Part 1 (1/2)
The Discovery of America by the Northmen,985-1015
by Edmund Farwell Slafter
DISCOURSE
On the 29th day of October, 1887, a statue erected to the memory of Leif, the son of Erik, the discoverer of America, was unveiled in the city of Boston, in the presence of a large asseer than life-size, and represents the explorer standing upon the prow of his shi+p, shading his eyes with his hand, and gazing towards the west This ests the subject to which I wish to call your attention, viz, the story of the discovery of this continent by the Scandinavians nearly nine hundred years ago
I ence for the statement of a few preliminary historical facts in order that weof this discovery
About the er, or the fair-haired, ca and handsoy of will and many personal attractions
It is related that he fell in love with a beautiful princess His addresses were, however, coolly rejected with the declaration that when he beca of Norway in reality, and not ive hiarded by the young king The thirty-one principalities into which Noras at that tiated, and the petty chieftains or princes who ruled over them became obedient to the royal authority The despotic rule, however, of the king was so irritating and oppressive that reater freedo the rest, Iceland, having been discovered a short time before, was colonized by the the severity of the climate and the sterility of the soil, the colony rapidly increased in nu up with the mother country, and was successfully maintained At the end of a century, they had pushed their explorations still farther, and Greenland was discovered, and a colony was planted there, which continued to flourish for a long period
About the year 985, a young, enterprising, and prosperous navigator, who had been accustomed to carry on a trade between Iceland and Norway, on returning from the latter in the summer of the year, found that his father had left Iceland some time before his arrival, to join a new colony which had been then recently planted in Greenland This young merchant, who bore the na his father in Iceland, deter winter with hi obtained what inforraphical position of Greenland, this intrepid navigator accordingly set sail in his little barque, with a suided in his course only by the sun,three days they entirely lost sight of land A north wind sprung up, acco, which utterly shrouded the heavens from their view, and left them at the mercy of the winds and the waves Thus helpless, they were borne along for many days in an open and trackless ocean, they knew not whither At length the fog cleared away, the blue sky appeared, and soon after they ca near to it, they observed that it had a low, undulating surface, ithout mountains, and was thickly covered ood It was obviously not the Greenland for which they were searching Bearing away and leaving the land on the west, after sailing two days, they again caht of land This was likewise flat and ooded, but could not be Greenland, as that had been described to the their prow fro out into the open sea, after a sail of three days, they caround, and mountains beyond with ice-clad summits This was unlike Greenland as it had been described to them They did not even lower their sails They, however, subsequently found it to be an island Continuing on their course, after sailing four days they came to Greenland, where Bjarni found his father, hom he made his permanent abode
This accidental discovery of lands hitherto unknown, and farther west than Greenland, and differing in important features from any countries hich they were familiar, awakened a very deep interest wherever the story was rehearsed Bjarni was criticised, and blaing back such a re account of what he had seen But while these discoveries were the frequent subject of conversation, both in Norway and in the colonies of Iceland and Greenland, it was not until fifteen years had elapsed that any serious attempt was made to verify the statees from what he had discovered
About the year 1000, Leif, the son of Erik, an early colonist of Greenland, determined to conduct an expedition in search of the new lands which had been seen on the accidental voyage of Bjarni He accordingly fitted out a shi+p, andtheir course by the direction and advice of Bjarni, their first discovery was the country which Bjarni had seen last On going ashore they saw no grass, but what appeared to be a plain of flat stones stretching back to icy mountains in the distance They naain proceeding on their voyage, they came to another land which was flat, covered ood, with lohite, sandy shores, answering to the second country seen by Bjarni Having landed and made a personal inspection, they na once more into the open sea with a north-east wind, at the end of two days they ca to that which Bjarni had first seen They landed upon an island situated at the mouth of a river They left their shi+p in a sound between the island and the river
The water was shallow, and the receding tide soon left their shi+p on the beach As soon, however, as their shi+p was lifted by the rising tide, they floated it into the river, and from thence into a lake, or an expansion of the river above its s, but having decided to pass the winter, they proceeded to erect buildings for their more ample accommodation They found abundance of fish in the waters, the cliht cattle would not even require feeding or shelter in winter They observed that day and night were more equal than in Greenland or Iceland The sun was above the horizon on the shortest day, if we may accept the interpretation of learned Icelandic scholars[3], fro till half past four in the afternoon Having co, they devoted the rest of the season to a careful and syste, however, so far that they could not return to their hoeneral survey they discovered grapes growing in great abundance, and tihly valued in the alion from whence they came With these two co returned to Greenland Leif gave to the country, which he had thus discovered and explored, a name, as he said, after its ”qualities,” and called it Vineland
