THE VOYAGES OF THE NORSEMEN: DISCOVERY OF ICELAND AND GREENLAND
SHIPBUILDING
The discovery of the Faroes and Iceland by the Celts and the Irish monks,
and their settlement there, give evidence of a high degree of intrepidity;
since their fragile boats were not adapted to long voyages in the open
sea, to say nothing of carrying cargoes and keeping up any regular
communication. Nor did they, in fact, make any further progress; and
neither the Irish nor the Celts of the British Isles as a whole ever
became a seafaring people. It was the Scandinavians, and especially the
Norwegians, who were the pioneers at sea; who developed an improved style
of shipbuilding, and who, with their comparatively good and seaworthy
craft, were soon to traverse all the northern waters and open up a
prospect into a new world, whereby the geographical ideas of the times
should undergo a complete transformation. It has been asserted that the
Phœnicians in their day ventured out into the open ocean far from land;
but this lacks proof and is improbable. The Norwegians are the first
people in history who definitely abandoned the coast-sailing universally
practised before their time, and who took navigation away from the coasts
and out on to the ocean. From them other people have since learnt.
First they crossed the North Sea and sailed constantly to Shetland, the
Orkneys, North Britain and Ireland; then to the Faroes, Iceland and
Greenland, and at last they steered straight across the Atlantic itself,
and thereby discovered North America. We do not know how early the passage
of the North Sea originated; but probably, as we have seen, it was before
the time of Pytheas and much earlier than usually supposed. J. E. Sars
[1877, i. (2nd ed.), p. 191] concluded on other grounds that it was at a
very remote period, and long before the Viking age.
[Sidenote: The First Viking Expeditions]
[Sidenote: Earliest navigation of the Scandinavians]
The beginning of the more important Viking expeditions is usually referred
to the end of the eighth century, or, indeed, to a particular year, 793.
But we may conclude from historical sources[217] that as early as the
sixth century Viking voyages certainly took place over the North Sea from
Denmark to the land of the Franks, and doubtless also to southern
Britain,[218] and perhaps by the beginning of the seventh century the
Norwegians had established themselves in Shetland and even plundered the
Hebrides and the north-west of Ireland (in 612).[219] We know further from
historical sources that as early as the third century and until the close
of the fifth century the roving Eruli sailed from Scandinavia, sometimes
in company with Saxon pirates, over the seas of Western Europe, ravaging
the coasts of Gaul and Spain, and indeed penetrating in 455 into the
Mediterranean as far as Lucca in Italy.[220] From these historical facts
we are able to conclude that long before that time there had been
intercommunication by sea between the countries of Northern Europe.
Scandinavia, and especially Norway, was in those days very sparsely
inhabited, and all development of culture that was not due to direct
influence from without must have taken place with extreme slowness at such
an early period of history, even where intercourse was more active than in
the North. As we are not acquainted with any other European people who at
that time possessed anything like the necessary skill in navigation to
have been the instructors of the Scandinavians, we are forced to suppose
that it was after centuries of gradual training and development in
seamanship that the latter attained the superiority at sea which they held
at the beginning of the Viking age, when they took large fleets over the
North Sea and the Arctic Ocean as though these were their home waters.
When we further consider how, since that time, the type of ships, rigging
and sails has persisted almost without a change for eleven hundred years,
to the ten-oared and eight-oared boats of our own day--which until a few
years ago were the almost universal form of boat in the whole of northern
Norway--it will appear improbable that the type of ship and the
corresponding skill in seamanship required a much shorter time for their
development.[221]
[Illustration: Rock-carvings in Bohuslen]
[Sidenote: The Ships of the rock-carvings]
The first literary mention of the Scandinavians' boats occurs in Tacitus,
who speaks of the fleets and rowing-boats without sails of the Suiones
(see above, p. 110). But long before that time we find ships commonly
represented on the rock-carvings which are especially frequent in Bohuslen
and in the districts east of Christiania Fjord. If these were naturalistic
representations they would give us valuable information about the form and
size of the ships of those remote times. But the distinct and
characteristic features which are common to all these pictures of ships,
from Bohuslen to as far north as Beitstaden, show them to be conventional
figures, and we cannot therefore draw any certain conclusions from them
with regard to the appearance of the ships.
Dr. Andr. M. Hansen [1908], with his usual imaginativeness, has
pointed out the resemblance between the rock-carvings and the
vase-paintings of the Dipylon period in Attica, and thinks there is a
direct connection between them. It appears highly probable that the
style of the rock-carvings is not a wholly native northern art, but is
due more or less to influence from the countries of the Mediterranean
or the East, in the same way as we have seen that the burial customs
(dolmens, chambered barrows, etc.) came from these. Dr. Hansen has,
however, exaggerated the resemblance between the Dipylon art and the
rock-carvings; many of the resemblances are clearly due to the fact
that the same subjects are represented (e.g., spear-throwing,
fighting with raised weapons, rowers, horsemen, chariots, etc.); it
may also be mentioned that such signs as the wheel or the solar symbol
(the eye) are common to wide regions of culture. On the other hand,
there are differences in other important features; thus, the mode of
representing human beings is not the same, as asserted by Hansen; the
characteristic "Egyptian" style of the men depicted in the Dipylon
art, with broad, rectangular shoulders and narrow waists, is just what
one does not find in the rock-carvings, where on the contrary men are
depicted in the more naturalistic style which one recognises among
many other peoples in a savage state of culture. Hansen also lays
stress upon resemblances to figures from Italy. But what most
interests us here is the number of representations of ships in the
rock-carvings, which for the most part show a remarkable uniformity as
regards their essential features, while they differ from all pictures
of ships, not only in the art of the Dipylon and of the Mediterranean
generally, but also in that of Egypt and Assyria-Babylonia. The boats
or ships depicted in the rock-carvings are so strange-looking that
doubts have been expressed whether they are boats or ships at all, or
whether it is not something else that is intended, sledges, for
instance. There is no indication of the oars, which are so
characteristic of all delineations of ships in Greece, Italy, Egypt
and Assyria; nor is there any certain indication of sails or rudders,
which are also characteristic of southern art. Moreover, the lowest
line, which should answer to the keel, is often separated at both ends
from the upper line, which should be the top strake. On the other hand
the numerous figures in the "boats" can with difficulty be regarded as
anything but men, and most probably rowers, sometimes as many as fifty
in number, besides the unmistakable figures of men standing, some of
them armed; and it must be added that if these pictures represented
nothing but sledges, it is inconceivable that there should never be
any indication of draught animals. But one remarkable point about
these numerous carvings is the typical form both of the prow and of
the stern-post. With comparatively few exceptions the prow has two
turned-up beaks, which are difficult to understand. It has been
attempted to explain one of these as an imitation of the rams of Greek
and Phœnician warships; but in that case it ought to be directed
forward and not bent up. The shape of the stern-post is also curious:
for what one must regard as the keel of the ship has in all these
representations a blunt after end, curiously like a sledge-runner;
while the upper line of the ship, which should correspond to the top
strake, is bent upward and frequently somewhat forward, in a more or
less even curve, sometimes ending in a two- or three-leaved ornament,
somewhat like the stern-post of Egyptian ships (see p. 23). This mode
of delineation became so uniformly fixed that besides occurring in
almost all the rock-carvings it appears again in an even more
carefully executed form in the knives of the later Bronze Age. Such a
type of ship, with a keel ending bluntly aft, is not known in ancient
times in Europe, either in the Mediterranean or in the North.[222]
Egyptian, Assyro-Phœnician, Greek and Roman representations of ships
(see pp. 7, 23, 35, 48, 241, 242), all show a keel which bends up to
form a continuously curved stern-post; and both the Nydam boat from
Sleswick (p. 110) and the Norwegian Viking ships that have been
discovered agree in having a similar turned-up stern-post, which forms
a continuous curve from the keel itself (pp. 246, 247); it is the same
with delineations of the later Iron Age (p. 243). Even Tacitus
expressly says that the ships of the Suiones were alike fore and aft.
The only similar stern-posts to be found are possibly the abruptly
ending ones of the ship and boats on the grave-stone from Novilara in
Italy; but here the prows are quite unlike those of the rock-carvings.
