Vinland
Leif Erickson. "The Lucky".
Leifur Eiriksson. Greenland Nobleman
Thorfinn Karlsefni. Faroese trader.
Preserved intact in Iceland are responsible records near a thousand years old of explorations and settlement of the New World. They lack cohesion and are set in medieval thought, yet dramatize and tantalizingly describe real places and events.
Recent development is a new book based upon and improved over the website. Please visit this brief announcement: Hyperlink, "Rediscovering Vinland, Evidence of Ancient Viking Presence in America." by Fred N. Brown III. Advancements in research and supporting material make the book a more interesting read for the historian. It is particularly improved with more specific local historical anomalies in close support of the theme of this program. Edited by Diane Holloway, Ph.D., it is available through iUniverse.com in both paper and eBook formats
In preparing for this new book an attempt was made to describe in more concise terms just what it was that makes this discussion so important. A paragraph concerning it has been added to "Proofpage" immediately following, "Nexus for the assertion".
Another development of interest to regulars here concerns the appearance of another website with such a similar name as this one that notice of it is essential. Search engines might confuse the two websites. Hyperlink "Notice"
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So far as we are aware, no University, no College, no institution of higher learning anywhere, public or private, has ever approached the valued issue in earnest. This peculiarity results in common belief that Vinland and its Icelandic/Greenlandic explorers are mere myths.
Since 1492 independent thinkers have wondered and labored on the subject but modern re-discovery is wholly in the endeavors of private and amateur seekers.
This website chronicles a thirty year research and analysis of a place that has at long last yielded a proof that Vinland has been found.
Your mouse will enable you to discover the rich texts of the Sagas set here collated from scattered sources in to a comprehensive narrative - perhaps for the first time. The exercise opens new vistas as to where and how the skilled seamen crossed the seas to America at a time when few sailors left the sight of land. This form of the Sagas has been submitted to the National Library of Iceland and the Government of that oldest of Democratic Republics. and found favor and encouragement there.
Follow us in reasoned analysis which describes where and how the Vinland explorers journeyed and exactly where they had landed.
For the independent of mind and the bold of spirit, an explicit element of proof is offered. The open mind may accept it freely: the conservative or argumentive mind may challenge it if it can. Five years since its public presentation, it has yet to be responsibly refuted.
The astounding revelation that results has as its proof a diversity within a human population which informs us that this original landing in the New World by Europeans was eminently more successful and peaceful than heretofore supposed. They came, they settled, they left legacies.
A thousand years ago seafaring Vikings - champion explorers and traders - settled Greenland. After hearing of accidental sightings of new lands west, several of these hardy colonists and seamen set sail in that direction. Famed then, famous now, the best known - Leif Erickson - straightaway became legendary among his people for his heroic qualities. Long winter nights of narrations inspired some to eventually record his adventures in epic written tales called Sagas which we inherit today as glorious living history. These sagas tell of new lands that had much of value not available in their cold northern climate. They tell so much that modern historians know this land had been somewhere in North America. This was five centuries before the equally intrepid Christopher Columbus set sail on his own adventure This modern exercise in discovery is the culmination of a twenty eight year research endeavor towards that subject and how it relates to a specific site. It is one of very few of many studies that narrates and deals with the sagas entire without prejudice - as plausible historical record and not myth. How to use this website! Since it may prove difficult to read this material from the screen, and as it deals with matters that require sometimes intense introspective endeavor, we recommend the following procedures: To follow the literary thread originating with the Vinland Voyagers themselves, go first to the Vinland sagas. Print these out. You will need them and they are most interesting as they narrate far more than most can imagine! Following this, turn to "The Coast of Vinland" page for analysis of why a discovered site must be found within a specific locale and how descriptions may be extracted from sometimes mundane remarks of the ancient adventurers. If you feel that you would prefer the scientific material, turn first to <Proofpage>, which is the argument as developed through some thirty years of research. Print this out and maintain for reference and reflection. If you wish, carry this with you for discussion with associates, for it gains in debate and contains much that is interesting. The page also contains a comprehensive bibliography. Following either of these courses, additional information can be had in both "The People of Vinland" and "Lingua Vinlandia" which express and define expected result of a successful argument. These are interesting in any case and have the merit of establishing the pre-Columbian origins of a famous American Indian Tribe. While this yields information strictly from the subjective side, it is hoped that it will open study of the objective culture - Vikings/Nor'men - for in their pastoral mode they were not at all like the popular modern rough-hewn perception. Indeed, some medieval travelers describe Scandinavia of that day as welcoming and hospitable to a fault - even going so far as to say "--there are no pirates among them." Some
pages are lengthy; the website in total is near book length.
Therefore it is designed that pages of interest be printed out for
timely perusal, minute scrutiny and intense reflection. The
program may be divided into parts: one, Proofpage, with
its more readable companion piece Plain talk: and two, the
cumulative argument of collateral evidence that supports it.
Update news; The Page "About" has been re-written with an extensive FAQ section. The website is now five years old and we have received many queries.. It is a good page for those re-visiting the site and also newcomers. See: Notes In a nutshell: a condensation of the program organized in a comprehensive manner.
The Vinland Sagas: Dealing with all the information. So far as is known this is the only Vinland study that publishes the Sagas entire as a narrative chronicle and then attempts answer to questions posed therein. A glorious but unsung tale, it seems to us that these Sagas are especially good for younger folk - maybe from 3rd to 4th grades and up.
