The Greenlanders' Saga goes into detail about how they are actually finding grapes on a landmass south of Labrador, that they make Leif Erikson's German foster father who knows what grapes are drunk, and that this is why Leif Erikson named it Vinland:
Don't make too much of it, it wasn't meant to be exhaustive. I though Wagonlitz was making some very basic mistakes, so I thought to provide a sort of beginner's guide to textual criticism, that's all.
Wine making wasn't viable in Denmark until 10 to 15 years ago. Unless I'm very misremembering then even at the height of the medieval warming, which is a couple centuries after Vinland was discovered, it wasn't as warm here as it is now.
Honestly, looking at that map, I'd rather think it'd be Nova Scotia than New Foundland, as why are there no grapes there now if they were there then? I'm aware there was the little ice age in between, but they'd have had to get there originally before the viking times, so why aren't they there again now?
What does unsown grain refer to? Wild grain, or perhaps New types of grain?
What basic mistakes did I make?
Exactly.
The ones I explained in that previous post. I'm sorry, I don't have the energy to go over them again.
In any case, the Greenlanders' Saga goes into detail about how a German among the Vikings discovered that the grapes in Vinland were actual grapes because he was familiar with real grapes himself from climate areas in Europe warm enough for grapes.Two grape pips were unearthed near Lake Tissø by Peter Steen Henriksen, an archaeological botanist and museum curator at the National Museum of Denmark based in Copenhagen. After they were analysed, one was dated to the Iron Age and the other to the Viking period. Prior to this discovery no additional evidence of grapes before the Middle Ages is known. Furthermore, subsequent strontium isotope tests on the Viking Age grape pip at the National Museum showed that the grape in which it originated was likely grown on the island of Zealand, Denmark. It is not exactly known yet how the two grapes were used back then, but it is very likely that they were integrated in winemaking,
"Danish Vikings Could Have Produced Their Own Wine Domestically,"
Danish Vikings Could Have Produced Their Own Wine Domestically
According to new archaeological research it may have been possible that Danish Vikings produced their own wine in Denmark throughout the Viking period.www.thedockyards.com
This is a tricky issue because grapes grow wildly in an axis running in a southwest curve around the St Lawrence Gulf, from Anticosti island in the west to Nova Scotia in the east, but Newfoundland is not included in that curve and does not have wild grapes today. On the other hand, writers on the topic note that people visiting southern 17th century Newfoundland were reporting grapes growing there wildly - I found at least one quote to that effect. One possibility is that what the 17th century explorers were calling grapes were not actual grapes. What I saw online about this was:
Some modern scholars suggest that a type of wild grain-grass native to the St Lawrence Bay area was what the Vikings were identifying as grain. One writer gave a Latin name for this type of grass. ෴
The self-sown what was long itnerpreted as Indian Corn, but in recent years the theory advanced by Schubeler has been generally adopted, that the What (hveiti) seen by the Norsemen in Vinland was the American Wild Rice (Zisania).... there are, among the more than two hundred indigenous grasses which are found near the coast from New England northward, ten [footnote 2 for the Latin list] or more species which in superficial aspect are closely similar to the true Wheat (Triticum vulgare). Of these ten or more native grasses the species of Agropyron demand bried discussion, for by many authors they are untied with Triticum, the true Wheat; and in modern works upon the Norwegian and Icelandic floas they bear the name Hvede.
NOTES ON THE PLANTS OF WINELAND THE GOOD
M. L. Fernald, Rhodora, Vol. 12, No. 134 (February, 1910), pp. 17-38 (22 pages)
NOTES ON THE PLANTS OF WINELAND THE GOOD on JSTOR
M. L. Fernald, NOTES ON THE PLANTS OF WINELAND THE GOOD, Rhodora, Vol. 12, No. 134 (February, 1910), pp. 17-38www.jstor.org
Rereading it again then it seems that what you claimed mistakes was misreading what I had written. I didn't claim that Ragnar had to live earlier or descend from Skjold. Just brought up that perhaps it could be the case, but that I didn't know how it fit the sources.
Wasn't aware of that. I do doubt that it ever was large scale, though.