[Illustration: Rock-carving at Björnstad in Skjeberg, Smålenene. The
length of the ship is nearly fifteen feet (from a photograph by Professor
G. Gustafson)]
[Illustration: Bronze knife with representation of a ship, of the later
Bronze Age. Denmark]
[Illustration: Carvings on a grave-stone at Novilara, Italy]
As therefore this representation of the ship's stern-post does not
correspond to any known type of ancient boat or ship, as it is also
difficult to understand how the people of the rock-carvings came to
represent a boat with two upturned prows, and as further there is a
striking similarity between the lowest line of the keel and a
sledge-runner, one might be tempted to believe that by an association
of ideas these delineations have become a combination of ship and
sledge. These rock-carvings may originally have been connected with
burials, and the ship, which was to bear the dead, may have been
imagined as gliding on the water, on ice, or through the air, to the
realms of the departed, and thus unconsciously the keel may have been
given the form of a runner. It may be mentioned as a parallel that in
the "kennings" of the far later poetry of the Skalds a ship is called,
for instance, the "ski" of the sea, or, vice versa, a ski or sledge
may be called the ship of the snow. The sledge was moreover the
earliest form of contrivance for transport. In this connection there
may also be a certain interest in the fact that in Egypt the mummies
of royal personages were borne to the grave in funereal boats upon
sledges. That the rock-carvings were originally associated with
burials may also be indicated by the fact that the carved stones of
the Iron Age, which in a way took the place of the rock-carvings,
frequently represent the dead in boats on their way to the underworld
or the world beyond the grave (see illustration, p. 243). That ships
played a prominent part in connection with the dead appears also from
the remarkable burial-places formed by stones set up in the form of a
ship, the so-called ship-settings, in Sweden and the Baltic provinces,
as well as in Denmark and North Germany. These belong to the early
Iron Age. The usual burial in a ship covered by a mound, in the later
Iron Age, is well known. We seem thus to be able to trace a certain
continuity in these customs. A certain continuity even in the
representation of ships may also be indicated by the striking
resemblance that exists between the two- or three-leaved, lily-like
prow ornament on the rock-carvings, on the knives of the later Bronze
Age, on the grave-stone of Novilara, and on such late representations
as some of the ships of the Bayeux tapestry. The upturned prows of the
ships of the rock-carvings also frequently end in spirals like the
stern-post on the stone at Stenkyrka in Gotland (p. 243), and both
prows and stern on other stones of the later Iron Age from Gotland.
[Illustration: Ship from the Bayeux tapestry (eleventh century), and
rock-carving]
All are agreed in referring the rock-carvings to the Bronze Age; but while
O. Montelius, for example, puts certain of them as early as between 1450
and 1250 B.C., A. M. Hansen has sought to bring them down to as late as
500 B.C. In any case they belong to a period that is long anterior to the
beginning of history in the North. From whence and by what route this art
came it is difficult to say. Along the same line of coasts by which the
megalithic graves, dolmens and chambered barrows made their way from the
Mediterranean to the North (see p. 22) rock-carvings are also to be found
scattered through North Africa, Italy (the Alps), Southern France, Spain,
Portugal, Brittany, England, Ireland and Scotland. It may be reasonable to
suppose that this practice of engraving figures on stone came first from
Egypt at the close of the Stone Age; but the rock-carvings of the west
coast of Europe and of the British Isles are distinct in their whole
character from those of Scandinavia, and do not contain representations of
ships[223] and men, which are such prominent features of the latter; but
common to both are the characteristic cup-markings, besides the wheel, or
solar signs (with a cross), foot-soles, and also spirals. There may thus
be a connection, but we must suppose that the rock-carvings underwent an
independent development in Scandinavia (like the Bronze Age culture as a
whole)--if it could not be explained by an eastern communication with the
south through Russia, which however is not probable--and as the
representation of ships came to be so common, we must conclude it to be
here connected with a people of strong seafaring tendencies. Since the
ships depicted on the rock-carvings cannot, so far as we know at present,
have been direct imitations of delineations of ships derived from
abroad--even though they may be connected with forms of religion and
burial customs that were more or less imported--we are, as yet at least,
bound to believe that the people who made the rock-carvings had boats or
ships which furnished the models for their conventional representations.
And when we see that these people went to work to engrave on the rocks
pictures of ships which are fifteen feet in length, and have as many as
fifty rowers,[224] we are bound to believe that in any case they were able
to imagine ships of this size. It is also remarkable that rock-carvings
are most numerous precisely in those districts, Viken and Bohuslen, where
we may expect that the seamanship of the Scandinavians first attained a
higher degree of perfection if it was first imported from the south-east.
With this would also agree Professor Montelius's theory: that at a very
much earlier time, about the close of the Stone Age, direct communication
already existed between the west coast of Sweden and Britain, which he
concludes from remarkable points of correspondence in stone cists with a
hole at the end, and other features.
[Illustration: Shipment of tribute. From the bronze doors from Babavat,
Assyria (British Museum)]
[Illustration: Warship of Ramses III., circa 1200 B.C.]
[Sidenote: The earliest boats of Northern Europe]
It is difficult to say how the Scandinavians at the outset arrived at
their boats and ships, such as we know them from the boats found at Nydam
in Sleswick and the Viking ships discovered in Norwegian burial-mounds.
They are of the same type that in Norway, in the districts of Sunnmör and
Nordland, has persisted to our time, and they show a mastery both in their
lines and in their workmanship that must have required a long period for
its development. From the accounts of many contemporaries, as well as from
archæological finds, we know that even so late as the first and second
centuries A.D. large canoes, made of dug-out tree trunks, were in common
use on the north coast of Germany between the Elbe and the Rhine, and
there can be no doubt that this was the original form of boat in the north
and west of Central Europe. In England similar canoes made of the dug-out
trunks of oaks have been found with a length of as much as forty-eight
feet; they have also been found in Scotland, in Bremen and in
Sleswick-Holstein (in many cases over thirty-eight feet long), with holes
for oars. It is related of the Saxons north of the Elbe, who at an early
period made piratical raids on coasts to the south of them, that they
sailed in small boats made of wicker-work, with an oaken keel and covered
with hides. Besides these they clearly had dug-out canoes; but in the
third century A.D. it is recorded that they built ships on the Roman
model. The only people north of the Mediterranean of whom we know with
certainty that they had their own well-developed methods of shipbuilding
are, as already mentioned (p. 39), the Veneti at the mouth of the Loire,
whose powerful and seaworthy ships of oak are described by Cæsar. That the
Scandinavians should have derived their methods from them cannot be
regarded as probable, unless it can be proved that the intervening peoples
possessed something more than primitive canoes and coracles. We must
therefore believe, either that the Scandinavians developed their methods
of shipbuilding quite independently, or that they had communication with
the Mediterranean by some other route than the sea. Now in many important
features there is such a great resemblance between the Norwegian Viking
ships and pictorial representations of Greek ships, and of even earlier
Egyptian and Assyrian ships, that it is difficult to avoid the conclusion
that some connection must have existed. For instance, the resemblance
between the strikingly lofty prows and stern-posts, sometimes bent back,
with characteristic ornamentation, and animal heads, which are already to
be found in Egyptian and Assyrian representations, cannot be explained
offhand as coincidences occurring in types independently developed. They
are decorations, and cannot have contributed to the seaworthiness of the
boats or had any practical purpose, unless the animal heads were intended
to frighten enemies (?). It is true that lofty and remarkable prows are to
be found in boats from such a widely separated region of culture as
Polynesia; but in the first place it is not impossible that here too there
may be a distant connection with the Orient, and in the second, the
Mediterranean and Scandinavian forms of ship are so characteristic,
compared with those of other parts of the world, that we necessarily place
them apart as belonging to a distinct sphere of culture. Another
characteristic of these boats and ships is the oars with rowlocks (open or
closed), instead of paddles. The rudder of the Viking ship (see
illustrations, pp. 246, 247, 248, 250) is also in appearance and mode of
use so remarkably like the Egyptian rudder of as early as circa 1600 B.C.
(see illustrations, pp. 7, 23), and the Greek (p. 48),[225] that it is not
easy to believe that this, together with all the other resemblances, were
independent discoveries of the North. The square sail and mast of the
Scandinavian boat also closely resemble those of Egyptian, Phœnician,
Greek and Italian ships as depicted.
[Illustration: Stone from Stenkyrka in Gotland (ninth century)]
It may be supposed that the communication which originally produced these
resemblances did not take place by the sea-route, round the coasts of
western Europe, but overland between the Black Sea and the Baltic. It is
thus possible that the Scandinavian type of boat first began to be
developed in the closed waters of the Baltic. It is here too that the
boats of the Scandinavians (Suiones) are first mentioned in literature by
Tacitus, and it is here that the earliest known boats of Scandinavian type
have been found; these are the three remarkable boats of about the third
century A.D. which were discovered at Nydam, near Flensburg. The best
preserved of them (p. 110) is of oak, about seventy-eight feet long, with
fourteen oars on each side, and it carried a crew of about forty men. The
boats terminated in exactly the same way fore and aft, agreeing with what
Tacitus says of the boats of the Suiones; and they could be rowed in both
directions. They had rowlocks with oar-grummets like those in use on the
west coast and in the northern part of Norway. There is no indication of
the boats having had masts and sails, which also agrees with Tacitus.
