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PROFESSOR ANDERSON'S WORKS. 
 
 NORSE MYTLTOLOGY; ob, Thb Kkligion ojj- Our Fokbj-a- 
 THERS. Coutaining all the Myths of the Eddae, carefully eya- 
 tematized and interpreted. With an Introduction, Vocabulary, 
 and Index. 473 pages, crown 8vo; cloth, $3.50; cloth, gilt edges, 
 (3; half calf, $3. 
 
 " Prof. Anderson's work is incomparably superior lo the already 
 existing books of this order."— So'ibner^s Moni/Uy. 
 
 " We have never seen so complete a view of the religion of the 
 Norsemen."— Bibliotheca Sacra. 
 
 '*No such account of the old Scandinavian Mythology has 
 hitherto been given in the English language. It is full, and eluci 
 dates the subject from all points of viev/."—Frt^byteii,an Qtiar- 
 terly and Princeton Review. 
 
 "The exposition, analysis, and interpretation of the Norse 
 Mythology leave nothing to be desired. The whole structure and 
 framework of the system are here; and, in addition to this, co- 
 pious literal translations from the Eddas and Sagas show the 
 reader something of the literary form in which the system found 
 permanent recora. Occasionally entire songs or poems are pre- 
 sented, and, at every point where they could be of service, illus- 
 trative extracts accompany the elucidations of the text. 
 
 " Prof. Anderson, indeed, has left little to be performed by 
 future workers in the special field covered by his present work. 
 * * His work is^very nearly perfect."— 4fipteto?iV Journal. 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. A Historical 
 Sketch of the Discovery of America by the Norsemen in the 
 10th century; with an Appendix on the Historical, Literary and 
 Scientidc value of the Scandinavian Languages. $1.00. 
 
 " The book is full of surprising statement, and will be read with 
 something like wonderment."— ivo<c« and Queries., London. 
 
 VIKING TALES OP THE NORTH. Price $2.00. 
 
 DEN NORSKE MAALSAG. Price $1.00. 
 
 IN PBJEPABATIOy. 
 
 THE ELDER EDDA; or, Our Old Northern Grandmother. 
 2 ?olB., crown 8vo. 
 
 THB YOUNGER EDDA. 1 ' ol. 
 
 For further notices see back part qf this volume. 
 
America not Discovered by Columbus. 
 
 AN HISTORICAL SKETCH 
 
 OP THE 
 
 \mmi 4 Jittema tg % ^mmmi 
 
 IN THE TENTH CENTURY. 
 
 By RASMUS B. ANDERSON, A.M., 
 
 raO»!!SOR OF THK BCANDINAV'.AN LANnUlOKS IN THK UNIVERSITY OP WIRCONEIN J HONORARr 
 
 MEMBER «» THE ICELANDIC LITSRARV SOCIETY ; AUTHOR OF " NORSE MYTHOLOGY," 
 
 " VIKINO lALIE 0» THE NORTH ;" " DEN N0R8KE MAALSAO," ETC. ETC. 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX 
 
 ON THB 
 
 niSTORICAL, LINGUISTIC, lilTERARY AND SCIEKTIPIC VALUE 
 OF THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 KEW AND IMPROVED EDITION. 
 
 CniCAGO: 
 S. C. GRIGGS AND COMPANY. 
 LONDON: TRWbNER & CO. 
 
 18 7 7. 
 
Copyright, IBW, 
 Bt S. C. GRiaOS AND COMPANY. 
 
 KNiaHT ft LEO.IARD, PRINTERS, OHIOAQO. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TN preparing this sketch, the author has freely 
 -■- made use of sucli material as he considered 
 valuable for his purpose from the works of TorfsBus, 
 C. C. Rafn, J. T. Smith, N. L. Beamish, G. Gra- 
 vier, B. F. De Costa, A. Davis, Washington Irving, 
 R. M. Ballantyne, P. A. Munch, R. Keyser, and 
 others, and he is under special obligations to Dr. 
 8. H. Carpenter, of the University of Wisconsin, for 
 valuable suggestions. 
 
 This sketch does not claim to be without faults. 
 The style may seem dull and heavy, but it is hoped 
 that the reader will be generous in criticising an 
 author who now makes his iirst appearance before 
 the American public. The object of this sketch 
 has been to present a readable and truthful narrative 
 of the Norse discovery of America, to create some 
 interest in the people, the literature^, and the early 
 institutions of Norway, and especially in Iceland, — 
 that lonely and weird island, — the Ul-hma Tiiule 
 
fr 
 
 4 
 
 PKEFACK. 
 
 of the Greek Philosophers; and of the good or ill 
 performance of the task, a generous public must be 
 the judge 
 
 University of Wisconsin, 
 
 June 18, 1H14. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPITER I. 
 The Norsemen, and other Peoples, interested in 
 
 THE D'"C0VERY of AMERICA, 35 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 Norse Literature has been Nbolecte) by the 
 
 Learned Men op the Great Nations, - - 41 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 Antiquity dp America, 45 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Phenician, Greek, Irish, and Welsh CLi.iMS, - - 47 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Who Were the Norsemen? -.---- 49 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 Iceland, 62 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Greenland, 58 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 The Ships op the Norsemen, 61 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Sagas and Documents ake Genuine, - - - 64 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Bjarne Heiuulfson, 986, 68 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Leif Erikson, 1000, .-..--- 71 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Thorvald Erikson, 1002, / - 75 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 Thorstein Erikson, 1005, 78 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 Thorfinn Karlsefne and Gudrid, 1007, - - - 79 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 Other Expeditions by the Norsemen, - - - 84 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 The Discovery of America by Columbus, - - - So 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 Conclusion, . . - • 93 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 The Scandinavian Languages, 95 
 
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 SINCE the first edition of this little book was 
 published, the discovery of America has received 
 much attention. The claims of the Norsemen, the 
 Irish, the Welsh, and even of the Chinese, have all 
 been varmly advocated. 
 
 In presenting this new edition of "America not 
 discovered by Columbus," we desire to call the read- 
 er's attention to some of the literature that has ap- 
 peared since the publication of our volume. We pass 
 over in silence all the newspaper and magazine arti- 
 cles and reviews, confining ourselves to what has been 
 put in book form. 
 
 1. Immediately after the publication of our book, 
 in 1874, appeared a very remarkable work, by Aaron 
 Goodrich, entitled, " A History of the Character and 
 Achievements of the so-called Christopher Columbus, 
 with numerous Illustrations and an Appendix " (New 
 York, D. Appleton & Co.). Goodrich pronounces 
 Columbus a fraud, and denounces him as mean, selfish, 
 perfidious and cruel. He has evidently made a very 
 careful study of the life of Columbus, and we have 
 looked in vain for a satisfactory refutation of his state- 
 
8 
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 ments. In Mr. Goodrich's book will be found a brief 
 but tolerably accurate sketch of the Norse discovery 
 of this continent. 
 
 2. In 1875 appeared the following books : 
 {a) " The Island of Fire," by P. C. Ileadley. Its 
 ninth chapter treats of the discovery of America by 
 the Norsemen. 
 
 (h) " Young Folks' Hi&tory of the United States," 
 by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Its fourth chap- 
 ter treats of the Norse discovery. 
 
 (c) "A Grammar School History of the United 
 States," by John J. Anderson (New York). The first 
 section gives a synopsis of the Norse discovery. 
 
 (d) "Lectures delivered in America," by Charles 
 Kingsley. The third lecture is upon the first discov- 
 ery of America. 
 
 (e) "Fusarig, or the Discovery of America by 
 Chinese Buddhist Priests, in the Fifth Century," by 
 Charles G. Leland. This work recognizes, on page 
 32, the claims of the Norsemen, but presents an older 
 claim by the Chinese, showing that a Buddhist monk 
 or missionary, named Hoei-shin, returned in the year 
 499 A.D. from a long journey to the East. The 
 country that Hoei-shin visited is claimed to be Old 
 and New Mexico, and was called by him Fusang. 
 The monk had found in this new and strange country 
 
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 9 
 
 an abundance of the maguey plant, or great cactus, 
 wliich he called fusang, after a Chinese plant slightly 
 resemblir > it, and this name (Fusang) he applied to 
 the country itself. Leland's book is well worth 
 reading. 
 
 {f) In July, 1875, was held, in Nancy, France, 
 the first meeting of the Congres International des 
 Americanistes, a society which has been organized for 
 the sole purpose of thoroughly investigating the pre- 
 Columbian history of the American continent. The 
 compte rendu of this session has been published in 
 two large octavo volumes, by Maisonneuve et Cie., 
 Paris. In the first volume will be found many valua- 
 ble papers on the discovery of America by the Pheni- 
 cians, Chinese, Irish, Norsemen, Welsh ; and on the 
 relation of these discoveries to the transatlantic voy- 
 ages by Columbus. The second meeting of this society 
 will be held, September, 1877, in Luxembourg, and 
 there can be no doubt that it will in course of time 
 produce a unique library of papers and discussions on 
 pre-Columbian America. "We are glad to notice that 
 the savans who assembled in Nancy in 1875 fully 
 recognized the claims of the Norsemen.* 
 
 ♦To this llBt might be added Bayard Taylor's "Egypt and Iceland;" 
 Caton'8 "Summer In Norway;" Qrlffln'8 "My Danish Days;" and John 
 S. C. Abbott's "Christopher Columbus;" In all of which the Norse claims 
 are vindicated. The last Is In part a reply to the above-mentioned work of 
 Aaron Goodrich. 
 
w 
 
 10 
 
 PKEFACi; TO TJIE NEW EDITION. 
 
 1 1 
 
 3. In 1876 appeared: 
 
 (a) " An American in Iceland," by Samuel Knee- 
 land. Its fourteenth chapter is devoted to a presenta- 
 tion and discussion of the Noise discovery of America. 
 
 (h) " America discovered by the Welsh," by Benja- 
 min F. Bowen (Lippincott, publisher). The voyages 
 of the Norsemen, in the tenth and eleventh centuries, 
 are set down, on page 23, as being too well authenti- 
 cated to admit of any doubt, anu the book gives an 
 interesting and elaborate discussion of the Welsh dis- 
 covery of America, in the year 1170, by Prince Madoe 
 and his followers, in order, as the authoi says, "to 
 assign them their rightful place in American history." 
 And, indeed, these various pre-Columbian discoverers 
 are gradually receiving recognition in American his- 
 tory ! It used to be the custom to pass over these 
 early visitors to our continent in utter silence or with 
 a contemptuous fling at them, as though they were 
 mere myths, created only for the purpose of tickling 
 the vanity of the different nationalities. 
 
 It gives us great pleasure to be able to state that 
 none of the recent histories of the United States have 
 neglected to call attention to the pre-Columbian dis- 
 coverers. Mr. John Clark Ridpath writes the title- 
 page of his work as follows : " A History of the 
 United States ot America, from the aboriginal times 
 
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 11 
 
 scoverers 
 
 to the present day ; embracing an account of the Ab- 
 origines ; the Norsemen in the New World ; the dis- 
 coveries by the Spaniards, English, and French, etc. 
 etc. ; " and part II of the work begins with a detailed 
 account of the Norse discoveries. 
 
 In William Ciillen Bryant's large history of the 
 United States, no\^ being published, we find the fol- 
 lowing very interesting title-page: "A Popular History 
 of the United States, from the first discovery of the 
 Western Hemisphere by the Northmen to the end of 
 the I'irst Century of the Union of the States;" and a 
 hi'ge portion of the first volume of that great work is 
 devoted to an elaborate account of the discovery of 
 the American continent by the Norsemen, Irish, 
 Welsh, etc. This is right, and therefore we approve 
 it and are glad of it. "Truth cnished to earth 
 will rise again," and in the growing recognition of 
 the claims of the Norsemen to the honor of having 
 discovered America in the tenth century is a beautiful 
 illustration of the truth contained in this sentence. 
 
 While ^^e various writers here alluded to freely 
 admit the fact that the Norsemen, as well ae others, 
 discovered and explored parts of America long before 
 Columbus, they are unwilling to believe that there is 
 any historical connection between the discovery of the 
 Norsemen and t)iat of Columbus; or, in other words, 
 
12 
 
 PSEFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 )1 
 
 that Columbus profited in any way by the Norsemen's 
 knowledge of America. 
 
 This is all the more singular, since none of them 
 even try to deny the statement made hy Fernando 
 Columbo,* his son, that he (Christopher Columbus) 
 not only spent some time in Iceland, in 1477, but 
 sailed three hundred miles beyond, which must have 
 brought him nearly within sight of Greenland. We 
 are informed that he was an earnest student and the 
 best geographer and map-maker of his day. He 
 was a diligent reader of Aristotle, Seneca and Strabo. 
 Why not also of Adam of Bremen, who in his vol- 
 ume, published in the year 1076, gave an accurate 
 and well authenticated account of Vinland (New 
 England) ? 
 
 Is it not fair to say that Columbus must have read 
 Adam of Bremen's book, and that he in 1477 went to 
 explore and reconnoitre the old northern route by way 
 of Iceland, Greenland, Markland and Helluland to 
 Vinland ? We must insist that it is, to say the least, 
 highly probable that he had in some way obtained 
 knowledge of the discoveries of the Norsemen in the 
 w?8tern ocean, and that he thought their Vinland to 
 
 The Btatement Is found in Chapter iv of the biography, which the eon 
 of Oliristopher Colambas, Fernando, wrote of his father, and which was 
 published in Venice in 1671. Its title is, '^ Vita dell' admlraglio Chrisophoro 
 Colnmbo.'* 
 
 
PBEFACB TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 13 
 
 be the eastern shores of Asia. But no matter what 
 induced him to go to Iceland.* We know positively 
 that he went there and even three hundred miles 
 beyond it. The Ir^st Norse voyage to America of 
 which we Lave any account was in the year 1347, and 
 is it possible, we ask, that Columbus could visit Ice- 
 land only 130 years later and learn nothing of the 
 famous Yinland the Good ? 
 
 We firmly believe in evolution so far as the dis- 
 covery of America is concerned. We believe that the 
 voyages of the Phenicians and of the Greek Pytheas 
 were the germ that budded in the explorations of Irish 
 Welshmen and Norsemen, and culminated in the dis- 
 covery of America by Columbus. Columbus added 
 the last link of the golden chain that was to unite the 
 two continents. We believe that Columbus was a 
 scholar, who industriously studied all books and manu- 
 scripts that contained any information about voyages 
 and discoveries ; that his searching mind sought out the 
 writings of Adam of Bremen, that well-known historian 
 who in the most unmistakable and emphatic language 
 speaks of the Norse discovery of Vinland; that the 
 
 *The famoas geographer Malte-Bran enggeste, in his Histoire de la 
 O^ographie, it, pp. 395, 499, that Columbus, when in Italy, had heard of 
 the Norse discoreries beyond Iceland, for Rome was then the world's center, 
 and all infonnation of importance was sent there; and we know that Pope 
 Paschal H appointed Erik Upsi Bishop of Vinland in the year 1113, and 
 that Erik Upsi went personally to Vinland in 1121. 
 
14 
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 information thus gathered induced him to make his 
 voyage to Iceland. And thus we are able to explain 
 the firm conviction that Columbus invariably ex- 
 pressed in reference to land in the west ; thus we can 
 account for the absolute certainty and singular firm- 
 ness with which he talked of land across the ocean ; 
 and thus we can account for his accurate knowledge of 
 the breadth of the ocear. 
 
 Many have objected that Columbus never enter- 
 tained an idea of discovering a new world, but that he 
 was in search of a western route to India. What of it? 
 Why could not Columbus have supposed that the 
 Vinland, which the Norsemen had found, and which 
 Adam of Bremen wrote about, was the very India to 
 which he wanted to find a western route? Grant that 
 all he wanted to know was, whether land could be 
 found by sailing westward, — if he ever had such an 
 opinion he must certainly have gotten it confirmed in 
 Iceland. The Norsemen had not discovered the Pa- 
 cific Ocean, and Columbus might well have believed 
 that the Norsemen had discovered India. 
 
 If Columbus had learned of Yinland when he was 
 in Iceland, why did he not sail farther north instead 
 of going so far to the south that he reached the West 
 India Islands instead of New England? This question 
 has frequently been urged, and we reply, that the 
 
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 16 
 
 M 
 
 Icelanders must have told him, as they state in 
 their Sagas, that far to the south of Vinland was 
 Irland-it-Mikla, or Great Ireland ; that this Great Ire- 
 land extended certainly as far south as the present 
 Florida, and hence his shortest and most pleasant 
 route would be to sail about due-west from Spain. 
 Granting that America had not yet been found, any 
 South European navigator, who had examined the Old 
 Norse Sagas, and wanted to re-discover the lands there- 
 in described, would feel sure of reaching Irland-it-Mikla 
 by taking about the same course as did Columbus. 
 
 In presenting these arguments, we repeat a state- 
 ment that we have made elsewhere, that we are not 
 detracting in any way from the great and well-de- 
 served fame of Columbus. We are rather vindicat- 
 ing him as a man of thorough scholarship, great 
 research, good judgment, in short a man of extraor- 
 dinary ability, by showing that his discovery of 
 America was the fruit of patient and persevering 
 study of all the geographical information within his 
 reach, and not a matter of chance, baseless specula- 
 tion, or as some would like to have it, inspiration. 
 
 We believe he examined carefully the traditions 
 
 found in Plato of an island Atlantis, that had been 
 
 swallowed up by the waves; we believe he read 
 
 .what Dioduros says about Phenician merchants who 
 
16 
 
 PBEFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 were driven by storms out of their course and found 
 a fertile land to the west of Africa; we believe he 
 had read Adam of Bremen, and that he could not 
 rest satisfied, before he had undertaken that perilous 
 voyage to Iceland and heard from the v^ry lips of 
 the Norsemen themselves, the sagas relating to Vin- 
 land and Great Ireland. 
 
 We neglected to mention in our first edition 
 the two remarkable visitors to America, — Are Mar- 
 son and Bjorn, the Champion of Breidavik; and we 
 gave Gudleif Gudlaugson but a passing notice, for the 
 reason that their voyages are in no really historical 
 connection with the voyages of Leif and Thorvald 
 Erikson and Thorfinn Karlsefne. The Landndmabok 
 and Eyrbyggja Sagas give elaborate accounts of these 
 adventurers, the substance of which is as foilows : 
 
 The powerful chieftain. Are Marson, of Reykjanes, 
 in Iceland, was, in the year 983, driven to Great 
 Ireland (the country around the Chesapeake Bay) by 
 storms, and was there baptized. The first author of 
 this account was his contemporary, Rafn, surnamed 
 the Limerick-trader, he having long resided in Lim- 
 erick, in Ireland. The illustrious Icelandic sage. Are 
 Frode, the first compiler of Landndma, who was him- 
 self a descendant in the fourth degree from Are Mar- 
 son, states on this subject that his uncle, Thorkel 
 
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 17 
 
 Gellerson, (whose testimony he on another occasion 
 declares to be worthy ot all credit,) had been informed 
 by Icelanders, who had their information from Thorlinn 
 Sigurdson, jarl of Orkney, that Are had been recog- 
 nized in Great Ireland, and could not get away from 
 there, but was there held in great respect. This state- 
 ment therefore shows that in those times (A. D. 983) 
 there was an occasional intercourse between the west- 
 ern part of Europe (the Orkneys and Ireland) and the 
 Great Ireland or Whiteman's Land of America. The 
 [Saga (Landndmabok, Landtaking Book, Domesday 
 Jook) expressly states that Great Ireland lies to the 
 rest, in the sea, near to Yinland the Good, YI days' 
 liling west from Ireland ; and Professor Rafn was of 
 the opinion that the figures VI have arisen through 
 jorae mistake or carelesouess of the transcriber of the 
 )riginal manuscript, which is now lost, and were er- 
 roneously written for XX, XI, or perhaps XY, which 
 rould better correspond with the distance. The mis- 
 ike might easily have been caused by a blot or defect 
 In the manuscript. 
 
 It must have been in this same Great Ireland that 
 Jjorn Asbrandson, surnamed the Champion of Breid- 
 ivik, spent the latter part of his life. He had been 
 iopted into the celebrated band of Jomsborg war- 
 
 fiors, that Dr. G. W. Dasent describes in his " Yikings 
 1* 
 
18 
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 i i: 
 
 of' the Baltic," under Palnatoke, and took part with 
 them in the battle of Fyrisval, in Sweden. His illicit 
 amatory connection with Thiirid of Froda (River Frod) 
 in Iceland, a sister of the powerful Snorre Gode, drew 
 upon him the enmity and persecution of the latter, in 
 consequence of which he found himself obliged to quit 
 the country for ever, and in the year 999 he set sail 
 from Iceland with a northeast wind. 
 
 Gudleif Gudlaugson, brother of Thoriinn, the an- 
 cestor of the celebrated historian, Snorre Sturleson, 
 had, as related in Chapter I of this volume, made a 
 trading voyage to Dublin, in Ireland; but when he 
 left that place again, with the intention of sailing 
 round Ireland and returning to Iceland, he met with 
 long-continuing northeasterly winds, which drove him 
 far to the southwest in the ocean, and late in the 
 summer he and his company came at last to an ex- 
 tensive country, but they knew not what country it 
 was. On their landing, a crowd of the natives, several 
 hundreds in number, came against them, and laid 
 hands on them, and bound them. They did not know 
 anybody in the crowd, but it seemed to them that 
 their language resembled Irish. The natives now took 
 counsel whether they should kill the strangers or make 
 slaves of them. While they were deliberating, a large 
 company approached, displaying a banner, close to 
 
 fill 
 
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 19 
 
 wnich rode a man of distinguished appearance, who 
 was far advanced in years, and had gray hair. The 
 matter under deliberation was referred to his decision. 
 He was the above-named Bjorn Asbrandsou. He 
 caused Gudleif to be brought before him, and, address- 
 ing him in the Norse language, he asked him whence 
 he came. On his replying that he was an Icelander, 
 Bjorn made many inquiries about his acq aintance in 
 Iceland, particularly about his beloved Thurid of Frod 
 River, and her son Kjartan, supposed to be his own 
 son, and who at that time was the proprietor of the 
 estate of Frod River. In the meantime, the natives 
 becoming impatient and demanding a decision, Bjorn 
 selected twelve of his company as counselors, and took 
 them aside with him, and some time afterward he 
 went toward Gudleif and his companions and told 
 them that the natives had left the matter to his de- 
 cision. He thereupon gave them their liberty, and 
 advised them, although the summer was already far 
 advanced, to depart immediately, because the natives 
 were not to be depended on, and were difficult to deal 
 with, and, moreover, conceived that an infringement 
 on their laws had been committed to their disadvan- 
 tage. He gave them a gold ring for Thurid and a 
 sword for Kjartan, and told them to charge his friends 
 and relations not to come over to him, as he had now 
 
20 
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 become old, and might daily expect that old age would 
 get the better of him; that the country was large, 
 having but few harbors, and that strangers must every- 
 where expect a hostile reception. Gudleif and his 
 company accordingly set sail again, and found their 
 way back to Dublin, where they spent the winter ; but 
 the next summer they repaired to Iceland, and de- 
 livered the presents, and everybody was convinced 
 that it was really Bjorn Asbrandson, the Champion of 
 Breidavik, that they had met with in that far-otf 
 country. 
 
