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493

Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d’histoire, XLVII, winter/hiver 2012

pp. 493-514, ISSN 0008-4107 © Canadian Journal of History

Abstract/Résumé analytique

Vínland and Wishful Thinking:

Medieval and Modern Fantasies

Sverrir Jakobsson

This article discusses the evidence for the journeys of several Norsemen to a place called Vínland
around the year 1000. In hindsight, the stories of the unsuccessful attempt to settle Vínland have been
enduringly linked to the consequent discoveries of the American continents, which occurred five cen-
turies later. However, as there are no contemporary, or near-contemporary, written records of journeys
to Vínland and the nearby islands, all reconstructions of those events spring from later texts, some of
them written down 300 years or more after the fact. Yet what may, or may not, have happened has
gradually been granted the status of a real event. Reevaluating the wishful reality of the Vínland islands
requires that the stories of the Vínland journeys be squarely situated in the context of the world geo-
graphic system adopted by those who told those stories. The evidence of how the information about
the newly encountered lands was processed within the parameters of the dominant system of defining
and classifying knowledge sheds light on the worldview, now obsolete, in which that system was em-
bedded. A careful dissection of the narrative of the Vínland journeys makes it possible to understand
the morphology of this worldview, its epistemic underpinnings, and the spell it continues to cast on the
Western imagination.

Nous discutons dans cet article de l’évidence de voyages de plusieurs scandinaves dans un endroit ap-
pelé Vínland autour de l’an 1000. Les récits des tentatives infructueuses de développement de Vínland
ont été inexorablement reliés avec les découvertes subséquentes des continents américains qui se pro-
duisirent cinq siècles plus tard. Toutefois, comme il n’existe aucun écrit contemporain ni même proche
de l’époque relatant ces voyages en Vínland et ses îles environnantes, toutes les reconstitutions de ces
événements découlent de textes écrits ultérieurement après les faits, voire même jusqu’à trois cents
ans plus tard. Pourtant, ce qui est arrivé, ou aurait pu être arrivé, peu à peu est devenu réalité. Une
des grandes importances de la réévaluation de ces réalités imaginaires des îles de Vínland est de les
situer carrément dans le contexte du système de géographie mondiale adopté par les navigateurs des
voyages au Vínland. Nous prétendons que l’évidence de la façon qu’ils ont pris pour traiter l’informa-
tion au sujet de ces terres nouvellement découvertes à l’intérieur du système prédominant de définition
et de classification de l’information nous éclaire sur les mécanismes de ce système spécifique qui tomba
en désuétude. Un examen minutieux du récit des voyages au Vínland nous permet de sonder la mor-
phologie de cette vision du monde, l’épistémologie sur laquelle elle est fondée et le charme qu’elle
continue de jeter sur l’imaginaire occidental.
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Canadian Journal of History/Annales canadiennes d’histoire XLVII, winter/hiver 2012,

pp. 493-514, ISSN 0008-4107 © Canadian Journal of History

Sverrir Jakobsson

VInland and WIshful thInkIng:

MedIeVal and Modern fantasIes

I. Introduction

That an island named Winland or Vínland exists is asserted in four medieval texts.
Three of them were written in Old Norse and one in Latin. The oldest texts ―
chronicles composed in the 1070s and 1120s ― briefly mention Winland and its
inhabitants. There exist two longer accounts in three manuscripts from the four-
teenth and fifteenth centuries. These four written accounts are the only textual ev-
idence about what the medieval Norse might have known about the Winland and
its surroundings in the Middle Ages.
There are no contemporary, or near-contemporary, written records of journeys
to Winland and the nearby islands. All reconstructions of those events spring from
later texts, some of them written down three centuries or more after the fact. Yet
what may, or may not, have happened has gradually been granted the status of a
real event. A detailed analysis of these textual sources is essential for a reassess-
ment of the Winland journeys, past and present. The focus of the present study
will not be on whether events actually took place in the manner depicted by the
sources, but rather on the conventions of their narration.
Reevaluating the wishful reality of the Vínland islands requires that the stories
of the Vínland journeys be squarely situated in the context of the world geographic
system adopted by those who told those stories. Did the worldview of medieval
Christianity shape accounts of possible events at the western edges of the world?
A careful dissection of the narrative of the Winland journeys might make it possible
to comprehend the morphology of this worldview, its epistemic underpinnings,
and the spell it continues to cast on the Western imagination.

II. the evidence of the texts

The earliest mention of Greenland is in the Latin source, Gesta Hammaburgensis

ecclesiae pontificum, composed by Adam of Bremen in the 1070s. It notes the fact
of Greenland’s settlement and Christianization, even if no particular date is men-
tioned, and, in addition to this, refers to an island even further away than Green-
land, called Winland. It is described as follows, based on the testimony of King
Svend of Denmark (r. 1047-1076):
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VINLAND AND WISHFuL THINKING 495

Besides, he [the king] told of an island in that ocean found by many,

which is called Winland, because of the wild grapes that grow there, out
of which a very good wine can be made. Moreover, that grain unsown
grows there plentifully is not a fabulous fancy, but is based on trustworthy
accounts of the Danes. He said that following that island, there is no land
to be found in this ocean, but all those regions which are beyond are filled
with insufferable ice and boundless gloom.
(Lat. Preterea unam adhuc insulam recitavit a multis in eo repertam
oceano, quae dicitur Winland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum
optimum ferentes. Nam et fruges ibi non seminatas habundare non fabu-
losa opinione, sed certa comperimus relatione Danorum. Post quam in-
sulam, ait, terra non invenitur habitabilis in illo oceano, sed omnia, quae
ultra sunt, glacie intolerabili ac caligine inmensa plena sunt.)1

This description is very brief, and linked with King Harald of Norway’s (r.
1046-66) attempt to discover the outermost extremity of the Earth. That the Norse
had come upon a country known as Winland was thus a common belief in the late
eleventh century, even if no details of the events connected with its exploration
can be derived from these early sources.
In the early twelfth century the founder of Greenland was known in Iceland
as Eiríkr rauði (Erik the Red), and he was also known as the man responsible for
giving Greenland an attractive name in order to encourage settlement there. Ac-
cording to the earliest known Icelandic sources, Eiríkr had organized a Norse set-
tlement in Greenland in 985 or 986. All of this is related in a typically laconic
manner in the Book of the Icelanders (ON. Íslendingabók) written by Ari Þorgils-
son the learned (c. 1067-1148), in this instance quoting Þorkell Gellisson, who, in
turn, was said to have spoken to an eye-witness of the events. Ari also claims that
Greenland was uninhabited at the time although there was evidence of an earlier
settlement by “that kind of people … which has inhabited Vínland and the Green-
landers call Skrælings.” (ON. þess konar þjóð ... es Vínland hefir byggt ok Grœn-
lendingar kalla Skrælinga.)2 This tidbit of information is not elaborated upon by
Ari, but from this source it can be deduced that Vínland was known as an inhabited
country at the time.
The Norse community in Greenland was still thriving when sagas about Eiríkr
and the first generations of settlers were written down in the thirteenth century.
There are two main accounts of the exploits of the Greenlanders; one of them,
Eiríks saga rauða, is found in two medieval manuscripts, Hauksbók (c. 1302-1310)