Who knows, perhaps it was blue berries. American blueberries are quite different from European ones, from what I've been told, so could be that they weren't recognised as blueberries, but rather thought of as grapes.
Did I read that correctly in tha tit stated that the various grasses that are suspects were called wheat in Norwgian and Icelandic in 1910, or was it that Norwegian and Icelandic just called it wheat when publishing the sagas?
Pretty sure that Norse cosmology had the Earth be flat. With the various World's being in different parts of the entire "world body", with the sky being a sphere (Ymer's skull).
You can put a "perhaps" in there but it's still a suggestion you make, and it's mistaken.
That works for things like how many people died in a battle, or how heroic or cowardly each party behaved. It does not work for fitting elements of a story to chronology. If you have one data point that fits Attila and another that fits Charlemagne, you have zero data points that fit a date in the middle.
That makes sense.
I am eating a fruit salad with both American blue berries and native American red-purple grapes from a garden on the same spoon, and they look different enough to me in terms of color, size, texture, stem. Blueberries grow on bushes; native grapes grow on vines. Blueberries are blue, juicy, and sweet, wild native grapes are tart and have seeds and a tough skin.
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What country are you from, may I ask?
OK. For purposes of the topic of the "One-Footer," what I read as one modern explanation of the Saga was that some medieval Europeans theorized that one kind of people living at the edge of the known world were "One-footers." In the modern Explanation, the Saga writer was either talking about a real literal event with a literal "one-footed" attacker, like on a crutch or peg-leg, or else the writer was adding the medieval theme of a "One-Footed" inhabitant of the world's edge into his Saga, without there being a literal "Uniped" person encountered.
John of Marignolli (1338–1353) provides another explanation of these creatures. Quote from his travels from India:[13]
The truth is that no such people do exist as nations, though there may be an individual monster here and there. Nor is there any people at all such as has been invented, who have but one foot which they use to shade themselves withal. But as all the Indians commonly go naked, they are in the habit of carrying a thing like a little tent-roof on a cane handle, which they open out at will as a protection against sun or rain. This they call a chatyr; I brought one to Florence with me. And this it is which the poets have converted into a foot.
— Giovanni de' Marignolli
Monopod (creature) - Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org
I wasn't making statements about it being teh case.
I did say that I get Ragnar and Atilla weren't contemporary.
Isn't the tree just in the centre of things and reachign into all world's, but the world still beingt made from Ymer's body and the sky from his skull?
European scholars knew. Did the general population?
Did the natives actually treasure gold and silver as much as in Europe? Like, IIRC then gold was treasured less in e.g. the Andes and Mesoamerica due to it's abundance. So if other stuff generally was used for trading then perhaps silver coins just aren't too interesting.
Seeing that European blueberries apparently specifically come from here, then I don't think they'd make the mistake then. American blueberries are too closely resembling for that mixup then, I think.
Where are they now though?
Dont' discount any stretch of water as being sailable by vikings. They verifiably sailed rapids whihc even today are close to unsailable or unsailable.
Denmark. Thought you knew, especialyl with how I kept talking about things as us, here, etc.
Ah. And what I meant with publishing was when modern versions of it was being printed. Or, 1910 versions in this case.
Do we have any proof that those legends existed here, though? Like, it's the first I've heard of them. And a one legged warrior could easily just be something you mentioned for the novelty of it, not because of that legend.
Right. Based on the site being an Indian village's midden, the natural conclusion is that the Indians traded with the Vikings to get the coin. In that case, the given trade need not have occurred literally within a mile of the Indian village.
The Sagas only describe a couple years of Viking settlement in Vinland. Archaeologists say that the L'anse aux Meadows site only lasted about ten years. On the other hand, Vikings apparently kept going to Labrador to chop wood for 300+ years because the forests in Greenland are so scarce. There is practically only one major forest patch today in Greenland, and it's by the far south end of the island. Once the forest timber is used up, it makes Viking survival in Greenland much harder, because how are they going to make houses and boats? They can make sod houses or live in cellars and caves, but I don't know what they would do for boats if they used up all their forests and driftwood. Northern Amerindians like Micmacs used "skin canoes", but even skin canoes used wood for frames.
