The information which Biarn gave of this discovery induced Leif, son of Eric the Red, the discoverer of Greenland, to equip a vessel for the unknown country. With thirty-five persons he sailed from Herjulfsnæs towards the south, in the direction indicated by Biarn. Arriving at a flat stony coast, with mountains, however, covered with snow, visible at a great distance, they called it Hellu-land. Proceeding still southwards, they came to a woody but still flat coast, which they called Mark-land. A brisk north-east wind blowing for two days and two nights, brought them to a finer coast, woody and undulating, and abounding with natural productions. Towards the north this region was sheltered by an island; but there was no port until they had proceeded farther to the west. There they landed; and as there was abundance of fish in a river which flowed into the bay, they ventured there to pass the winter. They found the nights and days less unequal than in Iceland or Norway; on the very shortest (Dec. 21.) the sun rising at half-past seven, and setting at half-past four. From some wild grapes which they found a few miles from the shore, they denominated the country Vinland, or Winland. The following spring they returned to Greenland.
This description, as the reader will instantly recognize, can apply only to North America. The first of the coasts which Leif and his navigators saw must have been Newfoundland, or Labrador; the second was probably the coast of New Brunswick; the third was Maine. The causes which led to the voyage, the names, the incidents, are so natural and so connected as to bear the impress of truth. And Snorro, the earliest historian of the voyage, was not an inventor: he related events as he received them from authorities which no longer exist, or from tradition. Neither he nor his countrymen entertained the slightest doubt that a new and extensive region had been discovered. The sequel will corroborate the belief that they were right.
|1004 to 1008.|
The next chief that visited Vinland was Thorwald, another son of Eric the Red. With thirty companions he proceeded to the coast, and wintered in the tent which had sheltered his brother Leif. The two following summers were passed by him in examining the regions both to the west and the east; and, from the description in the Icelandic sagas, we may infer that he coasted the shore from Massachusetts to Labrador. Until the second season no inhabitants appeared; but two who had ventured along the shore in their frail canoes were taken, and most impolitically, as well as most inhumanly, put to death. These were evidently Esquimaux, whose short stature and features resembled those of the western Greenlanders. To revenge the murder of their countrymen, a considerable number of the inhabitants now appeared in their small boats; but their arrows being unable to make any impression on the wooden defences, they precipitately retired. In this short skirmish, however, Thorwald received a mortal wound; and was buried on the next promontory with a cross at his head and another at his feet, a proof that he had embraced Christianity. Having passed another winter, his companions returned to Greenland. The following year Thorstein, another son of Eric the Red, embarked for the same place with his wife Gudrida and twenty-five companions; but they were driven by the contending elements to the remote western coast of Greenland, where they passed the winter in great hardships. This adventure was fatal to Thorstein, whose corpse was taken back to the colony by his widow.
|1009.|
The first serious attempt at colonizing Vinland was made by a Norwegian chief, Thorfin, who had removed to Greenland, and married the widowed Gudrida. With sixty companions, some domestic animals, implements of husbandry, and an abundance of dried provisions, he proceeded to the coast where Thorwald had died. There he erected his tents, which he surrounded by a strong palisade, to resist the assaults, whether open or secret, whether daily or nocturnal, of the natives. They came in considerable numbers to offer peltries and other productions for such commodities as the strangers could spare. Above all, we are assured, they wanted arms, which Thorfin would not permit to be sold; yet if an anecdote be true, their knowledge of such weapons must have been limited indeed. One of the savages took up an axe, ran with it into the woods, and displayed it with much triumph to the rest. To try its virtues, he struck one that stood near him; and the latter, to the horror of all present, fell dead at his feet. A chief took it from him, regarded it for some time with anger, and then cast it into the sea. Thorfin remained three years in Vinland, where a son was born to him; and after many voyages to different parts of the north, ended his days in Iceland. His widow made the pilgrimage to Rome; and on her return to the island retired to a convent which he had erected. Many, however, of the colonists whom he had led to Vinland remained, and were ultimately joined by another body under Helgi and Finnbogi, two brothers from Greenland. But the latter had the misfortune to be accompanied by a treacherous and evil woman, Freydisa, a daughter of Eric the Red, and who in a short time excited a quarrel, which proved fatal to about thirty of the colonists. Detested for her vices, she was constrained to return to Greenland; but the odour of her evil name remained with her: she lived despised, and died unlamented.
