Lögberg-Heimskringla - 26.09.1963, Blaðsíða 2

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LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 26. SEPTEMBER 1963
Dr. Tryggvi J. Oleson:
Myfrhs and More Myfrhs
The Pre-Columbian history
of America abounds in le-
gends and myths. The Vikings,
for example, are by many be-
lieved to have in 1362 pene-
trated into the interior of
North America. This opinion
is based on the so-called dis-
covery of a runic stone near
Kensington, Minnesota in
1898. The inscription record-
ed an exploration joumey to
Minnesota by Norwegians and
Swedes. But the inscription is
a concoction of the 1890’s.
Again the Vikings were sup-
posed to have been in the re-
gion of the Great Lakes in the
eleventh century. Here the
evidence consists of a Viking
sword and other articles pur-
porting to have been found
at Beardmore in northem
Ontario in the 1930’s. The
articles seem, however, to
have been brought over by a
Norwegian in the 1920’s. The
location of Vinland continues
to exercise the ingenuity of
scholars. It has recently on
the basis of evidence in the
Icelandic sagas been located
in the region of the Great
Lakes, with Niagara Falls fig-
uring prominently in this ac-
count. In the summer of 1961
the Norwegian journalist-
explorer, Helge Ingstad, found
what he claimed were Norse
ruins on the northern penin-
sula of Newfoundland and
located Vinland there near
L’Ance aux Meadows, in spite
of the fact that this region
has none of the features—
grapes, self-sown wheat, and
a practically frost free winter
climate—mentioned in the sa-
gas as characteristics of Vin-
land. It cannot, of course, be
denied that it is quite likely
that the Icelanders who set-
tled in Greenland in the years
after 986 visited Newfound-
land, but it is hard to believe
that Vinland was located
there. Ingstad has not made a
final report but preliminary
reports suggest that the
houses may be Norse.
It is not these myths, how-
ever, that will be discussed
here, but rather three others
which have recently received
considerable attention. The
first of these concerns Nichol-
as of Lynne, a monk of Ox-
ford who lived in the four-
teenth century, and is said to
have written a book called
Inventio fortunata about his
voyages to the Canadian Arc-
tic. The evidence for this con-
sists principally of certain
passages in the sixteenth
century writings of the carto-
grapher Gerhardt Mercator,
Hakluyt and John Dee. Ac^
cording to them, a certain
priest at the court of the King
of Norway, who was descend-
ed from men whom King
Arthur had sent to the Arctic
regions of Canada, reported
that a Franciscan friar, visit-
ed Greenland and neighboring
islands around 1360. He tra-
velled alone further north by
his magical arts and described
the places he saw and deter-
mined their latitude with his
astrolobe. On his return he
wrote a book called Inventio
fortunata and delivered it to
King Edward III of England.
He then made five more jour-
neys to the Arctic.
Dr. Tryggvi J. Oleson
On the basis of these fan-
tastic—what other word ap-
plies— aceounts, recent writ-
ings have made Nicholas of
Lynne, who was likely a Car-
melite and not a Franciscan,
one of the first Arctic explor-
ers and the discoverer of the
magnetic pole. In one version
he travelled to Greenland as
the astronomer and navigator
of the mythical expedition
which r e a c h e d Greenland
from Norway in 1355 and
eventually carved the inscrip-
tion on the Kensington Stone.
He is supposed to have left
the expedition in Greenland
and with eight men pene-
trated the Arctic. In another
recent book he is represented
as the leader of an English
Arctic expedition.
What then is the truth?
First it must be said that the
Inventio fortunata (no copy
of which now exists but ex-
tracts in later writings are to
be found) was written about
1360; that it seems to have
been an accurate description
of parts of the Canadian Arc-
tic north of Baffin Bay; and
that it may have been known
to Columbus and may have
influenced him. Nicholas may
have written it, although the
author is said to have been a
Franciscan, and another four-
teenth century Franciscan
mathematician of O x f o r d
could equally well have done
so. That the author visited the
Arctic is, however, open to
the gravest doubts. Whence,
then, did he get his inform-
ation? The most likely source
is a priest, Ivar Bardarsson,
who was administrator of the
church in Greenland from
1340 to 1360 and who return-
ed to Norway about 1360,
where he himself wrote a
Description of Greenland.
This work was later trans-
lated for Henry Hudson who
carried it with him on his
voyages. The author of the
Inventio fortunata may have
met Ivar at the court of the
King of Norway and there
written the book from the in-
formation supplied by Ivar.
In other words, like another
great traveller of the Middle
Ages, John Mandeville, he
travelled through the Arctic
by magical arts while sitting
in his chair at home, seeing
all its marvels through the
eyes of others. It is interest-
ing, too, that none of those
who believe Nicholas did
make a voyage to the Arctic,
care to discuss his other five
voyages there.