1
Magistri Adam Bremensis Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae Pontificum 4.39, in Werner Trill-
mich and Rudolf Buchner (eds.), Quellen des 9. und 11. Jahrhunderts zur Geschichte der hamburgisc-
hen Kirche und des Reiches. Ausgewählte Quellen zur deutschen Geschichte des Mittelalters. Freiherr
vom Stein-Gedächtnisaufgabe, 11 (Berlin, 1961), pp. 488, 490.
2
Ari fróði Þorgilsson, Íslendingabók, cap. 6, in Íslenzk fornrit 1. Íslendingabók, Landnámabók,
ed. Jakob Benediktsson (Reykjavík, 1968), pp. 13-14.
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496 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

and Skálholtsbók (fifteenth century), both of which are based on a common orig-
inal that was composed sometime between 1263 and 1302.3 The other account,
Grænlendinga saga, is found in only one manuscript, Flateyjarbók, written be-
tween 1387 and 1394. As the sagas seem to have been composed independently
of each other it has been surmised that they must have been composed at a similar
time.4 This would, however, depend on the context within the manuscripts in which
they were written. Hauksbók, for example, is replete with material concerning
Greenland and it is evident that the compiler, Haukr Erlendsson (c. 1265-1334)
made great efforts to collect and write down such evidence. It would thus seem
unlikely that he knew of Grænlendinga saga, as he did not make use of it.5 The
context of Grænlendinga saga in Flateyjarbók is different, as it is preserved in two
parts and placed within a biography of King Óláfr Tryggvason of Norway.6
The time span between the discovery of Winland and the composition of these
two sagas is measured in centuries rather than decades. They are evidently unreli-
able sources as to the events they describe, and their accounts of these events are
also widely different. What symmetry appears to exist between the sagas must de-
rive from a common tradition, be it of oral or literary nature, and it is this common
thread that has generated the greatest scholarly interest and regarded as a key to
“what actually happened.” The fact that a common oral tradition existed concern-
ing the Norse settlement in Winland ― one that influenced both sagas ― does not,
however, make their narrative a more credible guide to events that had occurred
many centuries ago. In fact, in most respects the divergence between the narratives
is considerable.7
Despite the evident differences between the two sagas, Eiríks saga rauða and
Grænlendinga saga are often interpreted as a single unit, “the Vínland sagas.”8
This is possible only because the texts are not seen as distinct pieces of evidence
which are open to interpretation, but rather as manifestations of a truth that is al-
ready taken for granted: the reality of the Norse journeys to North America. Con-
sequently, the narratives have then been evaluated as to how they correlate with
this reality.9 A more open-ended reading of the evidence provided by the sagas

3
Ólafur Halldórsson, Grænland í miðaldaritum (Reykjavík, 1978), pp. 398-400.
4
Sigurður Nordal, “Sagalitteraturen,” in Sigurður Nordal (ed.), Nordisk kultur 8B. Litteraturhi-
storie B. Norge og Island (uppsala, 1953), pp. 180-273, at p. 248.
5
Sverrir Jakobsson, “Hauksbók and the Construction of an Icelandic World View,” Saga-Book
31 (2007), pp. 22-38, at p. 32.
6
Eireks þáttr rauða, in Guðbrandur Vigfússon (ed.), Flateyjarbók: En samling af norske konge-
sagaer med indskudte mindre fortællinger om begivenheder i og udenfor Norge samt annaler, 3 vols
(Christiania [Oslo], 1860-1868), 1: pp. 429-32; Grœnlendinga þáttr, in Flateyjarbók 1: pp. 538-49.
7
As Jónas Kristjánsson states, “when it comes to the description of the events, the sagas are rarely
in full agreement. The characters change roles, accounts of the same events are inconsistent and many
events are only mentioned in one of the sagas,” The First Settler of the New World. The Vinland Ex-
pedition of Thorfinn Karlsefni (Reykjavík, 2005), p. 30.
8
See for instance, Hermann Pálsson and Magnus Magnusson (eds.), The Vínland Sagas (Harm-
ondsworth, 1965).
9
See for instance Gísli Sigurðsson´s attempt to evaluate the information from the sagas by the
yardstick of how it “appears to correlate … with the geographical facts” (in other words, the modern
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VINLAND AND WISHFuL THINKING 497

would consist of an evaluation of this evidence independent from modern geo-

graphical and ethnographical interpretations. It would then be evident that the com-
patibility of the accounts given in the sagas is far from great, except for a few basic
facts. The next step would be to examine the reasons for this dissonance.
The journeys to Winland/Vínland were thought to have taken place when
Christianity was first introduced to the region, but in the centuries between these
events and the writing of the sagas Christian learning and the Christian worldview
gained much ground among the literate community in Iceland. This view entailed
particular ideas about the world, its shape and its inhabitants, which Icelandic cler-
ics incorporated and drew upon when narrating the sagas of the alleged journeys
to Winland. In their different ways, Eiríks saga rauða and Grænlendinga saga are
important testimonies to this worldview, especially as they deal with journeys to
unknown islands which were not a part of the world depicted in Latin sources.
How could such new knowledge be harmonized with what was already known
about the world?
The sagas differ greatly in the evidence they provide about the actual moment
of the encounter with the new lands. In this respect, Eiríks saga rauða is much
more brief. According to this source, the son of Erík the Red, Leifr Eiríksson, was
on his way as a missionary to Greenland at the behest of King Óláfr Tryggvason,
but got lost along the way. After Leifr, along with his crew, had been tossed about
at sea for a long time,

… he chanced upon land where he had not expected any to be found.

Fields of self-sown wheat and vines were growing there; also, there were
trees known as maple, and they took specimens of all of them. (ON. ok
hitti á lönd þau er hann vissi áðr enga von til. Vóru þar hveitiakrar sjálf-
sánir ok vínviðr vaxinn. Þar vóru þau tré er mösurr heita ok höfðu þeir af
þessu öllu nökkur merki.)10

This is a very brief description and no further clues are provided to the whereabouts
of Winland; Leifr might have chanced upon almost anywhere.
In contrast, Grænlendinga saga contains a long narrative concerning the first
encounters with Winland involving not only Leifr, but also the Icelander Bjarni
Herjólfsson who, shortly after its settlement, went to Greenland to seek his father.
According to the saga, Bjarni and his companions got lost and had no idea where
they were going. They came upon three lands on their journey to Greenland, the
third of which they learned was an island, but Bjarni declined to explore them as
none of them seemed to be anything like the land of glaciers and ice-caps, for

worldview); Gísli Sigurðsson (transl. Nicholas Jones), The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition:
A Discourse on Method. Publications of the Milman Parry Collections of Oral Literature no. 2 (Cam-
bridge, Mass., 2004), p. 297.
10
Eiríks saga rauða, in Finnur Jónsson and Eiríkur Jónsson (eds.), Hauksbók udgiven efter de
arnamagnæanske håndskrifter no. 371, 544 og 675, 40 samt forskellige papirshåndskrifter (Copen-
hagen, 1892-1896), p. 432.
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498 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

which he had been searching. Leifr Eiríksson then went on an expedition to seek
the lands that Bjarni had found. He went briefly ashore on two of them, and named
them Rocky Land (ON. Helluland) and Forest Land (ON. Markland). He made a
longer stop on the third land, which he later named Vínland. No description is pro-
vided of the course of his journey, other than that they had sailed for two days and
nights with a “north-easterly wind” (ON. landnyrðingsveðr) between Markland
and this third land. This land is described as containing grapes, on which a German
traveling with Leifr gets inebriated, and an abundance of large salmon.
As for its climate, the narrative relates that:

The temperature never dropped below freezing during the winter and
the grass only withered very slightly. The days and nights were much more
equal in length than in either Greenland or Iceland. In the depth of winter
the sun was aloft by mid-morning and still visible at mid-afternoon.
(ON. þar kómu eingi frost á vetrum ok lítt rénuðu þar grös. Meira
var þar jafndœgri en á Grænlandi eðr Íslandi, sól hafði þar eyktarstað ok
dagmálastað um skammdegi.)11

It is, however, not made clear in the saga whether Leifr’s journey took him
westward or eastward from Greenland. Although Old Norse sources confirm that
sailing due east or west was possible at such northern latitudes, this always de-
pended on known points of departure and arrival.12 Such points were indispensable,
if a ship happened to lose its way.
In Eiríks saga rauða more claims are made about the possible location of Vín-
land, with the factual narrative differing on major points. A large expedition led
by the Icelander Þorfinnr karlsefni (also called Karlsefni in the narrative) is de-
scribed as sailing South for two days and two nights before coming to a land which
they named Rocky Land.13 From there, when the wind shifted to a southeasterly
direction (ON. brá til landsuðrs ór suðri), they sailed again for two days, and they
came upon a land they called Forest Land. They sailed south along the shores of
this land, which they named Shores of Wonder (ON. Furðustrandir),14 and then
came to a bay, which they named Current Fjord (ON. Straumfjörðr). From here,

