Leif Erikson and the Frost Giant

by Mark Philipson

  “The purpose of the voyage undertaken will be three-fold: First and foremost will be the spread of the Christian Doctrine. Second, the discovery of previously unexplored lands. Third, opening up these lands for colonization by establishing settlements in Olaf Tryggvason’s name.”

  Leif smiled but he felt uneasy. It was one thing to cross open water that you knew like the creases on your knuckles. It was a different breed of fish to set sail for unknown lands. Eric, his father, seemed to have it in his blood. Leif had learned everything he knew about boats and the sea from his father. The burning desire to seek out new shores hadn’t been passed on.

  “I have a question?” Leif glanced from Bjarte to King Olaf.

  “Yes?” Bjarte lowered the scroll.

  “How will we spread the word of God? None of us speak or read Latin. Isn’t the Holy Book written in this tongue?”

  Bjarte shuddered. The Pagan just recently become Christian referred to Classical Latin, the language of the Church, as a tongue. “That is something you don’t need to concern yourself with, I will accompany you on these journeys.”

  Leif averted his eyes. He didn’t want Olaf or the monk to see the look on his face.

  “Is something troubling you?” Bjarte asked.

  Leif took a deep breath. He weighed his next words carefully. “Apart from reading from the Holy Book, do you have any shipboard skills?”

  Bjarte smiled. “I was born in Normandy. My father was a fisherman. I know the way of the sea. I am fluent in four languages: Anglo-Norman, Anglo-Saxon, Norse, and Latin. I’m familiar with the classification of flora and fauna ...” Bjarte hesitated when he saw the puzzled look on Leif’s face “... That’s plants and animals,” he continued. “I am a master cartographer and will be drawing all the maps on the voyages.”

  The last thing Bjarte said caught Leif’s attention. The ability to draw accurate maps was a skill worth ten good men. “You’ve answered my question, Bjarte.”

  Leif and the crew left the assembly hall. While they were walking through the passage Ulf asked, “Skipper, do you think any good will come of this?”

  “We have to hope. At least we’re still drawing breath,” Leif shrugged.

  “Humph,” Leif grunted in disgust. “Are we Vikings or monks?”

  “Maybe we’re some of this and some of that,” Leif answered.

  They followed the river to the harbor.

  Four

  Westman Islands

  DOCKWORKERS, slaves of the king, finished loading the ship as Leif’s crew boarded the Ormr in langi. Ulf went over the ship from stem to stern, making mental notes of provisions and cargo. He reported his findings to Leif. Bjarte verified the items on a piece of paper he called a manifest.

  The oarsmen took their places. Dockworkers untied mooring lines. Oarsmen on the starboard side pushed long wooden shafts outboard. Soon, the blades of the long oars on the starboard side of the ship found the surface of the bay. Five strokes on that side of the ship was enough to turn the Ormr in langi’s port side away from shore. Oarsmen on the port side pushed their oars to the outboard position and dug in. Ulf straightened the helm, guiding the ship into the sweeping turn.

  Leif, Bjarte, and the sailing master watched while the sailing crew worked. The crew secured the four sails to the spars on the masts. Lines fed through leather-bound holes on the bottom ends were secured to wooden cleats mounted on the gunwale. Leif reasoned that a ship with that many sails needed as many men to handle them. He turned to Bjarte. “Can you put something on paper?” Leif asked.

  “Yes, Captain Erikson,” Bjarte answered. They climbed down to the lower deck of the pilothouse. Bjarte unrolled a blank scroll and flattened it out against the surface of a writing table. Stylus in hand, he waited.

  “I need to have more crewmen trained to handle the sails. I want to be able to hoist and strike all four sails at the same time. Ulf will hand-pick the men from the crew. I want the training to begin immediately.”

  “Consider it done,” Bjarte nodded.

  The sails of the Ormr in langi, now clear of the harbor and the protection of towering fjords, filled with a steady offshore breeze. The crew stowed the oars as the sails flapped and billowed.

  ■ ■ ■ ■

  Two days later, when the sun was overhead, the lookout shouted from the top of the forward mast, “Land Ho!” A dark mass appeared on the endless ocean.