 An American poet, G(eorge) E. O(tis), published 
 in 1874, in Boston, a very pleasant poem based on the 
 saga narrative of Bjorn Asbrandson. The name of tiie 
 poem is " Thurid." The above narrative, taken from 
 "Antiqultates Americanae," is merely a brief abstract 
 of the sagas which, in the case of Bjorn, as the reader 
 may easily imagine, is brimful of dramatic and poetic 
 interest. The Landndmabok and the Eyrbyggja Saga 
 are of vital importance to every one who would make 
 a study of the discovery of America by the Irish, but 
 as we expect at some future day to be able to give 
 to the public a complete translation of all the old 
 Norse sagas treating of voyages to the western con- 
 tinent, we must pass on to another subject. 
 
 Anent the Dighton Rock, we have had some corre- 
 
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 21 
 
 spondence with Elisha Slade, Esq., of Somerset, Bristol 
 
 county, Massachusetts. Before giving his letters we 
 
 will say, in general, that until sufficient proof of 
 
 some other origin of the Newport Tower and the 
 
 Dighton Rock inscriptions are given, we shall persist 
 
 in claiming them as relics of the Norsemen.* Now 
 
 please read the following letters: 
 
 Somerset, Bristol County, Massachusetts, 
 
 Dect-mber 17, 1875. 
 
 Dear Sir, — I take pleasure in forwarding to your 
 address a stereoscopic view of the celebrated Dighton 
 Rock, situated in Taunton River, at low water mark, 
 three miles north of Somerset, on the eastern bank 
 of the river. As you well know, the rock has been 
 the subject of much learned discussion at various 
 times since the landing of the Pilgrims. 
 
 Geologically, Dighton Rock is a silicious sand- 
 stone of the upper Silurian period, and, I think, 
 belongs to the Helderberg group, stratified as you 
 see in the picture, the stratifications at right angles 
 to the face and parallel ^o the surface ; was probably 
 deposited in still water ; is a boulder and not in situ. 
 
 I have carefully measured the rock, and the fol- 
 lowing is the result of my work: 
 
 The face of the rock, on which are the inscriptions, 
 
 * We are fully aware that the Copenhagen runologlBta do not regard the 
 Dighton Rock Inscription as a worlc of the Norsemen. Bat in the first place 
 the writing is not claimed to be ninic, but Soman. Prof. Rafn himself did 
 not try to show more than two or three runic letters in it. And in the second 
 place we are not aware that either Stephens or Worsaae have ever made any 
 careful examination of the inscription. When they have made a thorough 
 ■tudyof it and reported, we are willing to accept their decision on the subject. 
 
22 
 
 PRKFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 liiis an angle of 47° to the liorizon, and the surface 
 (not seen in tlie picture) as it slopes toward the shore 
 is in the mean 25° to the horizon. 
 
 The mean height of the rock on its face above 
 the ground is 1,293 meters. 
 
 Its mean length on its surface is 1,768 meters. 
 
 Its mean width is 3,384 meters. 
 
 Its contents above ground is 3,871 cubic meters. 
 
 Its weight is 9,071,023 kilogrammes. 
 
 In viewing the rock, you are looking in a south- 
 easterly direction, or, perhaps, more nearly SS.E. by 
 the compass, but the magnetic needle here has a 
 variation of 11° 03' west of north. 
 
 The rock is almost covered with water at high 
 tide, and can only be seen to advantage at low tide. 
 
 The inscriptions on the rock are from one-eighth 
 to three-eighths of an inch deep. At the time it 
 was photographed I made nearly all of the chalk 
 marks myself, and no chalking was made where the 
 <mtting in tJie rock was not plainly visible to the eye, 
 and many markings partly obscure were not touched, 
 thus giving the rock the benefit of all possible doubt. 
 
 Captain A. M. Harrison, in charge of the United 
 States Coast Survey, engaged in work on Taunton 
 River, was present when the photograph was taken, 
 and he is engaged upon a history of the Norsemen's 
 discovery of America, in connection with Dighton 
 Rock, by request of the United States government. 
 His report, when completed, will be a valuable 
 work. I am, my dear sir, very respectfully, 
 
 Your obedient servant, Elisha Slade. 
 
PKEFACK TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 23 
 
 semen's 
 
 It has 80 frequently been claimed that the inscrip- 
 tions on Dighton Rock are nothing but " Indian 
 scrawls," hence we wrote to Mr. Slade, asking him 
 whether they could, in his opinion, have been made 
 with stone implements. Here is his answer: 
 
 SoMEiisET, BursToii County, MASsAcnuHETTs, 
 
 March 13, 1876. 
 
 Dear Sir, — You ask my opinion as to the instru- 
 ments used in cutting the mseriptions on Dighton 
 Rock. I think they were iron implements, and 
 that they were in the liands of a skilled mechanic — 
 .a Norseman worthy of the name. I do not know 
 that my opinion on this question is of any conse- 
 quence, still I have seen work undoubtedly performed 
 by an aboriginal American with flint and stone tools, 
 but the characters were not nicely edged, as these 
 are. I cannot believe they were made by the lazy 
 Indian of Schoolcraft. 
 
 I have a decided interest in the Norsemen's visit 
 to New England, for Thorfinn must have been well 
 acquainted with Somerset, my native town. He 
 must have seen Taunton River as I see it, with 
 Mount Hope and Narragansett bay, and seen the 
 same sun rise over the same hills and set behind 
 the same ridge 865 years ago. It is not impossible 
 that Snorre was born in Somerset. 
 
 Ever truly yours, 
 
 Elisha Slade. 
 
24 
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 J 
 
 In reference to this curious rock we will now 
 only refer the reader to Chapter XIY of this book. 
 
 From Joseph Story Fay, Esq., of Wood's Holl, 
 Massachusetts, we have received the following very 
 interesting paper on "The Track of the Norsemen," 
 which we recommend to the careful perusal of our 
 readers. Before presenting it, however, we will re- 
 mark that the name Hope is found in Thorfinn Karl- 
 sefne's Saga, where we read : " Karlsefne sailed with 
 his people into the mouth of the river (Taunton 
 Rive-), and they called the place Hop (Mount 
 Hope)." Hope is from the Icelandic h&pa^ to recede, 
 and signifies a by or the mouth of a river. The 
 description in the saga corresponds exactly with the 
 present situation of Mount Hope Bay. Here is Mr. 
 Fay's paper. (We publish it by permission of the 
 author.) 
 
 It is now well established that in the tenth cent- 
 ury the Norsemen visited this country, and coasting 
 down from Greenland, passed along Cape Cod, through 
 Vineyard Sound to Narragansett Bay, where it is be- 
 "lieved they settled. In the neighborhood of Assonet 
 and Dighton, inscriptions upon the rocks have been 
 found, and traditions exist that there were others, 
 which have been destroyed. The name of Mount 
 Hope is supposed to have been given to the Indians 
 by them, and it is a little curious that those antiquaries 
 
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 25 
 
 very 
 
 cent- 
 
 uaries 
 
 who have tried to identify the names in Narragansett 
 Bay with the Norsemen did not look elsewhere on 
 their route. 
 
 The Rev. Isaac Taylor, the author of a work 
 published by Macmillan & Co., of London, entitled 
 " Words and Places," dilates upon the tenacity with 
 which the names of places adhere to them, " throwing 
 light upon history when other records are in doubt." 
 He shows the progress and extent of the Celtic, Nor- 
 wegian and Saxon migration over Europe, by the 
 names and terminals which still exist over that conti- 
 nent and even on the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, 
 and says, "the knowledge of the history and migra- 
 tions of such tribes must be recovered from the study 
 of the names of thef places they once inhabited, but 
 which now know them no more, from the names of 
 the hills which they fortified, of the rivers by which 
 they dwelt, of the distant mountains upon which they 
 gazed." He says, " In the Shetlands, every local name 
 without exception is Norwegian. The names of the 
 
 farms end in seter or ster, and the hills are 
 
 called hoy and holl ; " and yet he also says, 
 
 " the name of Greenland is the only one left to remind 
 us of the Scandinavian settlements which were made 
 in America in the tenth century." Would the author 
 have made this exception to his axiom as to the dura- 
 bility of names, had he remembered that the Norse- 
 men called the southern coast of Massachusetts Vm- 
 LAND, and then had seen tliat we still have " Martin's " 
 or " Martha's Vineyard ? " Had he sighted Cape Cod 
 8 
 
26 
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 I 
 
 and entered Vineyard Sound as the Norsemen did, in 
 rounding Monomoy Point, the southeast extremity of 
 the cape, he would have seen on his right a high 
 sandy hill, on or near which is the light-house, over- 
 looking a land-locked anchorage on the inside called 
 Powder Hole ; a score or more of miles farther along, 
 across the sound, on his left, he would have seen the 
 hills now called Oak Bluffs and the Highlands, and 
 under their lee a deep bay and roadstead long known 
 as Holmes' Hole, unfortunately changed to Vineyard 
 Haven ; crossing over to the m.ainland again, a little 
 farther west, he would have come to the bold but 
 prettily rounded hills forming the southwestern ex- 
 tremity of the cape, and behind them the sheltered 
 and picturesque harbor of Wood's Hole. 
 
 Proceeding thence toward Narragansett Bay, 
 along the south coast of Naushop, prominent hills on 
 the west end of that island slope down to a roadstead 
 for small craft, and a passage through to Buzzard's 
 Bay, called Robinson's Hole; the Jiext island is 
 Basque ; and between its high hills and those of 
 Nashawena is a passage called Quick's Hole. Now 
 these several localities are unlike each other except 
 that all have hills in their vicinity, serving as distin- 
 guishing landmarks. And why is not the word hole 
 as applied to them a corruption of the Norwegian 
 word hoil, meaning hill ? The descriptive term hole 
 is not applicable to any of them, but the word hoU is 
 to the adjacent hills, while there is little else in com- 
 mon between them. The localities now called Quick's 
 
 1 1 
 
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 27 
 
 iind Robinson's Hole are passages between Elizabeth 
 Islands; "Wood's Hole ir a passage and a harbor; 
 Holmes' Hole, now known as Vineyard Haven, is a 
 deep bay or anchorage; and Powder Hole was for- 
 merly a capacious roadstead, now nearly filled with 
 sand. 
 
 It may seem to militate with the theory advanced, 
 that south of Powder Hole or Monomoy Point is a 
 locality called on the chart Butler's Hole, which lies 
 in the course from Handkerchief Shoal to Pollock 
 Rip, where there is now not only no hill but no land. 
 But it is to be considered that almost within the 
 memory of man there was land in that vicinity, which 
 has been washed away by the same strong and eccen- 
 tric current that has nearly filled up Powder Hole 
 harbor and made it a sand-flat, and which still casts 
 up on the shore large roots and remains of trees. 
 With this in mind it is not wild to suppose that 
 Butler's Hole marks a spot where once was an island 
 with a prominent hill, which the sea kings called a 
 hoU, and which has succumbed to the powerful abra- 
 sion of the tides which have moved Pollock Rip many 
 yards to the eastward, and which every year make and 
 unmake shoals in the vicinity of Nantucket and Cape 
 Cod. 
 
 It would seem a matter of course that the Norse- 
 men, after their long and perhaps rough voyages, 
 when once arrived in the sheltered waters and harbors 
 of Vineyard Sound should have become familiar with 
 them, and should have lingered there to recruit and 
 
! ! 
 
 28 
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 relit, before proceeding westward ; or on their return, 
 to have waited there to gather up resources before 
 venturing out on the open ocean. Indeed, it is re- 
 corded in their sagas that they brought off boat loads 
 of grapes from those pleasant shores. What more 
 probable than that they cultivated friendly relations 
 with the natives, and in coming to an understanding 
 with them on subjects in common, should have told 
 them the Norwegian terms for the hills and headlands 
 of their coast, and . that the Indians, in the paucity of 
 their own language, should have adopted the appella- 
 tive holl, which they were told signified hill, so impor- 
 tant as a landmark to these wandering sea kings! 
 Why may not the Norsemen have called them so, 
 until the natives adopted the same title, and handed it 
 down to the English explorers under Bartholomew 
 Gosnold, who gave their own patronymics to those 
 several hoi Is, or holes, as now called ? The statement 
 of " the oldest inhabitant " of Wood's Hole, on being 
 asked where the word hole came from, is, that he 
 " always understood that it came from the Indians." 
 
 There being no harbor on the shores of Martha's 
 Vineyard island west of Holmes' Hole, the voyagers 
 would naturally follow the north shore of the sound 
 and become familiar with the Elizabeth Islands, and 
 be more likely lo give names to the localities on that 
 side than on the other. Between Wood's Hole and 
 Holmes' Hole the sound is narrowest, and they would 
 be apt to frequent either harbor as the winds and tide 
 might make it safe or convenient for them. 
 
PREFACK TO THE NEW E'/ITION. 
 
 29 
 
 It seems to confirm the views here advanced tliat 
 in no other part of this continent or of the world, 
 where the English have settled, is to be commonly 
 found the local name of hole, and yet here in a dis- 
 tance of sixty miles, the thoroughfare of these bold 
 navigators, there are no less than five such still extant. 
 How can it be explained except because it is "the 
 track of the Norsemen"? It is not natural or proba- 
 ble, with their imperfect means of navigation, that 
 they should have passed from Greenland to Narragan- 
 sett Bay, leaving distinct traces in each, and yet to 
 have ignored the whole intervening space, and not to 
 have lingered awhile on the shores where they found 
 grapes by the boat load, and which nmst have been as 
 fair and pleasant in those days as they are no v. It is 
 to be hoped that at least our people will not be in 
 haste to wipe out the local names of Vineyard Sound, 
 when it is so likely that they are the oldest on the 
 continent and give to Massachusetts a priority of 
 discovery and settlement over her sister States. Only 
 let us correct the spelling, and give proper significance 
 to them by calling the places now named Hole by the 
 appropriate title of Holl. 
 
 Before closing this preface we wish to add a few 
 facts about the plans of the distinguished violinist 
 Ole Bull in reference to a monument in honor of 
 the Norse discoverers of America. 
 
 At the close of a complimentary reception given 
 to the distinguished artist in the Music Hall, Boston, 
 
80 
 
 p. ''i 
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 Massachusetts, on the 8th of December, 1876, the 
 Rev. Edward Everett Hale rose in his place on the 
 floor and saia* he supposed it was known to every 
 person present that the distinguished artist had spent 
 almost the whole of his active life in knotting those 
 ties which connected his country with ours. It was 
 hoped that in some future time there would be 
 erected a physical memorial to the early discoverers 
 of whom he had spoken. It was the wish of those 
 about him [Mr. Hale], at whose reqaest he spoke, 
 that Boston should not be behind in any expression 
 of gratitude to him [Ole Bull] for his work, as 
 well as in expressing interest in our Norse ancestors. 
 He was sure he expressed the sentiment, not only of 
 the audience, but of all New England, when he 
 spoke of the interest with which he regarded his 
 countrymen, whom they regarded as almost theirs. 
 He remembered, although it was nearly forty years 
 ago, when much such an audience as he saw 
 about him cheered and applauded Edward Everett, 
 when the early discoveries had just been made, and 
 when in one of the last of his public poems he 
 expressed the wish that the great discoveries of Thor- 
 vald might be commemorated by Thorvald's great 
 descendant, the Northern artist Thorwaldsen. The 
 
 *From report in Boston daily "AdTertieer." 
 
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 31 
 
 last words of that poem as they died upon the ear 
 
 were : 
 
 Thorvald shall live for aye in Thorwaldsen. 
 
 He [the speaker] thought it was a misfortune for 
 New England that the great Northern artist died 
 before he could accomplish this wish. But New 
 Englanders had never forgotten it, and had never 
 forgotten their Norse ancestors. It was an enter- 
 prise which ought to engage Massachusetts men — 
 the preservation of a physical memorial of Thorvald, 
 Leif and Thorfinn; and he suggested that the com- 
 mittee -jvhich had arranged the meeting should be- 
 come a committee of New England, in conjunction 
 with Mr. Appleton, to take this matter in special 
 charge. Mr. Hale put a motion to this eifect, and 
 it was carried, and the committee constituted. 
 
 The committee of the Norsemen Memorial includes 
 the highest civic officers of Boston and Massachusetts, 
 and so many men renowned throughout the world in 
 science, in letters, and in art, that we cannot refrain 
 from ornamenting our pages with their names. They 
 are, Thomas G. Appleton, Alexander H. Rice, Sam- 
 uel C. Cobb, Wm. Gaston, Otis Norcross, Frederic 
 "W. Lincoln, Marshall P. Wilder, H. W. Paine, Henry 
 A. Whitney, Franklin Haven, Geo. C. Richardson, 
 
li 
 
 ii: I 
 
 lili 
 
 iiiiiii 
 
 32 
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 Alpheus Hardy, Jos. B. Glover, John W. Candler, 
 E. H. Sampson, James R. Osgood, Oliver Ditson, 
 Jas. H. Danforth, Curtis Guild, "W. W. Clapp, Jerome 
 Jones, George O. Carpenter, Chas. W. Wilder, Dexter 
 Smith, Wm. Emerson Baker, James W. Bartlett, Jos. 
 W. Bobbins, Ole Bull, John G. Whittier, E. N. Hors- 
 ford, O. W. Holmes, J. R. Lowell, James T. Fields, 
 Chas. W. Eliot, G. W. Blagden, Edward E. Plale, 
 R. C. "Waterston, William B. Rogers, John D. Run- 
 kle, Ezra Farnsworth, Charles M. Clapp, Joseph Bur- 
 nett, John P. Spaulding, Henry R. Reed, W. A. 
 Simmons, Wra. H. Baldwin, Percival L. Everett, A. 
 B. Underwood, Thomas Sherwin, Benjamin Kimball, 
 Moses H. Sargent, W. B. Sears, J. Watson Taylor, 
 Francis L. Hills, secretary. 
 
 This committee is. 
 
 First, To take measures to erect a monument in 
 honor of the Norsemen who first discovered the Con- 
 tinent of America, about a.d. 1000. 
 
 Second, For the protection of the Dighton Rock, 
 now in Taunton River. 
 
 The committee issued, January 12, 1877, a cir- 
 cular, of which the following, relating to the Dighton 
 Rock, is an extract : 
 
 The origin of the inscriptions cut on this rock 
 have been, for several centuries, the study of histo- 
 
 
PRKFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 33 
 
 Candler, 
 r Ditson, 
 p, Jerome 
 r, Dexter 
 tlett, Jos. 
 N. Hors- 
 r. Fields, 
 E. Hale, 
 D. Run- 
 2pli Bnr- 
 , W. A. 
 erett, A. 
 Kimball, 
 
 Taylor, 
 
 oient in 
 he Con- 
 
 1 Rock, 
 
 a cir- 
 >ighton 
 
 % 
 t 
 
 riaiis. Professor Ratn, and others, of the Royal 
 Sot'ety of Northern Antiquaries, of Copenhagen, 
 Deniiiark, were so decided in their belief that the 
 Dighton Rock was inscribed by the Norsemen, that 
 Ole Bull requested Neils Arnzen to purchase it for 
 that society, of which the King of Denmark is the 
 president. This committee regard the Dighton Rock, 
 whatever its origin, as a valuable historic relic of 
 American antiquity, and have taken measures to 
 obtain the title to ii, in order to protect and remove 
 it to Boston. They invite the deductions of all 
 historic researchers as to the authenticity of these 
 inscriptions.* 
 
 Thus it will be seen that the Boston committee 
 will provide for a monument in honor of the Norse 
 discoverers and for the preservation of Dighton Rock, 
 and we are informed that a handsome sum of money 
 has already been raised for these purposes. At all 
 events, it is now certain that Ole Bull's long cher- 
 ished plans will be realized ; and the people of Boston 
 are doing themselves and their great city great credit 
 in reviving and perpetuating the memory of those 
 
 ♦An impression of the Dighton Rock inscriptions, talcen in 1790, is 
 preserved in Harvard University. DrawingH made in 1680 can be found in 
 the ''Antiquitates Americance." This worlc records the inscriptions as Norse, 
 and describes it as conforming to Icelandic Sagas acconnt of " Thorflun's 
 Expedition to Viuland" (Mass-^chusetts). 
 
 [Copies of the photograph of Dighton Rock, taken in 1876 by order 
 of the special agent of the United States government, may be obtained ft 
 the office of the secretary of the committee, No. 13 West street, Boston.] 
 
34 
 
 PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION. 
 
 who first of all Christians planted their feet on 
 the soil of Massachusetts, and built the first cabins 
 (Leif's Booths) in New England. 
 
 In sending out this second edition of our book 
 we may be pardoned for again pleading the cause 
 of the Norsemen and hoping that the time may 
 soon come when the names of Leif Erikson, Bjarne 
 Herjulfson, Thorvald Erikson (who, by the way, has 
 recently been immortalized in Longfellow's "Skele- 
 ton in Armor"), Thorfinn Karlsefne, Gudridj Erik 
 Upsi, Are Marson, Bjorn Asbrandson (the champion 
 of Breidavik) and Gudleif Gudlaugson shall have 
 become household words in every house and hamlet 
 
 ft/ 
 
 in these United States. Let every child learn the 
 stories about the Norse discoverers of Vinland the 
 Good. 
 
