When he found the new land it was all green, with swaths of wild flowers. I know that land and its bright lowlands, backed by sheer walled mountains, with splintered pinnacles robed in the splendors of the inland ice. The trees were knee high, no crops could possibly ripen, but Eric was so pleased that after two winters he went back to Iceland advertising for settlers to fill his colony. Greenland he called the place, because “Many will go there if the place has a fair name.” They did, and when the sea had wiped out most of the twenty-five ships, the surviving colonists found Greenland commodious and residential as the heart could wish.
They were not long gone from the port of Skalholt when young Captain Bjarni came in from the sea and asked for his father. But father Heljulf had sailed for Greenland, so the youngster set off in pursuit although nobody knew the way. Bjarni always spent alternate yuletides at his father’s hearth, so if the hearth-stone moved he had to find it somehow. These vikings are so human and natural that one can follow their thought quite easily. When, for instance, Bjarni, instead of coming to Greenland, found a low, well timbered country, he knew he had made a mistake, so it was no use landing. Rediscovering the American mainland was a habit which persisted until the time of Columbus, and not a feat to make a fuss about. A northerly course and a pure stroke of luck carried Bjarni to Greenland and his father’s house.
Because they had no timber, and driftwood was scarce, the colonists were much excited when they heard of forests, and cursed Bjarni for not having landed. Anyway, here was a fine excuse for an expedition in search of fire-wood, so Leif, the son of Red Eric, bought Bjarni’s ship. Being tall and of commanding presence he rallied thirty-five of a crew, and, being young, expected that his father would take command. Eric indeed rode a distance of four hundred feet from his house against the rock, which was called Brattelid, to the shore of the inlet, but his pony fell and threw him, such a bad omen that he rode home again. Leif Ericsen, therefore, with winged helmet and glittering breastplate, mounted the steerboard, laid hands on the steer-oar and bade his men shove off. The colonists on rugged dun ponies lined the shore to cheer the adventurers, and the ladies waved their kerchiefs from the rock behind the house while the dragon ship, shield-lines ablaze in the sun, oars thrashing blue water, and painted square-sail set, took the fair wind on that famous voyage. She discovered Stoneland, which is the Newfoundland-Labrador coast, and Woodland, which is Nova Scotia. Then came the Further Strand, the long and wonderful beaches of Massachusetts, and beyond was Narragansett Bay, where they built winter houses, pastured their cattle, and found wild grapes. It was here that Tyrkir, the little old German man slave who was Leif’s nurse, made wine and got most gorgeously drunk. On the homeward passage Leif brought timber and raisins to Greenland.
Leif went away to Norway, where as a guest of King Olaf he became a Christian, and in his absence his brother Thorwald made the second voyage to what is now New England. After wintering at Leif’s house in Wineland the Good he went southward and, somewhere near the site of New York, met with savages. Nine of them lay under three upturned canoes on the beach, so the vikings killed eight just for fun, but were fools, letting the ninth escape to raise the tribes for war. So there was a battle, and Thorwald the Helpless was shot in the eye, which served him right. One of his brothers came afterward in search of the body, which may have been that same seated skeleton in bronze armor that nine hundred years later was dug up at Cross Point.
Two or three years after Thorwald’s death his widow married a visitor from Norway, Eric’s guest at Brattelid, the rich Thorfin Karlsefne. He also set out for Vinland, taking Mrs. Karlsefne and four other women, also a Scottish lad and lass (very savage) and an Irishman, besides a crew of sixty and some cattle. They built a fort where the natives came trading skins for strips of red cloth, or to fight a battle, or to be chased, shrieking with fright, by Thorfin’s big red bull. There Mrs. Karlsefne gave birth to Snorri the Firstborn, whose sons Thorlak and Brand became priests and were the first two bishops of Greenland.
After Karlsefne’s return to Greenland the next voyage was made by one of Eric’s daughters; and presently Leif the Fortunate came home from Norway to his father’s house, bringing a priest. Then Mrs. Leif built a church at Brattelid, old Eric the Red being thoroughly disgusted, and Greenland and Vinland became Christian, but Eric never.
As long as Norway traded with her American colonies Vinland exported timber and dried fruit, while Greenland sent sheepskins, ox hides, sealskins, walrus-skin rope and tusks to Iceland and Europe. In return they got iron and settlers. But then began a series of disasters, for when the Black Death swept Europe, the colonies were left to their fate, and some of the colonists in despair renounced their faith to turn Eskimo. In 1349 the last timber ship from Nova Scotia was lately returned to Europe when the plague struck Norway. There is a gap of fifty-two years in the record, and all we know of Greenland is that the western villages were destroyed by Eskimos who killed eighteen Norsemen and carried off the boys. Then the plague destroyed two-thirds of the people in Iceland, a bad winter killed nine tenths of all their cattle, and what remained of the hapless colony was ravaged by English fishermen. No longer could Iceland send any help to Greenland, but still there was intercourse because we know that seven years later the vicar of Garde married a girl in the east villages to a young Icelander.
Meanwhile, in plague-stricken England, Bristol, our biggest seaport, had not enough men living even to bury the dead, and labor was so scarce that the crops rotted for lack of harvesters. That is why an English squadron raided Iceland, Greenland, perhaps even Vinland, for slaves, and the people were carried away into captivity. Afterward England paid compensation to Denmark and returned the folk to their homes, but in 1448 the pope wrote to a Norse bishop concerning their piteous condition. And there the story ends, for in that year the German merchants at Bergen in Norway squabbled with the forty master mariners of the American trade. The sailors had boycotted their Hanseatic League, so the Germans asked them to dinner, and murdered them. From that time no man knew the way to lost America.
II
A. D. 1248 THE CRUSADERS
In the seventh century of the reign of Our Lord Christ, arose the Prophet Mahomet. To his followers he generously gave Heaven, and as much of the earth as they could get, so the true believers made haste to occupy goodly and fruitful possessions of Christian powers, including the Holy Land. The owners were useful as slaves.