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The Story of North American Discovery and Exploration. Julius E. Olson
Читать онлайн.Название The Story of North American Discovery and Exploration
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isbn 4064066394059
Автор произведения Julius E. Olson
Жанр Документальная литература
Издательство Bookwire
The early history of AM. 557 is not known. The orthography and hand indicate that it was made later than Hauk’s Book, probably in the early part of the fifteenth century. Vigfusson considered it a better text than the Hauk’s Book version, though rougher and less carefully written.3 Other critics (Jonsson and Gering) consider 544 the safer text.
In regard to the date of composition of the archetype, it may be remarked that both 544 and 557 speak of Bishop Brand “the Elder,” which presupposes a knowledge of the second Bishop Brand, whose accession occurred in 1263. Before this date, therefore, the originals used in making 544 and 557 could not have been written. But this mention of Bishop Brand “the Elder” does not, we think, give an adequate basis for fixing the date of the composition of the saga, as Dr. Storm believes, who places it somewhere between 1263 and 1300, with an inclination toward the earlier date. Dr. Finnur Jonsson,4 who accepts Dr. Storm’s opinion in other respects, says on this point: “The classic form of the saga and its vivid and excellent tradition surely carry it back to about 1200.... To assume that the saga was first written down about 1270 or after, I consider to be almost an impossibility.” Nor does this conservative opinion by Dr. Jonsson preclude the possibility, or even probability, that written accounts of the Vinland voyages existed before this date. John Fiske’s5 well-considered opinion of this same saga (544 and 557) has weight: “Its general accuracy in the statement and grouping of so many remote details is proof that its statements were controlled by an exceedingly strong and steady tradition, — altogether too strong and steady, in my opinion, to have been maintained simply by word of mouth.” And Vigfusson,6 in speaking of the sagas in general, says: “We believe that when once the first saga was written down, the others were in quick succession committed to parchment, some still keeping their original form through a succession of copies, others changed. The saga time was short and transitory, as has been the case with the highest literary periods of every nation, whether we look at the age of Pericles in Athens, or of our own Elizabeth in England, and that which was not written down quickly, in due time, was lost and forgotten forever.”
The absence of contemporary record has caused some American historians to view the narratives of the Vinland voyages as ordinary hearsay. But 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 means of which the deeds and events of the seething life of the heroic age were carried over into the age of writing.7 The general trustworthiness of this saga-telling period has been attested in numerous ways from foreign records. Thus Snorri Sturlason’s “The Sagas of the Kings of Norway,” one of the great history books of the world, written in Iceland in the thirteenth century, was based primarily on early tradition, brought over the sea to Iceland. Yet the exactness of its descriptions and the reliability of its statements have been verified in countless cases by modern Norwegian historians.8
With reference to the Vinland voyages, there is proof of an unusually strong tradition in the fact that it has come down from two sources, the only case of such a phenomenon among the Icelandic sagas proper. It does not invalidate the general truth of the tradition that these two sources clash in various matters. These disagreements are not so serious but that fair-minded American scholars have found it “easy to believe that the narratives contained in the sagas are true in their general outlines and important features.” It lies within the province of Old Norse scholarship to determine which of the two Vinland sagas has the better literary and historical antecedents. After this point has been established, the truthfulness and credibility of the selected narrative in its details must be maintained on the internal evidence in conjunction with the geographical and other data of early America. And here American scholarship may legitimately speak.
These sagas have in recent years been subjected, especially by Dr. Gustav Storm of Christiania,9 to most searching textual and historical criticism, and the result has been that the simpler narrative of Hauk’s Book and AM. 557 is pronounced the more reliable account.10 In respect to literary quality, it has the characteristics of the Icelandic sagas proper, as distinguished from the later sagas by well-known literary men like Snorri. Where it grazes facts of Northern history it is equally strong. Thus, there is serious question as to the first sighting of land by Biarni Herjulfson, who is mentioned only in the Flat Island narrative, and nowhere else in the rich genealogical literature of Iceland, although his alleged father was an important man, of whom there are reliable accounts. On the other hand, the record of the “Saga of Eric the Red,” giving the priority of discovery to Leif Ericson, can be collaterally confirmed.11 The whole account of Biarni seems suspicious, and the main facts, viewed with reference to Leif’s discovery, run counter to Northern chronology and history. There are, however, two incidental touches in the Flat Island Book narrative, which are absent from the other saga, namely, the observation concerning the length of the day in Vinland, and the reference to finding “three skin-canoes, with three men under each.” The improbabilities of the Flat Island Book saga are easily detected, if one uses as a guide the simpler narrative of the “Saga of Eric the Red,” the only doubtful part of which is the “uniped” episode, a touch of mediaeval superstition so palpable as not to be deceptive.
Aside from such things as picking grapes in the spring, sipping sweet dew from the grass, and the presence of an apparition, the Flat Island Book account, when read by itself, with no attempt to make it harmonize with the statements of the “Saga of Eric the Red” or other facts of Scandinavian history, is a sufficiently straightforward narrative. The difficulty begins when it is placed in juxtaposition to these facts and statements. It should not be and need not be discarded, but in giving an account of the Vinland voyages it must be used with circumspection. From an historical standpoint it must occupy a subordinate place. If Rafn in his Antiquitates Americanæ had given emphatic precedence to the saga as found in Hauk’s Book and AM. 557, had left to American scholars the Dighton Rock and the Newport Tower, and had not been so confident in the matter of identifying the exact localities that the explorers visited, he might have carried conviction, instead of bringing confusion, to American scholars.
The general results of the work of the Norwegian scholar Dr. Storm, together with a unique presentation of the original narratives, are accessible in The Finding of Wineland (London, 1890 and 1895), by an American scholar, the late Arthur Middleton Reeves. This work contains a lucid account of the important investigations on the subject, photographs of all the vellum pages that give the various narratives, a printed text accompanying these, page by page and line by line, and also translations into English. There is one phase of the subject that this work does not discuss: the identifications of the regions visited by the Northmen. Dr. Storm, however, has gone into this subject, and is convinced that Helluland, Markland, and Vinland of the sagas, are Labrador, Newfoundland, and Nova Scotia.12 The sailing directions in the “Saga of Eric the Red” are given with surprising detail. These, with other observations, seem to fit Nova Scotia remarkably well. Only one thing appears to speak against Storm’s view, and that is the abundance