CHAPTER IX.
THE SCANDINAVIAN SAILORS—THEIR PIRACIES AND COMMERCE—THE ANGLO-SAXONS—ALFRED THE GREAT A SHIP-BUILDER—THE VOYAGE OF BEOWULF—DISCOVERY OF ICELAND BY THE DANES—DISCOVERY OF GREENLAND—THE VOYAGE OF BJARNI AND LEIF TO THE AMERICAN CONTINENT—THEIR DISCOVERY OF NEWFOUNDLAND, NOVA SCOTIA, NANTUCKET, AND MASSACHUSETTS—ADVENTURES OF THORWALD AND THORFINN—COMPARISON OF THE DISCOVERIES OF THE NORTHMEN WITH THOSE OF COLUMBUS.
The nations inhabiting the borders of the Baltic and the coasts of Norway, as well as those dwelling on the shores of the German Ocean, were situated quite as favorably for maritime enterprise as those upon the banks of the Mediterranean. Though their earliest expeditions by sea were not stimulated by the same cause,—the desire for commercial intercourse,—they arose from causes equally active. While the Mediterranean countries possessed a fruitful soil and a balmy climate, those of the North, under a sky comparatively ungenial, afforded their inhabitants but a few of the articles which they needed: they were led, therefore, to increase their power by sea, in order to establish themselves in more favored climes, or at least to obtain from them by plunder what their own country could not furnish. Thus they neglected the arts of agriculture, and became inured to a life of piracy upon the sea. They spent their lives in planning and executing maritime expeditions. Fathers gave fleets to their sons, and bade them seek their fortune on the ocean-highway. The ships, at first small,—being mere barks propelled by twelve oars,—came at last to be capable of carrying one hundred or one hundred and twenty men. They were supplied with stones, arrows, ropes with which to overset small vessels, and grappling-irons with which to come to close quarters.
It would be remote from our purpose to notice these piratical excursions, were it not that they sometimes resulted in discovery or commerce. Many of the marauders settled permanently in England in the seventh century, and established there the Anglo-Saxon dominion. Alfred, their most celebrated king, obliged to defend his territory from the Danes, turned his attention zealously to every thing connected with ships, commerce, discovery, and geography, and became the first founder of that naval power which was at a later period to be the world's dread and admiration. The idea of ship-building once conceived, it was prosecuted with astonishing vigor. Alfred not only multiplied their number, but introduced material improvements. Towards the latter part of his reign, his fleet numbered one hundred sail: it was divided into small squadrons and stationed at various places along the coast.
The oldest epic in any modern language, the Anglo-Saxon poem of "Beowulf," the Sea-Goth, written in forty-three cantos, and containing some six thousand lines, is occupied mainly in narrating the marvellous exploits of its hero, his combats with a pestilential fire-drake, and his slaying of "a grim giant named Grendel, a descendant of Cain." It incidentally describes a voyage made by Beowulf previous to the ninth century, and from this we may gather a few details, at best barren and unsatisfactory, of the equipments of a vessel in those days. In the extract which we give, the word "sea-nose" will readily be understood as meaning headland, or promontory:
"When the king had awaited
The time he should stay,
Came many to fare
On the billows so free.
His ship they bore out
To the brim of the ocean,
And his comrades sat down
At their oars as he bade.
A word could control
His good fellows, the Shylds.
On the deck of the ship
He stood, by the mast.
Ne'er did I hear
Of a vessel appointed
Better for battle,
With weapons of war,
And waistcoats of wool,
And axes and swords.
* * * *
The ship was on the waves,
Boat under the cliffs.
The barons ready
To the prow mounted.
The chieftains bore
On the naked breast
Bright ornaments,
War-gear, Goth-like.
The men shoved off,
Men on their willing way,
The bounden wood.
Then went over the sea-waves,
Hurried by the wind,
The ship with foamy neck,
Most like a sea-fowl,
Till about one hour
Of the second day
The curved prow
Had passed onward.
So that the sailors
The land saw,
The shore-cliffs shining,
Mountains steep,
And broad sea-noses.
Then was the sea-sailing
Of the Earl at an end.
God thanked he
That to him the sea-journey
Easy had been."
In the year 863, a Dane of Swedish origin, named Gardar, adventurously pushing off into the Northern Ocean, though upon an object which history has not recorded, discovered the island-rock whose appropriate name is Iceland. Eleven years later, a navigator named Ingolf colonized the country, the colonists, many of whom belonged to the most esteemed families in the North, establishing a flourishing republic. The situation of these people, isolated in the midst of an Arctic ocean, and their relation to the mother-country, compelled them to exert and develop their hereditary maritime proclivities. In 877, a sailor named Gunnbjörn saw a mountainous coast far to the west, supposed to be now concealed or rendered inaccessible by the descent of Arctic ice. Erik the Red, who had been banished from Norway for murder and had settled in Iceland, was in his turn outlawed thence in 983: he sailed to the west and discovered a land which he called Greenland, because, as he said, "people will be attracted hither if the land has a good name." He returned to Iceland, and, in the year 985, a large number of ships—according to some authorities, thirty-five—followed him to the new settlement and established themselves on its southwestern shore.
In 986, Bjarni Herjulfson-Bjarni, the son of Herjulf, in a voyage from Iceland to Greenland, was driven a long distance from the accustomed track. He at last saw land to the west, and took counsel with his men as to what land it could be. Bjarni declared it his opinion that it was not Greenland. They sailed close in shore, and noticed that there were no mountains, but that the land was undulating and well wooded. They left the land on their larboard side, and sailed away for two days, when they saw land again. They asked Bjarni if he thought this was Greenland; and he replied that "he thought it as little to be Greenland as the other, as he saw no high ice-hills." The sailors wished to wood and water there, but Bjarni would not consent. They sailed for three days to the north, and saw a bold shore with high mountains and ice-hills. Bjarni would not land, saying, "To me this land appears little inviting." Sailing for four days more to the northeast, they came to a country which Bjarni confidently pronounced to be Greenland, where he landed and afterwards settled. Various data furnished by this narrative, in the original Icelandic records, have enabled geographers to determine the various coasts thus dimly seen by Bjarni, but upon which he did not land. They are supposed to have been those of Long Island, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland.
In the year 994, Leif Erikson—Leif the son of Erik the Outlaw—bought Bjarni's ship, and engaged thirty-five men to navigate it, as he intended to sail upon a voyage of discovery. He asked his father Erik to be the captain; but Erik declined, being, as he said, well stricken in years. They sailed away into the sea, and discovered first the land which Bjarni had discovered last. They went ashore, saw no grass, but plenty of icebergs, and an abundance of flat stones. From the latter circumstance they named the place Helluland, hellu signifying a flat stone. There can be no doubt that the spot thus named is the modern Newfoundland. They went on board again, and proceeded on their way. They went ashore a second time, where the land was flat and covered with wood and white sand. "This," said Leif, "shall be named after its qualities, and called Markland," (woodland.) This is undoubtedly Nova Scotia. They sailed again to the south for two days and came to an island which lay to the eastward of the mainland. They observed dew upon the grass, and this dew, upon being touched with the finger and raised to the mouth, tasted exceedingly sweet. This appears to have been Nantucket, where honey-dew is known to abound.
