Science: Old Norse

Some 500 years before Columbus discovered the West Indies, a Viking warrior* or Norse tradesman, equipped with his sword, shield and ax, took ship with his companions, set sail westward across the North Atlantic. They probably made land, avoiding icebergs, at southwestern Greenland, which had been discovered by Gunnbjorn and settled in 985-86 A.D, by Eric the Red.

The Norseman may have stayed in Greenland for a few weeks or several years. Eventually he embarked again, sailed westward through Hudson Strait into Hudson Bay, whose waters his party found teeming with cod and salmon, the shores abounding with caribou, musk ox, ducks, geese, loons. From the southern shore of Hudson Bay, they journeyed inland through a chain of lakes and rivers, finally started overland on an Indian portage which leads to Lake Superior. In Ontario, some two miles from a place now named Beardmore, the Norseman died or was killed by Indians. He was buried there with his sword, shield and ax.

This was the story reconstructed last week by Charles Trick Currelly, curator of the Royal Ontario Museum of Archeology, a seasoned, reticent archeologist who has seen service in Sinai, Greece, Crete, Turkey. For background Dr. Currelly had the old Norse sagas of Eric, Leif, Bjarni, Karlsefni, the trader. For material evidence, he had the age-crusted sword, broken in two, and fragments of the ax and shield which were buried with “The Beardmore Viking” in Ontario.

These relics were found in 1931 by James Edward Dodd, a railroad brakeman who had staked out mining claims near Beardmore, and was digging and blasting in his spare time. He took them home, thinking they were Indian relics. His wife insisted that he get “that junk” out of the house. Dodd relegated them to the woodshed, but kept on talking about them. Eventually word of the find reached the ears of Curator Currelly, who asked the railroadman to bring his treasures to Toronto. After some study the archeologist became convinced that he had genuine Norse armor of the late 10th or early 11th Centuries. He sent photographs of the sword, ax and shield fragments to Norse experts in Europe, who unanimously confirmed his opinion. Then he paid Dodd $500.

Last week Dr. Currelly mailed a cautiously documented story on the Beardmore Viking to a British magazine. Said he: “They are the earliest objects found left by white men on North America.”

One of the most famed of the Norse voyages was that of adventurous young Leif Ericsson (“Leif the Lucky”) who started from Norway to Greenland in 1000 A.D., but—according to Historian William Hovgaard—”was driven far to the southwest, and finally made land on the coast of America, probably near Cape Cod. Leif sent out two Scotch runners to explore the country, and these men brought back grapes and some wheat-like grasses.” Leif called his new country Vineland. Next year he sailed west again from Greenland, passed “Helluland” (probably Baffin Land), “Markland” (probably Nova Scotia), and came again to Vineland where he collected a great cargo of grapes and timber which he took to Greenland.

* Strictly speaking, the word Viking refers only to Norse pirates.

* Gyro-frequency: the gyration frequency of an electron in the earth’s magnetic field.