Prime cuts
CAT JARMAN commends an attempt to tease apart myth from fact in the stories of the Norse “discovery” of North America – and to explore the legacy of such tales in the US today
The feature on Britain’s best prime ministers (Who Is Britain’s Greatest Prime Minister?, April) no doubt had every reader carefully considering their measure of agreement. I would have expected Gladstone to make the cut, but a good case was made for all.
My choice as number one would be Robert Peel. As home secretary he had already enraged the Tory grandees by Catholic emancipation and, despite knowing it was unlikely to help his own political career, forced through the repeal of the Corn Laws because it was the right thing to do. If you add the development of the Conservative party via the Tamworth Manifesto and the Liberal party through the Liberal Tories, Peel’s claim is strong.
I was also pleased to see Harold Wilson included – although surely his greatest achievement was omitted. Doubtless the social legislation relating to abortion and homosexuality was progressive and long overdue, but the thanks of a generation were due to him for keeping Britain out of the Vietnam War. Despite enormous and concerted pressure from Lyndon Johnson, including threats to stop propping up the pound sterling, Wilson refused to commit ground troops to Vietnam. This may have caused a deterioration of Anglo-American relations, but it prevented Britain from becoming entangled in a morally repugnant war.
Glyn Barrott, Dronfield We reward the Letter of the Month writer with a copy of a new history book. This issue, that is Norse America: The Story of a Founding Myth by Gordon Campbell. You can read our review of the book on
Around the year 1000, the Icelander Leif Eirikson set sail from Norway for Greenland. Encountering severe weather, he was blown off course and landed on an unknown shore farther to the west. Here he found wild grapes, wheat and plenty of trees. Leif named the new territory Vinland – and, so the story goes, became the first European to set foot in North America, five centuries before Christopher Columbus was credited with its discovery.
This well-known narrative about the western reach of the Vikings – the epitome of discovery and exploration – has been backed up by archaeological finds of a Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, seemingly offering irrefutable scientific proof. The story has become so entrenched in American history that the “discovery” is now commemorated with a federally observed holiday – Leif Eirikson Day.
Except this version of events is not quite true. It derives from two 13th-century Icelandic sagas, collectively known as the Vinland Sagas, describing voyages westward from Greenland by Eirik the Red and his son Leif Eirikson. The sagas detail geography, interactions with skraelings (the indigenous population) and, ultimately, the fate of the colonies established.
In the past few centuries, considerable efforts have been made to prove the sagas’ historicity. However, in Norse America Graham Campbell makes it clear from the outset that the sagas must not be taken as historical accounts, tempting though it may be. As he puts it: “Eirik and Leif and their companions exist in the liminal space between fact and fiction.” And it is precisely
this space that Norse America attempts to explore, revealing just how deep the roots of these legends run, and the sinister political motivations behind them.
Campbell begins by laying out the two major narratives of America’s so called “discovery” by Europeans: that of Christopher Columbus and that of Leif Eirikson. As he aptly demonstrates, neither man really discovered anything at all. More importantly, Campbell provides the context for why these origin myths have permeated American national identity. They were, in fact, only two of many in a line of claims that suppress the indigenous Native Americans’ legitimate stake in the continent’s history.
Although the sagas were not widely known at the time, in the late 18th century the idea of a Norse discovery of America began to take hold. In the following century, artefacts seeming to prove this event began to appear; by apparent coincidence, these were often found in areas populated by recent Scandinavian immigrants. In 1874, Rasmus B Anderson – the son of Norwegian Midwestern migrants – published the book America not Discovered by Columbus, broadening public awareness of the idea and cementing a link between cultural elites in New England and their imagined ancestral Norse past.
Then, in 1893, a full scale replica of the recently discovered Gokstad ship from Norway, imaginatively named Viking, set sail for the US. Its destination was the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, an event launched to celebrate Columbus’s arrival in the New World. Viking sailed into a blossoming process of nationalistic myth-making.
A key aim of Norse America is untangling the written sources and archaeological evidence for settlement of the western North Atlantic, including Greenland. This is crucial for our understanding of expansion farther west because of the Norse presence there from the late 10th century to the 15th century, when the Greenlandic settlements were abandoned. (The abandonment is a subject of debate, the main points of which are outlined in the book.)
Campbell continues with a summary of the discoveries at L’Anse aux Meadows, followed by a consideration of finds and investigations that may shed light on a Norse presence elsewhere in what is now the eastern Canadian Arctic. Pivotal in this are artefacts suggestive of contact between the Norse and the indigenous populations, many of which have prompted diverging interpretations – are they evidence for settlement, trade or other forms of prolonged contact?
The book’s final section returns to the discovery myths, asking what happens when their proponents are faced with rather unsatisfactory proof – specifically, that evidence is fabricated. Campbell gives a lively presentation of artefacts, runestones, earthworks and even buildings that have been interpreted as irrefutable evidence of a Norse presence at various places in North America. Examples include the infamous Kensington runestone, allegedly documenting a 14thcentury journey from Vinland to Minnesota that ended in a bloody massacre of the Northmen by unnamed indigenous enemies. Campbell unravels the social, political and religious context of the hoax, making it clear that Norse foundation myths are far from innocent imaginings by history enthusiasts,
Runestones, earthworks and even buildings have been interpreted as irrefutable evidence of a Norse presence in North America
but rather part of a set of ideological and racially charged claims.
It is in this type of contextualisation that Norse America excels in its commendable depth. Campbell’s background as a Renaissance scholar shines through, though it might also distract readers primarily interested in the Viking Age. This is where my main criticism of the book lies: aiming to provide an up-to-date assessment of the archaeological evidence and consider the modern historical context of myth-making is an ambitious task. By his own admission, Campbell does not have an archaeological background; as an archaeologist, I found certain simplifications troubling, leading to a concern that some contentious issues may not be entirely balanced. I would also have liked to see the book acknowledge current worrying trends of white supremacists’ appropriation of the Vinland concept.
Despite these reservations, Norse America is an important book that equips the reader to interrogate the stories we think we know, and asks how – and why – we arrived where we are today. This highly readable volume is particularly suited to those who want to understand how the past is shaped in the present – often for explicit political aims.