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The Inuit replaced the Dorset culture, but AFAIK there's no evidence of massacres, so "murdered" may not be true, it could have been through assimilation.
Seem to recall that they opposite the Dorset were very aggressive and attacked both the Dorset and the Norse.
But not a hill I'm gonna die on.
My point just was that calling the Inuits natives, but the Norse colonists, really is silly when both arrived around the same time, at each end of the island.
A river with sand banks at its mouth could also have sanded over completely. This happened for example to the old mouth of the Rhine. The water then went to another mouth in the delta. If there's no delta this is less likely but it is still possible that the river found a different way to the sea, making a new outlet.
Your translation is missing a chapter. Either that or you miswrote, as it's in chapter 7, not 6.
Anyway, it states that they out exploring for the entire summer, which is like mid April to mid October, in the west. And then the following year during summer they go east and north of the land, and there they break the keel. So they could have gone super far from Leifsboder before the keel breaks. Then afterwards they go east along the coast.
So we need a place where you can go west and spend six months exploring and there's shallw and lots of isles. And where you can go eat, and if you go east you have to go north as well to get around the land, and you meet a næs before you continue going east.
To me that honestly sounds way more like Cape Breton than New Foundland. Unless the going north went North from Prince Edwards Island to L'Aux des Meadows. There does seem to be a bit too long between Cape Breton and New Foundland to have them just cross over without mention of going at sea, I think, so I'd rather imagine that they continue east along the coast after Cape Breton and then meat the Skrælinger around Sydney, as they presumably aren't going south along the eastern coast of Nova Scotia, as then I'd expect there to be mention of them going south.
Could also be that it's Cape Daupin or another næs further down the coast, i.e. it needn't be Cape Breton itself.
Up at L'Aux des Meadows you can go east, but you can't go east and north. And you're gonna get problems when looking for places to explore for 6 months going west, let along needing the shallows and isles.
In this case it's chapter 11, not 13, for me. Curious.
Anyway, it does seem like it could be the same, albeit it just says they found a keel. Not that it was erected like what happened in Greenlanders.
Also, reading it closely then I think that the wonder beaches might come after the keel, or at least that the keel was found along them, so that'd suggest that it is Cape Breton or the næs up at L'Aux de Meadows.
You do need to have the western side of whereever Kjalarnes is to be wilderness and have a river closing east to west after a long while. Whihc might suggest New Foundland more than Nova Scotia, due to Prince Edwards Island interfering. As in, I'd expect that to have been mentioned if they came down around it.
If you read two stories that seem complimentary, and they both talk about a cape/peninsula and give the cape/peninsula the same name, and give some other seemingly matching or similar detail, like a keel being on it, or found on it, or being posted on it, then the reader would naturally expect that the places with the same names were the same location in both stories.
Well, two places having the same name is extremely common in Scandinavia. Now, the keel detail given it's virgin land is important, though, unless it's a viking keel then it could just be from a skræling boat, in whihc case it'd not be the same place most likely.
And no, a reader would NOT naturally expect places with teh same name to be the same location.
Also remember that the sagas are NOT composed to be a long series, but rather are composed independently of each other. As such they needn't have details in common, even if they use similar names. And a name like keel næs is super generic.
One reason is that L'anse aux Meadows is on the north top of Newfoundland, and it's a Viking Settlement, and archaeologists say the Vikings settled it for about 10 years, in fact it's the only Viking settlement that they found south of Labrador. So it seems reasonable for mentioning the site of their settlement more than once, whereas the Saga doesn't say anthything more about Bjarney after mentioning the Vikings' visit to it where they found bear(s).
You can counterague this reason by proposing that L'anse aux Meadows' site perhaps wasn't built until sometime after the ending of the narrative of the Sagas, and that therefore the Vikings might not mention Bjarney again in the Sagas even if it were Newfoundland.
How is mentioning L'Aux des Meadows reasonable to expect? From what I understood then it was a repair site, and was used for 10 years tops. For all we know it could have been used just once or twice. Or it could have been connected to gathering timber from Markland and hence not really connected to going to Vinland.
Also, it could easily be other people than those in the sagas going there, in whihc case the site wouldn't be mentioned as the people in the sagas didn't go there. The sagas aren't historical documentaries of the area, but rather stories about people.
Also, my counterargument actually rather is that just because it's the only site we've found, doesn't mean it was the only one. It's just the one we've found. Like, say that Hob was in Rhode Island as you later propose. That woud be around Providence, and hence any traces likely long destroyed. Similarly rivers move and it was only temporary accomodations they build at the various camps they made in the sagas. Quite likely solely wooden structures, rather than made from stone. There's a chance they might have taken most of the buildings with them when they left, and in any case they're unlikely to not get destroyed by the weather soon.
L'Aux des Meadows also doesn't really fit with the explanations, as there just isn't the time to e.g. go down long beaches before reaching it. ANd there's not lots of isles and shallows west of it.
So rather my guess would be that it either was used once, perhaps twice (do we know for sure it was used for 10 years, or is it just that the dating has an uncertainty of 10 yeras?) or it was connected to getting timber from Markland, which we know was something that was done.
Also remember that there's likely lots of sources which have been lost.
In the English translations IIRC, it says that the sun was still up in the sky at 3 PM, not that the sun went down and set at 3 PM. The difference is that it technically only sets a northern limit if the text says that the sun was still up at 3 PM.
I'm in no way an expert on how the ancestors meassured time from the Sun. The footnote in the sagas mention that the horizon was divided into 8 points and that the mentioned ones, dagmål and øgt, are two of them. The saga says that teh Sun stood on the sky at dagmål and øgt. I read that as it rising at those places, but I could be wrong. I would be very interested in a guide to how these horizon points work.
In any case, the footnote states that it correlates to the Sun being visible from 9 to 15.
Right. If the Vikings thought that Vinland was connected to Africa, then theoretically it could have been that they had reached the Carribean or have reached Africa, as you suggest.
No, I specifically did not say they reached Særkland (Africa) from Vinland. They very much reached Særkland from Spain and the Roman Empire, but they didn't reach it from Vinland. But they did, afaik, reach lands warm enough that they thoguht that Vinland was connected to Særkland. Also, it wouldn't necessarily be the Caribbean. GA is very varm in the Summer, afaik, and the Carolinas might be too, but not sure. So could be they reached the Carolinas or GA and then thoguht it was so hot that the land had to be connectd to Særkland.
However, I meant that one factor in the likelihood of (A) the Norwegian idea about Vinland being connected to Africa being based on (B) an actual visit to the Carribean or to Africa is diminished by the likelihood of a Viking ship getting back to Greenland to tell the tale of the visit to the Carribean.
Firstly, why is it unlikely a ship would return?
Secondly, the Norse were extremely avid explorers. You almost certainly had way more exploration trips than what's recorded in the sagas, and it just takes a single one returning and telling about high heats.
And I think that while it's questionable whether the Vikings got to the Carribean, it's naturally even more questionable that they both got there and then made it all the way back to tell the story.
Again, you're thinking lake too narrowly, I think. Also, I think that Americans consider lakes to need ot be larger than we do. Like, we'll call it a lake if you have a body of water whihc just is like 10 feet in diameter. A lake can be really small. So if you have a bulge on a river, and the water isn't flowing (too much) from most of it, then I could see that being called a lake.
R3 is "intermediate level." Maybe if you have a team of Vikings paddling hard they could go upriver on one, but it doesn't feel liek the kind of thing that I imagine that they would choose to do on a boat with masts that they intend to take across the open seas. Here is WIkipedia's photo of R3 rapids in Tennessee:
In the Greenlanders' Saga's 3rd chapter, it gives the times that it took Bjarne to go between each of the four lands, but doesn't give a time for how long it took Leif to go between each land. In that Saga, the Vikings go back to the lands that Bjarne saw and then give them names like Helluland and Markland. So you can guess that the times would be about the same in that same Saga between Bjarne's trips between the 4 lands and Leif's trips between the 4 lands.
It specifically says that the island was along the coast from the third land. And then after the island they went to sea and later found Greenland.
And Leif only finds the coast with the island. Or rather, that's the only one stated to be where Bjerne was.
While Bjarne cleraly encountered Markland too, then the sagas says nothing about Leif reaching teh same parts of Markland as Bjarne.
Also, remember that it's not days, it's døgn in the original meaning, so half days pretty much. And it's more of a distance meassurement from what I understand than necessarily how long it took.
As in, if you have sailed for two døgn then it might be that you've sailed th distance of two døgn, rather than having sailed for two half days time wise.
Or perhaps it is the time meaning. I don't know it. But the explanation list at the back of the last tome is clear on døgn being a standardised unit of meassurement for sailing length, whihc you could give distances as a reference of. And that it was comparable to a døgn's uninterrupted sailing.
One can solidly say that in 1000 AD, during the start of the Medieval Warm period, they wouldn't be seeing glaciers as associated with Labrador, since they almost don't have them there today, and the climate was similar. Actually there are glaciers in Labrador, but they are quite inland and in the Torngat Mountains in the middle of the province.
No, just no. The Medieval Warming was NOT as hot as today. Globally it was significantly cooler and it was oinly int eh Northern Hemisphere there was a warming, and even then that was more limited to parts of the Northern hemisphere, e.g. England, not to all of it.
Below is a graph from Encyclopædia Britannica which shows that even for England temperatures today are higher. And that for the Northern Hemistphere in general they're much higher today. So we ca't use today to say whether tehre were glaciers that could be seen from the sea back then or not.
Medieval warm period (MWP), brief climatic interval that is hypothesized to have occurred from approximately 900 ce to 1300 (roughly coinciding with the Middle Ages in Europe), in which relatively warm conditions are said to have prevailed in various parts of the world, though predominantly in the
I am not sure how you don't see this as fitting with L'Anse aux Meadows, but in some ways it does fit, and in other ways, it does not fit. I underlined parts of what you wrote and numbered them.
(1) Suppose that the mainstream view is right that Markland = Labrador Peninsula. Then,
(2) Imagine the two days journey south from the east end of Labrador to a spot within about 10 miles of L'Anse aux Meadows. In real life, it would take less than 2 days to get from Cape Charles on the east end of Labrador to a spot around L'anse aux Meadows, so the sailing time looks like a big problem.
Well, L'Aux des Meadows could be keel næs potentially, albeit there's problems. But it can't be Leifsboder, as then where's the land to the west with islands and strong tides?
And when Thorvald breaks teh keel then he was going along the eastern coast and going norther too. It doesn't say which directin he does, though, but later, after teh keel is fixed, it says he's going eastwards, so unless he backtracked, which it doesn't talk about, then Leifsboder can't be L'Aux des Meadows, as there's just not the possibility of going east and norther before reaching a place to break the keel.
Albeit, I guess that Leif's camp could be down the western shore of New Foundland. Then it could fit, and then in Erik's saga they went down the eastern shore instead of the western one, which is why they didn't find Leifsboder.
(3) My impression is that when they got to Kjalarnes, and then went to the Wonder Strand Beaches they were sailing EASTWARD, because the land is on their Starboard side. The sandy beaches description in that case could be the long north-south northeast shore of Newfoundland east of L'anse aux Meadows.
Yes, they're sailing Easternwards. You've used directions weird multiple times, so I've actualyl started wondering if you have some trouble distinguishing east from west, as you have called east west or west east previously in this thread.
Anyway, they indeed would be going down the eastern shore to be able to have the land on starboard. Well, they could be going north, but that'd mean they came from the south whihc makes no sense, so they must be going down teh eastern coast.
And yes, it couuld be the long, north-south shore of New Foundland. And it is a good chance that Erik's is in New Foundland, for the ifrst part at least. But Greenlanders seems more likely to be down around Cape Breton, I think. Thouhg, could be New Foundland too.
To anwer your question, you cannot see from Labrador to Newfoundland, it seems, because the distance is at the closest 10.8 miles whereas you can typically just see 5 miles across the sea in any direction at sea level. Further, typically the distance looks like around 10.8-20 miles from Labrador to Newfoundland at the northeast area of Newfoundland, or 20-30 miles from the L'anse aux Meadows area.
20-30 miles can be seen during good weather from a hill at the very least, so it does seem like they might have been able to see it if they went ashore at the very least.
Here is a question for you @Wagonlitz: Does the Saga at this point imply that the Vikings DEPARTED from the coast of Kjalarnes and went away from its LANDMASS when in Sephton's translation they "left" the coast to get to the Wonder Strands? It sounds like the answer is NO, based on Jansson's translation.
Upon rereads I think it's on the same landmass.
But it does say that they crossed down the coast. Though, I think that might just indicate they sailed down it, but not sure, hence why I mentioned it.
But it specifically says crossed, but again, not sure it means deviating from the coast.
Well, it kinda is written as if it's the river that continues, but I read it more like it's the mouth of the lake. Like something like 10 or 20 m tops of flow before getting to the sea. Basically just enough to breach the barrier between lake and sea.
My understanding is that Hop means "tidal pool estuary" in Norse, and that this corresponds as a term with the sea area around what the Algonquins called Montaup Bay (today called Mount Hope) area of Rhode Island. In other words, Mount Hope Bay (in the map below) is a Tidal Pool Estuary:
I looked up beach lake in the Dictionary over the Danish Language, whihc is the authoritative one covering 1700-1950. It's generally where I go to find older meanings in more modern texts. It states that beach lake usually is a piece of sea enclosed by sand banks, e.g. a lagoon.
