Suddenly, it seemed, the northern seas were swarming with lean, low-hulled predators with snarling dragon figureheads, manned by men of reckless courage and invincible ferocity. Everywhere they went they plundered, burned and raped. Holy Church in particular was a target for their insensate violence, and ecclesiastical treasures looted from unsuspecting chapels and monasteries flowed back into Scandinavia in an unending stream:' In a word, although there were an hundred hard steeled iron heads on one neck, and an hundred sharp, ready, never-rusting brazen tongues in every head, and an hundred garrulous, loud, unceasing voices from every tongue, they could not recount or narrate or enumerate or tell what all the people of Ireland suffered in common, both men and women, laymen and priests, old and young, noble and ignoble, of hardship and injury and oppression in every house from these ruthless, wrathful, foreign, purely pagan people.'
It was the shrill and outraged gibbering of priests, like the writer of this passage from The War of the Irish and the Foreigners, which gave the Vikings their reputation for being bloodthirsty savages. Clerics in holy orders were almost the only people who could write in those days, so not only did they give the Vikings an extremely bad press, they also exaggerated their Satanic nature in order to make moral propaganda: the Viking onslaught was to be seen as a divine retribution for sins, requiring repentance and, no doubt, additional offerings to the church.
Happily, this highly colour ed attitude to the Vikings is now changing. Modern scholarship is slowly but surely rehabilitating the Vikings. More stress is now laid on their importance in terms of European politics, commerce, thought, exploration, colonization and art. No one would claim that they were all saints, but it is now apparent that they were by no means quite the sinners they have been made out to be.(Markus Magnusson: VIKING: Hammer of the North, Orbis, London, 1976:22-23).
Throughout history, and especially in China, the possession of superior maps was the key to political and military success, analogous to having advanced strategic weapons today. Shen Kua, in his Dream Pool Essays of 1086, gives the following illuminating story:' In the Hsi-Ning reign-period [1068 to 1077 AD] ambassadors came from Korea bringing tribute. In every hsien city or provincial capital which they passed through they asked for local maps, and these were made and given to them. Mountains and rivers, roads, escarpments and defiles, nothing was omitted. When they arrived at T'iehchow they asked for maps, as usual, but Ch'en Hsiu, who was then Prefect of Yangchow, played a trick on them. He said that he would like to see all the maps of the two Chekiang provinces with which they had been furnished, so that he could copy them for what was now wanted, but when he got hold of them, he burnt them all, and made a complete report on the affair to the emperor '.
(Robert Temple, The Genius of China: 3,000 Years of Science, Discovery and Invention, Simon & Schuster, New York 1986:30)
Since most scholars deny that the sagas of the discovery of America in Vinland could have influenced the European "Age of Discovery," some other medium of communication must be posited as the basis for my contention that explorations by Leif's successors definitely sparked Columbus. There are many other sources besides the sagas which shed light on the Norse activities beyond Greenland. There are archaeological findings, Eskimo folk tales, the Annals of Iceland and a host of isolated documents. Among the most exciting forms of documentary sources, when they become available, are old maps that have been overlooked. The extent to which this is true is proved by the enthusiasm with which the world greeted the discovery of the Yale Vinland Map in 1965. Unfortunately, as some scholars subsequently concluded, this particular map provided no new information on the Norse activities. It is my contention, however, that both the Yale Vinland Map and a very large number of other pre-Columbian maps of the Old World do show previously unrecognized parts of North America. Many of these maps have lain under the noses of historians for centuries, but have escaped notice because their information is in seemingly incomprehensible, distorted form.
Analysis of these distortions requires painstaking examinations, which I have carried out in a separate study. The distortions are all systematic, and once perceived they leave little room for doubt about what lands the maps depict. Indeed, the nature of the systematic distortion is often simply that the American lands have been misplaced into the Old World map of Eurasia. Suffice it to say, these maps thoroughly undermine the widespread assumption that all Norse exploration took place solely along the presently inhabited eastern seaboard of America. The maps, surprisingly, show lands of the arctic and sub-arctic regions of North America, of territory stretching, on the endpaper map, from Greenland to Alaska. They include detailed maps of Greenland's immediate western neighbor, Baffin Island, the Arctic Archipelago north of Canada and the Canadian arctic coast. While publication economics dictate that the many dozens of documentations of this claim be left for a separate study, the illustration of the concept on page 89 may meanwhile somewhat relieve the strain of accepting it on faith.