 University of Wisconsin, 
 
 Madison, Wis., April 8, 1877. 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE NORSEMEN, AND OTHER PEOPLES, INTERESTED 
 IN THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA. 
 
 rriHE object of the following pages is to present 
 -*- the reader with a brief account of the discovery 
 of early voyages to and settlements in the Western 
 Continent by the Norsemen, and to prove that Co- 
 lumbus must have had knowledge of this discovery 
 by the Norsemen before he started to find America ; 
 and the author will not be surprised, if, in these 
 })ages, he should happen to throw out some thoughts 
 which will conflict with the reader's previously- 
 formed convictions about matters and things gen- 
 erally, aiiji about historical facts especially. 
 
 The interest manifested by the reader of history 
 is always greater the nearer the history which he 
 reads is connected with his own country or with 
 his own ancestors. 
 
 The American student, on the one hand, loves 
 to dwell upon the pages of American history. He 
 
'in 
 
 ii I 
 
 'I 
 
 36 
 
 AMERICA NOT DI80OVEKKI) BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 adiiiircB the resolution, the fortitude and persever- 
 ance of the Pilgrim Fathers as they passed through 
 their varied scenes of hardship and adversity when 
 they made their tirst settlement upon onr New 
 England shores; and his whole soul is filled with 
 transporting emotions of delight or sympathy as he 
 reads the thrilling incidents of the sufferings and 
 the victories of his countrymen who fought for his 
 as well as for their own freedom during the Revolu- 
 tionary war. 
 
 The Norse student, on the other hand, takes 
 special pleasure in perusing the old Sagas and Ed- 
 das, and following the Vikings on their daring but 
 victorious expeditions through European waters ; and 
 he draws inspiration from those beautiful and poet- 
 ical ancient myths and stories about Odin, Thor, 
 Baldur, Loke, the Giant Ymer, Ragnarok, Yg- 
 drasil, and that innumerable host of godlike heroes 
 that illuminate the pages of his people's ancient 
 history, and glitter like bri^^'ant diamonds in the 
 dust and darkness of by^rone ages. 
 
 The subject to which your attention is invited, 
 the Discovery of Amerioa^ is, if properly presented, 
 of equal interest to Americans and Norsemen. For 
 those who are born and brought up on the fertile 
 aoil of Columbia, under the shady branches of the 
 
 nil : 
 
 I i 
 
AMKRKJA XOr DIS0(>VP:KED by ('OLUMBUB. 
 
 X 
 
 noble tree of American liberty, where the banner 
 of progress and education is unfurled to the breeze, 
 must naturally feel a deep interest in whatever 
 tacts may be presented in relation to the iirst dis- 
 covery and early settlement of this their native land ; 
 while those who first saw the sunlight beaming 
 among the rugged, snow-capped mountains of old 
 Norway, and can still feel any of the heroic blood 
 of their dauntless forefathers course its way through 
 their veins, must, as a matter of course, feel an 
 equally deep interest in learning that their own 
 ancestors, the intrepid Norsemen, were the first pale- 
 faced men who planted their feet on this gem of the 
 ocean, and an interest, too, I dare say, in having 
 the claims of their native country to this honor 
 vindicated. 
 
 The subject is not without special interest to the 
 Germans^ as it will appear in the course of this 
 sketch that a German,* who accompanied the Norse- 
 men on their first expedition to this Western World, 
 is intimately connected with the first name of this 
 country; and there is no doubt that a German,t 
 through his writings about the Norsemen, was the 
 means of bringing to Columbus valuable information 
 about America. 
 
 The Welsh also have an interest in this subject; 
 
 * Tyrtter. t Adam of Bremen. 
 
b8 
 
 AMERICA NOT DI8C0VKKED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 for it is generally believed, and not without reason, 
 that their ancestors, under the leadership of Madoc, 
 made a settlement in this country about the year 
 1170 ; thus, although they were 170 years later 
 than the Norsemen in making the discovery, they 
 were still 322 years ahead of Columbus, and Norse- 
 men, therefore, claim in this question, Welshmen's 
 sympathies against Columbus. 
 
 We might enlist the interest of Irishmen, too, in 
 the presentation of this subject; for, in the year 
 1029, (according to an account in the Eykbyggja 
 Saga, Chapter 64,) a Norse navigator, by name 
 GuDLEiF GuDLAUGSON, uudcrtook a voyage to Dub- 
 lin, and on leaving Ireland again he intended to 
 sail to Iceland ; but he met with northeast winds 
 and was driven far to the west and southwest in 
 the sea, where no land was to be seen. It was 
 already late in the summer, and Gudleif, with his 
 party, made many prayers that they might escape 
 from the sea. And it came to pass, says the Saga, 
 that they saw land, but they knew not what land 
 it was. Then they resolved to sail to the land, for 
 they were weary with contending longer with the 
 violence of the sea. They found there a good har- 
 bor, and when they had been a short time on shore, 
 there came some people to them. They knew none 
 
 ir 
 
 
 li i 
 
AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 39 
 
 of the people, but it " raiher appeared to them that 
 they spoke Irish.'''' 
 
 This portion of America, supposed to be situated 
 south of the Chesapeake Bay, including North and 
 South Carolina, Georgia, and East Florida, is in 
 the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne, chapter 13, called 
 " Irland-it-Mikla^'' that is, Great Ireland. It is 
 claimed that the name. Great Ireland^ arose from 
 the fact that the country had been colonized, long 
 before GudlaiLgsovb s visit, by the Irish, and that, 
 they coming from their own green island to a vast 
 continent possessing many of the fertile qualities of 
 their own native soil, the appellation was natural and 
 appropriate. There is nothing improbable in this 
 conclusion; for the Irish, who visited and inhabited 
 Iceland toward the close of the eighth century, to 
 accomplish which they had to traverse a stormy ocean 
 to the extent of eight hundred miles — who, as early 
 as 725, were found upon the Faroe Isles — and whose 
 voyages between Ireland and Iceland, in the tenth 
 century, were of ordinary occurrence — a people so 
 familiar with the sea were certainly capable of making 
 a voyage across the Atlantic ocean. 
 
 I cannot here enter upon any further discussion 
 of the claims of the Irish, but you observe that this 
 subject of discovering America cannot be treated 
 
ii!l 
 
 { p 
 
 !l 
 
 40 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 exhaustively without bringing back to the mind 
 
 fond recollections of the Emerald Isle, which was 
 
 once the School of Western Europe, and her brave 
 
 sons 
 
 " Inciyta gens hominum, milite, pace, fide," 
 
 as Bishop Donatus somewhere has it. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 NORSE LITERATURE HAS BEEN NEGLECTED BY THE 
 LEARNED MEN OF THE GREAT NATIONS. 
 
 TpNLIGHTENED men all over the world are 
 -*— "^ watching, with astonishment and admiration, 
 the New World, from which great revolutions have 
 proceeded, and in which great problems in liuman 
 government, human progress and enterprise, are yet 
 to be worked out and demonstrated. 
 
 People are everywhere eagerly observing every 
 event that takes place in America, making it the 
 subject of the most careful scrutiny, and the results, 
 wonderful as they are, everywhere awaken the most 
 intense interest. If you travel in England, in Ger- 
 many, in Norway, or in any of the North-European 
 ■"onntries, it is interesting to observe how familiar 
 .' ' Dmmon people are with matters and things per- 
 tain nig to America. They not only know America 
 better than they know their border countries, but 
 there also are found not a few who keep themselves 
 l)etter posted on the affairs of America than on 
 
 those of their own country. 
 2* 
 
Iliiiil! 
 
 42 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISt;OVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 11' 
 
 ,;i!: I 
 
 lliiiil 
 
 M 
 
 11 
 
 il 
 
 ; i 
 I I 1 
 
 ill I i I 
 
 Until recently, it has generally been supposed 
 that America was wholly unknown to European na- 
 tions previous to the time of Columbus; but investi- 
 gations by learned men have made it certain, beyond 
 the shadow of a doubt, that the Europeans did have 
 knowledge of this country long before the time of 
 Columbus, and it has even been claimed, on quite 
 plausible grounds, that some of the nations living 
 here at the time of Columbus' discovery of this con- 
 tinent were descendants of Europeans. 
 
 As yet but few scholars have turned their atten- 
 tion to the North of Europe in relation to this 
 subject, and Lencc the light which this extreme 
 portion of the globe could give has hitherto been, 
 in a great measure, neglected by the learned men 
 of the great nations ; and yet the antiquities of the 
 North furnish a series of incontestable evidence that 
 the coast of North America was discovered in the 
 latter part of the tenth century, immediately after 
 the discovery of Greenland by the Norsemen ; fur- 
 thermore, that this same coast was visited repeatedly 
 by the Norsemen in the eleventh century; further- 
 more, that it was visited by them in the twelfth 
 century; nay, ako, that it was found again by them 
 in the thirteenth century, and revisited in the four- 
 teenth century. But even this is not all. These 
 
AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 43 
 
 Northern antiquities also show that Christianity had 
 been introduced in America, not only among the 
 Norsemen, who formed a settlement here, but also 
 among the aborigines, or native population, that tlie 
 Norsemen found here. 
 
 The learned men of the North are not to blame 
 that this matter has not previously received due 
 attention, for ToRFyEUS published an account thereof 
 as early as the year 1705, and besides him Suhm 
 and ScHOENiNG and Lagerbring and Wormsk.told 
 and ScHRtEDER, to say nothing of many others, 
 have all presented the main facts in their historical 
 works. But other nations paid no attention to all 
 this. Not until 1837, when the celebrated Pro- 
 fessor Rafn, through the laudable enterprise of the 
 Royal Society of Northern Antiquities, published 
 his learned, interesting and important work,* could 
 scholars outside of Scandinavia be induced to examine 
 the claims of the Norsemen. Professor Rafn suc- 
 ceeded, and he has perhaps dene more than any 
 other one man to call the attention of other nations 
 to the importance of studying the Old Norse lite- 
 rature. Thus it is that scholars of other nations 
 recently have begun to direct their attention to 
 Northern Antiquities, Northern Languages and His- 
 
 I 
 
 m 
 
 * Antiquitates Americanse, Ilafniae, 1837. 
 
11! """! 
 
 I -'I - "i 
 
 |i.:''l :[' 
 
 
 I 
 
 u 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COIiUMBLS. 
 
 tory. Germany and England, and I would like to 
 add America, are now beginning to realize how 
 much valuable material is to be found in these 
 sources for elucidating the history and institutions 
 of other contemporary nations ; and especially do the 
 early Sagas of the Korth throw much important light 
 on the character of English and German institutions 
 during the middle ages. The English and Germans 
 are translating the Sagas as fast as they can. Pro- 
 fessors KoNRAD Maurer and Tii. Moebius are doing- 
 excellent work at their respective Universities in 
 Germany; Oxford and Cambridge in England have 
 each an Icelandic Professor, and several American 
 Universities give instruction in the Northern lan- 
 guages. 
 
 It is indeed an encouraging fact that these great 
 nations are gradually bp'*oming conscious of the 
 importance of studying the Northern languages and 
 literature, and we may safely hope that the time is 
 not far distant when the Norsemen will be recog- 
 nized in their right social, political and literary 
 character, and at the same time as navigators assume 
 their true position in the pre-Columbian discoveiy 
 of America. 
 
 !M 
 
: . 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 ■•■, 
 
 i 
 
 ANTIQUITY OF AMERICA. 
 
 'H 
 
 
 "DEFOKE the plains of Europe rose above 
 -^-^ primeval seas, the continent of America, accord- 
 ing to Louis Agassiz, emerged from the watery 
 waste that encircled the whole globe and became 
 the scene of animal life. Hence the so-called New 
 World is in reality the Old, and Agassiz gives 
 abundant proof of its hoary age. 
 
 But who is able even to conjecture at what 
 period it became the abode of man? Down to the 
 close of the tenth century its written history is 
 vague and uncertain. We can find traces of a rude 
 civilization that suggest a very high antiquity. We 
 can show mounds, monuments, and inscriptions, that 
 point to periods, the contemplation of which would 
 make Chronos iiimself grow giddy ; yet among all 
 these great and often impressive memorials there 
 is no monument, mound, or inscription, that solves 
 satisfactorily the mystery of their origin. There are 
 but few traditions even to aid us in our researches. 
 
 i I 
 
46 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUb. 
 
 and we can only infer that age after age nations 
 and tribes have continued to rise into greatness 
 and then decline and fall, and that barbarism and 
 a rude culture have held alternate sway.* 
 
 * Compare De Costa, page 11. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 PHENICIAN, GREEK, IRISH AND WELSH CLAIMS. 
 
 TN early times the Atlantic Ocean, like all other 
 things without known bounds, was viewed by 
 man with mixed feelings of fear and awe. It was 
 usually called the Sea of Darkness. 
 
 The Phenician, and especially Tyrian voyages to 
 the Western Continent, in early times, have been 
 warmly advocated ; and it is more than probable that 
 the original inhabitants of the American continent 
 crossed the Atlantic instead of piercing the icy 
 regions of the north and coming by the way of 
 Behring's Strait. From the Canaries, which were 
 discovered and colonized by the Phenicians, it is a 
 short voyage to America, and the bold sailors of 
 the Mediterranean, after touching at these islands, 
 could easily and safely be wafted to the western 
 shore. 
 
 That the Greek philosopher, Pytheas, whose dis- 
 coveries about the different length of the days in 
 various climates appeared so astonishing to the other 
 
48 
 
 AMERICA NOT T)IkCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 I'M 
 
 iii^i 
 
 ''■:| 
 
 I 
 
 philosophers of his age, traversed the Atlantic Ocean 
 about 340 years before Christ, can scarcely be doubted. 
 He certainly discovered Thule * (Iceland), and deter- 
 mined its latitude, and we may at least say that by 
 this discovery he opened the way to America foi* 
 the Norsemen. 
 
 Claims have been made, as I have already shown, 
 both by the Irish and by the Welsh, that they 
 crossed the Atlantic and found America before 
 Columbus, but it is not my purpose to comment 
 upon these claims in this short sketch. Much 
 learned discussion has been devoted to the subject, 
 but the early history of the American continent is 
 still, to a great extent, veiled in mystery, and not 
 until near the close of the tenth century of the 
 present era can we point, with absolute certainty, 
 to a genuine transatlantic vovajye. 
 
 * See Strabo'8 Geojiraphy. Book H. § 6. 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 WHO WERE THE NORSEMEN? 
 
 rriHE first voyage to America, of which we have 
 any perfectly reliable account, was performed 
 by the Norsemen. 
 
 But who were the Norsemen ? Permit me to 
 answer this question briefly. 
 
 The Norsemen ^ere the descendants of a branch 
 of the Teutonic race that, in early times, emigrated 
 from Asia and traveled westward and northward, 
 finally settling down in what is now the west cen- 
 tral part of the kingdom of Norway. Their lan- 
 guage was the Old Norse, which is still preserved 
 and spoken in Iceland, and upon it are founded the 
 modern Norse, Danish and Swedish languages. 
 
 The ancient Norsemen were a bold and inde- 
 pendent people. They were a free people. Their 
 lulers were elected by the people in convention 
 assembled, and all public matters of importance were 
 decided in the assemblies, or open parliaments of 
 the people. 
 
 Abroad they became the most daring adven- 
 
 8 
 
II .' 
 
 II ' 
 
 00 
 
 AMERICA N(Vr DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 turers. They made themselves known in every 
 part of tlie civilized world by their daring as sol- 
 diers and navigators. They spread themselves along 
 the shores of Europe, making conquests and plant- 
 ing colonies. 
 
 In their conquering expeditions they subdued a 
 large portion of England, wrested Normandy, the 
 fairest province of France, from the French king, 
 conquered a considerable portion of Belgium, and 
 made extensive inroads into Spain. Under Robert 
 Guiscard they made themselves masters of Sicily 
 and lower Italy in the eleventh century, and main- 
 tiiined their power there for a long time. During 
 the Crusades they led the van of the chivalry of 
 Europe in rescuing the Holy Sepulchre, and ruled 
 over Antioch and Tiberias under Harald. They 
 passed between the pillars of Hercules, they deso- 
 lated the classic fields of Greece and penetrated the 
 walls of Constantinople. 
 
 Straying away into the distant east, from where 
 they originally came, we find them laying the 
 foundations of the Russian Empire, swinging their 
 two-edged battle-axes in the streets of Constantino- 
 ple, where they served as the leaders of the Greek 
 Emperor's body-guard, and the main support of his 
 tottering throne. They carved their mystic runes 
 
AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 51 
 
 nj)0]i the marble lion* in the harbor of Athens 
 in conimemoration of their conquest of this city. 
 The old Norse Vikings sailed up the rivers Rhine, 
 Schelde, the Seine and Loire, conquering Cologne 
 and Aachen, where they turned the emperor's palace 
 into a stable, filling the heart of even the great 
 Charlemagne with dismay. 
 
 The rulers of England are descendants of the 
 Norsemen. Ganger Rolf, known in English history 
 by the name Rollo, a son of Harald Ilaarfagr's 
 friend, Ragnvald Morejarl, invaded France in the 
 year 912 and took possession of Normandy ; and in 
 1066, at the battle of Hastings, William the Con- 
 queror, a great-grandson of Ganger Rolf, conquered 
 England ; and it is proper to add, that from this con- 
 quest the pride and glory of Great Britain descended. 
 
 It is also a noticeable fact, that the most serious 
 opposition that William the Conqueror met with 
 came from colonists of his own race, who had set- 
 tled in Northumbria. Ke wasted their lands with 
 fire and sword, and drove them beyond the border; 
 but still we find their energy, their perseverance 
 and their speech existing in the north English and 
 lowland Scotch dialects. 
 
 ♦ The marble lion upon which they carved their runes was afterward 
 taken to Venice and erected at the entrance of the arBenal, where it may 
 be seen at the present time. 
 
,.f. ■'.' 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ICELAND. 
 
 «■ 
 
 "XDUT Europe did not set bounds to the voyages 
 -*— ^ and enterprises of the Norsemen. In the year 
 800 they discovered Iceland, and soon afterward (874) 
 established upon this island a republic, which flour- 
 ished four hundred years, "^he Icelandic republic 
 furnishes the very best evidence of the independent 
 spirit which characterized the Norsemen. 
 
 Political circumstances in Norway urged many 
 of the boldest and most independent people in the 
 country to seek an asylum of freedom. Harald 
 Haarfagr (i. e. tlie Fair-haired) had determined to 
 make hir.self monarch of all Norway. He was 
 iniLitigated to unite Norwi[iy under his scepter by 
 the ambition of the fair and proud Ragna Adils- 
 DATTER (daughter), whom he loved and courted; 
 but she declared that the man she married would 
 have to be king of all Norway. Harald accepted 
 the conditions; and after twelve years' hard fight- 
 ing, during which time he neither cut nor combed 
 
AMEBICA NOT DI8C0VEEED BY COLJMBU! 
 
 53 
 
 his hair once,* in the year 872, at the battle of 
 Hafersfjord, Norway became united into one king- 
 dom, instead of being divided into thirty-one small 
 republics, as had been the case before that time. 
 
 Harald had subdued or slain the numerous leaders, 
 and had passed a law abolishing all freehold tenure 
 of property, t usurping it for the crown. To this 
 the proud freemen of Norway would not submit. 
 Disdaining to yield their ancient independence and 
 be degraded, they resolved to leave those lands and 
 homes, which they could now scarcely call their own. 
 and set out with their families and followers in quest 
 of new seats. There were as great emigrations from 
 Norway in those days as there are now. The Norse 
 spirit of enterprise is as old as their history. 
 
 Whither then should they go, Y»^as the question. 
 
 Some went to the Hebrides, ot^iers to the Orkney 
 Isles; soma to the Shetland and Faroe Isles; many 
 went as Vikings to England, Scotland and France; 
 but by far the g> eater number went to he more 
 distant and therefore more secure Iceland, which 
 had been discovered by the celebrated Norse Viking 
 
 * He made a pledge to Ragna that he would neither cat nor comb his 
 hair until he I'lad subju'^uied all Norway. 
 
 t This Bo-ct Ucd ndal, [Icel. Adal, Norse odel, allodium,] {. e. independent 
 tenure of property, was gireu back to the Norsemen by King Hakon the 
 Good in the year 935, and hat) never uinc^ been taken away from :bem. 
 
54 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 wm 
 
 Naddodd in 860, pnd called by him Snowlaud; re- 
 discovered by Gardar, of bwedisli extraction, in 864, 
 after whom it was called Gardar's Holm (island), 
 and visited by two Norsemen, Ingolf and Leif 
 (Hjorleifr) in 870, by whom it was called Iceland. 
 This emigration from Norway to Iceland began in 
 the year 874, now more than a thousand years ago ; 
 and thus this strange island was peopled — and in a 
 few years peopled to a surprising extent. It was not 
 long before it had upward of 50,000 inhabitants. 
 You must bear in mind that this colonization was 
 on an island in the cold North Sea, a little below 
 the Arctic Circle. It was in a climate where grain 
 refused to ripen, and where the people often were 
 obliged to shake the snow off the frozen hay before 
 they could carry it. Fishing, the main support of 
 the people, was often obstructed by ice from the 
 polar regions filling their harbors, and the whole 
 island presented a most melancholy aspect of desola- 
 tion. But still the people continued to flock thither 
 and become attached to the soil. They were sur- 
 rounded the whole year by dreary ice-mountains, the 
 glare of volcanic flames, and the roaring of geysers 
 or boiling springs. Still they loved this wild coun- 
 try, because they were free; and through the long 
 winters, when the sun nearly or entirely disappeared 
 
' ■-■! 
 
 ' 'I 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 65 
 
 from above the horizon, and nothing but northern 
 lights flickered over their heads, they seemed only 
 the more thrown npon their intellectual resources, 
 and passed the time in reciting the Eddas and Sagas 
 of their ancestors. 
 
 Perhaps I ought to beg your pardon for dwelling 
 so long upon the subject of Iceland ; but my apol- 
 ogy is that, in the first place, Iceland is of itself an 
 exceedingly interesting country ; and, in the next 
 place, it is really the hinye upon ivhich the door 
 swings which opened America to Europe. This 
 island had been visited by Pytheas 340 years before 
 Christ; and, according to the Irish monk Dicuilus, 
 who wrote a geography in the year 825, it had been 
 visited by some Irish priests in the summer of 795.* 
 It was the settlement of Iceland bv the Norsemen, 
 and the constant voyages between this island and 
 Norway, that led to the discovery, first of Greenland 
 and then of America; and it is due to the high 
 intellectual standing and fine historical taste of the 
 Icelanders that records of these voyages were kept, 
 flrst to instruct Columbus how to find America, and 
 afterward to solve for us the mysteries concerning 
 the discovery of this continent. 
 
