Myths of the Rune Stone

by David M Krueger

  Myths of the Rune Stone

  Myths of the Rune Stone

  Viking Martyrs and the Birthplace of America

  David M. Krueger

  University of Minnesota Press

  Minneapolis London

  Portions of chapter 5 were previously published in David Krueger, “Vikings Read with Blood and Dead: Viking Martyrs and the Conquest of the American Frontier,” Claremont Journal of Religion (January 2012): 159–74.

  Copyright 2015 by the Regents of the University of Minnesota

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Published by the University of Minnesota Press

  111 Third Avenue South, Suite 290

  Minneapolis, MN 55401–2520

  http://www.upress.umn.edu

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Krueger, David M.

  Myths of the Rune Stone : Viking martyrs and the birthplace of America / David M. Krueger.

  Includes bibliographical references and index.

  ISBN 978-1-4529-4543-9

  1. Kensington Rune Stone. 2. Vikings—Minnesota—Legends. 3. Civil religion—Minnesota—History. 4. Community life—Minnesota—History. 5. Group identity—Minnesota—History. 6. Indians of North America—Minnesota—History. 7. Minnesota—Race relations—History. 8. Civil religion—United States. 9. Legends—Political aspects—United States. 10. Ethnicity—Political aspects—United States. I. Title.

  E105.K78 2015

  305.8009776—dc232015013268

  The University of Minnesota is an equal-opportunity educator and employer.

  This book is dedicated to

  John C. Raines

  professor, activist, mentor, friend

  Contents

  Preface

  Introduction: A Holy Mission to Minnesota

  1. Westward from Vinland: An Immigrant Saga by Hjalmar Holand

  2. Knutson’s Last Stand: Fabricating the First White Martyrs of the American West

  3. In Defense of Main Street: The Kensington Rune Stone as a Midwestern Plymouth Rock

  4. Our Lady of the Runestone and America’s Baptism with Catholic Blood

  5. Immortal Rock: Cold War Religion, Centennials, and the Return of the Skrælings

  Conclusion: The Enduring Legacy of American Viking Myths

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Bibliography

  Index

  Preface

  Farm kids have a special relationship with land and place. I grew up just a few miles from Alexandria, Minnesota. Encircling my childhood home are endless acres of corn and wheat fields lined by stands of oak and maple trees. As a child, I spent many summer days stacking hay bales on wagons pulled by my dad’s old Oliver tractor. On Sundays, my dad and I used to walk through the surrounding fields and woods and he would tell me stories about the hard work that went into tending the land. He told me how his dad had cleared hundreds of trees to make way for farming when he bought the land back in 1915. In the basement of our house, he showed me the yellowed paper deed that contained the record of who had owned the land over the years. At the top of the deed is the record of the first official exchange of land on October 1, 1867. It shifted ownership from the United States General Land Office to a homesteader named John Beaver.

  Locals have long been interested in the history of the region prior to white settlement in the mid-nineteenth century, but their curiosity typically had little to do with the earlier inhabitants who were known to have traversed these lands, including the Dakota, the Ojibwe, and the Winnebago. Alexandria, Minnesota, declares itself the birthplace of America—at least that is what it says on the shield of the twenty-eight-foot-tall Viking statue that greets tourists as they come into town. The audacious claim is supported by a Swedish immigrant’s discovery in 1898 of a stone tablet with runic letters and the date 1362. By the 1960s, the artifact was widely embraced as proof that Vikings had visited what was to become Minnesota long before the voyages of Christopher Columbus.

  By the 1970s and 1980s, when I grew up, confidence in the rune stone as an authentic medieval artifact had waned, but many continued to advocate it as a symbol of Scandinavian pride. Most of my ancestors hail from Sweden and the culinary delicacies of lefse (a potato-based flat bread) and lutefisk (don’t ask) made their annual appearance at the Christmas Eve meal. For my family, that was largely the extent of our ethnic devotion. I defined myself primarily in terms of my Christian faith and my American citizenship. Little did I know at the time, but interest in the Kensington Rune Stone during the twentieth century had extended far beyond ethnic concerns. A once-important element of the Kensington Rune Stone story was the notion that the Vikings came to America on a mission to find Norse colonists who had disappeared from Greenland and were feared to have abandoned the Christian faith.