That the Norsemen could have possessed such an intimate knowledge of the Arctic Archipelago or even Baffin Island seems very surprising. Even more surprising seems the suggestion that they preserved the knowledge in cartographic form. The Norse sailors themselves have never been known to have made or used sailing charts or maps, and the earliest known native Icelandic map was not made until a century after Columbus in 1590. Scandinavia itself was not seriously mapped by its native geographers until 1532. Indeed, the native cartographical knowledge of Scandinavia was so inadequate that as late as 1070 the historian Adam of Bremen could not say definitely whether Scandinavia was an island or had a connection to the mainland. Modern scholars, for apparently good reasons, are so set against the idea that the medieval Norsemen could have made maps that it is necessary to give a full analysis of an alternate means of "explaining away" the maps referred to. The alternate explanation seems simple and straightforward, but, as I will ultimately show, deceptively so. Namely, from the time of the aforementioned Karlsefni's voyage to Vinland the Norsemen had contact with a people who are known to have been good geographers and map makers, the Thule Culture Eskimos of North America. (James Robert Enterline, VIKING AMERICA, DoubleDay, Garden City, 1972:73-75; emphases supplied)
Plainly and simply, it was only after this supposed extinction that the most detailed and most unmistakable maps of North American lands began to appear on European maps. Where could they have come from if the Greenlanders were no longer there to transmit them? Such maps' continued to appear throughout the fifteenth century and into the next. One of the most spectacular of these, Plate 15, drawn at Rome in 1427 by one Claudius Clavus, depicted the Bering Strait area of Alaska with Seward Peninsula in precise detail, as shown by the above comparison figure. This map poses the most pressing question: How did such a map make its way from the Bering Strait to Rome in 1427? Not only was the European link with the Eskimos via the Greenland Norsemen presumed by then to have been extinct, but there also remains the question of how the map was passed from Alaska to Greenland. It seems unlikely that the Greenland Eskimos could have drawn this particular map because their ancestors would have had no reason to transmit such extremely precise material in their minds over six thousand miles along their route of migration. The Eskimos in Greenland were separated from the Eskimos in Alaska by many generations as well as many miles.
I propose that the obvious answer to this question is that the Norsemen in the Western Hemisphere had not disappeared at all. Assuredly, their centralized settlements in Greenland had deteriorated, but there has never been any answer provided as to what happened to the people. Contrary to theories that were in vogue in the early twentieth century but are now discredited, the Norse population of Greenland as a group was not declining and dying out. Rather, it was maintaining itself and perhaps increasing. I submit that the people gradually moved out of the settlements and became hunters. With the known decline in contact with Europe, the implements from European industry which were required to maintain a husbandry culture became scarce and the need to supplement farming by hunting increased. An even more important climatic factor in the shift away from farming, the "Little Ice Age," is discussed in Chapter 8. A direct result of even the slightest shift away from a husbandry culture would have been the further breaking of ties with the Norsemen by Europe, thereby increasing even more the Norse dependence on hunting. This is an unending circle. But probably the strongest influence on this process of isolating the Norse, from the European point of view, was the rumor that the Greenlanders, because of their contacts with the Eskimo culture, were turning away from Christianity.
A most important direct result of the shift towards hunting would have been a strong need for dispersal of the population. This has nothing to do with overpopulation or any instinctive drive for emigration. It is simply the nature of hunting that any culture which depends upon hunting must necessarily be dispersed. Wild animals soon enough learn to avoid any permanent settlement. Thus, anybody who looks for the last American Norsemen in the Greenland ruins is bound to be disappointed.
Indeed, it is worthwhile to recall that from shortly after the re-established contact with the Eskimos in 1266, there exists a definite chronological-geographical sequence of maps extending backwards along the route of the Thule migration. Instead of attributing these maps to Eskimos, might it not also be reasonable-indeed perhaps more reasonable-to view them as a history of Norse forward dispersal into lands the Thules told them about? With their ships, the Norsemen could in one or two summers make the voyage between Alaska and Greenland which had taken the Eskimo people centuries to accomplish. (It is not really necessary to have steel-bowed supertankers with gigantic engines to sail through the Northwest Passage so long as one does have patience, understanding of ice conditions and skill in ship handling. Whalers sailed their wooden ships through the Arctic's ice for several centuries before Amundsen negotiated the Passage-in a ship smaller than many Norse ships.
The 1427 map of Clavus would be the natural end result of a westward dispersal. Surely the Greenland Norsemen must have learned the technical concepts of map making from the Thule Eskimos shortly after their first contacts in the thirteenth century. And, they also had access to writing materials from that time, when the sagas were first written down, onward. This hypothesis of a westward Norse dispersal is examined in Chapter 8 in much greater detail for, even though it may have been made to seem plausible, it has admittedly not been proven by any of the foregoing.
