Chapter 15
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seemed to him to be good for nothing, and when, by sailing on, he discovered that it was an island, he headed for the open sea, bearing north. There was a strong following wind and in four days' time he sighted land again. Of all the countries he had seen it was most like the Greenland Bjarni was expecting to find and when at length he landed he realized that it was indeed his goal, for he had made the coast close to the eastern settlement where Herjolf lived, and that same night, so the story runs, Bjarni, the discoverer of America, was once more reunited with his father.
The second Norse voyage to America (1002-3), some fifteen or sixteen years later, was made by Leif, son of Eric the Red, the Leif who first brought Christianity to Greenland. All accounts save one assert that during his return from Norway in the summer of the year AD 1000 as the bearer of Olaf Tryggvason's mission to his fellow-colonists he was driven out of his course and carried by winds and currents to the shores of the New World; yet the Flatey Book version of the discovery of America tells the story differently, saying that after Leif's return to Greenland direct from Norway he found that men were now talking much about Bjarni's discoveries and eventually determined to become explorer himself; so he bought Bjarni's boat, engaged a crew of thirty-five men, and set out to find these new lands of which the Herjolfsness folk talked so much.
He came first to a barren and ice-capped country that he called Helluland (land of flat stone) and this, presumably, was the eastern coast of Labrador. Then he sailed off to a second land that was low-lying and wooded with a gentle slope to the sea and wide stretches of sand, a description that applies well enough to the south-western end of Nova Scotia in the neighbourhood of Cape Sable. This Leif named Markland (land of woods). Then two days' sail before a northeast wind brought the ship to a pleasant country where Leif made a camp and passed the winter. There was no want of salmon in the river and lake near which they built their booths, the pasturage was excellent, and there was no frost in winter-time; the men explored a little bit
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of the country in the immediate neighbourhood of the camp, and one evening a German sailor of the party, native of a wine country, discovered wild grapes growing, so Leif named this most agreeable territory Wineland. In the spring, with a cargo of liquor (1) and wood, he returned to Greenland and there abode for the rest of his days, wealthy and much honoured.
The discovery of the wild grapes establishes the position of Wineland as somewhere at any rate south of Passamaquoddy Bay in latitude 45°, the northern limit of the vine in America. But the approximate locality of Leif's camp can be determined with much greater precision by means of the once obscure statement in the Flatey Book that on the shortest day the sun, as observed from the camp, had 'eykt' place and 'dagmála' place. To Mr. M. Mjelde belongs the honour of having satisfactorily solved the riddle of this sentence, for he has shown (2) that the positions at which Leif observed the sun rise and set in Wineland on the shortest day of a year about AD 1000 were the points on the horizon 60° east and 60° west of south, and on this basis it can be calculated that the most northerly point at which Leif could make his observation was somewhere about latitude 37° N. This places Leif's camp in Virginia or Maryland on the shores of Chesapeake Bay.
According to the Flatey Book, the third Norse voyage to America (1004-7) came about in this wise. There was much talk in Greenland about Leif's expedition after he had returned, and his brother, Thorvald, said that he was of the opinion that the exploration of the new country had been confined to too small an area. So Leif gave Thorvald his ship and a crew of thirty was chosen, including, no doubt, several of the men who had been on the previous voyages. With the aid of these experienced sailors Thorvald managed to reach Leif's camp in Wineland without much difficulty and there, like Leif before him, he passed the winter. But in the spring Thorvald began preparations for a summer exploration of the country to the west; the party made their way along a wooded coast where there were many islands, but they found no sign of human beings although on one island there was a deserted hut or wigwam. Thorvald therefore returned to Leif's camp in the autumn and in the next summer explored to the east, arriving at length in a very beautiful bay where he told his men he would dearly like to make his home. But there
1. In the saga grapes.
2. Saga-Book of the Viking Society, X, pt. I (1919-24), p. 57.
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were Indians living here and the Norsemen, having come upon nine of them hiding under three canoes, (1) killed eight of them, one alone escaping. That same night they were attacked by large numbers of the natives; Thorvald and his men defended themselves behind the shield-wall of their boat, and after a little while
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the Indians, having spent their spears and arrows, withdrew. Then Thorvald asked his men if any of them were wounded and
1. Made of skin according to the saga, but probably of birch-bark, for the writer was no doubt confusing the Indians with the Eskimos since both peoples are referred to by the same name (Skraelings).
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they answered that they were all safe and sound. 'I have got a wound under the arm', said he; 'an arrow passed between the gunwale and the shield and struck me. It is here and it will be my death. Now my advice to you is that you make ready to depart as soon as you can, but first you must carry me to that headland where I wanted so much to make my home, for it seems that it was the truth I spoke when I said that I should stay there awhile. Bury me there with a cross at my head and at my feet, and let the place be called Crossness hereafter'. So Thorvald died and was buried in America; his crew cut a harvest of grapes in the autumn and in the next spring returned to Greenland where they had much news to tell Leif.
