Herr Flaja's remarks seem intended to suggest that the Little Climactic Optimum, the period during which Leif Eriksson "discovered" his Vinland (remember, Amerindians finding a place doesn't count!) was a "hotter" period in history. Furthermore, he seems to suggest that this was in New Jersey, or farther south--his remark that "you" can grow grapes as far north as New Jersey, apart from being laughably absurd (grapes can be grown, and occur naturally, a good deal farther north than New Jersey), it implies that "you" cannot grow them any farther north, and that therefore, Leif landed in New Jersey, or parts south.
This is absurd. It is also a case in which Wikipedia falls down badly on the job. In the Wikipedia articles on Bjarni Herjolfsson and Leif Eriksson, they identify Leif's Vinland with l'Anse aux Meadows on the northern penninsula of Newfoundland. There isn't just simply good reason to doubt that, there is good reason to assert that they are clearly wrong.
First, however, to dispense with the idea that Leif landed anywhere south of Newfoundland.
I agree with Mr. Mowat's interpretation, which dismisses the idea that Leif would have sailed to the Labrador coast (Helluland and Markland) before proceeding south to the place where he overwintered and which he named Vinland. However, without going into Mr. Mowat's detailed reasoning to suggest that Leif sailed directly to what is now Newfoundland (from which the saga sources state he sailed directly back to Greenland), and relying upon the Erick the Red Saga, which i will link here, it is possible to show that Leif did not reach New England, and in fact did not sail any farther south than what is now Newfoundland.
(The Greenlander's Story is very confused, and seems to have been a bad job of combining existing oral sagas and/or manuscripts--it attempts to suggest that Leif found Vinland after leaving Norway on his mission from Olaf Tryggvason to christianize Greenland, which clearly, from the other saga sources, could not have been the case. Olaf did not become King until 997, and according to the saga sources, Leif converted and became a "King's man" when he overwintered in Norway. The Greenlander's Story places his voyage in 1003--but Olaf Tryggvasson died in 1000, when he was "ambushed" at sea, and leapt into the water, never to be seen again. Therefore, Leif's voyage could only have taken place between 997 and 1000. Furthermore, Leif, on his voyage to Norway, was driven off course, and spent a winter in the Faroe Islands, where he met the woman Thorgunna, who was the mother of his son, Thorkell Leifsson, the son who succeeded him as the Jarl (Earl), or leader of the Greenland colony. That places his likely arrival in Norway no earlier than 998, and therefore he cannot have left Norway any earlier than 999. As Olaf Tryggvason was dead by mid-1000, it is absurd to suggest that Leif voyaged from Norway and made landfall in his Vinland in 1003. Most significantly, Ari Thorgilsson, an Icelandic scholar of the 12th century who was responsible for transcribing the oral sagas, or preserving the transcirpts others made, asserts that christianity came to Greenland in 1000, which agrees with the chronology of the other sagas, and clearly places Leif's voyage to Vinland before his voyage to Norway, and therefore well before 1000, probably about 995 or 996. The year 995 is most likely, as he overwintered in Vinland, and then returned to Greenland, spending the winter there, before leaving for Norway, in 997, by that timetable. Furthermore, all the other sagas which mention Thorfinn Karlsefni agree that he arrived in Greenland in 1002, overwintered there, and met and married Gudrid there, and made the voyage with two other ships [more about that later] in the following year, which would have been 1003. This probably accounts for the confusion in the Greenlander's Story, conflating the Thorfinn Karlsefni saga with Leif's voyage. All of the sagas which pertain to this period were originally oral, and were only written down much later. Except for fragments of the Islendingabok and the Landnamabok, both basic sources for Icelandic history, none of the original manuscript transciptions of the oral sagas remain, and the copies which survive are copied from original manuscript transcriptions or from recensions of those sources. The Greenlander's Story is one of the most unreliable fragmentary sources, but remains valuable, since it often presents a different point of view from the other sagas, which all have an Icelandic prejudice. For the purpose of reviewing the voyage of Leif to Vinland, the Greenlander's Story can be dispensed with.)
From the Eric the Red Saga, the earliest available version of which is likely written no earlier than the late 14th century, almost 300 years after the events which it describes:
Leif, the son of Eric the Red, of Brattahlid, visited Biarni Heriulfsson (Bjarni Herjolfsson)
and bought a ship of him, and collected a crew, until they formed altogether a company of thirty-five men. . . . They put the ship in order; and, when they were ready, they sailed out to sea, and found first that land which Biarni and his shipmates found last. They sailed up to the land, and cast anchor, and launched a boat, and went ashore, and saw no grass there. Great ice mountains lay inland back from the sea, and it was as a [tableland of] flat rock all the way from the sea to the ice mountains; and the country seemed to them to be entirely devoid of good qualities. Then said, Leif "It has not come to pass with us in regard to this land as with Biarni, that we have not gone upon it. To this country I will now give a name, and call it Helluland." (As mentioned in an earlier post, Helluland meaning stone or stony land, from
hellur, meaning stone.)
They returned to the ship, put out to sea, and found a second land. They sailed again to the land, and came to anchor, and launched the boat, and went ashore. This was a level wooded land; and there were broad stretches of white sand where they went, and the land was level by the sea. Then said Leif, "This land shall have a name after its nature; and we will call it Markland." (Once again, as mentioned in an earlier post, Markland refers to the forests and means land of forests.)
They returned to the ship forthwith, and sailed away upon the main with north-east winds, and were out two "dgr" before they sighted land. (A "doeger" is one day's sailing, a period of 24 hours. This could as much as 120 to 160 miles, if the ship were sailed throughout the 24 hours, and were making from five to seven knots. The Norse, with commendable prudence, however, usually laid to overnight, so as not to suddenly find themselves on a lee shore, or to run aground. However, as Leif had bought Bjarni's ship, and had discussed with him his voyage along the coasts before he came to Greenland, Leif might easily have sailed day and night with confidence. Whether or not he did, even at the most ambitious, he could not have reached New England in two day's sailing.)