The first problem that demands attention, concerns how it was that these maps could have reached Europe after the European trade with Greenland ceased. It is of course possible to speculate that if the Norsemen remaining in America were capable of sailing between Alaska and Greenland, they could also sail back across the Atlantic. However, one would have to ask why they should be motivated to do so since their culture had by now presumably broken with Europe, and vice versa. (James Robert Enterline, VIKING AMERICA, DoubleDay, Garden City, 1972:89-92; emphases supplied).
All books about polar exploration begin with Pytheas of Massalia, and this one is no exception. As he was the first man to travel in far northern Europe and to report what he had seen, Pytheas cannot be ignored. But he is a problem. In brief, Pytheas is said to have sailed along the north-west coast of Europe; round Britain; and to the semi-legendary land of Thule, land of the midnight sun, the farthest north of inhabited lands. Unfortunately, nearly everything that is said about Pytheas depends on scholarly guesswork. He wrote a book, perhaps two books, about his travels, but they are lost. His account comes second-hand, through the quotations (how accurate no one can say) of later classical writers many of whom were antagonistic to him. Polybius, a well-travelled man himself who was possibly motivated to belittle the achievements of earlier rivals, poured scorn on many of Pytheas' statements. The learned geographer Strabo, a contemporary of Jesus of Nazareth, took his cue from Polybius and exerted great effort to show that Pytheas was a liar. In modern times the reputation of Pytheas has been restored, or rather it has risen higher than it ever was, for Pytheas was doubted even by his contemporaries. In fact the pendulum has probably swung too far: some recent accounts are inclined to stretch the evidence to make more of Pytheas' famous voyage. (David Mountfield, A HISTORY OF POLAR EXPLORATION, Dial Press, New York 1974)
In addition, there are the sagas. Their accounts of Vinland were put down for the specific purpose of giving information about the voyages to the new lands in the west. There are two sagas that concern us here, namely, the Greenlanders' Saga and Eirik the Red's Saga. They are both based on older manuscripts whose age it is impossible to determine with any degree of certainty. The Greenlanders' Saga has been preserved as three interpolations inserted in the ' Large' Saga of Olaf Tryggvason and included in the famous codex Flateyjarbok, the greater part of which was written down by the Icelandic priest Jon Thordarson at the end of the fourteenth century.
Eirik the Red's Saga has been preserved in two different manuscript versions. One of these is part of a large codex entitled Hauksbok, which Hauk Erlendsson put down on parchment some time before 1334. He was born about 1265 and settled in Bergen, where he became a lawman, knight, and member of the Norwegian Council of the Realm. He was descended from Thorfinn Karlsefni and seems to have been quite proud of that fact. This circumstance ought perhaps to be kept in mind when one attempts to evaluate this saga. The other manuscript is called SkdlhoItsbok and was written down during the second half of the fifteenth century. It contains the same accounts as Hauksbok, but there are divergences in several places in the way they are set down and also in regard to facts. The Swedish scholar Sven B. F. Jansson has shown conclusively that the differences have arisen because Hauk Erlendsson made a number of improvements in his own copy. Skdlholtsbok must therefore be regarded as the more trustworthy of the two sources.
The two sagas are different in several respects. The Greenlanders' Saga seems particularly concerned with the family of Eirik the Red and whatever might be of interest to the people of Greenland; it seems probable that this saga is based in the main on material originating in Greenland, as G. M. Gathorne-Hardy has pointed out. It tells about several independent voyages to the new land in the west. First we hear about Bjarni, whose ship was driven westward by storms, and the sighting of new and strange shores. Then the saga deals with the voyage of Leif Eiriksson- a carefully planned expedition, the objective of which was to reach the land that Bjarni had already seen. Subsequently, Leif's brothers, Thorvald and Thorstein, as well as his sister Freydis, set out on expeditions of their own. Thorvald and Freydis actually reached Vinland and lived for some time in the houses that Leif had put up. This saga also contains an account of the expedition led by Thorfinn Karlsefni.
Eirik the Red's Saga is focused more on Thorfinn Karlsefni and dwells to a greater extent on whatever might be of interest to the Icelanders of that time. The discovery made by Leif Eiriksson is noted in only a few lines; the saga writer makes the discovery of Vinland a part of the story of the voyage Leif made from Olaf Tryggvason's court in Trondheim to Greenland, when he was given the task of introducing Christianity in his homeland. The sober account of Bjarni's voyage is not included. The account of Thorstein's unsuccessful voyage has been included in this saga, but in a somewhat different version. The independent Vinland voyages of Thorvald and Freydis are not mentioned; on the contrary, both appear as participants of the Karlsefni expedition.