Thorvald's company arrived back with the news of their leader's death in the spring of AD 1007 and Thorstein, his brother, the third of the sons of Eric the Red to set out on the voyage to America, declared that he would go to Wineland to bring home the body of his brother. So he and his wife took the same ship and put to sea with a crew of twenty-five carefully chosen men; but they were driven out of their course and soon lost their bearings. They sailed the open sea for many weeks with no idea of their whereabouts but by the beginning of winter they found themselves once again off Greenland and landed in Lysufjord in the western settlement. (1)
The Wineland voyage most famous of all is that of Thorfinn Karlsefni, a wealthy Icelandic merchant and a sailor of considerable reputation. One summer (about AD 1020) (2) he fitted out his ship for a trading expedition to Greenland and, in company
1. In describing Thorvald's voyage and that of Thorstein I have followed the Flatey Book, not without some misgivings. I can commend the ingenious view of Professor William Hovgaard (Voyages of the Norsemen to America, New York, 1915, p. 101) who ignores Thorvald entirely and describes the events in this manner. After Leif's return from Wineland there was much talk of further exploration in the new country and Thorstein prepared to make a voyage of discovery, even persuading old Eric to join the expedition. He fitted out the ship of one Thorbjorn, lately arrived from Iceland, and set sail, but leaving Eric behind at the last moment because of an accident that happened to him on the way to the ship. Thorstein was at sea all the summer, was driven completely out of his course, sighted Iceland, and saw birds from Ireland; finally the boat returned to Ericsfjord at the beginning of winter. Thorstein then married Gudrid, the daughter of Thorbjorn the Icelander, and went to live at Lysufjord in the western settlement where Thorstein died of sickness.
2. The dating of this voyage is largely a matter of conjecture and some authorities place it as early as 1107-11. But see Gathorne Hardy, op. cit., p. 137; the late dating used here was first proposed by Vigfusson.
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with another Icelandic boat, he arrived in Ericsfjord where Eric the Red received him with great hospitality and invited the crews of both boats to spend the winter at Brattahlid, his home. This offer the Icelanders accepted and they had a very merry time with Eric; they lent their host malt and meal and corn for a grand Christmas feast which is said to have been one of the most magnificent ever given in this poor country, and they passed many long evenings in playing draughts and telling stories; meanwhile Karlsefni courted and married Gudrid, Thorstein's widow and the daughter of Thorbjorn. The conversation had, of course, often been concerned with the adventures of the members of Eric's family in Wineland and the upshot was that Karlsefni and his companion Snorri resolved to go to look for this country, for by all accounts it seemed a profitable place to visit. The other Icelandic boat, commanded by Bjarni Grimolfsson and Thorhall Gamlason, was also fitted out to take part in the expedition, and there was a third boat that joined the enterprise. This was commanded by Thorvard, a Greenlander who had married a most remarkable woman of the name of Freydis, an illegitimate daughter of Red Eric; Freydis accompanied her husband, and with them went a surly old Greenlander known as Thorhall the Hunter. By this time Bjarni Herjulfsson's old boat, that had already made three Wineland voyages, was no longer seaworthy, so Thorvard obtained the ship of Gudrid's father, Thorbjorn, who had settled in Greenland not very long before this time. In all the little fleet of three ships had a total strength of 160 men, and besides this there were women on board, including Gudrid, Karlsefni's wife.
The three boats first made their way up the coast of Greenland to the western settlement, perhaps deliberately to escape the strong current that had swept Thorstein out of his course when, on leaving Ericsfjord, he had headed straight for America. (1) Then they sailed south across Davis Strait and made the coast of Labrador; there they landed and found the country strewn with immense boulders and the home of arctic foxes, so they concluded that it was Leif's Helluland. Thereupon they sailed off in a south-easterly direction until, after passing through the Strait of Belle Isle, they found themselves off a wooded land that they assumed to be Markland; then they came to Cape Whittle, and at this or some other promontory near by they landed and found
1. On the other hand, it may have been necessary this year to go first along the Greenland coast in order to penetrate the ice. Or the journey to the western settlements may have been undertaken in order to transact some business of Gudrid's, for she had property there.
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the keel of a ship stranded on the shore so that they called the place Keelness. Afterwards they sailed along the desolate sands of the south coast of Labrador, and these they called Wonderstrands because the sail past them took so long a time. At length they realized that they were going too far to the west and, turning south across the Gulf of St. Lawrence, perhaps west of Anticosti Island, they came to the east coast of the great bay-indented Gaspé peninsula; then the beautiful Chaleur Bay opened before them and as it was now late summer there, in Straumfjord, as they called it, they prepared to stay.
At first it proved to be a very agreeable place. There was grass in plenty for the cattle they had brought from Greenland and the members of the expedition passed some happy weeks in exploring this beautiful country at their leisure. But the winter, when it came, brought disillusionment, for it was very severe; the water froze, the fishing and hunting failed, and because they had done nothing to provide against this misfortune it was not long before food grew scarce.
They tried to live on an island in the mouth of Straumfjord, for it was the home of enormous numbers of sea-birds and they hoped that there might be some fishing there and that they might pick up some sort of jetsam that would help to keep them alive. But though their cattle throve when taken across to the island, they themselves were as badly off as before and soon they found themselves faced with starvation. They called upon God to send them food; but their prayers were not answered as speedily as the impatient and desperate men desired.
So one day a member of their company disappeared. This was Thorhall the Hunter, an ill-tempered lout who had been in the service of Eric the Red, and when after three whole days of searching for him he was at length found, he was discovered on a crag lying in a rigor with staring eyes and open mouth and dilated nostrils, though sometimes he relaxed in order to writhe and pinch himself, muttering a recitation as he turned and twisted. It took some time to bring him to his senses and when at last they were able to ask him why he had come there, he replied shortly that it was no business of theirs. So they took him home and left this surly creature to his own devices. But shortly afterwards a whale was stranded in the shoal waters and though it was of a species that none of them recognized they cut it up and the cooks boiled it. Now the finding of the beast was just what Thorhall expected. 'Is not the Red-Beard (Thor) of more use than your Christ?' he asked, and then he shouted, 'This is
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