The Farfarers

by Farley Mowat

  I conclude Freydis decided not to join in an extended search for the place which had eluded her father and her brothers, choosing instead to stay at Wreck Bay, where she was well placed to intercept any ship that might pass through the strait. Instead of searching for prey, she would let it come to her.

  Karlsefni seems to have been the only leader with a sense of where Alba really was. He may have had private knowledge or perhaps was simply more perceptive than the others. In any event, he was convinced the search had to be to the southward.

  One spring day c. 1004 he and his fellow Icelanders in their two ships sailed through the strait.

  Now is to be told how Karlsefni cruised southward along the [west] coast [of Newfoundland] with Snorri and Bjarni and their people. They sailed for a long time until they came to a river flowing down from a lake into a lagoon and so into the sea. Great sandbars obstructed the outlet so it could only be entered at high tide. Karlsefni and his people sailed in here and called the place Hop.

  Hop is an old Norse name for a body of water cut off from the sea by sand or gravel bars behind which vessels may shelter. This Hop was probably the great lagoon at the mouth of St. Paul’s Inlet.9

  A few days after the Icelanders arrived at Hop, nine skin boats filled with “natives,” presumably Tunit, appeared from the south.10 The sagas tell us that they landed, inspected the Icelanders, then got back into their boats and returned south, the way they had come. We are not told what took place between the two peoples.

  Karlsefni’s party had now travelled some two hundred miles from their base at Wreck Bay, yet Alba still eluded the Norse. They had finally found living beings (or been found by them), but these were armed and accomplished boatmen able to pose a serious threat even to Norse seafarers. I conclude that this encounter with Skraelings (synonymous with natives), who are described as “swarthy and nasty looking, with ugly hair,” decided Karlsefni against proceeding any farther southward, at least for the time being.

  Blessed as it was with a fine harbour, ample resources of fish and game, and abundant natural pasturage, St. Paul’s Inlet was an excellent place to pause and regroup while deciding what to do next. It was also well situated to serve as a sally port from which vessels bound up or down the coast could be ambushed.

  Karlsefni and his people remained at Hop through the ensuing winter.

  When spring arrived they discovered, early one morning, a great number of skin boats rowing up from the south. . . .

  Peaceable signals having been exchanged, the natives landed. They brought with them packs stuffed with “peltries and skins.” They had come to trade and, moreover, were familiar with what Europeans wanted.

  There is some confusion in the saga accounts about what ensued, but it is clear the natives wanted metal goods and coloured cloth in exchange for furs. Karlsefni, who was not outfitted as a trader, improvised.

  Karlsefni considered the matter then ordered the women to bring milk [or skyr] to the Skraelings who, as soon as they saw it, wanted it alone. So this is the way it went: they carried off their bargains in their stomachs.

  At this juncture, so we are told, the expedition’s bull “happened” to run out of the woods bellowing loudly.

  This so terrified the Skraelings that they ran to their boats and rowed away . . . leaving behind them their packs and goods.

  Could it be that the Icelanders deliberately stampeded their bull in order to panic their visitors and so obtain “their packs and goods” without payment?

  There seems little doubt that the Norse had a guilty conscience about the affair. When, a few days later, the natives returned a third time, they were met by Norse warriors wielding weapons. The Skraelings responded with a shower of arrows and sling stones. According to the saga, they also deployed a supernatural weapon so horrendous that “a great fear seized upon Karlsefni and his men so all they could think about was flight.”

  The Icelanders certainly fled. The saga says Freydis came out of the house and tried to follow, but the name is probably a clerical error and should be Gudrid, who “could not keep up for she was pregnant.” Gudrid did, in fact, give birth to a son, Snorri, that same autumn.

  Then, says the saga,

  She seized a sword and, when some Skraelings approached, let fall her shift and slapped her breast with the naked blade. Whereat the Skraelings were terrified and fled to their boats and rowed away. . . . Two of Karlsefni’s men had fallen and a great number of Skraelings.