So we'd be looking for lagoons or similar. And there's lots of areas with sand banks enclosing the sea along Long Island, New Jersey, and the Delaware Peninsula. So could be any of those places for Hob.
Are tehre such places at New Foundland or Nova Scotia?
Though, peraps it used to have a different meaning back then. I dont' know. But then I'd assume there'd been a note. Albeit, not 100% that tidal pools can't be covered by beach lake.
The story of Kjalarnes/"Keel-Point" is in Chapter 6 of A. M. Reeves' translation of the Greenlanders' Saga:
Chapter 6
Thorvald goes to Vinland
Now Thorvald consulted his brother Leif and then prepared to make this voyage with thirty men. ... The following summer, Thorvald sailed out toward the east and along the northern coast. They were met by a high wind off a certain promontory and were driven ashore there, and damaged the keel of their ship, and had to remain there for a long time to repair the injury to their vessel. Then said Thorvald to his companions: ‘I propose that we raise the keel upon this cape, and call it Keel-point,’ and so they did.
The explanation can be that perhaps somewhere before the story on what Reeves calls "Keel-Point," one of these translations (Reeves' translation or your translation), marks part of the text as a separate chapter. This kind of issue happens with the Psalms, starting at Chapter 9.:
Hebrew Numbering
most English Numbering
Greek (LXX) Numbering and Latin Vulgate (V) Numbering
Anyway, it states that they out exploring for the entire summer, which is like mid April to mid October, in the west. And then the following year during summer they go east and north of the land, and there they break the keel. So they could have gone super far from Leifsboder before the keel breaks. Then afterwards they go east along the coast.
So we need a place where you can go west and spend six months exploring and there's shallw and lots of isles. And where you can go eat, and if you go east you have to go north as well to get around the land, and you meet a næs before you continue going east.
...
Up at L'Aux des Meadows you can go east, but you can't go east and north. And you're gonna get problems when looking for places to explore for 6 months going west, let along needing the shallows and isles.
Right. One reason that Leifsbudir likely isn't L'Anse aux Meadows is that it doesn't make much sense to have the Vikings go north from L'anse aux Meadows along the coast to break their keel, although it's possible if they went up east and north along Newfoundland from L'anse aux Meadows to Quirpon Island, NFLD and brotke it there. But more fundamentally, L'anse aux Meadows isn't by a LAKE or a RIVER like Leif's Budir is supposed to be.
Well, two places having the same name is extremely common in Scandinavia. Now, the keel detail given it's virgin land is important, though, unless it's a viking keel then it could just be from a skræling boat, in whihc case it'd not be the same place most likely.
And no, a reader would NOT naturally expect places with teh same name to be the same location.
Also remember that the sagas are NOT composed to be a long series, but rather are composed independently of each other. As such they needn't have details in common, even if they use similar names. And a name like keel næs is super generic.
All the articles and books where I recall reading discussions on the topic take Kjalarnes to be the same spot in both Sagas. I am not quite sure how to explain why a reader would be inclined to think that these are probably the same location in both Sagas, which was my sense when reading them. I agree that a spot by the same name in two different sources is not necessarily the same spot, but the more that the details and coincidences are the same (in this case a peninsula with a keel that is east of Leif's Budir), the more likely that these are the two spots. For instance, if I tell you that Bob visited Novgorod in Europe and found it cold, and Carl told you that John visited Novgorod in Europe and called it cold, you can guess that they are probably talking about the famous city in Russia. However, sometimes in Europe there are a couple cities and villages with the same name, so it's not necessarily the same spot.
Gisli Sigurdsson gives this discussion on the two "Kjalarnes" locations being the same:
Eiríks saga is perfectly clear about Karlsefni and Guðríðr going to places other than those explored by Leifr, both farther east and farther south. Again, when dealing with Kjalarnes and the stories surrounding it, Eiríks saga clearly assumes that its audience has some kind of prior knowledge of the events in question, a knowledge that must come from elsewhere since it is not in the saga as we know it. ....
The next summer {in the Greenlanders' Saga} he moves north and east, finally breaking his ship on a promontory at Kjalarnes (‘Keel Point’), which also comes into the account of Karlsefni and Guðríðr’s expedition in Eiríks saga rauða. ...
Here {in Eric the Red's Saga} they start by sailing, via a couple of stopovers, to a promontory where they find a broken ship’s keel and name the place Kjalarnes (‘Keel Point’). This seems to imply some kind of background knowledge of the story of Þorvaldr at Kjalarnes recorded in Grœnlendinga saga.
...
Of particular importance here is the interpretation of Kjalarnes, and in this we now have the advantage of a) being able to read the two sagas as manifestations of a single narrative tradition of the Vínland voyages, and b) being able to use L’Anse aux Meadows as a reference point
SOURCE: https://archive.chs.harvard.edu/CHS/article/display/6830.part-iii-the-sagas-and-truth-7-the-saga-map-of-vínland
How is mentioning L'Aux des Meadows reasonable to expect? From what I understood then it was a repair site, and was used for 10 years tops. For all we know it could have been used just once or twice. Or it could have been connected to gathering timber from Markland and hence not really connected to going to Vinland.
Also, it could easily be other people than those in the sagas going there, in whihc case the site wouldn't be mentioned as the people in the sagas didn't go there. The sagas aren't historical documentaries of the area, but rather stories about people.
...
L'Aux des Meadows also doesn't really fit with the explanations, as there just isn't the time to e.g. go down long beaches before reaching it. ANd there's not lots of isles and shallows west of it.
Really you have just been getting into evidence that can be argued either way (PRO or CONTRA) as to how strongly one would expect the Sagas to mention the landmass on which the Vikings built L'anse aux Meadows. So for instance on the PRO side, in his book that I quoted above, Sigurdsson suggests that L'anse aux Meadows is a "reference point" for indetifying places in the Sagas. If the Vikings didn't build many total settlements south of Labrador, as it seems that they didn't based on our known information, then the landmass on which they did build L'anse aux Meadows would be more likely to get their attention when writing those Sagas.
In the case of L'anse aux Meadows fitting with coordinates in the Sagas, the vicinity around Kjalarnes sounds most likely to me out of all the spots described in the Sagas because L'Anse aux Meadows AND Kjalarnes were both used for repairs; in contrast, I think that L'anse aux Meadows wouldn't be Leifsbudir, because L'anse aux Meadows isn't by a river-lake like Leifsbudir was.
I'm in no way an expert on how the ancestors meassured time from the Sun. The footnote in the sagas mention that the horizon was divided into 8 points and that the mentioned ones, dagmål and øgt, are two of them. The saga says that teh Sun stood on the sky at dagmål and øgt. I read that as it rising at those places, but I could be wrong. I would be very interested in a guide to how these horizon points work.
The Scandinavians lived in and colonized places so far north that the time measuring conventions of continental Europe were inadequate. Not only were the days of winter so much shorter than they we…
falconbanner.gladiusinfractus.com
Maybe there is more information in Scandinavian languages on this topic.
My understanding is that the Saga literally and technically talks about the time that the soon stood in the sky and was up in the sky, not explicitly the time when the sun crossed the horizon, ie. a literal sunrise and literal sunset. The difference is that if you only say that you are at a place where the sun is still up standing in the sky at 3 PM in mid-winter, you could be literally and technically be talking about anywhere from somewhere in Labrador to somewhere in South America.
So for instance, if I say "The sailboat is in Copenhagen at 3 PM," or "The airplane is in the air at 3 PM," or "The sun is up in the sky at 3 PM," I've technically only told you the location of those objects at 3 PM, not the time at which they enter or leave those locations.
But even if the Saga talks that way, the author might not mean that phrase in such a literal, technical way, and he might really be talking about sunrise and sunset, not just giving a literal minimum time limit for how long the sun was still up in the sky.
No, I specifically did not say they reached Særkland (Africa) from Vinland. They very much reached Særkland from Spain and the Roman Empire, but they didn't reach it from Vinland. But they did, afaik, reach lands warm enough that they thoguht that Vinland was connected to Særkland. Also, it wouldn't necessarily be the Caribbean. GA is very varm in the Summer, afaik, and the Carolinas might be too, but not sure. So could be they reached the Carolinas or GA and then thoguht it was so hot that the land had to be connectd to Særkland.
I read that the Vikings had a method that allowed them to measure their Latitudes. Tangier, Morocco is about 35.75 degrees Latitutde. By comparison, Roanoke island, North Carolina where the English made their first colony in the US, is at 35.9 degrees Latitude. Wilmington in southeast North Carolina is at ~34 degrees Latitude.
As far as termperatures, Florida is somewhat tropical, with south Florida not freezing in the winter. The southeast end of North Carolina (like Wilmington, NC) doesn't have snow in some winters. Here is a Fahrenheit heat map for the US to give you an idea of August temperatures:
My impression is that the only places known where people like the Norse asserted that Vinland or lands around it were in the range of Africa was in what I posted earlier, like the Historia Norwegiae.
And I think that while it's questionable whether the Vikings got to the Carribean, it's naturally even more questionable that they both got there and then made it all the way back to tell the story.
I don't have much opinion on the theory about Vikings going down to the Caribbean, except being somewhat skeptical because of factors like the extreme distance. It's about 1500 miles from Ireland to Newfoundland and then 1500 miles from L'anse aux Meadows to about the south end of Florida, then maybe another 300 miles to about the Mayans' civilization in the Yucatan. Then it would be another 1500 miles to get back from south Florida to L'anse aux Meadows. Then it would be ~500 miles if they sailed straight from L'anse aux Meadows to south Greenland instead of taking the longer route hugging the coast from L'anse aux Meadows to Labrador, then to Baffin Island, then to Greenland's south settlement, which would take another 1000 miles.
The part of the description about Hop in the Sagas where it says that it didn't snow in the winter sounds to me like the Carolinas or someplace farther south, BUT I guess it could also literally apply to as far north as southern New England.
I don't think I said that it's unlikely that the Vikings would have returned, but rather the added task of a return trip is a factor that would make the news of the trip to the Caribbean less likely.
For the Greenlanders Saga thn it doesn't give a time until they come to Helleland. Said land also is said to be the last land Bjarne had seen, and as such actually could be off the coast of Greenland. There also is no mention of them passing Bear Isles on the wya to Hellaland. That's only in Erik the Reds saga.
Also, note, Hellland and Markland both are extremely generic names. It's perfectly possible that the lands whihc were named Hellaland in Greenlanders and Erik the Reds actually are differnt islands. In fact, it's probably quite likelier than not that it's two different islands.
For instance the last island Bjarne found was along the coast from the third land he found, and the third land had high mountains with glaciers on top.
Also, Bjarne initially, after having been at sea for an unknown amount of time, found a flat, forest clad land. Then sailed two døgn and found another, simlar land. Three døgn and found the mountainous land. Sailed along coast (not clear if up or down it) and found island. Then said four døgn in strong winds and found Greenland, and that seems to have been the southern tip they found, given Bjarne ended up living with Erik and Leif learnt about new lands from him. - Wagonlitz
"In the Greenlanders' Saga's 3rd chapter, it gives the times that it took Bjarne to go between each of the four lands, but doesn't give a time for how long it took Leif to go between each land. In that Saga, the Vikings go back to the lands that Bjarne saw and then give them names like Helluland and Markland. So you can guess that the times would be about the same in that same Saga between Bjarne's trips between the 4 lands and Leif's trips between the 4 lands." - Rakovsky
It specifically says that the island was along the coast from the third land. And then after the island they went to sea and later found Greenland.
And Leif only finds the coast with the island. Or rather, that's the only one stated to be where Bjerne was.
While Bjarne cleraly encountered Markland too, then the sagas says nothing about Leif reaching teh same parts of Markland as Bjarne.
I don't know if there is a problem in one of our translations or in our interpretations.
In Reeves' translation of the Greenlanders' Saga, Bjarne realizes that the third land, Helluland (Baffin Island), is actually "an island," and the Saga doesn't say that there was an island along the coast of the third land.
They sailed out upon the high seas with southwesterly gales for three days when they saw the third land; this land was high and mountainous, with glaciers upon it. They asked Biarni then whether he would land there, and he replied that he did not wish to do so because this land does not appear to me to offer any attractions.’ This time they did not lower their sail but held their course off the land and saw that it was an island.
The Greenlanders' Saga gives the impression that on Bjarne's journey and on Leif's journey, the Vikings see at least 2 of the same landmasses (Helluland and Markland), whereas I think that the text is alittle ambiguous as to whether the first landmass that Bjarni finds is clearly the same exact landmass that the Vikings find when they sail southwest from Markland to the northward cape to get to Leifsbudir.
In order to give a more reliable explanation about Bjarni's journey, I will quote from the Old Norse text below, and give Jansson's 1944 translation, and then break down the passages into sections for each landmass:
En þó halda þeir nú í haf, þegar þeir váru búnir, ok sigldu þrjá daga, þar til er landit var vatnat, en þá tók af byrina, ok lagði á norrœnur ok þokur, ok vissu þeir eigi, hvert at þeir fóru, ok skipti þat mǫrgum dœgrum.
1. BJARNI FINDS THE FIRST, SMALL HILLED, WOODED LAND (SOUTH OF MARKLAND)
But despite this they put out to sea when they were ready, and sailed for three days until they were out of sight of land, and then the wind dropped, and there came breezes from the north and fogs, and they had no idea where they were going, and this continued for many days.
