THE VINLAND VOYAGES

According to Grænlendinga saga, there were five separate Vinland voyages. The first is that of Bjarni Herjolfsson who drifted off his course when he was sailing to Greenland, probably in 985-986.

He sighted an unknown land in the west, a land with low hills and covered with forest. Then he followed a northerly course, and came first to another low, forested land, and then to a mountainous land with glaciers. Bjarni thought that none of these lands could be Greenland, and so he changed his course and reached Greenland after sailing for another four days. The saga does not say that Bjarni put ashore in any of these lands, but in Greenland his voyage was much talked about and discussed. It was this that led Leif Eiriksson to buy Bjarni's ship, and now he set out to find these new lands. The account of his voyage makes it seem likely that he followed Bjarni's route, but in the opposite direction. Finally he settled in the region which he called Vinland, and built large houses there. New expeditions followed once Leif had returned to Greenland. First his brother Torvaldr set out, then the Icelander Torfinnr Karlsefni, and the last of this saga's voyages is that led by Leif's sister Freyds. Eiriks saga rauda, on the other hand, has only two Vinland expeditions, Leif Eiriksson's voyage from Norway, and Thorfinn Karlsefni's from Greenland. This saga attaches most importance to Karlsefni's attempt at colonizing the land, and gives a vivid account of his fight with the natives. After Karlsefni and his men had spent three years exploring the new land, they were forced to give up their settlement.

But during their stay in Vinland, Karlsefni's wife Gudridr gave birth to a son, whom they called Snorri. He was the first European born in America. This happy event is also mentioned in Grænlendinga saga.

RECENT RESEARCH

For decades scholars have tried to locate the place where Leif and his crew - and the later expeditions after them - settled, Leifsbúdir in Vinland. Their research is based on the sagas' information about the routes sailed, and on the geographical descriptions, astronomical data etc. given there. The majority of these scholars assumed that the sagas' statements about grapes were correct, and thus they postulated that Vinland must lie in those parts of North America where wild grapes grow - Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island and Virginia. Although a number of investigations were carried out, no Viking traces have as yet been found. Some runic inscriptions said to have been found in various parts of North America were interpreted as being of Viking origin, but scientific analyses have shown that no such interpretation can be taken seriously.

A few scholars held a different opinion, maintaining that Vinland must lie in Newfoundland. Helge Ingstad gave detailed grounds for this view in his book Landet under Leidarstjernen, (Oslo 1953), which appeared in London and New York in 1966 with the title Land under the Pole Star. The view he defends agrees well with Grænlendinga saga's accounts of the sailing routes and of the landscape. Grapes do not grow in Newfoundland, but according to Ingstad, the story of the grapes must be a later addition to the saga, due to a misunderstanding in Adam from Bremen's learned history.

Ingstad further maintained that one ought to be able to find traces of Leif Eiriksson's settlement by means of systematic investigations from the sea and the air. He carried out such investigations in 1960, and eventually he found faint traces of a settlement on the north coast of Newfoundland, traces which seemed promising to him. This was L’Anse aux Meadows.

The land here was well suited to the Viking way of life, there were lush pastures, and the fishing was good. Here one could hunt on land and at sea, and there was forest and bog-ore for the production of iron.

THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL EVIDENCE

From 1961 to 1968, Ingstad led seven archaeological expeditions. The scholars, men and women, participating in the teams came from Canada, U.S.A., Iceland, Sweden and Norway. Anne Stine Ingstad was in charge of the archaeological work. In the course of these years, eight, possibly nine, house-sites were uncovered. They represented large turf houses of types well known from Iceland and Greenland as well as a smithy; a charcoal pit, cooking pits and traces of four boat-houses were also found.

The finds from the houses and from the surrounding area are convincing: a soapstone spindle whorl, a fragment of a bone needle, a bronze ring- headed pin, a stone lamp, iron rivets etc. - all these items are of Viking type. Radiocarbon (CI4) analyses show that the finds date from approximately A.D. 1000. And thus we have scientific proof of a Viking settlement here at L'Anse aux Meadows, dating from the time given in the sagas.

The evidence of the site has been internationally acknowledged, and UNESCO has included the settlement in the World Heritage List of the most valuable historical monuments in the world.

But the Vinland debate is hardly over. Some scholars still hold that Vinland must have lain in a more southerly region where wild grapes really grow. But one thing is certain: in about A.D. 1000, men and women from the North discovered the American continent, and attempted a colonization. The Viking Age surge to the west had reached its utmost limits. True, the voyages came to an end, and the people in Norway, Iceland and Greenland were to experience harder times. But even though they no longer sailed the westward main, the knowledge of Vinland remained with them - it was handed down in the annals and in their unique literary tradition - the sagas.