They sailed toward this land, and came to an island which lay to the northward off the land. There they went ashore and looked about them, the weather being fine, and they observed that there was dew upon the grass, and it so happened that they touched the dew with their hands, and touched their hands to their mouths, and it seemed to them that they had never before tasted anything so sweet as this. They went aboard their ship again and sailed into a certain sound, which lay between the island and a cape, which jutted out from the land on the north, and they stood in westering past the cape. At ebb-tide, there were broad reaches of shallow water there, and they ran their ship aground there, and it was a long distance from the ship to the ocean; yet were they so anxious to go ashore that they could not wait until the tide should rise under their ship, but hastened to the land, where a certain river flows out from a lake. As soon as the tide rose beneath their ship, however, they took the boat and rowed to the ship, which they conveyed up the river, and so into the lake, where they cast anchor and carried their hammocks ashore from the ship, and built themselves booths there (this will be significant later--the "booth" referred to is a small hut large enough for a man to lay down in, and to shelter from the elements at night while sleeping)
. They afterward determined to establish themselves there for the winter, and they accordingly built a large house.
It can easily be seen that even if Leif did bother to coast along Labrador (Helluland and Markland), which is doubtful, he could not have sailed further than the very southern tip of Newfoundland after leaving the southern Labrador coast. That Helluland and Markland refer to Labrador is not doubted by any reputable scholar of those times and the saga accounts. Those who claim that Vinland would have been in New England (and American history is hag-ridden by a "New England-centric" view of history), are obliged to dismiss all the various saga accounts, none of which provide sailing instructions would would carry anyone as far south of Greenland as New England. Furthermore, once one leaves Newfoundland, and sails to the south of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, one gets caught in the powerful Gulfstream current, which when combined with the prevailing westerly winds, will carry a ship such as the Norse used east toward Europe. When Erik the Red attempted to duplicate Leif's voyage, that is precisely what happened to him, he sailed south, but missed Vinland, since Leif would not tell him the lattitude. He became involved in the winds and currents of the Grand Banks, and was carried so far to the east, that he eventually sailed for and made landfall in Iceland, before returning to Greenland. Those who claim New England are also obliged to close their eyes to every aspect of sailing in the waters between Greenland and New England, especially as they would have affected a Norse knorr (their ship) of that era.
As for Wikipedia's error in identifying l'Anse aux Meadows with Leif's Vinland, the evidence is very clear. All of the saga accounts, including the Greenlander's Story, agree that Thorfinn Karlsefni arrived in Greeland in 1002. He was an Icelandic merchant who had made a good profit taking goods to Greenland. There he was a guest of Erik the Red, and overwintered at Erik's homestead at Brattalid. In that winter, he met and married Gudrid, the widow of one of Erik's sons. It was undoubtedly during this winter that he heard the tales of Vinland, and in particular he would have heard of Leif's valuable cargo of hardwoods which he timbered there, and that would have appealed to a merchant who could make a great profit selling hardwood's in either Greenland or Iceland. The following spring, an expedition was proposed. Thorvald Eriksson was to take one knorr (ship), which was probably originally Bjarni Herjolfsson's ship, which Leif had bought for his Vinland voyage. Two other Icelandic merchants had overwintered there, and Freydis Eriksdottir (Erik Reudi's bastard daughter) had cut a deal with them and convinced them to take their knorr in the expedition. Thorfinn Karlsefni and his new bride Gudrid took the his knorr as the third ship. There were about 160 settlers with the three ships.
Without going into the details, suffice it to say that the expedition coasted down the coast of Labrador, looking for Vinland, and finally landed on the northern penninsula of Newfoundland, at l'Anse aux Meadows. (L'Anse aux Meadows is an English corruption of
l'anse aux médusées, meaning jellyfish bay--jellyfish are still pentiful in those waters.) Archaeological digs have found the remains of the Norse settlement there. Freydis had told everyone that Leif had said that she could occupy the booths that Leif had built at Vinland, but the sagas make it clear that they never found Leif's booths. Furthermore, Thorfinn had only come along in order to get a profitable cargo of hardwoods--he and Gudrid had no intention of settling there. After overwintering at l'Anse aux Meadows, where neither the terrain nor the weather matched what Leif had described, Thorfinn made two voyages looking for hardwoods, because there were none at l'Anse aux Meadows (another reason it could not have been Leif's Vinland). The first voyage was south along the west coast of Newfoundland's northern penninsula. He found a sheltered anchorage, and spent the winter there, and encountered "skraelings," the name the Norse gave to Eskimoan people they met in Greenland and North America. Launching a stupid attack on them the following spring, the Norse panicked, and returned to l'Anse aux Meadows. Thorfinn was determined to load a valuable cargo, so he immediately sailed south along the east coast of the northern penninsula, and this time he left Freydis and her cronies behind. They never found Leif's booths, although they did find a sheltered bay, and were able to cut and load a cargo of valuable hardwoods. Here they met Amerindians, Beothuks by the description, and launched another stupid attack while trading with them for valuable furs. Having once again put their collective foot in it, and fearing that the Indians would return and attack them, they hastily finished timbering, loaded the knorr and returned to l'Anse aux Meadows. From there they returned to Greenland, having never found Leif's booths, and therefore obviously having never found Leif's Vinland. L'Anse aux Meadows cannot possibly be Leif's Vinland.
physician Franz Joseph Gall around 1800, the discipline was very popular in the 19th century.