The discrepancies between the two sagas may, to some extent, have derived from a rivalry between two great families as to which had the honour of having fostered the discoverer of Vinland. Such a situation is not unknown in connection with important discoveries and explorations in the past. It seems that Karlsefni's family in Iceland enjoyed a great advantage, for in the course of time there was to belong to it a number of influential men, including Icelandic bishops; moreover, Iceland was the land where the sagas were written down. The. family of the Greenlander Leif Eiriksson, on the other hand, disappears from history with the death of his son. It may be that, in the course of centuries, the Icelanders' centred their accounts of the Vinland Voyages on their great hero and countryman Thorfinn Karlsefni, and as time passed the distant Greenlanders and their achievements were felt to be of less interest. In an oral tradition, influenced by family and national feelings, the accounts of the Greenland voyages could have become incorporated into the saga of Thorfinn Karlsefni, with Leif Eiriksson's accomplishments relegated to a subsidiary place in the narrative. This does not necessarily mean that a conscious effort was made to falsify or alter the facts. It is very hard to prove that this kind of modification of the saga text may have taken place in the course of time, but one is tempted to ask: When Hauk Erlendsson, who very strongly emphasized his relationship with Thorfinn Karlsefni, took the liberty of improving on the saga as late as the fourteenth century, what may not his powerful family in Iceland have done in this respect during previous centuries?
There has been a great deal of discussion as to whether Eirik the Red's Saga or the Greenlanders' Saga is the more reliable. Recent research has arrived at the conclusion that each one offers valuable information, all of which must be properly evaluated and taken into consideration. Their significance does not lie in their differences and in a number of obscure passages but in the remarkable fact that in important respects they provide us with reliable information about events that occurred a thousand years ago.
To sum up, we have no hesitation in saying that the various scattered sources in conjunction with the sagas constitute historical evidence removing any doubt that the Vinland voyages actually took place- that Norsemen sailed to North America about five hundred years before Columbus. But it is one thing to know that this is a fact, it is quite another to determine which areas of the New World they visited and where they built their houses. Where then is the Vinland of the sagas to be found?
It is true that the sagas contain valuable information touching on sailing and navigation, geography, astronomy, ethnography, zoology, and botany, but to give everything a correct interpretation is nevertheless quite difficult. And not least because we must attempt to understand the mentality of the Vinland voyagers and their descendants; we are here concerned with popular traditions and not with scholarly dissertations. The traditions were based on accounts and reports made by young seamen and were retold through the centuries from generation to generation, in houses made of turf and stone, to people sitting on an earthen floor by an open fire.(Helge Instad, WESTWARD TO VINLAND, 1969:32-35, emphases supplied).
In 1893, a few years after the Gokstad ship was discovered, an exact replica was built. It was properly named Viking, and a Norwegian sea captain, Magnus Andersen, sailed her across the Atlantic. ' Viking did her finest lap from the 15th to the 16th of May, when she covered a distance of 223 nautical miles. It was good sailing. In the semi-darkness the light from the northern horizon cast a fantastic pale sheen on the ocean as Viking, light as a gull, glided over the wave-tops. We noted with admiration the ship's graceful movements, and with pride we noted her speed, sometimes as much as eleven knots .... We were afforded a first class opportunity of testing Viking's performance when sailing close to the wind. To our great surprise she proved to be in the same class as most modern two-masters '.
Because of the flexibility afforded by the methods used for lashing the planks to the ribs, the bottom as well as the keel could yield to the movement of the ship, and in a heavy head-sea it would rise and fall as much as three-quarters of an inch. Yet, strangely enough, the ship still remained water-tight. The ship's great elasticity was apparent in other ways too. For instance in a high sea the gunwale twisted out of true as much as six inches. '...The rudder is indeed a work of genius. In my experience the side rudder is much to be preferred in such a ship to a rudder on the stern-post; it worked satisfactorily in every way and had the advantage of never kicking, as a stern-post rudder would certainly have done. One man could steer in any weather with merely a small line to help.' Magnus Andersen also relates how well Viking fared in the worst sea she encountered, partly under sail and partly using the drift anchor: '... A real SSW gale was now blowing. Nonetheless, we found that if the ship could carry sail [in these conditions] she would, of her own accord, progress slightly westwards despite the wind direction, and why should we not make use of it when we could? So we hauled in the drift anchor, hoisted the mainsail but reefed as much as possible. Soon Viking was gathering speed, although she could not come closer than six degrees to the wind -- but on the other hand she was not carried off course more than four degrees.' The triumphant Viking was taken to Chicago for exhibition at the Chicago World's fair held in the same year as the crossing.(Bertil Almgren et al, THE VIKING, AB Nordbok, Gothenburg 1975:254).
