Tag Archives: the history of the icelandic discovery of north america

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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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.

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