  Two Icelanders perished, but so did “a great number of Skraelings,” which sounds like something approaching slaughter. Whatever the natives had hoped for as a result of this third visit had been drowned in blood.

  It now seemed to Karlsefni and his people that though this was an attractive country their lives here would be filled with turmoil because of the inhabitants, so they prepared to leave.

  A not unreasonable conclusion, considering what had happened. The idea of proceeding on to the south could have had little appeal now that the inhabitants were thoroughly aroused. So the Icelanders packed up their gear, and the pelts stolen or traded from the Skraelings, and headed back for Straumfiord.

  They sailed north along the coast and found five Skraelings asleep by the sea. . . . Karlsefni decided they must have been outlawed from their own country, so he put them to death.

  By Icelandic law the possessions of outlaws were forfeit to their executioners. Opportunities for raiding on this coast were not great and such as existed could not to be ignored. Murder could be easily justified.

  The Icelandic contingent arrived back at Straumfiord in late spring or early summer. We are told nothing of what had happened during their absence, but pickings must have been lean there because both Karlsefni and Thorvald soon sailed off on summer cruises.

  Thorvald sailed north, passed Kialarness, and entered Hamilton Inlet, where he spotted some skin boats upturned on a beach, with people sleeping under them. The Greenlanders rowed ashore, surrounded the boats and captured the people, all save one man who managed to escape. Thorvald’s men then murdered the eight they had captured and, presumably, helped themselves to the contents of the camp.

  Who were the victims in this attack? The sources do not call them Skraelings. Furthermore, the saga specifies that their boats were skin-covered. This seems to rule out Innu, who normally used bark-covered boats. They might have been Tunit. On the other hand, they could have been a group of Albans caught sleeping in boat-roofed houses at a hunting station. Whoever they were, their friends were not about to let them die unavenged.

  Next morning the ship was attacked by a flotilla of boats filled with angry people who showered the murderers with arrows. The Greenlanders made sail and fled, but not before Thorvald got an arrow in his guts, from which he shortly died. His men brought the ship back to Straumfiord.

  Karlsefni had better luck. A born entrepreneur, he decided to have another go at fur trading, Viking style. Realizing it would not be wise to attempt a reprise on the west coast, he gathered up whatever goods suitable for trade could be scraped together at Wreck Bay, then sailed south along the east coast of the northern peninsula of Newfoundland. At the bottom of White Bay he again encountered natives. This time they were almost certainly Beothuks and, like the natives at Hop, accustomed to trading with Europeans.

  A great troop of them came out of the woods. . . their packs full of grey furs and sable. They were especially desirous of obtaining red cloth. . . . In exchange for perfect pelts the Skraelings would accept a span’s length of red cloth which they would bind about their heads. . . . Karlsefni’s people began running short of cloth so they divided it into narrow strips of not more than a finger’s width. But still the Skraelings gave [were required to give?] just as much, or more for it. . . . [Then] one of Karlsefni’s house slaves killed a Skraeling. . . . Now there was a battle and many of the native host were slain. One man among them was tall and fair, and Karlsefni thought he might have been their leader. Then the Skraelings ran away into the woods, each
man for himself. . . [but] left their goods behind. . . . Then Karlsefni and his people sailed away towards the north . . . being unwilling to risk men’s lives any longer.

  The Icelanders had made another haul, but this form of “trading” could not become an established way of doing business. It was strictly a one-shot deal.

  It is uncertain whether Karlsefni remained at Epaves Bay through another winter. Most likely he sailed for home that same autumn.

  His return journey to Greenland was marked by only one incident thought worthy of record by the saga men.