"Cats likely sailed with the Vikings, genetic study shows: Cutest Cat contest"
Cats likely sailed with the Vikings, genetic study shows: Cutest Cat contest
How did your cat's ancestors make it to America? A new study by French geneticists show they likely came aboard a Viking ship.www.cleveland.com
The generally accepted hypothesis among breeders is the Maine Coon is descended from breeds brought overseas by English sea-farers or 11th-century Norsemen (the Vikings). The connection to the Norsemen is seen in the strong resemblance of the Maine Coon to the Norwegian Forest Cat, another breed that is said to have traveled with the Vikings.
And so, all the elements, it appears, are in place to argue that the Maine Coon is descended from Norwegian Skogkatts brought to America by Vikings. But there's no hard evidence of it. It seems more likely that the descendants of the modern-day Maine Coon are the cats brought over by European settlers in the late 16th century and thereafter.
You know that there are numerous theories about the origins of the Maine Coon cat in America. We don't know the true story but we can speculate. Common sense, to me, dictates that at some stage after the first Europeans settled in America, some longhaired cats were brought over with their owners and/or as ships cats.
They were brought ashore and became barn cats and then in the late 19th century in the state of Maine they were called Maine cats and because they looked so beautiful, they turned them into purebred, pedigree cats at the time of the beginnings of the cat fancy in America.
Is the Maine Coon descended from Norwegian Skogkatts brought to North America by Vikings?
Is the Maine Coon descended from Norwegian Skogkatts brought to North America by Vikings?maine-coon.pictures-of-cats.org
Viking sailors took their cats with them
The largest genetic study of cats reveals how our furry friends spread out across Europe, Asia, and Africa, and even hitched a ride aboard Viking ships.
Cats are a recurrent theme in Norse mythology, says Jes Martens from the Cultural History Museum in Oslo, Norway.
“Freja, the goddess of love, had two cats that pulled her carriage. And when Thor visited Utgard, he tried to lift the giant, Utgard-Loki’s cat. It turned out to be a serpent, the Midgard Serpent, which not even Thor could lift,” says Martens.
If the Vikings had so many stories involving cats, then it makes perfect sense that they took cats with them on long voyages, he says.
...
According to archaeologist Christian Koch Madsen from the National Museum in Copenhagen and the National Museum in Nuuk, Greenland, there is also archaeological evidence that cats made it to Greenland.
“They must have come aboard Viking ships,” he wrote in an email to ScienceNordic.
Viking sailors took their cats with them
The largest genetic study of cats reveals how our furry friends spread out across Europe, Asia, and Africa, and even hitched a ride aboard Viking ships.sciencenordic.com
The main evidence we have for cats sailing with Vikings comes from Greenland and Canada. Cat remains in Greenland show that they would have been with the Vikings right from the start of their settlement there. Meanwhile, domestic cats in North America seem to date to around that time too. Maybe Leif Erikson was the one to introduce Felis catus to North America.
Viking Cats: The Preferred Pets of the Northmen
Formidable warriors, fiercely protecting their territory and exploring widely to conquer new lands. No, we’re not talking about Vikings this time. Well we are, but a specific subset…Viking cats! To put another nail in thewww.lifeinnorway.net
Follins Pond, in the towns of Dennis and Yarmouth, is somewhat unique among [potential North American Viking] sites. Unlike many artifacts and areas people claim a Norse connection to, the Follins pond area has been at least researched by professional archeologists and historians. Some of these researchers even came to the conclusion that the shore Follins Pond was actually Leif Ericson’s camp in Vinland.
...
According to Smith, several interesting things were discovered during the dig which some believed were suggestive of a Norse presence. The first piece of controversial evidence included several buried wooden posts and stones, potentially used to support a shored ship. In addition, the wood seemed to have been shaped by a metal axe. Yet, members of the Archeological Society estimated that the wood and construction was no more than 90 – 150 years old because the wood was not completely rotted. They theorized that the ship might have been a colonial ship hidden from the British during the War of 1812 or the Revolutionary War. In addition, they were informed by local historians that the area in which the posts were discovered was once used by Cape fisherman as a boat landing.
