Leif
From the Icelandic Sagas, we learn of the Norse arrival in North America. The sagas are family oral histories which span hundreds of years and many generations. They were written down by Icelandic monks in the 13th and 14th centuries. Cross references in multiple sagas piece together a story.
Bjami Herjolfssn along with Gutrid his wife are part of an Iceland to Greenland convey of boats when they are blown off course and away from their group. They spot distinct lands but do not land. The 3 places are mentioned as:
Helluland - Flat stone land
Markland - Forest land
Vinland - Meadows with grains and berries with forest land.
They manage to make it to Greenland and stay with Eirick the Red. Herjolfssn dies and his wife Gutrid marries Eirick's son Karlsafni, bother of Leif. Everyone has heard of this good land to the southwest. Leif decides to visit it. The year is dated by tree rings on a wooden tool found at the site at 1021 AD. Leif builds several longhouses, a forge and several other structures. They overwinter there and may have traveled some more exploring. Leif and his crew return to Greenland the following year.
A few years later the sagas tell us that Karlsafni and Gutrid request that Leif loan them the buildings he has at L'Anse au Meadows. They sail there with 65 people and stay for an undetermined amount of time. If they had intended to stay permanently is not known. For some reason they left and may have burned the buildings.
Beginning in the 18th century there was all sorts of speculation as to where the Norse land called Vinland was. In the 1890s a Harvard professor was convinced the Norse had settled on the Charles River near Boston. The site turned out to be Native American but it had many folks convinced for some time. All this speculation prompted Norwegians, Helge Ingstad and Anne Stine to take a comprehensive approach. They decided to spend their retirement looking for Vinland by land and sea. Using the descriptions in the sagas they toured offshore by boat looking at landscapes. They also inquired on land about ancient building ruins. Their travels started in Rhode Island and worked up the coast. At the northern tip of Newfoundland they encountered a local, George Decker. When Decker learned what they were looking for, he immediately mentioned the "Indian mounds" locals referred to them as. In a meadow by a shallow bay, Decker cut hay. The hay grew better right around these mounds. When Heldge and Anne saw the mounds they immediately regonized them as the footprint of a Norse longhouse. The surrounding area looked to the couple as a perfect spot for the Norse to settle.
After some excavation certain artifacts with Iceland and Greenland origins began to surface. However, the world was slow to concide this was Vinland. With so many wild stories about Vikings in Minnesota and down the US seaboard, people needed some reassurance this was not another crackpot story. It took a while but it is generally accepted now. We still don't know where they traveled beyong Vinland. A butternut was found in the bog by the village. The nearest butternut now and then is in New Brunswick.
The original site is nearby. What we saw is a recreated village with costumed interpretors demonstrating weaving, cooking, forging etc.
The cove where the Norse landed.
As our bus was making the final approach to the tip of Newfoundland where the site is located, we passed St Brendans Motel. My fascination with early explorers was immediately alerted. Does this place have a connection to Saint Brendan? I asked Garfield, our bus driver who is from nearby St Anthony, about St Brendan. He didn’t know who that was. So, I asked at the L’Anse au Meadows visitors center. After inquiring and passing through three people, I spoke with a very knowledgeable archeologist, Ragnar, apparently his real name. He told me there was a stone with a carving of what is thought to be gaelic writing and symbols in the Ogham alphabet. It is located up a hill on a trail between the motel and the Daily Catch Restaurant. I saw a photo of it but it is so difficult to make anything out. Ragnar says that someone, years ago, scraped the lichen off to see the carving better. By doing this, it is now impossible to date the carving using known methods. Had the lichen been present, it could have been dated and maybe this would be a different story.
Who was St Brendan? We’re pretty sure he was a real guy, born c. 484 to 577, an Irish monastic saint and legendary Voyager. Also known as Brendan the Navigator, he is the patron saint of sailors, mariners, and whales. He is most famous for his epic 7-year Atlantic expedition to the "Isle of the Blessed", famously recorded in the 10th-century medieval text Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis.
His voyage took him to the Orkneys, Hebrides, Faroe Island and probably Iceland. Some scholars speculate he made it to Newfoundland. The 10th century text of the voyage mentions “forges of fire from the earth” a possible reference to Iceland’s volcanoes. The sagas also mention that when the Norse first came to Iceland there were Irish monks living there. Archeological finds document structures and man made caves built prior to the 874 AD arrival of the Norse. The case for Newfoundland gets thinner. There is the rock with the odd drawings. There is another one on the east coast of Newfoundland. The 9th century text mentions St Brendan encountering whales, ice columns and a foggy land so big they roamed it 40 days and did not cover it.
The Norse began raiding Ireland in 795 AD. Certainly, they would have learned from the Irish that St Brendan had sailed to lands west of there, like Iceland. Could that have prompted them to go looking for Iceland?
I guess I need to see this in person. It doesn't photograph well.