Eftir þat sá þeir sól ok máttu þá deila ættir. Vinda nú segl ok sigla þetta dœgr, áðr þeir sá land, ok rœddu um með sér, hvat landi þetta mun vera, en Bjarni kvezk hyggja, at þat mundi eigi Grœnland.
After this they saw the sun and were able to get their bearings. They hoist sail and sail for that day until they saw land, and discussed among themselves what land this might be, but Bjarni says he doesn’t think this could be Greenland.
Þeir spyrja, hvárt hann vill sigla at þessu landi eða eigi.
They ask whether he wants to sail up to this land or not.
‘Þat er mitt ráð, at sigla í nánd við landit.’
‘It’s my advice that we sail close in to the land.’
Ok svá gera þeir ok sá þat brátt, at landit var ófjǫllótt ok skógi vaxit, ok smár hæðir á landinu, ok létu landit á bakborða ok létu skaut horfa á land.
This they do, and saw quickly that the land was low-lying and wooded, with small hills on shore, and they turned to keep the land to port and the sail-end facing toward the shore.
Síðan sigla þeir tvau dœgr, áðr þeir sá land annat.
2. BJARNI FINDS THE SECOND, FLAT WOODED LAND (MARKLAND)
Then they sail for two days before they saw another land.
Þeir spyrja, hvárt Bjarni ætlaði þat enn Grœnland.
They ask whether Bjarni supposes it is Greenland yet.
Hann kvazk eigi heldr ætla þetta Grœnland en it fyrra, ‘því at jǫklar eru mjǫk miklir sagðir á Grœnlandi.’
He said he didn’t think this was Greenland any more than the previous time, ‘because there are said to be very big glaciers in Greenland.’
Þeir nálguðusk brátt þetta land ok sá þat vera slétt land ok viði vaxið. Þá tók af byr fyrir þeim. Þá rœddu hásetar þat, at þeim þótti þat ráð, at taka þat land, en Bjarni vill þat eigi. Þeir þóttusk bæði þurfa við ok vatn.
They quickly came in closer to this land and saw it to be flat and even land and wooded. Then the wind dropped on them. The crew declared that they thought it would be a good idea to land there, but Bjarni doesn’t want to. They claimed they needed both timber and water.
‘At engu eruð þér því óbirgir,’ segir Bjarni, en þó fékk hann af því nǫkkut ámæli af hásetum sínum.
‘You’re not in short supply of any of that,’ says Bjarni, and for this he got a fair amount of complaints from his crew.
Hann bað þá vinda segl, ok svá var gǫrt, ok settu framstafn frá landi ok sigla í haf útsynnings byr þrjú dœgr ok sá þá land it þriðja. En þat land var hátt ok fjǫllótt ok jǫkull á.
3. BJARNI FINDS THE THIRD, GLACIERED, MOUNTAINOUS LAND (HELLULAND); THIS WAS AN ISLAND
He told them to raise the sail, and this was done, and they turned the prow away from land and sailed out to sea on a southwesterly wind for three days and then saw a third land. This land was high and mountainous, with a glacier on it.
Þeir spyrja þá, ef Bjarni vildi at landi láta þar, en hann kvazk eigi þat vilja, ‘því at mér lízk þetta land ógagnvænligt.’
They then ask if Bjarni wanted to make for land here but he said he didn’t want to, ‘because this land doesn’t look to me likely to be of any use.’
Nú lǫgðu þeir eigi segl sitt, halda með landinu fram ok sá, at þat var eyland; settu enn stafn við því landi ok heldu í haf inn sama byr. En veðr óx í hǫnd, ok bað Bjarni þá svipta ok eigi sigla meira en bæði dygði vel skipi þeira ok reiða. Sigldu nú fjǫgur dœgr.
This time they did not take down the sail and keep along the coast and saw that this was an island. They turned the stern back to land and held out to sea on the same breeze. Shortly afterwards the wind got up, and Bjarni told them to lower the sail and not sail harder than their ship and tackle could easily take. Now they sailed for four days.
Þá sá þeir land it fjórða. Þá spurðu þeir Bjarna, hvárt hann ætlaði þetta vera Grœnland eða eigi.
4. BJARNI FINDS THE FOURTH LAND, GREENLAND
Then they saw a fourth land. Then they asked Bjarni whether he reckoned this was Greenland or not.
Bjarni svarar: ‘Þetta er líkast því, er mér er sagt frá Grœnlandi, ok hér munu vér at landi halda.’
Bjarni answers: ‘This is much more like what I’ve been told of Greenland, and we’ll make for land here.’
To reiterate, for Landmass Number Three, Bjarni sailed for three days and came to the "third land. This land was high and mountainous, with a glacier on it... {Bjarni and his sailors} keep along the coast {of the third land} and saw that this {third land} was an island.
Later, the Saga explains that Bjarni's Third, Glaciered Land is Helluland. It also describes Markland as the flat wooded land that Leif finds as over from Helluland, although FWIW, this time the Saga doesn't specify that Markland was technically the same land as the second one that Bjarni found:
Now they fitted out their ship and sailed out to sea when they were ready, and came first to the land that Bjarni and his men had found last. ... Higher up it was all great glaciers, and as if it were all a single slab of flat rock right the way to the glaciers from the sea...
Then Leifr said: ‘Things have turned out differently with this land for us than for Bjarni, not setting foot on it. Now I will give the land a name and call it Helluland.’
Then they returned to ship. After this they put out to sea and found a second land. Again they sail to the shore and drop anchor, then launch a boat and go ashore. This land was flat and even and wooded, with wide expanses of white sands where they found themselves, and shelving gently down to the sea. Then Leifr said: ‘I shall give this land a name according to its qualities and call it Markland.’
Sigurdsson proposes about this passage that these are two of the same lands that Bjarni found::
Here Leifr sets out deliberately to explore the lands seen earlier by Bjarni, giving the two most northerly the names Helluland (‘Land of the Stone Slab,’ ‘Flat Rock Land’) and Markland (‘Forest Land’). Having sailed along the mainland coast of Markland for an unspecified time—in general, sailing times are given only when on open waters—he heads out to sea on a northeasterly wind (the natural interpretation of ‘landnyrðingsveðr’ in Norwegian directional usage) and sails on for two days.
Well, L'Aux des Meadows could be keel næs potentially, albeit there's problems. But it can't be Leifsboder, as then where's the land to the west with islands and strong tides?
Then the area to the west with islands and shallows could be the west side of Newfoundland, farther south. There are some islands occasionally on that western side of Newfoundland. However, I share your disagreement that L'anse aux Meadows is Leifsbudir.
Here is a question for you @Wagonlitz: Does the Saga at this point imply that the Vikings DEPARTED from the coast of Kjalarnes and went away from its LANDMASS when in Sephton's translation they "left" the coast to get to the Wonder Strands? It sounds like the answer is NO, based on Jansson's translation. - Rakovsky
Upon rereads I think it's on the same landmass.
But it does say that they crossed down the coast. Though, I think that might just indicate they sailed down it, but not sure, hence why I mentioned it.
But it specifically says crossed, but again, not sure it means deviating from the coast.
This sounds like maybe a translation problem with the Danish translation using the word "crossed", or else an issue with saying that they left the "land" on their starboard, @Wagonlitz
In Jansson's 1944 translation, there is no issue of leaving or "crossing" the coast to get from Kjalarnes to the Wonder Strands.
In Sephton's 1880 translation, the Vikings "cruised along the land" (not "crossed" it), "leaving" the land "on the starboard side", which is ambiguous: "There was a cape to which they came. They cruised along the land, leaving it on the starboard side. There was a harbourless coast-land, and long sandy strands." (Sephton's translation)
That is, if you sail and "leave" the land on your starboard side, it isn't clear if that means that you are staying by the land and leaving it in the sense of just keeping it on your side, or else leaving it on the side in the sense of departing the land. Technically, if you "leave" the land on your side in the pure sense of the phrase, you never actually "leave" the coastal area in the sense of departure, or else the land would no longer be on your side, but rather behind you.
So in a literal, strict reading of eaven Sephton's translation, it sounds like they never depart far from the coast, they only keep it on their right side, because otherwise they would "leave" the coast behind them.
Here is the Norse text, so you can get a better sense of whether it says "crossed" anywhere here: þa er lidin uorv tvau dægr sia þeir . lannd . ok þeir sigldu unndir lanndit . þar . var nes er þeir kvomu at þeir. beittu med lanndinu ok letv lanndit aa stiorn borda.
Based on Google Translatie, the underlined part would be something like this in Danish:
og de sejlede under landet. der. var nes, da de kom, at de bruge jorden og lade jorden aa stiorn borda.
None of these words seem to say "crossed", but probably "okletv lanndit aa stiorn borda." means something like "and left land at the starboard."
BTW, Wow, sometimes Scandinavian speech is a lot like English.
"My understanding is that Hop means "tidal pool estuary" in Norse, and that this corresponds as a term with the sea area around what the Algonquins called Montaup Bay (today called Mount Hope) area of Rhode Island. In other words, Mount Hope Bay (in the map below) is a Tidal Pool Estuary:" - Rakovsky
I looked up beach lake in the Dictionary over the Danish Language, whihc is the authoritative one covering 1700-1950. It's generally where I go to find older meanings in more modern texts. It states that beach lake usually is a piece of sea enclosed by sand banks, e.g. a lagoon.
So we'd be looking for lagoons or similar. And there's lots of areas with sand banks enclosing the sea along Long Island, New Jersey, and the Delaware Peninsula. So could be any of those places for Hob.
Are tehre such places at New Foundland or Nova Scotia?
Right. There is a long line of "barrier islands" that runs south from Long Island to the Carolinas. The Outerbanks of the Carolinas come to mind easily for me because that is certainly one of the places where England's 1585 Lost Colony of Roanoke Island, NC's colonists went to.
However, scholars writing on this topic have found lagoons on Newfoundland and Nova Scotia as Traustason's map shows. But there seem to be alot more of these in closer vicinity to eachother in southeast New England, per his map:
See the blue circles in the map above for lagoons and "barachois."
The Wikipedia article on Barachois says:
A barachois is a term used in Atlantic Canada, Saint Pierre and Miquelon, Réunion and Mauritius to describe a coastal lagoon partially or totally separated from the ocean by a sand or shingle bar. ... The term comes from a Basque word, barratxoa, meaning little bar. ...
Dark Harbour, Grand Manan, New Brunswick (photo)
...
Grand Barachois, Miquelon Island {near NFLD}
...
Barachois Pond Provincial Park in western Newfoundland
Big Barasway and Little Barasway, communities on Newfoundland's Cape Shore
...
Topsail Beach Provincial Park, Topsail {NFLD}
Former settlement of Freshwater, near St John's, Newfoundland.
Great Barachois, near Petit-de-Grat, Nova Scotia
On phone so not gonna reply to your post atm, plus I'm not home so no access to my saga copies.
Anyway, wanted to mention this while I remember.
I just crossed te Great Belt. It'd upwards of 20 miles wide at places, and for the bridge it's 11 miles and that really os the narrowest part.
I could see Romsø clearly in the distance while out on the low bridge and there's around 15 miles to it depending on where exactly you measure from. And I could see parts of Sjælland in the distance too.
Given the angle of the bridge and the side I'm sitting in then it most likely was not the part where the tunnel resurfaces I could see, but rather the parts further in.
If so then I could see it 20 to 25 miles away. It was clear there was land there. Like you couldn't see specific details, but there clearly was land.
And I'm not really much higher up than you'd be on a ship.
So yeah, my point is that you need to account for how tall the land is when talking about how far you can see at sea.
And I do know of places where you can see 40 miles or more, albeit that's the top of some hills.
As a curious thing then the parts of Sjælland I could see, likely 20 to 25 miles away as mentioned, had the clouds be in a way that it looked like there was big glaciers there.
Obviously there's not, but were I an explorer first encountering the land then I'd report back that there was glaciers, if all I saw was the land from afar without getting closer.
So yeah, that needs to be kept in mind. If only seen from afar then the mentioned glaciers could be phony.
I looked at Chapter 3 in the Greenlanders' Saga again to get a better sense of whether the small-hilled, wooded First Land that Bjarni found was Kjalarnes Peninsula and/or Newfoundland.
It describes Bjarni's journey from Iceland to his First Land and then to the Second Land this way:
OLD NORSE
En þó halda þeir nú í haf, þegar þeir váru búnir, ok sigldu þrjá daga, þar til er landit var vatnat, en þá tók af byrina, ok lagði á norrœnur ok þokur, ok vissu þeir eigi, hvert at þeir fóru, ok skipti þat mǫrgum dœgrum.
JANSSON'S 1944 TRANSLATION
But despite this they put out to sea when they were ready, and sailed for three days until they were out of sight of land, and then the wind dropped, and there came breezes from the north and fogs, and they had no idea where they were going, and this continued for many days.
Eftir þat sá þeir sól ok máttu þá deila ættir. Vinda nú segl ok sigla þetta dœgr, áðr þeir sá land, ok rœddu um með sér, hvat landi þetta mun vera, en Bjarni kvezk hyggja, at þat mundi eigi Grœnland.
After this they saw the sun and were able to get their bearings. They hoist sail and sail for that day until they saw land, and discussed among themselves what land this might be, but Bjarni says he doesn’t think this could be Greenland.
Þeir spyrja, hvárt hann vill sigla at þessu landi eða eigi.
They ask whether he wants to sail up to this land or not.
‘Þat er mitt ráð, at sigla í nánd við landit.’
‘It’s my advice that we sail close in to the land.’
