page 51 Eirik the Red, his family, supporters and descendants - Grcenlendinga Saga {ca. 1190) and Eirik's Saga {ca. 1260). Generally I have preferred the versions in Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson, trans.. The Vinland Sagas (New York: Penguin Books, 1965). Grcenlendinga Saga also appears in the Heimskringla, Part One, vol. 1, sec. 3, as The Tale of the Greenlanders (pp. 100-116).
page 56 The Vinland Sagas say only that Eirik and his father were outlawed "because of some killings."
page 56 Footnote on the advent of King Olaf Trygvesson - Before Olaf came King Hakon Jarl, but he plays little role in this story.
page 56 Eyvind Kellda's death - Heimskringla, Part One: Olaf Sagas, LXX (pp. 59^0).
Wearing the Blue Shirt
page 57 Heimskringla epigraph - Olaf Sagas, v.i, 3.LXVII.
page 60 Floxi from Sodor, on Snaefellsness - The Book of the Settlements of Iceland, pp. 4-5.
page 62 The marriage of Eirik and Thjodhild - Here I must quote another source which sheds light on the customs of the country: "There are no singles bars in Iceland," says an article called "The Visitor's Reykjavik" in the tourist monthly Around Reykjavik (8 June-8 July 1987), "but a single man can go everywhere.
and so can unescorted ladies, and they do, mainly in groups of two or three." One must be in front of the Europa Diskotek at midnight to apprehend it: -all these blond young men in suits getting out of taxis and going round to the entrance to stand in the fog and rain, waiting for other Icelanders to leave so that they could enter (although there were many other things they could have done, such as ordering a hamborgarar on a sesame seed bun, or maybe even an Eskimoaflippl), and they stayed and stayed while the music roared and the lights winked steadily behind the bhnds and cars splashed down the streets past the cubical white buildings in the white fog, and the blond men were silent.
page 68 "The world holds nothing that can be had without a struggle" - Words of Odin the High One.
page 73 Epigraph on an axe and blue clothes - HrafnkeVs Saga and Other Stories, trans. Hermann Palsson (Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1970), p. 42.
page 73 Footnote on blue shirts - Footnote in ibid., p. 25.
page 75 Details on the Thing at Thorsness - William Morris and Eirikr Magnusson, trans., The Story of the Ere-Dwellers {Eyrbyggja Saga) (London: Bernard Quaritch, 1892), p. 54.
page 79 Footnote on Thorolf Butter - The Book of the Settlements of Iceland, p. 5. The same source gives an account of how Iceland got its present name: "The bay so abounded in fish, that by reason of the catch thereof they gave no heed to the gathering in of hay, so that all the Hve-stock perished in the winter. The following spring was rather cold; then Floki went up to the top of a high mountain and discovered north, beyond the mountain, a firth full of drift-ice; therefore they called the land 'Iceland,' and so it has been called since then."
page 79 "The Land is wonderfull mountainous" - Edward Pellham, 1631 (see citation for "Further History of the Greenland Skraelings", page 401 below).
page 81 "no Skraelings then to harry anybody" - Quite likely because the Dorset culture had died out and the Thule culture had not arrived on the scene (see Chronology). However, even then the Norse had discovered native artifacts. Cf Ari the Learned, Islendingabok {The Book of the Icelanders), vol. 1, trans. Halldor Hermannsson (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Library, 1930), p. 65.
page 82 Narrative of Ivar Bardsson - Bound with the Zeno ms. (cf epigraph for Seven Dreams) in a facing translation entitled The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers . . ., trans. Richard Henry Major, FSA (London: Printed for the Hakluyt Society, MDCCCLXXIII). The report of silver mines and white bears and the sailing directions also come from the Bardsson ms.
page 82 Extinction of the Norsemen in Greenland - It is important to reaHze here that no one is sure exactly what happened. Many sources insist that the Thule Inuit had nothing to do with it, although their reasonings are as specious as those of the dogmatists on the other side. See, for instance, Martina Magenau Jacobs and James B. Richardson III, editors, Arctic Life: Challenge to Survive (Pittsburgh: The Board of Trustees, Carnegie Institute, 1983), pp. 86-91.
The Hermaphrodite
page 85 This chapter was inspired by a Nunivak Eskimo tale which appears as "The Origin of Nunivak Island" in John Bierhorst, ed., The Red Swan: Myths and Tales of the American Indians (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976). According to Bierhorst, the tale was collected by Edward S. Curtis in his The North American Indian (1907-30), vol. 20. The Spirit Woman gives birth at the end to dogs or wolves, who give birth to humans.
page 87ff. Various seal-hunting and ice-walking techniques - Richard K. Nelson, Hunters of the Northern Ice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969).
page 90 The woman leaping and flying - Actually, a rehearsal at the San Francisco Ballet as choreographed by Mr. Alan Scofield (1987).
page 93 Spring and summer - Greenland and Baffin Island, spring-summer 1987.
page 100 Dr. Bruce disturbing the ivory gulls - From R. N. Rudnose Brown, DSc, A Naturalist at the Poles: The Life, Work and Voyages of Dr. W.S. Bruce, the Polar Explorer (London: Seeley, Service & Co., 1923), p. 74.
