Part 21 (2/2)

”Let's get it and take it up there with us.”

Experimental Methods. The graduate students and volunteer laborers were gathered around the fire, and the smell of roasting hot dogs filled the air. It was nearly eleven, the sun a half-hour gone, and the last light of the summer dusk slowly leaked from the sky. The fire burned like a beacon. Beer had been flowing freely, and the party was beginning to get a little more boisterous. The graduate students and volunteer laborers were gathered around the fire, and the smell of roasting hot dogs filled the air. It was nearly eleven, the sun a half-hour gone, and the last light of the summer dusk slowly leaked from the sky. The fire burned like a beacon. Beer had been flowing freely, and the party was beginning to get a little more boisterous.

The minister and the professor stood near the fire, drinking cognac out of plastic cups.

”How did you come to suspect the story of Vinland?” the minister asked as they watched the students cook hot dogs.

A couple of the volunteer laborers, who had paid good money to spend their summer digging trenches in a bog, heard the question and moved closer.

The professor shrugged. ”I can't quite remember.” He tried to laugh. ”Here I am an archaeologist, and I can't remember my own past.”

The minister nodded as if that made sense. ”I suppose it was a long time ago?”

”Yes.” He concentrated. ”Now what was it. Someone was following up the story of the Vinland map, to try and figure out who had done it. The map showed up in a bookstore in New Haven in the 1950s-as you may know?”

”No,” the minister said. ”I hardly know a thing about Vinland, I a.s.sure you. Just the basics that anyone in my position would have to know.”

”Well, there was a map found in the 1950s called the Vinland map, and it was shown to be a hoax soon after its discovery. But when this investigator traced the map's history, she found that the book it had been in was accounted for all the way back to the 1820s, map and all. It meant the hoaxer had lived longer ago than I had expected.” He refilled his cup of cognac, then the minister's. ”There were a lot of Viking hoaxes in the nineteenth century, but this one was so early. It surprised me. It's generally thought that the whole phenomenon was stimulated by a book that a Danish scholar published in 1837, containing translations of the Vinland sagas and related material. The book was very popular among the Scandinavian settlers in America, and after that, you know... a kind of twisted patriotism, or the response of an ethnic group that had been made fun of too often... So we got the Kensington stone, the halberds, the mooring holes, the coins. But if a hoax predated Antiquitates Americanae... Antiquitates Americanae... it made me wonder.” it made me wonder.”

”If the book itself were somehow involved?”

”Exactly,” the professor said, regarding the minister with pleasure. ”I wondered if the book might not incorporate, or have been inspired by, hoaxed material. Then one day I was reading a description of the field work here, and it occurred to me that this site was a bit too pristine. As if it had been built but never lived in. Best estimates for its occupation were as low as one summer, because they couldn't find any trash middens to speak of, or graves.”

”It could have been occupied very briefly,” the minister pointed out.

”Yes, I know. That's what I thought at the time. But then I heard from a colleague in Bergen that the Gronlendinga Saga Gronlendinga Saga was apparently a forgery, at least in the parts referring to the discovery of Vinland. Pages had been inserted that dated back to the 1820s. And after that, I had a doubt that wouldn't go away.” was apparently a forgery, at least in the parts referring to the discovery of Vinland. Pages had been inserted that dated back to the 1820s. And after that, I had a doubt that wouldn't go away.”

”But there are more Vinland stories than that one, yes?”

”Yes. There are three main sources. The Gronlendinga Saga, The Saga of Erik the Red, Gronlendinga Saga, The Saga of Erik the Red, and the part of and the part of The Hauksbok The Hauksbok that tells about Thorfinn Karlsefni's expedition. But with one of those questioned, I began to doubt them all. And the story itself. Everything having to do with the idea of Vinland.” that tells about Thorfinn Karlsefni's expedition. But with one of those questioned, I began to doubt them all. And the story itself. Everything having to do with the idea of Vinland.”

”Is that when you went to Bergen?” a graduate student asked.

The professor nodded. He drained his plastic cup, felt the alcohol rus.h.i.+ng through him. ”I joined Nielsen there and we went over Erik the Red Erik the Red and and The Hauksbok, The Hauksbok, and d.a.m.ned if the pages in those concerning Vinland weren't forgeries too. The ink gave it away-not its composition, which was about right, but merely how long it had been on that paper. Which was thirteenth century paper, I might add! The forger had done a super job. But the sagas had been tampered with sometime in the early nineteenth century.” and d.a.m.ned if the pages in those concerning Vinland weren't forgeries too. The ink gave it away-not its composition, which was about right, but merely how long it had been on that paper. Which was thirteenth century paper, I might add! The forger had done a super job. But the sagas had been tampered with sometime in the early nineteenth century.”

”But those are masterpieces of world literature,” a volunteer laborer exclaimed, round-eyed; the ads for volunteer labor had not included a description of the primary investigator's hypothesis.