Ok svá gera þeir ok sá þat brátt, at landit var ófjǫllótt ok skógi vaxit, ok smár hæðir á landinu, ok létu landit á bakborða ok létu skaut horfa á land.
This they do, and saw quickly that the land was low-lying and wooded, with small hills on shore, and they turned to keep the land to port and the sail-end facing toward the shore.
Síðan sigla þeir tvau dœgr, áðr þeir sá land annat.
Then they sail for two days before they saw another land.
Þeir spyrja, hvárt Bjarni ætlaði þat enn Grœnland.
They ask whether Bjarni supposes it is Greenland yet.
Hann kvazk eigi heldr ætla þetta Grœnland en it fyrra, ‘því at jǫklar eru mjǫk miklir sagðir á Grœnlandi.’
He said he didn’t think this was Greenland any more than the previous time, ‘because there are said to be very big glaciers in Greenland.’
Þeir nálguðusk brátt þetta land ok sá þat vera slétt land ok viði vaxið. Þá tók af byr fyrir þeim. Þá rœddu hásetar þat, at þeim þótti þat ráð, at taka þat land, en Bjarni vill þat eigi. Þeir þóttusk bæði þurfa við ok vatn.
They quickly came in closer to this land and saw it to be flat and even land and wooded. Then the wind dropped on them. The crew declared that they thought it would be a good idea to land there, but Bjarni doesn’t want to. They claimed they needed both timber and water.
Issue I. The time and distance to sight land
One part of this passage that felt odd for me is that they sailed for 3 days and then were out of sight of land, but this initially sounded like too long a time to still be within sight of land. By comparison, later in the same Saga, the Vikings take 3 days to sail between Helluland (Baffin Island) and Markland (Labrador Peninsula), a distance in real life of about 100 miles. Scholars think that Viking ships normally sailed at a rate of 7 mph, so in 36 hours for a daylight "day," they would travel 252 miles.
The article "Can you see Greenland from Iceland" says that if a person stands at 98 feet above sea level, the horizon line is visible at 12 miles away. If at person stands at 2,717 feet above ground, the horizon is 64 miles away. (https://scandinaviafacts.com/can-you-see-greenland-from-iceland/)
I notice that Mt. Eyjafjallajökull in southwest Iceland is 5,466 ft tall, but it's about 70 miles east of the west end of Iceland that Bjarni would have seen near Grindavik if he left Iceland by sailing from Reykjavik. Mt. Snæfellsjökull west of Reykjavik is 4,744 ft tall. So it seems reasonable to think that at around 3 days' sailing, the Vikings reached 100 miles from Iceland and they lost sight of the land.
The issue of the time and distance that it takes to sight points of land is relevant because the Vikings give the time that they sailed southwest and south from Labrador before sighting land.
The north end of Cape Breton at Cape St. Lawrence, reaches ~850 feet above sea level. But with the exception of Cape Breton Island and the mountainous Gaspe' Peninsula (Mt. St. Alban at the east end reaches 919 ft; the mountains 20 miles west from the east end might reach up to 466 m / ~1530 ft), the other coasts around the St. Lawrence Gulf south of Labrador don't have an especially high elevation. For instance, Paquetville, New Brunswick near the east end of Chaleur Bay's south shore is 200 feet above sea level. The north end of Newfoundland between Lock's Cove and L'Anse aux Meadows reaches over 300 meters (~1000 feet) ~10 miles south of L'anse aux Meadows, but around L'anse aux Meadows, it reaches around 100 m. (~300 ft).
So it sounds like you might see Cape Breton from ~25 mi to the north, the Gaspe' Peninsula from ~25 miles to the east, Paquetville, N.B. from ~20 mi to the east, and the north end of Newfoundland from ~12 miles to the north. Actually, this suggests to me that these area's elevations for the distances to sight land is a secondary factor in judging "2 day" distances around Vinland, because the Vikings sailed ~66 to ~250 miles in 2 days in the two Sagas.
Issue II. The route that Bjarni sailed from Iceland on a real world map.
The Story makes it sound as if the Vikings began by sailing west to Greenland for 100 to 252 miles, depending on how fact you estimate their sailing speeds to be. Then they lost sight of land and a southward wind blew them for a long time while they were still trying to sail west.
I am attaching a map below of the North Atlantic that shows the Gulf Stream with a thick red set of arrows. On this map, I've charted two different potential routes that Bjarni might have taken if he sailed west from Iceland to try to get to Greenland for three days and then was blown southward. The difference between the two routes depends on how strongly the curve in his route would bend, depending on the strength and consistency of the wind. The farther directly south that the wind took Bjarni, the more likely that he would run into a strong Gulf Current that would push him back to Europe, so the brown route seems more likely than the dark red route in the map below. In turn, this makes it seem more likely that Bjarni sailed to Newfoundland than to Nova Scotia, although theoretically either region could be reached by sailing southwest from Iceland to eastern Canada.
In the map below, I am showing a more detailed map of the North Atlantic's currents, showing how the currents could carry sailors from west of Iceland to Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. Supposing that Bjarni sailed south with the "Labrador Current," it looks more likely that he would reach Newfoundland first before reaching Nova Scotia, as Newfoundland practically lies between Iceland and Nova Scotia. However, it still looks theoretically possible that Bjarni could have somehow circumvented Newfoundland on his southward trip and arrived in Nova Scotia.
Here is a third map of the North Atlantic that shows the curvature of the Earth with longitudinal lines. This can better help show the range of routes that Bjarni might have taken:
The Saga describes Bjarni's First Land as having "small hills." Later in the Greenlanders' Saga, Thorvald finds possible habitations that looks like hills in the fjord by Krossanes (Cross Point), but these are probably not the same kind of "hills" and I don't see any other region in the two Sagas as specifically being said to have "hills." My impression is that "hills" are typically 1000 feet (~300 meters) tall at most. So a small hill would be maybe 330 ft. or 125 m. Newfoundland's east coast seems to resemble small hills more than Nova Scotia's east coast, whiereas the latter seems flatter than the former. But this description might apply to either region.
Issue III. How the Vikings got from the small-hilled First Land to the Second Land (Markland, Labrador Peninsula)
One question is whether the phrase "ok létu landit á bakborða ok létu skaut horfa á land" in the text below about the First Land means that the Vikings (A) sailed along the First Land's coast with it on their port side, or if (B) they departed away from that coast, leaving the shore on their port side.
‘Þat er mitt ráð, at sigla í nánd við landit.’
‘It’s my advice that we sail close in to the land.’
Ok svá gera þeir ok sá þat brátt, at landit var ófjǫllótt ok skógi vaxit, ok smár hæðir á landinu, ok létu landit á bakborða ok létu skaut horfa á land.
This they do, and saw quickly that the land was low-lying and wooded, with small hills on shore, and they turned to keep the land to port and the sail-end facing toward the shore.
Síðan sigla þeir tvau dœgr, áðr þeir sá land annat.
Then they sail for two days before they saw another land.
The answer to this question seems to be (A), because they turned their boat so that the land was on their "port side" and then sailed in that manner. Since their general direction was intended to go to Greenland, and since the land was on their left side after reaching the land directly from Iceland, the implication seems to be that they were traveling north or west along the coast, so that the land;s coast would be a north-facing or east-facing coast. When it says that the "sail end" was facing the shore, this seems to also mean that their boat was sailing in a west or northwestward direction if the wind was still coming in a westward or southwestward direction like it was earlier in their voyage for them to get west across the Atlantic.
It also sounds like the phrase about keeping the land to their portside does not mean that they departed away from the coastline, because in contrast, later the same Saga does specifically say that the Vikings left the Third Land at their stern (ie. behind them) when the Vikings sailed from the Third Land to the Fourth Land (Greenland). In that later case, the text says: "This time {ie. when at the Third Land} they did not take down the sail and keep along the coast and saw that this was an island. They turned the stern back to land {ie. the Third Land} and held out to sea on the same breeze."
Furthermore, when the Saga talks about the journey from the First Land to the Second Land, there is ambiguity whether the Vikings actually lost sight of the first land when going to the second land. The text simply says that the land was on their port side, and "Then they sail for two days before they saw another land." So conceivably, they could be sailing for two days along the first land, ie. in sight of it, until seeing another (ie. second) land.
If the Vikings were sailing along the First Land when they came within sight of the Second Land (Markland), their journey sounds more like a voyage from Newfoundland to Labrador's Peninsula than from Cape Breton Island northward. Since the distance from Newfoundland's north end to its east end stretches for well over 310 miles, there would be more than enough coastline for the Vikings to arrive at a spot on Newfoundland's northeast coast and then sail to its north end and see Labrador. Regarding the distances to see from one landmass to the other, it's only 10.8 to about 30 miles from Newfoundland's north end to Labrador, whereas it's about 67 miles northeast from Cape Breton's north end to Newfoundland, and 215 miles from Cape Breton to the Labrador Peninsula.
On the other hand, the text could simply be ambiguous as to whether at some point in their two days' sailing voyrage from arriving at the First Land the Vikings left sight of that First Land to sail to the Second Land.
Otherwise, if one reads the Saga to mean that the Vikings sailed 2 days from a departure point into the sea away from the First Land's coastline to the Second Land, the 2 days seems too long for a journey from Newfoundland to the Labrador Peninsula. This is because it's only about 20 to 30 miles from Newfoundland's north end in a northward direction to Labrador's coast, and the Vikings would probably see Labrador's coast from perhaps 10-20 miles away due to its ~600 ft (!200 m) tall hills.
Scholars have a solid consensus on the following locations, and they are easily demonstrable:
Brattahlid (south end of Greenland)
Vestribygd (Western Settlement, near Nuuk)
Bjarneyar (Bear Islands, chain of coastal Greenland islands north of Nuuk, like Disko Island)
Helluland (Flat Stone Land, Baffin Island)
Markland (Forest land, Labrador Peninsula)
Where the locations become uncertain is with the lands of:
Bjarni's small-hilled, wooded First Land (west and south of Iceland, and east or south of Markland/Labrador Peninsula)
Bjarney (Bear Island on the southeast of Markland/Labrador Peninsula)
Kjalarnes (Keel Peninsula, a peninsuls south of Markland/Labrador Peninsula in each Saga and with a side on the Atlantic coast in Eric the Red's Saga)
You are smart and are familiar with Scandinavian languages, @Wagonlitz , and I understand that it's harder to write using your phone. So I include the Old Norse text and translations. You can find three Danish translation of the Greenlanders' Saga here: heimskringla.no/wiki/Gr%C3%B8nl%C3%A6ndernes_saga so you don't have to check your hardcopy books.
My suggestion is that we address each of these three uncertain lands in a simple way, starting with Bjarni's First Land. In my last message, #104, I gave the reasons why it looks much more likely that this land is Newfoundland, with Nova Scotia being a much weaker possibility.
Scholars have a solid consensus on the following locations, and they are easily demonstrable:
Brattahlid (south end of Greenland)
Vestribygd (Western Settlement, near Nuuk)
Bjarneyar (Bear Islands, chain of coastal Greenland islands north of Nuuk, like Disko Island)
Helluland (Flat Stone Land, Baffin Island)
Markland (Forest land, Labrador Peninsula)
Where the locations become uncertain is with the lands of:
Bjarni's small-hilled, wooded First Land (west and south of Iceland, and east or south of Markland/Labrador Peninsula)
Bjarney (Bear Island on the southeast of Markland/Labrador Peninsula)
Kjalarnes (Keel Peninsula, a peninsuls south of Markland/Labrador Peninsula in each Saga and with a side on the Atlantic coast in Eric the Red's Saga)
You are smart and are familiar with Scandinavian languages, @Wagonlitz , and I understand that it's harder to write using your phone. So I include the Old Norse text and translations. You can find three Danish translation of the Greenlanders' Saga here: heimskringla.no/wiki/Gr%C3%B8nl%C3%A6ndernes_saga so you don't have to check your hardcopy books.
My suggestion is that we address each of these three uncertain lands in a simple way, starting with Bjarni's First Land. In my last message, #104, I gave the reasons why it looks much more likely that this land is Newfoundland, with Nova Scotia being a much weaker possibility.
One thing to note about Markland is that scholars are not entirely agreed on how far it extended. It almost certainly referred to Labrador but, I recall having read somewhere, may have extended to Newfoundland, the northeastern coast of which continues the line of the Labrador coast. Apparently some scholars argue that the Norse could have missed the channel between the two or mistook it for a bay. Or the saga writers may have mixed up the geography, either through misinterpreting their source or because something had been misremembered along the way (some 3 or 4 centuries passed between the journeys and the writing).
You said you rather want faster replies over thorough ones.
So here is a fast one. I went over several of your points fast, so might well have missed stuff, but that's how it is when fast replies are given.
I am not quite sure how to explain why a reader would be inclined to think that these are probably the same location in both Sagas, which was my sense when reading them.
You are looking at this from a modern POV. People back then might not have known both stories, in fact, the fact that they name keel næs again, despit it having been named already, suggests that the previous story might not be full known, or at least not expected known.
It really feels a lot like you are looking at things from a modern POV, when you need to look at it from the POV of back then. What would they have known and expected. Like, I have seen maps of Jutland from the 1500s that gets it's shape way wrong, as inland measurements were hard and the travels by ship got the shame wrong. It's not too bad, but it is noticeably wrong.
I do think it probably are teh same places, due to the keel. Though, it's not mentioned if it's a native keel or not. But merely having two places named the sam like this wouldn't necessarily mean anything. And your Novgorod example really shows how you can't look at it from a modern POV.
