Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

With the cruelty characteristic of the wild sea-kings of the North, Thorvald at once gave the signal for attack. The poor Skrællings, as he dubbed the natives, were quickly overpowered. One only escaped, and the others were foully murdered. No wonder that this was the beginning of the end of Thorvald’s enterprise. That very night, as he and his followers were sleeping peacefully, untroubled by any remorse for their evil deeds, they were roused by the war-whoop of the Skrællings, come at the bidding of the one survivor to avenge his comrades.

The white men took refuge in their ship, and all escaped unhurt except Thorvald himself, who received a wound in the side, from which he shortly afterward died. He was buried within sight of the Atlantic, on what is now Massachusetts Bay, and his sorrowing followers returned home with the terrible tidings in the ensuing spring.

Undaunted by the fate of his brother, another son of Eric, Thorstein by name, set out for Vinland in 1005, but he failed to find it, and returned home, stricken with mortal sickness, in the same year. On his deathbed, however, he prophesied that his widow, Gudrid, would marry again, and hinted that a great career of discovery and conquest was before her future children. He was right in the first part at least of his speech, for two years later we find Gudrid, as the wife of a sturdy Icelander named Karlsefne, forming part of the largest expedition yet sent out from Greenland to Vinland—an expedition consisting of no less than three ships, and one hundred and forty men and women.

That an important colony was founded by the new adventurers there appears no reason to doubt, although it is impossible to fix its exact locality. Booths were erected, stores were laid in for the winter, and amicable relations were opened with the Skrællings, who came in great numbers, first to stare at the intruders, and then to trade with them, exchanging valuable furs for red cloth, etc.

A slight and almost ludicrous incident was the first thing to break up what had appeared to be the beginning of a long course of successful colonization. A bull belonging to one of the leaders of the expedition rushed suddenly among the buyers and sellers, so terrifying the natives, who had never before seen an animal of that description, that they fled to their kayaks, or skin-boats, in the greatest confusion, returning some weeks later in greatly increased numbers, and armed with bows and arrows, to revenge themselves for what they took to be an intentional insult.

Fierce indeed was the struggle in which they were now involved, and, overwhelmed by superior numbers, the colonists seemed likely to be exterminated, when the tide was turned by the courage of Freydis, a daughter of Eric the Red, who, imbued with the brave spirit of her father, suddenly faced the savages, and brandishing a sword which she had taken from a dead warrior of her own race, she invited the enemy to come and slay her if they would, even tearing open her dress to make clear her meaning.

The Skrællings, perhaps taking these strange gestures for the signs of superhuman agency, gazed for a moment in awe-struck silence at the lonely figure standing thus unprotected among the slain, and then, with cries as wild and weird in the ears of the Northmen as those of their champions to the natives, they one and all turned and fled.

The terrible slaughter among their men had, however, so disgusted the leaders of the colony, that they soon afterwards returned to Greenland; and, but for the ambition of Freydis, the history of the Scandinavian colonies in North America would have ended then and there. Unable to forget her triumph, and eager for yet further distinction, this remarkable woman did not rest until she had organized a new expedition, which, under the leadership of two brothers named Helgi and Finnbogi, set sail in 1011, and, landing in Vinland without molestation from the natives, took possession of the booths erected by their predecessors. All seemed likely to go well, when the overbearing conduct of Freydis, who was not one to shine in the peaceful work of colonization, led to dissensions among the explorers. By a crafty artifice she managed to pick a quarrel with the two brothers, and, with the co-operation of her husband, Thorvard—who, though naturally a mild and inoffensive man, appears to have been entirely under the control of his stronger-minded wife—she succeeded in effecting their massacre, and that of all who were inimical to her supremacy. The survivors, terror-struck by the fate of their companions, yielded without a struggle to the rule of Freydis, who, first binding them all by an oath never to tell of her conduct at home, set them at work to cut timber and collect the curiosities and valuables of the country. Then, when she had acquired enough to insure her wealth for the remainder of her life, she embarked for Greenland with the little remnant of the original party. The Icelandic sagas, already referred to, tell how the iniquity of Freydis gradually leaked out, and how, though she herself escaped unpunished, her sins were visited upon her children.

With her return home the attempts at American colonization by the Northmen appear to have ceased, but tradition tells of many a trip by contemporary adventurers of other nationalities; for, between the fitful excursions from Greenland—which, as we have seen, left no real or permanent impress on the people or districts visited—and the well-organized expedition of modern times, we hear of Arab sailors of the 12th century having sighted land in the unknown Western Ocean, graphically called, from its real and imaginary horrors, the Sea of Darkness; and of a voyage made in 1170 by Madoc, son of the Prince of North Wales, who, after sailing for many weeks away from his native land, came to a country, supposed to have been the modern Virginia, differing in every respect from any European land.

Certain travelers of the 17th century tell of white men speaking the Welsh tongue having been met with among the Indians far away in the West, lending some slight semblance of veracity to the tradition that a colony was indeed founded by the Welsh; but in the absence of all confirmatory documents, we are compelled to reserve judgment on the subject, passing on to the better authenticated story of the voyage of the brothers Zeni of Venice, who, between 1388 and 1404, are said to have visited Greenland and Nova Scotia, and to have long resided as the guest of its king in an island called Frisland, the position—indeed the very existence—of which has never been fully proved, although some authorities are of opinion that it was really only one of the Faroe Islands. However that maybe, many legends were long current in Venice of the intercourse with the unknown Frisland and islands further west, one of which, called Estotiland, is supposed to have been Newfoundland. Hints, too, are scattered up and down old chronicles, of wandering fishermen sailing southward from Estotiland having come to a country answering in the descriptions given of it to Mexico; the Chinese, Malays, and Polynesians are said to have reached the American coasts; and, to conclude our summary of lore relating to the oldest of the continents, Picigano’s map, which is dated 1367, gives indications of a western continent named Antilles, and a yet older map shows an island where Newfoundland ought to be.