The equipment and gear found in the Oseberg and the Gokstad ships provide a fairly detailed picture of life on board a Viking vessel. According to the sagas the Vikings liked to moor their ships close to land at night, and pitch a tent on shore. The remains of one such tent were found in the Gokstad ship and two in the Oseberg ship. They consist of a light framework of timber over which a covering was spread... On the verge-boards of the Oseberg tents, magical symbols like the coiled serpent were painted... In each of the two ships a large, splendid bed with carved posts was found, along with several simpler beds. All the beds could be dismantled and stowed on board. They may therefore have been field beds which could be set up for the use of the Viking leaders when they went ashore for the night... In both the Oseberg and Gokstad ships large cauldrons, perhaps for cooking on shore, were found. At Oseberg, in addition to cauldrons, a real piece of camping equipment turned up, a collapsible iron tripod for hanging the pots over a fire. The Gokstad cauldron is bronze and holds thirty-two gallons. Even assuming a ship carried as many as fifty men, a cauldron that large could supply ample portions of porridge or soup for everyone. On longer voyages large supplies of water were obviously necessary. It was probably carried in skin bags like those still used for wine in Mediterranean countries. Long, narrow boards with steps hewn out of them have been found on many burial ships, and these obviously served as gangplanks. (Bertil Almgren et al, THE VIKING, AB Nordbok, Gothenburg 1975:262).
Amongst the Gokstad discoveries were three small boats, thirty-two feet, twenty-six feet, and twenty-two feet long with five, three and two pairs of oars respectively. Their shape is similar to that of the large ship, with the same elegant construction and workmanship. The smallest (left), which was most suitable as a ship's boat, is built of oak with planking up to three-fifths of an inch thick. The boat is rather narrow, but fast and easy to handle. (Bertil Almgren et al, THE VIKING, AB Nordbok, Gothenburg 1975:269).
Many of their achievements... would have been impossible without the Vikings' mastery of shipbuilding, seamanship and navigation. For a period of 300 years or so, they were the most accomplished seamen of the northern seas. Their ships operated from the Arctic to the Caspian Sea and across the Atlantic to the New World: some were on raiding missions but many were trading ships or on voyages of exploration and settlement. (THE VIKING WORLD, James Graham-Campbell, Francis Lincoln, London, 1980:63)
We get some idea of the performance of these ships at sea from the fact that the Vikings could maintain fairly regular contact with Iceland and Greenland, and undertake countless voyages in the Arctic, the Baltic, the North Sea, the eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean, though prudently limiting their sailing season to between April and early October. For further information we must turn to recent experimental work with replicas of Viking ships and boats. Viking's voyage also demonstrated the reliability of the thin planking. Thin planking results in light draft and thus Viking vessels could be taken far inland up shallow rivers; some could even be manhandled overland between rivers or across a peninsula.
Seaworthiness
In 1893, Viking, a Norwegian replica of the Gökstadt ship, under the command of Captain Magnus Andersen, sailed from Bergen to Newfoundland in twenty-eight days. This voyage demonstrated the seaworthiness and the sea keeping qualities of this form of hull. Andersen noted the flexibility of her distinctive method of construction, yet the vessel successfully endured several stormy days and proved reasonably watertight. Viking ships were designed to be supple and to 'ride the punch' of the sea, rather than be rigid and battle against it. In this they were probably more successful than any rigid structure could have been, for, with the materials and technology of those days, a rigid structure would inevitably have had to be more massive. Leakage at the seams and through fastenings must always have been a problem, however, and bailing out a constant task.
Steering
Magnus Andersen was also favourably impressed by the side rudder, which, because it was balanced, he found easy to use even in heavy seas. Viking Age side rudders projected well below the keel but in shallow water they could be raised quickly by unlashing the upper fastening and pivoting the rudder about the external boss.
Speed
Theory indicates that long, light-displacement craft should have high speed potential, and this was in fact demonstrated during trials of the Greenwich faering of longship proportions; the faering achieved an unexpectedly high speed of 7 knots under oars, probably because she rode up out of the water and skimmed along in a semi-planing posture, almost like a power boat. Experiment and theory thus show that in favourable conditions the Viking longship could have achieved high speed under oar or sail, provided that she had a competent crew.
