The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503 Part 1

The Northmen, Columbus and Cabot, 985-1503.

by Various.

INTRODUCTION

The important doc.u.ments from Norse sources that may be cla.s.sed as "Original Narratives of Early American History" are the Icelandic sagas (prose narratives) that tell of the voyages of Northmen to Vinland. There are two sagas that deal mainly with these voyages, while in other Icelandic sagas and annals there are a number of references to Vinland and adjacent regions. These two sagas are the "Saga of Eric the Red" and another, which, for the lack of a better name, we may call the "Vinland History of the Flat Island Book," but which might well bear the same name as the other. This last history is composed of two disjointed accounts found in a fine vellum ma.n.u.script known as the Flat Island Book (Flateyjar-bok), so-called because it was long owned by a family that lived on Flat Island in Broad Firth, on the northwestern coast of Iceland. Bishop Brynjolf, an enthusiastic collector, got possession of this vellum, "the most extensive and most perfect of Icelandic ma.n.u.scripts," and sent it, in 1662, with other vellums, as a gift to King Frederick III. of Denmark, where it still is one of the great treasures of the Royal Library.

On account of the beauty of the Flat Island vellum, and the number of sagas that it contained (when printed it made 1700 octavo pages), it early attracted the attention of Old Norse collectors and scholars, and hence the narrative relating to Vinland that it contained came to be better known than the vellum called Hauk's Book, containing the "Saga of Eric the Red," and was the only account of Vinland that received any particular attention from the scholars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries The Flat Island Book narrative was also given first place in Rafn's _Antiquitates Americanae_ (Copenhagen, 1837). This ponderous volume contained all the original sources, but it has given rise to much needless controversy on the Norse voyages, for many of the author's conclusions were soon found to be untenable. He failed to winnow the sound historical material from that which was unsubstantiated or improbable. And so far as the original sources are concerned, it was particularly unfortunate that he followed in the footsteps of seventeenth and eighteenth century scholars and gave precedence to the Flat Island Book narrative. In various important respects this saga does not agree with the account given in the "Saga of Eric the Red," which modern scholarship has p.r.o.nounced the better and more reliable version, for reasons that we shall consider later.

The Flat Island Book consists of transcripts of various sagas made by the Icelandic priests Jon Thordsson and Magnus Thorhallsson. Very little of their lives is known, but there is evidence to show that the most important portion of the copying was completed about 1380. There is, however, no information concerning the original from which the transcripts were made. From internal evidence, however, Dr. Storm of the University of Christiania thinks that this original account was a late production, possibly of the fourteenth century.[4-1] It is, moreover, evident that this original account was quite different from the one from which the existing "Saga of Eric the Red" was made, so that we have two distinct accounts of the same set of events, both separately derived from oral tradition, a fact which, on account of the lack of harmony in details, has been the source of much confusion, but which nevertheless gives strong testimony concerning the verity of the Vinland tradition in its general outlines.

The saga which has best stood the test of modern criticism, namely the "Saga of Eric the Red," has beyond this fact the additional advantage of having come down to us in two different vellums. The one is found in Hauk's Book, No. 544 of the Arne-Magnaean Collection in Copenhagen, and the other is in No. 557 of the same collection. These two narratives (in vellums 544 and 557) tell the same story. They are so closely allied that the translation which appears in this volume has been made from a collation of both texts, that of Hauk's Book (544) having been more closely followed.[5-1] The Hauk's Book text is clearly legible; No. 557 is not in such good condition.

Many facts in the life of Hauk Erlendsson, who with the a.s.sistance of two secretaries made Hauk's Book, are known. He was in 1294 made a "lawman"

in Iceland, and died in Norway in 1334. There are reasons for believing that the vellum bearing his name was written a number of years before his death, probably during the period 1310-1320. Hauk was particularly interested in the "Saga of Eric the Red," as he was descended from Thorfinn Karlsefni, the princ.i.p.al character of the saga, a fact that perhaps lends a certain authority to this version as against that of the Flat Island Book. Hauk brings the genealogical data of the saga down to his own time, which is not done in No. 557, one fact among others which shows that 557 is not a copy of 544.

The early history of AM. 557 is not known. The orthography and hand indicate that it was made later than Hauk's Book, probably in the early part of the fifteenth century. Vigfusson considered it a better text than the Hauk's Book version, though rougher and less carefully written.[5-2]

Other critics (Jonsson and Gering) consider 544 the safer text.

