Main > The Round Table

Knight of the week

<< < (75/77) > >>

Sir John of Felsenbau:
                               .................continued from last page.

The Nicolsons of Lasswade were established in Midlothian for many generations and a knighthood was conferred in the 17th century.

Scorrybreac is the land that the clan occupied for 800 years, and was seat of the Clan MacNeacail chief until 1826.

Today members of Clan MacNeacail may show allegiance to their clan and chief by wearing a Scottish crest badge. This badge contains the chief's heraldic crest and heraldic motto.

During the 19th century the Clan was badly affected by the Highland Clearances in which many of the clansfolk were forced to emigrate from Scotland.

(As a side note, my great-grandmother was Mary Nicols, whose family emigrated from Scotland to Ireland and finally to England. Her son migrated to the US.)

(The last picture is me as a Nicols spearman.)

(To be continued)

Sir John of Felsenbau:
Lief Erickson and the Discovery of America
Erik Thorvaldsson (Old Norse: Eirīkr Þōrvaldsson; 950 – c. 1003), known as Erik the Red (Old Norse: Eirīkr hinn rauði), is remembered in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first Norse settlement in Greenland. The Icelandic tradition indicates that he was born in the Jæren district of Rogaland, Norway, as the son of Thorvald Asvaldsson, he therefore also appears, patronymically, as Erik Thorvaldsson (Eiríkr Þorvaldsson). The appellation "the Red" most likely refers to his hair color. Leif Ericson, the famous Icelandic explorer, was Erik's son.

Leif Ericson (Old Norse: Leifr Eiríksson; Icelandic: Leifur Eiríksson; Norwegian: Leiv Eiriksson c. 970 – c. 1020) was a Norse explorer regarded as the first European to land in North America (excluding Greenland), nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada.

Leif was the son of Erik the Red, an explorer from Western Norway and his wife Thjodhild, and the grandson of Thorvald Asvaldsson. Though Leif's birthplace is not accounted for in the sagas, it is likely he was born in Iceland, where his parents met—probably somewhere in Breiðafjörður, and possibly at the farm Haukadal where Thjodhild's family is said to have been based. Leif had two brothers, Thorstein and Thorvald, and a sister, Freydís.


Thorvald Asvaldsson was banished from Norway for manslaughter and went into exile in Iceland accompanied by young Erik. When Erik was himself banished from Iceland, he travelled further west to an area he named Greenland, where he established the first permanent settlement in 986. Tyrker, one of Erik's thralls, had been specially trusted to keep in charge of Erik's children, as Leif later referred to him as his "foster father".

In 1000, Leif was asked to captain his first voyage. This was to bring gifts to King Olaf in Norway. Many preparations were made and Leif was very excited. Leif took along a crew of 14 and his crew travelled from Greenland to Norway. Blown off course to the Hebrides and staying for much of the summer, he arrived in Norway and became a hirdman of King Olaf Tryggvason. The king was so impressed with Leif that he invited Leif to stay in Norway. Leif decided there was no reason to rush back home to Greenland, so he accepted the offer. While in Norway, he marveled at all the wonderful things and rested in the lap of luxury.

One day, while playing chess with Leif, King Olaf told him of how he used to also worship the gods Leif did. He also told him of how a plague had struck Norway and how many people had died. Then he told Leif of how he turned away from those gods and began to worship the living Christ. He was baptized along with thousands of Norwegians, and then the plague stopped. Leif, not being very faithful to the Viking gods, became very interested in Christianity. He finally agreed to be baptized and accept this new faith. On his return voyage, he brought along a priest to spread the Christian faith to Greenland.

The Saga of Erik the Red and the Saga of the Greenlanders, both thought to have been written around 1200, contain different accounts of the voyages to Vinland. According to the Saga of Erik the Red, Leif apparently saw Vinland for the first time after being blown off course on his way to introduce Christianity to Greenland. There he found "self-sown wheat fields and grapevines". He next rescued two men who were shipwrecked in this country, and went back to Greenland (and Christianized the people there). Consequently, if this is to be trusted, Bjarni Herjólfsson was the first European to see America beyond Greenland, and the two unnamed shipwrecked men were the first people known to Europeans to have made landfall there.

