In Northern Mists Volume Ii Part 1

In Northern Mists.

Volume 2.

by Fridtjof Nansen.

CHAPTER IX

[continued]

WINELAND THE GOOD, THE FORTUNATE ISLES, AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA

[Sidenote: Wineland == the African islands]

A confirmation of the ident.i.ty of Wineland and the Insulae Fortunatae, which in cla.s.sical legend lay to the west of Africa, occurs in the Icelandic geography (in MSS. of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries) which may partly be the work of Abbot Nikulas of Thvera (ob. 1159) (although perhaps not the part here quoted), where we read:

"South of Greenland is 'h.e.l.luland,' next to it is 'Markland,' and then it is not far to 'Vinland hit Goa,' which some think to be connected with Africa (and if this be so, then the outer ocean [i.e., the ocean surrounding the disc of the earth] most fall in between Vinland and Markland)."[1]

This idea of the connection with Africa seems to have been general in Iceland; it may appear surprising, but, as will be seen, it finds its natural explanation in the manner here stated. It also appears in Norway.

Besides a reference in the "King's Mirror," the following pa.s.sage in the "Historia Norwegiae" relating to Greenland is of particular importance:

"This country was discovered and settled by the Telensians [i.e., the Icelanders] and strengthened with the Catholic faith; it forms the end of Europe towards the west, nearly touches the African Islands ('Africanas insulas'), where the returning ocean overflows" [i.e., falls in].

It is clear that "Africanae Insulae" is here used directly as a name instead of Wineland, in connection with Markland and h.e.l.luland, as in the Icelandic geography. But the African Islands (i.e., originally the Canary Islands) were in fact the Insulae Fortunatae, in connection with the Gorgades and the Hesperides; and thus we have here a direct proof that they were looked upon as the same.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The conception of the northern and western lands and islands in Norse literature.]

G. Storm [1890] and A. A. Bjornbo [1909, pp. 229, ff.] have sought to explain the connection of Wineland with Africa as an attempt on the part of the Icelandic geographers to unite new discoveries of western lands with the cla.s.sical-mediaeval conceptions of the continents as a continuous disc of earth with an outer surrounding ocean. But even if such "learned" ideas prevailed in Iceland and Norway (cf. the "King's Mirror"), it would nevertheless be unnatural to unite Africa and Wineland, which lay near Hvitramanna-land, six days' sail _west_ of Ireland, unless there were other grounds for doing so. Although agreeing on the main point, Dr. Bjornbo maintains (in a letter to me) that the Icelanders may have got their continental conception from Isidore himself, who a.s.serted the dogma of the threefold division of the continental circle; and the question whether Wineland was African or not depended upon whether it came south or north of the line running east and west through the Mediterranean. But the same Isidore also described the Insulae Fortunatae and other countries as islands in the Ocean, and his dogma could not thus have hindered Wineland from being regarded as an island like other islands (cf. Adam of Bremen's islands), but why then precisely African? Besides, the Icelandic geography and the Historia Norwegiae represent two different conceptions, one as a continent, the other as islands. It cannot, therefore, have been Isidore's continental dogma that caused them both to a.s.sume the country to be _African_. It seems to me that no other explanation is here possible than that given above.

[Sidenote: The vine North America]

It might be objected to the view that "Vinland hit Goa" originally meant "Insulae Fortunatae," that several sorts of wild grape are found on the east coast of North America; it might therefore be believed that the Greenlanders really went so far and discovered these. Storm, indeed, a.s.sumed that the wild vine grew on the outer east coast of Nova Scotia; but he is unable to adduce any certain direct evidence of this, although he gives [1887, p. 48] a statement of the Frenchman Nicolas Denys in 1672, which points to the wild vine having grown in the interior of the country.[2] He also mentions several statements of recent date that wild-growing vines of one kind or another have been observed near Annapolis and in the interior of the country, but none on the south-east coast. Professor N. Wille informs me that in the latest survey of the flora of North America Vitis vulpina is specified as occurring in Nova Scotia; but nothing is said as to locality. The American botanist, M. L.

