Then the lady mentioned the incident to the owner of a large fish
business, whose plant is two or three miles up the beach. He, too, was
sympathetic. “Oh, yes,” he responded, “that’s the Blond Norseman. My
men have talked about him often. It’s an old story to them.”
Commander Donald B. MacMillan, the Arctic explorer, of Provincetown,
likewise gave a respectful ear and even suggested that the grave of
the Norse warrior who had returned to this hurly-burly world might
be located near the Fish House. Norsemen colonized along the North
Atlantic coast. Historians say that Leif Ericson and his men were the
earliest settlers on the Cape and that Thorwald died from an Indian’s
arrow in Yarmouth on the Bay side. It is said that as he lay mortally
wounded, Thorwald told his men, “Bury me here; place a cross at my
head, another at my feet, call it ‘Crossness’ forever more.”