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VINLA

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 100 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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VINLA .ND See also:

information concerning See also:Vinland did not, however, impress his See also:medieval readers, as he placed the new See also:land somewhere in the See also:Arctic regions: " All those regions which are beyond are filled with insupportable See also:ice and boundless gloom." These words show the futility of ascribing to See also:Adam's See also:account See also:Columbus's knowledge of lands in the See also:West, as many overzealous See also:advocates of the Norse discoveries have done. The importance of the information, meagre as it is, lies in the fact that Adam received from the lips of kinsmen of the explorers (as the Danes in a sense were) certain characteristic facts (the finding of grapes and unsown See also:grain) that support the See also:general reliability of the Icelandic sagas which tell of the Vinland voyages (in which these same facts are prominent), but which were not put into See also:writing by the Norsemen until later—just how much later it is not possible to determine. The fact that the Icelandic sagas concerning Vinland are not contemporaneous written records has caused them to be viewed by many with suspicion; hence such a significant allusion as that by Adam of See also:Bremen is not to be overlooked. To the student of the Norse See also:sources, Adam's reference is not so important, as the See also:internal See also:evidence of the sagas is such as to give easy See also:credence to them as records of exploration in regions previously unknown to See also:civilization. The contact with savages would alone prove that. During the See also:middle ages the Scandinavians were the first to revive See also:geographical See also:science and to practise pelagic See also:navigation. For six centuries previous to about Soo, See also:European See also:interest in See also:practical geographical expansion was at a standstill. During the 6th and 7th centuries, Irish anchorites, in their " See also:passion for solitude," found their way to the See also:Hebrides, Orkneys, Shetlands, Faroes and See also:Iceland, but they were not interested in colonization or geographical knowledge. The See also:discovery of new lands in the West by the Norsemen came in the course of the See also:great Scandinavian See also:exodus of the 9th, loth and rith centuries—the See also:Viking See also:Age—when Norsemen, Swedes and Danes swarmed over all See also:Europe, conquering kingdoms and See also:founding colonies. The See also:main stream of Norsemen took a See also:westerly course, striking Great See also:Britain, See also:Ireland and the Western Isles, and ultimately reached Iceland (in 874), See also:Greenland (in 985) and Vinland (in moo). This western See also:migration was due mainly to See also:political dissatisfaction in See also:Norway, doubtless augmented by a restless spirit of See also:adventure. The chiefs and their followers that settled Iceland were " picked men," the See also:flower of the land, and sought a new See also:home from other motives than want or gain.

They sought political freedom. In Iceland they lived active, not to say tumultuous, lives, and See also:

left See also:fine See also:literary records of their doings and achievements. The Icelandic See also:colony was an interesting forerunner of the See also:American See also:republic, having a prosperous See also:population living under a republican See also:government, and maintaining an See also:independent See also:national spirit for nearly four centuries. Geographically Iceland belongs to See also:America, and its colonization meant, sooner or later, the finding of other lands to the West. A See also:century later Greenland was peopled from Iceland, and a colony existed for over four See also:hundred years, when it was snuffed out, doubtless by hostile Eskimos. Icelandic records, among them the Vinland sagas, also a See also:Norwegian See also:work of the 13th century, called See also:Speculum regale (The See also:King's See also:Mirror), and some papal letters, give interesting glimpses of the See also:life of this colony. It was from the See also:young Greenland colony that an See also:attempt was made to establish a new outpost in Vinland, but plans for permanent See also:settlement were given up on account of the hostility of the natives, with whom the settlers See also:felt powerless to grapple. See also:Gunpowder had not yet been invented. Icelandic literature consists mainly of the so-called " sagas," or See also:prose narratives, and is See also:rich in See also:historical See also:lore. In the See also:case of the Vinland sagas, however, there are two independent narratives of the same events, which clash in the See also:record of details. Modem investigators have been interested in establishing the superiority of one over the other of the two narratives. One of them is the " See also:Saga of See also:Eric the Red " as found in the collection known as Hauk's See also:Book, so called because the See also:manuscript was made by Hauk Erlendsson, an Icelander who spent much of his life in Norway.

It was copied, in See also:

part by Hauk himself, between the years 1305 and 1334, the date of his See also:death, and probably during the See also:period 1310-20. It is No. 544 of the See also:Arne-Magnaean collection in See also:Copenhagen. Another manuscript that tells the same See also:story, with only verbal See also:variations, is found in No. 557 of the same collection. This manuscript was made later than Hank's, probably in the See also:early part of the 15th century, but it is not a copy of Hauk's. Both were made independently from earlier See also:manuscripts. The story as found in these two manuscripts has been pronounced by competent critics, especially See also:Professor Gustav See also:Storm of the university of See also:Christiania, as the best and the most trustworthy record. The other saga, which by See also:chance 'came to be looked upon as the See also:chief repository of facts concerning the Vinland voyages, is found in a large Icelandic work known as the Flatey Book, as it was once owned by a See also:man who lived on See also:Flat See also:Island (Flatey), on the See also:north-western See also:coast of Iceland. This collection of sagas, completed in about 138o, is " the most extensive and most perfect of Icelandic manuscripts," and was sent to See also:Denmark in 1662 as a See also:gift to the king. It was evidently the general excellence of this collection that gave the version of the Vinland story that it contained See also:precedence, in the See also:works of early investigators, over the Vinland story of Hauk's Book. (See also:Reeves's Finding of See also:Vineland contains fine photographs of all the vellum pages that give the various Vinland narratives.) According to Flatey Book saga, Biarni Heriulfsson, on a voyage from Iceland to Greenland in the early days of the Greenland colony, was driven out of his course and sighted new lands to the See also:south-west.