Fernald [1910, pp. 19, f.], on the other hand, thinks that the wild vine (Vitis vulpina) is not certainly known to the east of the valley of the St. John in New Brunswick (see map, vol. i. p. 335), where it is rare and only found in the interior. From this we may conclude that even if it should really be found on the outer south-east coast of Nova Scotia, it must have been very rare there, and could not possibly have been a conspicuous feature which might have been especially mentioned along with the wheat. But even if we might a.s.sume that the saga was borne out to this extent, it would be one of those accidental coincidences which often occur. It must, of course, be admitted to be a strange chance that the world of cla.s.sical legend should have fertile lands or islands far in the western ocean, and that Isidore should describe the self-grown vine and the unsown cornfields in these Fortunate Isles, and that long afterwards fertile lands and islands, where wild vines and various kinds of wild corn grew, should be discovered in the same quarter. Since we have the choice, it may be more reasonable to a.s.sume that the Icelanders got their wine from Isidore, or from the same vats that he drew his from, than that they fetched it from America. Again, even if the Greenlanders and Icelanders had found some berries on creepers in the woods--is it likely that they would have known them to be grapes? They cannot be expected to have had any acquaintance with the latter.[3] The author of the "Gronlendinga-attr" in the Flateyjarbok is so entirely ignorant of these things that he makes grapes grow in the winter and spring (like the fruits all the year round on the trees in the myth of the fortunate land in the west), and makes Leif's companion Tyrker intoxicate himself by eating grapes (like the Irishmen in the Irish legends), and finally makes Leif cut down vine-trees ("vinvi") and fell trees to load his s.h.i.+p, and at last fill the long-boat with grapes (as in the Irish legends); in the voyage of Thorvald Ericson they also collect grapes and vine-trees for a cargo, and Karlsevne took home with him "many costly things: vine-trees, grapes and furs." It is scarcely likely that seafaring Greenlanders about 380 years earlier had any better idea of the vine than this saga-writer, and we hear nothing in Eric's Saga about Leif or his companions having ever been in southern Europe. No doubt it is for this very reason that the "Gronlendinga-attr" makes a "southman," Tyrker, find the grapes.

[Sidenote: The wild wheat]

Wheat is not a wild cereal native to America. It has therefore been supposed that the "self-sown wheat-fields" of Wineland might have been the American cereal maize. As this proved to be untenable, Professor Schubeler[4] proposed that it might have been the "wild rice," also called "water oats" (Zizania aquatica), an aquatic plant that grows by rivers and lakes in North America. But apart from the fact that the plant grows in the water and has little resemblance to wheat, although the ripe ear is said to be like a wheat-ear, there is the difficulty that it is essentially an inland plant, which is not known in Nova Scotia. "Though it occurs locally in a few New England rivers, it attains its easternmost known limit in the lower reaches of the St. John in New Brunswick, being apparently unknown in Nova Scotia" [Fernald, 1910, p. 26]. For proving that Wineland was Nova Scotia it is therefore of even less use than the wine.

It results in consequence that the attempts made hitherto to bring the natural conditions of the east coast of North America into agreement with the saga's description of Wineland[5] have not been able to afford any natural explanation of the striking juxtaposition of the two leading features of the latter, the wild vine and the self-sown wheat, which are identical with the two leading features in the description of the Insulae Fortunatae. If it were permissible to prove in this way that the ancient Nors.e.m.e.n reached the east coast of North America, then it might be concluded with almost equal right that the Greeks and Romans of antiquity were there; for they already had the same two features in their descriptions of the fortunate isles in the west. It should be remembered that wheat was not a commonly known cereal in the North, where it was not cultivated, and it would hardly be natural for the Icelanders to use that particular name for a wild species of corn. Both wheat and grapes or vines were to them foreign ideas, and the remarkable juxtaposition of these very two words shows that they came together from southern Europe, where, as has been said, we find them in Isidore, and where wine and wheat were important commercial products which one often finds mentioned together.

[Sidenote: Encounters with the Skraelings in Wineland]

If we now proceed further in the description of the Wineland voyages in the Saga of Eric the Red, we come to the encounters with the Skraelings.

These encounters are, of course, three in number: first they come to see, then to trade, and then to fight; this again recalls the fairy-tale. The narrative itself of the battle with the Skraelings has borrowed features.

The Skraelings' catapults make one think of the civilised countries of Europe, where catapults (i.e., engines for throwing stones, mangonels) and Greek fire (?) were in use.[6]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Icelandic representation of the northern and western lands as connected with one another, by Sigurd Stefansson, circa 1590 (Torfaeus, 1706). Cf. G. Storm, 1887, pp. 28, ff.]

Catapults, which are also mentioned in the "King's Mirror," had a long beam or lever-arm, at the outer end of which was a bowl or sling, wherein was laid a heavy round stone, or more rarely a barrel of combustible material or the like [cf. O. Blom, 1867, pp. 103, f.]. In the "King's Mirror" it is also stated that mineral coal ("jarkol") and sulphur were thrown; the stones for casting were also made of baked clay with pebbles in it. When these clay b.a.l.l.s were slung out and fell, they burst in pieces, so that the enemy had nothing to throw back. The great black ball, which is compared to a sheep's paunch, and which made such an ugly sound (report ?) when it fell that it frightened the Greenlanders, also reminds one strongly on the "herbrestr" (war-crash, report) which Laurentius Kalfsson's saga [cap.

