Tag Archives: the finding of wineland the good

Sunday 14th April – LUCKY ME!

I’ve had a free upgrade at the place where I stay when I’m in Leuven. Usually I’m in a small single room (with kitchenette and all facilities of course) but for some reason that I don’t understand, I’ve been given a comfortable duplex apartment and it’s very nice.

I shall have to come here more often.

Last night was a pretty bad night for some reason. I was very late going to bed and once more, I spent most of my night tossing and turning. This isn’t a very good sign for my day tomorrow.

Nevertheless I was out of bed very smartly and attacked the tasks necessary for my trip today to Leuven. Making sandwiches, packing, all these kinds of things. Even a little cleaning. There was still 20 minutes to go before I needed to leave to I took my shower – the one that I missed yesterday.

08:10, I left the apartment and a brisk stroll saw me at the station by 08:35. And I do have to say that “brisk” was the word. Despite having had a really short, bad night, I was feeling quite sprightly for a change.

repairing medieval city wall Boulevard des 2eme et 202eme de Ligne granville manche normandy franceAnd even in sprightly mode I made several stops along the way.

The first stop was in the Boulevard des 2ème et 202ème de Ligne to see how the repairs to the old medieval walls are getting on.

And they seem to be making really good progress and the new stone blocks that they are blending into the existing walls really look quite the part.

They have several sections to go at and it will all be looking quite good when it’s done.

street sweeper rue couraye granville manche normandy franceAnd despite it being early, I wasn’t alone in the street either.

I was being stalked all the way up the rue Couraye by the Sunday morning street cleaner. He was heading on quite nicely, making U-turns and going the wrong way down the one-way street to brush the other side, whether there was another car coming or not.

At least he was useful as some kind of pacemaker to help me on my way.

My cleaner was there at the station so I said “hello”, and then purchased a coffee from the machine. And then waited for the train because it wasn’t in the platform.

gec alsthom regiolis gare de granville manche normandy franceAnd fortune smiled on me too on the train. I had a very charming young companion next to me and although she didn’t have too much to say for herself, it’s the kind of thing that does my ego a great deal of good.

Surprisingly, I stayed awake for most of the trip. I ate my breakfast (crackers and mandarins) and settled down to read Carl Rafn’s Antiquities Americanae.

Written in 1837, its claim to fame is that Rafn was the very first person to take seriously the prospect that the Norse Sagas about the voyages to “Vinland” were actually based on fact and not mere fireside fiction, and he actually set in motion some kind of technical research and calculations to back up his theories.

His theories and calculations were dismissed by later hisotians, most notably by Arthur Reeves who wrote in 1914 “… If less effort had been applied to the dissemination and defence of fantastic speculations, and more to the determination of the exact nature of the facts …” and then proceeded on after 200 or so pages in his book “The Finding of Wineland the Good” to reach almost the same conclusions as those of Rafn.

But today, as we all know because we’ve been there and seen it, tangible evidence of Norse occupation has been discovered in the New World and although it’s not where Rafn expected it to be, my opinion is that the site at L’Anse aux Meadows isn’t Vinland at all but another unrecorded Norse settlement, and Vinland remains to be discovered.

We pulled into Paris Montparnasse-Vaugirard more-or-less bang on time and I strode off through the massed ranks of travellers down to the heaving metro station. There’s a change on the metro there too, because they have now put up crowd control gates on the platform.

The train was crammed to capacity and I had to wait a while before I could find a seat. I sat next to an African woman and her little daughter Adela who proudly told me that she was two years and three months old.

The two of them sang all the way to where I alighted, and I had the pleasure of telling mummy that it made my day to see a little kid so happy.

gare du nord paris franceAlthough it was cold and windy, it was so nice outside that I went for a good walk around outside for a look at what goes on in the vicinity of the station.

And now I know that if ever I forget my butties I won’t be short of something to eat because there were plenty of fast-food shops right in the immediate vicinity.

