The Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen Part 12

[187] See page 52.

[188] The same bay referred to in the previous account, and which lay between Point Gilbert and Isle Nauset. Archer, in his account of Gosnold's voyage, says, that when they rounded Point Care, the extremity of Isle Nauset, "We bore up again with the land, and in the night, came with it anchoring in eight fathoms, the ground good." Here it will be seen that the Northmen lay safely for three days.

[189] In the first account it is called a Kiafal.

[190] The agreement with the first account is substantial.

[191] This was probably Martha's Vineyard.

[192] The first narrative says substantially the same thing, that Thorhall died in Ireland.

[193] The first narrative speaks of the shoals. The islands and shoals both doubtless existed then. Since that time great changes have taken place in the physical aspects of that region.

[194] This might have been the case on some remarkable season.

[195] This range extends to the Blue Hills of Ma.s.sachusetts, which indicates considerable activity in exploration.

[196] Also called the Irish sea, and the sea before Vinland.

[197] There were three s.h.i.+ps in the expedition, and this was doubtless the company that went in one of them.

[198] These could be easily carried, especially as their cattle were small. All the early Portuguese expeditions carried their live stock with them. See _Prince Henry the Navigator_.

[199] The different events are here stated with some rapidity, and we seem to reach Leif's booths or huts sooner than necessary. According to the two previous accounts, they did not reach the locality of Leif's booths until the summer after they found the whale. These booths were at Mt. Hope Bay. This is either the result of confusion in the mind of the writer, or else it is founded on the fact that Leif erected habitations at _both_ places. In the two first accounts of Thorfinn Karlsefne's expedition, they are not alluded to. There may be no real contradiction after all.

[200] The other accounts say that the whale made them sick; but that was not because the flesh of the whale was spoiled. Beamish, in his translation of the song of Thorhall, indeed makes that disagreeable pagan tell his comrades, that, if they wish, they

"_Fetid_ whales may boil Here on Furdustrand Far from Fatherland;"

but there is nothing in the text to throw suspicion upon the whale. The trouble was, that a sudden overfeeding caused nausea, and the whale was thrown away afterwards in religious disgust. Yet the event is out of its chronological order, and properly belongs in the account of the next year.

[201] This event belongs to the previous year. These facts are not given in the other accounts, the writer appearing to have different information.

[202] This is another somewhat marvelous occurrence, similar to those with which Cotton Mather and others were accustomed to embellish New England history.

[203] For the previous versions of this affair of the axe, see pp. 60.

This last account appears a little plainer.

[204] It is true that he decided to leave the country, but he did not carry out his intention until the following year, 1010. This narrative skips over all the events of the third year. It is nevertheless given, in order that the reader may have the fullest possible knowledge of any shortcomings that may exist in the ma.n.u.scripts. This is done with the more confidence, for the reason that there is no doubt but that all the narratives contain a broad substratum of solid truth.

[205] From the statement at the end of the voyage of Freydis (see p.

80), we learn that the summer in which he returned from Iceland, Karlsefne went to Norway, and from thence the following spring, to Iceland. This does not conflict with the statement in the above narrative, though at first it may _appear_ to. It does not say that he went the following summer from _Greenland_ to Iceland, but that on that summer, he _went_ to Iceland, which is perfectly true, though poorly stated, and his previous voyage to Norway being ignored.

[206] See p. 48.

[207] Garda was the Episcopal seat of Greenland. Freydis and her husband went to Vinland with Karlsefne. It was she who frightened the Skraellings.

[208] It appears that the route to Vinland had become so well known, that the Saga writers no longer thought it necessary to describe it.

[209] Mount Hope bay is still often called a lake. These waters always appear like lakes. Brereton, in his account of Gosnold's voyage, calls these same bays, lakes. He writes: "From this [Elizabeth] island, we went right over to the mayne, where we stood awhile as ravished at the beautie and dilicacy of the sweetnesse, besides divers cleare lakes, whereof we saw no end."

[210] Freydis was evidently the princ.i.p.al in all things.

