The Boundless Sea

by David Abulafia

  Most Icelanders were pagan during the first century of the island’s history; but there were also Christians who lived there, including many of the settlers and slaves who had come from Ireland. One Norse Christian was Ketill the Fool, so named because his pagan neighbours ridiculed his beliefs. He lived on Church Farm (Kirkjubœr), which had earlier been an Irish hermitage. The story went about that pagans could not live there, and after Ketill died a pagan arrived to occupy his farm. No sooner had he crossed the boundary than he fell dead.46 With the conversion of Iceland to Christianity in 1000, the gǫðar were not displaced; the landowners built their own churches, seeing them as private property in just the way their pagan shrines had also been their personal possessions. King Olaf of Norway knew that Iceland depended on trade with Scandinavia to keep itself fed, and he banned trade with the island so long as it remained staunchly pagan. This, as much as the longstanding presence of Christians on the island, prompted urgent discussion in the Alþing, where the winning argument was that the refusal of pagans and Christians to live together would destroy the entire community. The Alþing declared law; but there could only be one law. So it was agreed that baptism would be universal and compulsory, although individuals could still continue to worship the pagan gods privately; they could also carry on eating horsemeat, which was one of the few forbidden foods of the Catholic West. A bishop only arrived in the middle of the eleventh century, and until then the gǫðar retained religious functions, serving the new religion. As in other parts of the world, religious ideas moved across the sea and helped transform the societies they penetrated. That did not make the Icelanders more peaceful, as one can see from the tales of feuding and violence in the sagas, which hailed from a world that was, by now, Christian, but still well aware of its pagan past and still fascinated by the stories of the Norse gods.47

  The Faroes and Iceland are precocious examples of a phenomenon that would become widespread in the Atlantic by the end of the Middle Ages: the creation of a brand new society on uninhabited (or virtually uninhabited) islands. In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese became pioneers in exploiting virgin islands. Both the Scandinavians and the Portuguese brought into being societies that were in some respects similar to the mother country, but that all possessed very distinctive features – they were not clones of the Old World. The political structure of Iceland, built around the principle of local autonomy under powerful gǫðar, expressed a conscious rejection of royal interference; the islanders were trying to create an idealized society, based on the Norway they would have liked to inhabit, and perhaps imagined that their forebears had inhabited before royal power began to intrude into the fjords. Even so, they learned that an annual assembly and a common system of law was necessary to ensure a degree of order among communities riven by feuding and competition for territory. Although they were proud of their autonomy, the Icelanders were also obsessed by the history of the Norse ancestors, to the point where they celebrated Viking raiders and their pagan cult, long after Iceland had accepted Christianity. They told tales about the Norwegian kings and their mental horizons extended as far as Constantinople, Spain and the Baltic. As the next chapter will show, these mental horizons also extended westwards, right across the Atlantic Ocean.

  IV

  The sea provides a constant backdrop to many of the Icelandic sagas, whether they are concerned with events in Norway and Europe, or with the affairs of Iceland and the lands to the west. Since they were written down in the thirteenth century and after, the sagas tell us more about how Icelanders of the central and later Middle Ages viewed their relationship with the sea than they do about conditions at the time of the first settlement. One of the best-known sagas, Egil’s Saga, was written down in the early thirteenth century, and is full of tales of bloodthirsty treachery set alongside honourable displays of loyalty. Woven into its fabric are matter-of-fact accounts of conditions at sea as its main characters journeyed from Norway to Iceland, supposedly at the time when Harald Fairhair was imposing his will on the Norwegians, leading his opponents to seek their fortune in distant lands. Thus Kveldulf, a sea captain, dies on board his ship and his body is cast overboard in a coffin. The ship approaches Iceland with an accompanying vessel and enters a fjord, but before the crews can steer to land heavy rain and fog separate the two ships and they lose sight of one another. Then when the weather turns better they wait for the tide and float their ships upriver, beach their boats and unload their cargo. As they explore the shoreline they find Kveldulf’s coffin where it has washed ashore and place it under a mound of stones.48 This series of events, told to add local colour to a much bigger story of rivalries among the settlers, surely reflects the everyday experiences of travellers from Norway to Iceland.