But seeing as I hadn’t forgotten them, I sat on a bench in the station, surrounded by a group of schoolkids and ate them (the butties, not the kids) and then went for my train.

thalys tgv PBKA series 4300 4322 gare du nord paris franceMy train was another one of the Paris-Brussels-Koln-Amsterdam “PBKA” trainsets.

And as I boarded it, fatigue caught up with me and I travelled all the way to Brussels in a state of blissful subconsciousness, to the strains of Traffic’s On The Road” – one of the top-ten best live albums ever.

My neighbour had boarded the train carrying, of all things a rolled-up carpet. I asked him whether it had run out of fuel, or else why he didn’t just unroll it and travel to Brussels on that.

However, as Kenneth Williams and Alfred Hitchcock once famously remarked, “it’s a waste of time trying to tell jokes to foreigners”.

sncb class 18 electric locomotive gare de leuven belgiumAt Brussels my train to Leuven was already in the station so I was able to reap the benefits of having pre-purchased my ticket on the internet. No waiting in a queue for a ticket or finding that the machines are out of order. I just leapt on board.

It was our old friend 1861, and that was crowded too for some reason. There seems to be an awful lot of people travelling today.

I suppose it’s with it being Easter weekend next weekend and everyone is off for their holidays.

I’ve already explained about my change of room, and once I was settled in I had a lengthy talk with Rosemary on the telephone.

toren oude stadsomwalling sint donatuspark leuven belgiumThat took me up to the time to go out and meet Alison. We went off for a vegan burger at the Greenway

Our route there took us through the St Donatus Park where we could admire the Toren Oude Stadsomwalling – the Tower of the Old City Wall.

This wall was started to be built in 1160. It had 31 towers, 11 street gates and 3 water gates. 2740 metres long, it enclosed 40 hectares.

It was superseded in 1360 by another wall roughly where the ring-road is now, and demolition began towards the end of the 18th Century.

There’s still a fair bit remaining, and on our travels we’ve seen quite a bit of it.

mural Jozef Vounckplein leuven belgiumAfter our burger we went for our usual coffee at Kloosters Hotel.

And on our way back to the car, weaving our weary way through the side streets, we came across this really beautiful mural in what I think is the Jozef Vounckplein.

I don’t recall having seen this before.

And good old Alison. While she was at the English Shop yesterday she found some vegan hot cross buns. So now I’m properly prepared for my Good Friday anyway.

On that note, I’ll go upstairs and try out my new bed. I hope that it’s as comfortable as it looks.

gare du nord paris france
gare du nord paris france

gare du nord paris france
gare du nord paris france

Wednesday 20th March 2019 – AND HERE I AM …

… back in the comfort and safety and privacy and warmth of my own home.

And how much I like being here too. i’m glad to be back.

However, as seems to be usual these days I had yet another bad night. I always seem to whenever I’m travelling. Going to bed early doesn’t help, especially when you have found the radio alarm clock and set it to work, so that you can watch it tick on past 03:35.

But at some point I must have gone off to sleep because I was awoken by the alarm. and I’d even been on something of a voyage too – doing something with the Wales football team from last night.

Once I was awake, I didn’t hang about. I was up (almost) immediately and with everything already packed, I was on the road even before the alarm at 06:20 went off.

class 18 electric locomotive gare de leuven belgiumAnd to such an extent that never mind the 06:42 train – I was on the 06:32 to Oostende.

You can see it pulling in, 2 minutes late, being pulled by one of the Class 18 electric locomotives from 2011

As a result, I was in Bruxelles-Midi station even earlier than normal. I had plenty of time to go to Carrefour for my raisin buns for breakfast.

4538 Thalys TGV Réseau 38000 tri-volt gare du midi brussels belgiumSurprisingly I didn’t have too long to wait at Bruxelles-Midi even though I was in early.

We were called up to the platform somewhat earlier than usual, and when we arrived on the platform we found that our TGV was already in.

It’s another one of the Reseau 38000 “PBA” (Paris Brussels Amsterdam) transets, number 4538

My neighbour was a nice young lady but she was extremely taciturn. She just sat gazing out of the window all the way to Paris Gare du Nord and I had a little relax.