|1026 to 1121.|
Towards the close of the reign of Olaf the Saint, an Icelander, named Gudleif, embarked for Dublin. The vessel being driven by boisterous winds far from its direct course, towards the south-west, approached an unknown shore. He and the crew were soon seized by the natives, and carried into the interior. Here, however, to their great surprise, they were accosted by a venerable chief in their own language, who enquired after some individuals of Iceland. He refused to tell his name; but, as he sent a present to Thurida, the sister of Snorro Gode, and another for her son, no doubt was entertained that he was the scald Biorn, who had been her lover, and who had left Iceland thirty years before that time. The natives were described of a red colour, and cruel to strangers; indeed, it required all the influence of the friendly chief to rescue Gudleif and his companions from destruction. From this period to 1050, we hear no more of the northern colony established by Thorfin; but in that year a priest went from Iceland to Vinland to preach Christianity. His end was tragical,—a proof that if any of the original settlers had been Christians, they had reverted to idolatry. In 1121, a bishop embarked from Greenland for the same destination, and with the same object; but of the result no record exists. We hear no more, indeed, of the colony, or of Vinland, until the latter half of the fourteenth century, when the two Venetians Zeni are said to have visited that part of the world. From that time to the discovery of the New World by Columbus, there was no communication—none at least that is known—between it and the north of Europe.
This circumstance has induced many to doubt of the facts which have been related. If, they contend, North America were really discovered and repeatedly visited by the Icelanders, how came a country, so fertile in comparison with that island, or with Greenland, or even Norway, to be so suddenly abandoned? This is certainly a difficulty; but a greater one, in our opinion, is involved in the rejection of all the evidence that has been adduced. It is not Snorro merely who mentions Vinland: many other sagas do the same; and even before Snorro, Adam of Bremen obtained from the lips of Sweyn II., king of Denmark, a confirmation of the alleged discovery. For relations so numerous and so uniform, for circumstances so naturally and so graphically described, there must have been some foundation. Even fiction does not invent, it only exaggerates. There is nothing improbable in the alleged voyages. The Scandinavians were the best navigators in the world. From authentic and indubitable testimony we know that their vessels visited every sea from the Mediterranean to the Baltic, from the extremity of the Finland Gulf to the entrance at least of Davis’s Straits. Men thus familiar with distant seas must have made a greater progress in the science of navigation than we generally allow. The voyage from Reykiavik, in Iceland, to Cape Farewell, is not longer than that from the south-western extremity of Iceland—once well colonized—to the eastern coast of Labrador. But does the latter country itself exhibit, in modern times, any vestiges of a higher civilization than we should expect to find if no Europeans had ever visited it? So at least the Jesuit missionaries inform us. They found the cross, a knowledge of the stars, a superior kind of worship, a more ingenious mind, among the inhabitants of the coast which is thought to have been colonized from Greenland. They even assure us that many Norwegian words are to be found in the dialect of the people. The causes which led to the destruction of the settlement were probably similar to those which produced the same effect in Greenland. A handful of colonists, cut off from all communication with the mother country, and consequently deprived of the means for repressing their savage neighbours, could not be expected always to preserve their original characteristics. They would either be exterminated by hostilities, or driven to amalgamate with the natives: probably both causes led to this unfortunate result. The only difficulty in this subject is that which we have before mentioned, viz. the sudden and total cessation of all intercourse with Iceland or Greenland; and even this must diminish when we remember that in the fourteenth century the Norwegian colony in Greenland disappeared in the same manner, after a residence in the country of more than three hundred years. On weighing the preceding circumstances, and the simple natural language in which they are recorded, few men not born in Italy or Spain will deny to the Scandinavians the claim of having been the original discoverers of the New World. Even Robertson, imperfectly acquainted as he was with the links in this chain of evidence, dared not wholly to reject it. Since his day, the researches of the northern critics, and a more attentive consideration of the subject, have caused most writers to mention it with respect.[[11]]
8. Russia (862). That the Scandinavian pirates founded a sovereignty in Russia soon after the middle of the ninth century, is a fact which no historian ventures to dispute. A body of the people under the denomination of the Varangians,—a denomination which nobody can explain,—subdued the Tshuder and other Slavonic tribes between the Gulf of Finland and Novogrod. They were indeed masters of the maritime coasts in this part of the Baltic. At this time Russia was split into many separate states, which had never known a common head, and of which most, though of kindred origin, were at war with one another. Of these states the most considerable was Novogrod, a flourishing republic, which had an extensive commerce, not merely with the nations surrounding the Baltic, but with the Greek empire, with Persia, and perhaps with India. Its wealth naturally raised the cupidity of the warlike tribes, who were on the watch to intercept its merchandise, to harass its convoys, and, when the opportunity was favourable, of assailing its outposts. Separately, indeed, none of these tribes could have made any impression on that powerful city; but leagues for a common object distinguished the barbarian no less than the civilised times. By such a league were the people of Novogrod menaced; and in accordance with a custom of the times, solicited the aid of their neighbours, the Varangians. All the Northmen, and the Varangians in particular, were ready to sell their sword to the highest bidder. The offer of the republic, therefore, was promptly accepted; and her enemies were speedily humbled.