There can be no doubt that we have here the typical Scandinavian form of
boat, with such fine lines and such excellent workmanship that it can only
be due to an ancient culture the development of which had extended over
many centuries.
From the Baltic this form of boat may have spread to Norway, where it
gradually attained its greatest perfection; and it is worth remarking that
in that very district where the Baltic type of boat derived from the
south-east reached a coast with superior harbours, richer fisheries, and
better opportunities for longer sea voyages, namely, in Bohuslen and
Viken, we find also the greater number of rock-carvings with
representations of ships. It is moreover a question whether the very name
of "Vikings" is not connected with this district, and did not originally
mean men from Viken, Vikværings; as they were specially prominent, the
name finally became a common designation for all Scandinavians, as had
formerly been the case with the names Eruli, Saxons, Danes.[226] In the
course of their voyages towards the south-west the Scandinavians may also
have met very early with ships from the Mediterranean, which, for
instance, were engaged in the tin trade with the south of England, or may
even have reached the amber coast, and thus fresh influence from the
Mediterranean may have been added. When we see how in the fifth century
roving Eruli reached as far as Italy in their ships, this will not appear
impossible; and if there is any contrivance that we should expect to show
a certain community of character over a wide area, it is surely the ship
or boat.
Tacitus says that the fleets of the Suiones consisted of row-boats without
sails. It is difficult to contest the accuracy of so definite a statement,
especially as it is supported by the Nydam find, and by the circumstance
that the Anglo-Saxons appear to have crossed the sea to Britain in nothing
but row-boats; but Tacitus is speaking of warships in particular, and it
is impossible that sails should not have been known and used in
Scandinavia, and especially in Norway, at that time. There are possibly
indications of sails even in the rock-carvings (see the first example in
illustration, p. 236), and in the ornaments on the knives of the Bronze
Age (see illustration, p. 238). In the case of a people whose lot it was
to live to so great an extent on and by the sea, it is scarcely to be
supposed that any very long time should elapse before they thought of
making use of the wind, even if they did not originally derive the
invention of sails from the Mediterranean.
Just as the Phœnicians and the Greeks had swift-sailing longships for war
and piracy, and other, broader sailing-ships for trade (see p. 48), so
also did the Scandinavians gradually develop two kinds of craft: the swift
longships, and the broader and heavier trading-vessels, called "bosses"
and "knars."
[Sidenote: Shipbuilding in Norway]
But even if northern shipbuilding exhibits a connection with that of the
Mediterranean, and thus was no more spontaneous in its growth than any
other form of culture in the world, the type of ship produced by the
Scandinavians was nevertheless undoubtedly superior to all that had
preceded it, just as they themselves were incontestably the most skilful
seamen of their time. The perfection and refinement of form, with fine
lines, which we find in the three preserved boats from Nydam, and in the
three ships of the beginning of the Viking age, or about the year 800,
give evidence in each case of centuries of culture in this province; and
when we see the richness of workmanship expended on the Oseberg ship and
all the utensils that were found with it, we understand that it was no
upstart race that produced all this, but a people that may well have
sailed the North Sea even a thousand years earlier, in the time of
Pytheas.
[Illustration: The preserved portion of the Viking ship from Gokstad, near
Sandefjord (ninth century)]
The immigration to Norway of many tribes may itself have taken place by
sea. Thus the Horder and Ryger are certainly the same tribes as the
"Harudes" (the "Charudes" of the emperor Augustus and of Ptolemy),
dwelling in Jutland and on the Rhine (cf. Cæsar), and the "Rugii" west of
the Vistula on the south coast of the Baltic (from whom possibly Rügen
takes its name).[227] They came by the sea route to western Norway
straight from Jutland and North Germany, and there must thus have been
communication between these countries at that time; but how early we do
not know; it may have been at the beginning of our era, and it may have
been earlier.[228] But the fact that whole tribes were able to make so
long a migration by sea indicates in any case a high development of
navigation, and again it is on the Baltic that we first find it.
[Illustration: The Viking ship from Oseberg, near Tönsberg (ninth
century)]
The shipbuilding and seamanship of the Norwegians mark a new epoch in the
history both of navigation and discovery, and with their voyages the
knowledge of northern lands and waters was at once completely changed. As
previously pointed out (p. 170), we notice this change of period already
in Ottar's communications to King Alfred, but their explorations of land
and sea begin more particularly with the colonisation of Iceland, which
in its turn became the starting-point for expeditions farther west.
We find accounts of these voyages of discovery in the old writings and
sagas, a large part of which was put into writing in Iceland. A sombre
undercurrent runs through these narratives of voyages in unknown seas;
even though they may be partly legendary, they nevertheless bear witness
in their terseness to the silent struggle of hardy men with ice, storms,
cold and want, in the light summer and long, dark winter of the North.
[Illustration: Ships from the Bayeux tapestry (eleventh century)]
[Sidenote: The Norwegians' appliances for navigation]
They had neither compass, nor astronomical instruments, nor any of the
appliances of our time for finding their position at sea; they could only
sail by the sun, moon and stars, and it seems incomprehensible how for
days and weeks, when these were invisible, they were able to find their
course through fog and bad weather; but they found it, and the open craft
of the Norwegian Vikings, with their square sails, fared north and west
over the whole ocean, from Novaya Zemlya and Spitsbergen to Greenland,
Baffin's Bay, Newfoundland and North America, and over these lands and
seas the Norsemen extended their dominion. It was not till five hundred
years later that the ships of other nations were to make their way to the
same regions.
[Illustration: Landing of William the Conqueror's ships in England. Bayeux
tapestry (eleventh century)]
The lodestone, or compass, did not reach the Norwegians till the
thirteenth century.[229] As to what means they had before that time for
finding their course at sea, Norse-Icelandic literature contains extremely
scanty statements. We see that to them, as to the Phœnicians before them,
the pole-star was the lodestar, and that they sometimes used
birds--ravens--to find out the direction of land; but we also hear that
when they met with fog or cloudy weather they drifted without knowing
where they were, and sometimes went in the opposite direction to that they
expected, as in Thorstein Ericson's attempt to make Wineland from
Greenland, where they arrived off Iceland instead of off America. Even
when after a long period of dull weather they saw the sun again, it could
not help them to determine their direction at all accurately, unless they
knew the approximate time of day; but their sense of time was certainly
far keener than ours, which has been blunted by the use of clocks. Several
accounts show that on land the Scandinavians knew how to observe the sun
accurately, in what quarter and at what time it set, how long the day or
the night lasted at the summer or winter solstice, etc. From this they
formed an idea of their northern latitude. Amongst other works a treatise
of the close of the thirteenth century or later included in the fourth
part of the collection "Rymbegla" [1780, pp. 472 ff.] shows that they may
even have understood how to take primitive measurements of the sun's
altitude at noon with a kind of quadrant. But they can scarcely have been
able to take observations of this kind on board ship during their long
voyages in early times, and they still less understood how to compute the
latitude from such measurements except perhaps at the equinoxes and
solstices. It is true that from the narrative, to be mentioned later, of a
voyage in the north of Baffin's Bay, about 1267, it appears that at sea
also they attempted to get an idea of the sun's altitude by observing
where the shadow of the gunwale, on the side nearest the sun, fell on a
man lying athwartships when the sun was in the south. With all its
imperfection this shows that at least they observed the sun's
altitude.[230] In order to form some idea of their western or eastern
longitude they cannot have had any other means than reckoning; and so long
as the sun and stars were visible, and they knew in what direction they
were sailing, they undoubtedly had great skill in reckoning this. In thick
weather they could still manage so long as the wind held unaltered; but
they could not know when it changed; they were then obliged to judge from
such signs as birds, of what country they were, and in what direction they
flew; we hear occasionally that they had birds from Ireland, or from
Iceland, and so on. The difference in the fauna of birds might give them
information. In their sailing directions it is also stated that they
observed the whale; thus in the Landnámabók (Hauksbók) we read that when
sailing from Norway to Greenland one should keep far enough to the south
of Iceland to have birds and whales from thence. This is more difficult to
understand, as the whale is not confined to the land, and the same whales
are found in various parts of the northern seas. But drift-ice or
ice-bergs, if they met them, might serve to show their direction, as might
occasionally driftwood or floating seaweed. The colour of the sea may
certainly have been of importance to such keen observers, even though we
hear nothing of it; it cannot have escaped them, for instance, that the
water of the Gulf Stream was of a purer blue than the rather
greenish-brown water of the coastal current near Norway and in the North
Sea, or in the East Iceland Polar Current; the difference between the
water of the East Greenland Polar Current and in the Atlantic is also
striking. It may likewise be supposed that men who were dependent to such
a degree on observing every sign may have remarked the distribution in the
ocean of so striking a creature as the great red jelly-fish. If so, it may
often have given them valuable information of their approximate position.