  By mid-afternoon the mass began to take shape; mountains rose out of the sea.

  When Leif saw Bjarte moving the stylus across a document he asked, “What are you doing?”

  “I’m figuring how much time we’ve been on the water. I’m multiplying that figure by the ship’s rate of speed. I arrive at this figure by having a piece of paper dropped at the bow then figuring how long it takes for the piece of paper to reach the stern. Knowing the length of the ship, I can estimate the ship’s speed.”

  “Hmm ...” Leif stroked his beard and stared at the figures.

  “We know the length of the ship to be 75 feet. Depending on the seas and wind, it may take 30 grains of sand to fall from the upper globe of the minute glass or it may take two complete turns of the glass. If the ship moves 75 feet in half a minute it will travel 9,000 feet in one drain of an hourglass. That’s about three leagues in one hour. However, all that is based upon a myriad of dynamic factors.”

  “Indeed,” Leif nodded. He would have to learn this advanced form of mathematics and apply it in the same way.

  The Ormr in langi entered the harbor at the Westman Islands. Light from a beacon on shore guided them in. The ship ran aground on the sandy bottom, joining a line of ships arcing along the gradual sweep where the main island in the Westman chain met the sea.

  There would be no slaves waiting to unload the cargo. The crew would off load the goods taken on board in Trondheim. Once the hold was empty it would be refilled with goods bound for Greenland.

  In the morning, shortly after sunrise, the crew of the Ormr in langi unloaded the cargo hold. Ulf watched bundles and barrels being lowered to the decks of flat-bottom rafts. The crew, heavy lines fastened to their waists, hauled the rafts onto the beach. Settlers poured in to claim their share of the goods.

  Leif treated the crew of the Long Serpent to a mid-day meal of roasted pork, fried fish, and chilled beer supplied by two of the local taverns. When the meal was finished the men were put back to work loading cargo bound for Greenland: iron tools packed in oblong boxes.

  The crew, under Ulf’s watchful eye, hauled the cargo back to the Ormr in langi. Leif and Bjarte stood on the beach. “Is this a good idea, Captain Erikson?” Bjarte asked. “I mean, to take on total strangers ...”

  “These lands are far from monarchs and ...” Leif trailed off before the words “the Church” fell off his tongue. “We have been brought up to trust each other.”

  Bjarte fell silent. He couldn’t dispute the fact having kings and popes managing men’s lives for them created resentment and fear. “Very well.”

  They returned to one of the taverns that had supplied half the food and drink. Leif looked around. A few grey-haired and weather-beaten Vikings took long draws from iron tankards.

  “Give those men two more of what they are drinking and take it out of this.” Leif told the tavern master. He tossed a copper coin on the narrow table. “Keep the rest,” he added.

  When the two Vikings acknowledged the man who’d paid for the ale, Leif and Bjarte walked over. “You men look as if you’ve seen many seasons on the deck of a longboat,” Leif said.

  “Truth,” one grinned while the other nodded.

  “For the amount of ships in the harbor I don’t see many men around,” Leif remarked.

  “Most of the the crews of those boats out there are in the settlements, spending time with their families and collecting goods for the return voyage to Norway.”

  “In your voyages, have you ever sailed beyond Greenland?” Leif got to the point.

  “Beyond Greenland?” The old Vik
ings laughed. “The only thing you’ll find beyond Greenland are sea serpents and islands ruled by dragons,” the old man said.

  His partner nodded in agreement then added, “And then you fall off the earth.”

  Leif knew many Vikings believed the earth was a flat plate. If this were true why was only the top part of a mast visible on a ship spotted in the distance? The surface of the earth must have a curvature to it. Leif and Bjarte left the tavern.

  “We’d have to travel to the settlements to find the men we’re looking for,” Leif mentioned to Bjarte.

  “Is that your wish, Captain?”

  “I want to sail on the tide tomorrow,” Leif answered. “We’ll have to cull from the oarsmen.”

  Five

  The Red People

  THE next morning Leif and Ulf set the lodestone while the new members of the sailing crew, trained while the Ormr in langi was unloaded and re-provisioned, prepared the sails.

