The Icelandic Canadian - 01.06.1984, Síða 44

42
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
SUMMER, 1984
ironic stroke a fate was soon to deal him,
for who should that beautiful Bergliot of
his come afterward to marry but Ibsen’s
son, Sigurd Ibsen! The marriage was
probably no more to the taste of one father
than the other, and I have heard since that
when, the young people sticking to their
guns, the ceremony became inevitable, in-
finite management of the reluctant fathers
was necessary to prevent an explosion.
Both were present at the church, but in
ordering the arrangements the dangerous
question arose — which was to precede the
other in the bridal procession? At last some
diplomatist struck on a happy compromise,
and the two fiery Norsemen walked side by
side, if not arm in arm.
When the time came to say good-by, it
was this golden bride of Sigurd who was to
drive us in a sort of wagonette to the lake
ferry. Several of us were going, but there
was room for only one of us by the
beautiful Bergliot’s side on the box. Natu-
rally, there was a fierce rivalry for the
coveted seat, and it makes me happy to this
day to remember that it was I that she
chose. We couldn’t speak a word to each
other, but there are situations that are
happy enought without words. So, once
more in the early morning, Bjomson again
with arms outstretched in valedictory bless-
ing, “flags flying in town and harbor,” we
went off laughing into the sunlight. Again I
had seen Shelley plain, and I have few
memories that I cherish more than those
days at Aulestad, with its great-hearted host
and hostess, not to speak of their fairy-tale
daughter, by whose side I drove off that
light-hearted morning while I hugged close
under my arm a copy of “The Heritage of
the Kurts” which Bjomson had given me
for remembrance.
THE KENSINGTON STONE
by Birgitta L. Wallace
A vast body of material purports to be
tangible evidence of pre-Columbian Euro-
pean penetration into the western hemis-
phere: in Canada and the United States
there are no less than twenty-four inscrip-
tions, sixty-nine artifacts, and fifty-two
sites. By and large, this material is attrib-
uted to the Norse Vinland voyages.
The evidence is concentrated into two
major areas: the Atlantic seaboard and the
Great Lakes region. The evidence from the
Atlantic coast allegedly dates from the
Viking Age and is specifically associated
with the voyages of Leif Eiriksson and his
contemporaries. The Great Lakes evi-
dence, on the other hand, is commonly
associated with the later Middle Ages in
general and with one Swedish-Norwegian
expedition of the 1360s in particular. Both
are areas in which people have searched
actively for archaeological proofs of the
Norse ventures.
The best known supposedly pre-Columbian
document in America is the Kensington
stone inscription. Found on a farm in
Kensington in Douglas County, Minne-
sota, in 1898, it is a runic inscription spell-
ing out the misfortunes of a thirty-man
strong expedition of Norwegians and
‘Goths’ travelling westwards from Vinland
on a ‘journey of discovery’. It professes to
have been written in 1362 as a desperate
message and a memorial to ten of the
expedition members who met with violent
death. The inscription ends by stating that
ten other members have stayed behind in
Vinland ‘fourteen days’ journey from this
island’ to guard the expedition’s ships.
The finder of the inscription was a
Swedish immigrant, a carpenter turned