They used the lead, as appears, amongst other authorities, from the
"Historia Norwegiæ," where we read that Ingolf and Hjorleif found Iceland
"by probing the waves with the lead."
[Illustration: Seal of the town of Dover, 1284]
But that it was not always easy to find their course is shown, amongst
other instances, by the account of Eric the Red's settlement in Greenland,
when twenty-five ships left Iceland, but only fourteen are said to have
arrived. Here, as elsewhere, it was the more capable commanders who came
through.
[Illustration]
THE NORWEGIAN SETTLEMENT IN ICELAND
[Sidenote: Oldest authorities]
The island of Iceland is mentioned, as we have seen, for the first time in
literature by Dicuil, in 825, who calls it Thyle and speaks of its
discovery by the Irish. As he says nothing about "Nortmannic" pirates
having arrived there, whereas he mentions their having expelled the Irish
monks from the Faroes, we may conclude that the Norsemen had not yet
reached Iceland at that time. The first certain mention of the name
Iceland is in the German poem "Meregarto" (see p. 181),[231] and in Adam
of Bremen, where we find the first description of the island derived from
a Scandinavian source (see p. 193).
Narratives of its discovery by the Norsemen and of their first settlement
there are to be found in Norse-Icelandic literature; but they were written
down 250 or 300 years after the events. These narratives of the first
discoverers mentioned by name and their deeds, which were handed down by
tradition for so long a time, can therefore scarcely be regarded as more
than legendary; nevertheless they may give us a picture in broad outlines
of how voyages of discovery were accomplished in those times.
As the Norwegians visited the Scottish islands and Ireland many centuries
before they discovered Iceland, it is highly probable that they had
information from the Irish of this great island to the north-west; if so,
it was natural that they should afterwards search for it, although
according to most Norse-Icelandic accounts it is said to have been found
accidentally by mariners driven out of their course.
[Sidenote: Are Frode on the settlement of Iceland]
According to the sagas a Norwegian Viking, Grim Kamban, had established
himself in the Faroes (about 800 A.D.) and had expelled thence the Irish
priests; but possibly there was a Celtic population, at any rate in the
southern islands (cf. p. 164). After that time there was comparatively
active communication between the islands and Norway, and it was on the way
to the Faroes or to the Scottish islands that certain voyagers were said
to have been driven northward by a storm to the great unknown island. The
earliest and, without comparison, the most trustworthy authority, Are
Frode,[232] gives in his "Íslendingabók" (of about 1120-1130) no
information of any such discovery, and this fact does not tend to
strengthen one's belief in it. Are tells us briefly and plainly:
"Iceland was first settled from Norway in the days of Harold Fairhair,
the son of Halfdan the Black; it was at that time--according to Teit,
Bishop Isleif's son, my foster-brother, the wisest man I have known,
and Thorkel Gellisson, my uncle, whose memory was long, and Thorid,
Snorre Gode's daughter, who was both exceeding wise and truthful--when
Ivar, Ragnar Lodbrok's son, caused St. Edmund, the king of the Angles
[i.e., the English king], to be slain. And that was 870 winters after
the birth of Christ, as it is written in his saga. Ingolf hight the
Norseman of whom it is truthfully related that he first fared thence
[from Norway] to Iceland, when Harold Fairhair was sixteen winters
old, and for the second time a few winters later; he settled south in
Reykjarvik; the place is called Ingolfshövde; Minthakseyre, where he
first came to land, but Ingolfsfell, west of Ölfosså, of which he
afterwards possessed himself. At that time Iceland was clothed with
forest [i.e., birch forest] from the mountains to the strand. There
were Christian men here, whom the Norsemen called 'Papar' ..." and who
were Irish, as already mentioned, pp. 165 f. "And then there was great
resort of men hither from Norway, until King Harold forbade it, since
he thought that the land [i.e., Norway] would be deserted," etc.
We may certainly assume that this description of Are's is at least as
trustworthy as the later statements on the same subject; but as Are
probably also wrote a larger Íslendingabók, which is now lost, there is a
possibility that he there related the discovery of Iceland in greater
detail, and that the later authors have drawn from it.
[Illustration: Dragon-ship with a king and warrior (from the Flateyjarbók,
circa 1390)]
[Sidenote: Tjodrik Monk on the discovery of Iceland]
The next written account of the discovery of Iceland is found in the
"Historia de Antiquitate regum Norwagiensium"[233] of the Norwegian monk
Tjodrik (written about 1180), where we read:
"In Harold's ninth year--some think in his tenth--certain merchants
sailed to the islands which we call 'Phariæ' ['Færeyjar' == the
Faroes]; there they were attacked by tempest and wearied long and
sore, until at last they were driven by the sea to a far distant land,
which some think to have been the island of Thule; but I cannot either
confirm or deny this, as I do not know the true state of the matter.
They landed and wandered far and wide; but although they climbed
mountains, they nowhere found trace of human habitation. When they
returned to Norway they told of the country they had found and by
their praises incited many to seek it. Among them especially a chief
named Ingolf, from the district that is called Hordaland; he made
ready a ship, associated with himself his brother-in-law Hjorleif and
many others, and sought and found the country we speak of, and began
to settle it together with his companions, about the tenth year of
Harold's reign. This was the beginning of the settlement of that
country which we now call Iceland--unless we take into account that
certain persons, very few in number, from Ireland (that is, little
Britain) are believed to have been there in older times, to judge from
certain books and other articles that were found after them.
Nevertheless two others preceded Ingolf in this matter; the first was
named Garðar, after whom the land was at first called Garðarsholmr,
the second was named Floki. But what I have related may suffice
concerning this matter."
[Sidenote: "Historia Norwegiæ"]
It is probable that Tjodrik Monk was acquainted with Are Frode's
Íslendingabók, or at least had sources connected with it. In the "Historia
Norwegiæ" by an unknown Norwegian author (written according to G. Storm
about 1180-1190, but probably later, in the thirteenth century)[234] we
read of the discovery of Iceland [Storm, 1880, p. 92]:
"Next, to the west, comes the great island which by the Italians is
called Ultima Tile; but now it is inhabited by a considerable
multitude, while formerly it was waste land, and unknown to men, until
the time of Harold Fairhair. Then certain Norsemen, namely Ingolf and
Hjorleif, fled thither from their native land, being guilty of
homicide, with their wives and children, and resorted to this island,
which was first discovered by Gardar and afterwards by another (?),
and found it at last, by probing the waves with the lead."
[Sidenote: The Landnáma on the discovery of Iceland]
In Sturla's Landnámabók, called the Sturlubók, of about 1250, we find
almost the same story of the first discovery as in Tjodrik Monk. It runs:
"Thus it is related that men were to go from Norway to the
Faroes--some mention Naddodd the Viking among them--but were driven
westward in the ocean and there found a great land. They went up a
high mountain in the East-fjords and looked around them, whether they
could see smoke or any sign that the land was inhabited, and they saw
nothing. They returned in the autumn to the Faroes. And as they sailed
from the land, much snow fell upon the mountains, and therefore they
called the land Snowland. They praised the land much. It is now called
Reydarfjeld in the East-fjords, where they landed, so said the priest
Sæmund the Learned. There was a man named Gardar Svavarsson, of
Swedish kin, and he went forth to seek Snowland, by the advice of his
mother, who had second sight. He reached land east of East Horn, where
there was then a harbour. Gardar sailed around the country and proved
that it was an island. He wintered in the north at Husavik in
Skialfanda and there built a house. In the spring, when he was ready
for sea, a man in a boat, whose name was Nattfari, was driven away
from him, and a thrall and a bondwoman. He afterwards dwelt at the
place called Natfaravik. Gardar then went to Norway and praised the
land much. He was the father of Uni, the father of Hroar Tungugodi.
After that the land was called Gardarsholm, and there was then forest
between the mountains and the strand."
