SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Obseruaiions on the Discoueries of the Norsemen 183
Markland was one of the certain facts of geography which
the Greenlanders, and thus the Norwegians and Icelanders,
possessed in the Middle Ages: Vinland was not.
Until now no antiquities have been found in North
America which can be pos£t£vely attributed to Vikings or
European seamen of the Middle Ages. In 1961, however,
Helge Ingstad's curiosity was aroused by ruins found near
the village of Lance-aux-Meadows at the northernmost
tip of Newfoundland. Since then investigations have
been carried out on the ruins and on various objects
found there, but nothing has so far come to light which
proves a definite link with European seamen of the Middle
Ages. While things are in this state, it is impossible to
assert that Vinland has been found, or indeed any of the
other places that are mentioned in medieval accounts of
journeys to America once Markland was left behind.
Our knowledge of Viking voyages to North America
still rests entirely on written accounts, and of these the
most important are the Sagas of Icelanders. In them,
however, significant differences are to be found. Right up
to 1956 scholars' opinions as to the value of these texts as
authorities were varied and tentative, and the conclusions
they drew reflected this uncertainty. In that year,
however, Jon j ohannesson published the most notable
study of the origins of the Vinland sagas which has ever
appeared. 5 In it he produced valid reasons to show that
the Grienlendinga Saga was an older and more dependable
source than the Eiriks saga rauoa, which most people had
previously regarded as the main source on the Vinland
voyages. This essay marks an epoch in this field of study.
Professor Jones traces the history of the Vinland
voyages in accordance with Jon J ohannessori's conclusions:
Bjarni Herjolfsson was the first white man to find North
America (about 990), and not Leifr Eiriksson about the
year 1000, as was previously thought, - and so forth.
5 See the translation of this paper, 'The date of the composition of the Saga
of the Greenlanders', in Saga-Book XVI I (I962), 54-66.