He did not go ashore (which seems See also:

strange), but sailed northward to Greenland. Fifteen years later, according to this account, Leif Ericsson set out from Greenland in See also:search of the lands that Biarni had seen, found them and named them—Helluland (Flat-See also:stone-land), See also:Markland (Forestland) and Vinland. After his return to Greenland, several successive expeditions visited the new lands, none of which (strangely enough) experienced any difficulty in finding Leif's hut in the distant Vinland. According to the Vinland saga in Hauk's Book, Leif Ericsson, whose See also:father, Eric the Red, had discovered and colonized See also:Green-land, set out on a voyage, in 999, to visit Norway, the native land of his father. He visited the famous King See also:Olaf Tryggvason, who reigned from 995 to 1000, and was bending his energies toward Christianizing Norway and Iceland. He immediately saw in Leif a likely aid in the See also:conversion of the Greenlanders. Leif was converted and consented to become the king's emissary to Greenland, and the next See also:year (moo) started on his return voyage. The saga says that he was " tossed about " on this See also:long voyage, and came upon an unknown See also:country, where he found " self-sown wheatfields, and vines," and also some trees called " mosur," of which he took specimens. Upon his arrival in Greenland, Leif presented the See also:message of King Olaf, and seems to have attempted no further expeditions. But his visits to the new lands aroused much interest, and his See also:brother Thorstein made an unsuccessful attempt to find them. Later, in 1003, an Icelander, Thorfinn Karlsefni, who was visiting the Greenland colony, and who had married Gudrid, the widow of Leif's brother Thorstein, set out with four vessels and 16o followers to found a colony in the new lands. Here they remained three years, during which See also:time a son, Snorri, was See also:born to Thorfinn and Gudrid.

This expedition, too, found " grapes and self-sown See also:

wheat," though seemingly not in any great abundance. Concerning the See also:southern-most region of Vinland, the saga says: "They found self-sown wheatfields in the lowlands, but vines everywhere on higher places. . . . There were great See also:numbers of See also:wild animals in the See also:woods." Then the saga relates that one See also:morning a large number of men in skin canoes came paddling toward them and landed, staring curiously at them: " They were swarthy men and See also:ill-looking, and the See also:hair of their heads was ugly; they had large eyes and broad cheeks." Later the saga says: "No See also:snow came there, and all of their live stock lived by grazing, and thrived." The natives appeared again the next See also:spring, and a clash occurred. Fearing continued trouble with them, Karlsefni resolved to return to Greenland. This he did a year later, and99 spent the See also:winter of 1006-7 there, whereupon he settled in Iceland. From him and Gudrid a number of prominent ecclesiastics claimed descent, and also Hank Erlendssen. The Vinland story was doubtless a cherished See also:family See also:possession, and was put into writing, when writing sagas, instead of telling them, came into See also:fashion. And here it is important to remember that before the age of writing in Iceland there was a saga-telling age, a most remarkable period of intellectual activity, by the aid of which the deeds and events of the seething life of the heroic age was carried over into the age of writing. " Among the medieval literatures of Europe, that of Iceland is unrivalled in the profusion of detail with which the facts of See also:ordinary life are recorded, and the clearness with which the individual characters of numberless real persons stand out from the historic back-ground " (Origines Islandicae). Icelandic literary See also:history says that See also:Ari the Learned (born in 1067) was " the first man in this land who wrote in the Norse See also:tongue history See also:relating to times See also:ancient and See also:modern." Among his works is the Book of Settlements, " a work of thorough and painstaking See also:research unequalled in medieval literature " (See also:Fiske). His work The Book of Icelanders is unfortunately lost, but an abridgment of it, Libellus Islandorum, made by Ari himself, contains a significant reference to Vinland.