 Iceland is a small island, in the 65th deg. north 
 
 * Vid. Oicuilua, De Meusura Orbia Teme, ed. Latronuti, p. 38. 
 
56 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 I MiM^ 
 
 i'i •;- .ft 
 
 latitude, of about 1,800 geographical square miles. 
 Its valleys are almost without verdure, and its 
 mountains without trees. Still, it contains, even at 
 the present time, no less than 70,000 inhabitants, 
 who live a peaceable and contented life, still cling- 
 ing to their ancient language, and studying foreign 
 languages, science, philosophy, and history, as we do 
 who live in milder and more favored climes. Now, 
 as in olden times, the earth trembles in the throes 
 of the earthquake, — the geysers still spout their 
 scalding water, and the plain belches forth mud, — 
 while the grand old jokul,* Mount Hekla, clad in 
 white rgbes of eternal snow, brandishes aloft its 
 volcanic torch, as if threatening to set the very 
 heavens on fire. 
 
 For ages Iceland was destined to become the sanc- 
 tuary and preserver of the grand old literature of the 
 North. Paganism prevailed there more than a cen- 
 tury after the island became inhabited; the old tra- 
 ditions were cherished and committed to memory, 
 and shortly after the introduction of Christianity 
 the Old Norse literature was put in writing. 
 
 The ancient literature and traditions of Iceland 
 excel anything of their kind in Europe during the 
 middle ages. The Icelandic poems have no parallel 
 
 '* MountainB covered with perpvtual hdow are called " j6kuls " in Iceland. 
 
AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 57 
 
 in all the treasures of ancient literature. There are 
 gigantic proportions about them, and great and over- 
 whelming tragedies in them, which rival those ot 
 Greece. The early literature of Iceland is now fast 
 becoming recognized as equal to that of ancient 
 Greece and Rome. 
 
 The original Teutonic life lived longer and more 
 independently in Norway, and especially in Iceland, 
 than elsewhere, and had more favorable opportuni- 
 ties to grow and mature ; and the Icelandic literature 
 
 ^ As the full-blown flower of Teutonic heathendom. 
 This Teutonic heathendom, with its beautiful and 
 poetical mythology, was rooted out by superstitious 
 
 ^^priests in Germany, and the other countries inhab- 
 ited by Teutonic peoples, before it had developed 
 sufficiently to produce blossoms, excepting in Eng- 
 land, where a kindred branch of the Gothic race 
 rose to eminence in letters, and produced the Anglo- 
 Saxon literature. 
 
I'M 
 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 GREENLAND. 
 
 T3UT, as time passed on, the people of Iceland 
 -*~^ felt a new impulse for colonizing new and 
 strange lands, and the tide of emigration began to 
 tend with irresistible force toward Greenland, in 
 the west, which country also became settled in spite 
 of its wretched climate. 
 
 The discovery of Greenland was a natural con- 
 sequence of the settlement of Iceland, just as the 
 discovery of America afterward was a natural con- 
 sequence of the settlement of Greenland. Between 
 the western part of Iceland and the eastern part of 
 Greenland there is a distance of only forty-iive 
 geographical miles. Hence, some of the ships that 
 sailed to Iceland, at the time of the settlement of 
 this island and later, could in case of a violent east 
 wind, which is no rare occurrence in those regions, 
 scarcely avoid approaching the coast of Greenland 
 sufficiently to catch a glimpse of its jokuls, — nay, 
 even to land on its islands and promontories. Thus 
 
AMBRICA NOT DISCOVERED BT COLUMBUS. 
 
 59 
 
 it is said that Giiniibjorn, Ulf Krage's son, saw land 
 lying in the ocean at the west of Iceland, when, in 
 the year 876, he was driven out to the sea by a 
 storm. Similar reports were heard, from time to 
 time, by other mariners. About a century later a 
 certain man, by name Erik the Red, had iied from 
 the Jader, in Norway, on account of manslaughter, 
 and had settled in the western part of Iceland. 
 Here he also was outlawed for manslaughter, by 
 the public assembly, and condemned to banishment. 
 He therefore fitted out his ship, and resolved to 
 go in search of the land in the west that Gunnbjorn 
 and others had seen. He set sail in the year 984, 
 and found the land as he had expected, and re- 
 mained there exploring the country for two years. 
 At the end of this period he returned to Iceland, 
 giving the newly-discovered country the name of 
 Greenland, in order, as he said, to attract settlers, 
 who would be favorably impressed with so pleasing 
 a name. 
 
 The result was that many Icelanders and Norse- 
 men emigrated to Greenland, and a flourishing 
 colony was established, with C^ardar for its capital 
 city, which in the year 1261, became subject to the 
 crown of Norway. The Greenland colony main- 
 tained its connection with the mother countries for 
 
60 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 a period of no less than 400 years ; yet it finally 
 
 disappeared, and was almost forgotten. Toiiteus 
 
 gives a list of seventeen bishops who ruled in 
 Greenland. 
 
in 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE SHIPS OF THE NORSEMEN. 
 
 TDEFORE following the Norsemen farther on 
 -'— ^ their westward course, it may not be out of 
 place to say a few words about their ships. Having 
 crossed the briny deep four times myself, I have 
 seen something of what is required in order to ven- 
 ture with safety on so long watery journeys. I have 
 also seen one of the old Norse Viking ships, which 
 is preserved at the University of Norway, and it 
 seemed to me an excellent one both in respect to 
 form and size. Now, I do not mean to say that the 
 old Norsemen possessed such ocean crafts as now 
 plow the deep between New York and Liverpool; 
 but what I mean to say is this, that the Norsemen 
 were then, as they are now, very excellent navigators. 
 They had good sea-going vessels, some of which were 
 of large size. We have an account, in Olaf Trygve- 
 son's Saga, of one that was in many respects remark- 
 able. That part of the keel which rested on the 
 ground was 140 feet long. None but the choicest 
 
62 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 ■i •■*; 
 
 material was used in its construction. It contained 
 thirty-four rowing-benches, and its stem and stern 
 were overlaid with gold.* Their vessels would com- 
 pare favorably with those of other nations, which have 
 been used in later times in expeditions around the 
 world, and were in every way adapted for an ocean 
 voyage. They certainly were as well fitted to cross 
 the Atlantic as were the ships of Columbus. From 
 the Sagas we also learn that the Norsemen fully 
 understood the importance of cultivating the study 
 of navigation ; they knew how to calculate the course 
 of the sun and moon, and how to measure time by 
 the stars. Without a high degree of nautical knowl- 
 edge they could never have accomplished their voy- 
 ages to England, France, Spain, Sicily, Greece, and 
 those still more difficult voyages to Iceland and 
 Greenland. 
 
 I have now given a brief historical sketch of the 
 voyages and enterprises of the Norsemen. I have 
 done this to show that they were capable of the 
 
 •This ship of Olaf Trygveson was called the Long Serpent, and was 
 built by the ship-carpenter Thorberg, who is celebrated in the annals of 
 the North for bis ship-bnilding. The Earl Hakon had a dragon containing 
 forty rowing-benches. King Canute had one containing sixty, and King 
 Olaf, the saint, possessed two ships capable of carrying two hundred men 
 each. The Norse dragons glided on the waters as gracefully as ducks or 
 swans, of which they also had the form. Compare also " Saga Fridthjofs 
 ens Frtekna," (the Saga of Fridthjof the Bold, in "Viking Tales of the 
 North,*') chapter 1, where his good ship Bllida is described. 
 
•r 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 63 
 
 exploit of discovering America — nay, that it was in 
 fact an unavoidable result of their constant seafaring 
 life; so that even if we did not have the unmis- 
 takable language of the Sagas, we might still be 
 able to assert, with a considerable degree of cer- 
 tainty, that the Norsemen must have been aware of 
 the existence of the American continent. Yes, the 
 Norsemen were truly a great people! Their spirit 
 found its way into the Magna Charta* of England 
 and into the Declaration of Inependence in America. 
 The spirit of the Vikings still survives in the bosoms 
 of Englishmen, Americans and Norsemen, extending 
 their commerce, taking bold positions against tyr- 
 anny, and producing wonderful internal improve- 
 ments in these countries. 
 
 ♦ Compare William and Mary Howitt. 
 
■S 'i 
 
 T 
 
 'U, 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE SAGAS AND DOCUMENTS ARE GENUINE. 
 
 "TTTE have now seen that the Norsemen made 
 ^ ^ themselves known in every part of the 
 civilized world; that they had excellent ships, that 
 they were well trained seaman, and a highly civ- 
 ilized nation, possessing in fact all the means 
 necessary for reaching the continent in the west; 
 and we are thus prepared for the vital question. 
 Did the Norsemen actually discover and explore 
 the coast of the country now known as America? 
 There is certainly no improbability in the idea. 
 Open an atlas at the map of the At^antic Ocean 
 or at the maps of the two hemisphere?. Observe 
 the distance between Norway and Iceland, and the 
 distances between Iceland and Greenland and Green- 
 land and Newfoundland. You perceive it is more 
 than twice the distance between Norway and Ice- 
 land that it is between Iceland and Greenland, and 
 not far from twice the distance that it is between 
 Greenland and Labrador, and thence on to New- 
 
AMKKKA NOT DISCOVCREl) BY tOI-lMBrs. 
 
 65 
 
 tbnndland. Now, after conceding tlie fact that 
 Norse colonies existed in Greenland for at least 
 three hundred years, which every student of Norso 
 history knows to be a fact, wo must prepare our- 
 selves for the proposition that America was dis- 
 covered by the Norsemen. It would be alto- 
 gether unreasonable to suppose that a seafaring 
 people like the Norsemen, who traversed the 
 broad western ocean to reach Iceland and Green- 
 land, could live for three centuries within a short 
 voyage of this vast continent and never become 
 aware of its existence. 
 
 But fortunately on this point we are not left to 
 conjecture. We have a complete written record of 
 the discovery. Intelligent men must first succeed 
 in blotting out innumerable pages of well authen- 
 ticated history before they undertake to deny or 
 dispute the facts of this discovery. While literary 
 darkness overspread the whole of ths European 
 continent for many centuries following the tenth, 
 letters were highly cultivated in Iceland; and this 
 is the very time and country in which the Sagas 
 containing a record of the discovery of America 
 originated. That they were written long before 
 Columbus is as easy to demonstrate as the fact 
 
 that Herodotos wrote his history before the era of 
 8* 
 
li 
 
 «6 
 
 AMHBIOA NOT DIrtCOVKKKD BY UOLUMBUB. 
 
 Ohrist. The authenticity and authority of the Ice- 
 landic Sagas has been fully ^acknowledged by Alex- 
 ander VON Humboldt in his Cosmos,* by Malte- 
 B«UN,t and many other distingi ished scholars; and 
 therefore a further discussioii is at this time un- 
 necessary on this point. 
 
 The manuscripts, in which we have the Sagas 
 relating to America, are found in the celebrated 
 Codex Flat(eensi8, a skin-book that was finished in 
 the year 13S7. This work, written with great care 
 and executed in the highest style of art, is now 
 preserved in its integrity in the archives of Copen- 
 
 • Cosmos, Vcl. il., pp. 369-273, where Alexander Von Humboldt, 
 discuBsing the pi'o-Columbian discovery of America by the Norsemen, 
 eays: *'Wc are here on historical groand. By the critical and highly 
 praiseworthy efforts of Professor Rafn and the Royal Society of Northern 
 Antiquaries in Copenhagen, the Sagas and documents in regard to the 
 expeditions of the Norsemen to Hcl'uland (Nev.ibundland), to Markland 
 (the mouth of the St. Lawrence river and Nova Scotia), and to Viuland 
 (Massachusetts), have been published and satisfactorily commented upon. 
 ♦ ♦ • The discovery of the northern part of America by the Norsemen 
 cannot be disputed. The length of the voyage, the direction !n which 
 they sailed, the time of the sun's rising and setting, are accurately given. 
 While the Chalifat of Bagdad was still flourishing under the Abbasides. 
 and while the ruio of the Samanides, so favorabi j to poetry, still flour- 
 ished in Persia, America was discovered, about tht year 1000, by Leif. son 
 of Brik the Red, at about 41H« N. L." 
 
 t Vid. Nouvelles annales des voyages, de la g^ographie, de Thistoire 
 et de I'arch^ologie, r^dig^es par M. V.-A. Maltb-Brun, secretaire de la 
 commission rentrale de la socit^t^ de g^ographie de Paris, member de 
 plutiears socidt^s Mvantes. Aofit, IflCS, p. S68. 
 
AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 67 
 
 hagen, and a carefully printed copy* of it is to be 
 found in Mimer's library at the University of Wis- 
 consin. We gather from this work that the Norse- 
 men, after discovering and settling Greenland, and 
 then keeping a bold southwestern course, discovered 
 America more than 500 years before Columbus; and 
 I si ill in the following chapters present some of 
 the main circumstances of this discovery. 
 
 * Flatbyarbuk. Cliristiauia (Norway). IbiiO-lSttti. 
 
■m 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 Ill 
 
 BJARNf] HERJULFSON. 980. 
 
 "TN the year 986, the same year that he returned 
 from Greenland, the above-named Erik the 
 Red moved from Iceland to (i^i'eenland, and amon^ 
 his numerous friends, who aei-ompanied liim, was 
 an Icelander by name Heejulf. 
 
 Herjulf had a. son by name Bjarne, wlio was a 
 man of enterprise and fond of going abroad, and 
 who possessed a merchant-ship, with which he gath- 
 ered wealth and reputation. He used to be by 
 turns a year abroad and a year at home with his 
 father. He chanced to be away in Norway when 
 his father moved over to Greenland, and on return- 
 ing to Iceland he was so much disappointed on 
 hearing of his father's departure with Erik, that 
 he would not unload his ship, but resolved to 
 follow his old custom and take up his abode with 
 his father. " Who will go wirJi me to Greenland ? " 
 said he to his men. "We will all go with you," 
 replied the men. "But we have none of us ever 
 
AMERICA NOT PIS* OVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 69 
 
 ))een on the Greenland Sea before," said Bjarne. 
 "We mind not that,'' eaid the men, — so away they 
 sailed for three davs and lost siffht of Iceland. 
 Then the wind failed. After that a north wind 
 and fog set in, and they knew not where they were 
 sailing to. This lasted many days, until the snn 
 at length appeared again, so that they could deter- 
 mine the quarters of the sky, and lo ! in the horizon 
 they saw, like a blue .'loud, the outlines of an un- 
 known land. They approached it. They saw that 
 it was without mountains, was covered with wood, 
 and that there were small hills inland. Bjanic 
 saw that this did not answer to the description ot 
 Greenland ; he knew he was too far south ; so he 
 left the land on the larboard side and sailed north- 
 ward two days, when they got sight of land again. 
 The men asked Bjarne if this was Greenland ; but 
 he said it was not, "For in Greenland,'' he said, 
 "there are great siiowy mountains; but this land 
 is flat and covered with trei " They did not go 
 ashore, but turning the bow from the land, they 
 kept the sea with a fine breeze from the southwest 
 for three davs, when a third land was seen. Still 
 Bjarne would not go ashore, for it was not like 
 what had been reported of Greenland. So they 
 sailed on, driven by a violent ^outkweBt wind, and 
 
70 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 after four days they reached a land wliich suited the 
 description of Greenland. Bjarne was not deceived, 
 for it was Greenland, and he happened to land 
 close to the place where his father had settled. 
 
 It cannot be determined with certainty what 
 parts of the American coast Bjarne saw; but from 
 the circumstances of the voyage, tlie course of the 
 winds, tlio direction of the currents, and the pre- 
 sumed distance between each sight of land, there is 
 reason to believe that the first land that Bjarne saw 
 in the year 986 was the present Nantucket, one 
 degree south of Boston ; the second Nova Scotia, 
 and the third Newfoundland. Thus B.takne Her- 
 .lULFsoN was the first European whose eyes beheld 
 any part of the present Nem England. The first 
 European who saw the American continent^ and 
 whose name is recorded, was Are M arson (see p. 18). 
 He went to Great Ireland (the ('hesape^ke country), 
 which hud undoubtedly been discovered by the Irish 
 even K»ng before Are visited there in the year 983. 
 
 h ••- H 
 
PHAPTER XI. 
 
 LEIF ERIKSON, 1000. 
 
 XT THEN Bjarne visited Norway, a few years 
 ' ' later, and told of his adventure, he was 
 censured in strong terras by Jarl (Earl) Erik and 
 others, because he had manifested so little interest 
 that he had not even gone ashore and explored 
 these lands, and because he could give no more 
 definite account of them. Still, what he did say 
 was sufficient to arouse in the mind of Leif Erik- 
 son, son of Erik the Red, a determination to solve 
 the problem and find out what kind of lands these 
 were that were talked so much about. He bought 
 Bjarne's ship from him, set sail with a good crew 
 of thirty-five men, and found the lands just as 
 Bjarne had described them, far away to the south- 
 west of Greenland. They landed in Helluland 
 (Newfoundland) and in Markland (Nova Scotia), 
 exp^.ored these countries somewhat, gave them names, 
 and proceeded from the latter into the open sea 
 with a northeast wind, and were two days at sea 
 
■I 
 
 72 
 
 AMERICA KOT DI8COVBKED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 I*- 
 IS. 
 
 m 
 
 before they saw land again. They sailed into a 
 sound. It was very shallow at ebb-tide, so that 
 their ship stood dry and there was a long way from 
 their ship to the water. But so much did they 
 desire to land that they did not give themselves 
 time to wait until the water rose again under their 
 ship, but ran at once on shore, at a place where a 
 river flows out of a lake.* But as soon as the 
 water rose up under the ship, they rowed out in 
 their boats, floated the ship up the river and thence 
 into the lake, where they cast anchor, brought their 
 skin cots out of the ship, and raised their tents. 
 After this they took counsel, and resolved to remain 
 through the winter, and built a large house. There 
 was no want of sahnon, either in the river or in the 
 lake, and larger salmon than they had before seen. 
 The nature of the country was, as they thought, so 
 good that cattle would not require house-feeding in 
 winter. Day and night were more equal than in 
 Greenland or Iceland, for on the shortest day the sun 
 was above the horizon from half-past seven in the 
 forenoon till half-past four in the afemoon ; which 
 circumstance gives for the latitude of the place 41° 
 24' 10"; hence Leif's booths are thought to have 
 
 * This lake is Mount Hope Bay. The tonrist, in traveling that way by 
 rail, will at first take Monnt Hope Bay for a lake. B. F. DeCosta. p. 3S. 
 
AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 73 
 
 been situated at or near Fall River, Massachusetts. 
 Leif Erikson called the country Vinland, and the 
 cause of this was the following interesting incident: 
 There was a German in Leif Erikson's party by 
 name Tyrker. He was a prisoner of war, but had 
 become Leif 's special favorite. He was missing one 
 day after they came back from an exploring expedi- 
 tion. Leif Erikson became very anxious about 
 Tyrker, and fearing that he might be killed by wild 
 beasts cr by natives,* he went out with a few men 
 to search for him. Toward evening he was found 
 coming home, but in a very excited state of mind. 
 The cause of his excitement was some fruit which 
 he had found and which he held up in his hands, 
 shouting :'' Weintrauben ! Weintrauben ! ! Weintrau- 
 ben ! ! ! " The sight and taste of this fruit, to which 
 he had been accustomed in his own native land, 
 had excited him to such an extent that he seemed 
 drunk, and for some time he would do nothing 
 but laugh, devour grapes and talk German, which 
 language our Norse discoverers did not understand. 
 At last he spoke Norse, and explained that he, to 
 
 * Our Norse coloaiste in Vinland had frequent intercourse with the 
 natives, whom they called '' Skraellinger." This name is derived from the 
 verb "skraela," which means to peel; hence skrielling (peeling) alludes to 
 their small and shriveled aspect. Compare also the adjective "skral/* 
 which means slim, lean. 
 
74 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 i ! 
 
 m 
 
 
 mi 
 
 ri 
 
 his great joy and surprise, had found vines and 
 grapes in great abundance. From this circumstance 
 the land got the name of Vinland, and history got 
 the interesting fact that a German was along with 
 the daring argonauts of the Christian era. 
 
 Here is then a short account of the tirst expedi- 
 tion to New England. It took place in the year 
 1000, and Leif Erikson was the iirst pale-faced man 
 of whom it is recorded that he undertook a voyage 
 across the Atlantic Ocean, v'ith the definitely avowed 
 purpose of seeking for land. His was no discovery 
 by accident. The nature of Leif Erikson's expedi- 
 tion, the end sought, etc., was as clearly defined in 
 his own mind, and as well understood by his coun- 
 trymen, as in the case of the expedition undertaken 
 by Columbus in 1492. But Leif did not set heaven 
 and earth in commotion in reference to the matter 
 of going across the Atlantic Ocean. He simply 
 bought Bjarne's ship, engaged thirty-five fearless 
 seamen like himself, said good-bye to his aged 
 father, and set sail! 
 
 I 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 THORVALD ERIKSON, 1002. 
 
 TN the spring, when the winds were favorable, 
 -*- Leif Erikson returned to Greenland. The ex- 
 pedition to Vinland was much talked of, and Thor- 
 WALD, Leif's brother, thought that the land had 
 been much too little explored. Then said Leif to 
 Thorvald : " You may go with my ship, brother, to 
 Vinland, if you like." And so another expedition 
 was fitted out, in the year 1002, by Thorwald Erik- 
 son, who went to Vinland and remained there three 
 years; but it cost him his life, for in a battle with 
 the Skrsellings an arrow from one of the natives of 
 America pierced his side, causing death. He was 
 buried in Vinland, and two crosses were erected on 
 his grave, — one at his head and one at his feet. 
 Hallowed ground, this, beneath whose sod rests the 
 dust of the first Christian and the first European 
 who died in America! His death and burial also 
 gains interest in another respect, for in the year 
 1831 there was found in the viciinty of Fall River, 
 Massachusetts, a skeleton in armor, and many of 
 the circumstances connected with it are so wonderful 
 
76 
 
 AMKiilOA NOT DI800VKRE1D BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 I 
 
 
 I 
 
 I, I 
 
 
 W i; I 
 
 that it might indeed seem almost as though it were 
 
 the skeleton of this very Thorvald Erikson ! This 
 
 skeleton in armor attracted much attention at the 
 
 time, was the subject of much learned discussion, 
 
 and our celebrated poet Longfellow wrote, in the 
 
 year 1841, a poem about it, beginning: 
 
 "Speak! speak! thou fearful guest!" 
 