In regard to the date of composition of the archetype, it may be remarked that both 544 and 557 speak of Bishop Brand "the Elder," which presupposes a knowledge of the second Bishop Brand, whose accession occurred in 1263. Before this date, therefore, the originals used in making 544 and 557 could not have been written. But this mention of Bishop Brand "the Elder" does not, we think, give an adequate basis for fixing the date of the _composition_ of the saga, as Dr. Storm believes, who places it somewhere between 1263 and 1300, with an inclination toward the earlier date. Dr. Finnur Jonsson,[6-1] who accepts Dr. Storm's opinion in other respects, says on this point: "The cla.s.sic form of the saga and its vivid and excellent tradition surely carry it back to about 1200.... To a.s.sume that the saga was first written down about 1270 or after, I consider to be almost an impossibility." Nor does this conservative opinion by Dr. Jonsson preclude the possibility, or even probability, that written accounts of the Vinland voyages existed before this date. John Fiske's[6-2] well-considered opinion of this same saga (544 and 557) has weight: "Its general accuracy in the statement and grouping of so many remote details is proof that its statements were controlled by an exceedingly strong and steady tradition,--altogether too strong and steady, in my opinion, to have been maintained simply by word of mouth." And Vigfusson,[6-3] in speaking of the sagas in general, says: "We believe that when once the first saga was written down, the others were in quick succession committed to parchment, some still keeping their original form through a succession of copies, others changed. The saga time was short and transitory, as has been the case with the highest literary periods of every nation, whether we look at the age of Pericles in Athens, or of our own Elizabeth in England, and that which was not written down quickly, in due time, was lost and forgotten forever."

The absence of contemporary record has caused some American historians to view the narratives of the Vinland voyages as ordinary hearsay. But it is important to remember that before the age of writing in Iceland there was a saga-telling age, a most remarkable period of intellectual activity, by means of which the deeds and events of the seething life of the heroic age were carried over into the age of writing.[7-1] The general trustworthiness of this saga-telling period has been attested in numerous ways from foreign records. Thus Snorri Sturlason's "The Sagas of the Kings of Norway," one of the great history books of the world, written in Iceland in the thirteenth century, was based primarily on early tradition, brought over the sea to Iceland. Yet the exactness of its descriptions and the reliability of its statements have been verified in countless cases by modern Norwegian historians.[7-2]

With reference to the Vinland voyages, there is proof of an unusually strong tradition in the fact that it has come down from two sources, the only case of such a phenomenon among the Icelandic sagas proper. It does not invalidate the general truth of the tradition that these two sources clash in various matters. These disagreements are not so serious but that fair-minded American scholars have found it "easy to believe that the narratives contained in the sagas are true in their general outlines and important features." It lies within the province of Old Norse scholarship to determine which of the two Vinland sagas has the better literary and historical antecedents. After this point has been established, the truthfulness and credibility of the selected narrative in its details must be maintained on the internal evidence in conjunction with the geographical and other data of early America. And here American scholarship may legitimately speak.

These sagas have in recent years been subjected, especially by Dr. Gustav Storm of Christiania,[8-1] to most searching textual and historical criticism, and the result has been that the simpler narrative of Hauk's Book and AM. 557 is p.r.o.nounced the more reliable account.[8-2] In respect to literary quality, it has the characteristics of the Icelandic sagas proper, as distinguished from the later sagas by well-known literary men like Snorri. Where it grazes facts of Northern history it is equally strong. Thus, there is serious question as to the first sighting of land by Biarni Herjulfson, who is mentioned only in the Flat Island narrative, and nowhere else in the rich genealogical literature of Iceland, although his alleged father was an important man, of whom there are reliable accounts. On the other hand, the record of the "Saga of Eric the Red,"

giving the priority of discovery to Leif Ericson, can be collaterally confirmed.[8-3] The whole account of Biarni seems suspicious, and the main facts, viewed with reference to Leif's discovery, run counter to Northern chronology and history. There are, however, two incidental touches in the Flat Island Book narrative, which are absent from the other saga, namely, the observation concerning the length of the day in Vinland, and the reference to finding "three skin-canoes, with three men under each." The improbabilities of the Flat Island Book saga are easily detected, if one uses as a guide the simpler narrative of the "Saga of Eric the Red," the only doubtful part of which is the "uniped" episode, a touch of mediaeval superst.i.tion so palpable as not to be deceptive.

Aside from such things as picking grapes in the spring, sipping sweet dew from the gra.s.s, and the presence of an apparition, the Flat Island Book account, when read by itself, with no attempt to make it harmonize with the statements of the "Saga of Eric the Red" or other facts of Scandinavian history, is a sufficiently straightforward narrative. The difficulty begins when it is placed in juxtaposition to these facts and statements. It should not be and need not be discarded, but in giving an account of the Vinland voyages it must be used with circ.u.mspection. From an historical standpoint it must occupy a subordinate place. If Rafn in his _Antiquitates Americanae_ had given emphatic precedence to the saga as found in Hauk's Book and AM. 557, had left to American scholars the Dighton Rock and the Newport Tower, and had not been so confident in the matter of identifying the exact localities that the explorers visited, he might have carried conviction, instead of bringing confusion, to American scholars.