However, in the 1955 article entitled Comments on the Follins Pond Report, Pohl expressed his disagreement with the findings of the MAS. He stated that the shape, size, and estimated weight of the construction of wooden posts and stones suggested the shape of a classic Norse ship. He also suggested that the wood might have been well preserved by having been buried several feet under the shore bank immersed in an oxygen deprived environment.
...
In addition, another piece of evidence Frederick Pohl suggested as proof of a Norse visitation to Cape Cod were the existence of what he called “Mooring Holes” in several rocks along the shore of the Follins Pond and Bass River. According to Pohl, these holes were drilled manually into rocks always at a slight angle. In these rocks would be placed a large iron pin with an eye-hole, which attached the ship to shore by use of ropes. These were of particular interest to Pohl because similar holes have been discovered in more classically Norse areas like the fjords of Scandinavia.
...
However, the existence of odd holes and the remnants of a shored boat were not the only pieces of evidence discovered to support Ericson’s visit to the Cape. In an article entitled An Osseous Find at Follins Pond, an archeologist named Bernard W. Powell reported his findings after having examined a domestic horse bone found near Follins. The bone was discovered by a local home owner. Powell explained that the remains of domestic horses are present in the Greenland settlements, though rare.
Leif Ericson and Follins Pond- Yamouth, Ma
Dragon-prowed Norse Longship Throughout New England there are many sites and archeological finds which seem to suggest that Norse dragon...wickedyankee.blogspot.com
Your question is reasonable, and I don't have much opinion. It seems to me reasonable to theorize that the population of Newfoundland grapes might have been small in the 17th century and then due to increasing cold temperatures, the grape population might have died out there between then and now.
OK. I was getting into the likely of the butternuts being from each of the four locations. It's like comparing whether Bob is more likely to drive to a city using a quick short toll road or a short series of state roads or a long, toll-less federal interstate highway. Personally I prefer avoiding the toll roads unless I'm in a hurry, for instance.
3. Leif finder Det gode Vinland
...
Derfra stod de til havs på en nordøstlig vind og var ude i to dage, før de fik land i sigte, og de sejlede ind til landet og kom til en ø, der lå nord for landet. Dér gik de i land og så sig om i godt vejr. De bemærkede, at der var faldet dug på græsset, og det skete, at de stak fingrene i græsset og derpå i munden, og de mente aldrig at have smagt noget så sødt som dette.
Derefter gik de ombord igen og sejlede ind i det sund, der fandtes mellem øen og det næs, der strakte sig mod nord fra landet, og stævnede vestpå fra næsset. Dér gjorde tidevandet det meget lavvandet, og deres skib gik på grund, og der var langt til vandet fra skibet. Men de var så opsatte på at komme i land, at de ikke gad vente på, at vandet skulle vende tilbage under deres skib, så de løb i land et sted, hvor en å flød ud fra en sø. Så snart vandet kom tilbage under skibet, tog de båden og roede ud til skibet og flyttede det op i åen og derfra til søen. Dér kastede de anker og bar deres skindsække fra borde og indrettede teltboder. Siden besluttede de sig for at tage ophold dér den vinter, og de byggede et stort hus på stedet. Hverken i åen eller i søen var der mangel på laks, og det var større laks, end de før havde set. Vilkårene på stedet var så gode, at de ikke fandt, at de behøvede vinterfoder til dyrene. Der kom ingen frost om vinteren, og græsset visnede ikke meget. Længden på dag og nat var mere lige dér end i Grønland og på Island. Solen var oppe ved davretid og til midt på eftermiddagen på årets korteste dag.
5. Torvald Eriksons Vinlandsfærd
De udrustede derpå deres skib og stod til havs, og der forlyder ikke noget om deres rejse, før de kom til Leifsboder i Vinland, hvor de satte skibet op og forholdt sig i ro den vinter og fiskede for at få mad.
Da det blev forår, sagde Torvald, at de skulle klargøre deres skib, og nogle folk skulle tage båden og drage vestpå langs landet og undersøge dér om sommeren. Landet forekom dem smukt og skovrigt med kort afstand mellem skoven og havet og de hvide sandstrande. Der fandtes mange øer, og der var meget lavvandet. De fandt hverken spor af mennesker eller dyr, men på en af de vestligste øer fandt de en staklade af træ. De fandt ikke andet menneskeskabt, men tog tilbage og kom til Leifsboder om efteråret.
