Adventures in Time by Dominic Sandbrook

Author:Dominic Sandbrook [Sandbrook, Dominic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780241552186
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2022-11-03T00:00:00+00:00

For generations the skalds of Greenland and Iceland passed down the stories of Leif, Thorvald, Karlsefni and Gudrid, as well as the other Norse explorers who had sailed with them to Vinland.

At first these were tales for long winter evenings, recounted to families around their hearths. Eventually the Icelanders wrote them down in two sagas, The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Erik the Red, which survive to this day.

Confusingly, the two sagas disagree on the details, and sometimes completely contradict each other. Most of the details above came from The Saga of the Greenlanders, but there’s no way of knowing which version is true.

For centuries many historians struggled to solve the mystery. Some wondered whether any of the details were true, and suggested that the Vikings never even made it to North America at all.

But then came three archaeological discoveries that completely changed the way people thought about the Vinland sagas.

The first was in 1930, in the ruins of Greenland’s Western Settlement. Here, in the graveyard, archaeologists found a tiny fragment of stone – an arrowhead, made of a stone from northern Canada.

It doesn’t match Norse arrowheads, but it does match native North American arrowheads. In other words, the travellers must have brought it back from Vinland – perhaps as a souvenir, or because it was embedded in somebody’s wound.

The second discovery came in the American state of Maine in 1957. Here, on an old native site, an amateur archaeologist found a silver Norwegian coin, dating from the eleventh century.

How did it get there? Was it planted as a hoax? Or does it prove that the Norsemen made it all the way south to Maine, trading silver coins for native goods? Even now, we can’t be sure.

But the most spectacular discovery came four years later, on the Canadian island of Newfoundland. Here, on the island’s northern tip, two Norwegian archaeologists began digging up some mounds outside the village of L’Anse aux Meadows.

To their amazement, they uncovered the remains of a Viking settlement, dating from about the year 1000. The site clearly contained halls and workshops, a blacksmith’s and a boatyard. But there are no farm buildings and no graves.

That means it was probably a base where sailors could take on supplies, rather than a permanent colony. Some historians even think this was Leif Erikson’s camp, built during his first voyage.

So what happened to it? Some of the buildings seem to have been burned. Were they destroyed by the Skraelings? Or did the Norsemen burn them, in a ritual farewell? Another mystery.

And why didn’t the Vikings keep going, into the heart of North America? Why didn’t they establish colonies there, as they did in the east?

If they had, the world would be very different. Perhaps modern Americans and Canadians, the sons and daughters of the Vikings, would be speaking a version of Old Norse today.

The obvious answer is that it was just too difficult. Sailing to Greenland, let alone Vinland, was an enormously dangerous undertaking.

Although Vinland was rich in timber and furs, the Vikings had plenty of both already, back in Scandinavia.

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