Brothers and Sisters
page 102 Epigraph - Anthony Fiala, Fighting the Polar Ice (New York: Doubleday, 1906), p. 294.
The Moon and the Sun
page 107 This chapter is based on a quarter-page account of an eastern Greenland Eskimo myth in M. Vahl et al, ed., Greenland, vol. ii (Copenhagen: A Reitzell, 1928). Boas gives a very similar Baffin Island tradition in his book The Central Eskimo (1888), repr. Bison Books (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1964), pp. 189-90. A shorter version still (provenance: Tuglik, Igloolik area, 1922) appears in Robert McGhee, Canadian Arctic Prehistory (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co. / National Museum of Man, National Museums of Canada, 1978), p. 1.
page 107 Justina epigraph - Rockwell Kent's Greenland Journal (New York: Ivan Obolensky, 1962), entry for the Saturday before Christmas, 1931.
page 107 Spoiled Eskimo girls epigraph - Martin Lindsay (Royal Scots Fusiliers), Those Greenland Days (London: Blackwood, 1932), p. 117.
page 109 Hinton footnote - C. Howard Hinton, MA, The Fourth Dimension (London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1906), p. 74. I have been told, rightly or wrongly I do not know, that this book has driven several mathematicians mad.
Wearing the White-Shirt
page 112 The tale of Bjorn the Crusader and the Skraeling children is mentioned in Vahl and elsewhere, but I have not been able to find the original source.
Dressmakers' Patterns
page 128 Welzl epigraph - The Quest for Polar Treasures, p. 243.
GuDRiD THE Fair
page 131 Gudrun (wife of Orm Lyrgia), called the Lunde-Sun - The Olaf Sagas, vol. 1, I.LIII (p. 47).
page 136 Gudrid and the Prophetess - Eirik's Saga, pp. 81-3. All citations of this saga refer to the translation given in Magnusson and Palsson's The Vinland Sagas (listed above).
page 138 There were two kinds of witchcraft known to the Norse: Guldr, or singing-sorcery such as Thorbjorg the Prophetess practices, and Seid, or necromancy, taught by the goddess Freyja. Almost nothing is now known of either.
page 143 Thorgunna and Leif- Eirik's Saga, pp. 84-5. No description of Thorgunna is given here, but in the Erbyggja Saga a vivid picture is drawn of her in later hfe. It is there that her weird death and its aftermath are recorded. I have drawn the young Thorgunna from a redhead of my acquaintance; the old Thorgunna is modeled after a redheaded corpse at the hospital.
The Land of the Counterfeiters
page 153 Skelton-Marston-Painter epigraph - The Vinland Map and the Tartar Relation, p. 197.
page 157 Grimhild and Thorstein as zombies - "Some authors have concluded that the macabre description of the deaths of Thorstein and Sigrid [Grimhild is called Sigrid in Eirik's Saga] are the results of the vivid and superstition-ridden imaginations of the saga writers; but this is probably not the case," says Farley Mowat in his book Westviking: The Ancient Norse in Greenland and N
orth America (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1965), pp. 176-7. "There are a number of diseases which could have produced the effects recorded in the saga. Epidemic cerebro-spinal meningitis and typhus fever are two of them. Victims of both these diseases have been known to sink into a penultimate coma, which, to any observer except a trained physician, seems like death . . . Whatever the disease may have been, that long dark winter in Lysufjord when people sickened and died in the cold, crowded and filthy sod-walled houses must have represented an eternity in hell to Gudrid and to the rest who survived it."