Grønlændernes saga – heimskringla.no
heimskringla.no
I don't have a strong opinion on this, other than to note that the theme of one-footers comes up elsewhere in other European ancient and medieval legends about odd people living in far away places.
I notice a resemblance between Isidore of Seville (7th century AD) calling one-footers speedy and the Saga's description of the One-footer as being able to evade the Vikings.References to Sciapods progress into the medieval era. In Isidore of Seville’s Etymologiae, it is stated, “The race of Sciopodes are said to live in Ethiopia.” He added that these creatures are wonderfully speedy despite having only one leg, and the Greeks call them “shade-footed ones” because they lie on the ground when it is hot and are shaded by the great size of their foot.
Aside from being popular in medieval bestiaries, they are also well-known in map illustrations of Terra Incognita, as humans have a habit of illustrating the edge of their maps with peculiar creatures, such as dragons, unicorns, cyclops, Sciapods, and many more. The Hereford Mappa Mundi, which is drawn dating from circa 1300, illustrates Sciapods on one edge. The same is true for the world map in Beatus of Liebana’s drawn, dating back to circa 730 to circa 800.
Sciapods: The One-legged Mythical Creature of Antiquity
Sciapods of ancient Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology existed during the medieval period. This article will cover all about these creatures.ancient-literature.com
Gonna give you a longer reply later, hopefuly tomorrow, when I get some more time as well as more time to thing. A couple things, though, that I want to mention to not risk forgetting:Your question is reasonable, and I don't have much opinion. It seems to me reasonable to theorize that the population of Newfoundland grapes might have been small in the 17th century and then due to increasing cold temperatures, the grape population might have died out there between then and now.
Here is a grape map. They are not in Newfoundland now, but in the lands south and west of Newfoundland:
OK. I was getting into the likely of the butternuts being from each of the four locations. It's like comparing whether Bob is more likely to drive to a city using a quick short toll road or a short series of state roads or a long, toll-less federal interstate highway. Personally I prefer avoiding the toll roads unless I'm in a hurry, for instance.
So on one hand, the south tributary of the Miramichi is closer to L'Anse aux Meadows and the Miramichi flows into the St. Lawrence, but it has only a scattering of butternuts (9 red dots) on a southern tributary. On the other hand, the St. John's River and New England have a huge collection of butternuts, including in their coastal regions, but one would need to sail around Nova Scotia to get to them from Newfoundland.
Speaking of the issue of the Vikings carrying their boats, you reminded me of a logistical issue that has been puzzling me - the feasibility of the Vikings traveling upriver to camp at Lake Ainslie in Cape Breton Island.
Looking at a map to find salmon-lake river systems from Cape Breton to Chaleur Bay, the only one that I see is the one running from Lake Ainslee, along the SW Margaree River to the St. Lawrence. It's the top salmon lake-river in Nova Scotia, with big salmon. However, the Southwest Margaree is narrower and shallower than the Margaree River and runs for ten miles, so one of the main problems is the feasibility of getting a longship up it.
Longships were 45 to 75 feet long and could sail in knee deep water or be carried. On the other hand, the Southwest Margaree River is so shallow that it is good for fly fishing when standing in the river and paddleboarding (it's like surfboarding), except that in the spring you can canoe down it. It has some sharp bends too, so that I don't know how feasible it would be to carry the boats up the river to Lake Ainslie.
Maybe reading the relevant section of the Greenlanders' Saga in Danish (closer to Old Norse than English is) will provide a clearer picture than English translations for how the Vikings got to Leif's camp in Vinland. Starting from the Vikings' departure from Labrador toward Vinland:
I imagine the narrative above this way, @Wagonlitz .
- First, the Vikings sail in a southwest direction from Labrador. The first challenge is what point they departed from. It would seem at first glance that they could have departed from the far east end of Labrador near Cape Charles and Battle Harbour. But if they did this and sailed Southwest like the text says, then their route would have just kept them next to the Labrador coast, because the coast runs in a southwest direction there anyway. So it makes more sense to think that they followed the coast southwest to Wolf Bay, and then just kept going into the open St. Lawrence Gulf when the Labrador coast didn't go southwest anymore.