At Paris, I dashed down into the Metro and leapt aboard the train, only for it to be held up at almost every station. In fact, the journey that usually takes me about 45 minutes took just about 65 minutes. It’s a good job that the TGV arrived on time.

My train to Granville was on time too. My neighbour was an elderly lady who needed quite a lot of attention which meant that I didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted to do.

But in my reading of “Wineland the Good” by Arthur Reeves, I came across something quite interesting. Reeves refers to some documents relating to the discovery and voyages to Vinland – the ‘Breve Chronicon Norvegiae’ – that were discovered in the files of the Earl of Dalhousie and which dated to the mid 15th Century.

Dalhousie is of course not too far away from Roslin and the presence of these documents up the road may well provide some kind of link that led to the voyages of Henry Sinclair and their relation to the strange carvings at Roslin Chapel.

gec Alstom regiolis 84559 bombardier x76500 76619 gare de granville railway station manche normandy franceDespite almost everything, our train pulled in at Granville bang on time.

Here it is in the station, parked up next to the train to Rennes – one of the Bombardier X76500 series of multiple-units.

As an aside, I’ve discovered that I can actually catch a train from Granville to St Malo if I change at Dol de Bretagne. And there’s talk about laying on a direct train some time in the future.

loading supplies normandy trader port de granville harbour manche normandy franceThis time I managed to walk all the way back home, admiring Normandy Trader being loaded up at the quayside as I did so.

There seems to be an enormous amount of goods down there waiting to be loaded up on board. That should keep them out of mischief for quite a while with all of that.

Seeing as there were some men around there today, I should really have gone down to talk to them.

repointing medieval city walls granville manche normandy franceFurther up the hill, I noticed that they were working on the city walls.

Part of the pavement has been closed off for as long as I have been there due to some loose stones that have been falling out of the wall, and I had heard some story that they might be doing some work on it.

So it looks as if they have already started. Probably hammering the loose stones back in and repointing the walls.

And as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, I spent a couple of summers doing that on my house and it’s a long, heavy, difficult job.

Back here I had a really good relax for a couple of hours before attempting the unpacking. Definitely feeling the strain.

Tea was easy too. One of the portions of shepherd’s pie out of the freezer with veg and gravy. However, the slice of chocolate cake that i’d left out of the freezer had turned. But those in an airtight container in the fridge were fine and there was some soya dessert left.

night st martin de brehal granville manche normandy francelater on, I went for my walk around the headland. It was quite pleasant out there but yet again I was the only one out there.

There was still a touch of light left – enough to take a few photographs of the coastline, like this one of St Martin de Brehal.

It’s come out really well, all told and I’m quite pleased with it.

So now I’ll go to bed. There’s not much food in here so it’s a shopping day tomorrow. A nice walk up to LIDL I reckon.

I’ll see how I feel.

night donville les bains rue du nord granville manche normandy france
night donville les bains rue du nord granville manche normandy france

night st malo brittany baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
night st malo brittany baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night cancale brittany baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
night cancale brittany baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

night baie de mont st michel jullouville granville manche normandy france
night baie de mont st michel jullouville granville manche normandy france

night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france
night trawler baie de mont st michel granville manche normandy france

Wednesday 3rd October 2018 – AFTER MY EXCITING …

… day yesterday, I crashed out on the bed at about 22:30 leaving half a mug of coffee behind, the laptop running and everything.

And I was off on my travels too, about a horse race that was taking place.

For no apparently good reason at all I was wide awake at 01:30 and so not being able to go back to sleep I spent an hour catching up on some more work that needed to be done.