  I never took much interest in whether or not the stone was an authentic Norse artifact dating to the fourteenth century. I was, however, fascinated by the ways that people talked about it. While studying American religious history in graduate school, it became evident to me that the story of the Kensington Rune Stone could offer a unique perspective on America’s preoccupation with divine blessing and its troubled way of coming to terms with the history of the continent’s first residents. The story of the Kensington Rune Stone challenged many of the orthodoxies about America’s founders. Although the dominant version of U.S. history highlights stories of English-speaking Protestants in East Coast colonies, the runic myth imagines that the nation began with Catholic Swedes and Norwegians in the heart of continent. It is my hope and prayer that this book will stimulate questions about how Americans tell stories about their past. Who is included in these stories and who is left out? Who is the hero, who is the discoverer, who is the villain, and why?

  Introduction

  A Holy Mission to Minnesota

  8 Swedes and 22 Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland westward. We had our camp by two rocky islets one day’s journey north of this stone. We were out fishing one day. When we came home we found 10 men red with blood and dead. AVM, save us from evil. We have 10 men by the sea to look after our ships, 14 days’ journey from this island. Year: 1362.

  —Translation of the Kensington Rune Stone inscription by Erik Wahlgren, The Kensington Stone: A Mystery Solved

  In the summer of 1962, the Alexandria, Minnesota, Chamber of Commerce sponsored a historical pageant for what they referred to as the six hundredth anniversary of the Kensington Rune Stone. Although the stone’s existence was unknown until it was unearthed by a local Swedish American farmer in 1898, its runic inscription told the story of a group of Swedes and Norwegians who visited what was to become Minnesota in the fourteenth century. Local residents believed this stone proved that Europeans traveled to the heart of North America 140 years prior to the explorations of Christopher Columbus. The Runestone Pageant was part of a weeklong civic celebration called Viking Days, which included parades and an appearance by nationally known radio personality Paul Harvey, who broadcast his show from Alexandria on opening day. A large Fourth of July fireworks display inaugurated the four-night pageant in an outdoor amphitheater on the shore of the city’s Lake Winona. Civic boosters promoted the event months in advance and hired a community theater professional, Bert Merling, to write the script and direct the production. Merling cast more than fifty local residents for the roles of Vikings, Nordic goddesses, and other important characters in the history of the Kensington Rune Stone.

  The opening scene of
the pageant takes place in the mid-fourteenth century in the court of Sweden’s King Magnus, whom the script refers to as a “defender of Christianity.” A chieftain from the western colony of Greenland enters the throne room and reports to the king that the settlers have disappeared and their villages had been raided by “skrælings”—the Norse term for the indigenous people they encountered. The chieftain goes on to say that the settlers have forsaken worship of the Christian God and turned to the worship of pagan gods. King Magnus is distraught over the news and holds a crucifix above his head, proclaiming: “Lord God of Hosts, we commit ourselves to a holy expedition, its undefeatable aim—the reconversion to Christianity of our subjects.” King Magnus assembles an expedition team of thirty “Christian Vikings” to find the apostate colonists and return them to the church. To lead this important expedition, Magnus selects his trusted bodyguard, Sir Paul Knutson. While music from Wagner’s Tannhäuser plays in the background, Knutson declares, “Your Majesties—the crusade begins!”

  In another scene, a distinguished-looking man in his mid-fifties and a younger man wearing a University of Minnesota sweatshirt enter the stage and the narrator says

  The great leader, throughout history, is always a lonely figure—he ever stands alone, misunderstood, and often slandered and mocked. And so, too, a scholar-historian who has devoted his life to unearthing evidence. That scholar-historian is Professor Hjalmar Holand of Wisconsin.