In Hauk's Landnámabók (of the beginning of the fourteenth century)
Gardar's voyage is mentioned as the first, and Naddodd's as the
second, and it is said of Gardar that he was "son of Svavar the Swede;
he owned lands in Sealand, but was born in Sweden. He went to the
Southern isles [Hebrides] to fetch her father's inheritance for his
wife. But as he was sailing through Pettlands firth [Pentland, between
Orkney and Shetland] a storm drove him back, and he drifted westward
in the ocean, etc." The Sturlubók was doubtless written some fifty
years before Hauk's Landnámabók, and was the authority for the latter
and for the lost Landnámabók of Styrmir enn froði[235] (ob. 1245); but
as the copy that has come down to us of the Sturlubók is later (about
1400), many have thought that on this point the Hauksbók is more to be
relied upon, and have therefore held that according to the oldest
Icelandic tradition the Swedish-born Dane Gardar was the first
Scandinavian discoverer of Iceland. Support for this view has also
been found in the fact that in another passage of the Sturlubók we
read: "Uni, son of Gardar who first found Iceland." It has therefore
been held that it was not till after 1300 that a transposition was
made in the order of Gardar's and Naddodd's voyages at the beginning
of the book [cf. F. Jônsson, 1900, p. xxx.]. But this assertion may be
doubtful; it seems rather as though the Icelandic tradition itself was
uncertain on this point. We have seen above that the Norwegian work
"Historia Norwegiæ" mentions Gardar as the first; while the yet
earlier Tjodrik Monk [1177-1180] has a tale of a first accidental
voyage to Iceland, which is the same, in parts word for word, as the
stories of both the Sturlubók and the Hauksbók of Naddodd's voyage,
only that Tjodrik mentions no name in connection with it. He certainly
says later that Gardar and Floki went there before Ingolf; but this
must mean that all three came after the first-mentioned nameless
voyage. If we compare with this the vague expression of the Sturlubók
that "some mention Naddodd the Viking" in connection with that first
accidental voyage, the logical conclusion must be that there was an
old tradition that some one, whose identity is uncertain, had been
long ago driven by weather to this Snowland, in the same way as there
was a tradition in Iceland that Gunnbjörn had been driven long ago to
Gunnbjörnskerries, before Greenland was discovered by Eric the Red.
Some have then connected this first storm-driven mariner with a
Norwegian Viking-name, Naddodd. Thus are legends formed. But the first
man to circumnavigate the country and to become more closely
acquainted with it was, according to the tradition, Gardar, whose name
was more certainly known; for which reason he was also readily named
as the first discoverer of the country (just as Eric the Red and not
Gunnbjörn was named as the discoverer of Greenland). Hauk Erlendsson
then, in agreement with this, amended the Landnámabók by placing
Gardar's voyage first, while at the same time he made the mention of
Naddodd more precise, which was necessary, since his was to be a later
and therefore equally well-known voyage. He also gives Naddodd's kin,
which is not alluded to in the Sturlubók. This hypothesis is
strengthened by the latter's vague expression, above referred to,
about Naddodd, and by the fact that only Gardar's and Floki's names
are mentioned by Tjodrik Monk, and only Gardar and another (Floki ?)
in the "Historia Norwegiæ." If Naddodd's voyage had come after
Gardar's, and consequently was equally well known, it would be strange
that it should not be mentioned together with his and with the third
voyage that succeeded them. But the whole question is of little
importance, since, as we have said, these narratives must be regarded
as mere legends.
The third voyage, according to both the Hauksbók and Sturlubók, was made
by a great Viking named Floki Vilgerdarson. He fitted out in Rogaland to
seek Gardarsholm (or Snowland). He took with him three ravens which
"were to show him the way, since seafaring men had no 'leidarstein'
[lodestone, magnetic needle] at that time in the North...." "He came
first to Hjaltland [Shetland] and lay in Floka-bay. There Geirhild,
his daughter, was drowned in Geirhilds-lake." "Floki then sailed to
the Faroes, and there gave his [other] daughter in marriage. From her
is come Trond in Gata. Thence he sailed out to sea with the three
ravens.... And when he let loose the first it flew back astern [i.e.,
towards the Faroes]. The second flew up into the air and back to the
ship. The third flew forward over the prow, where they found the land.
They came to it on the east at Horn. They then sailed along the south
of the land. But when they were sailing to the west of Reykjanes and
the fjord opened up, so that they saw Snæfellsnes, Faxi [a man on
board] said, 'This must be a great land that we have found; here are
great waterfalls.' This is since called Faxa-os. Floki and his men
sailed west over Breidafjord, and took land there which is called
Vatsfjord, by Bardastrond. The fjord was quite full of fish, and on
account of the fishing they did not get in hay, and all their cattle
died during the winter. The spring was a cold one. Then Floki went
northward on the mountain and saw a fjord full of sea-ice. Therefore
they called the country Iceland.... In the summer they sailed to
Norway. Floki spoke very unfavourably of the country. But Herjolf said
both good and evil of the country. But Thorolf said that butter
dripped from every blade of grass in the country they had found;
therefore he was called Thorolf Smör [Butter]."
These three voyages of discovery are supposed to have taken place about
860-870. A few years after that time began the permanent settlement of the
country by Norwegians; according to the chronicles this was initiated by
Ingolf Arnarson with his establishment at Reykjarvik (about the year 874),
which is mentioned as early as Are Frode (see above, p. 253), and this
establishment may be more historical. Harold Fairhair's conquest of the
whole of Norway, of which he made one kingdom, and his hard-handed
procedure may have been partly responsible for the emigration of
Norwegians to the poorer island of Iceland; many of the chiefs preferred
to live a harder life there than to remain at home under Harold's
dominion. A larger part of the settlers, and among them many of the best,
had first emigrated from Norway to the Scottish isles and to Ireland, but
on account of troubles moved once more to Iceland.[236] As has been
suggested already (p. 167), there was probably, besides the Irish priests,
some Celtic population before the Norwegians arrived, which gave Celtic
names to various places in the country. The omission of any mention of
these Celts, with the exception of the "Papar," in the Landnáma is no more
surprising than the strange silence about the primitive people of
Greenland, whom we now know with certainty to have been in the country
when the Icelanders came thither.
THE DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT OF GREENLAND BY THE NORWEGIANS
[Sidenote: Oldest authority on Greenland]
The earliest mention of Greenland known in literature is that found in
Adam of Bremen (see above, p. 194). It was written about a hundred years
after the probable settlement of the country, and shows that at least the
name had reached Denmark at that time. In another passage of his work Adam
says that "emissaries from Iceland, Greenland and the Orkneys" came to
Archbishop Adalbert of Bremen "with requests that he would send preachers
to them."
[Illustration: Greenland. The shaded parts along the coast are not covered
by the inland ice, which otherwise covers the whole of the interior]
[Sidenote: Are Frode, circa 1120]
The oldest Icelandic account of the discovery of Greenland, and of the
people settling there, is found in Are Frode's Íslendingabók (c. 1130). He
had it from his uncle, Thorkel Gellisson, who had been in Greenland and
had conversed with a man who himself had accompanied Eric the Red
thither. Thorkel lived in the second half of the eleventh century, and
"remembered far back." Are's statements have thus a good authority, and
they may be regarded as fairly trustworthy, at all events in their main
outlines; for the events were no more remote than a couple of generations,
and accounts of them may still have been extant in Iceland. Unfortunately
the records that have come down to us, from the hand of Are himself, are
very brief. He says:
"The land which is called Greenland was discovered and settled from
Iceland. Eirik Raude [Eric the Red] was the name of a man from
Breidafjord, who sailed thither from hence and there took land at the
place which is since called Eiriksfjord. He gave the land a name and
called it Greenland, and said that having a good name would entice men
to go thither. They found there dwelling-sites of men, both in the
east and the west of the country, and fragments of boats
('keiplabrot') and stone implements, so that one may judge from this
that the same sort of people had been there as inhabited Wineland,
whom the Greenlanders[237] call Skrælings.[238] Now this, when he
betook himself to settling the country, was fourteen or fifteen
winters before Christianity came here to Iceland,[239] according to
what Thorkel Gellisson was told in Greenland by one who himself
accompanied Eric the Red thither."
It is strange that we only hear of traces left by the primitive people of
Greenland, the Skrælings or Eskimo. This looks as though Eric the Red did
not come across the people themselves, though this seems improbable. We
shall return to this later, in a special chapter on them.