The next voyage was made by Thorvald, a brother of Leif, probably in the year 1002 The same shi+p was employed, and was manned with thirty men
They repaired at once to the booths or temporary houses constructed by Leif, where they passed three winters, subsisting chiefly upon fish, which they took in the waters near them In the summers they explored the country in various directions to a considerable distance They discovered no indications of human occupation except on an island, where they found a corn-shed constructed of wood The second year they discovered native inhabitants in great nu a vast flotilla of boats made of the skins of animals With these natives they came into hostile conflict, in which Thorvald received a wound of which he subsequently died He was buried at a spot selected by himself, and crosses were set up at his head and at his feet After another winter, having loaded their shi+p with grapes and vines, the explorers returned to Greenland
The death of Thorvald was a source of deep sorrow to his family, and his brother Thorstein resolved to visit Vineland and bring holy embarked in the same shi+p, with twenty-five chosen e proved unsuccessful Having spent the whole summer in a vain atte the winter Thorstein died, and the next year hisGudrid was married to Thorfinn Karlsefni, a wealthy Icelandic merchant
In the year 1007, three shi+ps sailed for Vineland, one commanded by Thorfinn Karlsefni, one by Bjarni Grimolfson, and the third by Thorvard, the husband of Freydis, the half-sister of Leif, the son of Erik There were altogether in the three shi+ps, one hundred and sixty men, and cattle of various kinds taken with them perhaps for food, or possibly to be useful in case they should decide to make a per beyond a careful exploration of the country, which they found beautiful and productive, its forests abounding in wild ga a spontaneous growth of native grains They bartered trifles with the natives for their furs, but they were able to hold little intercourse with thely hostile that the lives of the explorers were in constant peril, and they consequently, after so a permanent settleers returned to Greenland
In the year 1011 Freydis, the half-sister of Leif, inspired by the hope of a profitable voyage, entered into a partnershi+p with two merchants, and passed a winter in Vineland She was a bold, masculine woman, of unscrupulous character, and destitute of every womanly quality She fomented discord, contrived the assassination of her partners in the voyage, and early the next spring, having loaded all the shi+ps with timber and other cooes for the Greenland market
Such is the story of the discovery of America in the last years of the tenth and the early years of the eleventh centuries
These four expeditions of which I have given a very brief outline, passing overbut unimportant details, constitute all of which there reesthe same or a later period Allusions are found in early Scandinavian writings, which iven, but add to the really essential or important
The natural and pertinent question which the historical student has a right to ask is this: On what evidence does this story rest? What reason have we to believe that these voyages were ever made?
I will endeavor to make the answer to these inquiries as plain and clear as possible
There are two kinds of evidence by which remote historical events s, which can be relied upon as containing truthful stateed events, and, secondly, historicalthe written narratives Such events may be established by one of these classes of evidence alone, or by both in concurrence
Our attention shall be directed in the first place to certain ancient writings in which the story of this discovery of As? and to what extent do they challenge our belief?
At the ties to this continent in the year 1000, and a few years subsequent, were ue, then spoken in Iceland and Greenland, the vernacular of the explorers, had not been reduced to a written language, and of course the narrative of these voyages could not at that tie an oral literature of a peculiar and interesting character It had its poetry, its romance, its personal memoirs, and its history It was nevertheless unwritten It was carried in the eneration to another In distinguished and opulent families men were ereat occasions, as a part of the entertainether and polished for public recital, relating to the exploits and achieveas, and those who aed discovery of this continent before the practice began of co Suitable parchment was difficult to obtain, and the process was slow and expensive, and only a few documents of any kind at first were put into written foras multiplied to vast numbers They were deposited in convents and in other places of safety Between 1650 and 1715, these old Icelandic parchments were transferred to the libraries of Stockholen They were subsequently carefully read, and classified by the as were found relating to discoveries far to the southwest of Greenland, the outlines of which I have given you in the preceding pages The earliest of these two sagas is supposed to have been written by Hauk Erlendsson, who died in 1334