The Discovery of America by the Northmen, 985-1015

by Edmund F. Slafter

The death of Thorvald was a source of deep sorrow to his family, and his brother Thorstein resolved to visit Vineland and bring home his body. He accordingly embarked in the same ship, with twenty-five chosen men, and his wife Gudrid. The voyage proved unsuccessful. Having spent the whole summer in a vain attempt to find Vineland, they returned to Greenland, and during the winter Thorstein died, and the next year his widow Gudrid was married to Thorfinn Karlsefni, a wealthy Icelandic merchant.

In the year 1007, three ships 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 ships, 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 permanent settlement. They attempted, however, nothing beyond a careful exploration of the country, which they found beautiful and productive, its forests abounding in wild game, its rivers well stocked with fish, and the soil producing a spontaneous growth of native grains. They bartered trifles with the natives for their furs, but they were able to hold little intercourse with them. The natives were so exceedingly hostile that the lives of the explorers were in constant peril, and they consequently, after some bloody skirmishes, abandoned all expectation of making a permanent settlement. At the end of three years, Karlsefni and his voyagers returned to Greenland.

In the year 1011 Freydis, the half-sister of Leif, inspired by the hope of a profitable voyage, entered into a partnership 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 ships with timber and other commodities, she returned with rich and valuable cargoes 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 over many interesting but unimportant details, constitute all of which there remains any distinct and well defined narrative. Other voyages may have been made during the same or a later period. Allusions are found in early Scandinavian writings, which may confirm the narratives which we have given, but add to them nothing 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 may be established, viz., ancient writings, which can be relied upon as containing truthful statements of the alleged events, and, secondly, historical monuments and remains illustrating and confirming the 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 America is found. What are these ancient writings? and to what extent do they challenge our belief?

At the time that the alleged voyages to this continent in the year 1000, and a few years subsequent, were made, the old Danish or Icelandic tongue, 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 time be written out. But there was in that language 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 memory, and handed down from one generation to another. In distinguished and opulent families men were employed to memorize and rehearse on festivals and other great occasions, as a part of the entertainment, the narratives, which had been skilfully put together and polished for public recital, relating to the exploits and achievements of their ancestors. These narratives were called sagas, and those who memorized and repeated them were called sagamen. It was a hundred and fifty years after the alleged discovery of this continent before the practice began of committing Icelandic sagas to writing. 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 form. But in the thirteenth century written sagas 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 Stockholm and Copenhagen. They were subsequently carefully read, and classified by the most competent and erudite scholars. Among them two sagas 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. Whether he copied it from a previous manuscript, or took the narrative from oral tradition, cannot be determined. The other was written out in its present form somewhere between 1387 and 1395. It was probably copied from a previous saga not known to be now in existence, but which is conjectured to have been originally written out in the twelfth century. These documents are pronounced by scholars qualified to judge of the character of ancient writings to be authentic, and were undoubtedly believed by the writers to be narratives of historical truth.