702 



NORTH AMERICA. 



succeeded in opening a continuous communication 

 between the two hemispheres." M. de Humboldt, 

 after repeating the purport of the traditions of a 

 Norwegian discovery, with an expression of entire 

 reliance on their general accuracy, judiciously adds: 

 " In this class of events, as in others of a more re- 

 mote antiquity, we know, so to say, the masses; 

 the reality of the communications between Green- 

 land and the American continent ; but the detail 

 of the events is vague, and often in appearance ex- 

 traordinary. It is only the learned of Denmark 

 and Norway, who can remove those contradictions 

 of dates and distances, those doubts on the direc- 

 tion and length of the voyages, which present them- 

 selves on the face of the spots, described in the 

 Sagas." M. de Humboldt distinctly rejects the 

 opinion that Vinland was the southern part of 

 Greenland, which appears to have originated with 

 Zurla ; and adds, that " the colonization of this 

 peninsula did not proceed from north to south." 



Among the questions to which an answer was 

 necessary before the truth of this tradition could 

 he admitted, were those which relate to the Ice- 

 landic manuscripts, in which the tradition is con- 

 tained. What are these manuscripts, where are 

 they preserved, what is their nge, and what their 

 claims to authenticity, what is their exact purport, 

 and why are they not published ? A want of in- 

 formation on these points, was probably a chief 

 cause of the distrust and doubts entertained on this 

 interesting subject. 



Full satisfaction on all these points, as far as it 

 is possible to furnish it, will be found in the volume 

 referred to. * It presents us with extracts from 

 no less than eighteen ancient authors principally 

 Icelandic; several, containing detailed accounts of 

 the discovery, and all of them allusions to it. Sa- 

 tisfactory information of the genuineness of the 

 manuscripts will also be found in the work, and 

 the question will be found to reduce itself to a 

 pretty simple issue on the credibility of the accounts 

 themselves. Something of the reluctance to admit 

 this discovery which haunts the popular mind, un- 

 questionably springs from a superficial notion of the 

 improbability that a people, locked up, as we almost 

 think them, within the ice-bergs of the north, 

 should have preceded the Genoese, the Venetians, 

 the Spaniards, and Portuguese, in crossing the 

 Atlantic. It happens, however, that at the very 

 period when this discovery is alleged to have been 

 made by the Northmen, and long before, they were, 

 of all the tribes of men, precisely the people most 

 likely to make it. Out of a little speck of a bar- 

 barous horde, not important enough to be named 

 by Tacitus in his account of the Germans, there 

 had sprung up, in the course of a few centuries, 

 that bold, enterprising, warlike race, who, under a 

 strange political organization, in which feudalism, 

 traffic, knight-errantry, and piracy bore equal parts, 

 covered the ocean with their commercial and their 

 naval marine, discovered or colonized, or both, the 

 archipelago of the North, Iceland, and Greenland, 

 the Orkneys, the Shetland Islands, Ireland, and 

 the main of England ; all littoral Germany, the Low 

 Countries, and the northern coast of France ; ra- 

 vaged the coasts of Spain and France on the Medi- 

 terranean ; sacked the cities of Tuscany ; wrested 

 Apulia from the Greek emperors; made successful 



i*, T 116 . Latin titte of the work is, Antiyuitates Americana, 

 tcrtptortu Sejjtentri.ialetrerum Ante-Columbranarum in 

 Raf "' Sccretar y to the Northern Anti- 



war with the pope and the emperor; established 

 one dynasty in Muscovy ; drove the Saracens out 

 of Sicily, and established another dynasty there ; 

 defeated, in Epirus, the last powerful armies which 

 were raised by the degenerate empire of the East ; 

 overran Greece, and carried terror to the walls of 

 Constantinople. Naval skill, experience, and power, 

 were the foundation of this ubiquitous domination! 

 The vessels of the Northmen were substantially 

 built of the most durable timber ; were constructed 

 with covered decks ; and their mariners were the 

 first who learned the art of sailing on a wind. The 

 sea was their home. When the head of a family 

 died, it is said that his sons cast lots for the inheri- 

 tance. He that gained the lot occupied the pater- 

 nal estate ; for the rest of the sons, 



"Their march was on the mountain wave. 

 Their home was on the deep." 



They were among the last of the inhabitants of 

 Europe who embraced the Christian religion ; and 

 their barbarous faith, their ruthless mode of war- 

 fare, and their professed contempt of the laws of 

 nations, which were respected by the population of 

 Christendom, made the names of the Vikingars ter- 

 rible in the ears of the civilized world. The period 

 assigned for the discovery of the American coast, 

 by their navigators, was perhaps that at which their 

 power was at its height of developement. The 

 cold and cheerless sea which stretches from the 

 Arctic coast of America to Norway, and the entire 

 expanse of the Atlantic, with its encompassed 

 islands down to the Azores, was one great theatre 

 of their activity. The discovery of America is 

 supposed to have taken place in the year 1000. 

 This was but a century after Hollo made the con- 

 quest of Normandy ; in 1060, we find one Norman 

 prince established in Apulia ; and six years after, 

 another conqueis England, and founds the present 

 line of British sovereigns. It is plain that no 

 achievement of naval adventure, related of such a 

 people, can be considered beyond the line of pro- 

 bability. 



The Northmen, though before their conversion 

 to Christianity a barbarous, were by no means an 

 illiterate people ; and after their conversion, and 

 adoption of the alphabet of the Christian nations, 

 they became rapidly a reading and a writing people. 

 They were not, indeed, unacquainted with letters, 

 before they were taught the Roman alphabet by 

 the priests; but it does not appear that the ancient 

 Runic characters were used for any other purpose 

 than inscriptions. But a strong poetical taste and 

 a passion for traditionary and mythical lore, per- 

 vaded the northern race. The order of Skalds, or 

 poets, was the immediate depository of the national 

 traditions. They were treated with great consi- 

 deration, both on account of their office and their 

 rank, for they were of the noble and powerful fa- 

 milies. Those of the class who distinguished 

 themselves for their genius, became the friends and 

 confidential advisers of the kings and earls. They 

 were entertained at court in time of peace; and in 

 battle were stationed where they could witness the 

 exploits which they were to commemorate ; in 

 other words, they had the privilege of a position in 

 the hottest of the battle. The existence of this 

 class of men gave a peculiar character to the litera- 

 ture of the North. In the south of Europe, at this 

 period, literature was almost a monopoly of the 

 clergy, and every thing was written in the Latin 

 language. As necessary consequences, most of the 

 writings of that day abound in monkish legends; 