The second myth deals with
the Irish discovery of Am-
erica. Now there is no doubt
that the Irish were making
voyages in the North Atlantic
as early as, if not earlier than,
the seventh century. Irish
hermits were in Iceland when
the Norwegians discovered it
about 870. Earlier, in the sixth
century, St. Brendan, who
died in 584, is by many be-
lieved to have visited Iceland,
Greenland and even America,
although it is more probable
that the account of his voy-
ages, The Navigatio Brendani
is a summary of various Irish
sailings and of reports of Ice-
land and Greenland given by
Norsemen. Many have claim-
ed that there was an Irish
colony in America before its
discovery by the Norsemen
and ruins of Great Ireland
have purportedly been found
in New England, although
these have subsequently been
shown to date from the eight-
eenth and nineteenth cen-
furies. Recently it has been
seriously argued that this
early Irish colony in America
was founded by the Irish her-
mits who left Iceland in 870
when the Norwegians began
to settle that country. The
evidence for this is found in
certain passages in Icelandic
sagas, which describe a White
Men’s Land or Ireland the
Great, north or south of the
St. Lawrence. No archaeo-
logical remains of what is
maintained to have been a
flourishing colony around the
year 1000 when the Norse-
men first discovered America,
have ever been found. There
is little doubt that the authors
of the Icelandic sagas, which
contain references to White
Men’s Land, confused the ter-
ritories of America discovered
by the Norsemen, which were
known by that name, as well
as the Latin one of Albania
Magna, in mediaeval writings
and maps, with a region in
Ireland also known as White
Men’s Land or Tir na-Fer
Finn. The view that such a
colony was established by
Irish monks from Iceland can
only be described as prepost-
erous. Presumably t h e s e
monks, who left Iceland in
870, were celibate. Yet either
they themselves, which is
hardly conceivable, or their
descendants, which is equally
inconceivable, or new recruits
from Ireland, or pupils they
had trained, were parading
around in religious proces-
sions in the Gaspe Peninsula
or nearby regions around the
year 1000 when the Norsemen
first discovered America.
The third myth may be dis-
missed briefly. It is an old
one, which, like so many
others, refuses to die although
it’s absurdity has long ago
been^ demonstrated. In 1558
there was published in Venice
a book purporting to record
the voyages made by two
native sons, the brothers
Niccolo and Antonio Zeno,
into the North Atlantic in the
last two decades of the four-
teenth century. Here they en-
tered the service of a prince
named Zichmni and made
many voyages among the is-
lands of the North Atlantic.
In 1938 Zichmni and the two
Zeno brothers even discovered
Nova Scotia. And who was
Zichmni? None other than
Henry Sinclair, Earl of the
Orkneys, who died in 1404.
This fantastic tale, in which
is encountered a Franciscan
monastery on the east coast
of Greenland blessed with
central heat, still has its ad-
herents in spite of the fact
that both it and the map
appended to it have been
shown to be sixteenth century
concoctions, and in spite of
the fact that there is no evi-
dence that the Zeno brothers
were employed by Sinclair
or that he undertook any
trans-Atlantic voyages. In a
recent book Sinclair has been
identified as a legendary hero
of the Micmacs who pro-
nounced his name Glooscap.
So one might go on. There
is no end of myths. There is
that of Madoc the Welshman,
who in the twelfth century
colonized the southern United
States and even Mexico where
he taught the Indians the
Indians the Welsh language.
There are numerous myths
concerning the disappearance
of the Icelandic colonies in
Greenland. And the remark-
able thing, as I have already
said, is that many of these
myths are not propagated by
just cranks, but by respect-
able, sober scholars. It woulc
seem that the Pre-Columbian
history of America has such
a fascination for all those who
study it that it beclouds their
judgment and causes their
imagination to run riot. Thus
we have myths, and more
myths.
Höfuðlausn
Almost as much has been
written about Hofudlausn it-
self as about Egil’s visit to
York. It has been regarded as
a drapa written in praise not
of Eirik but of Athelstan, or
as the reworking of an earlier
poem — though these are both
unlikely theories; as having
been written with the pœt’s
tongue in his cheek; and as a
poem written earlier and held
in readiness for a projected
visit to Eirik. Scholars as not-
able as Finnur Jonsson and
Per Wiesélgren have seen in
its general hyperbole and lack
of minute particulars, and its
hollow, conventional praise of
the king’s unspecified cam-
paigns and unillustrated gen-
erosity, an exercise in irony at
Eirik’s expense. But it is hard
to believe that Egil would have
composed an ironical poem
about an enemy without the
irony being more apparent. If
it is objected that he composed
it while in that enemy’s power
and dared not be more explicit,
the answer seems to be t'hat it
is then unthinkable he should
deal in irony at all. The
“emptiness” of the poem, its
rhetorical ring and lack of
supporting detail, are more
credibly explained by its be-
ing the work of one night and
by Egil’s unwillingness even
in sore straits to dole out more
praise than he must. There is
no reason whatever for think-
ing it beyond Egil’s powers to
put together a twenty-verse
drapa in so short a time; mod-
ern Icelanders have not found
it difficult to repeat the feat,
and runhenda is a much easier
meter to compose in than
drottkvaedr hattr. Patently
Hofudlausn is a poem much in-
ferior to Sonatorrek and Arin-
bjarnarkvida, and may proper-
ly be regarded as a triumph of
technique under difficulties.
The theory that the poem was
composed before Egil left Ice-
land depends upon the ante-
cedent theory that Egil sought
Eirik of his own will. The
phrases in Hofudlausn invoked
to support the theory (they are
to be found more espeéially in
the first two and a half verses)
are equally consistent with
Arinbjorn’s plan to convince
King Eirik that Egil did come
freely into his presence.
Unquestionably Hofudlausn
impressed its royal hearer in
the tenth century more than it
seems to have impressed its
critics of the nineteenth and
twentieth. In return for its
twenty verses Eirik gave Egil
his head, let his enemy go in
peace, despite his many and
ample grievances. If we ask
why, we are not likely to ans-
wer that it was for the poem’s
content, its empty praise and
glitter. But when we consider
the form of the poem a pos-
sible explanation assaults the
Framhald á bls. 3.