  As he did every time he’d attempted the voyage from the Westman Islands, Leif ordered the bow to face the direction the long end of the lodestone pointed. He’d learned from experience the direction to the coast of Greenland could be determined by placing a carpenter’s square to pivot on the center of the base of the lodestone. Oarsmen on the starboard side pushed hard, turning the bow to port. Seconds before the bow lined up with the piece of the square pointing toward Greenland, the port oars came into play.

  Ulf held the tiller in place over the line that would bring the ship across hundreds of leagues of open water.

  “How long will it take to reach Greenland?” Bjarte asked Leif.

  Leif returned the lodestone and base to the cabinet. “In the Falki, our best time on a crossing was three days. That was with a strong tailwind. The worst time was seven days. The wind worked against us on that one.”

  “We should pray for a good wind,” Bjarte said.

  “Very well,” Leif agreed. He couldn’t see how God in the heavens could hear prayers over the sound of roaring waves. He didn’t want Bjarte to think he still clung to pagan beliefs so he kept his mouth shut.

  The Ormr in langi passed a narrow strip of land jutting out into the sea. “That’s the southern peninsula,” Lief motioned to starboard. “One turn of that glass of yours will put us out of sight of land,” Leif added when Bjarte set the hourglass.

  As Leif predicted, one turn of the glass later, the tip of the southern peninsula fell out of sight. Tailwinds increased. Seas mounted. The unseen power of four sails pushed the Ormr in langi up and over the undulating swells.

  ■ ■ ■ ■

  The days wore on. The wind continued to hold. On the fourth day day land was sighted. “Greenland,” Leif said to Bjarte.

  “Strange name,” Bjarte said. “From here it looks white.”

  “Strange indeed,” Leif nodded in agreement. The interior of Greenland was covered by a big ice field all year. By all rights, it should be called Iceland. Iceland was only covered in ice during the winter months, it should be called Greenland.

  The Ormr in langi followed the coastline of Greenland south for another three days. They stopped every day to launch small boats. Hunting and fishing parties rowed to shore then returned to replenish fresh food supplies.

  Eight days after leaving Iceland the Ormr in langi landed in the harbor of the Eastern settlement. Settlers and craftsmen, eager to get a hold of the Ormr in langi’s cargo of iron tools, waded out in the icy waters. They hauled rafts out to the ship and off-loaded the wooden crates. On the beach the crates were pried open. The settlers handed over payment.

  All together, the Ormr in langi had been at less than a month. They faced an uncertain future: sailing West to find new lands. In his heart Leif felt that the new lands were only the other side of a round world. It was nerve racking not to know how far to the west those lands lay. Did the mighty Mother of Oceans stretch all the way around the world?

  Leif brushed these thoughts aside as the Ormr in langi moved into open water off the coast of the Eastern settlement. The coast of Greenland fell behind. It would be a simple matter to turn the ship around and spin the course back to the east and the knowledge of a safe harbor. Leif had given his word to King Olaf, He was a Viking. He would keep his word.

  On clear nights Bjarte gazed up at the sky and drew the positions of constellations. In the morning he’d refer to the drawings and suggest course adjustments. Leif used the lodestone to verify Bjarte’s findings. He learned to trust the findings after four days.

  There was no moon when the Ormr in langi set sail. The moon was in the last stages of waning crescent when land was sighted.

  ■ ■ ■ ■

  The ship stayed inshore, following the rocky coastline south. Bjarte made rough sketches and filled the margins of the paper with notes about the contour of the land.

  Weeks passed. The southern running coastline dropped off on the outskirts of an island. A wide waterway continued west. Leif named the massive inlet Olafvik, in honor of the king.

  More weeks passed. The ship continued up the coastline. The inlet opened up into a bay the size of a small sea.

  It took three more days before land was sighted to the west. As the ship neared land dark objects could bee seen moving back and forth on the horizon.

  “Those are boats,” Ulf said.

  Men and women, dressed in furs, worked nets. The boats were hollowed out logs stripped of bark, shaped to form a keel and hull, then covered with a red coating. The exposed skin of the people inside of the boats was as red as the resin outside of the boats.