11
Flateyjarbók 1, p. 539. This would seem to indicate a location south of 50° North, using the
modern coordinate system, see Gustav Storm, “Om Betydningen af ‘Eyktarstaðr’ i Flatøbogens Be-
retning om Vínlandsreiserne,” Arkiv for nordisk filologi 3 (1888), pp.121-31, at p. 128. According to
Þorsteinn Vilhjálmsson, this only implies a location south of 58 degress north, see “Navigation and
Vínland,” in Andrew Wawn and Þórunn Sigurðardóttir (eds.), Approaches to Vínland. A Conference
on the Written and Archaeological Sources for the Norse Settlements in the North Atlantic Region and
Exploration of America. The Nordic House, Reykjavík 9-11 August 1999. Proceedings, Sigurður Nordal
Institute Studies, 4 (Reykjavík, 2001), pp. 107-21, at p. 112.
12
On latitude sailing G.J. Marcus, The Conquest of the North Atlantic, Woodbridge, Suffolk,
1998; 1st ed. 1980), pp. 106-18.
13
In the saga text Þorfinnr is usually only referred to by his nickname, and called Karlsefni.
14
Richard Perkins regards the place-name Furðustrandir as a later invention by the author of the
saga,“The Furðustrandir of Eiríks saga rauða,” Mediaeval Scandinavia, 9 (1976), pp. 51-98.
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VINLAND AND WISHFuL THINKING 499

Karlsefni and his men again sailed southwards to search for Vínland until they
found a land fitting the description given by Leifr: a land with self-sown wheat
and an abundance of vines, fish and game.15
Thus, both of the sagas describe the first encounters with Winland, but both
also tell of later journeys in which attempts were made to colonize it. These tales
are much different in detail, although both sagas name Þorvaldr Eiríksson, Leifr’s
brother; Þorfinnr karlsefni; and Freydís Eiríksdóttir, the sister of Leifr; as leaders
of one such expedition. According to Eiríks saga rauða, these people all traveled
together whereas in Grænlendinga saga they each went on a separate expedition.
Despite great variation in detail, a common theme in both sagas is that resist-
ance by the inhabitants of Winland, the aforementioned Skrælings, was instrumen-
tal in thwarting the attempts of the Norse to settle in Winland. According to
Grænlendinga saga, the first encounter with the natives was during the mission of
Þorvaldr Eiríksson when he and his companions found three hide-covered boats
(ON. húðkeipar) with three men lying under each of them. Þorvaldr and his crew
killed eight of the men but one of them escaped. Afterwards, they were mysteri-
ously stricken by sleep but an unknown voice woke them just as a vast number of
men in hide-covered boats began to attack. Þorvaldr was shot by an arrow and
killed, and his companions gave him a Christian burial before leaving Winland.16
In Grænlendinga saga, it is then related that Þorfinnur Karlsefni and his com-
pany became aware of the natives after a winter’s sojourn. The Skrælings were
startled by the bull which the Norsemen had brought with them, but then trading
began, with the natives offering fur pelts and sables. The natives were reportedly
extremely interested in dairy products and, having been offered them once, wished
to purchase nothing else. In the end, a fight broke out, when one of the natives was
killed while trying to seize weapons from one of Karlsefni’s companions.
In this source, two of the natives were described in more detail. A woman who
encountered Karlsefni’s wife Guðríðr turned out also to be named Guðríðr. She
was described as short and pale with light red-brown hair and very large eyes. No
one but Guðríðr saw this woman, who might thus have been an apparition.17 The
second native was described as a tall and handsome man and, in Karlsefni’s opin-
ion, likely to be the leader of the Skrælings. This tall man intervened when one of
the natives tried to use one of the Norse weapons, an ax, by striking one of his
companions with it and killing him. “The tall man then picked up the ax, examined
it awhile, and then hurled it as far out onto the sea as he could.” (ON. þá tók sá
hinn mikli maðr vit öxinni ok leit á um stund ok varp henni síðan á sjóinn sem
lengst mátti hann.)18 After successfully fending off the natives, Karlsefni and his
men returned to Greenland and then traveled on to Iceland. “It was said that no

15
Hauksbók, pp. 437-39.
16
Flateyjarbók I, pp. 541-42.
17
For a further discussion of this apparition see Gunnar Karlsson, “Friðarboðskapur og kvenlegt
sjónarhorn í Grænlendinga sögu,” in Soffía Auður Birgisdóttir (ed.), Kynlegir kvistir tíndir til heiðurs
Dagnýju Kristjánsdóttur fimmtugri (Reykjavík, 1999), pp. 95-99.
18
Flateyjarbók I, pp. 546.
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500 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

ship sailing from Greenland had been loaded with more valuable goods than the
one he commanded.” (ON. er þat mál manna at eigi mundi auðgara skip gengit
hafa af Grænlandi en þat er hann stýrði.)19
Following Karlsefni’s undertaking, there is a third expedition to Winland, led
by Freydís Eiríksdóttir. This time the natives were absent but the members of the
expedition were divided into two groups, who eventually turned on each other. ul-
timately, one of the two factions was annihilated. Freydís turned out to be the most
vicious and cruel person fighting. She was personally responsible for killing all of
the women of the other party. Her expedition then disintegrated owing to general
ill-will, with Freydís gaining ill-repute upon her return to Greenland.20
In Eiríks saga rauða, the narrative refers to only one expedition to Winland,
led by Þorfinnur karlsefni. In that account, the travelers also had encounters with
the native Skrælings, beginning about a fortnight after the Norse mariners arrived
in Winland. At this time, they saw a number of hide-covered boats whose crews
waved wooden poles that made a great sound as they turned them toward the sun
(from east to west). Þorfinnur and his men took this as a sign of peace and an-
swered by raising a white shield. The visitors are depicted as “black men and ma-
lignant-looking with ill-looking hair; they had wide eyes and broad cheeks.” (ON.
svartir menn ok illigir ok hafðu illt hár á höfði. Þeir váru mjök eygðir ok breiðir í
kinnum.)21 After a short inspection they [the natives] leave but after a mild winter
they return. “There were so many of them [the natives] that it looked as if bits of
coal had been tossed over the water, and there was a pole waving from each boat.”
(ON. svá mart sem kolum væri sát fyri hópit. Var þá ok veift af hverju skipi tr-
jónum.)22 The Norse traded with the natives, who had a strong desire for red cloth,
and for which they were prepared to pay a high price as the supply began to drain.
The trading came to an end abruptly, when the natives were frightened by a bull
belonging to the Norse.
Three weeks after the first encounter, the natives returned, this time waving
the poles counter-clockwise and shrieking loudly. Karlsefni and his companions
answered by raising a red shield, and then a battle ensued. The natives used cata-
pults in their attack, and then:

Karlsefni and his men saw the Skrælings raise a pole on top of which
was a large round object, about the size of a sheep’s gut, and rather bluish
in color. They threw it from the pole at Karlsefni´s group, and it made a
terrible noise where it landed.

