Tag Archives: cape cod

Thursday 2nd February 2017 – WHATEVER HAS HAPPENED …

… to Belgium?

We all know that the problem with the Dutch is that they have no word for gratis, and Belgium is pretty much the same. And so I was astonished today to be given a big two-litre bottle of fizzy pop when I walked into the supermarket on the corner for my baguette this morning.

Apparently they had found a crate of it at the back of the warehouse and the sell-by date was just out. And so they were giving away a bottle free to each of their regular customers. I felt highly honoured.

Last night was another typical night just recently so I won’t describe it to you. I wasn’t awoken at 06:00, just for a change, and I did go on my travels – although all memory of it immediately disappeared the moment I awoke.

And apart from that, I had a shower and a shave today, to make the most of my clean bed, and that was really that. But one thing that I didn’t do was to make tea. I was doing something interesting interesting and forgot. It was 21:45 when I realised what time ot was. I had a quick snack instead.

But my search for a copy of Carl Rafn’s Antiquitates Americanae produced some dividends today. And I can hardly be blamed for not finding it sooner because, being held in an American university, they have translated his name to Charles Rafn. Totally stupid if you ask me, but that’s Americans for you.

Mind you,it’s not done me much good because although I was delighted to see that he wrote bilingually, his book is in Latin and … errr … Danish. It makes me wonder why the Americans wanted to possess it, but there we are.

But all is not lost, because I found a book – in English – called America Discovered in the Tenth Century. This dates from 1838 and is a summary by Rafn of his work, and as far as I can tell, presented to the Royal Societies of Northern Antiquaries.

He’s big on the “Cape Cod Bay” theory, although his nautical calculations are rather exaggerated, he fails to take account of the shifting coastline, and he is, like most people until Munn first tentatively explored the theory in his “Wineland voyages Location of Helluland Markland and Vinland,”, totally unaware of the effects of Global Warming.

It needs hardly to be said that the Norse explorations took place in what was known as the “Medieval Warm” period (not that this is intended by any means to belittle the magnificent voyages that the Norse undertook) and that in the days of Rafn the Northern Hemisphere was still recovering from the effects of the Little Ice Age, with a couple of degrees’ difference in temperature and climate. During this period, the Domesday Book records grapes being grown commercially as far north as mid-Yorkshire. That’s about 500 miles north of the current viable limit and all of this puts the flora and fauna discovered by the Norse in Vinland into a potentially much-different region than where the same might be found today

So now I’m off to bed, early again. Let’s hope I have a good night tonight, and remember where I’ve been.

And I wonder what this free fizzy pop tastes like.

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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?

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