Árbók Hins íslenzka fornleifafélags - 01.01.1964, Page 63

Grænlenzki LANDNEMAFLOTINN
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Bogi Th. Melsteð brought together all the information contained in the ancient
reeords on navigation and seagoing vessels in the possession of Icelanders at
the time of the Settlements (870—930 A. D.) and at that of the ancient Icelandic
Republic (930—1262 A. D.). His opinion, based on this survey, was that there
were 300 ship-owners among the settlers. If this was in fact the case, then the
Greenland fleet must have amounted in number to one twelfth of the entire fleet
of the settlers of Iceland. In the sagas there are records of about a hundred merch-
ant vessels owned by Icelanders during the whole Saga period (c. 930—1030), and
of a total fleet of 100 ships only some 50 would have been in Iceland at one time.
The fleet of the Greenland-farers would then amount to 50% of that figure.
Since almost the whole Greenland fleet was from Breiðafjörður it must be
considered unlikely that it consisted of knerrir only. We cannot help asking
whether the Icelanders owned fishing boats and eargo boats that were big
enough to carry the settlers and their households to Greenland. In order to
answer this question we must. make a survey of all the information given in
mediaevai Icelandic writings on such boats and their use, and look also for
comparative material from the history of later times.
Because of the intensive fishing, the transportation of dried fish, the exploitation
of the naturai resources of the numerous islands, and communication in general,
the boat had already become, by the time of the Settlements and Sagas, of more
vital importance to the inhabitants of Breiðafjörður and the West Firths than
to people in other parts of the country. For fishing from outlying stations and
for the transportation of stock-fish big boats were required, so it is fairly safe
to assume that the Breiðafjörður farmers already had many large and solid
boats for this purpose by the time of Eirik the Red.
Our knowledge about the Breiðafjörður boat in the Saga time must be derived
from the sagas themselves. Teinæringar or „tenoarings", as we may call them,
seem to have been common at that time in Breiðafjörður and Northwestern Ice-
land; „twelve-oarings" were also known. The Breiðafjörður sagas mention ten-
oarings with a crew of 16—26 each, so they were obviously good and strong
vessels. In the course of the loth century the Icelandic boat must have undergone
a development determined by local conditions, for generally speaking the form of
the Norwegian boat was ill-suited for voyages in unsheltered waters. In the
Sturlunga (the chronicle of contemporary happenings in the 12th and 13th centu-
ries) tenoarings are frequently mentioned and the descriptions of them there are
in happy agreement with the records of the sagas. In most cases Sturlunga’s
descriptions of boats, ships and sea voyages must be correct, and it is clear from
them that the tenoaring was a large and strong boat used for long voyages off
the West-coast of Iceland where the sea can be more rough than anywhere else
in the North Atlantic.
A study of the mediaeval documents is of equal value and assistance. Only two
tenoarings are mentioned in 14th and 15th century documents, but both of them
were in the possession of Breiðafjörður people. Up to 1500 three twelve-oarings
are mentioned, two of them in Breiðafjörður and the West Firths. The rise in
the number of tenoarings in this period was the result of the increased importance
of fishing, especially in the South of Iceland. In the 15th and 16th centuries the
„big boat’ was of as much importance in the South of Iceland as it had been
in Breiðafjörður at the time of Eirik the Red and during the Age of the Sturlungs
(the 13th century). Byröingar are mentioned neither in Sturlunga nor in later
mediaeval documents, so probably tenoarings and twelve-oarings were used in
their place. That this was the case in the 18th century is well documented.
According to a reliable source Icelandic boats in general were poor in the 18th