19
Flateyjarbók I, pp. 548.
20
According to Jenny Jochens, “sexual tension, fully as much as the hostility of the natives, forced
the Norse to go back,” “Vikings Westward to Vínland: The Problem of Women,” in Sarah M. Anderson
and Karen Swenson (eds.), Cold Counsel: Women in Old Norse Literature and Mythology (New York
and London, 2002), pp.129-58, at p. 147.
21
Hauksbók, p. 440.
22
Ibid.
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VINLAND AND WISHFuL THINKING 501

(ON. Þat sá þeir Karlsefní at Skrælingar fœrðu upp á stöng knött

stundar mikinn, því nær til at jafna sem sauðarvömb, ok helst blán at lit,
ok fleygðu af stönginni upp á landit yfir lið þeirra Karlsefnis ok lét illilega
uiðr þar sem niðr kom.)23

This caused panic among Karlsefni´s party and they fled, with the natives at-
tacking from all sides. In the end, only two of the Norsemen were killed but a great
number of the Skrælings were slain, and when the Norsemen return to the site
again they began to think that the attackers had only come from the boats, and that
the rest of the other attackers had only been an illusion. The Skrælings had taken
an ax from one of the fallen, but they threw it away once they discovered that it
was not able to cut a rock.
After this battle Karlsefni’s party decided to retreat, after they had realized
that “despite everything the land had to offer there, they would be under constant
threat from its prior inhabitants.” (ON. þótt þar væri landzkostir góðir, at þar myndi
jafnan ótti ok úfriðr á liggja af þeim er fyri bjuggu.)24 On their way north they en-
countered a party of five sleeping Skrælings. They reckoned them to be outlaws
and killed them. Further north they encountered a uniped (ON. einfætingr) who
shot and killed Þorvaldr Eiríksson with an arrow. They thought that they saw the
country of unipeds but did not dare take any further risk in exploring it. When they
returned to Markland they encountered five natives: one man and two women who
escaped, and two children whom they captured. They took the two boys with them
and taught them their language. These boys described the customs of the Skrælings,
who had no houses, but rather slept in caves or holes. Their father they called Óvæ-
gir and their mother Vethildr. They told of two kings ruling the country, one named
Avaldamon, the other Avaldidida. They also spoke of another land, across from
their own, inhabited by men in white clothing, who carried poles, banners, and
shouted loudly. This land the Norse reckoned to be the kingdom of the white men
(ON. Hvítramannaland).
This is the basic storyline, recounting the discovery and colonization of Win-
land. While the details vary greatly, some basic facts of the story seem to have
formed a commonly known tradition in thirteenth-century Iceland: the name of
the three lands found by the seafarers, the names of some of the principal protag-
onists, the conflict with the Skrælings, and the strange role of the bull in startling
the natives. There are also several problems that call for closer inspection, and it
is to them that we now turn.

III. escaping the teleological Perspective

In modern times, the narratives of the Winland expeditions have been the subject
of intensive study by historians, archaeologists, anthropologists, scientists, and en-

23
Ibid.
24
Ibid., p. 441.
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502 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

thusiasts of exploration. Yet some aspects of the narratives remain relatively un-
explored. The reason for this is that almost all modern research has concentrated
on harmonizing the evidence of the sagas with the modern belief that the journeys
were directed towards North America. The sagas are thus approached primarily in
connection with American history, rather than as sources of evidence for the history
of the culture of the seafarers themselves and/or those who told stories of their
journeys.
This is a perfectly legitimate approach which has provided many fruitful in-
sights. The unearthing of Norse settlements in L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfo-
undland in 1960 brought a new dimension to the history and archeology of
European contacts with North America. It also opened up new avenues for specu-
lation into the events of the early eleventh century.25 This archaeological discovery
has generally been regarded as proof “that something, at least, of the Sagas was
history rather than fiction.”26 As exciting as these findings are, their value for the
study of the Winland narratives does not reach much further. If the presence of
Norse seafarers in North America can now be regarded as a historical fact, the ev-
idence of the sagas concerning the voyages of Leifr Eiríksson or Þorfinnr Karlsefni
remains problematic and filled with contradictions.
The single most important difference between Winland, as it existed in the
medieval imagination, and the present-day imagined Vínland is that while the latter
is located in North America the former was not. Modern cartographic representa-
tions of the Vínland expeditions show the continents of Europe and North America
with the possible route of the Norse between them. They are shown traveling south-
wards but mostly towards the West.27 This is not in accordance with the evidence
of the sagas, which fail to indicate a westward trajectory for any of the expeditions
going to Vínland. In the tenth and eleventh centuries it was impossible to measure
longitude with any precision.28 Journeys from east to west were nevertheless com-
mon and are well documented. In Hauksbók, where Eiríks saga rauða is found,
there is also a detailed description of common sea routes from Norway to Iceland
and then to Greenland, in a generally westward direction.29 No similar information
is provided about the route from Greenland to Winland, most likely because it had
never become customary enough to be documented in similar fashion.
Thus geographers must have been at a loss as to where and how to locate Win-
land, and in the earliest works where the land is mentioned, no clue is given with

25
See Anne Stine Ingstad and Helge Ingstad, The Norse Discovery of America (Oslo, 1985).
26
David B. Quinn, “Norse America: Reports and Reassessments,” Journal of American Studies
22 (1988), pp. 269-73, at p. 269.
27
See the map in Gísli Sigurðsson, The Medieval Icelandic Saga and Oral Tradition, p. 286, in
which to sail “out to sea” (ON. í haf) is translated to a map as sailing directly to the west.
28
On the quest to discover longitude in the eighteenth century see for instance, Dava Sobel, Longi-
tude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time (London,
1998; 1st ed. 1995). According to Sobel, with the best techniques available to Medieval mariners, “one
could hope to get a longitude fix once a year” (p. 22).
29
Hauksbók, p. 4.
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VINLAND AND WISHFuL THINKING 503

respect to its geographic location. In the geographical treatise in Hauksbók, for

example, while there is mention of Iceland and Greenland, there is no reference to
Winland.30 In another geographical treatise preserved in two manuscripts31 ― the
elder of which was written in Iceland around 1300 ― there is a reference to Win-
land and an attempt is made to locate it, due south of Greenland:

South from Greenland, there is Helluland, then there is Markland,

where there is not a long way to Vínland the good, which some men
reckon is connected to Africa.
(ON. Frá Grænlandi í suðr liggr Helluland, þá er Markland; þaðan
er eigi langt til Vínlands, er sumir menn ætla at gangi af Affrika.)32

In the earlier manuscript there is a further explanation: “And if such is the

case, then an ocean flows into a strait between Markland and Vínland.” (ok ef svá
er, þá er úthaf innfallanda á milli Vínlands ok Marklands.)33
Thus, instead of discovering America, it seems that learned Icelanders thought
that their ancestors might have gone to Africa. This idea also made sense in light
of an earlier belief, found in the twelfth-century Historia Norwegie, that Greenland
“marks the western boundary of Europe, and almost touches the islands of Africa,
where the Ocean tides surge in.” (Lat. terminus est ad occasum Europe, fere con-
tingens Africanas insulas, ubi inundant occeani refluenta.)34 In this text, Winland
is not mentioned but might be considered a part of the islands referred to therein.
Both the careful phraseology in the fourteenth-century manuscripts, as well
as the fact that no attempt is made to locate Winland in Africa in either Eiríks saga
rauða or Grænlendinga saga, serve to alert us to the fact that the position of Win-
land within the world system was very far from being regarded as a certainty in
the fourteenth century. However, during the same period, at no time was there an
attempt made to identify Winland with a “New world” unknown to the medieval
authorities.35