  Notable too is a casual account of how a ship bound from Shetland to Iceland, with a crew of men who had not sailed the route before, was blown quickly across the ocean towards its destination, but was then caught by a contrary wind and sent westwards beyond the island.49 These contrary winds or dense fogs would, as will be seen, lead to some extraordinary discoveries in the waters to the west of Iceland. An image that must be from the thirteenth century shows how trading ships would arrive and be berthed in rivers, channels and streams.50 Another image, perhaps from earlier centuries, presents Egil as a Viking who goes plundering and killing as far away as the Baltic, along the coast of Courland, in present-day Latvia, though by the thirteenth century Scandinavians (mainly Danes and Swedes) were still raiding the Baltic coasts, now under the banner of crusades. Egil is said to have burned down the house of a prosperous Courland farmer who was drinking with his companions, and thought nothing, apparently, of killing all these people; he had, however, seized a treasure chest which turned out to be full of silver. After that he decamped to Denmark: ‘they all sailed to Denmark later that summer and sat in ambush for merchant ships, robbing wherever they could.’51 On another occasion, Egil visited the English king, Athelstan, who presented him with ‘a good merchant vessel, and a cargo to go with it. The bulk of the cargo was wheat and honey.’52 This and other Icelandic sagas are impregnated with the smell of the sea.

  Yet Iceland did not, at this period, possess any towns; nor did there exist a distinct group of merchants whose livelihood was derived solely from trade, even though those who raided also traded, sometimes to sell their plunder, and sometimes to make some profit on the side.53 Norway, it is true, possessed very few towns in the Viking period – the foundation of Niðaros on the site of present-day Trondheim was a deliberate royal act, providing an opportunity to detach the Church in Norway from the oversight of the see of Lund, which (though now part of Sweden) then lay in Danish territory. There were one or two trading stations, such as that at Kaupang, near Oslo, which was well situated for access to the silver and other fine items coming up through the rivers of eastern Europe in the early Viking age. By the thirteenth century, though, Bergen had become an important centre both of royal power and of North Sea trade, with 5,000–10,000 inhabitants, and it established itself as the major port for the Iceland trade.54 This trade had several peculiarities. The Icelanders did not mint coins, though they were happy to use hack silver. If you wanted to buy goods on the island, you normally resorted to barter. But as trade with Norway took off in the eleventh and twelfth centuries it became obvious that some sort of standard of value was needed. Since the major Icelandic product that was in demand in Scandinavia was the heavy woollen cloth known as vaðmal that is still the most prized export of the island, this was chosen. Vaðmal made up in warmth for what it lacked in softness. The ell, or ǫln, was adopted as the standard measurement of cloth; it is said to have been based on the length of the arm of King Henry I of England, from his elbow to his fingertips. Two ells made a yard. The Alþing decreed that all vaðmal woven in Iceland would be two ells broad; a piece of cloth measuring two ells by six counted as a ‘legal ounce’ of silver, though over time there were changes in ratios and different types of ells as well – the fundamental point is that t
he ‘money’ of early Iceland consisted of pieces of woven cloth. Documents sometimes speak of vaðmal cloth as a monetary unit, and sometimes as a physical article of trade.55 Overall, the system seems to have worked well – better, anyway, than having to depend on imported (or plundered) silver. Sheep were Iceland’s silver mines.