It is probable that in other works, which are now lost, Are Frode wrote in
greater detail of the discovery of Greenland and its first settlement by
the Icelanders, and that later authors, whose works are known to us, have
drawn upon him; for where they speak of other events that are mentioned in
Are's Íslendingabók, the same expressions are often used, almost word for
word. The oldest of the later accounts known to us, which give a more
complete narrative of the discovery of Greenland, were written between
1200 and 1305. The Landnámabók may be specially mentioned; upon this is
based the Saga of Eric the Red (also called Thorfinn Karlsevne's Saga),
written, according to the opinion of G. Storm, between the years 1270 and
1300, while Finnur Jónsson [1901] assigns it to the first half of the
thirteenth century. By collating these various accounts we can form a
picture of what took place; even though we must suppose that traditions
which have been handed down orally for so long must in course of time have
been considerably transformed--especially where they cannot have been
based on well-known geographical conditions--and that they have received
many a feature from other traditions, or from pure legend.
[Sidenote: Gunnbjörn Ulfsson]
Many accounts, both in Hauk's Landnámabók and in the Sturlubók, and in
other sagas, mention that Greenland was first discovered by the Norwegian
Gunnbjörn, son of Ulf Kråka, shortly after the settlement of Iceland. On a
voyage to Iceland, presumably about the year 900, he was carried out of
his course to the west, and saw there a great country, and found certain
islands or skerries, which were afterwards called "Gunnbjörnskerries."
These must have been off Greenland, most probably near Cape Farewell; but
if it was late in the summer, in August or September, when there is little
ice along the east coast, he may even have come close to the land farther
north, and there found islands, at Angmagsalik, for instance. It is,
however, of no great importance where it was; for when he saw that it was
not Iceland that he had made, but a less hospitable country which did not
look inviting for winter quarters, he probably sailed again at once, in
order to reach his destination before the ice and the late season stopped
him, without spending time in exploring the country. Whether Gunnbjörn
established himself in Iceland we do not know; but it is recorded that his
brother, Grimkell, took land at Snæfellsnes and was among the first
settlers, and his sons, Gunnstein and Halldor, took land in the north-west
on Isafjord.
Various later writers have interpreted this to mean that Gunnbjörnskerries
lay to the west of Iceland, and far from the great land that Gunnbjörn
saw; but the earliest notices (in the Hauksbók and Sturlubók) do not
warrant such a view. It has even been suggested as possible that
Gunnbjörnskerries lay in the ocean between Iceland and Greenland, but
were destroyed later by a volcanic outbreak. In the Dutchman Ruysch's
map of 1508 an island is marked in this ocean, with the note that: "This
island was totally consumed in the year 1456 A.D."[240] It is
inconceivable that such an island midway in the course between Iceland and
Greenland should have entirely escaped mention in the oldest accounts of
the voyages of Eric the Red and later settlers in Greenland, to say
nothing of the circumstance that it would certainly have been mentioned in
the ancient sailing-directions (e.g., in the Hauksbók and Sturlubók) for
the voyage from Iceland to Greenland. Nor are there any known banks in
this part of the ocean which might indicate that such an island had
existed. It is in itself not the least unlikely that Gunnbjörn reached
some islands of the Greenland coast, and that these in later tradition
received the name of Gunnbjörnskerries.
That they were gradually transferred by tradition to a place where islands
were no longer to be met with, or which in any case was unapproachable on
account of ice, appears from the description of Greenland ascribed to Ivar
Bárdsson (probably written in the fifteenth century), where we read:[241]
"Item from Snæfellsnes in Iceland, which is shortest to Greenland, two
days' and two nights' sail, due west is the course, and there lie
Gunnbjörnskerries right in mid-channel between Greenland and Iceland.
This was the old course, but now ice has come from the gulf of the sea
to the north-east ['landnorden botnen'] so near to the said skerries,
that none without danger to life can sail the old course, and be heard
of again."
Later in the same statement we read:
"Item when one sails from Iceland, one must take his course from
Snæfellsnes ... and then sail due west one day and one night, very
slightly to the south-west[242] to avoid the before-mentioned ice
which lies off Gunnbjörnskerries, and then one day and one night due
north-west, and thus he will come straight on the said highland Hvarf
in Greenland."
This description need not be taken to indicate that the Gunnbjörnskerries
were supposed to lie in the midst of the sea between Iceland and
Greenland; some place on the east coast of Greenland (e.g., at
Angmagsalik) may rather be intended, which was sighted on the voyage
between Iceland and the Eastern Settlement (taking "Greenland" to mean
only the settled districts of the country). The direction "due west,
etc.," for the voyage to the Eastern Settlement is too westerly, unless it
was a course by compass, which, although possible, is hardly probable. But
as we shall see later there is much that is untrustworthy in the
description attributed to Ivar Bárdsson.
A later tradition of Gunnbjörn's voyage also deserves mention; it is found
in the "Annals of Greenland" of the already mentioned Björn Jónsson of
Skardsá (1574-1656), which he compiled from older Icelandic sources, with
corrections and "improvements" of his own. He says there ("Grönl. hist.
Mind.," i. p. 88) that the reason why Eric the Red
"sailed to Greenland was no other than this, that it was in the memory
of old people that Gunnbjörn, Ulf Kråka's son, was thought to have
seen a glacier in the western ocean ('til annars jökulsins i
vestrhafnu'), but Snæfells-glacier here, when he was carried westward
on the sea, after he sailed from the Gunnbjörn's islands. Iceland was
then entirely unsettled, and newly discovered by Gardar, who sailed
around the country from ness to ness ('nesjastefnu'), and called it
Gardarsholm. But this Gunnbjörn, who came next after him, he sailed
round much farther out ('djúpara'), but kept land in sight, therefore
he called the islands skerries in contradistinction to the holm [i.e.,
Gardarsholm]; but many histories have since called these islands land,
sometimes large islands."
This last statement is in any case an explanatory "improvement" by Björn
Jónsson himself, and doubtless this is also true of the rest. According to
this the Gunnbjörnskerries lay even within sight of Iceland. In this
connection it is worth remarking that his contemporary Arngrim Jónsson
imagines ("Specim. Island.," p. 34) the Gunnbjörnskerries as a little
uninhabited island north of Iceland. This would agree best with the little
Meven-klint, which lies by itself in the Polar Sea fifty-six nautical
miles north of land, and perhaps it is not wholly impossible that it was
rumours of this in later times that gave rise to the ideas of the
Gunnbjörnskerries, which however by confusion were transferred westward.
It was long before any attempt was made, according to the narratives, to
search for the land discovered by Gunnbjörn. In Hauk's Landnámabók [c.
122] we read:
[Sidenote: Snæbjörn Galti and Rolf of Raudesand]
"Snæbjörn [Galti, Holmsteinsson] owned a ship in Grimså-os, and Rolf
of Raudesand bought a half-share in it.[243] They had twelve men each.
With Snæbjörn were Thorkel and Sumarlide, sons of Thorgeir Raud, son
of Einar of Stafholt. Snæbjörn also took with him Thorodd of Thingnes,
his foster-father, and his wife, and Rolf took with him Styrbjörn, who
quoth thus after his dream:
'The bane I see
of both of us,
all dolefully
north-west in the sea,
frost and cold,
all kinds of anguish;
from such I foresee
the slaying of Snæbjörn.'
"They went to seek for Gunnbjörnskerries, and found land. Snæbjörn
would not let any one land at night. Styrbjörn went from the ship and
found a purse of money in a grave-mound ['kuml,' a cairn over a
grave], and hid it. Snæbjörn struck at him with an axe, and the purse
fell. They built a house, and covered it all over with snow ['ok lagdi
hann i fonn']. Thorkel Raudsson found that there was water on the fork
that stuck out at the aperture of the hut. That was in the month of
Goe.[244] Then they dug themselves out. Snæbjörn made ready the ship.
Of his people Thorodd and his wife stayed in the house; and of Rolf's
Styrbjörn and others, and the rest went hunting. Styrbjörn slew
Thorodd, and both he and Rolf slew Snæbjörn. Raud's sons and all the
others took oaths [i.e., oaths of fidelity] to save their lives. They
came to Hálogaland, and went thence to Iceland, and arrived at
Vadil." There both Rolf and Styrbjörn met their death.
[Illustration: The Eastern Settlement of Greenland. The black points mark
ruins of the homesteads of the ancient Greenlanders (from Finnur Jónsson,
1899)]
It is possible that this strange fragmentary tale points back to an actual
attempt at settlement in Greenland, due to Snæbjörn and Rolf having to
leave Iceland on account of homicide. The attempt may have been abandoned
on account of dissensions, or because the country was too inhospitable.