Under sail
The simple standing rigging evidently used in Viking ships gave freedom to trim the yard into the optimum position, especially if the shrouds were readily adjustable. The relatively short mast would mean better stability and less need for support, while the long yard made a large sail area possible. Calculations indicate that the Gökstadt ship did in fact have good sailing potential. Precisely how fast and how close to the wind a Viking ship could sail is at present difficult to quantify, for these qualities also depend on the material and the cut of the sail, the match of the sail and rigging to the hull, and the abilities of the crew. The deep keels and the characteristic steepness of the lower strakes imply that Viking hulls had relatively good windward capability and the use of the tacking boom to hold the leading edge of the sail taut shows that Viking seamen were striving to get as close to the wind as they possibly could. Recent experiments in Denmark have shown that Viking ships can be sailed to within c. 60 degrees of the wind, making 1.5 to 2 knots to windward.
Pilotage and navigationWith generations of experience and constant practice Viking seamen became familiar with landmarks that indicated their whereabout in coastal waters, even when operating a extreme visual range, as would be prudent with an onshore wind when they might easily be wrecked. Crossing a channel such as the English Channel or the North Channel would also be relatively simple; wider stretches of water could be similarly navigated in conditions of refraction, when bending of the light rays means that peaks and headlands can be visible at sea level up to 60 miles away. Voyaging out of sight of land was different matter, for the Vikings had no compass and no accurate timepiece. Nevertheless, in the later Viking period they repeatedly achieved long, two-way ocean voyages to Iceland and Greenland during which they were out of sight of land for several consecutive days. They were proven ocean navigators, but we can only make a reasoned guess at the precise method they used: possibly these were similar to those contemporary Arabs, for which there documentary evidence. If the course known and the distance sailed estimated, a form of dead reckoning could have been used. On a clear night a course may be relative to the Pole Star, and we know that the significance of this was appreciated by early medieval seamen. The angle to a steady swell from a known directions can also be used, as can the relative direction of a prevailing wind: warm wet winds are from the south-west, cold wet winds from the north-east; thus the feel of the wind can be roughly equated with direction. Checks on these estimates could be made at certain times of day, providing the sun was visible. At noon, with the sun at its highest, or in northern latitudes at midnight, with the sun at its lowest, the direction of north and south can be established; sunrise and sunset, except latitudes, give the approximate directions of east and west.
Over generations a body of knowledge would have been built up on the time usually taken to sail between two places. There are accounts of traditional routes and their associated number of sailing days in the sagas and we may deduce that there were similar oral accounts in the earlier, Viking times. Such records would have to be based on a standard speed, possibly allowing for currents. Deviations from this theoretical speed could be estimated on a particular voyage from a knowledge of the past performance of one's own ship, and the existing weather and sea conditions. Alternatively, speed could be estimated from the position of the bow wave, or by counting the number of standard oarstrokes used to propel the ship past a floating object thrown overboard from the bow, or by a sandglass. Use of a simple traverse board (similar to the gaming boards found in Viking contexts) would enable these estimated courses and speeds to be 'plotted' to give the ship's approximate position, although there is no direct evidence of such use. For a more accurate position estimates would have to be made of the leeway experienced (the amount the ship had been blown sideways) and the effects of any currents. The length of daylight and the angular altitude of Polaris and of the noon sun change as one moves north or south of a known place. If such variations could be detected on board ship it would be established that the ship was north or south of a known 'latitude'. It may have been possible to estimate altitudes against the ship's rigging, although with questionable accuracy. Another method could be to compare the apparent height of sun or star above the horizon with the outstretched hand (a finger's breadth is c. 2 degrees; wrist span, c. 8 degrees; clenched fist, c.10 degrees; extended fingers, c.19 degrees), or against a calibrated stick. The ship's movement would cause inaccuracies, but the mean of several readings