If the Vikings didn't build many total settlements south of Labrador, as it seems that they didn't based on our known information, then the landmass on which they did build L'anse aux Meadows would be more likely to get their attention when writing those Sagas.
We don't know they didn't build many settlements. And if the landmass was considered part of Markland, then no, they'd not mention it specifically, but rather call if Markland. Like, from my trip the other day then I have no doubts that they'd have been able to see New Foundland from Labrador, meaning that it could easily have been seen as part of Markland. Especially if they didn't go down the straight between Labrador and New Foundland, as then they'd not know that it was an island, but could think that the land was connected and that the straight was a fjord.
Thanks. That did help me better visualise it. That was pretty much kind of what I had imagined, just with the 8 times including nighttimes too which I hadn't realised and then also the using landmarks for teh points in time, whihc I also hadn't considered.
Maybe there is more information in Scandinavian languages on this topic.
My understanding is that the Saga literally and technically talks about the time that the soon stood in the sky and was up in the sky, not explicitly the time when the sun crossed the horizon, ie. a literal sunrise and literal sunset. The difference is that if you only say that you are at a place where the sun is still up standing in the sky at 3 PM in mid-winter, you could be literally and technically be talking about anywhere from somewhere in Labrador to somewhere in South America.
So for instance, if I say "The sailboat is in Copenhagen at 3 PM," or "The airplane is in the air at 3 PM," or "The sun is up in the sky at 3 PM," I've technically only told you the location of those objects at 3 PM, not the time at which they enter or leave those locations.
But even if the Saga talks that way, the author might not mean that phrase in such a literal, technical way, and he might really be talking about sunrise and sunset, not just giving a literal minimum time limit for how long the sun was still up in the sky.
The way I read it, including how I read the foot note in the saga explainign the time keeping, then the Sun would have risen around dagmål and set around øgt. As in, that'd have been when it crossed the horizon. And that's around 9 and 15 rspectively, albeit obviously given there's only 8 parts then it could have been actually say 7.40 and still be lumped as dagmål rather than the earlier one, due to being closer. Or perhaps they'd have said it was midways betwen th previous one and dagmål, no idea. My point is that it needn't be exactly 9 and 15, as it'd just be that that was what fitted best.
But it clearly seems to be that it's the listing for when ti crossed the horizon, and nothing else makes sense with how it's written.
I don't have much opinion on the theory about Vikings going down to the Caribbean, except being somewhat skeptical because of factors like the extreme distance. It's about 1500 miles from Ireland to Newfoundland and then 1500 miles from L'anse aux Meadows to about the south end of Florida, then maybe another 300 miles to about the Mayans' civilization in the Yucatan. Then it would be another 1500 miles to get back from south Florida to L'anse aux Meadows. Then it would be ~500 miles if they sailed straight from L'anse aux Meadows to south Greenland instead of taking the longer route hugging the coast from L'anse aux Meadows to Labrador, then to Baffin Island, then to Greenland's south settlement, which would take another 1000 miles.
Firstly reachign the Caribbean needn't mean reaching the Mayans. Could jsut be reaching Florida.
Also, a large expedition disappearing likely would be listed. Like, you even have that one that got blown to Ireland noted, so I do think it's likely that the news got back or that it'd be listed that an expedition disappeared.
And the distances really shouldn't matter. Viking trips easily could be that long or longer, and it wasn't uncommon for them to be out all Summer, which is 6 months and hence plenty of time to go there if needed.
In Reeves' translation of the Greenlanders' Saga, Bjarne realizes that the third land, Helluland (Baffin Island), is actually "an island," and the Saga doesn't say that there was an island along the coast of the third land.
Reading it again then I agree that the island part likely is referring to the third land, and not an island they found downt eh coast of the third land.
The Greenlanders' Saga gives the impression that on Bjarne's journey and on Leif's journey, the Vikings see at least 2 of the same landmasses (Helluland and Markland), whereas I think that the text is alittle ambiguous as to whether the first landmass that Bjarni finds is clearly the same exact landmass that the Vikings find when they sail southwest from Markland to the northward cape to get to Leifsbudir.
I don't see how Bjarne's Markland would necessarily be the same as Leif's. Well, it'd be Labrador/NF, but it most likely wouldn't be the same place.
Also, for Hellaland then if it's to be clearly an island then it'd more litelyl be a small island, e.g. Resolution Island.
Baffin Island is way too big to notice being an is just from sailing a bit along its coast, and I doubt they went up to Bylot island and even if they did it might well not be obvious it's an island due to ice, etc.
This sounds like maybe a translation problem with the Danish translation using the word "crossed", or else an issue with saying that they left the "land" on their starboard, @Wagonlitz
Why do you keep thinking that it's the Danish version that necessarily has a problem, when it easily and quite likely could be the English. Like, the Danish one is made by teh institute that Arne Magnussen founded, and where all the AM numberings of teh manuscripts come from. And it was made by lots of researchers in unison.
Anyway, I looked up the word crossed in an old dictionary and saw that it can be used to denote sailing in a zig zag pattern to move forward against a bad wind.
And that's an example of why even when doing a fast post I still need to look things up, or we could end up discussing this forever.
Also, I did say previously that it culd mean they just crossed along, not necessarily crossed to something else.And in fact crossing along is how I read it.
Based on Google Translatie, the underlined part would be something like this in Danish:
og de sejlede under landet. der. var nes, da de kom, at de bruge jorden og lade jorden aa stiorn borda.
And that's gibberish and worthless.
Also, generally no need to give the Old Norse. Well, you can, and it can be interesting at times to see how much I can gleam from it. But the language has developed too much for me to be able to fuly understand it, also since it's the Western Dialect and Danish descends from the Eastern Dialect. Some words are very easily read, some are clear what they are if you sound them out, others are full unknonwns or a guess at best.
Comparing with my copy I can sometimes get more than on my own, but even then there'll be stuff I just can't decipher.
Also, giving the older, Danish translations isn't necessarily ideal, as thos translations never have been all the sagas until this, current translation, and they use something called Saga-Danish. Though, I in many ways do prefer that, as I think the new translation loses something by doing away with some terms like banemand, etc. But on the other hand then some of the terms used already were being criticised for being archaic 200 years ago... Some terms can't easily be replaced by modern ones or have majorly changed meaning and for those there's the explanation I've mntinoed int he past, where we e.g. found the original meaning of døgn.
That really means that my translation is better if we're to go into the textual details than the old ones. The old ones aren't bad in any sesne, but if we want to go into specific wordings, etc. then I think that the modern translation is way better than the old ones.
By comparison, later in the same Saga, the Vikings take 3 days to sail between Helluland (Baffin Island) and Markland (Labrador Peninsula), a distance in real life of about 100 miles. Scholars think that Viking ships normally sailed at a rate of 7 mph, so in 36 hours for a daylight "day," they would travel 252 miles.
You don't know where tehy landed. You're again looking at this from a modern POV and assumign shortest route. They could easily have taken a semi circular rounte betwen Markland and Hellaland without even realising it.
Also, it's likely it's not Baffin Island, but rather a smaller island around it.
Based on my experiences the other day, as well as past experiences with other places in Denmark. Like, I know of places where on a clear day you can see land over 40 miles away, and that's despite only being like 100 m above sea at best, quite likely only like 50 m above sea.
So with Cape Breton being 300 m then it'd be visible way further away, I'd imagine, on a clear day.
However, it still looks theoretically possible that Bjarni could have somehow circumvented Newfoundland on his southward trip and arrived in Nova Scotia.
I thnk Bjarne found NF, either as the first or as the second land. And most likely it was the first land, as otherwise then how did he get from NS to NF? Like, there he'd have had to go noth east, and that doesn't seem to fit with the descriptioun.
No. A small hill could be like 10 m. A 125 hill would be a big hill. I doubt it'd have been called small back then, and certainly wouldn't today. Heck, a 125 m hill that sticks up from teh surrounding, i.e. where the surrounding isn't of similar height, likely would have been called a mountain.
You have multiple terms, which all mean mountain today. Bjarg/berg would be a rise in the landscape, and could well just be a big hill. A fjall is a (big) bjarg made from stone that is without vegetation at the top.
This, btw, is another place where I expect the English translation to have shortcomings, as English doesn't really have this differentiation, afaik.
Anyway, it says in my translation that it's small heights. If so then I'd assume it was small hills, more like 50 to 100 m than 300 m. And would also be longer areas, like more like "ridges" than single hills.
Furthermore, when the Saga talks about the journey from the First Land to the Second Land, there is ambiguity whether the Vikings actually lost sight of the first land when going to the second land. The text simply says that the land was on their port side, and "Then they sail for two days before they saw another land." So conceivably, they could be sailing for two days along the first land, ie. in sight of it, until seeing another (ie. second) land.
As you quoted earlier then they only give time at sea for when they're on open sea, so sailing along the coast could be whatever time.
Though, Bjerne clearly talked about having sailed three days before tehy no longer can see land for teh water, and that land must be Iceland or it won't make sense, as then they'd be sailing away from Greenland. So that clearly suggests that it's possible they still could see land in the far. Like, Bjarne seems to solely mention that they no longer could see land due to the strong winds hitting them there. Ot perhaps mentioning it was an odd one out.
Took a look and while it does seem to be consistent with the translation I have in regards to døgn, as in it seems to use it the same way, then it's not at all explained from what I can tell,so a modern reader would very much misunderstand what's meant. Also, it writes that the storm was for multiple days, while my translation says multiple days and nights, showing that it was during nights too and to underlive the separation fo days in two that was given above.
It being multiple days might be more textually close, I wouldn't be surprised, but I don't know and without the Old Norse for Bjarne's travels I'd not know, but even if so then I'd still say it's a poorer trnslation for a modern person, as you'd misunderstand what's meant due to not knowing the change in the meaning of døgn.
Like, don't get me wrong. The old translations aren't bad, not even remotely. And they can be really pleasant to read. But if you're trying to do analysis like this, then I feel that while you probably could use the old translations too, then the new ones probably makes it easier.
Aso, the one you linked said small hills. So we're definitely not talking 125 m hills, far from it.
One thing to note about Markland is that scholars are not entirely agreed on how far it extended. It almost certainly referred to Labrador but, I recall having read somewhere, may have extended to Newfoundland, the northeastern coast of which continues the line of the Labrador coast. Apparently some scholars argue that the Norse could have missed the channel between the two or mistook it for a bay.
One issue there is that L'Anse aux Meadows' Viking site was discovered in the 1960's, but alot of writing and theorizing, like the Scandinavian scholar Rafn's writing, was done before the discovery of L'anse aux Meadows. When one takes into consideration L'Anse aux Meadows' discovery, it becomes very likely that the Vikings realized that Newfoundland was an island separated from the Labrador Peninsula. This is because the Vikings' site was at the north end of Newfoundland in the relatively small (relative to Newfoundland) area of the channel between the two landmasses. Further, archaeologists consider the Vikings' settlement there to have lasted about 10 years, well more than long enough for the Vikings who had come the distance of Labrador's east coast to realize that Newfoundland was an island.
Since the L'anse aux Meadows site was settled in c. 1000, it seems likely that even if L'Anse aux Meadows' boat repair site is not one of the spots in the explorers' Sagas (like Kjalarnes' repair camp), L'anse aux Meadows' residents would still have been contemporaneous enough to the c. 160 explorers with their cattle to discuss with each other what the different locations were.
Or the saga writers may have mixed up the geography, either through misinterpreting their source or because something had been misremembered along the way (some 3 or 4 centuries passed between the journeys and the writing).
There are some noteworthy reasons to consider the Sagas geographically unreliable, and other reasons to consider them geographically reliable. One reason in favor of their unreliability is that the story about the one-footer sounds like fantasy, but it could be an echo of a factual event, like an Amerindian with a leg-like spear, like an Atlatl. A reason in favor of their reliability is that the Vikings took like 160 people with them on their journeys south of Labrador, along with cattle, in the two Sagas. Since that event was experienced by a big mass of people, the likelihood increases that the shared memory would help crystallize and confirm basic factual coordinates in the story. A second reason in favor of reliability, is that centuries later in the 14th century, according to another European record, the Greenlanders were still reaching "Markland" for timber supplies, so at least when it came to the identity of at least part of Markland's landmass, the Greenlanders had an ongoing ability to recognize it. This helps make the identities of the lands from Markland to Helluland to the Bjarneyar somewhat reliable.
the northeastern coast of which continues the line of the Labrador coast. Apparently some scholars argue that the Norse could have missed the channel between the two or mistook it for a bay.
Funnily nouhg that I actually said the exact same thing in the post I was writing as you posted that.
And I agree.It's quite likely going down th coast of Labrador that you'd think it's a fjord if you can see NF continue with the coast seemingly unbroken. And that seems to be the case.
Now, they may have gone down the straight at some point, but it's not certain. And it could ahve been in a different, now lost saga. Or it could be that the places that the blok who was blown to Ireland wanted to look at west were down the straight and then the ones going east ended up going down the coast of NS and the Eastern Seaboard.
One issue there is that L'Anse aux Meadows' Viking site was discovered in the 1960's, but alot of writing and theorizing, like the Scandinavian scholar Rafn's writing, was done before the discovery of L'anse aux Meadows. When one takes into consideration L'Anse aux Meadows' discovery, it becomes very likely that the Vikings realized that Newfoundland was an island separated from the Labrador Peninsula. This is because the Vikings' site was at the north end of Newfoundland in the relatively small (relative to Newfoundland) area of the channel between the two landmasses. Further, archaeologists consider the Vikings' settlement there to have lasted about 10 years, well more than long enough for the Vikings who had come the distance of Labrador's east coast to realize that Newfoundland was an island.