- They sailed southwest for a 2 Days' journey. Since the Greenlanders' Saga says that it took 3 days to get from Baffin Island to Labrador (100 miles at the closest point), and 4 days from Greenland to Baffin Island (250 miles), then at those same speeds, a two days' journey southwest from Labrador might cover 66 miles to 125 miles. Yet judging from known Viking journeys in other sources, a 2 days' sail could in real life cover up to 264 miles. Further, I don't know if the 2 Days' sail was meant as an exact figure or a literary device. Plus, we don't know how reliable the Saga's writer is, or how much the chain of transmission might have influenced the data.
- Considering that a Viking longship could have an eyesight range of 10 miles if the sailor was looking from the mast-top, the relation of Labrador, the northern-pointing cape, and the dewy island near the cape would look something like this:
View attachment 1012672
- Supposing that the Vikings sailed in a pure, straight southwest direction of 45 degrees, they would have sailed into the area of Prince Edward Island and the Miramichi Bay after a bit over 200 miles. I plotted some distances from the east coast of Labrador in pink and from Wolf Bay in southern Labrador in red, and drew outlines of the narrated coast. Prince Edward Island is below the red drawn coastal outline, and Miramichi Bay is to the left of it:
View attachment 1012673
- The total picture in the Saga excerpt is: 2 Days' Sailing southwest of Labrador, there is a northward pointing cape from a landmass, with a dewy island new the cape, and west along the coast from the cape there is a salmon river from from a salmon lake into the sea, and further west along this same seacoast, there are many islands and shallows.
- There doesn't seem any real life location that fits perfectly with the Saga's description. There are some places resembling it, but they each raise little problems:
- First, if you look at Newfoundland's north and west coast for a possible target, you can find a lot of salmon-river-lakes, like at Pistolet Bay near L'anse aux Meadows.
But most of these Newfoundland rivers are not easy to get up. Further, it would take the Vikings only a matter of hours to get to Newfoundland, not two days. Plus, the climate and fruit of Newfoundland would not be as warm and impressive as New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. On the other hand, if you don't pick Newfoundland as the target area, then you could wonder alittle bit why the Vikings didn't mention it in their narrative excerpted above of how they got to Vinland, because Newfoundland is almost on the way.- Second if you look at Cape Breton as the target area, then you are basically stuck with the SW Margaree River and Lake Ainslie as the target area for Leif's camp. St. Paul Island 10 miles to the northeast of Cape Breton (too small to see in the map above) would be the dewy island.
This seems a good choice, although you could question alittle bit why the Vikings didn't see Newfoundland on their way to Cape Breton. Further, it's kind of a southward shot from Wolf Bay to Cape Breton, not a pure southwest shot. FInally, you could question how navigable the SW Margaree River would be.- If you look at the Miramichi River valley as the target, then Prince Edward Island would be the dewy island, although they are alittle far from each other. The Miramichi River Valley has butternuts and salmon, so it looks like a real choice.
But the Saga talks about a mass of islands and shallows along the westward coast from the salmon lake river of Leif's camp, and the Miramichi River is on a north-south coast, not a west east one. There are some shallows and islands north of it at Chaleur Bay, but the main bulk of islands west of the Miramichi Bay is the chain of islands in the St. Lawrence River, like near Rimouski and Quebec City. Further, if one considers Miramichi Bay as an option, then one could wonder why the Vikings didn't notice Anticosti island on their sail southwest to Miramichi Bay. Plus, tthe Miramichi River only has a bulky fat area in the river, not a true lake like the Saga describes, as you can see in the map below near the blue box with the numbers "126":
View attachment 1012676
I don't have a strong opinion on this, other than to note that the theme of one-footers comes up elsewhere in other European ancient and medieval legends about odd people living in far away places.
I notice a resemblance between Isidore of Seville (7th century AD) calling one-footers speedy and the Saga's description of the One-footer as being able to evade the Vikings.
A peninsula is a landmass with water on three sides, halvø. A cape is a kappe, the point or part of a landmass that juts into water.