According to a literal interpretation of Einar Haugen's translation of the two sagas in the book Voyages To Vinland, Leif was not the first European to discover America, nor the first to make landfall there: he had heard the story of merchant Bjarni Herjólfsson who claimed to have sighted land to the west of Greenland after having been blown off course. Bjarni reportedly never made landfall there, however.

(To be continued)

Sir John of Felsenbau:
Leif Ericsson (continued)
The story and inspires Leif Ericsson to organize an expedition, which retraces in reverse the route Bjarni had followed. In 1001, Leif then approached Bjarni, purchased his ship, gathered a crew of thirty-five men, and mounted an expedition towards the land Bjarni had described. His father Erik was set to join him, but dropped out after he fell from his horse on his way to set sail, an incident he interpreted as a bad omen. Using the routes, landmarks, currents, rocks, and winds that Bjarni had described to him, Leif sailed some 1,800 miles to the New World with a crew of 35—sailing the same knarr Bjarni had used to make the voyage.  Leif followed Bjarni's route in reverse and landed first in a rocky and desolate place he named Helluland (Flat-Rock Land; possibly Baffin Island). He described Helluland as "level and wooded, with broad white beaches wherever they went and a gently sloping shoreline." After venturing further by sea, he landed the second time in a forested place he named Markland (Forest Land; possibly Labrador).

Finally, after two more days at sea, he landed in a place he named Vinland (Often translated Wineland but more correctly "Land with great grass fields"). There, he and his crew built a small settlement which was called Leifsbúdir (Leif's Booths) by later visitors from Greenland. Leif wintered in 1001 probably near Cape Bauld on the northern tip of Newfoundland, where one day his German foster father Tyrker was found drunk, on what the saga describes as "wine-berries." Squashberries, gooseberries, and cranberries all grew wild in the area. There are varying explanations for Leif apparently describing fermented berries as "wine."

After the houses were built, Leif sent out an exploration group to explore the land. After one of these expeditions the men had found grapes on this land. Leif ordered his men to load grapes and timber onto the boat, and then they settled in for the winter. But the winter here was very peculiar. No frost came to the grasses. They also noticed that the days and nights were of more equal length here.

(to be continued)

Sir John of Felsenbau:
Leif Ericsson  (continued)
When spring came and the men were ready to go, Leif gave this land a name, Vinland, which either means Wineland or Pastureland. We now know Leif's Vinland to be L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Leif returned to Greenland in the spring with a cargo of grapes and timber. On the return voyage, he rescued an Icelandic castaway and his crew, earning him the nickname "Leif the Lucky". Leif spent another winter at "Leifsbúðir" without conflict, and finally sailed back to Brattahlíð in Greenland. Surprisingly, few people ever returned to Vinland, only Leif's sister and a small group of settlers who were killed by Indians. Because of this, Europe remained almost totally in the dark about the discovery of this new world. The only references to it are in the Norse sagas where most of the information concerning Leif Erikson is recorded.

Leif was described as a wise, considerate, and strong man of striking appearance. During his stay in the Hebrides, he fell in love with noblewoman Thorgunna who gave birth to their son Thorgils. Thorgils was later sent to Leif in Greenland, but he did not become popular. After his first trip to Vinland, he returned to the family estate of Brattahlíð in Greenland, and started preaching Christianity to the Greenlanders. His father Erik reacted coldly to the suggestion that he should abandon his religion, while his mother Thjodhild quickly became a Christian and built a church called Thjodhild's Church. Leif is last mentioned alive in 1019, and by 1025 he had passed on his chieftaincy of Eiriksfjord to another son, Thorkell. Nothing is mentioned about his death in the sagas—he probably died in Greenland some time between these dates. Nothing further is known about his family beyond the succession of Thorkell as chieftain.

