THE NORTHMEN.
In the far north there is an island so cold and dreary that from time
immemorial it has been called Iceland--the land of ice and snow and
frosts. Here are no spreading forests or fields of flowers, but only
here and there hardy evergreens and a few pale blossoms, that come,
perhaps, just to show how beautiful the place might become if only the
short Icelandic summer lasted as long as the sunny months farther south.
All around the rocky, frozen shores break the white waves of the
Northern Ocean, and in the summer one may see the great icebergs sailing
past, and hear the voices of the birds that have come northward for a
little visit.
In the winter the days are so short and the cold is so intense that the
children are almost shut off from out-door life, and are glad to take up
with in-door games and plays. But they are very happy in spite of this,
for they are a healthy, sturdy race, and like the ice and cold and snow.
In the long winter evenings they gather around the fire and listen to
the old stories that have been told in their land for hundreds of years,
the stories of Odin and Thor and Baldur, for long, long ago the religion
of the Northmen was very different from what it is now. Then they
believed not in one god but many, of whom Odin was the chief, who dwelt
in Valhalla, the Northmen's heaven. And no one could enter there who had
not died fighting, which made the Norse heroes very anxious to die in
battle. Perhaps you will remember this god better when you hear that one
of the days of the week is named after him, for Wednesday means Woden's
day, and Woden was only another name for Odin. Thursday is also named
after one of the Norse gods, the great Thor, called the thunderer, who
held a mighty hammer in his hand which no one else could lift, and of
whom every one was afraid. But of all their gods the people loved best
Baldur, the beautiful; they called him the fair white god, and not only
was he beloved by the people but all things in nature loved him and had
promised never to harm him, all things, that is, excepting the
mistletoe. One day there was a great company gathered together, and they
all agreed to shoot arrows at Baldur just to prove that nothing could
hurt him; so they shot arrows of oak and hemlock and pine, and they
threw great stones at him, but he remained unharmed amid it all, for all
things loved him and refused to do him injury; and Baldur smiled upon
the people and they raised their hands above their heads and vowed that
they would worship him forever. And now entered Hoerder, an evil spirit,
who had found out the secret of the mistletoe; he asked permission to
shoot an arrow at Baldur, and took up one made of the mistletoe, the one
thing in the world that could harm the beautiful god. Hoerder took aim
and the arrow sped on its way, and thus died Baldur the beautiful, by
the hand of Hoerder the evil one. And the people mourned for him, and
all things in nature wept over the death of the fair white god. And when
hundreds of years had passed away, and the people had ceased to believe
in Odin and Thor they still loved the memory of Baldur; and when they
listened to the story of Christ and his death on the cross, they said He
was like the beautiful one who had been slain by Hoerder; so the
priests, to please the people, twined the cross with mistletoe, and to
this day at Christmastime little English children, descendants of the
fierce Norse rovers, gather the mistletoe, together with the holly and
evergreen, and all bright and beautiful things, and deck the churches
with them in honor of the birth of Him who came to destroy evil, and to
bring peace on earth and good-will to men. And thus the name of Baldur
lives, for the memory of the good can never die, but lives forever in
the heart, even as the stars forever shine in heaven.
Besides the old stories of their gods, the people of these North
countries have many other tales they relate of things which actually
happened. Living so near the ocean, they were, of course, great sailors,
and often went off on long voyages, which lasted sometimes a year or
two. In the old histories of Iceland we read that Erik the Red, as he
was called, being unjustly treated by his neighbors, resolved to leave
Iceland and seek a home elsewhere. So he gathered his friends together
and took ship and sailed away boldly toward the west. No one then knew
that there was any land west of Iceland, so many of his friends expected
never to see him again. But Erik was a brave sailor and kept sailing on
and on, still westward, until one day he did see land, and then steering
southward along the coast he found a place where he might land safely.
Here he stayed the whole winter, calling the place Erik's Island; then
he looked around for a spot suitable to live in always, and, having
found one, a little village was built, and there he remained two years.
When he went back to Iceland he told the people of the new land he had
found, and called it Greenland, as he thought that name would sound
pleasant to them, and they would be eager to go there and live, and so
they were, and Erik soon sailed away again toward Greenland, taking with
him this time twenty-five ships filled with people and food and all
things they might need in a new country; and having reached the little
village which Erik had begun they landed in safety and were soon busy
making new homes for themselves in that western Greenland which had been
discovered by the bold rover Erik the Red.
