The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studies — John Shaqi
The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studiesWilson, Daniel, Sir
History
The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studies
Wilson, Daniel, Sir
America -- Antiquities; Atlantis (Legendary place); Ethnology -- America; Indians of North America -- Antiquities
stimulus is thus furnished to Canadian yachtsmen to combine historical
exploration with a summer’s coasting trip, and go in search of the lost
Vinland. The description of the locality that furnished the data from
which the members of the Rhode Island Historical Society satisfied
themselves as to the identity of their more southern site on the
Pacasset river, has to be kept in view in any renewed inquiry. At the
same time it must not be overlooked that the oldest and most trustworthy
narrative, in the Saga of Eric the Red, with the credited, and probably
genuine story of the voyage of Karlsefne, are expanded, in the
Grænlendingathàttr, into five voyages, with their incidents recast with
modifications and additions. The expedition of Leif Ericson, and his
accidental discovery of Vinland, and the subsequent attempt at
colonisation of Karlsefne, in company with Thorvald and Freydisa, are
the only adventures accredited by the oldest tradition. In the latter
narrative it is stated that “they sailed for a long time, until they
came at last to a river which flowed down from the land into a lake, and
so into the sea. There were great bars at the mouth of the river, so
that it could only be entered at the height of the flood tide. Karlsefn
and his men sailed into the mouth of the river, and called it Hóp,”
_i.e._ a land-locked bay. “They found self-sown wheat fields wherever
there were hollows, and where there was hilly ground there were vines.”
Subsequent descriptions are obviously based on this account. But to
whatever extent the description of the locality where Thorvald, the
brother of Leif Ericson, was killed by a Skræling may have been
suggested by that narrative, the localities are different. It was
apparently in the spring of A.D. 1004 that Karlsefne set out on his
colonising expedition. The voyagers sailed along Furdustrandir, a long,
low sandy coast, till they came to where the land was indented with
creeks and inlets. There they steered into the Straumsfjord, to a spot
where Karlsefne and his companions spent the winter of A.D. 1005; and
where, therefore, we may assume the observations to have been made that
determined the length of the day in Vinland at the winter solstice. The
narrative of noteworthy incidents is accompanied with topographical
details that have to be kept in view in any attempt at recovering traces
of the locality. There, if it could be identified, we have to look for a
promontory answering to the Krossanes, or promontory of the crosses: the
spot where Thorvald was buried; and as would seem to be implied, where a
cross was set up at the grave mound. The style of such a sepulchral
memorial of the Northmen at a little later date is very familiar to us.
The discovery on some hitherto unheeded spot of the Nova-Scotian coast
of a bautastein, graven like those recovered on the sites of the old
Greenland colony, would be an invaluable historical record. It might be
expected to read somewhat in this fashion: _Leif sunr Erikr rautha
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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