  The student was writing his thesis on Norse explorations and appealed to Holand for guidance. “Professor Holand, posterity and the ages will acclaim your lifetime work in uncovering the evidence of the Norse-Swedish penetration to Minnesota in 1362 . . . But frankly, how have you managed to take the slings and arrows of both academical [sic] and society’s denials, and mockery of your revelations?” Holand responds, “Man’s inhumanity to man perhaps . . . I am most happy to say not even the most blinded, biased, prejudiced critic has been able to disprove the Kensington Runestone!” Holand goes on to list the evidence that he claims vindicated his theory: chiseled holes in boulders he called mooring stones that were used to anchor boats along the pathway of the Norsemen to Minnesota, Norse artifacts such as swords and battle-axes found in area farm fields, and the integrity of Olof Ohman, who claimed to have discovered the rune stone in his field.

  The next episode dramatizes the arrival of the Norsemen to Minnesota in 1362, which the script describes as “the greatest historical event in American history.” The Vikings enter the amphitheater after disembarking from a dragon-shaped Viking ship specially constructed for the pageant. Knutson cautiously leads his men on to the shore and declares: “No hostile skrælings as far as the eye can reach . . . but hidden somewhere in these vast woodlands . . . lurks the enemy.” Knutson drops to his knee and gives thanks to God “for His merciful care and protection.” Professor Holand and the student return to narrate the ensuing events. The Vikings, Holand explains, were unable to find their missing countrymen. Not seeing any skrælings either, the expedition “was lulled into guardless security.” Twenty of the group took a day of leisure to fish on a nearby lake and left ten behind to guard the encampment. As the twenty came home that night, they were greeted with “a ghastly silence,” and at that moment “they saw their butchered comrades . . . the scene of which the Runestone froze in stone for all time.” “Good God—you mean—10 men Red with Blood and Dead?” exclaimed the student. “The scene on the Kensington Runestone testifies to that . . . No one has ever disproved those runes!” says Holand. The dead Vikings lay sprawled out on the stage while the surviving Vikings wander about the carnage with grief-stricken expressions on their faces. Knutson commands his men to bury the dead, but before they can begin, a scout returns to the camp warning that an army of “savages” had amassed to the west. “Every man to the ship!” exclaims Knutson as the Vikings scurry in hasty retreat. As they depart, Norse goddesses riding real horses rush through the audience and onto the stage to retrieve the slain Viking bodies before they are further “mutilated” by the Indians. This scene is choreographed to Richard Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries.”1

  In the final episode, Professor Holand stands in front of the stage curtain and declares to the student the veracity of the Kensington Runestone. “Like Gibraltar, the Liberty Bell, or the Pyramids, it attests forever, the historic truth . . . The Norwegians and Swedes were the discoverers of America, and Alexandria’s lakelands! Not Christopher Columbus!” The student asks the professor why the history books have not been revised to reflect this truth. Holand answers, “The academicians, in their isolated ivory towers hold back historic truths, [and] often, as in the tragedy of Galileo, even forced him to deny his discovery that the earth moved around the sun, but lad, truth will [win] out.” Dazzled by the wisdom of his teacher, the student declares, “[T]o you, Professor Holand, will go the immortal honor of revealing that truth!”

  As Holand and the student exit the stage, the curtain opens slowly to reveal a spotlight trained on a solitary Viking carving the inscription onto the slab of stone. Standing behind him is the Goddess Columbia holding an American flag and the Norse Warrior Goddess Brunhilde holding her sword and spear. To their right and left are women holding the flags of Sweden and Norway, both at tilt. The entire cast files onto the stage. The rune master sets down his chisel, turns toward the audience, lifts his hands up, and proclaims, “This eternal monument to you, valiant companions, Swedes and Norwegians, who died in this paradise lakeland wilderness, for Christ, in 1362.” The pageant ends with the organist playing, “with all stops out,” “America the Beautiful.” The stage is bathed in red, white, and blue lights.2

  An American Rune Stone

  The Runestone Pageant Play of 1962 represents the fullest blossoming of the cultural phenomenon first initiated by the charismatic Hjalmar Holand and then embellished by other supporters of the Kensington Rune Stone over six decades. In the years immediately following Ohman’s discovery, the stone artifact and its runic inscription were analyzed by geologists, archaeologists, Scandinavian linguists, and historians. Most of them concluded that it was the product of a hoax, created in the late nineteenth century by the immigrant farmer and his neighbors. However, scholarly denunciations did little to dampen the spirits of those who were the stone’s ardent defenders.3 As the script of the Runestone Pageant suggests, there were numerous cultural and religious factors that fueled popular enthusiasm for the artifact. The story it told captured the imagination of western Minnesotans and served as a powerful civic myth of origin.