Firstly, how do we know it was inhabited for 10 years?
Like, I've asked this before and got no answer. How do we know it was continually used for 10 years?
Also, it's not that far down the souynd, and in fact at the edge of it, with the coast curving. It's perfectly possible they thought it was a fjord despite staying there.
And if there was a settlement for 10 yers then I have a hard time seeing them not making more permanent structures of stone, as then they clearly had intentions of staying theree.
Which brings me back to my question: How do we know they were there continually for ten yers? or that they were tehre more than just once?
Also, almost forgot: Even thought they could measure latitudes afaik, then that doesn't mean they'd have had to go far south to think that Vinland was connected to Africa. Or, they would to get teh heat, but what I mean is that they'd not have needed to have latitudes corresponding to Africa. It was due to the heat they thought it.
One issue there is that L'Anse aux Meadows' Viking site was discovered in the 1960's, but alot of writing and theorizing, like the Scandinavian scholar Rafn's writing, was done before the discovery of L'anse aux Meadows. When one takes into consideration L'Anse aux Meadows' discovery, it becomes very likely that the Vikings realized that Newfoundland was an island separated from the Labrador Peninsula. This is because the Vikings' site was at the north end of Newfoundland in the relatively small (relative to Newfoundland) area of the channel between the two landmasses. Further, archaeologists consider the Vikings' settlement there to have lasted about 10 years, well more than long enough for the Vikings who had come the distance of Labrador's east coast to realize that Newfoundland was an island.
Since the L'anse aux Meadows site was settled in c. 1000, it seems likely that even if L'Anse aux Meadows' boat repair site is not one of the spots in the explorers' Sagas (like Kjalarnes' repair camp), L'anse aux Meadows' residents would still have been contemporaneous enough to the c. 160 explorers with their cattle to discuss with each other what the different locations were.
There are some noteworthy reasons to consider the Sagas geographically unreliable, and other reasons to consider them geographically reliable. One reason in favor of their unreliability is that the story about the one-footer sounds like fantasy, but it could be an echo of a factual event, like an Amerindian with a leg-like spear, like an Atlatl. A reason in favor of their reliability is that the Vikings took like 160 people with them on their journeys south of Labrador, along with cattle, in the two Sagas. Since that event was experienced by a big mass of people, the likelihood increases that the shared memory would help crystallize and confirm basic factual coordinates in the story. A second reason in favor of reliability, is that centuries later in the 14th century, according to another European record, the Greenlanders were still reaching "Markland" for timber supplies, so at least when it came to the identity of at least part of Markland's landmass, the Greenlanders had an ongoing ability to recognize it. This helps make the identities of the lands from Markland to Helluland to the Bjarneyar somewhat reliable.
The Greenlanders didn't write the sagas, though, Icelanders did. What the Greenlanders knew in the 11th century is not the only question to consider. There's a chain of transmission from the journeys to the saga writers that stretches 300 years or so, during which the stories are first retold in Greenland and then passed to Iceland and further on to Denmark.
Greenlanders certainly were able to find Markland again for several centuries but it seems they were interested only in the nearest source of timber. For that purpose it's not necessary to retain specific knowledge of the waterways to the south. It's worth noting, too, that the question of settling in Markland or Vinland has to be considered in light of the very small population base of Greenland and Iceland. Greenland in particular had an interest in securing timber and better pasture but could not afford the potential losses. The limited practical use of the sagas' store of names and places means that it's very well possible that their particulars were forgotten or mixed up in the interval between exploration and writing.
700 years. Arne Magnussen didn't collect the times until around 1700.
By the time a lot might have disappeared. He got pretty much everything still existing at the time, but who knows what disappeared before he started his collecting.
Plus there's that material on Greenland brought from Trondhjem to Copenbagen in 1664 that later disapppeard.
700 years. Arne Magnussen didn't collect the times until around 1700.
By the time a lot might have disappeared. He got pretty much everything still existing at the time, but who knows what disappeared before he started his collecting.
Plus there's that material on Greenland brought from Trondheim to Copenhagen in 1664 that later disappeared.
Yeah, but didn't the Icelanders write down the sagas? Can we use those versions? Is there any way to learn Old Norse?
Even if we can, though, 300 years is a long time, and specific geographical locations can be obfuscated. I generally lean towards the view that it isn't very reliable.
The Icelanders wrote down most of it, yes. With some bing written down here in Scandinavia too.
Or, well, the surviving texts having been written in thos places. We know a lot was lost.
And yes, it'd only be 300 years. I mentinoed th 700 as it was brought up when they were taken to Copenhagen. They weren't written in then.
For teh language then I believe it actually is Old Icelandic, not Old Norse. I.e. that it's considered past the point where teh old, Western Dialect, of Old Norse had split. And the Eastern Dialect certainly had split into e.g. Danish and Swedish by then.
Though, no idea whether learning Old Norse or Old Icelandic is best for reading them in their natural. As for how to learn it, then there'd almost certainly be university cources where you are. Like, I know that Copenhagen University offers courses in connection to the Arne Magnusson institute, and I doubt they're teh only uni offering it. Aside from that then there might be books you can use for self study, and there probably also are online tools. Might well cost money to access for good ones, though.
Also be aware that due to how Old Norse had a rich grammar system with full cases (Danish lost that in the mid 1300s, sadly) then you can mix around where words are in sentences a lot. And the saga writers utilised that to the fullest and sometimes arguably even further, to achieve assonance, alliteration, and various rhymes. So you might see stuff from the end of a paragraph at the start of it, and it all makes sense due to the various grammar declinations.
Even if we can, though, 300 years is a long time, and specific geographical locations can be obfuscated. I generally lean towards the view that it isn't very reliable.
Don't discoun how strong oral traditions can be.
Now, I dont' know about hte Icelandic sagas, but I do know that Saxo, who wrote down things in Denmark at teh same time, kept using repetitins of the important parts to make you easier remember it.
It is possible that if things were considered then they'd be written down.
Also, IIRC, then while the saga versions we know are from the 1200s, then they often were based on older, written versions.
Now, I dont' know about hte Icelandic sagas, but I do know that Saxo, who wrote down things in Denmark at teh same time, kept using repetitins of the important parts to make you easier remember it.
It is possible that if things were considered then they'd be written down.
Saxo is an inconsistent source. Sometimes his material is verifiable via other sources. But sometimes he writes conflicting information about the same historical figures within the body of his own works. Perhaps this is reflective of the oral tradition and Sagas that tell stories from different perspectives.
The way I read it, including how I read the foot note in the saga explainign the time keeping, then the Sun would have risen around dagmål and set around øgt. As in, that'd have been when it crossed the horizon. And that's around 9 and 15 rspectively, albeit obviously given there's only 8 parts then it could have been actually say 7.40 and still be lumped as dagmål rather than the earlier one, due to being closer. Or perhaps they'd have said it was midways betwen th previous one and dagmål, no idea. My point is that it needn't be exactly 9 and 15, as it'd just be that that was what fitted best.
But it clearly seems to be that it's the listing for when ti crossed the horizon, and nothing else makes sense with how it's written.
This is creates a tricky issue because nowadays, the sunset time in Midwinter December in Nuuk, near Greenland's Vestribygd, the Western Settlement, is 3:28 PM, and this certainly hasn't changed drastically, like more than 10 minutes, in the last 1000 years. By comparison, the sunset time in Midwinter December in Reykjavik, Iceland is 3:30 PM, and north of L'anse aux Meadows in Labrador City it is 4:12 PM. (SOURCE: https://www.sunrisesunsettime.org/north-america/canada/labrador-city-december.htm)
So if we interpret the text as meaning that sunset was at 3 PM in midwinter, then it would mean that the location was even farther north than the Vestribygd and Iceland. I have seen some estimations interpret the text as referring to 3:30 PM, so if we take it to refer to sunset, then we would still get someplace about as far north as Greenland and Iceland, whereas the context seems to be that the Saga overall wants to describe the location as warm in snowless winter, having grapes, etc.
As a result, it seems most likely to me that the text would be expected to mean some place farther south than a 3:30 PM sunset. If the text intended to literally say that the sun was still up at 3:30-4 PM, instead of stating the time when the sun literally crossed the horizon, then it would make more sense and fit the context better. I understand that Vikings typically treated the sky line like a time-telling piece of equipment when marking the sun's spot, but maybe their wording and phrasing is also important.
There are articles online asserting that the Vikings could tell latittude, and the articles theorize about how they did this:
"Vikings performed latitude sailing, which means crossing open seas along a chosen latitude. For example, they regularly sailed more than 1,600 miles [2,500 kilometers] along the 61st latitude from Norway to Greenland and back. To do that one needs a fine compass or needs to regularly check his or her current latitude," Bernath said.
But wind and ocean currents would have quickly diverted the Vikings' small ships, forcing the mariners to frequently check their latitude to stay on course. While Arabian sailors used the stars to check latitude, Vikings sailed near the Arctic Circle, where the sun never sets in summer. So they must have navigated by the sun, not the stars, researchers reasoned.
I don't see how Bjarne's Markland would necessarily be the same as Leif's. Well, it'd be Labrador/NF, but it most likely wouldn't be the same place.
Also, for Hellaland then if it's to be clearly an island then it'd more litelyl be a small island, e.g. Resolution Island.
Baffin Island is way too big to notice being an is just from sailing a bit along its coast, and I doubt they went up to Bylot island and even if they did it might well not be obvious it's an island due to ice, etc.
...
Also, it's likely it's not Baffin Island, but rather a smaller island around it.
Right. I share your skepticism that they would have known that Baffin Island was literally an island. On the other hand, archaeologists found what they consider likely Viking artifacts in a couple spots up and down Baffin Island as I posted with the artifact map earlier in this thread. I don't know how far north the icesheet line runs in the summer on Baffin Island, but the Eskimos and Dorsets were on the north end of that island, so it seems that somehow the Vikings could have become familiar enough with the island to guess, correctly, that it's an island.
Here's a NASA photo by satellite of Baffin Island in the summer:
It looks like Helluland practically has to be Baffin Island for a couple reasons. First, the Vikings sailed four days to get from Helluland to Greenland. In the Vikings' boat speeds, this would be a couple hundred miles at least. In that case, we couldn't be talking about some rocky island along Greenland's coast, but something hundreds of miles away, like Baffin Island is. Likewise, Helluland wouldn't be close off the coast of Markland, because it was a three day sail to get from Baffin Island to Markland. And in real life, Baffin Island is 100 miles from Labrador, which is rather less than the 250 miles for a 4 day crossing from Greenland to Helluland. A second reason is the description of Helluland as being a flat rock land with glaciers instead of trees or grass. Some parts of Baffin Island have grass, but other parts don't and compared to Labrador, it's basically treeless. The description is a pretty good fit.
Similarly, when we talk about the flat wooded Markland, Labrador is a pretty good fit again. In the 14th century, the Europeans are still recording timber gathering from Greenland to Markland, and Labrador is a pretty natural spot for where the Vikings would want to go to get timber. The flat wooded description of Markland matches Labrador, but not Baffin Island.
So overall the distances between the three landmasses, Markland, Helluland, and Greenland, along with the descriptions of each, lock us into identifying them with Labrador, Baffin Island, and the well-known Greenland.
Mrs. Ingstad in her book on Vinland explained the journey from Bjarneyar to Helluland in Eric the Red's Saga by saying that bears are known to drift west on ice from Baffin Island to the Disko Island area on Greenland's coast. There is an ice sheet that grows from Baffin Island toward Disko Island in the winter. So it would be natural that Vikings hunting bears north of Vestribygd would happen to find the ice sheet coming east from Baffin Island. In Eric the Red's Saga, the Vikings go from Vestribygd to Bjarneyar and then sail south to Helluland. The logical explanation for why the Vikings would have gone north to islands liek Disko before sailing south is that this area north of Nuuk is the shortest route west to Baffin Island, so it's naturally a good logistical choice for the Vikings to choose to go up northward before sailing southward to get to Baffin Island and then further south as explorers to Markland/Labrador.
"But it does say that they crossed down the coast." ~Wagonlitz in Message 101
Why do you keep thinking that it's the Danish version that necessarily has a problem, when it easily and quite likely could be the English. Like, the Danish one is made by teh institute that Arne Magnussen founded, and where all the AM numberings of teh manuscripts come from. And it was made by lots of researchers in unison.
Anyway, I looked up the word crossed in an old dictionary and saw that it can be used to denote sailing in a zig zag pattern to move forward against a bad wind.
It sounds like you have a high quality translation. I think I'm better able to narrow down where the Danish translators might see the text as saying "crossed," ie. the phrase "beittu med lanndinu".
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This is in the Skalholtsbok version and Jansson translates this as "When they got there they tacked along the coast." In English, to tack along something means that you are traveling along something in a zig zag way to move forward against a bad wind. It's similar to the concept of sailing under the land mentioned earlier in that passage, although technically you can sail under a coast without tacking or zig zagging.
Skilled translators can have different conclusions about how they perceive a word or a phrase. This is why we have so many different Bible translations in English made by good quality translators. First, you can choose the most precise, word for word translation of a text. Personally, I prefer that. Alternately, you can give a phrase in the target language that you think better captures the overall sense of the text.