  The red people backed away from the Ormr in langi as oarsmen rowed toward shore. More of the red people’s boats appeared out of dozens of inlets. More followed. Many boats, filled with red warriors armed with bows and arrows, faced off against the ship.

  “Should we fight?” Ulf asked.

  “We are outnumbered. We might as well slit our own throats,” Leif answered.

  More boats came out of the shoreline. The boats in the lead moved forward, encircling the ship. The Ormr in langi was surrounded.

  Leif was thinking I hope we don’t die today when Bjarte said, “Skraelings … these people must be Skraelings.”

  Leif had seen the native hunters and fisherman of Greenland. Unlike the wiry Little Men of Greenland, the men in the boats were broad shouldered and muscular.

  Six

  Stones of the Beothuk

  THE afternoon wore on. More Red People came out of the forest. Men chopped limbs off trees with short axes. They raised animal skin tents and propped them up with the cut limbs. As the sun set, fires were lit. The smell of roasting meat drifted with the gentle off shore breezes. The crew of the Ormr in langi ate cold rations of salted fish and drank water from the cisterns.

  The evening wore on. Leif stood on the top deck of the pilot house, counting the fires on the shore in groups of ten. He wondered how many warriors sat around those fires. Earlier, he’d counted the amount of log boats surrounding the ship. The figure Leif summed was 50. Four men, two oarsmen, one at the stern and one at the bow, and two warriors armed with longbows, sat in the log boats. Leif asked Bjarte to figure the amount of warriors in the water. The figure came out to 200.

  Leif stared at the fires. Voices chanted a strange language. The rhythmic thumping of drums filled the night air.

  During the night, log boats would leave the group. The boats returned with torches burning at the stern and bow.

  “Odin himself could see the light from all those fires,” Ulf said, waking. He rubbed his eyes as he stood up from the straw mat next to the tiller.

  “Truth,” Leif nodded. He turned. Ulf was back on the mat snoring away.

  Leif watched the torches undulating over the water. He caught glimpses of the Red Men’s faces in the flickering flames. Stretched out shadows of the log boats rippled across the surface.

  Leif sat on the captain’s mat. He closed his eyes. A blurred glow filled his vision. When his head came to rest on the mat, he opened hi
s eyes. Wispy clouds drifted by. Clusters of stars dotted the night sky beyond the glow of the firelight.

  Leif fell asleep as the chanting voices and beating drums faded.

  ■ ■ ■ ■

  Leif woke to the same sound of chanting and drums. The sound seemed to get louder. It was coming closer.

  On his feet, Leif looked out across the water. A big log boat approached.

  “What in the name of Odin’s beard is that?” Ulf was on his feet as well.

  Bjarte joined them. “We have visitors,” he said.

  On closer look, the big boat turned out to be two boats held together by a central platform. Eight men, four in each boat, manned short oars. Warriors stood on the deck surrounding a man sitting on a woven chair. The man stood up from the chair. The oarsmen and warriors stopped chanting. Drumbeats ceased.

  The man called out something. A woman stepped forward. She cupped her mouth and spoke in the Norse tongue of the Greenland settlers: “Who is the skipper?”

  “I, Leif Erikson.” Leif stepped forward and raised his hand.

  The man spoke more of the strange tongue. The woman put his words into Norse when he finished.

  “I am Sakawaduit. These are my people, the Beothuk.” The woman gestured with the same sweeping motion to the log boats in the water and the camp on the shore as the man used.

  The man called Sakawaduit said something to the woman. “Sakawaduit wishes to come aboard your boat.”

  Leif hesitated. “Tell Sakawaduit I wish to send some of my men ashore to bring back hot food.”

  The woman turned to Sakawaduit. He nodded. “”You may send your men ashore. There is plenty for all.”

  Ulf rounded up some of the crew. Log boats came out from shore. The men climbed in and headed for the shore.

  Sakawaduit and the woman boarded the Ormr in langi. They both wore soft, white animal hides cut to show the man’s muscular frame and the woman’s slender curves. Quills beaded with polished stones crisscrossed the front of the long shirts from waist to neck. Leif had a hard time keeping his eyes off the woman’s flat stomach and heaving breasts.