  There was no person more central to the promotion of the Kensington Rune Stone and the construction of its historical narrative than amateur historian and Norwegian immigrant Hjalmar R. Holand. In 1907, Holand acquired the stone from the farmer who discovered it and began a lifelong mission to prove its authenticity. Through dozens of books and articles, Holand constructed a rhetorical fortress in defense of the stone. Much of his argumentation is based on pseudoscience and wild historical conjecture, but in spite of his specious claims, he generated enough publicity for the Kensington Rune Stone that by the 1960s, 60 percent of Minnesotans believed that Vikings were the first European visitors to the state.4 The artifact was featured at the Smithsonian Institution, the New York World’s Fair, and the state’s professional football team became known as the Minnesota Vikings.5 How does one explain the widespread popularity of the rune stone and the theory of pre-Columbian Norse travels to Minnesota considering the lack of credible historical evidence? The key to answering this question begins with understanding Holand’s writings as a work of collective memory rather than history.6 In other words, Holand’s pre-Columbian history of Minnesota had contemporary needs in mind.

  Holand tells the story of the “birth” of the United States in western Minnesota as marked by the sacrificial deaths of Christian missionaries from Scandinavia. Area residents found great appeal in Holand’s theory. Immigrants from Sweden and Norway used the inscribed stone to anchor their presence in the Minnesota lands
cape and the narrative of American history. They could simultaneously dwell in their new environment while maintaining a mythical connection to their homeland. The immigrants joined other white residents in using Holand’s narrative of Viking sacrifice at the hands of Indians to commemorate the deaths of white settlers and justify their violent conquest of the region’s first residents.7 Starting in the 1920s, the rune stone emerged as a sacred civic symbol to unify and empower small-town residents to defend themselves from external cultural critiques, such as those leveled by Sinclair Lewis’s novel Main Street. Locals came to revere Olof Ohman, discoverer of the stone, as the quintessential “real American,” whose humility and common sense exemplified the best of small-town life. Area Catholics were also eager to embrace Holand’s story. Archbishop John Ireland gave a ringing endorsement of the stone’s authenticity, declaring its inscription to contain a Catholic prayer, the first uttered in North America. This assertion helped church leaders to assert their social power, claim Minnesota as a uniquely Catholic place, and fuel an unsuccessful attempt to proselytize Swedish and Norwegian Americans, who largely adhered to the Lutheran church. As Catholics entered the American mainstream in the mid-twentieth century, they collaborated with Protestants to deploy Holand’s narrative to resist the forces of secularism by claiming the United States to be founded as an exclusively Christian nation. Throughout the twentieth century, the “savage skrælings” in Holand’s narrative served as a metaphor of external threats to the community and locals used them as a contrast to construct white, Christian, and small-town identities.8

  In his book The Kensington Stone: A Mystery Solved, Erik Wahlgren referred to the artifact as “An American Rune Stone.” As he observed, rune stones are not common in the United States, but they are ubiquitous in Scandinavia. Rune stones date to the medieval period and were typically used to commemorate the dead. Less frequently, they were used to commemorate those who died on excursions abroad.9 As will become clear in chapter 2, this latter meaning was well understood among Scandinavian Americans at the turn of the century.10 Viewing the Kensington Stone as a product of the late nineteenth century and not the fourteenth, Wahlgren sees the stone and its story as an “episode in the history and development of the American frontier.”11 This book examines the cultural milieu of the late nineteenth century in which the rune stone was likely created, but it also illuminates the myriad ways that the artifact has been interpreted and utilized by Minnesotans subsequently.