could be used to reduce error. The ability to appreciate significant deviations from the known 'latitude' of the home port, or of destination, could lead to a form of latitude sailing, striving to maintain a constant 'latitude' as indicated by the altitude of the Pole Star or the sun, and there are indications in the sagas that the Vikings may have used this method. Navigation based on celestial observation requires relatively clear skies; a succession of overcast days would almost inevitably lead to loss of bearings, unless, as some authorities believe, Viking seamen had discovered the sun-seeking property of double refracting cordierite or Icelandic feldspar crystals. Whatever methods were employed, it seems clear that the Vikings had developed ocean navigation to a fine art, possibly with the aid of skills that we no longer realize we possess. Approaching land, navigational problems would be eased, although risk of shipwreck increased. Cloud sitting over an island is visible before land is sighted, and ice may be detected many miles away in good weather by its reflection in the sky. Nearer land the line of flight of seabirds, the boom of the surf, the shallowing of the water revealed by lead and line, even the smell of sheep indicate its proximity. Landmarks and beacons were built as aids for navigators in certain places. Using these aids the master or pilot would identify his landfall and decide which way to turn along the coast in order to make the intended destination. (THE VIKING WORLD, James Graham-Campbell, Francis Lincoln, London, 1980:59-62)
Table 1: Partial Data from recovered Viking
Ships
VIKING BURIAL SHIPS from Oseberg, Gokstad
(Norway)
and Ladby (Denmark)
SHIP | TYPE | LENGTH M/(ft) | WIDTH M/(ft) | CREW/OARS | DRAUGHT | DATE |
Oseberg | Burial Ship | 21.6m (70.9ft) | 5.0m (16.4ft) | 60-70 / 30 | -- | ca. 800 |
Gokstad | Burial Ship | 23.3m (76.5ft) | 5.2m (17ft) | 70-80 / 32 | 36 inches | ca. 850 |
Ladby | Burial Ship | 21.5m (70.6ft) | 3.0m (9.85ft) | ??? / 30 | -- | 900-950 |
SKULDELEV VIKING SHIPS from Skuldelev Fjord, Denmark | ||||||
Skuldelev 1 | Trader | 16.5m (54.2ft) | 4.5m (14.8ft) | 5-8 / 2 | 24-51 inches | 11th Cent. |
Skuldelev 2 | Longship | 30m (98.5ft) | 4.5m (14.8ft) | 60-100/ 56-60 | 39.4 inches | ca. 1060 |
Skuldelev 3 | Trader | 13.5m (44.3ft) | 3.4m (11.2ft) | 5-6 / 7 | 33.5 inches | 11th Cent. |
Skuldelev 5 | Longship | 17.5m (57.5ft) | 2.5m (8.2ft) | 30+ / 26 | 20 inches | ca. 1040 |
Skuldelev 6 | Trader | 12m (39.4ft) | -- | -- | -- | 11th Cent. |
ROSKILDE VIKING SHIPS from Roskilde, Denmark | ||||||
Roskilde 1 | Trader | 10 m (32.8ft) | -- | -- | -- | ca.1336 |
Roskilde 2 | Trader | 16.5m (54.2ft) | -- | -- | -- | ca.1200 |
Roskilde 3 | Trader | 18m (59.1ft) | -- | -- | -- | ca.1060 |
Roskilde 4 | Trader | 20.5m (67.3ft) | -- | -- | -- | ca.1108 |
Roskilde 5 | ??? | 14m (45.97ft) | -- | -- | -- | ca.1130 |
Roskilde 6 | Longship | 36m (118.2ft) | 5.4m (17.7ft) | 100+ / 70-80 | -- | ca.1025 |
Roskilde 7 | Trader | 11m (36.1ft) | -- | -- | -- | ca.1271 |
Roskilde 8 | Trader | 11m (36.1ft) | -- | -- | -- | ca.1248 |
Roskilde 9 | Trader | 11m (36.1ft) | -- |
-- |
-- |
ca.1171 |
Notes: Skuldelev
Ship Data from The
Viking Ship Museum; Roskilde Ship Data from Ove Långe's Ship
Index
For a great deal
more on the above ships and the subject in general see
Viking
Ships and Norse Wooden Boats
For nearly an hour, we rowed out the narrow inlet from Maine's Small Point Harbour to the ocean. It should have been an easy mile, but we were not used to the 18' ash oars. It did not help matters that, rather than being one of those sleek longships powered by 30 or more rowers, SNORRI is a beamy knarr) (kah-narr) -- a 'goat of the seas,' according to the Viking sagas -- with only eight rowing stations. The two forward most rowing positions were nearly useless, and her bilge held roughly 15 tons of hand-loaded ballast. (W. Hodding Carter,"Discovering Vinland: The Voyage of the Snorri," WoodenBoat, Vol. 148, May/June 1999:62)
pursue his conviction that the Orinoco led inland to the source of [South American] gold. He soon prepared brigs and a sailing barge to take his men and horses up the river. The expedition moved into the swampy, forested mouths of the Orinoco. Its brown waters were ' so flat, broad and deep and navigable that it seemed... as if the water was hardly moving'. But the lack of any breeze forced Ordás to put most of his men into the brigs, where they rowed, towing the unwieldy barge against the current. Progress was imperceptible. The Spanish soldiers complained bitterly at the hard labour of rowing... Men were dying one by one from diseases, and from hunger: for the land there was very flooded and covered by the river, and there was nowhere for the brigs to seek food.' The expedition finally emerged from the delta and reached the large Aruak village of Huyapari... (John Hemmings, THE SEARCH FOR EL DORADO, Michael Joseph, London, 1978:10).