The Old Norse followed by Jansson's translation is:
Skalholtsbok
þa er lidin uorv tvau dægr sia þeir . lannd . ok þeir sigldu unndir lanndit . þar . var nes er þeir kvomu at þeir. beittu med lanndinuok letv lanndit aa stiorn borda.
(When two days had passed they sighted land and they sailed along the coast. There was a promontory. When they got there they tacked along the coast, keeping the land to starboard.)
Hauksbok
þaþan sigldv þeir svðr með landinv langa stvnd ok komv at nesi einv la landit a stiorn
(From there they sailed south along the coast for a long time and came to a promontory. The land lay to starboard.)
In both versions, the first underlined verb here is sigldu/sigldv, which comes from the verb Sigla, meaning to sail (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sigla#Old_Norse)
Undir in Norse literally means Under (source: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/undir)
So probably "ok þeir sigldu unndir lanndit" more literally word for word means "they sailed under/along land/the land", than literally saying, "they crossed down the land."
"Sailing under a land" is a real phrase in English and Greek, like in the Bible when it says in Acts 27:4:
"And when we had launched from thence, we sailed under (ὑποπλέω) Cyprus, because the winds were contrary."
And that's an example of why even when doing a fast post I still need to look things up, or we could end up discussing this forever.
Also, I did say previously that it culd mean they just crossed along, not necessarily crossed to something else.And in fact crossing along is how I read it.
I sympathize because it's tricky getting super technical. But since we just have two Sagas to work with, practically every sentence of directions could make a difference. Sorry if I am being overly technical.
I thnk Bjarne found NF, either as the first or as the second land. And most likely it was the first land, as otherwise then how did he get from NS to NF? Like, there he'd have had to go noth east, and that doesn't seem to fit with the descriptioun.
One difficulty in making Nova Scotia Bjarni's first land is the direction that the boat was sailing in. Bjarni's boat was overall sailing southwest from Iceland, and then when it got to the First Land, he sailed with the land on his left side, ie. northward toward Greenland and Counterclockwise around the First Land. For Bjarni to sail from central eastern Nova Scotia to Newfoundland, he would have to tack north and east against the wind, or else wait for the wind to change into a helpful direction. Supposing that he sailed north along N. Scotia until he got to the north end of Cape Breton, he would also have to sail northeast to get to NFLD.
Another difficulty is the description of the three lands. Supposing that N. Scotia was the first, wooded land with small hills, and Newfoundland was the second, flat land with woods, this description doesn't seem to match the two lands. Nova Scotia seems flatter than Newfoundland. The top end of Cape Breton is hilly, but Newfoundland is even hillier. Further, if N. Scotia and NFLD were the first two lands, then Labrador would be the third land, yet Labrador doesn't match the description of Helluland as a treeless glaciered land.
Alternately, one could theorize that Bjarni landed in N. Scotia, sailed to its north end, and then sailed straight north to the Labrador Peninsula. In that case, Bjarni would sail northeastward along the Labrador Peninsula and through the strait separating Labrador from Newfoundland. The strait is so narrow, that it's very likely that Bjarni would have seen Newfoundland, and based on his journey route, he would have to realise that it's separated from N. Scotia and from Labrador. However, the story of BJarni's journey makes no mention of a separate wooded land in that region north of his first land and southeast of his second land. On other other hand, this could conceivably be absent because the writer didn't consider it essential to mention it.
In any case, if one theorizes that Bjarni sailed southwest from Iceland and arrived at Newfoundland as his First Land and then at the Labrador Peninsula as his Second Land, Markland, the implication is that the Saga was counting Newfoundland and the Second Land, Markland, as separate landmasses. In that case, when the Sagas talk about the Vikings sailing southwestward or southward from Markland, the implication is that they are departing from the Labrador Peninsula, rather than from the south of Newfoundland.
No. A small hill could be like 10 m. A 125 hill would be a big hill. I doubt it'd have been called small back then, and certainly wouldn't today. Heck, a 125 m hill that sticks up from teh surrounding, i.e. where the surrounding isn't of similar height, likely would have been called a mountain.
You have multiple terms, which all mean mountain today. Bjarg/berg would be a rise in the landscape, and could well just be a big hill. A fjall is a (big) bjarg made from stone that is without vegetation at the top.
This, btw, is another place where I expect the English translation to have shortcomings, as English doesn't really have this differentiation, afaik.
Anyway, it says in my translation that it's small heights. If so then I'd assume it was small hills, more like 50 to 100 m than 300 m. And would also be longer areas, like more like "ridges" than single hills.
Thanks. English has a bunch of hill related terms. But certainly what someone calls a small or standard hill vs. a mountain might be subjective. Strictly speaking, the tradition in English was that a mountain was over 300 m tall, and a hill was under 300 m.
The Old Norse and Jansson's translation about the small hills on the First Land are below:
Ok svá gera þeir ok sá þat brátt, at landit var ófjǫllótt ok skógi vaxit, ok smár hæðir á landinu, ok létu landit á bakborða ok létu skaut horfa á land.
This they do, and saw quickly that the land was low-lying and wooded, with small hills on shore, and they turned to keep the land to port and the sail-end facing toward the shore.
The Norse term for small hills here is "smár hæðir." Wikipedia says that hæð in Icelandic comes from the same word in Old Norse and means:
hill, hillock
height
altitude
The etymology in Wikipedia for this word is
From Old Norse hæð, from Proto-Germanic *hauhiþō. Compare Norwegian høgd, Norwegian Nynorsk hædd, Faroese hædd, Swedish höjd, Dutch hoogte, Old High German hohida, Gothic (hauhiþa), English height.
In English, we do have a rarely used term "heights", as in "Brooklyn Heights". Brooklyn's elevation is 220 ft / 67 m at its maxmimum. However, in the Free Dictionary, the elevation for "heights" as a geographic spot is more ambiguous than 67 m.:
3. Often heights
a. A hill, mountain, or other piece of ground that stands out from the surrounding land.
Just looking at pictures and topographical maps, the east coast of Nova Scotia is super flat, like at Halifax, whereas Newfoundland when compared to the Vikings' homeand Iceland or Greenland would not be called very mountainy, but rather hilly. However, someone who grew up in a flat land could say Newfoundland was mountainous, which it strictly is at its west coast (ie. not the side facing Iceland that the Vikings would have traveled). The west coast's highest spot is 2,671′ft, in the southwest of NFLD. So in conclusion, the small hills description feels more likely to apply to NFLD than Nova Scotia to me, but this also feels ambiguous enough.
Below is a photo of Halifax harbor, and in the distance at the top you can see more of the flat coastline:
The next, and only other, time when the word hills shows up in the two Sagas is when the Vikings go to Krossanes (Cross-Point) across a fjord from Kjlarnes and to the south or east of Kjalarnes:
Ganga síðan til skips ok sjá á sandinum inn frá hǫfðanum þrjár hæðir ok fóru til þangat ok sjá þar húðkeipa þrjá ok þrjá menn undir hverjum. Þá skiptu þeir liði sínu ok hǫfðu hendr á þeim ǫllum, nema einn komsk í burt með keip sinn. Þeir drepa hina átta ok ganga síðan aptr á hǫfðann ok sjásk þar um ok sjá inn í fjǫrðinn hæðir nǫkkurar, ok ætluðu þeir þat vera byggðir.
They go back to the ship and see on the sand in from the cape three hills, and went toward them and see there three skin boats with three men under each of them. They split up and laid hands on them all, except that one got away in his boat. They kill the other eight and then walk back to the cape and look around the place and see some mounds further up the bay, which they took to be signs of settlement.
This use of "hills" by Krossanes could hint that Kjalarnes and Krossanes were on Bjarni's small-hilled First Land, but not necessarily so.
Furthermore, when the Saga talks about the journey from the First Land to the Second Land, there is ambiguity whether the Vikings actually lost sight of the first land when going to the second land. The text simply says that the land was on their port side, and "Then they sail for two days before they saw another land." So conceivably, they could be sailing for two days along the first land, ie. in sight of it, until seeing another (ie. second) land. - Rakovsky
As you quoted earlier then they only give time at sea for when they're on open sea, so sailing along the coast could be whatever time.
Let me explain evidence that sometimes they must be giving sailing times for the open sea: First, in both Eric the Red's Saga and the Greenlanders' Saga, the Vikings sail from Markland 2 days to get to Kjalarnes and to the northward cape, respectively. It looks like far too long to sail two days from the top of Labrador to the southeast or south end from which they would have departed Labrador. So the natural conclusion is that the two days are the time when they spent starting at theirdeparture time from Markland and not including any sailing on the coast. But secondly, in those descriptions, the Sagas seem to specify that the times between Greenland, Helluland, and Markland were sailing times starting from the departure from the landmasses:
When Bjarni goes from his Second Land to Helluland, the text says: "They turned the prow away from land and sailed out to sea on a southwesterly wind for three days and then saw a third land."
Then when Bjarni sailed from Helluland to Greenland, "They turned the stern back to land and held out to sea on the same breeze. Shortly afterwards the wind got up, and Bjarni told them to lower the sail and not sail harder than their ship and tackle could easily take. Now they sailed for four days."
Both are pretty clear wording that the back of the boat was pointing to those landmasses and they were sailing away from the land for three and four days, respectively.
This brings up an argument that the First Land was Newfoundland, because Labrador is visible from Newfoundland:
In contrast to the two journeys above (ie. from Markland to Helluland to Greenland), when the Saga says that Bjarni arrived at the First land, they don't turn their boat's back end to the land when they start sailing, but rather they keep the land on their left side:
they turned to keep the land to port and the sail-end facing toward the shore. Then they sail for two days before they saw another land.
This can be taken to mean that while they are sailing for the two days, the land is on their left side and then they see the Second Land, so it's not so clear that they are sailing way out at the open sea two days' journey away from the coast.
Can you quote the Danish footnote that if it's a chain of islands that it can only be the islands off America?
Grammatically, can it make sense that "Bjarneyar" would mean one island. In the source that you are quoting, the writers consider it a possibility that it's one island, Disko. In Nedkvitne's writing below, he seems to take the idea of rowing around Bjarneyar to imply that it must be one island, but I think that actually you can row around several islands, so his conclusion is not necessary that it must be just one island.
Skelton wrote in 1965:
if the “Bjarneyar” of his narrative correspond to the similarly named islands of the old chorography of Greenland already cited, he may have gone as far north as Disko Island (69°-70° N) before turning his ship’s head westward.
By the middle of the fifteenth century the detailed knowledge accumulated by the Norsemen about the lands in the West had passed out of European consciousne (Issue: October 1965)..
When Bjørn Jonsson (died 1655) wrote his “Grænlands annal”, he used an “old booklet” (gömlu kveri) with information about distances in Norse Greenland, measured in how many days it would take to row it. (157) The information is so precise that it inspires confidence and is likely to have been written at a time when the Norse Greenlanders still visited the northern hunting grounds. From the Western Settlement it would take 15 days to row to Bjarneyar, which evidently was Disco Island. (158)
(157) “Grænlands annal”, pp. 38–39; GHM III, p. 229.
(158) The “old booklet” says that 12 days were needed to row around Bjarneyar. There is only one island north of the Western Settlement which is that large, which is Disco Island. The “old booklet” subdivided the journey northwards into three parts, from the northern limit of the Western Settlement (near Nuuk) to Lysufjardar six days, from there to Karlbuda another six days, and from there to Disco another three days.
My experience from reading scholars that get into this issue in detail (like Mrs. Ingstad, but others too) is that they consider it to be Disko or islands like Disko on Greenland's west coast. Plus, the text says that they sailed from Vestribygd to Bjarneyar, with no sailing time given, as if they are on the same coastline, whereas it then says that they sailed 4 days (12 hours you explained) on the open ocean to get to the treeless glaciered rocky Helluland, and it's hard to coordinate on a real life map how the Bjarneyar could be anything other than islands on Greenland if they are 4 days from a treeles Helluland that the Vikings would be going to on a journey southward.
This is a tricky ambiguous issue, because I agree with your impression of it being visible as an island, but unfortunately the text does not say that it's clear and visible all-around to them on their trip that Helluland is an island all around. It says instead:
He told them to raise the sail, and this was done, and they turned the prow away from land and sailed out to sea on a southwesterly wind for three days and then saw a third land. This land was high and mountainous, with a glacier on it. They then ask if Bjarni wanted to make for land here but he said he didn’t want to, ‘because this land doesn’t look to me likely to be of any use.’ This time they did not take down the sail and keep along the coast and saw that this was an island.
So we don't get a clear message of exactly how they saw that it was an island. The impression is that they saw around it. But conceivably if this was Baffin Island, they were drawing a conclusion based on how Baffin Island receded on the three sides (southwest side, south side, east side) that they saw from Baffin Island's South End. Plus, this explanation of it being an island could be based in the Saga from information that the Saga retellers got later on, maybe even over more than a generation.
A reason why I keep coming back to Helluland being Baffin Island isn't just because Baffin Island is actually an island or scholars make this connection to Baffin Island, but because the descriptions and sailing distances match so solidly among the three spots. It's pretty hard to pick some hypothetical real life "Helluland" island on a real world map that would be reachable from 4 days from some Bjarneyar and also reachable from 3 days from Labrador on a journey southward to Newfoundland/Nova Scotia, especially in a way that they wouldn't see the much more notable Baffin Island next to the hypothetical real-life spot for "Helluland."
