Lögberg-Heimskringla - 23.04.1970, Page 7

LÖGBERG-HEIMSKRINGLA, FIMMTUDAGINN 23. APRÍL 1970
7
TOM OLESON:
Norsemen ln America
WESTWARD TO VINLAND: by Helge Ingslad.
250 pp., Toronto, Macmillan, $7.95.
Tom Oleson er stúdent við Manitoba háskólann, auk
þess sem hann ritar af og til greinar fyrir Winnipeg Free
Press. Hann er sonur Dr. Tryggva heitins Oleson sagnfræð-
ings og Elvu konu hans. Hún stundar kennslu við mennta-
skóla hér í Winnipeg. Síðasta bók Dr. Tryggva mun hafa
verið Early Voyages and Northern Approaches 1000-1632.
Var það fyrsta bókin, sem gefin var út af sextán bókum,
sem gefnar voru út í tilefni hundrað ára afmælis fylkja-
sambands Canada — The Canadian Centenary Series.
Ánægjulegt er, að Tom Oleson fetar í fótspor föður síns.
Hann hefur ánægju af, að kynna sér fomsögu íslendinga
hér í álfu og hikar ekki við, að gagnrýna bækur og rit um
þau efni og tekst það vel. — I. J.
The subject of the explora-
tions and settlements of the
Icelanders in North America
before Columbus has inspired
a considerable amount of lit-
erature. Some of thils has
been pure fantasy, some the
result of honest scholarly en-
deavor; for the most part all
of it has been inconclusive.
In this book Norwegian
author and explorer Helge
Ingstad has set out to remedy
this. He has two objectives:
first, to find conclusive ar-
cheological evidence that the
Norsemen did visit the coasts
of North America, and sec-
ond, to settle finally the ques-
tion of the location of Vin-
land.
Where was Vinland? For
years this question has
plagued students of the Norse
voyages to the New World.
Scholars of all types — ar-
cheologists, historians, run-
ologists, medievalists, philolo-
gists, students of medieval lit-
erature, and wildeyed avid
amateurs — have pondered
the question, looked at the
evidence with greater or les-
ser degrees of objectivity and
placed it in such places as
Florida, Hudson Bay, the
Great Lakes and Newfound-
land, to name only a few.
Our knowledge of Vinland
c o m e s from the Icelandic
sagas, primarily the Tale of
the Greenlanders and the
Saga of Erik the Red. These
sagas mention three places in
N o r t h America: Helluland,
Markland, and Vinland. On
the first two of these there
is general agreement (more or
less). Helluland has been
identified as Baffin Island,
and Markland is considered
to be somewhere on the
Labrador coast.
No such agreement has
been reached on the question
of Vinland. First diiscovered
by Leif Eirikson, the sagas
describe it as having a tem-
perate climate with so little
frost that the cattle could
f o r a g e for themselves all
winter. Grapes and self-sown
wheat were plentiful there.
A river rain from a lake into
the sea, salmon were found
in abundance and there was
an island to the north. Day
and night were of more equal
length than in Greenland.
It was in Vinland that Leif
Eirikson built his houses and
wintered; it was there that
Thorfinn Karlsefni founded
his settlement and there that
the first white child was born
in North America. To the Ice-
landers it must have seemed
truly a land of milk and
honey, and perhaps this is
why it so captures our imag-
ination today.
Between 1960 and 1968 Mr.
Ingstad made several expedi-
tions in search of Norse ruins
along the North American
coast. At L’Anse aux Mead-
ows, on the northern tip of
Newfoundland’s peninsula, he
seems to have found what he
was looking for. Several ex-
peditions were m a d e to
L’Anse aux Meadows for the
purpose of archeological ex-
cavations and there can be
little doubt that what Mr.
Ingstad has discovered there
was a Norse occupation site
dating from around the elev-
enth century.