8 in "Biskupa Sogur," i. 1858, p. 798] relates that randr Fisiler,[7]

from Flanders, produced at the court of Eric Magnusson in Bergen, at Christmas 1294. It "gives such a loud report that few men can bear to hear it; women who are with child and hear the crash are prematurely delivered, and men fall from their seats on to the floor, or have various fits. Thrand told Laurentius to put his fingers in his ears when the crash came.... Thrand showed Laurentius what was necessary to produce the crash, and there are four things: fire, brimstone, parchment and tow.[8] Men often have recourse in battle to such a war-crash, so that those who do not know it may take to flight."

Laurentius was a priest, afterwards bishop (1323-30) in Iceland; the saga was probably written about 1350 by his friend and confidant, the priest Einar Hafliason. It seems as though we have here precisely the same notions as appear in the description of the fight with the Skraelings. It is true that this visit of Thrand to Bergen would be later than the Saga of Eric the Red is generally a.s.sumed to have been written; but this may have been about 1300. Besides, there is no reason why the story of the "herbrestr" should not have found its way to Iceland earlier.[9] In any case this part of the tale of the Wineland voyages has quite a European air.

For the rest, this feature too seems to have a connection with the "Navigatio Brandani." It is there related that they approach an island of smiths, where the inhabitants are filled with fire and darkness. Brandan was afraid of the island; one of the inhabitants came out of his house "as though on an errand of necessity"; the brethren want to sail away and escape, but

"the said barbarian runs down to the beach bearing a long pair of tongs in his hand with a fiery ma.s.s in a skin[10] of immense size and heat; he instantly throws it after the servants of Christ, but it did not injure them, it went over them about a stadium farther off, but when it fell into the sea, the water began to boil as though a fire-spouting mountain were there, and smoke arose from the sea as fire from a baker's oven." The other inhabitants then rush out and throw their ma.s.ses of fire, but Brendan and the brethren escape [Schroder, 1871, p. 28].

In the narrative of Maelduin's voyage a similar story is told of the smith who with a pair of tongs throws a fiery ma.s.s over the boat, so that the sea boils, but he does not hit them, as they hastily fly out into the open sea [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 163, 329]. The resemblances to Karlsevne and his people flying with all speed before the black ball of the Skraelings, like a sheep's paunch, which is flung over them from a pole and makes an ugly noise when it falls, is obvious; but at the same time it looks as though this incident of the Irish myth--which is an echo of the cla.s.sical Cyclopes of the aeneid and Odyssey (cf. Polyphemus and the Cyclopes), and the great stones that were thrown at Odysseus--had been "modernised" by the saga-writer, who has transferred mediaeval European catapults and explosives to the Indians.

The curious expression--used when the Skraelings come in the spring for the second time to Karlsevne's settlement--that they came rowing in a mult.i.tude of hide canoes, "as many as though [the sea] had been sown with coal before the Hop" [i.e., the bay], seems to find its explanation in some tale like that of the "Imram Brenaind" [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 138], where Brandan and his companions come to a small deserted land, and the harbour they entered was immediately filled with "demons in the form of pygmies and dwarfs, who were as black as coal."

The "h.e.l.l.u.s.tein" (flat stone) which lay fixed in the skull of the fallen Thorbrand Snorrason is a curious missile, and reminds one of trolls (cf.

Arab myth, chapter xiii.). Features such as that of the Skraelings being supposed to know that white s.h.i.+elds meant peace and red ones war have an altogether European effect.[11]

Another purely legendary feature in the description of the fight is that of Freydis frightening the Skraelings by taking her b.r.e.a.s.t.s out of her sark and whetting the sword on them ("ok slettir a sverdit"). As it stands in the saga this incident is not very comprehensible, and appears to have been borrowed from elsewhere. Possibly, as Moltke Moe thinks, it may be connected in some way with the legend of the wood-nymph with the long b.r.e.a.s.t.s who was pursued by the hunter. The mention of Unipeds and "Einfotinga-land" shows that cla.s.sical myths have also been adopted. The idea was, moreover, widely current in the Middle Ages. Thus in the so-called Nancy map of Claudius Clavus (of about 1426) we find "unipedes maritimi" in the extreme north-east of Greenland. In the "Heimslsing" in the Hauksbok [F. Jonsson, 1892, p. 166] and in the "Rymbegla" [1780]

"Einfotingar" are mentioned with a foot "so large that they shade themselves from the sun with it while asleep" (cf. also Adam of Bremen, vol. i. p. 189). But in the Saga of Eric the Red the incident of the Uniped and the pursuit of him are described as realistically as the encounters with the Skraelings. Einfotinga-land is also mentioned in the same manner as Skraelinga-land in its vicinity.