Once I’d gone back to sleep I was off on my travels yet again, this time to an office where I used to work. It was office party time and there were quite a few married couples having rather too much fun underneath desks and the like. And when I say “married couples”, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they were married to each other either. I disturbed one couple having fun underneath a desk, and they asked me a question about it. My tart response was that surely they didn’t think that they were the only people at it. There were three different offices in this building, one of which had a connection with Scotland. And at a certain moment a young girl, blonde pony tail and in a white lab coat, talking in a Scots accent (the girl, not the coat), appeared on our floor to bring some work down. I was quite interested in finding out more about her so I started to climb the stairs in the fire escape to see if I could find her office. On the way, I was intercepted by someone who asked if my answer to a certain question on a form was definitive. I couldn’t even remember the question, never mind my answer!

By 04:30 I was wide awake again so I restarted what I had been doing earlier. That took me round to the medication and a nice hot shower with clean clothes for my journey home.

Next stop was the supermarket in the Gare du Midi for bread to make my butties. An enormous queue at the tills which is hardly surprising seeing as it’s morning rush hour and people are picking up their lunch. And I also picked up some or the raisin buns that I like so as to have something for breakfast, along with another coffee.

thalys sncf tgv brussels gare du midi franceOnce the butties had been made, and breakfast eaten and coffee drunk, I staggered (and I DO mean staggered because my luggage seems to have gained the weight that I had lost) down to the station and my train.

The TGV was ontime too, which is always good news because I don’t have time to hang around in Paris.

And it was packed to the gunwhales too. There didn’t seem to be a spare seat on board.

thalys sncf tgv paris gare du nord franceAnd several people seemed to have been late bookings because although they were wedged into individual seats all down the carriage alongside other people, they spent most of the trip standing in the aisle leaning over everyone else to see what was on the laptop of the leader of the pack, blocking the aisle, to the inconvenience of everyone else.

We pulled into Paris Gare du Nord bang-on time and I then had to negotiate my way to Gare Montparnasse dragging my heavy load and wondering just how I had managed to end up with so much stuff.

It was quite a struggle up and down the stairs and onto the train in the metro with all of my stuff but eventually I made it into the concourse at Montparnasse and could withdraw my ticket to Granville from the machine.

With having been an hour earlier on the TGV I had plenty of time to wait at Vaugirard. I sat next to a mother and her daughter who were also travelling to Granville and we had something of a chat while I ate my cheese and tomato butties.

sncf multiple unit paris montparnasse vaugirard franceOn the train I had a very charming travelling companion but the train was quite empty so she moved to the seats on her own in front of me and spread herself out.

I did likewise and spend the journey alternating between sleeping and reading my copy of Arthur Reeves’ “The Finding of Wineland the Good” that I had downloaded off the internet. It’s an interesting book because although it’s very well-researched, he dismisses a great deal of work that had been done previously by people like Carl Rafn on grounds that may well have been logical at the time that Reeves was writing, but have since been found to be erroneous.

There was a 40-minute wait for the bus – I had no intention of walking home today. And we had some excitement on the journey back when the bus driver clipped another vehicle and pulled the rear bumper off the bus.

It’s good to be back home. I’ll tell you that. It smells of dust and so on, but it’s home all the same and I’ll open the windows tomorrow to let some fresh air.

I didn’t do too much – just relaxed for a while and then made myself a plate of pasta, olive oil and vegetables for tea.

Later I tried to start the back-up of files from the travelling laptop onto the home machine, but I gave up after an hour or so. Only 22:00 but I was gone.

And this is how I’m going to stay for a while because I’ve switched off all of the alarms.

Wednesday 1st February 2017 – UNLESS I’M VERY MUCH MISTAKEN …

… which has happened once, believe it or not, I might have been tentatively offered a job just now.

How bizarre is that?

The landlord came into the building to stock up the supplies for the building (and I’ve had my bedding changed at last!) and we got to talking, like you do … "well, like one of us does" – ed. I told him about the hospital and my plans (such as they are) to leave after my next hospital visit at the end of the month. He started to talk about how long I’ve been there, and how well I know the place, and all of this. I mentioned that I would be looking for a new place to live when I go back to France, and he finished his chat by saying “perhaps I should hire you on”.

Well, it’s been a long time since someone has offered me a job. My immediate response was “why not?”. After all, I need to keep my options open and this might be some kind of solution – you never know.