  Cargo ships of the knǫrr type found near Roskilde (Skuldelev I) could carry about three tons of vaðmal, thirty tons of fine meal grain or five tons of coarse unmilled barley, and grain was one of the European products that the Icelanders craved, for lack of suitable soil at home. The Icelanders were familiar with a variety of ships, operated increasingly by Norwegians rather than by islanders; after all, wood was in poor supply on the island, as was metal for nails and rivets and much else that was needed in shipbuilding. As well as the knǫrr they were visited by the búza, or buss, a ship with high gunwales that was better suited to rough seas, and that came into fashion in the early eleventh century; its high sides meant that there was a deeper hold, with more space for cargo, but its deeper draft, accentuated by its heavier cargo, made this type of ship slower and less well suited to the shallow waters in which the knǫrrs tied up. Still, the use of bigger ships shows that this trade was growing in value.56 Above all, this was entirely licit trade, in an age when piracy was rampant, and it took place under the protection of the king of Norway, who had his uses even for republican-minded Icelanders. Around 1022 the king of Norway entered into a commercial treaty with Iceland, to guarantee the arrival of woollen cloth in return for grain. Icelanders visiting Norway were to be granted the same privileges as free Norwegians; they could even take wood and water from the king’s forests; the interests of Norwegians visiting Iceland were also protected, for instance their property was to be kept safe if they died there. Admittedly, the Icelanders did have to pay quite heavy landing fees in Norway (in vaðmal should they so wish); but the king would not interfere even when they traded with third countries. This agreement remained in force for a couple of centuries, and its origins no doubt lay in an attempt by the king to demonstrate his authority over Iceland, though in the most benign way.57

  Providing grain to Iceland became less attractive as Norway’s population grew, and as its new towns placed pressure on food supplies. The English, who exported grain to Norway, came to the rescue; Egil’s going-away present from the king of England was, as has been seen, a boat loaded mainly with wheat.58 In 1189 a priest turned up in Bergen aboard a ship that had set out from England loaded with grain, wine and honey, and the intention was to sail on all the way to his native Iceland; but it turned out that the cargo had been stolen.59 Norway could obtain heavy cloth from many sources; the relationship with Iceland was vital to the islanders but hardly essential for Norway. However, there were other items that made it worthwhile to brave the seas on the route to Iceland (a route that could only be taken in the late spring and throughout the summer). Iceland was the only source of sulphur for northern Europe, and its falcons, along with those of Greenland, were in demand at the great courts of Europe.60 It has been suggested that polar bears sometimes arrived off Iceland on ice floes, were captured and were taken to Europe – the charming tale of the white bear that Auðun wanted to present to the king of Denmark will be examined shortly. Walrus tusks were probably brought from Greenland by this stage, since the Icelanders appear to have exterminated what walruses there were around the shores of the island within a few decades of their arrival. Since Iceland lacked reliable sources of iron, this was imported from, or by way of, Norway, along with all sorts of implements and articles of clothing.61

  The maritime route from Norway to Iceland formed part of a remarkable trading network that survived long after the Vikings had become a memory, though, as it was expressed in the Icelandic sagas, a very powerful one. For this network extended still further afield, however, right across the north Atlantic, all the way to the shores of North America.

  21

  White Bears, Whales and Walruses

  I

  Greenland is often described as the world’s biggest island.1 Geologically, though, it forms part of North America, and to include Baffin Island as one of the American discoveries of the Norse navigators, while excluding Greenland, is another example of what might portentously be called ‘the social construction of continents’. Even in the sixteenth century it was sometimes assumed that Greenland was somehow linked to Asia, which had already been the view of Adam of Bremen in the late eleventh century, while around 1300 an Icelandic geographer remarked that ‘some people think’ the American continent must in reality be part of Africa; Adam, on the other hand, took the view that it was part of Asia, a view that survived up to and beyond the days of Columbus and Cabot.2 This was hardly the issue that worried navigators, however. The seas that lap Greenland are as unsafe as the environment, dominated by a truly vast ice cap, is hostile and impenetrable. Only a small part of the island was suitable for settlement, and it is a tribute to the persistence of its first Norse explorers that they searched out the fjords that gave access to grasslands, even though they lay on the western flank of the island.