[Sidenote: The Skraelings are originally mythical beings]

In reading the Icelandic sagas and narratives about Wineland and Greenland one cannot avoid being struck by the remarkable, semi-mythical way in which the natives, the Skraelings, are always spoken of;[12] even Are Frode's mention of them appears strange. Through finding the connection between Wineland the Good and the Fortunate Isles, and between the latter again and the lands of the departed, the "huldrelands," fairylands, and the lands of the Irish "sid," I arrived at the kindred idea that perhaps Skraeling was originally a name for those gnomes or brownies or mythical beings, and that it was these that Are Frode meant by the people who "were inhabiting Wineland"--and further, that when the Icelanders in Greenland found a strange, small, foreign-looking people, with hide canoes and implements of stone, bone and wood, which also looked strange to them, they naturally regarded them as these same Skraelings; and then they may afterwards have found similar people (Eskimo, and perhaps Indians) on the coast of America. It agrees with the view of the Skraelings as a small people that elves and brownies in Norway were small, often only two or three feet high, and that the underground or huldre-folk in Skne were called "Pysslingar" (dwarfs). This idea that the Skraeling was originally a brownie was strengthened by the discovery of the above-mentioned probable connection between many features in the description of the Skraelings' appearance in Wineland and the demons, like pygmies and dwarfs, that Brandan meets with in a land in the sea (see p. 10), and the smiths (or Cyclopes) in another island who throw ma.s.ses of fire at Brandon and Maelduin (see p. 9). That Unipeds and Skraelings are both mentioned as equally real inhabitants of the new countries, and that a Uniped even kills Thorvald Ericson near Wineland, and is pursued, points in the same direction.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eskimos cutting up a whale. Woodcut from Greenland, ill.u.s.trating a fairy-tale; drawn and engraved by a native]

I then asked Professor Alf Torp whether he knew of anything that might confirm such an interpretation of the word Skraeling; he at once mentioned the German word "walt-schreckel" for a wood-troll, and afterwards wrote to me as follows:

"The word I spoke about is found in modern German dialects: 'schrahelein' 'ein zauberisches Wesen, Wichtlein'; cf. Middle High German 'walt-schreckel,' which is translated by 'faunus.' This 'schrahelein' (from the Upper Palatinate) agrees entirely both in form and meaning with 'skraelingr': the only difference is that one has the diminutive termination '*-ilin' (primary form '* skrahilin'), the other the diminutive termination '-iling' (primary form '*

skrahiling'). The primary meaning was doubtless 'shrunken figure, dwarf.' From a synonymous verbal root come the synonymous M.H.G. words 'schraz' and 'schrate,'[13] 'Waldteufel, Kobold.' This seems greatly to strengthen your interpretation of 'skraelingr' as 'brownie' or the like. Now, of course, 'skraeling' means 'puny person' or the like, but it is to be remarked that we do not find that meaning in the ancient language."

It seems to me that this communication is of great importance. It is striking that the word Skraeling is never used in the whole of Old Norse literature as a term of reproach or to denote a wretched man, and there must have been plenty of opportunity for this if it had been a word of common application with its present meaning, and not a special designation for brownies. It only occurs there as applied to the Skraelings of Wineland, Markland and Greenland. Again, the Skraelings in Greenland are called "troll" or "trollkonur" in the Icelandic narratives, and in the descriptions of the Wineland voyages demoniacal properties are attributed to them as to the underground folk. In the fight with the Skraelings they frightened Karlsevne and his people not only with the great magic ball,[14] but also by glamour. And in the "Gronlendinga-attr" it is related that when the Skraelings came for the second time to trade with Karlsevne,

"his wife Gudrid was sitting within the door by the cradle of her son Snorre, and there walked in a woman in a black gown, rather low in stature, and she had a band on her head, and light-brown hair, was pale and big-eyed, so that no one had seen such big eyes in any human head. She went up to where Gudrid sat, and said: What is thy name?