Freydis Eiriksdaughter
page 162 Epigraph - Edward Pellham, 1631 (see citation for "Further History of. the Greenland Skraelings", page 401 below).
page 162 Effects of the wolf's heart - Heimskringla, Part Two, pp. 32-3. (Already cited for Ingjald the Evil-Worker.)
page 166 King Swegde and the dwarf- ibid., l.XV, p. 16.
page 166 Freydis and the Skraelings - It is actually unlikely that Freydis would have seen any Inuit, since even as late as the mid-thirteenth century the Greenland priest Halldor thought it news to write to the priest Arnold that some trees had been found cut with small axes, presumably by Skraelings.
page 166 Dwarfish Norsemen - Vahl et al, p. 414.
page 169 Day-Spring in Jotunheim epigraph - Adapted from "Fjolsvinnsmal" in The Elder or Poetic Edda, Commonly Known as Scemund's Edda, Part I: The Mythological Poems, trans. Olive Bray (London: Viking Club Translation Series, vol. ii, 1908), p. 163. (NOTE: As I use several translations of the Edda, the translator of each version is always indicated in these Source Notes [e.g.. Bray, The Elder or Poetic Edda]. Some phrases in this section are indebted to the Speculum Regale.)
page 184 Blue-Shirt's fortifications - Partially inspired by a description of medieval defenses in the Speculum Regale.
page 185 Words of ODIN the High One - Adapted from "Havamal" in Bray, The Elder or Poetic Edda, p. 61.
page 188 Lindsay epigraph - p. 129.
Ships and Coffins
page 189 Butler epigraph - Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872) (New York: Lancer/
Magnum, 1968), pp. 260-1. page 189 Welzl epigraph - op. cit., p. 51. page 189 King Harald Fairhair and Snaefrid - Heimskringla, Part Two, 3.XXV,
pp. 69-70. page 195 Story of Queen Sigrid the Haughty - Appears in various places in the
Saga of King Olaf Trygvesson.
The Voyage to Vinland
page 206 An excellent reference on the plants of Baffin Island is A. E. Porsild, Illustrated Flora of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, 2nd ed. (1964).
page 213 The description of the country is based on a journey through western Newfoundland, from Port-au-Basques in the south to L'Anse-aux-Meadows at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula.
Wineland the Good
page 215 The description of the country here is based on a journey through southern Nova Scotia. The more dismal northerly descriptions of Vinland were written in the Cape Breton Highlands. Freydis's visit to the Person KlusKAP took place near Cape Split.
page 216 Joyful trees - Speculum Regale, V.90.
page 219 ODIN footnote - Bray, Poetic Edda, p. 73.
page 221 King Olaf Trygvesson's skill at diving - Laxdcela Saga {ca. 1245), trans.
Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Palsson (Baltimore: Penguin, 1969), ch. 40
(pp. 144-5). page 222 The longest dive of King Olaf Trygvesson - Heimskringla, Part One: Olaf
Sagas, vol. 1, I.CXIX-CXXII (pp. 95-8).
Wearing the ICE-SfflRT
page 226 Tears of Killer-Glum - The Saga of Viga Glum, trans. Alan Boucher
(Reykjavik: Icelandic Review Saga Series, 1986), p. 34. page 227 Vinland treescape - Muir Woods, on Mount Tamalpais, California,
1981-8. page 229 AM 73846 'Okunnur listamathur - Arni Magnusson Institute, Reykjavik.
Skins for Milk
page 232 Alternative identification of the Skraelings - Mowat suggests (op. cit., Appendix H, pp. 372-83: "The Vanished Dorsets") that at least some of the Skraelings might well have been not Micmac or Beothuk, but Dorset Eskimos, in which case the Norse identification of Greenland Skraelings with Vinland Skraelings would have been highly justifiable. Because there is also evidence on the other side, I have preferred to imagine that the two kinds of Skraelings were very different, that the main point they held in common was the Norsemen's sweeping inclusion of them into a single inferior race.
page 243 Micmac words - Rev. Silas Tertius Rand, DD, DCL, LLD, Dictionary of the Language of the Micmac Indians, who reside in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Cape Breton and Newfoundland (Halifax: Nova Scotia Printing Co., 1888). Rand was a missionary among the Micmac, and did a great deal to preserve their stories and language. This Dictionary is only the smaller, English-Micmac portion of the record; Rand notes sadly, but without surprise, that the government refused to pay for the printing of the Micmac-EngHsh part. - The Reverend was an admirable man, for he wrote (p. iii): "A dictionary is defective which omits a single word."
page 243 Footnote on the word "Micmac" - Ruth Holmes Whitehead and Harold McGee, The Micmac: How Their Ancestors Lived Five Hundred Years Ago (Halifax: Nimbus Publishing Ltd., 1983), p. 1. I have also made use of this book (p. 7) in my discussion of Plant Persons, in this section and the next.
page 243 The Jenuaq - It is interesting to learn that (in Rand, at least) these demons were supposed to kill with their terrible voices. But Ruth Holmes Whitehead, Assistant Curator in History at the Nova Scotia Museum, says that the word Jenu "does NOT mean 'Northern Devil, Demon or men.' A Jenu is a human
who has been transformed (probably by fat deprivation in winter). These people become psychotic and kill and eat other humans. They can be cured by drinking fat and being thawed out" (letter to the author, 29 March 1988). The resemblance to berserkers is interesting.