The general results of the work of the Norwegian scholar Dr. Storm, together with a unique presentation of the original narratives, are accessible in _The Finding of Wineland_ (London, 1890 and 1895), by an American scholar, the late Arthur Middleton Reeves. This work contains a lucid account of the important investigations on the subject, photographs of all the vellum pages that give the various narratives, a printed text accompanying these, page by page and line by line, and also translations into English. There is one phase of the subject that this work does not discuss: the identifications of the regions visited by the Northmen. Dr.

Storm, however, has gone into this subject, and is convinced that h.e.l.luland, Markland, and Vinland of the sagas, are Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia.[10-1] The sailing directions in the "Saga of Eric the Red" are given with surprising detail. These, with other observations, seem to fit Nova Scotia remarkably well. Only one thing appears to speak against Storm's view, and that is the _abundance_ of grapes to which the Flat Island Book account testifies. But coupled with this testimony are statements (to say nothing of the unreliability of this saga in other respects) that indicate that the Icelandic narrators had come to believe that grapes were gathered in the spring, thus invalidating the testimony as to abundance.

Whether the savages that the sagas describe were Indians or Eskimos is a question of some interest. John Fiske[10-2] believes that the explorers came in contact with American Indians; Vigfusson, on the other hand, believes that the sagas describe Eskimos. Here, however, the American has the better right to an opinion.

On this point, it is of importance to call attention to the fact that the Norse colonists in Greenland found no natives there, only vestiges of them. They were at that time farther north in Greenland; the colonists came in contact with them much later,--too late to admit of descriptions of them in any of the cla.s.sical Icelandic sagas, in which the Greenland colonists play no inconspicuous part. Ari, the great authority on early Norse history, speaking of the Greenland colonists, says in his _Libellus Islandorum_:[11-1] "They found there men's habitations both east and west in the land [_i.e._, in both the Eastern and Western settlements] both broken cayaks and stone-smithery, whereby it may be seen that the same kind of folk had been there as they which inhabited Vinland, and whom the men of Greenland [_i.e._, the explorers] called Skrellings."

A sort of negative corroboration of this is offered by a work of high rank, the famous _Speculum Regale_, written in Old Norse in Norway in the middle of the thirteenth century. It contains much trustworthy information on Greenland; it tells, "with bald common sense," of such characteristic things as glaciers and northern lights, discusses the question as to whether Greenland is an island or a peninsula, tells of exports and imports, the climate, the means of subsistence, and especially the fauna, _but not one word concerning any natives_. Moreover Ivar Bardsen's account[11-2] of Greenland, which is entirely trustworthy, gives a distinct impression that the colonists did not come into conflict with the Eskimos until the fourteenth century.

There is consequently no valid reason for doubting that the savages described in the sagas were natives of Vinland and Markland. But whether it can ever be satisfactorily demonstrated that the Norse explorers came in contact with Algonquin, Micmac, or Beothuk Indians, and just where they landed, are not matters of essential importance. The incontrovertible facts of the various Norse expeditions are that Leif Ericson and Thorfinn Karlsefni are as surely historical characters as Christopher Columbus, that they visited, in the early part of the eleventh century, some part of North America where the grape grew, and that in that region the colonists found savages, whose hostility upset their plans of permanent settlement.

According to the usually accepted chronology, Leif's voyage from Norway to Greenland (during which voyage he found Vinland) was made in the year 1000, and Karlsefni's attempt at colonization within the decade following. On the basis of genealogical records (so often treacherous) some doubt has recently been cast on this chronology by Vigfusson, in _Origines Islandicae_[12-1] (1905). Vigfusson died in 1889, sixteen years before the publication of this work. He had no opportunity to consider the investigations of Dr. Storm, who accepts without question the first decade of the eleventh century for the Vinland voyages. Nor do Storm's evidences and arguments on this point appear in the work as published.

Therefore we are obliged to say of Vigfusson's observations on the chronology of the Vinland voyages, that they stand as question-marks which call for confirmation.

We are surprised, moreover, to find that _Origines Islandicae_ prints the Flat Island Book story first, apparently on account of the belief that this story contains the "truer account of the first sighting of the American continent" by Biarni Herjulfson.[12-2] It is impossible to believe that this would have been done, if the editors (Vigfusson and Powell) had known the results of Dr. Storm's work, which is not mentioned. There is, furthermore, no attempt in the _Origines Islandicae_ to refute or explain away an opinion on AM. 557 expressed by the same authorities, in 1879,[12-3] to the effect that "it is free from grave errors of fact which disfigure the latter [the Flat Island Book saga]."