This small army would be well equipped, with guns, ammunition, bows, food, and also goods for barter along the way...[the expedition]. left Belem on 28 October 1637. Teixeira's journey upstream was an astonishing endeavor. The Amazon's flow shifts its strength according to each season but can reach six knots. For Teixeira, whether the current was slow or fast, there was nothing to overcome it save muscle-power, mainly from the Indians who were most familiar with this form of travel. Also...the forty-seven canoes held 1,200 demanding appetites. Food was therefore a tremendous problem. The feeding of 1,200, or - worse still - the provisioning of 1,200 for several days, was beyond the capabilities of Indian villages, however friendly. The huge force had, in the main, to fend for itself- to catch fish, shoot game, collect fruit, and gather what it could. Navigation upstream, apart from being harder work, also presents greater problems than coming down river. Which is the correct fork? Is this the main stream or some equally large but irrelevant tributary? ...Much of the river can look irritatingly similar, even if earlier notes of its appearance have been written down. Teixeira and the bulk of his canoes had to wait, again and again, while exploratory parties checked the way ahead. It must have been an exasperating, as well as exhausting, way to travel. The greatest problem lay in persuading the paddling Indians to continue with their labour. Not only was it tiring work, day after day, but they were growing homesick. Each day's struggle took them even further from their families... Every particle of Teixeira's tact, diplomacy, cunning and persuasive power must have been needed to maintain progress remorselessly up-river, for month after month. After eight months of paddling, and cajoling, and entreating, and bullying, Teixeira's small fleet reached its first Spanish settlement. Instead of proceeding from there with his entire force he sent ahead a small party of eight canoe-loads. The remainder were to wait until the return journey could begin. When this larger contingent had been comfortably settled Teixeira departed to follow and catch up the advance guard. The current grew swifter and swifter, and eventually the river (Quijos) had to be abandoned completely and the rest of the journey completed on foot. After almost a year of travel Teixeira reached Quito. (Anthony Smith, Explorers of the Amazon, Four Centuries of Adventure Along the World's Greatest River, Viking Penguin, London, 1990:146-147).
Part 2. West by Northwest
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Almgren, Bertil, et
al.
THE VIKING,
AB Nordbok, Gothenburg 1975.
Brent, Peter. THE VIKING SAGA, G.P. Putnam's
Sons, New York,1975.
Carter, W. Hodding, "Discovering Vinland: The Voyage
of the Snorri," Wooden Boat, Vol. 148, May/June 1999.
Crumlin-Pedersen, Ole. “The Ships of the Vikings,” The Vikings. Proceedings,of the Symposium
of the Faculty of arts of Uppsala University June 6-9, 1977.
Eds. Thorsten Andersson and Karl Inge Sandred, Almquist and Wiksell,
Uppsala 1978.
Graham-Campbell, James. THE
VIKING WORLD,
Francis Lincoln, London, 1980.
Enterline, James Robert. VIKING AMERICA, DoubleDay,
Garden City, 1972.
Hale, John R. "The Viking Longship," Scientific
American, February 1998.
Hemmings, John. THE SEARCH FOR EL DORADO,
Michael Joseph, London 1978.
Ingstad, Helge. Westward to Vinland, St. Martins,
New York, 1969.
Jones, Gwyn. The Norse Atlantic Saga: Being the
Norse Voyages of Discovery and Settlement to Iceland, Greenland, and
America.
London: Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1964.
Jensen, Kenn. "Documentation and
Analysis of Ancient Ships,"
Doctoral Thesis (1999), Centre of Maritime Archaeology, Technical
University of Denmark, Lyngby, 1999.
Magnusson, Markus. VIKING:
Hammer of
the North, Orbis, London, 1976.
Mountfield, James. A HISTORY OF POLAR
EXPLORATION, Dial Press, New York 1974.
Smith, Anthony. Explorers of the Amazon, Four
Centuries of Adventure Along the World's Greatest River, Viking
Penguin,
London 1990.
Temple, Robert. The Genius of China: 3,000 Years
of Science, Discovery and Invention, Simon & Schuster, New York
1986.
Maps: Partial Map Listing
forThe Last Viking
Postscript 1: A Fir Tree of the
Mind
(pdf)
Postscript 2: RongoRongo and the
Raven's Tail
OTHER: Easter Island
Stone Structures
Copyright © 1999. John N. Harris, M.A.(CMNS). Last Updated on December 22, 2023.