the first time. Earlier references also exist which show that the Vinland voyages were
well known in Iceland and on the European continent before these two sagas were
actually written down. The sagas about Vinland have been the subject of many learned
studies. Numerous contradictory theories about the voyages described in them have
been put forward, with these sagas as their major source. These contradictions, however,
can largely be explained by the different methodologies used by different generations of
scholars. If we understand the basic problems behind the different answers and take into
account the progress made in Vinland studies in the past decades, on the archaeological
front and in the minute philological analysis of the texts and the major achievements in
studies of oral storytelling traditions around the world, we can once again revisit the old
problem of the whereabouts of Vinland.
As literary products the Vinland sagas fit well into the genre of forty sagas of Iceland-
ers. It is important to be aware of the nature of the sagas as source material. They are not
written accounts by eyewitnesses, but written accounts derived from oral tradition,
containing stories and information (in the case of Vinland) about highly exceptional
voyages which were undertaken more than 200 years earlier. Thus the stories about these
voyages changed and were reshaped in oral tradition, which can have been kept alive
not only by descendants of the people who took part in the voyages themselves but
also others, in particular seafarers who were continually telling each other stories and
exchanging information about faraway places, how to reach them and recognise the
landscape.
When Anne and Helge Ingstad found L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland in the
early 1960 s and identified it somewhat speculatively as Leifr’s Vinland of the sagas,
Helge Ingstad operated on the theory that the saga of Eiríkr the Red was a rewriting of
the saga of the Greenlanders – which is no longer believed to have been the case. Of
course it is difficult to argue against someone who has actually found something which
proves that the Vikings were there, but it is clear from the L’Anse aux Meadows findings
that this location was used as a staging post for exploring the lands further south. There
the explorers would have repaired their ships and gathered strength before and after the
crossing from Greenland. The northern tip of Newfoundland in L’Anse aux Meadows
is hardly the sort of place which would create memories like the ones preserved about
Vinland, the land of wine and grapes, in the sagas.
Among the artefacts found at L’Anse aux Meadows was a ringed pin with decorated
head, of the type associated with Viking Dublin. Such pins have not been found in
Norway, but they are common in Ireland, Britain and Denmark, and many have been
found in Iceland as well. The ringed pin discovery supports the impression given by the
Vinland sagas that the voyages to the New World were undertaken by people from
Iceland who had strong family connections with Britain and Ireland. Not only was
Leifr’s maternal family of Irish background but the leaders of the major subsequent
voyage, Þorfinnr Karlsefni and Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir, both had Gaelic blood in their
veins.
Other objects from the site confirm the story as it is told in the sagas: a butternut and
a butternut burl which has been cut with a metal tool prove that the Norse inhabitants
went further south, at least to where the wild grapes and butternut trees grow, namely
in the southern Gulf of St Lawrence, ship rivets show that ship repairs took place and
a spindle whorl indicates the presence of women among the explorers of Vinland – all
reflecting similar activities as are mentioned in the texts.
–– Gísli Sigurðsson––