From the genealogical information the voyage may possibly be placed a
little earlier than Eric the Red's first voyage to Greenland [cf. K.
Maurer, 1874, p. 204]. Whereabouts in Greenland they landed and spent the
winter is not stated; but the fact that the snow first began to thaw in
the month of "Goe" would point to a cold climate, and this agrees best
with the east coast of Greenland. But the story is so obscure that it is
difficult to form any clear opinion as to its general credibility; the
grave-mound and the purse of money must in any case have come from
elsewhere. The circumstance that on their return they sailed first to
Norway and thence to Iceland may be derived from a later time, when there
was no direct communication between Greenland and Iceland, but the
communication with Greenland took place by way of Norway.
[Illustration: The Western Settlement of Greenland. The black points mark
ruins of the homesteads of the ancient Greenlanders (from F. Jónsson,
1899)]
[Sidenote: Eric the Red]
The greatest and most important name connected with the discovery of
Greenland is without comparison that of Eirik Raude (Erik the Red). The
description of this remarkable man (in the Landnáma and in the Saga of
Eric the Red) forms a good picture; warlike and hard as the fiercest
Viking, but at the same time with the superior ability of the born
explorer and leader to plan great enterprises, and to carry them out in
spite of all difficulties. He was a leader of men. He was born in Norway
(circa 950); but on account of homicide he and his father Thorvald left
Jæderen and went to Iceland about 970. They took land on the Horn-strands,
east of Horn (Cape North). There Thorvald died. Eric then married
Tjodhild, whose mother, Thorbjörg Knarrar-bringa (i.e., ship's breast),
lived in Haukadal. Eric therefore moved south and cleared land in Haukadal
(inland of Hvamsfjord, north of Snæfellsnes) and lived at Eirikstad by
Vatshorn. Eric quarrelled with his neighbours and killed several of them.
He was therefore condemned to leave Haukadal. He took land on Brokö and
Öksnö, islands outside Hvamsfjord; but after fresh conflicts and slaughter
he and his men were declared outlaws for three years, at the Thorsnes
thing, about 980. Eric then fitted out his ship, and a friend concealed
him, while his enemies went all round the islands looking for him.
"He told them [i.e., his friends] that he meant to seek the land that
Gunnbjörn, Ulf Kråka's son, saw when he was driven west of Iceland and
found Gunnbjörnskerries. He said he would come back for his friends,
if he found the land. Eric put to sea from Snæfells-glacier;[245] he
arrived off Mid-glacier, at the place called Bláserk. [Thence he went
south, to see whether the land was habitable.] He sailed westward
round Hvarf [west of Cape Farewell] and spent the first winter in
Eiriksey near [the middle of] the Eastern Settlement. Next spring he
went to Eiriksfjord [the modern Tunugdliarfik, due north of
Julianehaab; see map, p. 265] and gave names to many places. The
second winter he was at Eiriksholms by Hvarfsgnipa [Hvarf Point]; but
the third summer he went right north to Snæfell[246] and into
Ravnsfjord.[247] Then he thought he had come farther into the land
than the head of Eiriksfjord. He then turned back, and was the third
winter in Eiriksey off the mouth of Eiriksfjord. The following summer
he went to Iceland, to Breidafjord. He passed that winter at Holmlåt
with Ingolf. In the spring they fought with Thorgest [Eric's former
enemy], and Eric was beaten. After that they were reconciled. That
summer Eric went to settle the land that he had found, and he called
it Greenland; because, said he, men would be more willing to go
thither if it had a good name."
"[Eric settled at Brattalid in Eiriksfjord.] Then Are Thorgilsson says
that that summer twenty-five ships sailed to Greenland from
Borgarfjord and Breidafjord; but only fourteen came there--some were
driven back, others were lost. This was sixteen winters before
Christianity was made law in Iceland."[248] This would therefore be
about 984.
[Illustration: View from the mountain Igdlerfigsalik (see map, p. 271)
over Tunugdliarfik (Eiriksfjord and Brattalid), farther to the left
Sermilik (Isafjord and the Mid-fjords) into which a glacier falls; in the
right centre Korok-fjord, with a glacier falling into it. The whole
background is covered by the inland ice; behind it on the right the
Nunataks near the east coast. (After D. Bruun, 1896)]
Eric the Red's first voyage to Greenland is one of the most remarkable in
the history of arctic expeditions, both in itself, on account of the
masterly ability it shows, and for the vast consequences it was to have.
With the scanty means of equipment and provisioning available at that time
in the open Viking ships,[249] it was no child's play to set out for an
unknown arctic land beyond the ice, and to stay there three years.
Perhaps, of course, he did it from necessity; but he not only came through
it alive--he employed the three years in exploring the country, from Hvarf
right up to north of Davis Strait, and from the outermost belt of skerries
to the head of the long fjords. This was more than 500 years before the
Portuguese came to the country, and exactly 600 before John Davis thought
himself the discoverer of this coast.
But not only does Eric seem to have been pre-eminent, first as a fighter
and then as a discoverer; as the leader of the colony founded by him in
Greenland he must also have had great capabilities; he got people to
emigrate thither, and looked after them well; and he was regarded as a
matter of course as the leading man and chief of the new free state, whom
every one visited first on arrival. His successors, who resided at the
chief's seat of Brattalid, were the first family of the country.
[Illustration: Part of the interior of Eiriksfjord, at Brattalid and
beyond. The mountain Igdlerfigsalik in the background (after D. Bruun,
1896)]
Immigration to Greenland must according to the saga have gone on rapidly;
for in the year 1000 there were already so many inhabitants that Olaf
Tryggvason thought it worth while to make efforts to Christianise them,
and sent a priest there with Eric's son Leif. Eric's wife, Tjodhild, at
once received the faith; but the old man himself did not like the new
doctrine, and found it difficult to give up his own. Tjodhild built a
church at some distance from the houses; "there she made her prayers, and
those men who accepted Christianity, but they were the most. She would not
live with Eric, after she had taken the faith; but to him this was very
displeasing." In Snorre's Heimskringla we read that men called Leif "the
Lucky [see Chap. ix.]; but Eric, his father, thought that one thing
balanced the other, that Leif had saved the shipwrecked crew and that he
had brought the hypocrite ['skæmannin'] to Greenland, that is, the
priest."
The Norsemen established themselves in two districts of Greenland. One of
these was the "Eastern Settlement" [Österbygden], so called because it lay
farthest to the south-east on the west coast, between the southern point,
Hvarf, and about 61° N. lat. It corresponds to the modern Julianehaab
District. It was the most thickly populated, and it was here that
Eiriksfjord and Brattalid lay. In the whole "Settlement" there are said to
have been 190 homesteads ["Grönl. hist. Mind.," iii. p. 228]. Ruins of
these have been found in at least 150 places [cf. D. Bruun, 1896; G. Holm,
1883].
[Illustration: The central part of the Eastern Settlement. Black points
mark ancient ruins, crosses mark churches]
[Sidenote: The Western Settlement]
The other district, the "Western Settlement" [Vesterbygden], lay farther
north-west between 63° and 66-1/2° (see map, p. 266), for the most part in
the modern Godthaab District, and its population was densest in
Ameralik-fjord and Godthaabsfjord. There are said to have been ninety
homesteads in this settlement. Many ruins of Norsemen's stone houses are
still found in both districts, and they show with certainty where the
settlements were and what was their extent.
On the east coast of Greenland, which is closed by drift-ice for the
greater part of the year, the Norsemen had no permanent settlement, and it
was only exceptionally that they were able to land there, or they were
sometimes wrecked in the drift-ice off the coast and had to take refuge
ashore. Several places are, however, mentioned along the southern part of
the east coast, where people from the Eastern Settlement probably went
hunting in the summer.
[Illustration: The plain by Igaliko (Garðar) with ruins. In the background
the peaks of Igdlerfigsalik, and in front of them Iganek (after N. P.
Jörgensen)]
[Sidenote: Population]
[Sidenote: Bishops]
The population of the two settlements in Greenland can scarcely have been
large at any time; perhaps at its highest a couple of thousand altogether.
If we take it that there were 280 homesteads, and on an average seven
persons in each, which is a high estimate, then the total will not be more
than 1960. But the long distances caused the building, after the
introduction of Christianity, of a comparatively large number of churches,
namely, twelve in the Eastern Settlement (where the ruins of only five
have been found) and four in the Western Settlement, besides which a
monastery and a nunnery are mentioned in the Eastern Settlement. About
1110 Greenland became an independent bishopric, although it is said in the
"King's Mirror" that
"if it lay nearer to other lands it would be reckoned for a third part
of a bishopric. But now the people there have nevertheless a bishop
of their own; for there is no other way, since the distance between
them and other people is so great."