The text says that Bjarni sailed northeastward from Markland to Helluland and took the "same wind" (implying direction) to Greenland. So you can imagine Markland, Helluland, and Greenland being reachable in a northeast line between them. This is the real life directions that you would follow between Labrador, Baffin Island and Greenland.
If I try to force Helluland into being a much smaller island like the size of Disko Island or smaller, then I can't pick some place that would make these coordinates work very well. Suppose that the island was Resolution Island between Labrador and Baffin Island. In that case, this choice of Resolution Island would force the sailing journey to Helluland from Labrador to be even shorter than we read in the Sagas and the journey to Greenland to be even far longer than a shorter journey from Baffin Island's easternmost point.
To expand on the Island issue: First, I sympathize with your idea about Helluland being smaller than Baffin Island, because just taking the story by itself without reference to a real world map of that area, I would imagine that it was describing an island like the size of a Hawaiian island or Disko Island laying midway between Labrador and Greenland.
Second, if the Vikings landed on Helluland and it was a sea-island within full eyesight of a bigger coastline like the treeless Baffin Island, then I would expect that the author would tend to give notice to that much bigger landmass, like when Eric the Red's Saga mentioned the Vikings seeing Bjarney off the coast of the wooded Markland, or the Greenlanders' Saga mentioned the dew island off the northward cape.
Third, the Greenlanders' Saga, it says that the Vikings only saw that Helluland was an island after sailing away from the island, not on their approach to the island. This suggests a limited number of possibilities:
(A) Helluland was a coastal "barrier sea-island" by a giant landmass like Baffin Island, and the Vikings couldn't see if the island was a peninsula or not until they saw it from a few sides. But in that case, it would conflict a little with the Vikings' silence about that giant landmass.
(B) Helluland was such a medium sized island like the size of Disko Island or Ireland in the open sea out of view of any larger landmass like Baffin Island, and it was so big that the Vikings couldn't get a good enough view of its sides to see that it was an island until they left it from another side. But in that case, the problem is that there is no such island in that size range in the open sea between Labrador and Greenland.
(C) Helluland was a giant landmass, with a size like Baffin Island or Greenland or the Labrador Peninsula, and the Vikings made an evaluation (in this case a correct one) based on the sides that they saw that the landmass was an island without actually seeing all the sides of the landmass.
Fourth, in a real life 4 day journey southwest from Greenland like the Greenlanders' Saga describes Leif making from an island chain north of Nuuk, the Bjarneyar Islands, Baffin Island is the real life treeless landmass that one would arrive at.
Fifth, we can use the process of deduction to rule out alternatives. There is no treeless island laying between Greenland and Labrador that meets all of these descriptions for Helluland, like the 3/4 distance ratio for the two sailing journeys to and from Helluland. For instance, Resolution Island is the biggest island off the southeast coast of Baffin Island, but it's only ~50 miles from Labrador and 400 miles from Greenland, so it doesn't match the 3 days' journey from Markland or the 3 to 4 ration for the journeys' times.
Sixth, J. Enterline writes in his book "Erikson, Eskimos & Columbus" : "The great majoroty of scholars who have studied the Sagas have concluded that Helluland was Baffin Island." Does your Danish book have footnotes explaining about Helluland in a way that can help?
Seventh, Viking artifacts suggesting camping or settlement were found on three spots on Baffin Island, suggesting that it was a land that the Vikings were familiar with southwest of Greenland.
Eight, there is also the issue of what practical difference does identifyinf Helluland make. My larger goal is to find the Vikings' locations from Labrador and farther south. Clearly on his journey when he got blown from Iceland southwestward, Bjarni arrived at a spot from Nova Scotia north to Newfoundland north to Labrador. To me, looking at a map, the choices of Newfoundland (or conceivably Nova Scotia) and Labrador for the first two lands that Bjarni found are so obvious that it's hard to see alternatives for the second land. One couldn't realistically propose for inslance that Bjarni landed at Newfoundland first and then came to Belle Isle as the second land and then sailed to Resolution Island without mentioning Labrador's coastline.
Where the locations become uncertain is with the lands of:
1. Bjarni's small-hilled, wooded First Land (west and south of Iceland, and east or south of Markland/Labrador Peninsula)
2. Bjarney (Bear Island on the southeast of Markland/Labrador Peninsula)
3. Kjalarnes (Keel Peninsula, a peninsuls south of Markland/Labrador Peninsula in each Saga and with a side on the Atlantic coast in Eric the Red's Saga)
One thing to note about Markland is that scholars are not entirely agreed on how far it extended. It almost certainly referred to Labrador but, I recall having read somewhere, may have extended to Newfoundland, the northeastern coast of which continues the line of the Labrador coast. Apparently some scholars argue that the Norse could have missed the channel between the two or mistook it for a bay. Or the saga writers may have mixed up the geography, either through misinterpreting their source or because something had been misremembered along the way (some 3 or 4 centuries passed between the journeys and the writing). ~ @Barsoom
Funnily nouhg that I actually said the exact same thing in the post I was writing as you posted that.
And I agree.It's quite likely going down th coast of Labrador that you'd think it's a fjord if you can see NF continue with the coast seemingly unbroken. And that seems to be the case.
Now, they may have gone down the straight at some point, but it's not certain. And it could ahve been in a different, now lost saga. Or it could be that the places that the blok who was blown to Ireland wanted to look at west were down the straight and then the ones going east ended up going down the coast of NS and the Eastern Seaboard.
The issue about whether (A) the Sagas counted Newfoundland and Labrador as a single landmass in the form of Markland, or (B) they recognized that the strait separated them into two lands has practical significance for determining all of the Vikings' locations south of Labrador.
All the locations south of Greenland and Helluland are south of Markland, and typically the directions use Markland as a key departure point to reach those more southern lands. If Newfoundland is counted as part of Markland, then the journey in Eric the Red's Saga that runs from Markland southward to Kjalarnes would naturally imply a journey from the south end of Newfoundland to another point like Cape Breton's Island. Similarly, the journey in the Greenlanders' Saga that ran southwest from Markland to the northward cape to reach Leifsbudir would have to be taken from Newfoundland's south side. This is because Newfoundland is south of Labrador, and naturally per both Sagas the Vikings would be traveling what they considered to be south or southwest from Markland, implying that they left from Markland's south coast.
In any case, the Greenlanders' Saga must consider Newfoundland and the Labrador Peninsula to be separate "lands," and thus not count Newfoundland as part of "Markland." This is because:
(A) In Bjarni's journey, his First Land southwest of Iceland most likely is Newfoundland because it squarely lays on a route southwest from Iceland. This implies that Labrador/Markland was the Second Land that Bjarni arrived at after traveling 2 days with the First Land on his left side.
(B) In Bjarni's journey, Nova Scotia is an alternative to counting Bjarni's First Land as Newfoundland. However, suppose that Bjarni sailed up along Nova Scotia as his First Land, then sailed straight north to Labrador's Wolf Bay, and then took the strait out past Newfoundland to Cape Charles. In that case, the Vikigns would get a clear idea that Newfoundland was not on the same landmass as Markland/Labrador.
(C) There is not really any feasible landmass on a real world map that you could identify as Bjarni's First and Second lands other than Newfoundland and Nova Scotia and the Labrador Peninsula. For instance, suppose that you consider Newfoundland as the First Land, but an island like Belle Isle as the Second Land. In that case, you would have far too much longer than a two days' journey between Belle Island and the treeless, stoney, glaciered Helluland, with all treeless glaciered candidates for Helluland being quite far north of Newfoundland. Plus, there is no land northeast of Belle Island until you get to Greenland, whereas the Saga says that Bjarni took a northeast wind to get from Belle Isle to Helluland.
Firstly, how do we know it was inhabited for 10 years?
Like, I've asked this before and got no answer. How do we know it was continually used for 10 years?
Good question. The Gazette asserts that the site got burned, with the Vikings taking most of their things, which would establish an orderly evacuation and an end date for the settlement:
The Scandinavians likely had temporary encampments in other locations, but archaeologists think L'Anse aux Meadows was probably their only permanent settlement, given its size, location and the amount of labor needed to construct it. Then, after about 10 years of occupation, the Norse left. The buildings were burned to the ground, most likely by the Vikings themselves. 'They were starting to have conflicts with the indigenous people who lived in Newfoundland, and the trip back to Greenland was too long to be economically profitable,” Colbourne said. 'They took most of their stuff with them, but a few things were left behind, including nails they'd used to repair boats. Several artifacts proved that women lived here, too, including a needle and spinning whorl for twisting wool into yarn.”
One of the lead archaeologists at the L'anse aux Meadows site has been B. Wallace, and she laid out her explanation of the site's short span of Viking habitation this way:
The archaeological indicators show that the Norse occupation was short, probably a matter of years rather than decades. The middens are minute. They consist primarily of ashes and burnt food bone. The total count of bone amounts to 125 fragmentary pieces unburnt and 315 fragments burnt.[35] Chemical and phosphate analyses of the peat in the bog immediately outside the buildings were performed to see if bone and ash had been discarded here, since both would have been dissolved by the tannic acid. The results were negative (Robertson 1978, McCauley 1973, 1975). Likewise, the scatters of carpentry waste in the bog immediately west of the D-E complex were so small as to indicate a one-time event. There may originally have been additional waste on the terrace on the other side of the complex, but it could not have been significant, as there were no strong phosphate concentrations there either (McCauley 1975). Within the buildings, the cultural deposits were insignificant, with almost non-existing floor deposits.[36] Neither did the buildings reveal any traces of repair or rebuilding. Wear and tear on the full-scale replica Norse buildings at L'Anse aux Meadows suggests that extensive renovations of the original halls would probably have been necessary after about 15 years.
"A second reason in favor of reliability, is that centuries later in the 14th century, according to another European record, the Greenlanders were still reaching "Markland" for timber supplies, so at least when it came to the identity of at least part of Markland's landmass, the Greenlanders had an ongoing ability to recognize it. This helps make the identities of the lands from Markland to Helluland to the Bjarneyar somewhat reliable."
OK, the issue here is whether over time the identities of these three places would remain in the Greenlanders' memories instead of their locations getting forgotten and becoming unreliable during the transmission of the story. So it's not exactly needed that on each trip to Markland the Vikings kept taking the route through all three same spots.
First, regarding the Bjarneyar, we find directions to them in Bjørn Jonsson's (died 1655) “Grænlands annal” when he used an “old booklet” (gömlu kveri) that gave detailed descriptions for the journeys to places on Greenland's west coast up to the Bjarneyar in particular.
Second, regarding Helluland southwest of Greenland, the treeless mountain region of Baffin Island has more than two sites with Viking artefacts and other remnants that archaeologists think shows cases of settlement or camping there.
Third, we have a 14th century European record of a Greenland ship that was trying to gather timber in "Markland" getting blown to Iceland
Good Discussion.
I am reminded that for years, we had a Viking comic in US daily papers called "Hagar the Horrible."
Don't discoun how strong oral traditions can be.
Now, I dont' know about hte Icelandic sagas, but I do know that Saxo, who wrote down things in Denmark at teh same time, kept using repetitins of the important parts to make you easier remember it.
It is possible that if things were considered then they'd be written down.
Also, IIRC, then while the saga versions we know are from the 1200s, then they often were based on older, written versions.
Right. I think that a lot of arguments can be made in favor of oral traditions like the Sagas having reliable closeness to their initial writing. One issue is when the first Saga was written down. The Wikipedia article on Eric the Red's Saga says:
The two versions of the Saga of Erik the Red, in the 14th-century Hauksbók (and 17th-century paper copies) and the 15th-century Skálholtsbók, appear to derive from a common original written in the 13th century[2][4] but vary considerably in details. Haukr Erlendsson and his assistants are thought to have revised the text, making it less colloquial and more stylish, while the Skálholtsbók version appears to be a faithful but somewhat careless copy of the original.
Since our earliest manuscript was written in the 14th century, we know that the recording was at least that old. Further, the article suggests that the "original" version of the Saga was written in the 13th century (1200's). However, even if the original version of this Saga was written in the 13th century, this dating doesn't by itself prove whether this Saga was compiled based on prior oral or prior written sources. So it's not a simple clearcut situation where we know that the Vikings were never recording this overall account and only finally penned the data in the 1200's. Indeed, due to the details of the information, such as the geneologies involved, it would make sense that this could have been recorded already on paper. Iceland was a literate society, even if the Vikings were often illiterate. Medieval Greenland had a bishop's cathedral, and the Pope appointed Erik Gnupsson to be Bishop of Greenland and Vinland around the early 12th century, so there was at least one person living on Greenland in the 12th century who could read and write.
The Sagas also retell poems that the voyagers created, so the implication at least from the Sagas is that the Vikings either had some memorization skills, or else they were able to write down their poems for the Saga writers to record.
The CONTRA argument, against the reliability of the Sagas would reflect a skeptical attitude. But it's worth noting in this regard that until the finding of L'anse aux Meadows, there was uncertainty in Western academia as to whether the Vinland stories were myths without the Vikings having ever settled south of Labrador. Now with the finding of butternuts and Jack Pine at Viking sites in Greenland and Newfoundland, it's even more reliable to assert that the VIkings camped west of Newfoundland and south of Labrador.
I actually agree with some skepticism about the reliability of the Vinland Sagas, but be that as it may, one of the tasks in dealing with the literature is still to try to get a solid handle on the geography as the Sagas try to portray it.