 After which he makes the skeleton tell about his 
 
 adventures as a viking, about the pine forests of 
 
 Norway, about his vo3'age across the stormy deep, 
 
 and about the discovery of America, concerning 
 
 which he says: 
 
 "Three weeks we westward bore, 
 And when the storm was o'er, 
 Cloudlike we saw the shore 
 
 Stretching to leeward; 
 There, for my lady's bower, 
 Built I the lofty tower,* 
 Which to this very hour 
 
 Stands looking seaward." 
 
 The following are the last two verses of the 
 
 poem : 
 
 "Still grew my bosom, then, 
 
 Still as a stagnant fen. 
 
 Hateful to me were men. 
 
 The sunlight hateful ! 
 
 *The tower here referred to is the famons Newport tower in Rhode 
 Island, which undoubtedly was built by the Norsemen; at least we persist 
 !n c!aiming it, until it can be clearly ohown that it has beeu built uiuce the 
 hndlng of the Pilgrim Fathers in 16S0. 
 
AMERICA NOT l»I8CUVEREI) BY COLUMF?U8. 77 
 
 In the vast forest here, 
 Clad in my warlike K'^ar, 
 Fell I upon my spear, — 
 Oh, death was grateful! 
 
 "Thus, seamed with lany scars, 
 Bursting these prison bars, 
 Up to its native stara 
 
 My soul ascended. 
 There, from the flowing bowl. 
 Deep drinks the warrior's soul: 
 Skaal! to the Northland, skaal! 
 
 Thus the tale ended." 
 
 The great Swedish chemist Berzeliiis analyzed* 
 a part of the breastplate which was found on the 
 skeleton, and found that in composition it corre- 
 sponded with metals used in the North during the 
 tenth century ; and comparing the Fall River breast- 
 plate with old Northern armors, it was also found 
 to correspond with these in style. 
 
 "When the Norsemen had buried their chief, Thor- 
 wald, they returned to Leifsbudir (Leif's booths), 
 loaded their ship* wit^- ,ne products of the land, and 
 returned to Greeni&wcl in the year 1005. 
 
 *A bronzo article fouud in Denmark, and dating with certainty back 
 
 to the tenth century, waf also analyzed, and the annexed table shuwti the 
 
 result of the analysis: 
 
 BremtjAate Bronze Article 
 
 from from 
 
 America. Denmark. 
 
 Copper 70.29 67.13 
 
 Zinc 28.08 20.89 
 
 Tin * 0.91 9.34 
 
 Lead 0.74 3.89 
 
 Iron 0.08 0.11 
 
,■ 
 
 f i 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 I hi 
 
 Mi 
 
 
 THORSTEIN ERIKSON, 1005. 
 
 npiIEN the Sagas tell us that Thorstein, the 
 youngest son of Erik the Red, was seized 
 with a strong desire to pass over to Yinland to 
 fetch the body of his brother Thorvald. He was 
 married to Gudrid, a woman remarkable for her 
 beauty, her dignity, her prudence, and her good 
 discourse. Thorstein fitted out a vessel, manned 
 it with twenty-five men selected for their strength 
 and stature, besides himself and Gudrid. When 
 all was ready they put out to sea, and were soon 
 out of iight of land. Through the whole summer 
 they were tossed about on the deep, and were 
 driven they knew not whither. Finally they made 
 land, which they found to be Lysefjord, on the 
 western coast of Greenland. Here Thorstein and 
 several of his men died, and Gudrid returned to 
 Eriksfjord. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 THORFINN KARLSEFNP] AND GUDRID, 1007. 
 
 rp^IIE most distinguished explorer of Vinland 
 -*- was Thorfinn Karlsefne. He was a wealthy 
 and intiuential man. He was descended from the 
 most famous families in the North. Several of his 
 ancestors had been elected kings. In the fall of 
 1006 he came from Norway to Eriksfjord with 
 two ships. Karlsefne made rich presents to Leif 
 Erikson, and Leif oftered the Norse navigator the 
 hospitalities of Brattahlid during winter. After the 
 Yule festival Thorfinn began to treat with Leif as 
 to the marriage of Gudrid, Leif being the person 
 to whom the right of betrothment belonged. Leif 
 gave a favorable ear to his advances, and in the 
 course of the winter their nuptials were celebrated 
 with due ceremony. The conversation frequently 
 turned at Brattahlid upon Yinland the Good, many 
 saying that an expedition thither held out fair 
 prospects of gain. The result was that Thorfinn, 
 accompanied by his ^^ife, who urged him to the 
 undertaking, sailed to Vinland in the spring of 
 
80 
 
 AMERICA NOT DlSCUVERJil) BY COLUMBUB. 
 
 vl' 
 
 I; 
 
 i 
 
 1007, and remained there three years. The Sagas 
 lay considerable stress upon the fact that Gudrid 
 persuaded him to undertake this expedition. Siiu 
 also appears to hare taken a prominent part in 
 the whole enterprise. Imagine yourself way off in 
 Greenland. Imagine Gudrid and ThorMnn Karl- 
 sefne taking a walk together on the sea-beach, and 
 Gudrid talking to her husband in this wise: 
 
 ''I wonder that you, Thorfinn, with good ships 
 and many stout men, and plenty of means, should 
 choose to remain in this barren spot instead of 
 searching out the famoijs Vinland and making a 
 settlement there. Just think what a Rilendid coun- 
 try it must be, aud what a desirable change for all 
 of us. Thick and leafy woods like those of old 
 Norway, instead of these rngged cliffs and snow-clad 
 hills. Fields of waving grass and rye instead of 
 moss-covered rocks and sandy soil. Trees large 
 enough to build houses ana ships instead of willow 
 bushes, that a^e fit for nothing except to save our 
 cattle from starvation when the hay-crop runs out; 
 besides longer sunshine in winter, and more genial 
 warmth all the yoar round, instead of howling winds 
 and ice and snow. Truly T think this country was 
 wofully misnamed when they called it Greenland." 
 
 You can easily imagine that Thorfinn was coiv- 
 
AMKKiCA NOT OISlJoVEKElJ BY COMMBIS. 
 
 SI 
 
 viticed by sucli persuasive argiunents, and he resolved 
 to follow his wife's advice. 
 
 The expedition which now set out for Vinlaud 
 was on a much larger scale than any ot the expedi- 
 tions that hud preceded it. That Leif and Thorvald 
 and Thorstein had not intended to niaivo their per- 
 manent abode in Viidand was j)lain, from the fact 
 that they brought neither women nor Hocks nor 
 herds with them. Karlsefue, on the other hiuid, 
 went forth fully ecpiipped for colonization. The 
 party consiated of one hundred and Jiff (/-one men 
 and seven women. A number of cattle and sheep 
 were also carried on this occasion to Vinland. They 
 all arrived there in safety, and remained, as has 
 been stated, three years, when hostilities between 
 them and the Skrsellings compelled them to give 
 up their colony. 
 
 The Saga gives a very full account of Thoilinirs 
 enterprises in Vinland ; about the traffic with the 
 Skrffillings; about the development of the colony, 
 etc.; all of which l am compelled to omit in this 
 sketch. I must call attention, however, to the 
 interesting fact that a son was born to Thortinn 
 and Gudrid the year after they had established 
 themselves in tiioir quarters at Straiuntjord (Huz- 
 zard's Bay). Tlis name was Snokre Thohfinnson. 
 
82 
 
 AMEBICA NOT DltiCOVEKED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 I 
 
 Jle was born in the present State of Massachusetts, 
 in the year 1008, and he was the first man of 
 European blood of whose birth in America we have 
 any record. From him the famous sculptor, Albert 
 Thorwaldsen, is lineally descended, besides a long 
 train of learned and distinguished men who have 
 fiourished during the last eight centuries in Iceland 
 and Denmark. 
 
 In the next place, attention is invited to an 
 inscription on a rock, situated on the right bank of 
 the Taunton river, in Bristol county, Massachusetts. 
 It is familiarly called the Dighton Writing Rock 
 Inscription. It stands in the very region which 
 the Norsemen frequented. It is written in char- 
 acters which tlie natives have never used nor sculp- 
 tured. This inscription was copied by Dr. Danforth 
 US early as 1680, by Cotton Mather in 1712; it 
 was copied by Dr. Greenwood in 1730, by Stephen 
 Sewell in 1768, by James Winthrop in 1788, and 
 has been copied at least four times in the present 
 (century. The rock was seen and talked of by the 
 first settlers in Now England, long before anything 
 was said about the Norsemen discovering America 
 before Columbus. 
 
 iljhi'T I"'" I il 
 
AMERICA NOT JMSCOVEKED BV (OLUMBUS. 
 
 83 
 
 Near the center of the scription we read dis- 
 tinctly, in Roman characters, 
 
 CXXXI, 
 which is 151,* the exact number of Thorfinn's party. 
 Then we find an N, a boat, and the Runic character 
 for M, which may be interpreted " N(or8e) seafaring 
 M(en)." Besides we have the word NAM — took 
 (took possession), and the whole of Thorfinn's name, 
 with the exception of the first letter. Repeating 
 these characters we have 
 
 ORFIN, CXXXI, N 'S^^^ M, NAM, 
 
 which has been interpreted by Prof. Rafn as fol- 
 lows: "Thorfinn, with one hundred and fifty-one 
 Norse seafaring men took possession of this land 
 (landnam)." 
 
 In the lower left corner of the inscription is a 
 figure of a woman and a child, near the latter of 
 which is the letter S, reminding us most forcibly 
 of Gudrid and her son, Snorre. Upon the whole, 
 the Dighton Writing Rock, if Prof. Rafn's plates 
 and interpretations can be relied upon, removes all 
 doubt concerning the presence of Thorfinn Karlsefne 
 and the Norsemen at Taunton River, in the begin- 
 ning of the eleventh century.f 
 
 • The Icelanders reckoned twelve decades to tUe hundred and called 
 it Btort hundrad (great hundred). 
 f See page 39. 
 
OllAPTKK XV. 
 
 [1 
 
 3,m 
 
 OTHER EXPEDITIONS BY THE NORSEMEN. 
 
 rilllE Sa<;ab give elaborate accounts of other 
 -*- expeditions by the Norsemen to Vinlaud. 
 Thus there is one by Freydis in the year 1011 ; 
 and in the year 1121 the Bishop Erik Ilpsi went 
 as a missionary to Vinland. 
 
 Then there are Sagas that give accounts of expe- 
 ditions by Norsemen to Grkat Irland (North and 
 South Carolina, Georgia and Florida), but I will 
 omit these in the present sketch.* 
 
 The last expedition mentioned was in the year 
 1347, but this was in the time of the Black Plague, 
 which raged throughout Europe with unre iing fury 
 from 1347 to 1351, and also reached Iceland, Green- 
 land and Vinland, and cut off communication between 
 these countries. The Black Plague reduced the popu- 
 hition of Norway alone from two millions to three 
 hundred thousand, and this fact gives us some idea of 
 the terrible ravages of this fearful epidemic. It is 
 evident that the Black Plague left no surplus popula- 
 tion for expeditions to America or elsewhere. 
 
 * See pa^e 18. 
 
CHAPTKR XVr 
 
 ler 
 
 1(1. 
 
 H; 
 
 Bllt 
 
 po- 
 nd 
 •ill 
 
 3ar 
 le, 
 
 in- 
 
 311 
 
 u- 
 
 ib 
 1- 
 
 THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 X WILL now devote a few pages to pointing out 
 -■- some of the threads that connect this discovery 
 of America by tlie Norsemen with the more recent 
 and better-known discovery by Cohimbus. 
 
 1. From a letter which Columbus himself wrote, 
 and which we find quoted in Washington Irving's 
 Cohimhus,* we know positively that while the de- 
 sign of attempting the discovery in the west was 
 maturing in the mind of Columbus, he made a 
 voyage to the north of Europe, and visited Iceland. 
 This was in February, 1477, and in his conversation 
 with the Bishop and other learned men of Iceland, 
 he must have been informed of the extraordinary 
 fact, that their countrymen had discovered a great 
 country beyond the western ocean, which seemed 
 to ex'end southward to a great distance. This was 
 a circumstance not likely to rest quietly in the 
 active and speculative mind of the great geographer 
 
 • Vol. 1. p. 59. 
 
86 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 and navigator. The reader will observe that, when 
 Columbus was in Iceland, in the year 1477, fifteen 
 years before he discovered America, only one hun- 
 dred and thirty years had elapsed since the last 
 Norse expedition to Vinland. There were undoubt- 
 edly people still living whose grandfathers had 
 crossed the Atlantic, and it would be altogether 
 unreasonable to suppose that he, who was constantly 
 studying and talking about geography and navigation, 
 possibly could visit Iceland and not hear anything of 
 the land in the west. 
 
 2. (rudrid, the wife of Thoriinn and mother of 
 Snorre, made a pilgrimage to Rome after the death 
 of her husband. It is related that she was well 
 received, and she certainly must have talked there 
 of her ever memorable trans-oceanic voyage to Vin- 
 land, and her three years' residence there. Rome 
 paid much' attention to geographical discoveries, and 
 took pains to collect all new charts and reports 
 that were brought there. Every new discovery was 
 an aggrandizement of the papal dominion, a new 
 field for the preaching of the Gospel. The Romans 
 might have heard of Vinland before, but she brought 
 personal evidence. 
 
 3. That Vinland was known at the Vatican is 
 clearly proved uy the fact that Pope Paschal II, 
 
AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 87 
 
 in the year 1112, appointed Erik Upsi, Bishop of 
 Iceland, Greenland and Yinland, and Erik Upsi 
 went personally to Vinland in the year 1121. 
 
 4. Recent developments in relation to Columbus 
 tend to prove that he had opportunity to see a 
 map of Vinland, procured from the Vatican for the 
 Pinzons, and it would indeed astonish us more to 
 learn that he, with his nautical knowledge, did not 
 hear of America than that he did. W« must also 
 bear in mind that Columbus lived in an age of 
 discovery; England, France, Portugal and Spain 
 were vying with each other in discovering new 
 lands and extending their territories. 
 
 5. But in addition to the Sagas, the Dighton 
 Writing Rock, the Newport Tower (which the 
 Indians told the early New England settlers was 
 built by the giants, and the Norse discoverers cer- 
 tainly looked like giants to the natives, since the 
 former called the latter Sknellings) ; and in addition 
 to the skeleton in armor, we have a remarkable 
 record of the early discovery of America by the 
 Norsemen in the writings of Adam of Bremen, a 
 canon and historian of high authority, who died in 
 the year 1076. He visited the Danish king Svend 
 Estridson, a nephew of Canute the Great, and on 
 his return home he wrote a book " On the Propa- 
 
88 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISOOVEKED BY CJOLUMBUB. 
 
 gation of the Christkt/ii Religion in the North of 
 Europe^^ and at the end of this book he added a 
 geographical treatise " On the Position of Denmark 
 and other regions beyond Denmark!'^ Having given 
 an account of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Iceland 
 and Greenland, he says that, " besides these there is 
 still another region^ which has heen visited hy many^ 
 lying in that Ocean {the Atlantic), ivhich is called 
 ViNLAND, because vines groio there spontaneously, 
 producing very good wine '^ corn likewise spi'ings 
 up there without being sown ;^'' and as Adam of 
 Bremen closes his account of Vinland he adds these 
 remarkable words : " This we know not by fabu- 
 lous conjecture^ but from positive stateinents of the 
 DanesP 
 
 Now, Adam of Bremen's work was first pub- 
 lished in the year 1073, and was read by intelligent 
 men throughout Europe, and Columbus being an 
 educated man, and so deeply interested in geograph- 
 ical studies, especially when they treated of the 
 Atlantic Ocean, could he be ignorant of so important 
 a work? 
 
 I have here given five reasons why Columbus 
 must have known the existence of the American 
 continent before he started on his voyage of discov- 
 ery. 1. Gudrid's visit to Rome. 2. Tlie appoint- 
 
AMERICA NOT DIWOVKREI) BY CoLUMBl'S. 
 
 89 
 
 incTit, by Pope Pascal II, of Erik Upsi as Bishop ot* 
 Vinland. 3. Adam of Bremen's account of Vinland, 
 in his ])<>(>k pul)li8hed in 1073. 4. The map pro- 
 cured from the Vatican for the Pinzons, which fact 
 I liave not, however, yet been able to CHtablish with 
 absolute certainty; and, 5, which caps the climax, 
 Columbus' own visit to Iceland in the year 1477. 
 
 These are stubborn facts, and, if you read tlie 
 biography of Columbus, you will find that he always 
 maintained a firm conviction that there was land in 
 the west, lie says himself that he based this con- 
 viction on the authority of the learned writers. He 
 stated, before he left Spain, that he expected to find 
 land soon after sailing about seven hundred leagues; 
 hence he knew the breadth of the ocean, and must, 
 tlierefore, have had a pretty definite knowledge of 
 the situation of Vinland and Great Ireland. A day 
 or two before coming in sight of the new world, he 
 capitulated with his mutinous crew, promising, if lie 
 did not discover land within three days, to abandon 
 the voyage. In fact, the whole hist(»ry of his dis- 
 covery proves that he either must have possessed 
 ])revious knowledge of America, or, as some have 
 had the audacity to maintain, been inspired. We 
 do not believe in that sort of inspiration. It makes 
 Columbus a greater man, in our estimation, that lie 
 
90 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBU8. 
 
 formed his opinion by a chain of logical deductions 
 Ijased upon thorough study and research. It is to 
 the credit of Columbus, we say, that he investigated 
 the nature of things; that he diligently searched the 
 learned writers; that he paid close attention to all 
 rep^^rts of navigators, and gathered up all those scat- 
 tered gleams of knowledge that fell ineffectually upon 
 ordinary minds. Washington Irving Hays: "When 
 Columbus had formed his theory it became fixed in 
 his mind with singular firmness. He never spoke 
 in doubt or hesitation, but with as much certainty as 
 if his eyes had already beheld the promised land.'" 
 We say, if he held this firm conviction on only 
 presumptive evidence, then, with all due respect for 
 his distinguished biographer, he is not entitled to 
 the enviable reputation for scholarship and good 
 judgment that has been accredited to him by Wash- 
 ington Irving. We claim to be vindicating the great 
 name of Columbus, by showing that he must have 
 based his ceptainty upon equally certain facts, which 
 he possessed the ability and patience to study out, 
 and the keenness of intellect to put together, and 
 this gives historical importance to the discovery 
 of America by the Normmen. The fault that we 
 find with Columbus is, that he was not honest and 
 frank enough to tell where and how he had obtained 
 
AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS. 
 
 91 
 
 Ilis previous information about the lands which he 
 pretended to discover; that he sometimes talked of 
 himself as chosen by Heaven to make this discovery, 
 and that he made the fruits of his labors subservient 
 to the dominion of inquisition. 
 
 If our theory, then, does not make Columbus out 
 as true and good a man as the reader may have con- 
 sidered him, we still insist that it proves him a man 
 of extraordinary ability. It shows that lu- discovered 
 America by study and research, and not by accident 
 or inspiration. Care hIiouM always be taken to vin- 
 dicate great names from accident or inspiration. It 
 defeats one of the most salutary purposes of history 
 and biography, which is to furnish examples of what 
 human genius and laudable enterprise can accomplish.* 
 
 That the Spanish and more recent colonies in 
 America could become more permanent than the 
 Norse colonies, is chiefly to be attributed to the 
 superiority that lire-arms gave the Europeans over 
 the natives. The Norsemen had no fire-arms, and 
 their higher culture could not defend them against 
 the swarms of savages that attacked them. In the 
 next place, the Black Plague reduced the popula- 
 tion of Norway and Iceland beyond the necessity or 
 even possibility to emigrate. If the communication 
 
 * Washington Irving. 
 
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 between Vinland and the North could have been 
 maintained say one hundred years longer, that is, to 
 the middle of the fifteenth century, it is difficult to 
 determine what the result would have been. Possi- 
 bl}'^ this sketch would have appeared in Icelandic 
 instead of English. Undoubtedly the Norse colonies 
 would have become firmly rooted by that time, and 
 Norse language, nationality and institutions might 
 have played as conspicuous a part in America as the 
 English and their posterity do now-a-days. 
 
 
CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 M 
 
 "T3UT it is not within the scope of this sketch 
 -*-^ to d'scuss this subject any farther. Let us 
 remember Letf Eeikson, the first white man wlio 
 turned the bow of his ship to the west for the pur- 
 pose of finding America. Let us remember his 
 brother, Thorvald Erikson, the first European and 
 the first Christian who was buried beneath Ameri- 
 can sod ! Let us not forget Thorfinn and Gud- 
 RiD, who established the first European colony in 
 New England ! nor their little son, Snorre, the first 
 man of European blood whose birthplace was in 
 the New World! Let us erect a monument to Leif 
 Erikson worthy of the man and the cause ; and 
 while the knowledge of this discovery of America 
 lay for a long time hid in the unstudied literature 
 of Iceland, let us take this lesson, that " truth 
 crus/ied to earth uiU rise again,' " that truth may 
 often lie darkened and hid for a long time, but 
 that it is like the beam of light from a star in 
 some far distant region of the universe — after 
 
94 
 
 AMERICA NOT ULSCOVMiEI) BY COLUMBU8. 
 
 thousands of years it reaches some heavenly body 
 and gives it light. 
 
 In the language of Mr. Davis: "Let us praise 
 Leif Erikson for liis courage, let us applaud him 
 for his zeal, let us respect him for his motives, for 
 he was anxious to enlarge the boundaries of knowl- 
 edge. He reached the wished-for land, 
 
 "'Where now the western sun, 
 O'er fields and floods, 
 O'er every living soul 
 DifFuseth glad repose.' 
 
 He opened to the view a broad region, where smil- 
 ing hope invites successive generations from the 
 old world. 
 