”I know,” the professor said irritably, and shrugged.

He saw a chunk of peat on the ground, picked it up and threw it on the blaze. After a bit it flared up.

”It's like watching dirt burn,” he said absently, staring into the flames.

Discussion. The burnt garbage smell of peat wafted downwind, and offsh.o.r.e the calm water of the bay was riffled by the same gentle breeze. The minister warmed her hands at the blaze for a moment, then gestured at the bay. ”It's hard to believe they were never here at all.” The burnt garbage smell of peat wafted downwind, and offsh.o.r.e the calm water of the bay was riffled by the same gentle breeze. The minister warmed her hands at the blaze for a moment, then gestured at the bay. ”It's hard to believe they were never here at all.”

”I know,” the professor said. ”It looks like a Viking site, I'll give him that.”

”Him,” the minister repeated.

”I know, I know. This whole thing forces you to imagine a man in the eighteen twenties and thirties, traveling all over-Norway, Iceland, Canada, New England, Rome, Stockholm, Denmark, Greenland.... Crisscrossing the North Atlantic, to bury all these signs.” He shook his head. ”It's incredible.”

He retrieved the cognac bottle and refilled. He was, he had to admit, beginning to feel drunk. ”And so many parts of the hoax were well hidden! You can't a.s.sume we've found them all. This place had two b.u.t.ternuts buried in the midden, and b.u.t.ternuts only grow down below the St. Lawrence, so who's to say they aren't clues, indicating another site down there? That's where grapevines actually grow, which would justify the name Vinland. I tell you, the more I know about this hoaxer, the more certain I am that other sites exist. The tower in Newport, Rhode Island, for instance-the hoaxer didn't build that, because it's been around since the seventeenth century-but a little work out there at night, in the early nineteenth century... I bet if it were excavated completely, you'd find a few Norse artifacts.”

”Buried in all the right places,” the minister said.

”Exactly.” The professor nodded. ”And up the coast of Labrador, at Cape Porcupine where the sagas say they repaired a s.h.i.+p. There too. Stuff scattered everywhere, left to be discovered or not.”

The minister waved her plastic cup. ”But surely this site must have been his masterpiece. He couldn't have done too many as extensive as this.”

”I shouldn't think so.” The professor drank deeply, smacked his numbed lips. ”Maybe one more like this, down in New Brunswick. That's my guess. But this was surely one of his biggest projects.”

”It was a time for that kind of thing,” the volunteer laborer offered. ”Atlantis, Mu, Lemuria....”

The minister nodded. ”It fulfills a certain desire.”

”Theosophy, most of that,” the professor muttered. ”This was different.”

The volunteer wandered off. The professor and the minister looked into the fire for a while.

”You are sure?” sure?” the minister asked. the minister asked.

The professor nodded. ”Trace elements show the ore came from upper Quebec. Chemical changes in the peat weren't right. And nuclear resonance dating methods show that the bronze pin they found hadn't been buried long enough. Little things like that. Nothing obvious. He was amazingly meticulous, he really thought it out. But the nature of things tripped him up. Nothing more than that.”

”But the effort!” the minister said. ”This is what I find hard to believe. Surely it must have been more than one man! Burying these objects, building the walls-surely he would have been noticed!”

The professor stopped another swallow, nodded at her as he choked once or twice. A broad wave of the hand, a gasping recovery of breath: ”Fis.h.i.+ng village, kilometer north of here. Boarding house in the early nineteenth century. A crew of ten rented rooms in the summer of 1842. Bills paid by a Mr. Carlsson.”

The minister raised her eyebrows. ”Ah.”

One of the graduate students got out a guitar and began to play. The other students and the volunteers gathered around her.

”So,” the minister said, ”Mr. Carlsson. Does he show up elsewhere?”

”There was a Professor Ohman in Bergen. A Dr. Bergen in Reykjavik. In the right years, studying the sagas. I presume they were all him, but I don't know for sure.”

”What do you know about him?”

”Nothing. No one paid much attention to him. I've got him on a couple transatlantic crossings, I think, but he used aliases, so I've probably missed most of them. A Scandinavian-American, apparently Norwegian by birth. Someone with some money-someone with patriotic feelings of some kind-someone with a grudge against a university-who knows? All I have are a few signatures, of aliases at that. A flowery handwriting. Nothing more. That's the most remarkable thing about him! You see, most hoaxers leave clues to their ident.i.ties, because a part of them wants to be caught. So their cleverness can be admired, or the ones who fell for it embarra.s.sed, or whatever. But this guy didn't want to be discovered. And in those days, if you wanted to stay off the record....” He shook his head.

”A man of mystery.”

”Yeah. But I don't know how to find out anything more about him.”

The professor's face was glum in the firelight as he reflected on this. He polished off another cup of cognac. The minister watched him drink, then said kindly, ”There is nothing to be done about it, really. That is the nature of the past.”

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