Leif's successful expedition in Vinland encouraged other Norsemen to also make the journey. In 1004, Leif's brother Thorvald Ericson sailed with a crew of 30 men to Newfoundland and spent the following winter at Leif's camp. The first apparent contact between the Norse and the indigenous people, so-called skrælingjar, was made by his brother Thorvald. In the spring, Thorvald attacked nine of the local people who were sleeping under three skin-covered canoes. The ninth victim escaped and soon came back to the Norse camp with a force. Thorvald was killed by an arrow that succeeded in passing through the barricade. Although brief hostilities ensued, the Norse explorers stayed another winter and left the following spring. Subsequently another of Leif's brothers, Thorstein, sailed to the New World to retrieve his dead brother's body, but he only stayed for one summer.

Settlements in continental North America aimed to exploit natural resources such as furs and in particular lumber, which was in short supply in Greenland. It is unclear why the short-term settlements did not become permanent, though it was in part because of hostile relations with the indigenous peoples, referred to as Skrælings by the Norse. Nevertheless, it appears that sporadic voyages to Markland for forages, timber, and trade with the locals could have lasted as long as 400 years.

(to be continued)

Sir John of Felsenbau:
Leif Ericsson  (continued)[/size]

In the end there were no permanent Norse settlements in Vinland, although sporadic voyages at least to Markland for forages, timber and trade possibly lasted for centuries. The casual tone of references to these areas may suggest that their discovery was not seen as particularly significant by contemporaries, or that it was assumed to be public knowledge, or both. It has been suggested that the knowledge of Vinland might have been maintained in European seaports in the 15th century, and that Christopher Columbus, who claimed in a letter to have visited Iceland in 1477, could have heard stories of it.

Stories of Leif's journey to North America had a profound effect on the identity and self-perception of later Nordic Americans and Nordic immigrants to the United States. The first statue of Leif was erected in Boston in 1887, as many believed that Vinland could have been located at Cape Cod.

In 1960 archaeological evidence of the only known Norse settlement in North America was found at L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland. This proved conclusively the Vikings' pre-Columbian discovery of North America.


INTERESTING VIKING FACTS
The drinking toast: SKOLL:
At the end of the battle, Viking warriors would decapitate the king or leader of the tribe/army they had just vanquished and that night would drink from his skull--spelled skoll--as a sign of respect for the fallen opponent. In battle, Vikings would urge each other forward by yelling "SKOLL" to one another. By doing so, they were telling each other to keep it up so they could drink from the skull of the Vanquished that night. Vikings drank out of skulls (not recently killed or extracted skulls, of course, but cleaned and carved-out skulls. They used wax to fill in the nose and eye and ear holes) At Viking victory celebrations, they drank draughts of their enemies’ blood out of drinking vessels fashioned from human skulls. The toast “Skoll!” is derived from this custom. "May we always drink from the skulls of our enemies! – Skoll!”

Know why Russia is so-named?
Yep, you guessed it, it was the Vikings! The name “Russia” is derivative of the word “Rus,” meaning Red. Many used this word as a name for the Norsemen, as their ruddy and blonde hair left quite an impression on many people of non-European descent. Because of early Norse travel deep into what would become Russia, their “name” came to be used to describe the land there.

Vikings are the cleanest people of the Ancient/Medieval world:
You may think of Vikings as dirty, Meade-swilling murderers, and while they may have been those latter two sometimes, they were actually about the cleanest people of the Ancient/Medieval world. Excavations of most every major Viking settlement reveal not only combs, but also tweezers, razors, mirrors, and various grooming “products” that were essentially primitive soaps. The Vikings bathed at least once a week, both for ritual and hygiene, and many likely washed themselves daily, which may seem expected these days, but come on, this was a while back, things were different!

(to be continued)

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page