 " Such men as an Alexander, or a Tamerlane, 
 conquer but to devastate countries. Discoverers add 
 new regions of fertility and beauty to those already 
 known. 
 
 "And are not the hardy adventurers, plowing 
 the briny deep, more attractive than the troops of 
 Alexander, or Napoleon, marching to conouer the 
 world, with plumes waving in the gentle breeze, 
 and with arms glittering in the sunbeams? Who 
 can tell all the benefits that discoverers confer on 
 mankind ? 
 
 " To count them all demands a thousand tongues, 
 A throat of brass and adamantine lungs.' " 
 
 it-' 
 
WHAT SCHOLARS SAT 
 
 ABOUT THE 
 
 Historical, Linguistic and Literary Value 
 
 OF THE 
 
 SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 
 " t)er ar flagga pa mast och den visar at norr, och 
 i norr ftr den iilskade jord ; 
 jag vili fOlja de himmelska vindarnas gang, jag vill 
 styra tillbaka mot Nord." 
 
 — Tegner, 
 
 ENGLISH VERSION. 
 
 " There's the flag on the mast, and it points to the North, 
 And the North holds the land that I love, 
 i will steer back to northward, the heavenly course 
 Of the winds guiding sure from above." 
 
 "TTERY little attention has hitherto been given in 
 V this country to the study of Scandinavian history, 
 languages and literatures. We think this branch of 
 study would not be so much neglected, if it were more 
 generally known what an extensive source of intel- 
 lectual pleasure it affords to the scholar who is ac- 
 quainted with it. We hope, therefore, to serve a good 
 cause by calling your attention to a few quotations from 
 American, English, German, and French scholars, who 
 have given much time and attention to the above named 
 subject, in order that it may be known what they, who 
 
I 
 
 96 
 
 THE 6CANJ)iNA\ IAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 ill 
 
 i^i 
 
 may justly be considered competent to judge, say of their 
 importance. 
 
 I will add that I have not found a scholar, who has 
 devoted himself to this field of study and research, that 
 l>as not at the same time become an enthusiastic admirer 
 of Scandinavian and particularly Icelandic history, lan- 
 guages and literatures. 
 
 To scientific students it is liufficient to say, that a 
 knowledge of the Scandinavian languages at once intro- 
 duces them to several writers of great eminence in the 
 scientific world. I will briefly mention a few. 
 
 Hans Christian Oersted won for himself one of 
 the greatest names of the age. His discovery, in 1820, of 
 electro-magnetism — the identity of electricity and ma'^- 
 netism — which he not onlv discovered, but demoi- 
 strated incontestably, placed him at once in the highest 
 rank of physical philosophers, and has led to all the 
 wonders cf the electric telegraph. His great work, " The 
 Soul of jS^ature," in which he promulgates his grand 
 doctrine of the universe, abundantly repays a careful 
 perusal. 
 
 Carl von Linne (Linnaeus) is the polar star in 
 botany. He was professor at the University of Sweden, 
 died in 1788, and is the founder of the established system 
 of botany. As LinnaBus is the father of botany, so Ber- 
 ZELius might be called the father of the present sjstem 
 of chemistry. He is one of the greatest ornaments of 
 science. He devoted his whole life sedulously to the 
 promotion and extension of his favorite science, and to 
 him is the world indebted for the discovery of many 
 new elementary principles and valuable chemical com- 
 
THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUA(tES. 
 
 97 
 
 hi nation^- now in general use. He filled the chair of 
 chemistry in the University of Stockholm for forty-two 
 years, and died in 1848. Scheele, Michael Svrs, 
 Hansteen, and several others, are men who have dis- 
 tinguished themselves by their labors in the field of 
 science, natural history and astronomy. And now read 
 the following quotations, which we have promised to 
 present. 
 
 Mr. Xorth Ludlow Beamish says : " The national 
 literature of Iceland holds a distinct and eminent position 
 in the literature of Europe. In that remote and cheer- 
 less isle * * * religion and learning took up their 
 tranquil abode, before the soutli of Euroj^e had yet 
 emerged from the mental darkness which followed the 
 fall of the Roman Empire. There the uneiring memo- 
 ries of the Skalds and Sagamen were the depositories oi" 
 past events, which, handed down from age to age, in one 
 unbroken line of historical tradition, were committed to 
 writing on the introduction of Christianity, and now 
 come before us with an internal evidence of their truth, 
 which places them amongst the higliest or de?' of historical 
 records. 
 
 " To investigate the origin of this remarkable ad- 
 vancement in mental culture, and trace the progressive 
 steps by which Icelandic literature attained an eminence 
 which even now imparts a lustre to that barren land, is 
 an object of interesting and instructive inquiry. 
 
 "Among no other people of Europe can the concep- 
 tion and birth of historical literature be more clearly 
 traced than amongst the people of Iceland. Here it can 
 be shown how memory took root, and gave birth to 
 
r 
 
 
 98 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 1^ '.■ 
 
 narrative ; how narrative multiplied and increased until 
 it was committed to writing, and how the written rela- 
 tion eventually became sifted and arranged in chrono- 
 logical order." 
 
 Samuel Laing, Esq. — "All that men hope for of 
 good government and future improvement in their 
 physical and moral condition, — all that civilized men 
 enjoy at this day of civil, religious and political liberty 
 — the British constitution, representative legislature, 
 the trial by jury, security of property, freedom of mind 
 and person, the influence of public opinion over the con- 
 Cvo.t of public affairs, the Reformation, the liberty of the 
 press, the spirit of the age, — all that is or has been of 
 value to man in modern times as a member of society, 
 either in Europe or in America, may be traced to the 
 spark left burning upon our shores by the Norwegian 
 barbarians. 
 
 "There seem no good grounds for the favorite and 
 hackneyed course of all who have written on the origin 
 of the British constitution and trial by jury, who un- 
 riddle a few dark phrases of Tacitus concerning the 
 institutions of the ancient Germanic tribes, and trace up 
 to that obscure source the origin of all political institu- 
 tions connected with freedom in modern Europe. In 
 the (Norwegian) Sagas we find, at a period immediately 
 preceding the first traces of free institutions in our 
 history, the rude but very vigorous demonstrations of 
 similar institutions existing in great activity among 
 those northern people, who were masters of the country 
 under Canute the Great, who for two generations before 
 his time had occupied and inhabited a very large portion 
 
THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 99 
 
 of it, and of whom a branch under William of Normandy 
 became its ultimate and permanent conquerors. It may 
 be more classical to search in the pages of Tacitus for 
 allusions to the customs of the tribes wandering in his 
 day through the forests of Germany, which may bear 
 some faint resemblance to modern institutions, or to 
 what we fancy our modern institutions may have been 
 in their infancy ; but it seems more consistent with 
 correct principles of historic research to look for the 
 origin )f our institutions at the nearest, not at the most 
 remote, source ; not at what existed 1,000 years before 
 in the woods of Germany, among people whom we must 
 believe upon supposition to have been the ancestors of 
 the invaders from the north of the Elbe, who conquered 
 England, and must again believe upon supposition, that 
 when this people were conquered successively by the 
 Danes and Normans, they imposed their own peculiar 
 institutions upon their conquerors, instead of receiving 
 institutions from them ; but at what actually existed, 
 when the first notice of assemblies for legislative pur- 
 poses can be traced in English history among the con- 
 querors of the country, a cognate people, long established 
 by previous conquests in a large portion of it, who used, 
 if not the same, at least a language common to both, 
 and who had no occasion to borrow, from the conquered, 
 institutions which were flourishing at the time in their 
 mother country in much greater vigor. It is in these 
 (Norwegian) Sagas, not in Tacitus, that we have to look 
 for the origin of the political institutions of England. 
 The reference of all matters to the legislative assemblies 
 of the people is one of the most striking facts in the 
 Sagas. 
 
1. 
 
 i 
 
 M 
 
 lili- 
 
 i ill 
 
 100 
 
 T H K 8( ' AN I )IN A V I A N L ANGU AGES. 
 
 •* The Sagc'is, although composed by natives of Ice- 
 huul, are properly Xorwet/ian litercUurc. Tlie evenl.^, 
 persons, manners, language, belong to Norway; and they 
 are productions whicli, like the works of Homer, of 
 Shakespeurt', and of Scott, are strongly stamped with 
 nationality of ciiaracter and incident. 
 
 " A portion of that attention, which has exhausted 
 
 classic mythology, and which has too long dwelt in the 
 
 Pantheons of Greece and Rome, and is wearied with 
 
 fruitless efforts to learn something more, where, perhaps, 
 
 nolliing more is to be learned, may very profitably, and 
 
 very successfully, be directed to the vast field of Gothic 
 
 research. For we are Goths and the descendants of 
 
 Goths — 
 
 " ' The men, 
 
 Of earth's best blood, of titles manifold.' 
 
 And it well becomes us to ask, what has Zeus to do with 
 the Brocken, Apollo with Effersburg, or Poseidon with 
 the Northern Sea ? The gods of our lathers were neither 
 Jupiter, nor Saturn, nor Mercury, but Odin, Brage, or 
 Eger. If we marvel at the pictures of heathen divinities 
 as painted by classical hands, let us not forget that our 
 ancestors had deities of their own — gods as mighty in 
 their attributes, as refined in their tastes, as heroic in 
 their doings, as the gods worshiped in the Parthenon or 
 tilked about in the forum." 
 
 M. Mallet says : " History has not recorded the 
 annals of a people who have occasioned greater, more 
 sudden, or more numerous revolutions in Europe than 
 the Scandinavians, or whose antiquities, at the same 
 time, are so little known. Had, indeed, their emigra- 
 
THE SCAMUNAVIAN LAxVGUAGEb. 
 
 101 
 
 u 
 
 tions been onl}' like those sudden torrents of which jill 
 traces and remembrance are soon effaced, the indifference 
 tliat has been shown to them would have been sufh- 
 ciently justified by the barbarism they have been ap- 
 proached with. But, during those general inundationp, 
 the face of Europe underwent so total a change, and 
 during the con/usion they occasioned, such different 
 establishments took place ; new societies were formed, 
 animated so entirely by the new spirit, that the history 
 of our own manners and institutions ought necessarily 
 to ascend back, and even dwell a considerable time upon 
 a period which discovers to us their chief origin and 
 source. 
 
 " But I ought not barely to assert this. Permit me 
 to support the assertions by proof. For this pnrpose 
 let us briefly run over all the different revolucions which 
 this part of the world underwent during the long course 
 of ages which its histo'-y comprehends, in order to see 
 what share the nations of the North have had in pro- 
 ducing them. If we recur back to the remotest times, 
 we observe a nation issuing step by step from the forests 
 of Scythia, incessantly increasing and dividing to take 
 possession of the uncultivated countries which it met 
 with in its progress. Very soon after, we see the same 
 people, like a tree full of vigor, extending long branches 
 over all Europe ; we see them also carrying with them 
 wherever they came, from the borders of the Black Sea 
 to the extremities of Spain, of Sicily, and of Greece, a 
 religion simple and martial as themselves, a form of 
 government dictated by good sense and liberty, a restless 
 unconquered spirit, apt to take fire at the very mention 
 of subjection and constraint, and a ferocious courage 
 
102 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN LAN(iUAOES. 
 
 ¥■ 
 
 
 nourished by a savage and vagabond life. While the 
 gentleness of the climate softened imperceptibly the fero- 
 city of those who settled in the South, colonies of Egyp- 
 tians and Phenicians mixing with them upon the coashs 
 of Greece, and thence passing over to those of Italy, 
 taught them at last to live in cities, to cultivate letters, 
 arts and commerce. Tlius their opinions, their customs 
 and genius, were blended together, and new states were 
 formed upon new plans. Rome, in the meantime, arose 
 and at length carried all before her. In proportion as 
 she increased in grandeur, she forgot her ancient man- 
 ners, and destroyed, among the nations whom she over- 
 powered, the original spirit with which they were ani- 
 mated. But this spirit continued unaltered in the colder 
 countries of Europe, and maintained itself there like the 
 independency ^f the inhabitants. Scarce could fifteen 
 or sixteen centuries produce there any change in tliut 
 spirit. There it renewed itself incessantly ; for, during 
 the whole of that long interval, new adventurers issuing 
 continually from the original inexhaustible country, 
 trod upon the heels of their fathers toward the north, 
 and, being in their turn succeeded by new troops of 
 followers, they pushed one another forward like the 
 waves of the sea. The northern countries, thus over- 
 stocked, and unable any longer to contain such restless 
 inhabitants, equally greedy of glory and plunder, dis- 
 charged at length upon the Roman Empire the weight 
 that oppressed them. The barriers of the empire, ill 
 defended by a people whom prosperity had enervated, 
 were borne down on all sides by torrents of victorious 
 armies. We then see the conquerors introducing, among 
 the nations they vanquished, viz., into the very bosom 
 
THE SL'ANDINAVIAN LAN<iUAGE8. 
 
 103 
 
 of iavery and sloth, that spirit of independence and 
 equality, that elevation of soul, that taste for rural and 
 military life, which both the one and the other had 
 originally derived from the same common source, but 
 which were then among the Romans breathing their last. 
 Dispositions and principles so opposite, struggled long 
 with forces suflficiently equal, but they united in the end, 
 they coalesced together, and from their coalition sprung 
 those principles and that spirit which governed after- 
 ward almost all the states of Europe, and which, not- 
 withstanding the differences of climate, of religion, and 
 particular accidents, do visibly reign in them, and retain, 
 to this day, more or less, the traces of their first common 
 origin. 
 
 " It is easy to see, from this short sketch, how greatly 
 the nations of the earth have influenced the different 
 fates of Europe ; and if it be worth while to trace its 
 revolutions to their causes; — if the illustration of its 
 institutions, of its police, of its customs, of its manners, 
 of its laws, be a subject of useful and interesting inquiry, 
 it must be allowed that the antiquities of the Northy 
 that is to say, everything which tends to make us ac- 
 quainted with its ancient inhabitants, merits a share in 
 the attention of thinking men. But to render this 
 obvious by a particular example : is it not well known 
 that the most flourishing and celebrated states of Europe 
 owe originally to the northern nations whatever liberty 
 they now enjoy, either in their constitution or in the 
 spirit of their government? For although the Gothic 
 form of government has been almost everywhere altered 
 or abolished, have we not retained, in most things, the 
 opinions, the customs, the manners which that govern- 
 
 
 ^J 
 
u 
 
 l-<> < 
 
 104 
 
 TUB SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 l' i 
 
 r 
 
 
 II 
 
 ment had a tendency to produce ? Is not this, in fact, 
 the principal source of that courage, of that aversion to 
 slavery, of that empire of honor which characterized in 
 general the European nations; and of that moderation, 
 of that easiness of access, and peculiar attention to the 
 rights of humanity, which so happily distinguish our 
 sovereigns .I'om the inaccessible and superb tyrants of 
 Asia ? The immense extent of the R-^man Empire had 
 rendered its constitution so despotic and military, many 
 of its emperors were such ferocious monsters, its senate 
 was become so mean -spirited and vile, that all elevation 
 of sentiment, everything that was noble and manly, 
 seems to have been forever banished from their hearts 
 and minds; insomuch that if all Europe had received 
 the yoke of Rome in this her state of debasement, this 
 fine part of the world reduced to the inglorious con- 
 dition of the rest could not have avoided falling into 
 that kind of barbarity, which is of all others the most 
 incurable; as, by making as many slaves as there are 
 men, it degrades them so low as not to leave them even 
 a thought or desire of bettering their condition. But 
 nature has long prepared a remedy for such great evils, 
 in tiiat unsubmitting, unconquerable spirit with which 
 she has inspired the people of the North; and thus she 
 made amends to the human race for all the calamities 
 which, in other respects, the inroads of these nations 
 and the overthrow of the Roman Empire produced. 
 
 " The great prerogative of Scandinavia (says the ad- 
 mirable author of the Spirit of Laws*), and what ought 
 to recommend its inhabitants beyond every people upon 
 earth, is, that they afforded the great resource to the 
 
 * Baron dc ^^on1e(^^uiell (L'Esprit de Lois). 
 
THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 105 
 
 liberty of Europe, that is, to almost all the liberty that 
 is among men. The Goth Jornande, adds he, calls the 
 North of Europe the forge of mankind. I should rather 
 call it the forge of those instruments which broke the 
 fetters manufactured in the South. It was there those 
 valiant nations were bred who left their native climes to 
 destroy tyrants and slaves, and so to teach men that 
 nature having made them equal, no reason could be 
 assigned for their becoming dependent but their mutual 
 haijpiness." 
 
 H. W. Longfellow is an enthusiastic admirer of the 
 Scandinavian languages. Of the Icelandic he bays: 
 " The Icelandic is as remarkable as the Anglo-Saxon for 
 its abruptness, its obscurity and the boldness of its 
 metaphors. Poets are called Songsmiths; — poetry, the 
 Language of the Gods; — gold, the Daylight of ^warfs ; 
 — the heavens, the Scull of Ymer; — the rainbow, the 
 Bridge of the Gods ; — a battle, a Bath of Blood, the Hail 
 of Odin, the Meeting of Shields ; — the tongue, the Sword 
 of Words ; — a river, the Sweat of Earth, the Blood of the 
 Valleys; — arrows, the Daughters of Misfortune, the 
 Hailstones of Helmets ; -^ the earth, the Vessel that 
 floats '^ii the Ages , — the sea, the Field of Pirates : — 
 a ship, the Skate of Pirates, the Horse of the Waves. 
 The ancient Skald (Bard) smote the strings of his harp 
 with as bold a hand as the Berserk smote his foe. When 
 heroes fell in battle he sang to them in his Drapa, or 
 death-song, that they had gone to drink 'divine mead 
 in the secure and tranquil palaces of the gods,' in that 
 Valhalla upon whose walls stood the watchman Heim- 
 dal, whose ear was so acute that he could hear the grass 
 
V 
 
 } 
 
 hr 
 
 106 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 I'. ' 
 
 St 
 
 m 
 
 grow in the meadows of earth, and the wool on the 
 backs of sheep. He lived in a credulous age, in the 
 dim twilight of the pust. He was 
 
 ' The sky-lurk iu the dawn of years. 
 The poet of the inoni.' 
 
 In the vast 3olitudes around him, the heart of Nature 
 beat against his own. From the midnight gloom of 
 groves, the deep-voiced pines answered the deeper- 
 voiced and neighboring sea. To his ear, these were not 
 the voices of dead, but living things. Demons rode the 
 ocean like a weary steed, and the gigantic pines flapped 
 their sounding wings to smite the spirit of the storm. 
 
 "Still wilder and fiercer were these influences of 
 Nature in desolate Iceland, than on the mainland of 
 Scandinavia. Fields of lava, icebergs, geysers and vol- 
 canoes were familiar sights. When the long winter 
 came, and the snowy Heckla roared through the sunless 
 air, and thp. flames of the Northern Aurora flashed along 
 the sky, like phantoms from Valhalla, the soul of the 
 poet was filled with images of terror and dismay. He 
 bewailed the death of Baldur, the sun ; and saw in each 
 eclipse the horrid form of the wolf, Maanegarm, who 
 swallowed the moon and stained the sky with blood." 
 
 Professor W. Fiske, of Cornell University, who is 
 uuuorbtedly the most learned northern scholar in this 
 country, v/ho has spent several years in the Scandinavian 
 countries, and who is an enthusiastic admirer of Iceland 
 and its Sagas, has sent me the following lines for inser- 
 tion in this appendix : 
 
 " It is not nee essary to dwell on the value of Icelandic 
 to those who de re to investigate the early history of the 
 
THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 lOT 
 
 the 
 
 the 
 
 Teutonic race. The religious belief of our remote an- 
 cestors, and very many of their primitive legal and social 
 customs, some of wliich still influence the daily life of 
 the people, find their clearest and often their only eluci- 
 dation in the so-called Eddie and Shaldic lays, and in the 
 Sagas. The same writings form the sole sources of 
 Scandinavian history before the fourteenth century, and 
 they not infrequently shed a welcome ray on the obscure 
 annals of the British Islands, and of several continental 
 nations. They furnish, moreover, an almost unique ex- 
 ample of a modern literature which is completely indige- 
 nous. The old Icelandic literature, which Mobius truly 
 characterizes as *ein Phiinomen von Standpuukte der 
 allgemeinen Cultur und Literaturgeschichte,' and be- 
 side which the literatures of all the other early Teutonic 
 dialects — Gothic, Old High German, Saxon, Frisian, 
 and Anglo-Saxon — are as a drop to a bucket of water, 
 developed itself out of the actual life of the people under 
 little or no extraneous influence. In this respect it de- 
 serves the careful study of every student of letters. For 
 the English-speaking races especially there is nowhere, 
 so near home, a field promising to the scholar so rich 
 a harvest. The few translations, or attempted transla- 
 tions, which are to be found in English, give merely 
 a faint idea of the treasures of antique wisdom and 
 sublime poetry which exist in the Eddie lays, or of the 
 quaint simplicity, dramatic action, and striking realism 
 which characterize the historical Sagas. Nor is the 
 modern literature of the language, with its rich and 
 abundant stores of folk-lore, unworthy of regard." 
 
 Benjamin Lossing says: "It is back to the Nor- 
 wegian Vikings we must look for the hardiest elements 
 of progress in the United States," 
 
108 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 1^ f^ 
 I' 
 
 
 Ir 
 
 
 
 111 
 
 B. F. De Costa. — " Let us remember that in vindi- 
 cating, the Northmen we honor those who not only give 
 us the first knowledge possessed of the American conti- 
 nent, but to whom we are indebted for much besides that 
 we esteem valuable. For we fable in a great measure 
 when we speak of our Saxon inheritance ; it is rather from 
 the Northmen that we have derived our vital energy, our 
 freedom of thought, and, in a measure that we do not yet 
 suspect, our strength of speech. Yet, happily, the people 
 are fast becoming conscious of their indebtedness ; so that 
 it is to be hoped that the time is not far distant when 
 the Northmen may be recognized in their right social, 
 political and literary characters, and at the same time, 
 as navigators, assu.iie their true position in the Pre-Co- 
 lumbian Discovery of America. 
 
 "The twelfth century was an era of great literary 
 activity in Iceland, and the century following showed 
 the same zeal. Finally Iceland possessed a body of prose 
 literature superior in quantity and value to that of any 
 other modern nation of its time. Indeed, the natives of 
 Europe, at this period, had no prose literature in ar} 
 modern language spoken by the people. 
 