30
Ibid., p. 155.
31
AM 736 I, 4to and AM 194 8vo.
32
Carl Christian Rafn (ed.), Antiqvitates Americanæ sive Scriptores septentrionales rerum ante-
columbianarum in America: Samling af de i Nordens oldskrifter indeholdte efterretninger om de gamle
Nordboers opdagelsesreiser til America fra det 10de til det 14de Aarhundrede (Copenhagen, 1837), p.
289. Cf. Kristian Kålund (ed.), Alfræði íslenzk: Islandsk encyklopædisk litteratur 1. Cod. mbr. AM.
194, 8vo., Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur, 37 (Copenhagen, 1908), p. 12.
33
Alfræði íslenzk 1, p. 12. In the later manuscript there is also a brief tale of Karlsefni’s travels
which does not stem from either Eiríks saga or Grænlendinga saga: “It is said that Þorfinnr Karlsefni
cut down a tree for carved decoration on the prow and then went to seek Vínland the good, and they
came there where they thought this land to be but did not manage to explore or derive any benefits of
the land.” (Þat er sagt, at Þorfidr Karlsefni hjöggi húsasnotru tré ok færi síðan at leita Vínlands ins
góða ok kæmi þar er þeir ætluðu þat land ok náðu eigi at kanna ok engum landskostum.)
34
Inger Ekrem and Lars Boje Mortensen (eds.), Historia Norwegie (Copenhagen, 2003), pp. 54-
55.
35
This also applies to the description of the physical features and climate of the lands, they were
“simply an extension of an existing frame of reference,” Geraldine Barnes, Viking America: The First
Millennium (Cambridge, 2001), p. xiv.
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504 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

The issue here is not, however, the failure of the Norse geographers to discover
America, but rather: what options did they have when it came to locating new ge-
ographical findings, that is, with islands or continents that were not accounted for
in the standard classical and catholic works? How was new geographical informa-
tion adapted in order to fit the prevailing model, and what would the nature of that
information have to be in order to challenge the model?
A consideration of the ethnography of Winland, often explored in the context
of what was happening in North America around 1000, and less with respect to
the epistemological models available to the Norse narrators of the Vínland sagas,
raises similar questions. On the basis of the limited information offered by the
sagas, speculation has been rife as to which Native American tribe fits the descrip-
tion given of the Skrælings in the narratives.36 Such hypotheses must necessarily
accept the veracity or partial authenticity of the narratives as a precondition. Yet it
is evident that the information provided about the Skrælings in the narratives is
often contradictory. The narrators did not possess the modern ethnographical or
anthropographical knowledge by which the Skrælings could be identified with a
particular Inuit or Amerindian tribe. Instead their information about the Skrælings
had to accord to the models available to medieval geographers.
Several problems had to be addressed when determining the identity of the
Skrælings. According to the oldest available evidence, the twelfth-century
Íslendingabók, the Skrælings had formerly inhabited Greenland. This was also
known to the author of Historia Norwegiae, who depicted the Skrælings as resi-
dents of the North, in the following manner:

Farther north beyond the Greenlanders, hunters have come across

dwarfs whom they call Skrælings. If these creatures are struck with
weapons and survive, their wounds grow white without bleeding, but if the
blows are fatal the blood scarcely stops flowing. They are totally without
iron and employ walrus teeth as missiles, sharp stones as knives.
(Lat. Trans Viridenses ad aquilonem quidam homunciones a uena-
toribus reperiuntur, quos Screlinga appellant. Qui dum uiui armis feriuntur,
uulnera eorum absque cruore albescunt, mortuis uero uix cessat sanguis
manare. Sed ferri metallo penitus carent; dentibus cetinis pro missilibus,
saxis acutis pro cultris utuntur.)37

In general this description does not fit very well with the ethnographic infor-
mation provided by later narratives, in which no mention is made of the Skrælings
as dwarfs (Lat. homunciones) or as residents of the far North. Neither are the
strange effects of wounds upon them mentioned. One thing, though, is common

36
For an overview see Robert McGhee, “Contact between Native North Americans and the Me-
dieval Norse: A Review of the Evidence,” American Antiquity, 49 (1984), pp. 4-26.
37
Historia Norwegie, pp. 54-55.
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VINLAND AND WISHFuL THINKING 505

to this description and to the narrative of the Vínland sagas: that the Skrælings are
unfamiliar with iron and weapons made of iron.
One of the common features in the descriptions of the Skrælings in both Eiríks
saga rauða and Grænlendinga saga is the mention of their hide-covered boats.
The Íslendingabók mentions fragments of hide-covered boats (ON. keiplabrot) but
within Old Norse literature, their occurrence seems limited to those narratives con-
cerning Greenland. In Flóamanna saga, for instance, an Icelandic saga connected
to Haukr Erlendsson, the redactor of Hauksbók, the protagonist builds himself a
hide-covered boat during his travels in Greenland.38
The Skrælings’s fear of cattle is another feature which occurs in both Eiríks
saga rauða and Grænlendinga saga, easily explained by the fact that these peoples
were evidently unfamiliar with such animals. It is less evident why this particular
feature is emphasized in both narratives. Does this reflect genuine ethnographical
information on the habits of some North American tribe, or rather literary conven-
tion? Again the uncertainty revolves around the possible models and methods
which were available to the narrators for the purpose of constructing an image of
a people hitherto unknown. In this sense, the Skrælings are a representative case
of medieval anthropology, within the Old Norse literary world and that of Chris-
tianity in general.
Here, a distinction should be made between the concise narrative of Græn-
lendinga saga and the much more learned Eiríks saga rauða. In Grænlendinga
saga, apart from the emphasis on the wide eyes of the otherwise unremarkable
woman whom Guðríðr encounters, there is little information provided on the ap-
pearance of the Skrælings. There is no suggestion of alien ethnicity inherent in
this description, as the phrase “eygðr mjök” was on occasions applied to
Icelanders.39 Among the Skrælings there is one person of great stature who seems
to be their leader, and he is described rather respectfully. Thus, despite their in-
ability to understand each other’s language, the Norse and the Skrælings do not
seem to be worlds apart. Also, in this version, the Skrælings are hardly responsible
for the failure of the settlement, as the last attempt led by Freydís Eiríksdóttir goes
awry for purely internal reasons.
Not much is said about the customs of the Skrælings other than references to
their hide-covered boats, and to their unfamiliarity with cattle and iron weapons.
The items of their trade are gray skin and sable whereas they desire Norse milk
products. And mysteriously, their land seems to be protected by some sort of charm

38
Íslenzk fornrit 13. Þórhallur Vilmundarson and Bjarni Vilhjálmsson (eds.), Harðar saga, Bárðar
saga, Þorskfirðinga saga, Flóamanna saga (Reykjavík, 1991), p. 289. On Haukr’s relationship with
Flóamanna saga see Richard Perkins, Flóamanna saga, Gaulverjabær and Haukr Erlendsson, Studia
Islandica 36 (Reykjavík, 1978).
39
See the description of Víga-Styrr in Eyrbyggja saga, or one of the companions of the Vatns-
firðingar in Sturlunga saga. Íslenzk fornrit 4. Einar Ólafur Sveinsson and Matthías Þórðarson (eds.),
Eyrbyggja saga, Grænlendinga sögur (Reykjavík 1935), p. 21; Jón Jóhannesson, Magnús Finnbogason
and Kristján Eldjárn (eds.), Sturlunga saga, 2 vols (Reykjavík 1946), 1, p. 351.
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506 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

that causes drowsiness, which leads to the death of Þorvaldr Eiríksson. This mys-
tical element is present throughout the narrative, indicated again by the fact that,
apart from her Icelandic namesake, no one sees the other Guðríðr. It is an important
key to understanding Grænlendinga saga’s narration of cultural contact.
Here Eiríks saga rauða draws a different picture, as the saga’s emphasis on
the differences between the Norse party and the Skrælings is much greater. The
Skrælings are described as very dissimilar in looks to the Norsemen, and much is
made of the difficulty between the two peoples in understanding each other. As
observed by Victoria Hanselmann, the semiotic interests of the narrator are evident
in the depiction of the first contacts between Karlsefni’s group and the Skrælings
through the medium of sign language.40 The technology of the Skrælings is de-
scribed in greater detail, including the catapults and the mysterious round bluish
object, which make the Skrælings seem rather advanced in some respects, despite
their ignorance of iron.
According to Eiríks saga rauða, the Skrælings are only one among a number
peoples inhabiting the lands south of Greenland. Þorfinnur Karlsefni’s group also
encounters a uniped and they hear rumors of a nearby country of white men. In
this saga, there is an obvious reference to a wider world which is lacking in Græn-
lendinga saga.
The issues identified so far are as follows: what parameters did the Old Norse
narrators of the Vínland journeys have at their disposal to locate Winland, Hellu-
land, or Markland, whether in Africa or somewhere else within the hegemonic
model of the world? And correspondingly: what tools were available to them for
an ethnographic definition of the peoples that the Norse had encountered in Win-
land? The divergence between the two main narratives, Grænlendinga saga and
Eiríks saga rauða, is of paramount importance here, as it allows us to study how
a common paradigm could serve various purposes and strategies.