His book was not written as
an archeological report; it is
meant only as a popular ac-
count. When it was written
the archeological report was
still unpublished and we shaJl
have to wait for it to evaluate
fully the significance of the
discoveries. Mr. Ingstad does,
however, give us enough evi-
dence to draw some conclu-
sions.
The excavations, under the
supervision of an archeologist
(Mr. Ingstad’s w i f e , Anne
Stine), revealed several
house-sites of different sizes,
a smithy, four boatsheds and
three outdoor pits. The house-
sites show characteristics sim-
ilar to Norse houses of the
Viking age and Norse paral-
lels to the hearths in these
houses can be found in Green-
land and Iceland. In any case,
they are neither Indian nor
E s k i m o , but indisputably
European.
Fragments of iron and slag
indicate that iron was smelted
there, and a small piece of
smelted copper. and some
naills were also found. Stone
and bone implements round
out the inventory.
Of all the L ’ A n s e aux
Meadows discoveries, howev-
er, the most important were
a ring-headed bronze pin and
a Norse spindle-whorl. The
ring-headed pin is the type
commonly used by the Nórse-
men for personal ornament.
The spindle-whorl. used in
the spinning of wool, was un-
known to the Indians and
Eskimo of the area and clos-
ely matches spindle-whorls
dating from the Middle Ages
throughout the Norse coun-
tries. It seems to be indisput-
ably of Norse origin.
T w e 1 v e Carbon-14 dates
have been made from the
L’Anse aux Meadows materi-
als. All are around the year
A.D. 1000, the latest being
1080, give or take 70 years.
The discoveries, then, date
from around the time of the
saga voyages.
Of all the numerous Norse
“finds” in North America,
with the possible exception
of Thomas Lee’s recent work
in Ungava, Mr. Ingstad’s dis-
coveries are the only ones
that invite confidence. He
has, it seems, fulfilled the
first task he set for himself
— to find conclusive evidence
of the Norse in America.
This would have been a
good place for him to stop,
but he goes on to identify the
L’Anse aux Meadows occupa-
tion site as Leif Eirikson’s
Vinland, the Vinland of the
sagas. For this his only justi-
fication is that at present his
discovery is the only known
Norse occupation site on the
Atlantic coast of North Am-
erica.
The most reasonable loca^-
tion for Vinland is that of
the area around Cape Cod.
This area fits all the require-
ments of the descriptions in
the sagas, including the ac-
count of the grapes and the
wine that t h e Icelanders
made from them. This is one
of the integral characteristics
of Vinland according to the
sagas (Vinland means Wine-
lamd).
Wild grapes are found no
further north than Passama-
quoddy Bay and any attempt
to put Vinland further north
w o u 1 d leave unexplained
those passages in the sagas.
Mr. Ingstad attempts to over-
come this difficulty with a
1 i 111 e philological jugglng
(Vinland means Grassland in-
stead of Wineland) but it is
quite unconvincing.
However, arguing the loca-
tion of Vinland is like arguing
religion and politics — a win-
ner hardly ever emerges.
U n t i 1 more archeological
work is done, and until more
archeological evidence is
brought to light, there are
several theories that can be
argued endlessly. While one
can understand Mr. Ingstad’s
temptation to do so, it is fool-
ish to argue that since the
Norse were in Newfoundland
that Newfoundland must be
Vinland.
Without doubt the Iceland-
ers in Greenland made many
voyages to North America.
Eirik’s Saga records three, the
Tale of the Greenlanders rec-
ords six; but these are family
sagas, recorded to enhance
the reputations of the families
involved. Many unrecorded
voyages to America must
have been made in search of
such things as lumber, per-
haps even the fabled grapes,
and it is likely that Mr. Ing-
stad has found the traces that
one of these expeditions has
left. behind. Even if it is not
Vinland, it is still a valuable
contribution to our knowl-
edge of the pre-Columbian
explorations of North Am-
erica.
Winnipeg Free Press,
November 1, 1969.
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