 "Yet while other nations were without a literature, 
 the intellect of Iceland was in active exercise and works 
 were produced like the Eddas and Heimskbingla, — 
 works which, being inspired by a lofty genius, will rank 
 with the writings of Homer and Herodotus while time 
 itself endures." 
 
 Says Sir Edmund Head, in regard to the Norwegian 
 literature of the tiuelfth century : " No doubt there were 
 translations in Anglo-Saxon from the Latin, by Alfred, 
 
THK 8i;ANI)TNAV1AN LANGIAOES. 
 
 109 
 
 1» 
 
 of an earlier date, but there was in truth no vernacuhir 
 literature. I cannot name," he says, " any work in higli 
 or low German prose which can be carried back to this 
 period. In France, prose writing cannot be said to have 
 begun before the time of Villehardouin (1204) and Join- 
 ville (1202); Castilian prose certainly did not begin before 
 the time of Alfonso X (1252); Don Juan Manvel, the 
 author Comle Luccmor, was not born till 1282. The 
 Cronica General de Espana was not composed till at 
 least the middle of the thirteenth century. About the 
 same time the language of Italy was acquiring that soft- 
 ness and strength which were destined to appear so con- 
 spicuously in the prose of Bt ccaccio and the writers of 
 the next century. 
 
 " Of course there was more or less poetry, yet poetry 
 is something that is early developed among tlie rudest 
 nations, while goodi prose tells that a people have become 
 highly advanced in mental culture." 
 
 William and Mary Howitt. — ''There is nothing 
 besides the Bible, which sits in a divine tranquillity of 
 unapproachable nobility, like a King of Kings amongst 
 all other books, and the poem of Homer itself, which can 
 compare in all the elements of greatness with tiie Edda. 
 There is a loftiness of stature and a growth of muscle 
 about it which no poets of the same race have ever since 
 reached. The obscurity which hangs over some parts of 
 it, like the deep shadows crouching mid the ruins of the 
 past, is probably the result of dilapidations ; but, amid 
 this, stand forth the boldest masses of intellectual ma- 
 sonry. We are astonished at the wisdom which is shaped 
 into maxims, and at the tempestuous strength of passions 
 
110 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 
 
 
 to which all modem emotions appear puny and con- 
 strained. Amid the bright sunlight of a far-oflf time, 
 surrounded by the densest shadows of forgotten ages, 
 we come at once into the midst of gods and heroes, god- 
 desses and fair women, giants and dwarfs, moving about 
 in a world of wonderful construction, unlike any other 
 worlds or creations which God has founded or man 
 has imagined, but still beautiful beyond conception. 
 
 "The Icelandic poems have no parallel in all the 
 treasures of ancient literature. They are the expressions 
 of the souls of poets existing in the primeval and un- 
 effeminated earth. They are limnings of men and women 
 of godlike beauty and endowments, full of the vigor of 
 simple but impetuous natures. There are gigantic pro- 
 poi'tions about them. There are great and overwhelming 
 tragedies in them, to which those of Greece only present 
 any parallels. 
 
 " The Edda is a structure of that grandeur and im- 
 portance that it deserves to be far better known to us 
 generally than it is. The spirit in it is sublime and 
 colossal." 
 
 Pliny Miles.— "The literary history of Iceland in 
 the early ages of the Republic is of a most interesting 
 character. When we consider the limited population of 
 the country, and the many disadvantages under which 
 they labored, their literature is the most remarkable on 
 record. The old Icelanders, from the tenth to the six- 
 teenth century, through a period of the history of the 
 world when little intellectual light beamed from the sur- 
 rounding nations, were as devoted and ardent workers in 
 the fields of history and poetry as any community in the 
 
THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 1:1 
 
 world under the most favorable circumstances. Spring- 
 ing from the Old Norse or Norwegian stock, they carried 
 the language and habits of their ancestors with them to 
 their highland home. Though a very large number of 
 our English words are derived direct from the Icelandic, 
 yet the most learned and indefatigable of our lexicog- 
 raphers, both in England and America, have acknowl- 
 edged their ignorance of this language. 
 
 "The Eddas abound in mythological machinery to 
 an extent quite equal to the writings of Homer and 
 Virgil." 
 
 The learned German writer Schlegel, in his " Es- 
 thetics and Miscellaneous Works," says : " If any monu- 
 ment of the primitive northern world deserves a place 
 amongst the earlier remains of the South, the Icelandic 
 Edda must be deemed worthy of that distinction. The 
 spiritual veneration for Nature, to which the sensual 
 Greek was an e^^.tire stranger, gushes forth in the mys- 
 terious language and prophetic traditions of the North- 
 ern Edda with a full tide of enthusiasm and inspiration 
 sufficient to endure for centuries, and to supply a whole 
 race of future bards and poets with a precious and ani- 
 mating elixir. The vivid delineations, the rich, glowing 
 abundance and animation of the Homeric pictures of 
 the world, are not more decidedly superior to the misty 
 scenes and shadowy forms of Ossian, than the Northern 
 Edda is in its sublimity to the works of Hesiod." 
 
 Prof. Dr. Deitrich asserts " that the Scandinavian 
 literature is extraordinarily rich in all kinds of writings." 
 
 Hon. George P. Marsh. — "It must suffice to re- 
 mark that, in the opinion of those most competent to 
 
112 
 
 TllK SCANinNAVIAS LANGUAGES. 
 
 |!N 
 
 judge, the Icelyndic literature has never been surpassed, 
 if equaled, in all that gives value to that portion of his- 
 tory which consists of spirited delineations of character 
 and faithful and lively pictures of events among nations 
 in a rude state of society. 
 
 " That the study of the Old Northern tongue may 
 have an important bearing on English grammar and 
 etymology, will be obvious, when it is known that the 
 Icelandic is most closely allied to the Anglo-Saxon, of 
 which so few monuments are extant ; and a slight 
 examination of its structure and remarkable syntactical 
 character will satisfy the reader that it may well deserve 
 the attention of the philologist." 
 
 The excellent writer, Charles L. Brace, in speak- 
 ing of Iceland, says : " The Congress, or ' Althing,' of 
 the Icelanders, had many of the best political features 
 which have distinguished parliamentary government in 
 all branches of the Teutonic race since. Every free- 
 holder voted in it, and its decisions governed all inferior 
 courts. It tried the lesser magistrates, and chose the 
 presiding ofl&cers of the colony. 
 
 " To this remote island (Iceland) came, too, that re- 
 markable profession, who were at once the poets, his- 
 torians, genealogists and moralists of the Norse race, 
 the Skalds. These men, before writing was much in 
 use, handed down by memory, in familiar and often 
 alliterative poetry, the names and deeds of the brave 
 Norsemen, their victories on every coast of Europe, 
 their histories and passions, and wild deaths, their 
 family ties, and the boundaries of their possessions, 
 their adventures and voyages, and even their law and 
 
TllK SCANDINAVIAN LANGUA(H<:h. 
 
 113 
 
 their mythology. In fact, all that history and legal doc- 
 uments, and genealogical records and poetry transmit 
 now, was handed down by these bards of the Norsemen. 
 Iceland became their peculiar center and home. Here, 
 in bold and vivid language, they recorded in works, 
 which posterity will never let die, the achievements of 
 the Vikings, the conquest of almost every peojjle in 
 Europe by these vigorous pirates; i\ Av wild ventures, 
 their contempt of pain and death, their absolute joy in 
 danger, combat and difficulty. In these, the oldest re- 
 cords of our (/. e., the Americans') forefathers, will be 
 found even among these wild rovers the respect for law 
 which has characterized every branch of the Teutonic 
 race since; here, and not in the Swiss cantons, is the 
 beginning of Parliament and Congress ; here, and not 
 with the Anglo-Saxons, is the foundation of trial by jury; 
 and here, among their most ungoverned wassail, is that 
 high reverence for woman, which has again come forth by 
 inheritance among the Anglo-Norse Americans. The 
 ancestors (at least morally) of Kaleigh and Nelson, and 
 Kane and Farragut, appear in these records, among 
 these sea-rovers, whose passion was danger and venture 
 on the waters. Here, too, among such men as the 
 * Raven Floki,' is the prototype of those American 
 pioneers who follow the wild birds into pathless wilder- 
 nesses to found new republics. And it is the Norse 
 ^'udal" property, not the European feudal property, 
 tvhich is the model for the American descendants of the 
 ancient Norseman. 
 
 " In these Icelandic Sagas, too, is portrayed the deep 
 moral sentiment which characterizes the most ancient 
 mythology of the Teutonic races. Here we have no 
 6* 
 
II. 
 
 114 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGLAGKS. 
 
 ill 
 
 III 
 
 n 
 
 dissolute Pantheon, with gods revelling eternally in 
 earthly vices, and the evils and wrongs of humanity 
 continued forever. Even the ghosts of the Northmen 
 have the muscle of the race ; they are no pale shadows 
 flitting through the Orcus. The dead fight and eat with 
 the vigor of the living. But there comes a dread time 
 when destiny overtakes all, both human and divine 
 beings, and the universe with its evil and wrong musi 
 perish (Ragnarokr). Yet even the crack of doom finds 
 not the Norsemen timid or fearing. Gods and men die 
 in the heat of the conflict; and there survives alone, 
 Baldur, the * God of Love,' who shall create a new 
 heaven and a new earth. 
 
 " It is from Iceland that we get the wonderful poetic 
 and mythologic collections of the Elder and Younger 
 Eddas. In this remote island the original Norse lan- 
 guage was preserved more purely than it was in Norway 
 or Denmark, and the Icelandic literature shed a flood of 
 light over a dark and barbarous age. Even now the 
 modern Icelanders can read or repeat their most ancient 
 Sagas with but little change of dialect. 
 
 " But to an American, one of the most interesting 
 gifts of Iceland to the world is the record of the dis- 
 covery of Northern America by Icelandic rovers (?) near 
 the year 1000. 
 
 "We think few scholars can carefully read these Sagas, 
 and the accompanying in regard to Greenland, without 
 a conviction that the Icelandic and Norwegian Vikings 
 did at that early period discover and land on the coast 
 of our eastern States. * * * The shortest winter 
 day is stated with such precision as to fix the la.ti- 
 ude near the coast of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. 
 
ll 
 
 THE SCAXniNAVIAN LANOrAOES. 
 
 115 
 
 * * * Iceland, then, luis the honor of having discovered 
 America. 
 
 "That volcanic-raised island, with its mountains of 
 ice and valleys of lava and ashes, has played no mean 
 part in the world's history." — Christian Union, July loy 
 187Jf. 
 
 The famous George Stephens, in his elaborate work 
 on "Runic Monuments," having discussed the impor- 
 tance of studying the Scandinavian languages in order 
 that many of our fine old roots may again creep into 
 circulation, says : " Let ws (the English) study the Scan- 
 dinavian languages, and ennoble and restore our mother 
 tongue. Let the Scandinavians study Old English as 
 well as their own ancient records, give up mere provincial 
 views, and melt their various duilects into one shining, 
 rich, sweet and manly speech, as we have done in Eng- 
 land. Their High Northern shall then live forever, the 
 home language of eight millions of hardy freemen, our 
 brothers in the east sea, our Warings and Guardsmen 
 against the grasping clutches of the modern Hun and 
 the modern Vandal The time may come when the 
 kingdom of Canute ruay be restored in a nobler shape, 
 when the bands of Sea-kings shall rally round one 
 Northern Union standard, when one scepter shall sway 
 the seas and coasts of our forefathers from the Thames 
 to the North Cape, from Finland to the Eider. 
 
 " We have watered our mother i,ongue long enough 
 with bastard Latin ; let us now brace and steel it with 
 the life-water of our own sweet and soft and rich and 
 shining and clear ringing and manly and world-ranging, 
 ever dearest English I " 
 

 116 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN I-ANGlAilKU. 
 
 
 .11 ' ■ 
 
 In his preface to his Icelandic grammar, Dr. G. W. 
 Dasent says: "Putting aside the study of Old Norse 
 for the sake of its magnificent literature, and consider- 
 ing it merely as an accessory help for the English student, 
 we shall find it of immense advantage, not only in trac- 
 ing the rise of words and idioms, but still more in clear- 
 ing up many dark points in our early history; in fact, 
 so highly do I value it in this respect, that I cannot 
 imagine it possible to write a satisfactory history of the 
 Anglo-Saxon period without a thorougli knowledge of 
 the Old Norse literature." 
 
 Dr. Dasent, in his introduction to Cleasby's and 
 Vigfusson's Icelandic Dictionary, says of Iceland : " No 
 other country in Europe possesses an ancient vernacular 
 to be compared with this." And again: "Whether in 
 a literary or in a philological point of view, no literature 
 in Europe in the middle ages can compete in interest 
 with that of Iceland. It is not certainly in forma pan- 
 peris that she appears at the tribunal of learning." In 
 another place he remarks : " In it (the Dictionary) the 
 English student now possesses a key to that rich store of 
 knowledge which the early literature of Iceland possesses. 
 He may read the Eddas and Sagas, which contain sources 
 of delight and treasures of learning such as no other 
 language but that of Iceland possesses." 
 
 The distinguished German scholar, ExTMtJrLLER, in 
 comparing the literature of the Anglo-Saxons with that 
 of the Icelanders, says: "Neither the Goths, nor the 
 Germans, nor the French, can be compared with the 
 Anglo-Saxons in the cultivation of letters. By the Scan- 
 dinavians alone, they are not only equaled, but also sur- 
 
 r,? \- 
 
THi: HCAMiIN AVIAN I.ANfUAGKS. 
 
 117 
 
 passed in litemtuiv." And again: " If the Scandinavians 
 excel in lyric poetry, the Anglo-Saxons can boast of their 
 epic poetry. If the famous island in the remote North- 
 ern Sea applied itself with distinguished honor to his- 
 torical studies, the isle of the Anglo-Saxons is especially 
 entitled to praise from the fact iiiat it produced orators, 
 who, considering the time in which they lived, were de- 
 cidedly excellent." 
 
 Max MfLLER, in his "Science of Language," says: 
 "There is a third stream of Teutonic speech, which it 
 would be impossible to place in any but a co-ordinate 
 position with regard to Gothic, Low and High German. 
 This is the Scandinavian branch." 
 
 In Wheaton's " History of the Northmen," we find 
 the following passages: "The Icelanders cherished and 
 cultivated the language and literature of their ancestors 
 witli remarkable success. * * * jjj Iceland an 
 independent literature grew up, flourished, and was 
 brought to a certain degree of perfection before the re- 
 vival of learning in the south of Europe.'^ 
 
 Robert Buchanan, the eminent English writer, in 
 reviewing the modern Scandinavian literature, says: 
 "While German literature darkens under the malignant 
 star of Deutschthum, while French art, sickening of its 
 long disease, crawls like a leper through the light and 
 wholesome world, while all over the European continent 
 one wan influence or another asserts its despair-engen- 
 dering sway over books and men, whither shall a be- 
 wildered student fly for one deep breath of pure air and 
 wholesome ozone ? Goethe and Heine have sung their 
 
r :■ 
 
 118 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN LAN(iUAGE8. 
 
 
 if ' '' 
 
 I 
 
 best — and worst; Alfred de Miisset is dead, and Victor 
 Hngo is turned politician. Grillpurzer is still a mystery, 
 tl.iinks partly to the darkening medium of Cailyle's 
 hostile criticism. From the ashes of Teutonic tran- 
 scendentalism rises Wagner like a Phoenix, — a bird too 
 uncommon for ordinary comprehension, but to all in- 
 tents and purposes an anomaly at best. One tires of 
 anomalies, one sickens of politics, one shudders at the 
 petticoat literature first created at Weimar; and looking 
 east and west, ranging with a true invalid's hunger the 
 literary horizon, one searches for something more natu- 
 ral, f )r some form of indigenous and unadorned love- 
 liness, wherewith to fleet the time pleasantly, as they 
 did in the golden world. 
 
 " That something may be found without traveling 
 very far. Turn northward, in the footsteps of Teufels- 
 drochk, traversing the great valleys of Scandinavia, and 
 not halting until, like the philosopher, you look upon 
 'that slowly heaving Polar Ocean, over which in the 
 utmost north the great sun hangs low.' Quiet and peace- 
 ful lies Norway yet as in the world's morning. The 
 flocks of summer tourists alight upon her shores, and 
 scatter themselves to their numberless stations, without 
 disturbing the peaceful serenity of her social life. * * * 
 The government is a virtual democracy, such as would 
 gladden the heart of Gambetta, tlie Swedish monarch's 
 rule over Norway being merely titular. There are no 
 hereditary nobles. There is no *gag' on the press. 
 Science and poetry alike flourish on this free soil. The 
 science is grand as Nature herself, cosmic as well as 
 microscopic. The poetry is fresh, light, and pellucid, 
 worthy of the race, and altogether free from Parisian 
 taint." 
 
THK SCANDTNAVIAN LANGrAGES. 
 
 119 
 
 lan 
 
 "Bjornstjerne Bjornson,* one of the most emi- 
 nent of living Norwegian authors, is something more 
 than even the finest pastoral taleteller of this generation. 
 He is a dramatist of extraordinary power. He does not 
 possess the power of imaginative fancy shown by Werge- 
 landf (in such pieces as Jan van Huysums Blomster- 
 dyhke), nor Welhaven'sJ refinement of phrase, nor the 
 wild, melodious abandon of his greatest rival, the author 
 of Peer Gyut :\ but, to my thinking at least, he stands 
 as a poet in a far higher rank than any of these writers. 
 
 " In more than one respect, particularly in the loose, 
 disjointed structure of the piece, ^Sigurd Slembe' re- 
 minds one of Goethe's ' Goetz,' but it deals with materials 
 far harder to assimilate, and is on the whole a finer 
 picture of romantic manners. Audhild (a prominent 
 character in 'Sigurd Slemhe') is a creation worthy of 
 Goethe at his best; worthy, in my opinion, to rank with 
 Claerchen, Marguerite and Mignon as a masterpiece of 
 delicate characterization. And here I may observe, inci- 
 dentally, that Bjornson excels in his pictures of delicate 
 
 * BjiiRNSTjERNE BjOrnson was bom in 1832; has written several novels, 
 dramas and epic poems. " Sigxird Slembe'" is a drama, published in 18<i3, of 
 which Robert Buchanan says: "It is, besides being a masterpiece by its 
 author, a drama of which any living European author might be justly proud." 
 Several of his novels, including "Arne," "A linppy Boy.'' "The Fisher- 
 maiden." have been translated into English. 
 
 t Henrik Arnold Weroeland was born in 1808. and died in 1845. He i" 
 the Byron of the North. His works comprise nine ponderous volume?. Fie 
 excelled in lyrics. 
 
 t John Sebastian Welhaven, born in 1807. died in 1M7.3. Remarkable for 
 the elegance and chssteness of his style. No poet has more beautifully and 
 correctly described the natural scenery of Norway. 
 
 1! The author of " Peer Gyut " is Henrik Ibsen, born in 1828. Was en- 
 gaged by Ole Bull as instructor at the theatre in Bergen, which position he 
 occupied six years. He has written several dramatic works, chiefly of a 
 polemic and exceedingly satirical nature. Many of his countrymen prefei 
 Ibsen to BjOrnBon. His last work is " KeUer og OalUaier.'^ 
 

 '.(' 
 
 120 
 
 THE SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES. 
 
 I 
 
 'If 
 
 m 
 
 feminine types, — a proof, if proof were wanting, that he 
 is worthy to take rank with the highest class of poetic 
 creators." 
 
 1 might add to the above quotations from Max M fil- 
 ler, the brothers Grimm and many other eminent writers ; 
 but in the first place this article is long enough, and in 
 the next place the works of the last named authors are 
 accessible to all who may wish to investigate this sub- 
 ject further. My object has been to show that, in the 
 opinion of those who have studied the subject, the North 
 has a history, language and literature deserving and 
 amply rewarding some attention from American stu- 
 dents. Of the good or ill performance of this task the 
 reader, whom I earnestly request carefully to consider 
 the contents of these pages, must be the judge. 
 
PUBLISHED BY S.C. GRIGGS &» CO,, CHICAGO. 
 
 ANDERSON'S NORSE MYTHOLOGY; or The Religion 
 
 of Our ForefatlierS. — Containing all the Myths of the Eddas carefully 
 systematized and interpreted, with an Introduction, Vocabulary and Index. — By 
 R. B. Andbrson, a. M., Professor of Scandinavian Languages, in the University 
 of Wisconsin. Crown 8vo, cloth, ^2 50 ; full gilt, I3 00 ; half calf, I5 00. 
 
 "Professor Anderson has produced a monograph which may be regarded as 
 exhaustive in all its relations."— 7%* Neiu York Tribune. 
 
 "A masterly work. . . No American book of recent years does equal credit 
 to American scholarship, or is deserving of a more pronounced success." — Boston 
 Globe. 
 
 "\ have been struck with the warm glow of enthusiasm pervading it, and with 
 the attractiveness of its descriptions and discussions. I sincerely wish it a wide 
 circulation and careful study." — William Dwigkt IVhitney, Professor of Sanscrit 
 and Comparative Philology, Yale College. 
 
 "I like it decidedly. A mythologist must be not only a scholar but a bit of a 
 poet, otherwise he will never understand that petrified poetry out of which the 
 mythology of every nation is built up. You seem to me to have that gift of poetic 
 divination, and, therefore, whenever I approach the dark runes of the Edda, I shall 
 gladly avail myself of your help and guidance." 
 
 Yours truiy, F. Max Muller, University of Oxford. 
 
 "We have never seen so complete a view of the religrion of the Norsemen. 
 The Myths which Prof. Anderson has translated for us are characterized by a wild 
 poetry and by suggestions of strong thought. We see images of singular beauty 
 in the landscape of ice and snow. Sparks of fire are often struck out from these 
 verses of flint and steel." — Bibliotheca Sacra. 
 
