Possibly this book seems made up of four or five disconnected stories.
They are, however, strung upon one thread,--the westward emigration from
Norway. The story of Harald is intended to serve in two ways towards the
working out of this plot. It gives the general setting that continues
throughout the book in costume, houses, ideals, habits. It explains the
cause of the emigration from the mother country. It is really an
introductory chapter. As for the other stories, they are distinctly
steps in the progress of the plot. A chain of islands loosely connects
Norway with America,--Orkneys and Shetlands, Faroes, Iceland, Greenland.
It was from link to link of this chain that the Norsemen sailed in
search of home and adventure. Discoveries were made by accident. Ships
were driven by the wind from known island to unknown. These two
points,--the island connection that made possible the long voyage from
Norway to America, and the contribution of storm to discovery,--I have
stated in the book only dramatically. I emphasize them here, hoping that
the teacher will make sure that the children see them, and possibly that
they state them abstractly.
Let me speak as to the proper imaging of the stories. I have not often
interrupted incident with special description, not because I do not
consider the getting of vivid and detailed images most necessary to full
enjoyment and to proper intellectual habits, but because I trusted to
the pictures of this book and to the teacher to do what seemed to me
inartistic to do in the story. Some of these descriptions and
explanations I have introduced into the book in the form of notes,
hoping that the children in turning to them might form a habit of
insisting upon full understanding of a point, and might possibly, with
the teacher's encouragement, begin the habit of reference reading.
The landscape of Norway, Iceland, and Greenland is wonderful and will
greatly assist in giving reality and definiteness to the stories.
Materials for this study are not difficult of access. Foreign colored
photographs of Norwegian landscape are becoming common in our art
stores. There are good illustrations in the geographical works referred
to in the book list. These could be copied upon the blackboard. There
are three books beautifully illustrated in color that it will be
possible to find only in large libraries,--"Coast of Norway," by Walton;
"Travels in the Island of Iceland," by Mackenzie; "Voyage en Islande et
au Greenland," by J. P. Gaimard. If the landscape is studied from the
point of view of formation, the images will be more accurate and more
easily gained, and the study will have a general value that will
continue past the reading of these stories into all work in geography.
Trustworthy pictures of Norse houses and costumes are difficult to
obtain. In "Viking Age" and "Story of Norway," by Boyesen (G. P.
Putnam's Sons, New York), are many copies of Norse antiquities in the
fashion of weapons, shield-bosses, coins, jewelry, wood-carving. These
are, of course, accurate, but of little interest to children. Their
chief value lies in helping the teacher to piece together a picture that
she can finally give to her pupils.
Metal-working and wood-carving were the most important arts of the
Norse. If children study products of these arts and actually do some of
the work, they will gain a quickened sympathy with the people and an
appreciation of their power. They may, perhaps, make something to merely
illustrate Norse work; for instance, a carved ship's-head, or a copper
shield, or a wrought door-nail. But, better, they may apply Norse ideas
of form and decoration and Norse processes in making some modern thing
that they can actually use; for instance, a carved wood pin-tray or a
copper match holder. This work should lead out into a study of these
same industries among ourselves with visits to wood-working shops and
metal foundries.
Frequent drawn or painted illustration by the children of costumes,
landscapes, houses, feast halls, and ships will help to make these
images clear. But dramatization will do more than anything else for the
interpreting of the stories and the characters. It would be an excellent
thing if at last, through the dramatization and the handwork, the
children should come into sufficient understanding and enthusiasm to
turn skalds and compose songs in the Norse manner. This requires only a
small vocabulary and a rough feeling for simple rhythm, but an intensity
of emotion and a great vividness of image.
These Norse stories have, to my thinking, three values. The men, with
the crude courage and the strange adventures that make a man interesting
to children, have at the same time the love of truth, the hardy
endurance, the faithfulness to plighted word, that make them a child's
fit companions. Again, in form and in matter old Norse literature is
well worth our reading. I should deem it a great thing accomplished if
the children who read these stories should so be tempted after a while
to read those fine old books, to enjoy the tales, to appreciate
straightforwardness and simplicity of style. The historical value of the
story of Leif Ericsson and the others seems to me to be not to learn the
fact that Norsemen discovered America before Columbus did, but to gain a
conception of the conditions of early navigation, of the length of the
voyage, of the dangers of the sea, and a consequent realization of the
reason for the fact that America was unknown to mediaeval Europe, of why
the Norsemen did not travel, of what was necessary to be done before men
should strike out across the ocean. Norse story is only one chapter in
that tale of American discovery. I give below an outline of a year's
work on the subject that was once followed by the fourth grade of the
Chicago Normal School. The idea in it is to give importance, sequence,
reasonableness, broad connections, to the discovery of America.
The head of the history department who planned this course says it is
"in a sense a dramatization of the development of geographical
knowledge."
Following is a bare topical outline of the work:
Evolution of the forms of boats.
Viking tales.
A crusade as a tale of travel and discovery.
Monasteries as centers of work.
Printing.
Story of Marco Polo.
Columbus' discovery.
Story of Vasco da Gama.
Story of Magellan.
[Decoration]