The chief's house Garðar in Einarsfjord (Igaliko) became the episcopal
residence. There is a fairly complete record of the bishops of Greenland
down to the end of the fourteenth century. During the succeeding century
and even until 1530 a number of bishops of Greenland are also mentioned,
who were appointed, but never went to Greenland.
[Sidenote: Norse literature in Greenland]
Even if the conditions of life in the Greenland settlements were not
luxurious, they were nevertheless not so hard as to prevent the
development of an independent art of poetry. Sophus Bugge points out in
"Norrœn Fornkvædi" [Christiania, 1867, p. 433] that the "Atlamál en
grœnlenzku" of the Edda is, as its title shows, from Greenland, and was
most probably composed there. Finnur Jónsson [1894, i. pp. 66, 68 ff.;
1897, pp. 40 ff.] would even refer four or five other Edda-lays to
Greenland, namely: "Oddrúnargrátr," "Goðrúnarhvot," "Sigurðarkviða en
skamma," "Helgakviða Hundingsbana," perhaps also "Helreið Brynhildar." As
regards the two last-named, the assumption is certainly too doubtful, but
in the case of the other three it is possible. The "Norðrsetu-drápa," to
be mentioned later (p. 298), was composed in Greenland; and the so-called
"Hafgerðinga-drápa" may be derived thence; in the Landnámabók, where one
or two fragments of it are reproduced, it is said to have been composed by
a "Christian man (monk ?) from the Southern isles" (Hebrides), on the way
thither. The fragments of lays on Furðustrandir and Wineland, which are
given in the Saga of Eric the Red, may possibly also be from Greenland.
The fact that the "Snorra-Edda" gives a particular kind of metre, called
"Grönlenzkr háttr,"[250] agrees with the view that Greenland had an
independent art of poetry.
The Greenland lays like the Atlamál are perhaps not equal to the best
Norse skald-poetry; but there runs through them a weird, gloomy note
that bears witness of the wild nature and the surroundings in which they
were composed.
[Illustration: View from the mountain Iganek, looking south over
Igalikofjord (Einarsfjord) and on the right Tunugdliarfik (Eiriksfjord)
with the isthmus at Igaliko (Garðar) between them (after N. P. Jörgensen,
see D. Bruun, 1896)]
[Sidenote: Ruins]
[Sidenote: Food]
Within the fjords of both the ancient Greenland settlements many ruins of
former habitations have been found (see maps, pp. 265, 266, 271); most of
these are found in the Eastern Settlement or Julianehaab District [cf.
especially D. Bruun, 1896; also G. Holm, 1883]. In a single homestead as
many as a score of scattered houses have been found; among them was a
dwelling-house, and around it byres and stables for cattle, horses, sheep
and goats, with adjoining hay-barns, or else open hay-fences (round stone
walls within which the hay was stacked and covered with turf), besides
larders, drying-houses, pens for sheep, fenced fields, etc. There were
also fenced outlying hayfields with barns and with summer byres for sheep
and goats, for they had even mountain pastures and hayfields. Near the
shore are found sheds, possibly for gear for boats, sealing and fishing,
but, on the other hand, there are no actual boathouses. Ruins of several
churches (five in the Eastern Settlement) have also been found. The
dwelling-houses were built of stone and turf, like the Icelandic
farmhouses; in exceptional cases clay was also used, while the outhouses
were mostly built with dry stone walls. For the timber work of the roofs
drift-wood must have been usually employed. The winter byres were of
course made weatherproof. The size of the byres shows that the numbers of
their stock were not inconsiderable, mostly sheep and goats; only where
the level lands near the fjords offered specially good pasture was there
any great number of horned cattle. Everywhere in the neighbourhood of the
ruins stone traps are found which show that the Greenlanders occupied
themselves in trapping foxes; a few large traps have been thought to have
been intended for wolves (?), which are now no longer to be found in
southern Greenland. Near the main buildings are found great refuse heaps
("kitchen middens"), which give us much information as to the life they
led and what they lived on. Great quantities of bones taken from five
different sites in the Eastern Settlement (among them the probable sites
of Brattalid and Gardar) have been examined by the Danish zoologist,
Herluf Winge [cf. D. Bruun, 1896, pp. 434 ff.]. The great predominance of
bones of domestic animals, especially oxen and goats, and of seals,
especially the Greenland seal or saddle-back (Phoca grœnlandica), and the
bladder-nose or crested seal (Cystophora cristata), show that
cattle-rearing and seal-hunting were the Greenlanders' chief means of
subsistence; and the latter especially must have provided the greater part
of their flesh food, since as a rule the bones of seals are the most
numerous. Curiously enough, few fish-bones have been found. As we know
with certainty that the Greenlanders were much occupied in fishing, this
absence now is accounted for by fish-bones and other offal of fish being
used for fodder for cattle in winter. Various reindeer bones show that
this animal was also found in ancient times in the Eastern Settlement,
where it is now extinct. Besides these, bones of a single polar bear and
of a few walrus have been found, which show that these animals were
caught, though in small numbers; a few bones of whale have also been
found. There are, strangely enough, comparatively few bones of birds. The
bones of horses that have been found belong to a small race and the cattle
were of small size and horned.
[Illustration: Remains of a sheep-pen at Kakortok. On the right the ruined
church (after Th. Groth)]
[Sidenote: Life and conditions]
In the otherwise very legendary tale, in the Saga of the Foster Brothers
(beginning of the thirteenth century), of Thormod Kolbrunarskald's voyage
to Greenland and sojourn there, to avenge the death of his friend
Thorgeir, we get here and there sidelights on the daily life of the
country, which agree well with the information afforded by the remains. We
hear that they often went to sea after seals, that they had harpoons for
seals ("selskutill"), that they cooked the flesh of seals, etc. From the
"King's Mirror" (circa 1250) we get a good glimpse of the conditions of
life in Greenland in those days:
"But in Greenland, as you probably know, everything that comes from
other lands is dear there; for the country lies so distant from other
lands that men seldom visit it. And everything they require to assist
the country, they must buy from elsewhere, both iron (and tar) and
likewise everything for building houses. But these things are brought
thence in exchange for goods: buckskin and ox-hides, and sealskin and
walrus-rope and walrus-ivory." "But since you asked whether there was
any raising of crops or not, I believe that country is little assisted
thereby. Nevertheless there are men--and they are those who are known
as the noblest and richest--who make essay to sow; but nevertheless
the great multitude in that country does not know what bread is, and
never even saw bread."...
"Few are the people in that land, for little of it is thawed so much
as to be habitable.... But when you ask what they live on in that
country, since they have no corn, then [you must know] that men live
on more things than bread alone. Thus it is said that there is good
pasture and great and good homesteads in Greenland; for people there
have much cattle and sheep, and there is much making of butter and
cheese. The people live much on this, and also on flesh and all kinds
of game, the flesh of reindeer, whale, seal and bear; on this they
maintain themselves in that country."
We see clearly enough from this how the Greenlanders of the old
settlements on the one hand were dependent on imports from Europe, and on
the other subsisted largely by hunting and fishing. It appears also from a
papal bull of 1282 that the Greenland tithes were paid in ox-hides,
seal-skins and walrus-ivory.
It has been asserted that Greenland at that time possessed a more
favourable climate, with less ice both on land and sea than at present;
but, amongst other things, the excellent description in the "King's
Mirror," to be mentioned directly, shows clearly enough that such was not
the case. Many will therefore ask what it was that could attract the
Icelanders thither. But to one who knows both countries it will not be so
surprising; in many ways South Greenland appeals more to a Norwegian than
Iceland. It lies in about the same latitude as Bergen and Christiania, and
the beautiful fjords with a number of islands outside, where there are
good channels for sailing and harbours everywhere, make it altogether like
the coast of Norway, and different from the more exposed coasts of
Iceland. Inside the fjords the summer is quite as warm and inviting as in
Iceland; it is true that there is drift-ice outside in early summer, but
that brings good seal-hunting. There was, besides this, walrus-hunting and
whaling, reindeer-hunting, fishing in the sea and in the rivers, fowling,
etc. When we add good pasturage on the shores of the fjords, it will be
understood that it was comparatively easy to support life.
The grass still grows luxuriantly around the ruins on the Greenland
fjords, and might even to-day support the herds of many a homestead.
[Illustration]