  When they sailed away from Vinland they had a southerly wind which took them to Markland. Here they found five Skraelings, one bearded man, two women, and two children. Karlsefni’s people captured the two boys [the adults are supposed to have escaped by “sinking into the earth”].... They bore the lads away with them and taught them to speak, and they were baptized. . . . They stated that there was a land on the other side over against their country inhabited by people who wore white garments and shouted loudly, and carried poles before them to which cloths were attached. People believe this must be Hvítramannaland. . . .11

  Although this paragraph unequivocally establishes that Alba/ Hvítramannaland lay somewhere to the west of Greenland, and that Norse Greenlanders were aware of its existence and general location, it has been consistently ignored by most orthodox historians of the Norse westward voyages. One can see why.

  Expressed in a language foreign to them, the childhood memories of the two young captives convey an impression of religious celebrations in keeping with what is known about Christian rituals in northern Britain at the time of the Norse invasions. Celebrants and participants alike clothed themselves in white. It is notable that no instances of ceremonial practices similar to those described in the saga have been described from pre-Columbian native cultures of northeastern North America.

  Karlsefni did not return home empty-handed. Apart from the first native slaves to be brought from North America, he carried with him “many goods, including wood, vines, berries, and skin-wares [my emphasis].” When he and Gudrid left Greenland for Iceland, the saga teller noted rather enviously, “Many said that no richer ship ever sailed from Greenland than the one he steered.”

  Freydis Eriksdottir also made a killing—quite literally. We do not know whether she succeeded in capturing any Alban or European vessels, but she did succeed in laying hands on a big merchant ship.

  It belonged to the brothers Helgi and Finnbogi and was the one in which Freydis had come out from Greenland. One winter night at Epaves Bay, Freydis led her contingent of Greenlanders to the hut where the Icelandic crew lived.

  They walked in and took them sleeping; and bound them and led them out, one by one, and Freydis killed every one that came out. Now were all the men killed, but the women were left, and nobody would kill them. Then said Freydis, “Put an axe in my hand.” It was done and she slew the five women who were there, and left them dead. . . . After that they put to sea and had a happy voyage and came to Eriksfirth.

  There is a vellum manuscript in the Arna-Magnean Library in Copenhagen written in Latin and Icelandic. It is a compendium of fragments of history, one of which is believed to be derived from a long-lost manuscript penned by Abbot Nicholas of Thingeyre in Iceland, sometime between 1125 and his death in 1159.12

  Southward from Greenland is Helluland, then comes Markland. Thence it is not far to Vinland the Good. . . . It is said that Thorfinn Karlsefni made a husanotra [a navigational device] then went searching for Vinland. He came to [the region] where this land was believed to be, but did not succeed in discovering it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  THE BEST OF TIMES

  THE CLASHES BETWEEN KARLSEFNI’S VIKINGS AND the natives must have filled western Albans with dire foreboding. Was the bloody pattern woven by Northmen through three centuries to be repeated yet again?

  I envisage watch stations being manned along the coasts, vessels mounting extra lookouts and, when possible, sailing in company, hugging the protection of the coasts. Foreign merchants may have reduced their western sailings or temporarily withdrawn from what was threatening to become altogether too risky a business.

  For a time the always tenuous transatlantic ties may have seemed ready to dissolve. However, not all merchant mariners lost hope—or nerve. And, in the event, the dangers conjured up by the Karlsefni expedition turned out to be more apparent than real. The Norse had learned the hard way that Skraelings were likely to be as much as, or more than, the crew of any raiding vessel could handle and that the costs of mounting raids in the west were formidable. In practical terms (and the Norse were a practical people), the risks entailed in undertaking further westviking ventures evidently outweighed the prospects of gain.

  As the first decade of the new millennium ended, the Norse threat to Alba-in-the-West receded. Transatlantic merchant shipping returned to normal, which, admittedly, may never have amounted to more than a handful of vessels a year. Valuta men went about their business as of old while new crofts spread over the good pastoral lands in southwestern Newfoundland. Life in the west was peaceful; although the hostility Albans felt towards Norsemen doubtless remained unabated.

  Around 1025 an Icelandic merchant named Gudleif Gudlaugson, who had wintered in Norway, departed from Dublin bound for Iceland or Greenland. He failed to reach either destination. When he eventually got home he had a remarkable story to tell. It has been preserved for us by the anonymous skald who composed the Eyrbyggja Saga.