IV. Winland and the Medieval system of the World

In medieval geography there was a general consensus that there were three conti-
nents, Europe, Africa, and Asia. This model of the world was not only reinforced
by its reference to the Greco-Roman classical tradition, but also was regarded as
harmonious with the sacred word of the Bible. This much had been clarified by
the greatest authority within Roman Catholic Christianity, St. Augustine (354-430),
who had ascertained that no antipodeans living beyond the equator could exist, as
they were not mentioned in the Bible.41 Similarly, the inhabitants of any “new

40
Victoria Hanselmann, “Perifera representationer: Vínlandssagorna, “det andra” och representa-
tionens strategier,” Arkiv för nordisk filologi, 120 (2005), pp. 83-110, at pp. 88-89.
41
According to Augustine, “For Scripture, which proves the truth of its historical statements by
the accomplishment of its prophecies, does not lie; it is too absurd to state that some men might have
taken a ship and traversed the whole ocean, and crossing from this side of the world to the other, and
that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region would be descended from that one first man.” (Lat.
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VINLAND AND WISHFuL THINKING 507

worlds” would, in this line of reasoning, have to be descendants of Adam. How-

ever, no Biblical authority made any mention of such peoples.
In the Norwegian King’s Mirror (ON. Konungs skuggsjá) the existence of an-
tipodeans is discussed as a hypothesis. The narrator notes that such people (if they
existed) would see the sun in the north in the middle of the day, and that they would
have the opposite seasons of the people living in the Northern Hemisphere.42 In
most Old Norse scientific textbooks the Earth is described as a globe or a sphere
(ON. böllr) and the climate belts on both sides of the Equator are listed.43 This had
no reflection on maps of the T-O type that portray the Earth as a disc (ON. kringla)
divided between three continents. Such maps could easily appear in the same man-
uscripts that note the spherical nature of the Earth. The T-O maps were a graphic
representation of the inhabited part of the Earth with no regard for the other two-
thirds of the globe.44
The implications of regarding the disc-shaped Earth of the maps as the north-
ernmost part of a spherical Earth did not affect most medieval map-makers who
put the poles at the extremities of their maps instead of placing the North Pole at
its center, which would have been more consistent with the idea of a spherical
Earth. It may, however, have occurred to Old Norse geographers, who postulated
that Greenland ― the northernmost land of Europe ― would be adjacent to the
northernmost fringes of Asia or Africa. It is thus stated: “From Permia [Bjarma-
land] northwards the lands are uninhabited until one reaches Greenland.” (ON. Af
Bjarmalandi ganga lönd óbyggð af norðrætt, uns viðtekr Grænland.)45
The idea that a journey beyond Greenland would naturally lead westwards
would have seemed unfamiliar to avid connoisseurs of medieval maps or medieval
geographical treatises. Indeed, if Greenland was situated at the northern fringe of
the world, as was the consensus among Old Norse geographers, one could travel
from there equally in every possible longitudinal direction. The only certainty was
that the journey would be southwards, as is indicated in the narratives, most clearly
in Eiríks saga rauða. Such a conclusion might have gained some support from the
fact that Winland was evidently a land much further south than Greenland, Iceland
or Scandinavia.
Thus the expeditions to Winland went south and in the end they came to a
land populated by the Skrælings. As any student of Saint Augustine (or, for that

Quoniam nullo modo scriptura ista mentitur, quae narratis praeteritis facit fidem eo, quod eius prae-
dicta conplentur, nimisque absurdum est, ut dicatur aliquos homines ex hac in illam partem, Oceani
inmensitate traiecta, nauigare ac peruenire potuisse, ut etiam illic ex uno illo primo homine genus in-
stitueretur humanum.)
42
Magnús Már Lárusson (ed.), Konungs skuggsjá – Speculum Regale (Reykjavík, 1955), pp. 67-
68.
43
Nathanael Beckman and Kristian Kålund (eds.), Alfræði íslenzk – Islandsk encyklopædisk litte-
ratur 2. Rímtöl. Samfund til udgivelse af gammel nordisk litteratur 41 (Copenhagen, 1914-16), pp. 85-
87, 112-116, and 124.
44
For a more thorough discussion of this dichotomy between the worldview of natural philosophy
in the Middle Ages and that of the schematic mapmakers see Rudolf Simek, Erde und Kosmos im Mitte-
lalter: Das Weltbild vor Kolumbus (Munich, 1992), pp. 55-73.
45
AM 194, 8vo; Alfræði íslenzk 1, p. 12.
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508 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

matter, of most Biblical authorities) would have known, these Skrælings had to be
a people of some ancient pedigree, and the land which they inhabited would have
to be connected to the known world somehow. The problem was determining
which people they might be. As to that matter, Grænlendinga saga and Eiríks saga
rauða offer somewhat different answers.
In the context of the manuscript in which Grænlendinga saga is preserved ―
the late fourtheenth-century Flateyjarbók ― a pattern can be detected in the way
it depicts inter-ethnic relations. For example, the Skrælings are depicted as sellers
of fur pelts and sable. A similar description is also to be found in another text in
Flateyjarbók, that is, in Ólafs saga helga, describing the voyage of the lord Þórir
hundr to the eastern country of Permia, also known as Bjarmaland (ON. Bjarma-
land), which supposedly took place in the 1020s.46 According to this text, Þórir
and his companions first went to a town where they traded and bought “grey
cloaks, beaver skin and sable” (ON. grávöru ok bjór ok safala). Then they sailed
along the Dvina and began to raid the local population. At the instigation of Þórir,
the Norse mariners looted silver and jewelery from local graves, including gems
belonging to the local deity called Jómali.47 Then they were chased by the Bjarmar
“with yells and ill-sounding howling” (ON. með kalli ok gaulun illiligri), though
they managed to escape through the use of magic. There seems to be a pattern of
interaction between Norsemen and exotic peoples, which applies equally to the
Bjarmar and to the Skrælings. According to the geographical description found in
the manuscript,48 there was a link between Greenland and Bjarmaland, and a jour-
ney from the former to the latter would be directed southwards. And thus, geo-
graphically, Winland might not have been situated far from Bjarmaland. Yet, there
is no suggestion that the Skrælings of Winland are the same as the Bjarmar. Rather,
the depictions of how the Norse related to these exotic peoples shared a common
element: a pattern of inter-ethnic relations.
Another narrative in Flateyjarbók also has similarities to Grænlendinga saga.
This is the episode in Orkneyinga saga depicting the journey of Earl Ragnvald (d.
1156) to the East Roman Empire and the Holy Land. The Earl and his companions
travelled by sea through the Mediterranean and, in the vicinity of Sardinia, they
encountered a band of Saracens, with whom they proceeded to do battle. Among
the Saracens there was “a man both taller and more handsome than the rest, and
the Norsemen reckoned him to be their leader.” (ON. einn maðr sá, at bæði var
meiri ok fríðari en aðrir; þat höfðu Norðmenn fyrir satt, at sá mundi vera höfðingi
þeirra.) This man was captured by the Norsemen who tried to sell him into slavery
in North Africa. As no one would purchase him he was released, but soon returned
with a flock of men. He graciously allowed the Norsemen to continue on their
journey, after informing them that he was actually “a prince of the Saracens” (ON.