  To reach these distant lands in the types of ship that the Norse operated was a challenge of endurance: when Eirík the Red led the first settlers across the sea to Greenland in around 986, he set out from Iceland with a fleet of twenty-five ships, but only fourteen reached Greenland, some sinking and others having to turn back.3 Although an awning would be spread over the crew and passengers at night, space was tight in the hold, especially when it was as crowded with animals as it was with humans. The journey from Norway to the east coast of Iceland was estimated at seven days’ sailing, and from western Iceland to the Norse settlements in Greenland took four days, while from Iceland to Ireland was a five-day voyage. By the thirteenth century, Norse ships had discovered lands even further north than Iceland, reaching Jan Mayen Island and Spitsbergen (which lay four days’ travel north of Iceland), though these were not places the explorers tried to settle – the environment was too hostile. Another very hostile environment was the east coast of Greenland, even though it took a single day to reach it from the nearest point in Iceland. Once traffic was moving regularly towards Greenland, Norwegian captains also learned to bypass Iceland entirely, taking a course due west from a place in Norway called Hernar, and sailing straight on between Shetland and the Faroes, ‘so that the sea looks halfway up the mountainsides’, and then on to Greenland without calling at any ports in Iceland.4

  Judging from the sagas, Greenland was discovered by accident; bearing in mind stories of ships that were swept westwards by the winds, this makes perfect sense. Early in the tenth century a nephew of Naddoð, one of Iceland’s discoverers, named Gunnbjorn Ulf-Krakuson, was blown off course on a voyage from Norway to Iceland, and saw a group of skerries west of Iceland, together with a landmass beyond; it is now thought that what he actually saw was an Arctic mirage, but even if he did see Greenland he would have found its steep east coast extremely forbidding.5 Although he did not explore further, and was not interested in founding a settlement, Gunnbjorn’s family seem to have been proud enough of what he had achieved to continue to talk about the land that lay to the west; and in the 970s one settler in Gunnbjorn’s neighbourhood, Eirík the Red, clearly listened attentively to the story. Eirík and his father had been outlawed from Norway and had arrived in Iceland in the vain hope of obtaining the sort of broad estates that earlier Norse settlers had acquired. But by the time they reached the island the best land had long been occupied by the gǫðar and their followers.6 Eirík had killed one man in Norway, and before long he was sucked into feuds in Iceland. By 983 he was an outlaw there too; the sentence was for three years, but if he appeared in public any of his foes could attempt to kill him with impunity.

  Leaving Iceland was the obvious option and, since he required land, Eirík chose not the Norse lands in the British Isles but the far-off ice-bound land that Gunnbjorn had sighted. The east coast, with its towering ice-covered cliffs, was quit
e unsuitable for settlement. Many tales survive of Norse sailors washed up on this shore, some of whom were lucky enough to be found, some of whom tried to trek across country to the settlements but were defeated by the cold, their bodies being found and identified as much as fourteen years later. In one case wax tablets were also found on which a traveller from Bergen recorded how his journey to Iceland had gone awry.7 Eirík avoided these ‘unsettled wilds’, as they came to be known, and worked his way beyond the southern tip of Greenland, identifying two areas suitable for settlement: to the south, following watercourses away from the rocky coast, and navigating past islands teeming with bird life, he found the grassland of the so-called Eastern Settlement (though it might better have been called the Southern Settlement). Four hundred miles to the north he identified another area, much cooler, which he thought would make a good base for hunting expeditions, and this became known as the Western Settlement, and was always smaller than the main base further south. It is likely that he returned from this area laden with sealskins, walrus tusks and other polar prizes, all of which advertised the wealth that skilled hunters could draw from the region. The promise of the Eastern Settlement, with its green fields, led him to name the territory Greenland, ‘for he argued that men would be drawn to go there if the land had an attractive name’.8 It was not really dishonest to use the name Greenland, for the part he proposed to colonize was indeed green, and a global rise in temperatures made the land even greener. After three years he returned to Iceland, no longer an outlaw; a severe famine in 976 had demoralized the Icelanders, and, with his brightly painted oral prospectus for Greenland, he had little difficulty in recruiting somewhere around 400 settlers from Iceland.9