  Gudleif was a great seafaring trader who owned a large merchant ship. . . . Towards the end of St. Olaf’s reign1 Gudleif set out from Dublin on a trading voyage.... West of Ireland he encountered easterly, then northeasterly, gales and the ship was driven far from sight of land first to the west and then to the southwest.

  This happened late in summer and the crew made all sorts of vows if only they might reach land. At last land came into view. It was a big country, but they had no idea what place it was. Weary with the struggle with the sea, Gudleif and his crew put in to shore.

  They found a secure harbour but soon people came towards them. They did not know who these people were, but thought they might be speaking Irish. A great crowd of what seemed like several hundred gathered, took them prisoners, bound them and marched them some distance inland where they were brought before a meeting to have their fate determined.

  Gudleif understood that some of the people wanted them put to death, while others proposed they be shared out as slaves.

  The inhabitants were still arguing about this when Gudleif and his men saw a group of horsemen riding up with a banner carried ahead of them. It seemed as if one of these must be a chieftain. As they came closer, the Icelanders saw that the one riding behind the banner was an old man with a head of white hair, but tall and courageous-looking.

  Everyone bowed to him and greeted him as their leader, and the Icelanders saw that every decision was left to him. After a while he summoned Gudleif and his crew. When they stood before him he spoke to them in Icelandic, asking where they belonged. They replied that most were from Iceland. He asked which were Icelanders and Gudleif stepped forward, greeted the old man, got a friendly reply [and they engaged in conversation about people in Iceland]. . . .

  The inhabitants started to demand that something be done about Gudleif and his crew so the tall man moved away from the Icelanders and, calling twelve of his people to him, held a long consultation. Eventually they all came back to the meeting and the tall man addressed Gudleif:

  “My fellow countrymen and I have taken time to consider your case,” he said, “and they have left it to me to decide what should be done with you. You now have my leave to go wherever you want. Although you may consider it late in the season to put to sea, I strongly advise you to get well away from here. These people are tricky and hard to deal with, and they think you’ve broken their laws.”

  “What shall we tell people if we make it back to our homeland?” asked Gudleif.
“Who shall we say we owe our freedom to?”

  “That’s one thing I’m not going to tell you,” said the old man. “I’m too fond of my kinsmen and blood brothers to encourage them to come here and get into the same kind of trouble you’d be in if I hadn’t been here to help you. I’ve lived so many years I expect old age will get the better of me any moment now, but even if I survive there are still people in this country more powerful than I am, and they’d show no mercy to strangers like you. It just so happens they aren’t here right now.”

  The old man had their ship made ready and stayed with them until there came a favourable wind to take them out to sea.

  During this interlude he continued issuing dire warnings:

  “I forbid anyone to come and look for me because no one could find this place unless he had your luck. It would be a most desperate undertaking. Harbours are few and far between and strangers can expect plenty of trouble here.”

  The skald ends his account with this statement:

  Some people believe this man may have been Bjorn the Breidavik-Champion [a swashbuckling philanderer who was chased out of Iceland c. 1000] but their only justification for this is the story we have just told.

  I believe it much more likely that the old man who wished to be left in peace in his adopted homeland was Ari Marson. Ari would then have been about seventy. We know he became influential among the Albans. We can believe that, having spent some thirty or forty years in Alba during which time he had doubtless acquired a family, he wanted neither to return to Iceland nor to have to deal with bellicose kinsmen bent on repatriating him by force if necessary.

  Where did Gudleif land?

  It is most improbable that he could have been storm-drifted to the back side of Newfoundland, and so to Alba-in-the-West. Okak or even Hebron are better possibilities. But most likely he ended up in the catcher’s glove formed by the great bays and fiords of eastern Newfoundland, even as did that other Icelandic merchant, Bjarni Herjolfsson, when he was blown off course into the western North Atlantic.2