[211] By the Icelandic law, a woman could separate from her husband for a slight cause.

[212] According to this statement, the expedition returned very early, as Karlsefne went to Norway the same season, as previously told.

[213] If this transaction had occurred during the previous century, when paganism universally prevailed, this atrocious act of the cold-blooded Freydis, would have been the prelude to almost endless strife.

[214] This account is supplementary to the foregoing, and is taken from the same work. Karlsefne, of course, sailed from Greenland.

[215] _Husasnotru_ has been translated "house-besom." The exact meaning is not known. A besom-shaft would be too small, however rare the wood, to be made into anything of value. The bar for securing the house door was as common as necessary in every house, and this, perhaps, is what is referred to.

[216] See note 1, p. 36.

[217] In the north of Iceland.

[218] Not far from Skagafiord.

[219] It is understood that she went to Rome. It may be asked why she did not spread the news of her son's voyage in those parts of Europe whither she went, and make known the discovery of the New World. To this it may be replied, that the Icelanders had no idea that they had found a New World, and did not appreciate the value of their geographical knowledge. Besides, there is nothing to prove that Gudrid, and others who went to Europe at this period, did _not_ make known the Icelandic discoveries. At that time no interest was taken in such subjects, and therefore we have no right to expect to find traces of discussion in relation to what, among a very small cla.s.s, would be regarded, at the best, as a curious story. See note on Adam of Bremen in the General Introduction.

[220] It will be remembered that all this was foretold by her former husband, Thorstein Ericson, when he returned to life in the house of Thorstein Black, in Greenland; from which we must infer that the voyage of Thorstein Ericson was composed after, or during, the second widowhood of Gudrid, and that the circ.u.mstance of Thorstein's prophecy, was, in accordance with the spirit of the age, imagined in order to meet the circ.u.mstances of the case. See p. 46.

[221] That is, a Norwegian.

[222] _Hvitramanna-land._ It will be remembered that in the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne (p. 63), this land was referred to by the natives whom he took prisoners. They described it as a land inhabited by a people who wore white clothes, carried poles before them, and shouted.

Yet the Saga writer there says no more than that the people _think_ that this was the place known as Ireland the Great. What the Skraellings say does not identify it with the land of Are Marson. Yet, in order to allow Professor Rafn, who held that this country was America, the full benefit of his theory, we give the following extract from Wafer's _Voyage_, which shows that in the year 1681, when he visited the Isthmus of Darien, there were people among the natives who answered tolerably well to the description given in Karlsefne's narrative. Wafer says: "They are white, and there are them of both s.e.xes; yet there were few of them in comparison of the copper colored, possibly but one, to two or three hundred. They differ from the other Indians, chiefly in respect of color, though not in that only. Their skins are not of such a white, as those of fair people among Europeans, with some tincture of a blush or sanguine complexion; neither is their complexion like that of our paler people, but 'tis rather a Milk-white, lighter than the color of any Europeans, and much like that of a white horse.... Their bodies are beset all over, more or less, with a fine, short, milk-white down....

The men would probably have white bristles for beards, did they not prevent them by their custom of plucking the young beard up by the roots.... Their eyebrows are milk-white also, and so is the hair of their heads." p. 107.

He also adds, that "The men have a value for Cloaths, and if any of them had an old s.h.i.+rt given him by any of us, he would be sure to wear it, and strut about at no ordinary rate. Besides this, they have a sort of long cotton garments of their own, some white, and others of a rusty black, shaped like our carter's frocks, hanging down to their heels, with a fringe of the same of cotton, about a span long, and short, wide, open sleeves, reaching but to the middle of their arms.... They are worn on some great occasions.... When they are a.s.sembled, they will sometimes walk about the place or plantation where they are, with these, their robes on. And once I saw Tacenta thus walking with two or three hundred of these attending him, as if he was mustering them. And I took notice that those in the black gowns walked before him, and the white after him, each having their lances of the same color with their robes." But notwithstanding these resemblances, historians will ask for more solid proof of the ident.i.ty of the two people.