says she. My name is Gudrid, and what is thy name? My name is Gudrid, says she. Then Gudrid, the mistress of the house, stretched out her hand to her, and she sat down beside her; but then it happened at the same time that Gudrid heard a great crash ['brest mikinn,' cf. the noise or crash of the great ball in the Saga of Eric the Red] and that the woman disappeared, and at the same moment a Skraeling was slain by one of Karlsevne's servants, because he had tried to take their weapons, and they [the Skraelings] went away as quickly as possible; but they left their clothes and wares behind them. No one had seen this woman but Gudrid."[15]

This phantasmal Gudrid is obviously a gnome or underground woman; and as she makes both her appearance and disappearance together with the Skraelings it is reasonable to suppose that they too were of the same kind, like the illusions in the battle with the Skraelings. It is further to be remarked that she is short, and has extraordinarily large eyes, exactly as is said of the Skraelings and of huldre- and troll-folk (cf. vol. i. p.

327), and also of pygmies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fight with mythical creatures (From an Icelandic MS.)]

On account of the ident.i.ty of name one might perhaps be tempted to think that it was Gudrid's "fylgja" (fetch) coming to warn her. But she does nothing of the kind in the saga, nor was there any reason for it, as the Skraelings came to trade with peaceful intentions, and fled as soon as there was disagreement. But the story is obscure and confused, and it is probable that this is a borrowed incident, and that something of the meaning or connection has dropped out in the transfer. Another remarkable feature (which Moltke Moe has pointed out to me) is that while in Eric's Saga Karlsevne pays for the Skraelings' furs and red cloth, in the "Gronlendinga-attr" he makes "the women carry out milk-food ('bunyt') to them" (it was placed outside the house or even outside the fence), "and as soon as the Skraelings saw milk-food they would buy that and nothing else."

Now the natives of America cannot possibly have known milk-food; but on the other hand it happens to be a characteristic of the underground folk that they are fond of milk and porridge (cream-porridge), which is put out for the mound-elves and the "nisse." Another underground feature comes out in the incident of the five Skraelings in Markland, three of whom "escaped and sank into the earth" ("ok sukku i jor nir"). Possibly the statement that the people in Markland "lived in rock-shelters and caves" may have a similar connection.

As the Skraelings of Greenland were dark, it was quite natural that they should become trolls, and not elves, which were fair.

It may also be supposed that the troll-like nature of the Skraelings is shown in the curious circ.u.mstance that Are Frode, speaking of them in Greenland, only mentions dwelling-places and remains of boats and stone implements that they had left behind (see vol. i. p. 260), as a sign that they had been both in the east and west of the country, while the people themselves are never mentioned; this is like troll-folk, who leave their traces without being seen themselves. One might suppose that such a mode of expression agreed best with the current Icelandic view of them as trolls. In a similar way it might be related of the first discoverer of an earlier Norway, inhabited only by supernatural beings, that he found traces both in the east and the west of the land which showed that the kind of folk ("jo") had been there that inhabit Risaland, and that the Norwegians call giants. In this way possibly this pa.s.sage in Are may be understood (but cf. p. 77); it might be objected that this expression: who "inhabited Wineland" ("hefer bygt") does not suggest troll-folk, but real human beings; if, however, the existence of these troll-folk is supported by the actual finding of natives, in any case in Greenland (and doubtless also in Markland), then such an expression cannot appear unreasonable.

Besides, there would be a general tendency on the part of the rationalising Icelanders, with their p.r.o.nounced sense of realistic description, to make these trolls or brownies or "demons" into living human beings in Wineland, while the designation of troll still persisted for a long time in Greenland, side by side with Skraeling--as a name approximately synonymous therewith. The realistic description of the Uniped affords a parallel to this. One is inclined to think that the Skraelings of the saga have come about through a combination of the original mythical creatures (like the sid-people in the Irish happy lands) to whom at first the name belonged with the Eskimo that the Icelanders found in Greenland, and perhaps the Eskimo and Indians that they found on the north-east coast of North America. It is, as in fact Moltke Moe has maintained in his lectures, by the fusing of materials taken from the world of myth and from reality that the human imagination is rendered most fertile and creative in the formation of legend. The points of departure may often be pure accidents, resemblances of one kind or another, which have a fructifying effect.

That the Skraelings, from being originally living natives, should later have become trolls or brownies, is an idea that Storm among others seems to have entertained (cf. note, p. 11); but this would be the reverse of what usually happens. That the Eskimo should have made a strange and supernatural impression on the superst.i.tious Nors.e.m.e.n when they first met them is natural, and so it is that this impression should have persisted so long, until it gradually wore off through more intimate acquaintance with them in Greenland; but the contrary, that the supernatural ideas about them should only have developed gradually, although they were constantly meeting them, is incredible.