We are almost forced to the conclusion that a hand less cunning than Vigfusson's has had to do with the unfinished section of the work.

In regard to the extract from Adam of Bremen, which we print, it should be observed that its only importance lies in the fact that it corroborates the Icelandic tradition of a land called Vinland, where there were grapes and "unsown grain," and thus serves to strengthen faith in the trustworthiness of the saga narrative. The annals and papal letters that follow need no further discussion, we think, than that contained in the annotations.

Besides the texts in Icelandic, already described, by Rafn, Reeves, Vigfusson and Powell, and Storm, it may be mentioned that the Flat Island text is given in Vol. I. of _Flateyjar-bok_, ed. Vigfusson and Unger, Christiania, 1860. There are translations of both texts in Beamish, _Discovery of North America by the Northmen_ (London, 1841), in Slafter, _Voyages of the Northmen_ (Boston, 1877), and in De Costa, _Pre-Columbian Discovery of America by the Northmen_ (Albany, 1901). But most of these are confused in arrangement, and the best is that by the late Mr. Reeves, which by the kind consent of his representatives we are permitted to use in this volume.

JULIUS E. OLSON.

FOOTNOTES:

[4-1] _Eiriks Saga Raudha_ (Copenhagen, 1891), p. xv.

[5-1] A translation, with the t.i.tle "The Story of Thorfinn Carlsemne,"

based on AM. 557, may be found in _Origines Islandicae_, II. 610.

[5-2] _Origines Islandicae_, II. 590.

[6-1] _Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie_ (Copenhagen, 1901), II. 648.

[6-2] _The Discovery of America_, p. 212.

[6-3] Prolegomena, _Sturlunga Saga_, p. lxix.

[7-1] Snorri, the Icelandic historian, says that "it was more than 240 years from the settlement of Iceland (about 870) before sagas began to be written" and that "Ari (1067-1148) was the first man who wrote in the vernacular stories of things old and new."

[7-2] "Among the mediaeval literatures of Europe, that of Iceland is unrivalled in the profusion of detail with which the facts of ordinary life are recorded, and the clearness with which the individual character of numberless real persons stands out from the historic background....

The Icelanders of the Saga-age were not a secluded self-centred race; they were untiring in their desire to learn all that could be known of the lands round about them, and it is to their zeal for this knowledge, their sound historical sense, and their trained memories, that we owe much information regarding the British Isles themselves from the ninth to the thirteenth century. The contact of the Scandinavian peoples with the English race on the one hand, and the Gaelic on the other, has been an important factor in the subsequent history of Britain; and this is naturally a subject on which the Icelandic evidence is of the highest value." Prefatory Note to _Origines Islandicae_.

[8-1] _Studies on the Vinland Voyages_ (Copenhagen, 1889) and _Eiriks Saga Raudha_ (Copenhagen, 1891).

[8-2] Of the same opinion are Professor Hugo Gering of Kiel, _Zeitschrift fur deutsche Philologie_, XXIV. (1892), and Professor Finnur Jonsson of Copenhagen, _Den oldnorske og oldislandske Litteraturs Historie_, II.

646.

[8-3] The Kristni-Saga, which tells of the conversion of Iceland, says: "That summer [1000] King Olaf [of Norway] went out of the country to Wendland in the south, and he sent Leif Eric's son to Greenland to preach the faith there. It was then that Leif discovered Vinland the Good. He also discovered a crew on the wreck of a ship out in the deep sea, and so he got the name of Leif the Lucky." For pa.s.sages from other sagas that corroborate Leif's discovery on his voyage from Norway to Greenland (_i.e._, in the year that Olaf Tryggvason fell, namely, 1000), see Reeves, _The Finding of Wineland the Good_ (London, 1895), pp. 7-18.

[10-1] See, in support of Storm, Juul Dieserud's paper, "Norse Discoveries in America," _Bulletin of the American Geographical Society_, Feb., 1901.

[10-2] _Discovery of America_, p. 182.

[11-1] See _Origines Islandicae_, I. 294.

[11-2] See notes 6 and 8 to Papal Letters, p. 71 of this volume.

[12-1] See note 1, p. 43.

[12-2] In other respects the editors speak highly of the saga as found in Hauk's Book and AM. 557: "This saga has never been so well known as the other, though it is probably of even higher value. Unlike the other, it has the form and style of one of the 'Islendinga Sogor' [the Icelandic sagas proper]; its phrasing is broken, its dialogue is excellent, it contains situations of great pathos, such as the beautiful incident at the end of Bearne's self-sacrifice, and scenes of high interest, such as that of the Sibyl's prophesying in Greenland...." II. 591.

[12-3] _Icelandic Prose Reader_ (where AM. 557 is printed), notes, p.

377.