[223] Professor Rafn in, what seems to the author, his needless anxiety to fix the locality of the White-man's land in America, says that, as this part of the ma.n.u.script is difficult to decipher, the original letters _may_ have got changed, and vi inserted instead of xx, or xi, which numerals would afford time for the voyager to reach the coast of America, in the vicinity of Florida. Smith in his _Dialogues_, has even gone so far as to _suppress_ the term _six_ altogether, and subst.i.tutes, "by a number of days sail unknown." This is simply trifling with the subject. In _Gronland's Historiske Mindesmaerker_, chiefly the work of Finn Magnussen, no question is raised on this point. The various versions all give the number six, which limits the voyage to the vicinity of the Azores. Schoning, to whom we are so largely indebted for the best edition of Heimskringla, lays the scene of Marson's adventure at those islands, and suggests that they may at that time have covered a larger extent of territory than the present, and that they may have suffered from earthquakes and floods, adding, "It is likely, and all circ.u.mstances show, that the said land has been a piece of North America." This is a bold, though not very unreasonable hypothesis, especially as the volcanic character of the islands is well known. In 1808, a volcano rose to the height of 3,500 feet. Yet Schoning's suggestion is not needed. The fact that the islands were not inhabited when discovered by the Portuguese does not, however, settle anything against Schoning, because in the course of five hundred years, the people might either have migrated, or been swept away by pestilence.

_Gronland's Historiske Mindesmaerker_, (vol. I, p. 150), says simply, that "It is _thought_ that he (Are Marson) ended his days in America, or at all events in one of the larger islands of the west. Some think that it was one of the Azore islands."

[224] The fact that Are Marson is said to have been baptized in Ireland the Great, does not prove that the place, wherever located, was inhabited by a colony of Irish Christians. Yet this view was urged by Professor Rafn and others, who held that Great Ireland was situated in Florida. A Shawanese _tradition_ is given to prove that Florida was early settled by white men from over the sea. We read that in 1818, "the Shawanese were established in Ohio, whither they came from Florida, Black Hoof, then eighty-five years old, was born there, and remembered bathing in the sea. He told the Indian Agent, that the people of his tribe had a tradition, that their ancestors came over the sea, and that for a long time they kept a yearly sacrifice for their safe arrival."--_Archaeologia Americana_, vol. I, p. 273. Yet these Indians, the supposed descendants of eminently pious Christians from Ireland, were bitterly opposed to Christianity, and had no Christian traditions.

This view requires altogether too much credulity. Is it not more reasonable, especially in view of the fact that this narrative is not needed in demonstrating the pre-Columbian discovery of America--to seek for the White-man's land in some island of the Atlantic; for if we were to allow that six, should mean eleven or twenty days sail, we should not be much better off, since there is so much difficulty in finding the white men for the land in question.

[225] It will appear from this genealogical account, that Are Marson was no obscure or mythological character. In 981 he was one of the princ.i.p.al men of Iceland, and is highly spoken of. Yet his connection with Ireland the Great, though undoubtedly real, hardly _proves_, what may nevertheless be true--a pre-Scandinavian discovery of America by the Irish. This, not improbable view, demands clearer proof, and will repay investigation. The other characters mentioned are equally well known.

See _Antiquitates Americanae_, pp. 211-12.

[226] Priest or _G.o.de_. This was the heathen priest of Iceland, whose duty was to provide the temple offerings, for which purpose a contribution was made by every farm in the vicinity. This office was also united with that of chief, judge, and advocate, and for the cases conducted by him at the Thing, he received the customary fees; yet he was obliged to depend for his support, mainly upon the products of his farm. The office was hereditary, but could be sold, a.s.signed, or forfeited.

[227] It was west with regard to Norway, the people being accustomed to use this expression.

[228] Killed in Ireland in a battle, 1013.

[229] Literally, _woman_, with reference to Jord, the Earth, one of the wives of Odin, and also mother of Thor.