A bad night last night – it took ages to go off properly to sleep and then we had the 06:00 wake-up. I was alone at breakfast and then I came back down here for a little work on the laptop – and a doze too of course.

I went up to the Delhaize to buy lunch stuff, and of course I forgot everything that was important. I’m going to have to start to make a list, I reckon.

But I did have some more luck in my researches. I’ve tracked down a book entitled Voyages of the Northmen to America. This book, edited by the Reverend Edmund Slafter, dates from 1877 and is very pro-Norse, in contrast to the book Wineland the Good by Reeves, that we discussed last night.

In addition, “Voyages of the Northmen” contains a synopsis of Carl Rafn’s proposition, so derisively dismissed by Reeves.

I’ve not read much of it yet, but it seems from a map on the opening pages that Slafter favours Cape Cod Bay in Massachusetts USA as being the site of Vinland. However, Slafter’s proposition seems at first glance from the map (although we’ll see when I read it) to overlook the fact that all of the Outer Banks off the coast have changed dramatically even in our lifetimes, due to storms and currents and the like. It’s very probable that back 1000 years ago Cape Cod Bay was nothing like it is today.

Slafter also acknowledged his sources, and tells us the name of the book written by Rafn. But it’s apparently written in Latin and it’s 45 years since I last seriously spoke any Latin. I shall have to go to Latin America for a crash course.

Puer amat mensam, hey?

Tuesday 31st January 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about the quiet day today.

I went out for the baguette at lunchtime, and I had a crash out for an hour or so this afternoon, and that was my lot.

Mind you, I struck it lucky at the supermarket. There were two black plastic crates in the rubbish bins and so I liberated them on the way back. Together with the one that I liberated yesterday about which I forgot to tell you, that’s three this week and I think that I’m going to have to start to move them all down to Caliburn. I’m not going to be short of crates for packing, am I?

Last night was a bad night. There was a lot of noise in the building again – people coming in late and talking, that kind of thing. Of course, I do realise that the problem lies not with my housemates but with my light sleeping. But it’s still unpleasant.

It didn’t stop me being on my travels though. I was in a pub somewhere and talking was the woman who appeared frequently on “Just a Minute”. Not Andrée Melly or Aimi MacDonald but the other one whatever her name was … "Geraldine Jones, you mean" – ed. One of the subjects on the programme was “Rudd” but she talked on the programme saying that it was actually a suburb of Market Drayton and should be pronounced “Reeth” because until 1640-something, that area was part of Wales and it’s a Welsh word. Consequently it should be pronounced in the Welsh way.

Apart from that, I’ve not done very much. There’s been a big group chat on a page on my social network, discussing a pub – the Headless Woman at Duddon – that we used to visit in the mid-70s (long-gone of course) which held memories for me and in respect of which I had many humorous anecdotes to recount.

As well as that, I found another exciting book on the internet. Dating from the 1890s it’s the very famous “The Finding of Wineland the Good – The History of the Icelandic Discovery of North America” by Arthur Middleton Reeves.

It’s basically a translation of several Norse sagas with commentary by the author, and while I haven’t read much of it yet, he sets out his stall very clearly in the opening few paragraphs.

Remember that it’s 20 years before Munn, and 70 years before L’Anse aux Meadows, and he refers to an author of 1837 by the name of Carl Christian Rafn, who was probably the first academic to take the Norse sagas seriously.

Reeves’ comment on Rafn’s work was that “If less effort had been applied to the dissemination and defence of fantastic speculations, and more to the determination of the exact nature of the facts which have been preserved in the Icelandic records, the discovery should not have failed to be accepted …”.

He continues by saying that “it is difficult to account for the disposition American historians have shown to treat the Icelandic discovery as possible …”

You can see why I’m so eager to discover these old works and to see what modern investigation has uncovered in their respect.

I’m quite looking forward to reading this book. But where can I find the book written by Rafn?

And while we’re on the subject, Happy Up Helly Aa to those of you who are celebrating it.