 "Professor Anderson is an enthusiastic as well as an able scholar ; and he 
 imparts his enthusiasm to his readers. His volume is deeply interesting as well as 
 in a high degree instructive. No such account of the old Scandinavian Mythology 
 has hitherto been given in the English language. It is full, and elucidates the 
 subject in all points of view. It contains abundant illustrations in literal and 
 poetic translations from the Eddas and Sagas. . , Professor Anderson's inter- 
 pretations of the myths throw new light upon them, and arc valuable additions (as is 
 the whole work) to the history of religion and of literature. , . It deserves to 
 be welcomed, not only as most creditable to American scholarship, but also as an 
 indication of the literary enterprise which is surely growing up in our North-western 
 States." — The Presbyterian Quarterly and Princeton Review. 
 
 AMERICA NOT DISCOVERED BY COLUMBUS.-A 
 
 Historical Sketch of the Discovery of America by the Norsemen in the zoth cent- 
 ury. By Prof. R. B. Andbrson, of the University of Wisconsin, with an Appendix 
 on the Historical, Literary and Scientific value of the Scandinavian Languages. 
 
 Price, 13mo, cloth |i 00 
 
 "A valuable addition to American history. The object is fully described in its 
 title page, and the author's narrative is very remarkable. ♦ • * The book i» 
 fiill of surprising statements, and will be read with something like wondennent."— 
 N0U* mnd Queries, London, 
 
PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS &- CO., CHICAGO. 
 
 tf'' 
 
 I 
 
 m 
 
 w 
 
 VIKING TALES OF THE HORTH.-lhe Sagas of Thorstein.Vik- 
 ing's Son, and Fridthjof the Bold. Tranr.iated from the Icelandic by Prof. R. B. 
 Anderson, Author of "Norse Mythology," and Jon Bjarnason. Also, Stephens's 
 translation of Tegner's " Fridthjof's SAr.A." Complete in one volume, 12mo; 
 Cloth, S9.00. 
 
 "A charming book it is. Your work is in every-way cleverly done. * • 
 The quaintly, delightful sagas ought to charm many thousands of readers, and your 
 translation is of the best."— »7//«rrf Fiske, M. A., Ph. D., Prof, of tht North 
 European Languages , Cornell University. 
 
 "This work, as a whole, will please and instruct all classes of readers, and espe- 
 cially those who wish to search out the antiquities of Scandinavian literature. Rut 
 every one will be struck with the majesty and force of that old poetry of the north." 
 — The Churchman, New York. 
 
 "The literal translations of Anderson and Bjarnason are full of interest of a rare 
 kind. * • Whoever fails to read them, will lose a rare fund of that peculiar wealth 
 of thought and feeling which is suggested by the earlier, simpler life of mankind." — 
 The Christian Union, New York. 
 
 "Prof Anderson's book is a very valuable and important one. The 'Saga of 
 Thorstein, Viking's Son,' * * teems with magnificently dramatic situations, the 
 impress! veness of which are rather increased by the calm directness and dignity with 
 which they are related. And these features are as characteristic of the English ver- 
 sion as of the Icelandic originals. The translator shows an intimate acquaintance 
 with all the intricacies of that cruelly inflected language, and an enthusiastic appre- 
 ciation of its epigrammatic pith and vigor. * • TegneVs celebrated poem *Fridth- 
 jofs Saga,' is sufficiently novel in its theme and abounding in melody and rhythm 
 to yield a large measure of enjoyment." — The Nation, New York, 
 
 FRIDTHJOF'S SAGA.— A Norse Romance. By EsAiAS Tbgner 
 Translated from the Swedish by Thos. A. E. Holcomb and Martha A. Lyon 
 HoLCOMB. One volume, ISmo, Cloth, 91.50. 
 
 ''Its beauties are innumerable. The grand old Viking spirit glows in every line." 
 —Christian Leader ^ N, Y. 
 
 '"Fridthjofs Saga' so beautifully embalmed in English verse, must become a 
 household treasure among lovers of elegant and curious literature." — Si. Louis 
 
 Times. 
 
 "No one can peruse this noble poem without arising therefrom with a loftier idea 
 
 of human bravery and a better conception of human love." — Inter-Ocean^ Chicago. 
 
 ''Wherever one opens the poem he is sure to light upon passages of exquisite 
 beauty. Longfellow styles it the noblest poetic contribution which Sweden has yet 
 made to the literary history of the world." — Church Journal, New York. 
 
 " 'Fridthjofs Saga' is an interesting story, told with great skill, tenderness and 
 picturesque language, while the characters are discriminated with a talent worthy 
 of the most observant student of human nature. * * * Sweden in the person of 
 Bishop Tegner, offers the true poet, who, in describing the struggles of souls, has 
 produced an immortal poem. * * The Holcomb translation is so well done that 
 it would be difficult to better it in any single xts^tKX," —Botton Gazette. 
 
1 
 
 PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS dr* CO., CHICAGO. 
 
 THE PILOT AND HIS WIFE.-By Jonas Lie. Translated from 
 the Norse by Mks. Olb Bull. l£mo, Cloth. 81. CO. 
 
 "The book nbounds in ;i rare poetic force." — The Nat'on, 
 
 "Lie is a noYelist of very marked genius." — North American Review, 
 
 "It opens to English readers new and vivid fields of romance." — Hartford Post, 
 
 "It fascinates the attention and moves the feelings with a strange power, and 
 when the bu.ik is finished it is easy to realize that we have been under the spell of a 
 xt\.SL^\.^x ." — Appleton' s yournal. 
 
 "In manner, plot and treatment, it is so totally different from all other writings 
 as to excite the liveliest interest. * * Lie is a writer of marked peculiarities and 
 rare genius. His dramatic powers are intense, but his presentations of the passions 
 and inspirations, the workings of heart, and the struggles of soul, are more vivid and 
 striking still. * * The beauty and poetry of the novel is found in the literary 
 workmanship which gives us the character of 'Elizabeth.' It. is essentially an orig- 
 inal character, and a pure and noble conception." — Sacramento Daily Union. 
 
 "It is a remarkably attractive book. * * Some of the characters nre exqui- 
 sitely drawn, notably those of the pilot and his wife B^lizfoeth. The latter is a 
 delightful creature. The reader cannot but be struck by the intense power with 
 which the author manages the pathetic incidents of his story, and with the natural- 
 ness that pervades the whole. The artistic workmanship will strike every person of 
 thought and culture, while the vivid descriptions in the more exciting portions will 
 fully absorb the attention of those who read only for amusement. There is a fresh- 
 Xi'-.. -ind originality in the book, an out-door flavor and breeziness, that cannot fail 
 to will for it a high degree of favor. ' — Boston Gazette, 
 
 PETERSON'S NORWEGIAN -DANISH GRAMMAR 
 
 AND READER. — With a Vocabulary, designed for American Students of tl\c 
 Norwegian- Danish Language. By Rev. C. I. P. Peterson, Professor of Scandina* 
 vian Literature. 13mo, Cloth, f 1.26. 
 
 "I may say that I have myself read through the Norwegian-Danish Grammar 
 of Peterson, and when I affirm that I find myself able to translate the reading exer- 
 cise.s >vith great readiness, it may be inferred how well the book is adapted to for- 
 ward one in a knowledge of this interesting but neglected language." — A. Wincheli, 
 LL.D. Professor in Vanderbilt University, late Chancellor of the University oj 
 ^racuse. 
 
 "I rejoice to ..ee the door opened to American Students to the treasures of Nor- 
 wegian letters, and in so attractive a manner as in Mr. Peterson's work. No more 
 useful direction for philological study opens to English scholars now than the re- 
 search into Anglo-Saxon and Norse Northern tongues. This work will bi.- surely a 
 valuable help in this direction." — Prof. Frank Sewell, President t(f Urbttna Uni' 
 versity. 
 
PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS S^ CO., CHICAGU. 
 
 L'tH 
 
 i! 
 
 i' 
 
 r; ' *' 
 
 Price, I vol.^ lamo., Cloth $2 
 
 The same, gilt edges 2 50 
 
 GETTING ON IN THE WORLD; or, Hints on Suc- 
 cess in Life.— B> Wm. Mathews, LL.D., Professor of English Literature^ 
 etc., in the University of Chicago. Beautifully printed and handsomely bound. 
 
 Half calf binding, gilt top $3 50 
 
 Full calf, gilt edges 5 cx> 
 
 Contents : — Success and Failure — Good and Bad Luck — Choice 0/ a Pro- 
 
 /etsion — Physical Culture — Concentration — Self- Reliance — Originility in 
 
 Aims and Methods — Attention to Details — Practical Talent — Decision — 
 
 Manner — Business Habits — Self-Advertising — The Will and the Way — 
 
 Reserved Power — Economy 0/ Time — Money y its Use and Abuse — Mercantile 
 
 Failures — Over- Work and Under-Rest — True and False Success. 
 
 '^ A book in the highest degree attractive, * * and which will be sure to/d,^ 
 in dollars and cents many times over the cost of the work, and the time devoted 
 to its perusal." — Lockport Journal^ New li'ork. 
 
 " It is sound, morally and mentally. It gives no one-sided view of life ; it does 
 not pander to the lower nature ; but it is high-toned, correctly toned throughout. 
 * * There is an earnestness and even eloquence in this volume which makes 
 the author appear to speak to us from the living page. It reads like a speech. 
 There is an electric fire about every sentence." — Episcopal Register y Philadelphia. 
 
 ''^ There is no danger of speaking in too high terms of praise of this volume. 
 As a work of art it is a gem. As a counselor it speaks the wisdom of the ages. As a 
 teacher it illustrates the true philosophy of life by the experience of eminent men of 
 every class and calling. It warns by the story of signal failures, and encourages by 
 the record uf triumphs that seemed impossible. It is a book of facts and not of 
 theories. The men who have succeeded in life are laid under tribute, and made to 
 divulge the secret of their success. They give vastly more than ' hints ;' they 
 make a revelation. They show that success lies not in luck, but in pluck. 
 Instruction and inspiration ar« the chief features of the work which Prof. Mathews 
 has done in this volume," — Christian Era, Boston. 
 
 THE GREAT CONVERSERS, and Other Essays.- 
 
 By Wm. Mathews, LL.D., author of " Getting On in the World." 
 
 I volume, i2mo., 306 pages, with Map, price $1 75 
 
 "As fascinating as anything in fiction." — Concord Monitor. 
 
 " These pages are crammed with interesting facts about literary men and lite< 
 rary work." — New York Evening Mail, 
 
 "They are written in that charming and graceful style, which is so attractive 
 in this author's writings, and the reader is continually reminded by their ease and 
 grace of the elegant compositions of Goldsmith and Irving." — Boston Transcript, 
 
 " Twenty essays, all treating lively and agreeable themes, and in the easy, 
 polished and sparkling style that has made the author famous as an essayist. * * 
 The most striking characteristic of Prof. Mathew!:* writing is its wonderful wealth 
 of illustratifln. * * One will make the acquaintance of more authors in the 
 course of a single one of his essays than are probably to be met with in the same 
 limited space anywhere else in the whole realm of our literature." — The Chicago 
 Tribune. 
 
PUBLISHED By S. C. GRIGGS &> CO., CHICAGO. 
 
 WORDS ; THEIR USE AND ABUSE, By Prof. Wm. Mathews. 
 Aiilhor of "Getting on in the World," "1 he Great Conversers," Etc., #2 00. 
 
 *»A book of rare Interest.'*— ^ro^A/j-w Eaglt. 
 "Every page sparkles with literary gems." — The Interior. 
 "An interesting, well-written and instructive soXyxia^." —Indtpendent^ N. Y. 
 "Every literary man and woman should read it.'* — Sunday Times, N. Y, 
 "A valuable companion for writers, talkers and people generally."— ^c;^/^^ 
 yifurnai. 
 
 "Although written for popular reading, they are scholarly and instructive, and 
 in a very high degree entertaining. No one can turn to a single pagw of the book with- 
 out finding something worth reading and worth remembering. It is a book both for 
 Mbraries and general r'^ading, as scholars will not disdain its many valuable illustra- 
 ions, while the rising writer will find in it a perfect wealth of rules and suggestions 
 to help him form a good style of expression." — Publishers' IVeehfy, New York. 
 
 "To this large class, (the great body of our people in every rank, occupation 
 and profession) it will prove a most entertaining recreation and useful study. Young 
 men in higher schools, academies and colleges will also find it a useful and helpful 
 guide, which will not only save them from committing vulgar solecisms and awkward 
 verbal improprieties, but from contracting vicious habits that will stick to them, if 
 once suffered to be formed, like the shirt of Nessus."— CArtr/iaw Intelligencer, New 
 York. 
 
 "The final chapter on 'Common Improprieties of Speech' should be pnntea in 
 tract form. . , . We should like to put a copy of this book into the hands of every 
 man and woman iNho IS using or intends to use, our good old Anglo-Saxon with 
 voice or pen for any public service. It is a text book, full of information, and con- 
 tains hints, rules, criticisms and illustrations, which authenticate their own value."^ 
 Christian at Work, New York 
 
 TWO YEARS IN CALIFORNIA, By Mary Cone. With 15 f.ne 
 engravings, a map of California, and a plan of the Yosemite Valley. Cloth |1.75 
 
 "One of the most reliable and authentic works on California yet issued."— 5»«<^ 
 day Times, New York. 
 
 "One of the best descriptions of the Golden State that has met our eye, . . 
 unbiassed, impartial, and intelligent," — Christian at Work, New York. 
 
 "This is a book of absorbing interest. . . No description can do justice to 
 it. Every page deserves to be read and studied." — Albany yournal, 
 
 "It would be difficult to compress within the same limits more really valuable 
 information on the subject treated than is here given."— iW^rwi**^ Star^ Boston. 
 
 "Will be of much value to every one who contemplates either visiting or emi- 
 garting to California."— AVw York Evening Mail, 
 
PUBLISHED BY S.C GRIGGS <Sr* CO., CHICAGO. 
 
 PRE-HISTORIC RACES OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 By J. W. Foster, LL.D., Author of " The Physical Geography of the Mississippi 
 Valley,*' etc. 415 pages, crown 8vo, with a large number of illustrations. 
 
 Price, cloth $3 50 
 
 Half calf binding, gilt top 600 
 
 Full calf, gilt edges 7 50 
 
 " One of the best and clearest accounts wc have seen of those grand monument! 
 of a forgotten race." — London Saturday Review. 
 
 " The reader will find it more fascinating than his last favorite novel." — 
 Eclectic Magazine, N. 1'. 
 
 " The book is literally crowded with astonishing and valuable facts."— 
 Boston Post, 
 
 " it is an elegant volume and a valuable contribution to the subject. * * * 
 Contains just the kind of information in cleur, compressed and intelligible form, 
 which is adapted to the mass of readers."— ^///^/^m'j Popular Science Monthly. 
 
 " The book is typographically perfect, and with its admirable illustrations and 
 convenient index is really elegant and a sort of luxury to possess and read. * * 
 Dr. Foster's style reminds us of Tyndall and Proctor, at their best. * * He 
 goes over the ground, inch by inch, and accumulates information of surprising 
 jnterest and importance, bearing on this subject, which he gives in his crowded but 
 most instructive and entertaining chapters in a thoroughly scientific but equally 
 popular way. We have marked whole pages of his book for quotation, and finally 
 from sheer necessity have been compelled to put the wh"'e volume in quotation 
 marks, as &ne of the few books that are indispensable to the student, and scarcely 
 less important for the intelligent reader to have at hmnd for reference." — Golden 
 Age^ Ntw York. 
 
 A MANUAL OF GESTURE.- With over 100 Figures, 
 embracing a complete system of Notation, with the Principles of Interpretation 
 and Selections for Practice. By Prof. A. M. Bacon. 
 
 Price $1 75 
 
 " Prof, Bacon has given us a work that, in thoroughness and practical value, 
 deserves to rank among the most remarkable books of the season. There has in 
 'fact, been no work on the subject yet offered to the public which approaches it for 
 exhaustivenesB and completeness of detail. * * It is of the utmost value, 
 not merely to students, but to lawyers, clergymen, teachers, and public speakers, 
 and its importance as an assistant in the formation of a correct and appropriate 
 style of action can hardly be over-sstiraated." — The Philadelphia Inquirer. 
 
 " Prof. Bacon's Manual seems expressly arranged for the help of those w4io 
 study alone and have undertaken self-instruction in the art of persuasive delivery. 
 The work in the hands of our ministry, well studied, would have the effect of 
 emphasizing the living words of the Gospel all over the land, and making them 
 two-«dged with meaning."— Tlif Chicago Pulpit. 
 
PUBLISHED BY S. C. GRIGGS &* CO., CHICAGO. 
 
 ROBERT'S RULES OF ORDER, For Deliberative Assemblies.— 
 By Major H. M. Robert, Corps of Engineers, U. S. A. Pocket size, cloth, 76 cents. 
 
 This book is far superior to any other parliamentary manual in the English 
 language. It gives in the simplest form possible all the various rules or points of 
 law or order that can arise in the deliberations of any lodge, grange, debating 
 club, literary society, convention, or other organized body, and every rule is com- 
 plete in itself, and as easily found as a word in a dictionary. Its crowning excel* 
 lence is a "Table of Rules relating to Motions," on two opposite pages which 
 contains the answers to more than two hundred questions on parliamentary law, 
 which will be of the greatest value to every member of an assembly. 
 
 " It should be studied by all who wish to l»ccome familiar with the correct 
 usages of public meetings."— £. O, Haven, D. D., Chancellor o/ Syracuse Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 " It seems much better adapted to the use of societies and assemblies than 
 either Jefferson's Msnual or Cushing's."— 7". M. Gregory, LL. D., late President 
 of the Illinois Industrial University, 
 
 " I shall be very glad to see your Manual brought into general use, as I am 
 sure it must be, when its great merit and utility become generally known. — Hon. f, 
 M. Cooley, LL. D , author of ' Cooley's Blackstone,' " etc. 
 
 " After carefully examining it and comparing it with several other books having 
 the same object in view, I am free to say that it is, by far, the best of all. The 
 'Table of Rules ' is worth the cost of the vforli."— Thomas Bounnan, D. Z7., 
 Bishop of Baltimore M. E. Conference. 
 
 " This capital little manual will be found exceedingly useful by all who are 
 concerned in the organization or management of societies of various kinds. . , . 
 If we mistake not, the book will displace all its predecessors, as an authority on 
 parliamentary usages."— JVi'w York World, 
 
 "I admire the plan of your work, and the sir plicity and fidelity with which 
 you have executed it. It is one of the best compendiums of Parliamentary Law 
 that I have seen, and exceedingly valuable, not only for the matter usually 
 embraced in such a book, but for its tables and incidental matter, which serve 
 greatly to adapt it to common use."— i?r. D. C. Eddy, Speaker of the MastachU' 
 setts House of Representatives . 
 
 MISHAPS OF MR. EZEKIEL PELTER.-IHustrated. 
 
 Wmo, cloth 81.50. 
 
 " So ludicrou* are the vicissitudes of the much-abused Ezekiel, and so much of 
 human nature and every day life intermingle, that it will be read with a hearty zest 
 for its morals, while the humor is irresistible. If you want to laugh at something 
 new, a regular side-plitter, get this book."— 7%* Evangelist, St. Louis. 
 
 " We have reati Ezekiel. We have laughed and cried over its pages It grows 
 in interest to the last sentence. The story is well told, and the mora! ao good, that 
 we decidedly like and commend it.'*— Pacific Baptist, San Franciteo. 
 
PUBLISHED BY S. C. CK/GGS ^ CO., Clf/CAGO. 
 
 m 
 
 PmLOSOPHY OF THE PLAN OF SALVATION.- 
 
 By Rev. J. B, Walkkr, D.D., with an Introductory Essay by Calvin E. Stowk, 
 D.n. A new edition, with supplementary chapter by the a thor. Sixty-seventh 
 thousand, i vol. nmo. Price, $1.50. 
 
 " Though written with great simplicity, it is evidently the production of a 
 mastermind. ♦ * and few works are more adapted to bring skeptics of a certain 
 class to a stand. ♦ * It is the disclosure of the actual process of mind through 
 wHich the author passes, from the dark regions of do«bt and infidelity to the clear 
 light and conviction of a sound and heartfelt belief of the truth as it is in Jesus. 
 
 '^ There is in many parts of this treatise, a force of argument and a power of 
 conviction almost resistless. 
 
 " It is a work of extraordinary power. * * We think it is utore likely to 
 lod^ an impression in the human conscience, ifi favor 0/ the divine authority 
 0/ Christianity, than any work of the modern press." — London Evangelical 
 Magazine, England, 
 
 '^ No single volume we ever read has been so sati: factory a demonstration of 
 the truth of religion, or has had so strong a controlling influence over our habits 
 of thought. • * No better book can be put into the hands of the honest and 
 intellectual skeptic. It is overwhelmingly convincing to reason, and leaves the 
 doubter nothing but his passions and prejudices to bolster him up. • * Every 
 minister's library should have a copy." — The Methodist Protestant., Baltimore. 
 
 *' It fills a place in theological literature which no other book does. It is the 
 style of the argument which gives power, impress iveness, and perennial freshness 
 to this production. * * We have found in pastoral experience that we could 
 place no better uninspired book than this in the hands of intelligent doubters, or 
 in the hands of new converts, for their aid and guidance. Those who are not 
 famil'ar with it, will do well to procure a copy and study it carefully. It is worth 
 more than some large libraries to those who read for their profiting.^' — The Christ- 
 ian at Work., New York. 
 
 THE DOCTRINE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT; Or Phil- 
 osophy of the Divine Operation in the Redemption 
 
 of Man* — Being volume second of" The Philosophy of the Plan of Salvation." 
 By Rev. J. B. Walker, D.D. Fourth edition, revised and enlarged. Price, 
 $1.50. 
 
 " The author's former able works have prepared the public for the rich treas- 
 ures of thought in this volume. It ii a book of foundation principles, and deals in 
 the verities of the gospel as with scientific facts. It is an unanswerable argument 
 in behalf of Christ^s life, mission, and doctrine, and especially rich in its teachings 
 concerning the office and work of the Spirit. No volume has lately issued from the 
 press which brings so many timely truths to the public attention. While it is 
 metaphysical and thorough, it is also clever, forceful, winning for its grand truth's 
 sake, and every way readable. The author has wrought a great work for the 
 Christian Church, and every minister and teacher should arm himself with 
 strong weapons by perusing the arguments of this book. It is printed and bound 
 in the exquisite style ofall publications which issue from Messrs. S. C. Griggs & Co.'s 
 csublishment."— ^//Ao</tf / Recorder ^ Pittsburgh,