page 245 Footnote on the tallness of the Beothuk - Mowat, op. cit., p. 460.
page 245 Power (and Micmac metaphysical culture generally) - An informative and most prettily written essay is Ruth Holmes Whitehead's "I Have Lived Here Since the World Began: Atlantic Coast Artistic Traditions" in comp., The Spirit Sings: Artistic Traditions of Canada's First Peoples (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart/Glenbow Museum, 1987).
page 245 Dreaming of Bad Days on the derivation of Porcupine People - Actually the Micmac were called Porcupine People because of their skilled quillwork with porcupine.
page 245 Panthers - though so-called in many sources, were probably cougars.
page 247 Freydis and the moose nose - "Give her a moose's nose," advised Whitehead (letter to the author, 15 April 1988): "This is a great dehcacy, and would be 'a delicate mark of respect to the late crone,' to quote Marie Conway Demler, the famous S.C. novelist."
page 249 The other Gudrid - "The woman who came to the door of Gudrid's hut was said to have had large, light-colored eyes and chestnut-colored hair, and to have worn something which resembled a black Norse kirtle," says Mowat (op. cit., pp. 459-60). "... The only authentic portraits of Beothuk Indians which we possess are of two women, Mary March (Demasduit) and Shanawdithit, who were captured and brought to St. John's in the early part of the nineteenth century. By far the most salient feature of both women according to their portraits, which were drawn from life, is their remarkably large, wide eyes ... As for the chestnut-colored hair, it was normal practice for the Beothuks to dress their hair with powdered red ochre mixed with fat . . . The kirtle is also indicative of Beothuks." But Whitehead says categorically: "She is NOT a native american of any sort. She is a Norse "fetch," a doppelganger . . . There are not two Beothuk portraits. There is only the one miniature on ivory of Demasduwit, painted by Lady Hamilton, which was the basis for all other copies . . . Ingeborg Marshall has done some great detective work to show this is the case . . . The kirtle is NOT indicative of the Beothuk . . . And half the world's population has large eyes" (letter to the author, 9 March 1988). So, as so often, I have felt free to do as I pleased.
AmORTORTAK AND KL
USKAP
page 255 Butler epigraph - op. cit., ch. 25 (p. 287).
page 257 In describing Micmac clothing, birchbark work, woodwork and quillwork,
I have made use of Whitehead's Elitekey: Micmac Material Culture from 1600 AD to
the Present (Halifax: The Nova Scotia Museum, 1980).
page 259 Landscape seen by the travelers - Memories of New Hampshire around Lake Winnipesauke, 1967-73.
page 260 "The Four Wishes" is based on a Micmac tale (originally collected by Rand) appearing in Ella Elizabeth Clark, Indian Legends of Canada (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 1960), pp. 34-6, "Glooscap and his four visitors." I have conflated this tale with the tale of Kluskap, Kewkw and COOLPUJOT (Rand, pp. 232-7).
page 262 Dragons seen by the travelers - ActuAly jipijka'maq, or horned serpents.
Giants and Trees
page 278 Vala epigraph - " Voluspa" in Bray, The Elder or Poetic Edda, pp. 277-9.
page 279 Karlsefni's plan - Grcenlendinga Saga, ch. 7 (p. 66).
page 280 The two songs of Yggdrasil - Based on "Voluspa," stanza 19 in Lee M. Hollander, trans., The Poetic Edda, 2nd ed., rev. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1962), p. 4. Gudrid's song is nearest Hollander's translation.
page 282 The trees that rose into the clouds - Redwoods near Gualalla, Cahfornia.
page 283 The road to Hel - cf Hilda Roderick Ellis, The Road to Hel: A Study of the Conception of the Dead in Old Norse Literature (Cambridge, 1943).
page 286 The dead ODIN - For Snorri the gods were gods because they were the founders of Sweden. Near the beginning of the Heimskringla he says {Sagas of the Norse Kings, p. 14): "In his time all the gods died, and blood-sacrifices were made for them."
page 286 The song of Elf Candle - Adapted from the Lay of Vafthrudnir {ca. 1200), in Paul B. Taylor and W.H. Auden, trans., The Elder Edda: A Selection (New York: Random House, 1967), p. 44.
page 287 The topography and inhabitants of Jotunheim - From the Elder Edda, especially "Fjolsvinnsmal," "Vafthruthnismal," "Thrymsvitha," "Skirnismal." Many of the translated names in this section (such as "Strangle-the-Intruder") come from the Hollander version. Location of Jotunheim - Heimskringla, Part Two: Sagas of the Norse Kings, l.V.
The Ice-Shirt Page 44