The Vinland settlers left traces ! And some of the travelers remained in the New World, if we can believe our genetic inferences. There also existed many social and linguistic traces of a remarkable people that are evident in the pages below.
Follows a mapping exercise of the coast of Vinland. Careful readers of the Sagas will find that there are many - perhaps 22 - landings and landfalls described by the voyagers and analysis can demonstrate that no fewer than 18 must be upon the coast of Vinland. Moreover, because several of these are landfalls in common (described by two or more voyagers), a certain relationship can be made for placement. The fact the we can plausibly relate these to the New England Coast is a statistically powerful support for the final thesis. The sequence of passage of at least 6 of these landfalls may be considered near certain and their coincidental descriptions precise. The three named settlements of Vinland may be readily deduced from this relationship. The courses and three major landfalls from Greenland may be assumed, but the heretofore vague and ethereal coast upon which Leifsbudir must have been located becomes tangible in these views. It is recommended that these maps be read in the sequence listed. We regret the rough nature of the sketches which are intended as guides to the reader to more refined maps such as Mapquest road maps or even Google Earth satelite screens. If the latter, it must be remarked that the area of outer Cape Cod and Nantucket Sound have all been altered by sea currents for severe changes. Now quite shallow, a thousand years ago Nantucket Sound was deeper and possessed numerous small islets. Indeed, what appears as the sizeable island Monomoy did not exist. The coast of Southern New England: Vinland as it is today. General orientation The coast of Vinland as it may have been in the long ago. An important earlier study by the Dane Charles C. Rafn The coast as developed by the Pilot of the good ship Wave Cleaver Leifur Eiriksson's approach to his discovery And then his brother Thorvald's informative departure from there. Settlement by Thorfinn Karlsefni and Gudrid Thorbjornsdoittir Information from Freydis Eiricksdottir The next contact: Giovanni Verrazano, 1524 Narragansett Tribal Territory at the time of Roger Williams Still to come: District Artifacts, Crossannes, Pettaquamscutt detail. "Special note concerning the name of the famous explorer: the surname - usually supposed - can be found spelled in many ways, and this includes within this website. It may be cause for confusion for serious researchers, for it appears not to be his true name at all. "Erick" is derived from a title in ON "Eirik" which is usually translated as equivalent to "Earl", meaning a man of substance and such position as to have a following of combatants. He was the leader of his family and the central figure in a social group and in Viking life often a ship owner with its crew - both military and nautical. Leif's father was known as "Erick the Red" (Eirikur Rode) which usually incurs the assumption that Leif's patronymic was therefore Erikson, or some linguistic variant. However, it has become my belief that in fact the real name of the man we know as Erick the Red was actually Thorvald, thus making Leif's true name "Thorvaldsson". Erik the Red's hegira from Norway to Greenland is rather difficult to trace and there is some confusion as to whether the man exiled from Norway to Iceland was Erik himself or his own father, Leif's Grandfather. So this confusing issue can not yet be satisfactorily resolved in our own research, but Leif's cultural persona, if not his true name is "Leifur, Son of Eirikur Rode" - "Leif, Son of Erick the Red", but whose legal patronymic was something different; in my opinion, Thorvaldsson. "---ur" denotes the nominative case, a specific person or thing. An Eirik might be one of many, but Eirikur means one man in particular. This title is thus generally qualified with a further description, usually in the form of what we would tern a "nickname". Here it is "the red" because this man's dominant characteristic was that he had both a red beard and red hair. (Leif was said to have had the inherited red beard but differed with blond hair.) But other men might be, say, "---the stout", "broadaxe" (from prowess with such), the shrewd", and so on, "In Icelandic and Old Norse, the two "s"'s denote possessive as they do in English - Thorvald's Son, so they should always appear in the name - almost true as "Ericksson", more exact and linguistically correct as "Eiriksson". In the United States the name is commonly abbreviated to "Ericson" or "Erikson" for convenience, but this is considered somewhat an affront to Icelandic scholars and speakers. This business of using these colloquial
names complicates the issue to the scholar's and genealogist's
detriment. In these pages is the common reference to Thorfinn Karlsefni
and it seems that the usual use of the last name is in error.
"Karlsefni" is, in truth, yet another colliquial which means
something in the order of "some hunk of a man" since "karl"
in ON means "strong". He seems to have been an
attractive, and powerful man, successful in trade and as an implied
effective seaman. I have been in correspondence with an American lady who
claims descent from he and his wife Gudrid, not through famed Snorri,
but from a second son named Bjorn who may or may not have been born in
Vinland. The family returned to Greenland after their three year
stay in America to, first, Greenland at a farm ("saettr"?)
named "Sandness" ("sandy peninsula" which was
located near the "Western Settlement" well north of the more
populated "Eastern Settlement" and may have been Gudrid's
inherited property of her first husband Thorstein Eiriksson who died
there of disease with Gudrid in attendance. (The place is well known and has been archeologically excavated
with the notable discovery of a lump of coal that apparently originated
in Rhode Island, USA). Bjorn might have been born there or later
still when the couple moved again back to Northern Iceland. From
this genealogy I was able to discover that his true legal patronym was
not "Karlsefni" but "Thordarsson". All material in this website is copyrighted from past written publication. The sagas, of course, have long been in the public domain - only access to them has been problematical. We believe that this website is the only access to the entire series as narrative at this date. Copy of material herein and dissemination not for profit to interested parties is here permitted and encouraged with attribution to The Voyage of Wave Cleaver, Inc. and/or its director and researcher, Frederick N. Brown, 3rd.
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