This happened about eight hundred years ago. A short time after, Biarni,
another brave Icelander, resolved to go to Greenland too. So he set
sail, and for three days they went on briskly with a fair wind; then
arose a most fearful storm, before which they were driven for many days,
they knew not whither. At length the storm ceased, and sailing westward
another day they saw land different from any they had ever seen before,
for it was low and level and had no mountains. The sailors anxiously
asked if this were Greenland, but Biarni said no, it could not be. Then
they turned the ship about and sailed toward the North for two days, and
again they saw land, but it was still low and level, and they thought
this could not be Greenland; so they kept sailing northward for three
days more, and then they came to a land that was mountainous and covered
with ice; this land they sailed quite around, proving it to be an
island; they were almost discouraged, but kept on four days more, and
then at last Greenland came in sight. Erik and his companions listened
with great interest to the stories which Biarni told of the strange new
lands he had seen, but they were all too busy to go in search of them;
and so it came about that for many years the places which we now call
Cape Cod, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland remained unknown to all of the
Northmen except Biarni and his brave followers.
Finally, Leif the Lucky, son of Erik the Red, determined to go in search
of the strange lands seen by Biarni. He bought Biarni's ship, and taking
thirty-five men with him, started off on one of those perilous voyages
so dearly loved by the Norsemen. The first land he saw was the
mountainous, icy island round which Biarni had sailed, and which Leif
named Helluland, meaning the land of broad stones; then he sailed
farther south and came to a land low and level and covered with wood,
which they called Markland, the land of woods; now they went still
farther south for two days and then touched at an island, probably
Nantucket, and sailing through a bay between this island and the
mainland, they passed up a river and landed. Here they built rude huts
and prepared to pass the winter. It was about the middle of autumn, and
finding there wild grapes growing, they called the country Vinland. Leif
and his people were much pleased with the pleasant climate and fruitful
soil of the new country, and stayed there contentedly all winter. The
next spring they loaded their ships with timber and returned to
Greenland. In the meantime Erik the Red had died, and Leif, on his
return, succeeded him in command of the Greenland colony and made no
more voyages.
But the next year Thorvald, Leif's brother, went to Vinland and spent
the winter, and the following summer sailed away down the coast as far
as the Carolinas, coming back, however, in the autumn to Vinland. The
next summer, while coasting around Cape Cod, they saw on the sandy
shore of the bay three small elevations; these proved to be three boats
made of skin, with three men under each; they seized all the men but
one, who ran away with his boat, and they killed all those they had
taken. Immediately, from a small bay, hundreds of small skin boats were
seen coming toward them all filled with these strange people. Thorvald
told his men to set up their battle-shields and guard themselves as well
as possible, but to fight little against them, which they did, and the
Skraellings, as they called them, shot at the Norsemen for a time, but
at last fled away; but they had wounded the brave Thorvald with an arrow
so that he died, and his companions becoming discouraged returned the
next spring to Greenland, after an absence of three years.
But Vinland was now well known, and there were many voyages made there,
chiefly for the timber, of which there was a great want in Greenland.
The children of Erik the Red were always ready to go on these voyages,
for they inherited their father's bold and roving disposition. There is
one story which tells of a voyage to Vinland made by Freydis, Erik's
daughter, a cruel, hard-hearted woman, who, during the voyage, killed
her husband's brothers and seized the ship; but for this she was
punished by Leif on her return. Then there is another story of Gudrid, a
beautiful woman who had married Thorstein, Erik's youngest son, who died
while getting ready to go to Vinland. Gudrid married after this a man by
the name of Thorfinn, who took her to Vinland to live, and here was born
their son Snorri, who was perhaps the first white child born in America.
While they were in Vinland, Thorfinn and his companions had many battles
with the natives, or Skraellings, and once Freydis, being with them,
fought fiercely, killing many natives with her own hand. After spending
three years in Vinland, Thorfinn and Gudrid went to Iceland, and
remained there the rest of their lives, and the little boy, Snorri,
lived and grew to manhood, and among his descendants was the great
Danish sculptor, Thorwaldsen.
There are many other tales of these visits of the Vikings to the New
World, but they cannot be written here; but you must remember that
hundreds of years before anything was known of America to the rest of
Europe, the bold Norse sea-kings came here--Erik the Red, Leif the
Lucky, Biarni, Thorvald, and Thorfinn--and that Greenland, Newfoundland,
Cape Cod, Nova Scotia, and Rhode Island were well known to the Northmen
at a time when the rest of the world had never dreamed of a country
lying on the other side of the great Atlantic.