NORSE CODE
Why Lewis has honoured the Viking founder of Nirth America
HE is credited with discovering America 500 years before Christopher Columbus and is immortalised across the US every year on his birthday, which has been proclaimed a national holiday.
Now Leif Erikson’s links to Scotland have been recognised with a bust of the Viking explorer unveiled on Lewis.
The Leif Erikson International Foundation said its “final project” of donating a 2ft bust to the Uig community “will complete the list of locations where the Sagas say Leif visited or lived”.
Last week, a dedication ceremony was held in Uig with 24 members of the International Foundation in attendance.
According to the Saga of Erik the Red, Erikson visited the Hebrides in the year 1000 while en route to Greenland after being blown off course.
During his time on Lewis, he fathered a child, Porkaetill, a name that means Thor’s cauldron, and precursor to Torcuil.
Many of the local place names in the Hebrides are Norse in origin and Uig is also where the Lewis chessmen can be viewed, after being found there in 1831, as well as in the British Museum in London.
Erikson grew up in Greenland, where the family of Erik the Red moved after it was colonised and, according to the Sagas of Icelanders, he was the first European to land in what is now Canada.
The details of his voyage of discovery are a matter of debate, with one version claiming his landing was by chance while another suggests he sailed there intentionally after learning of the region from other explorers.
In the early 1960s, the discovery of a Viking settlement on the island of Newfoundland lent further weight to accounts of Erikson’s discovery and, in 1964, the US proclaimed October 9 to be Leif Erikson Day.
According to the Saga of Erik the Red, a 13th-century Icelandic tale, Erikson’s ships drifted off course on the voyage home to Norway, finding refuge on the North American continent.
It is believed he and his crew are most likely to have gone ashore at what is now Nova Scotia, which Erikson named Vinland, perhaps in reference to the wild grapes his landing party found.
However, the Saga of the Greenlanders, which dates from the same era, suggests Erikson had already learned of “Vinland” from another seamen, Bjarni Herjolfsson, who had sailed there more than a decade earlier.
But, regardless of his motive, Erikson is generally credited as the first European to set foot on the shores of North America, nearly five centuries before Christopher Columbus arrived in 1492.
At the 11th-century Viking village uncovered in 1960, in L’anse aux Meadow on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland, archaeologists unearthed eight houses and food remains.
For many, the results of these excavations confirmed the expedition of Leif to North America and L’anse aux Meadow was declared “Leif’s Vinland”.
Now a Unesco National Historic Site, it is the oldest European settlement to have been found in North America, and more than 2,000 Viking objects were recovered from it, supporting accounts that Erikson and his men wintered there before setting sail for home.
According to the Saga of Erik the Red, Erikson sailed back to Trondheim in the year 1000 before setting off again for Greenland only to be blown off course. He landed in the Outer Hebrides, which were then under Norse rule.
Joni Buchanan, chairwoman of the Uig Historical Society, now hopes the links with Erikson and the bust of him can boost visitor numbers, which are already high due to Norse artefacts such as the Lewis chessman. She said: “It is great that the International Foundation have recognised his links and have donated us a bust. It is another piece of Viking heritage for visitors to admire when they come to find out about the chessmen.
“Leif is believed to have blown off course on his way back to Greenland and Uig is his most likely place where he landed. He fathered a child here and he would later leave to join him in Greenland.
“We have a small museum here and about 80 per cent of our visitors come to learn about the chessman and how they came to be buried on the beach. Nobody knows the answer but it is a fascinating story. They are still listed in the top 10 things to do at the British Museum. Now some of them are in Stornoway Museum too and they hold great appeal for visitors”.
The Seattle-based Leif Erikson International Foundation has already installed 22 statues across Scandinavia, Canada and the US.
A Foundation spokesman said: “Uig is the most likely place in the Hebrides Vikings might have inhabited. Uig is also the location where the Lewis chessmen were found in 1831.
“They are thought to have been made in Trondheim in the mid 12th-century and there is no certainty about how they ended up in Uig, buried in the sands”.