46
Flateyjarbók 2, p. 256.
47
On this particular episode see Alan S.C. Ross, The Terfinnas and Beormas of Ohthere (Leeds,
1940; 2nd ed. London, 1981), pp. 48-56.
48
AM 194, 8vo.
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VINLAND AND WISHFuL THINKING 509

öðlingr af Serklandi).49 This description of the prince recalls the supposed leader
of the Skrælings, who also was tall and more imposing than his companions. The
respect accorded to the leader of the exotic antagonists was a marked exception to
a relationship otherwise characterized by hostility. And yet, the Saracens were not
so different from the Skrælings or the Bjarmar. Relations with them also alternated
between bouts of trading and raiding.
The similarities between the interactions of the Norsemen with the Skrælings
and their encounters with Bjarmar in the East and Saracens in the South are un-
mistakable. This is less due to literary borrowing than a common typology of inter-
ethnic relations. All of these peoples share a common exotic feature, which is that
of Paganism, of not belonging to the Christian oecumene. We need not look far
beyond Grænlendinga saga to note this pattern of relations, as it can be found in
several narratives within the same manuscript, Flateyjarbók. The narrator of Græn-
lendinga saga notes this important characteristic of the Skrælings, their status
among the pagans, which is an important step in their classification. A further effort
in classifying them, by distinguishing them from peoples such as the Bjarmar of
the East or the Saracens of North Africa, is not attempted in Grænlendinga saga.
The identity of the Skrælings is thus left open to interpretation.
The same typological connection between exotic peoples in different places
can also be seen in Eiríks saga rauða. There is a similarity between Yngvars saga
and Eiríks saga rauða, which has been noted both by Theodore M. Andersson and
the present author, in the depiction of the use of sign language and patterns of trade
between Norsemen and pagan peoples.50 The main difference is that the narrative
in Yngvars saga takes place beyond the eastern confines of Russia, while the nar-
rative in Eiríks saga rauða takes place in Winland. This would suggest the same
pattern in depicting inter-ethnic relations which was prevalent in Grænlendinga
saga.
In contrast, Eiríks saga rauða ventures much further in locating the Skrælings
both geographically and ethnographically. To begin with, there is the uniped. This
strange figure kills Þorvaldr Eiríksson and lives in the “country of the unipeds”
(ON. Einfætingaland), next to Winland. This clue to the location of Winland is
more definitive than any information given in Grænlendinga saga. It is located
next to the country of unipeds, and, in fact, the unipeds were much better known
in medieval sources than the Skrælings.

49
Flateyjarbók 2, p. 486.
50
Cf. Theodore M. Andersson, “Exoticism in Early Iceland,” in Michael Dallapiazza, Olaf Han-
sen, Preben Meulengracht Sørensen, and Yvonne Bonnetain (eds.), International Scandinavian and
Medieval Studies in Memory of Gerd Wolfgang Weber (Trieste, 2000), pp. 19-28, at p. 27; Sverrir Ja-
kobsson, “‘Black Men and Malignant-Looking’: The Place of the Indigenous Peoples of North America
in the Icelandic World View,” in Andrew Wawn and Þórunn Sigurðardóttir (eds.), Approaches to Vín-
land. A Conference on the Written and Archaeological Sources for the Norse Settlements in the North
Atlantic Region and Exploration of America. The Nordic House, Reykjavík 9-11 August 1999. Proceed-
ings, Sigurður Nordal Institute Studies, 4 (Reykjavík, 2001), pp.88-104, at pp. 90-91.
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510 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

The nation of the unipeds appears in several ancient sources, most famously
in the Naturalis historia of Pliny the Older (23-79).51 He quotes the more ancient
authority of Ctesias who

… describes a tribe of men called Monocoli who have only one leg, and
who move in jumps with surprising speed; the same are called Sciapodes
(Shadow-Feet) tribe, because in hotter weather they lie on their backs on
the ground and protect themselves with the shadow of their feet.
(Lat. idem hominum genus, qui Monocoli vocarentur, singulis cruribus,
mirae pernicitatis ad saltum; eosdem Sciapodas vocari, quod in maiore
aestu humi iacentes resupini umbra se pedum protegant.)52

This information provided the background for much of the speculation surrounding
unipeds in medieval learned works.
The unipeds were also known in Iceland; a picture of a uniped is found in a
manuscript of the Old Icelandic Physiologus from around 1200.53 Also, they are
listed among “nations with peculiar customs” (ON. margháttaðar þjóðir) in Hauks-
bók, the manuscript which contains the oldest version of Eiríks saga rauða.54 In
Hauksbók the location of their country is not given.55 However, such medieval au-
thorities as Honorius Augustodunensis and Hugo of St. Victor had unambiguously
stated that the unipeds lived in India.56 This influenced the notion that became cur-
rent at the court of Erik of Pomerania in the early fifteenth century, namely that
India might be reached from Greenland, via the land of the unipeds.57 In the Middle
Ages, stories of unipeds were far from regarded as fables, and so the proximity of
their land to Winland could inherently be regarded as evidence for the possibility
of circumnavigating the Earth. But, while this became a matter of speculation in
some circles in the fifteenth century, the narrator of Eiríks saga rauða did not go
that far. The appearance of the uniped in the saga, however, clearly called for in-
terpretative analysis, as it provided a link between the unknown and entrenched

51
Teresa Pároli, “How many are the unipeds’ feet? Their tracks in texts and sources,” in Wilhelm
Heizmann, Klaus Böldl and Heinrich Beck (eds.), Analecta Septentrionalia: Beiträge zur nordgerm-
anischen Kultur- und Literaturgeschichte. Reallexikon der germanischen Altertumskunde - Ergänz-
ungsbände 65 (Berlin, New York, 2009), pp. 281–327.
52
Plinius major, Naturalis historia 7.2, in Ludwig von Jan and Karl Mayhoff (eds.), C. Plinivs
Secvndvs Naturalis historia. Bibliotheca scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana, 5 vols
(Munich and Leipzig, 1892-1909), 2, p. 9.
53
Halldór Hermannsson (ed.), The Icelandic Physiologus. Islandica, 27 (Ithaca, New York, 1938).
54
Hauksbók, p. 166.
55
According to Pároli the phrase “this people in Africa” refers to the unipeds, “How many are
the unipeds’ feet?” p. 306, but to me it seems quite clear that this statement applies to the next nation
on the list, the one that is immune to the poison of snakes, see Hauksbók, p. 166.
56
Pároli, “How many are the unipeds’ feet?” pp. 295-96. Another possible location, popularized
by S. Isidore of Seville, was Ethiopia.
57
Janus Møller Jensen, Denmark and the Crusades 1400-1650. The Northen World series, number
30 (Leiden, 2007), pp. 190-91.
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VINLAND AND WISHFuL THINKING 511