It tells that the colonists in Greenland found " both broken cayaks (canoes) and stone implements, whereby it may be seen that the same See also:

kind of folk had been there as they which inhabited Vinland, and whom the men of Greenland (i.e. the explorers) called the skra?lings' (i.e. inferior See also:people)." From this allusion one cannot but think that so keen and alert a writer as Ari had given some See also:attention to Vinland in the lost work. But of this there is no other See also:proof. We are left to affirm, on account of definite references in various sagas and See also:annals to Leif Ericsson and the discovery of Vinland, that the saga as preserved in Hauk's Book (and also in No. 557) rested on a strong viva voce tradition that was early put into writing by a competent See also:hand. Dr Finnur Jonsson of Copenhagen says: "The classic See also:form of the saga and its vivid and excellent tradition surely carry it back to about 1200." This conservative See also:opinion does not preclude the possibility, or even See also:probability, that written accounts of the Vinland voyages existed before this date. See also:Vigfusson, in speaking of the sagas in general, says: " We believe that when once the first saga was written down, the others were in See also:quick See also:succession committed to See also:parchment, some still keeping their form through a succession of copies, other changed. . . . That which was not written down quickly, in due time, was lost and forgotten for ever." The fact that there are discrepancies between the two versions as they appear in the Hauk's Book and in the Flatey Book does not justify the overthrow of both as historical evidence. The general truth of the tradition is strengthened by the fact that it has come down from two independent sources. One of them must be the better, however, and this it is the See also:province of competent scholars to determine. The best modern scholarship gives the precedence to the Hauk's Book narrative, as it harmonizes better with well-established facts of Scandinavian history, and is besides a more plausible account. In accordance with this decision, Biarni Heriulfson's adventure should be eliminated, the priority of discovery given to Leif Ericsson, and the See also:honour of being the first European colonists on the American See also:continent awarded to Thorfinn Karlsefni and his followers.

This was evidently the only real attempt at colonization, despite the numerous contentions to the contrary. Under date of 1121 the Icelandic annals say: " See also:

Bishop Eric of Greenland went in search of Vinland." Nothing further is recorded. The fact that his successor as bishop was appointed in 1123 would seem to indicate that the Greenlanders had information that Eric had perished. The only important phase of the Vinland voyages that has not been definitely settled is the identifications of the regions visited by Leif and Thorfinn. The Danish antiquarian See also:Rafn, in his monumental Antiquitates Americanae, published in 1837, and much discussed in America at that time, held for Rhode Island as Leif's landfall and the locality of Thorfinn's colony. Professor E. N. Horsford, in a number of monographs (unfortunately of no historical or scientific value), fixed upon the vicinity of See also:Boston, where now stand a Leif Ericsson statue and Horsford's Norumbega See also:Tower as testimonials to the Norse explorers. But in 1887 Professor Storm announced his conviction that the lands visited by the Norsemen in the early part of the 11th century . were Labrador, See also:Newfoundland and Nova See also:Scotia. And a careful See also:reading of the Hauk's Book narrative seems to show that the numerous details of the saga See also:fit Nova Scotia remarkably well, and much better than any other part of the continent. This view has in See also:recent years been quite generally accepted by American scholars. But in 1910 Professor M.

L. Fernald, a botanist of Harvard University, published a See also:

paper in Rhodora, vol. 12, No. 134, in which he contends that it is most probable that the "vinber " of the sagas were not " grapes," but " See also:wine-berries," also known as the See also:mountain or See also:rock cranberries. The " self-sown wheat " of the sagas he identifies as strand wheat, instead of See also:Indian See also:corn, or wild See also:rice, and the mosur trees as the See also:canoe See also:birch. He thinks the natives were Eskimos, instead of American See also:Indians, as stoutly maintained by See also:John Fiske. Professor Fernald concludes his paper by saying that: " The See also:mass of evidence which the writer has in hand, and which will soon be ready for publication, makes it clear that, if we read the sagas in the See also:light of what we know of the abundant occurrence north of the St See also:Lawrence of the `vinber' (Vaccinium Vitis-Idaea or possibly Ribes triste, R. prostratum, or R. lacustre), ` hveiti ' (Elymus arenarius), and ` mosur ' (Betula See also:alba, i.e. B. papyr fera of many botanists), the discrepancies in See also:geography, See also:ethnology and See also:zoology, which have been so troublesome in the past, will disappear; other features, usually considered obscure, will become luminous; and the older and less distorted sagas, at least in their main incidents, will become vivid records of actual geographic exploration." It is possible that Professor Fernald may show conclusively that Leif's landfall was north of the St Lawrence. That the " vinber " were mountain cranberries would explain the fact, mentioned in the Flatey Book saga, that Leif filled his after-See also:boat with " vinber " in the spring, which is possible with the cranberries, as they are most palatable after having lain under the snow for the winter. But Thorfinn Karlsefni found no abundance of " vinber," in fact one of his followers composed some verses to See also:express his disappointment on this See also:score. " Vines " were found only in the southernmost regions visited by Karlsefni. It is to be noted that the word " vines " is more prominent in the Hauk's Book narrative than the word " vinber." At See also:present it does not seem likely that Professor Fernald's See also:argument will seriously affect Professor Storm's contention that Thorfinn's colony was in Nova Scotia.

At any See also:

rate, the incontrovertible facts of the Vinland voyages are that Leif and Thorfinn were historical characters, that they visited, in the early part of the 11th century, some part of the American continent south-west of Greenland, that they found natives whose hostility prevented the founding of a permanent settlement, and that the sagas telling of these things are, on the whole, trustworthy descriptions of actual experience.

End of Article: VINLA

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