thorvald being an important personage, his death must be adorned in some way. It is a singular fact that Jacques Cartier brought back from his Canadian explorations reports of a land peopled by a race of one-legged folk. See Reeves, _The Finding of Wineland_, p. 177, (56).

[40-3] The literal translation is: "The men drove, it is quite true, a one-footer down to the sh.o.r.e. The strange man ran hard over the banks.

Hearken, Karlsefni!"

[41-1] As skilled mariners the explorers were undoubtedly competent to make such a deduction as this. If Storm and Dieserud are correct, the explorers saw from the north coast of Nova Scotia the same mountains that they had seen from the south coast.

[41-2] The Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland, according to Storm.

[41-3] Nothing can with certainty be extracted from these names. The chances that they were incorrectly recorded are of course great. Storm contends that they cannot be Eskimo. Captain Holm of the Danish navy, an authority on the Eskimos, says, "It is not _impossible_ that the names may have been derived from Eskimo originals." Fiske says, p. 189, note: "There is not the slightest reason for supposing that there were any Eskimos south of Labrador so late as nine hundred years ago." In this connection Captain Holm says: "It appears to me not sufficiently proven that the now extinct race on America's east coast, the Beothuk, were Indians. I wish to direct attention to the possibility that in the Beothuk we may perhaps have one of the transition links between the Indians and the Eskimo." See Reeves, p. 177, (57).

[42-1] The description is clearly suggestive of processions of Christian priests, in white vestments, with banners, and singing (Storm).

[42-2] Vellum AM. 557 has not the words "Ireland the Great." As to "White-men's-land" (mentioned also once in the _Landnama-bok_), Storm traces its quasi-historical origin to the Irish visitation of Iceland prior to the Norse settlement. See _Studies on the Vineland Voyages_, p.

61. The explanation is, however, hardly convincing. See _Origines Islandicae_, Vol. II., p. 625.

[42-3] AM. 557 says "Iceland's sea" (_i.e._, between Iceland and Markland), and Hauk's Book, "Greenland's sea" (_i.e._, between Iceland and Greenland).

[43-1] Thorlak was born in 1085, consecrated bishop in 1118, and died Feb. 1, 1133. These dates are definitely known, and are important. "The bishop's birth-year being certainly known, one can reckon back, and according to the regular allowances, we shall have Hallfrid born about 1060, and her father about 1030, in Vinland, and Karlsefni as far back as 1000." Vigfusson in _Origines Islandicae_, Vol. II., p. 592. Vigfusson seeks to corroborate the above by other allied lineages. If his deductions are correct, they are revolutionary with reference to the generally accepted chronology of the Vinland voyages. He is convinced that Leif belongs to an older generation than Karlsefni and his wife, and that Leif's declining years coincide with Karlsefni's appearance on the scene. The expeditions would then stand in the year 1025-1035, or 1030-1040, while Leif may have headed the first expedition, say in 1025.

And he thinks that various things outside of the genealogies point to this. See Introduction, p. 12, of this volume.

[43-2] Biorn was consecrated bishop in 1147, and died in 1162. His successor was Bishop Brand "the Elder," who died in 1201. Both Hauk's Book and AM. 557 refer to him as "the Elder"; hence the originals could not have been written before the accession of the second bishop Brand, which was in 1263. He died the following year. AM. 557 concludes with the words "Bishop Brand the Elder." But in Hauk's Book the genealogical information is carried down to Hauk's own time. He was a descendant of Karlsefni and Gudrid, through Snorri, born in Vinland.

THE VINLAND HISTORY OF THE FLAT ISLAND BOOK[45-1]

_A Brief History of Eric the Red._[45-2]--There was a man named Thorvald, a son of Osvald, Ulf's son, Eyxna-Thori's son. Thorvald and Eric the Red, his son, left Jaederen [in Norway], on account of manslaughter, and went to Iceland. At that time Iceland was extensively colonized. They first lived at Drangar on Horn-strands, and there Thorvald died. Eric then married Thorhild, the daughter of Jorund and Thorbiorg the s.h.i.+p-chested, who was then married to Thorbiorn of the Haukadal family. Eric then removed from the north, and made his home at Ericsstadir by Vatnshorn.

Eric and Thorhild's son was called Leif.

After the killing of Eyiulf the Foul, and Duelling-Hrafn, Eric was banished from Haukadal, and betook himself westward to Breidafirth, settling in Eyxney at Ericsstadir. He loaned his outer das-boards to Thorgest, and could not get these again when he demanded them. This gave rise to broils and battles between himself and Thorgest, as Eric's Saga relates. Eric was backed in the dispute by Styr Thorgrimsson, Eyiulf of Sviney, the sons of Brand of Alptafirth and Thorbiorn Vifilsson, while the Thorgesters were upheld by the sons of Thord the Yeller and Thorgeir of Hitardal. Eric was declared an outlaw at Thorsnessthing. He thereupon equipped his s.h.i.+p for a voyage, in Ericsvag, and when he was ready to sail, Styr and the others accompanied him out beyond the islands. Eric told them, that it was his purpose to go in search of that country which Gunnbiorn, son of Ulf the Crow, had seen, when he was driven westward across the main, at the time when he discovered Gunnbiorns-skerries; he added, that he would return to his friends, if he should succeed in finding this country. Eric sailed out from Snaefellsiokul, and found the land. He gave the name of Midiokul to his landfall; this is now called Blacksark. From thence he proceeded southward along the coast, in search of habitable land. He pa.s.sed the first winter at Ericsey, near the middle of the Eastern Settlement, and the following spring he went to Ericsfirth, where he selected a dwelling-place. In the summer he visited the western uninhabited country, and a.s.signed names to many of the localities. The second winter he remained at Holmar by Hrafnsgnipa, and the third summer he sailed northward to Snaefell, and all the way into Hrafnsfirth; then he said he had reached the head of Ericsfirth. He then returned and pa.s.sed the third winter in Ericsey at the mouth of Ericsfirth. The next summer he sailed to Iceland, landing in Breidafirth.