knowledge. In this case, the existence of unipeds was the established fact onto
which new information about the Skrælings could be grafted.
The options for defining the inhabitants of Winland were circumscribed by
the necessity for the Skrælings to belong to one of 72 nations inhabiting the Earth,
a medieval dogma well established in Iceland.58 If all of the inhabitants of the Oe-
cumene had to be descendants of one or another of these nations, this would
equally apply to the Skrælings as well as any other tribe inhabiting any land that
Norse seafarers would come upon. Yet, in contrast to the lively discussion con-
cerning the concerning the identity of Native Americans which arose in Europe in
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these problems were never discussed sys-
tematically in any Old Norse text.59
Beyond the land of the unipeds, according to Eiríks saga rauða, there lay an-
other country. This was “the land of white men or Ireland the great” (ON. Hvítra-
mannaland eða Írland hit mikla). This land was a staple of Icelandic legend. In
the Book of Settlements (ON. Landnámabók) a tale is told of a man who drifted
to this land, “which some people call Ireland the great. It lies west in the sea near
Vínland the good. It is said to be six days and six nights sailing westwards from
Ireland.” (ON. þat kalla sumir Írland hit mikla. Þat liggr vestr í hafi nær Vínlandi
hinu góða. Það er kallað sex dægra sigling vestr frá Írlandi.) The authority for
this tale is reported to have spent time in Limerick in Ireland and to have heard
the tale there.60 Another tale about a country of white men is related in Eyrbyggja
saga, which mentions its westerly location but does not refer to Winland.61 The
proximity to the land of white men is the main evidence for a possible westward
location of Winland. However, the narrative in Eiríks saga rauða adds a twist to
this tradition by linking this western isle to the land of the unipeds, which was not
usually associated with the Atlantic Ocean. These conflicting traditions made lo-
cating Winland a difficult task, but in Eiríks saga rauða an attempt is certainly
made to place it within a geographical and ethnographical context. This is in con-
trast to the rather generalized picture offered by Grænlendinga saga, in which the
Skrælings appear similar to the inhabitants of most other exotic nations.
In Eiríks saga rauða the Skrælings are evidently not savages, but are rather
depicted as living in an ordered society with their own kings. It also made clear
that the Skrælings possess some technology that placed them on a more superior
footing to the Norsemen in warfare. Of particular interest was the “large round ob-
ject, about the size of a sheep’s gut, which was rather bluish in color” which they
catapulted into the throng of Norsemen, creating great mayhem. This appeared to
be remarkably similar to some superior eastern technology of warfare, such as a

58
See for instance, Hauksbók, pp. 157-58.
59
Lee E. Huddleston, Origins of the American Indians: European Concepts 1492-1729 (Austin,
Texas, 1967).
60
Íslendingabók, Landnámabók, p. 162. This episode is missing from the Hauksbók edition of
the Landnámabók.
61
On this tradition see Hermann Pálsson, “Hvítramannaland,” Tímarit Máls og menningar, 21
(1960), pp. 48-54.
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512 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

gunpowder bomb that was hurled by a kind of catapult, and which had been known
in China since the ninth century. In the thirteenth century, owing to Mongol ex-
pansion westwards, knowledge of such things was transmitted to Europe. Among
the first to spread the word may have been Scandinavian trader-envoys who
reached China in 1261.62 Whatever the explanation behind this catapult marvel ―
assuming that it incorporates a valid knowledge of some superior technology ―
its origins must surely be sought in the East rather than the West.
Indications of the Skræling’s affinity with eastern peoples are not surprising
in the context of the time of composition of Eiríks saga rauða and Grænlendinga
saga. The most important event in thirteenth-century western history was the open-
ing of new avenues to the East and interaction with Eastern rulers such as the Mon-
gols. Even in far away Iceland, the activities of the Mongol rulers were mentioned
in chronicles and narratives of contemporary history. In the following centuries,
tales about the wealth and wonders of the East fed the longing of Europeans for
travel and exploration. They spurred on adventurers such as Christopher Columbus
who went on a hazardous journey to seek the westward route to the “Indies,” fueled
in equal measure by boldness and poor mathematics. Just like the Greenlanders,
who had made these journeys five centuries earlier, and the Icelandic narrators,
who sought to describe their epic travels just two centuries prior, Columbus had
never expected to discover a new world. Such was the resilience of the medieval
worldview.

V. america: an Idea Whose time had not Yet Come

The Vínland sagas contain narratives about Norse mariners traveling to and from
Greenland around the year 1000 who came upon lands that turned out to be inhab-
ited. In hindsight, the stories of the unsuccessful attempt to settle Winland have
been enduringly linked to the consequent discoveries of the American continents,
which occurred five centuries later. Their importance is seen as an early precursor
to a world-historic event that shaped all future history. The discovery of America
occasioned the rise of the European nations to world powers, as they became equal
and ultimately superior to the great Eastern powers. It also contributed to a para-
digmatic shift in the worldview of the Christian nations, and consequently led to
the Scientific Revolution. The voyages of the Norse travelers to Winland are thus
connected to some of the most important grand narratives of modern history. How-
ever, they did not themselves herald any world-historic event.
The Norse failure to discover America does not, however, detract from the
significance of their expeditions. On the contrary, their lack of success is precisely
what makes them an interesting subject of historical inquiry. The fact that Winland
was never depicted as a new world is one of the best illustrations of both the

62
Joseph Needham and Lin Wang, Science and Civilization in China 5.7: The Gunpowder Epic
(Cambridge, 1987), pp. 571-72; Herbert Franke, “Sino-Western Contacts under the Mongol Empire,”
Journal of the Hong Kong Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 6 (1966), pp. 49-72, at pp. 54-55.
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VINLAND AND WISHFuL THINKING 513

strength and the limits of the medieval Catholic worldview, understood as an epis-
temological and scientific paradigm. An analysis of the evidence of the Winland
expeditions provides an opportunity to examine how a coherently structured par-
adigm (or “episteme”) is able to absorb new knowledge without shaking the foun-
dations of the system to the core.63 The Winland expeditions did not count as a
historical event, in the sense of a definite break in the spirit of the age. On the con-
trary, they were incorporated into the existing body of knowledge through literary
descriptions, absorbed by the medieval worldview without forcing a paradigm
shift.
The Old Norse narratives that depicted the events of the Winland expeditions
first appeared in written form centuries after they had taken place. And thus, in
one respect, they can be seen as impressive monuments to the tenacity of this par-
ticular historical memory. However, they also serve their function as chapters in
an altogether different story, that of the Norse colonization of the islands at the
margins of Europe. In the medieval narratives, this is the only context in which
they could be placed, as, at the time of writing, the later event of the discovery of
the New World had not yet occurred. The missions to Winland are thus linked to
the earlier colonization of the Faroe Islands, Iceland and Greenland, a context that
is often missing in modern historiography where they are placed in the context of
the later Columbian discovery of America.
The evidence of the Vínland sagas concerning these findings is often ambigu-
ous, in large part due to major differences between Grænlendinga saga and Eiríks
saga rauða. Neither of the sagas places the newly found lands unhesitatingly to
the west, whereas their southern location was beyond dispute. An examination of
the events depicted in the sagas contained epistemological problems for anyone
wishing to account for these unknown lands and their natives, and to fit knowledge
about their existence and customs into the paradigmatic model of the world that
shaped the reception of new knowledge. This was done through a historical narra-
tive that offered clues, which were often vague and conflicting, rather than defin-
itive answers to the riddle of the location of the new-found islands and their exotic
inhabitants.
To locate Winland close to Africa was thus a reasonable assumption given the
known facts. The ethnic identity of the Skrælings was also a matter of uncertainty,
about which the sources are disharmonious. Grænlendinga saga depicts them as
stock examples of exotic peoples, resembling examples of other pagans encoun-
tered in the East or in the South. On this matter, Eiríks saga rauða offers further
clues, mainly due to the proximity of Winland to the land of the unipeds and the
land of the white men. However, one of these places was usually located in the
East and the other in the West. In the end, the medieval Icelandic literati never

63
For a discussion of these particular terms cf. Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolu-
tions (2nd edition, Chicago, 1970), pp. 23-24; Michel Foucault, Les mots et les choses. Une archéologie
des sciences humaines (Paris, 1966), pp. 355-59.
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514 SVERRIR JAKOBSSON

managed to solve the mystery of the location of Winland and the identity of its in-
habitants, not even to their own satisfaction. Winland remained a nebulous appari-
tion within Icelandic medieval geography. The evidence of how the information
about the newly encountered lands was processed within the parameters of the
dominant system of defining and classifying knowledge is nevertheless not without
interest, as it casts a light on the workings of that particular system, which became
obsolete in the early modern period.

Sverrir Jakobsson is adjunct lecturer in medieval history at

Háskóli Íslands, university of Iceland in Reykjavík. His re-
search interests include Icelandic and western Scandinavian
worldviews in the Middle Ages, medieval thought systems,
and the history of space. He has published the book Við og
veröldin. Heimsmynd Íslendinga 1100-1400 (2005), as well
as several articles on Scandinavian medieval history.