Vinland

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Faroe Islands postage stamp with Skálholt map
Travels, discoveries and settlement areas of the Scandinavians during the Viking Age

Vinland (formerly Winland , often interpreted as "wine country") is the name the of Iceland originating Leif Eriksson part of North America was around 1000, when he probably the first Europeans landed there. The Skálholtsbók According it happened on the way back from Europe that Leif came off slightly off course and on the other side of the Davis Strait discovered country. In the Flateyjarbók, however, it is said that he first returned to Greenland to his father's farm and then drove off to look for flat and wooded land that Bjarni Herjúlfsson had spotted from his ship far out on the Davis Strait.

history

Leiv Eriksson oppdager America (" Leif Eriksson discovers America") by Christian Krohg (1893)

The first written evidence can be found in the Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum by Adam of Bremen from the year 1076. Adam wrote in the original:

“Praeterea unam adhuc insulam recitavit a multis in eo repertam occeano, quae dicitur Winland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum optimum ferentes. Nam et fruges ibi non seminatas habundare, non fabulosa opinione, sed certa comperimus relatione Danorum. "

“He [the Danish King] also reported about one of the many islands in this ocean, called Winland, because there are wild vines that produce good wine. That there is an abundance of unseeded fruits was not found out from an unbelievable rumor, but from the Danish report. "

According to traditional interpretation, the name Vinland comes from the "grapevines" that the German-speaking foster father Tyrkir , who accompanied Leif Eriksson, is said to have found there. Recently, discussions have arisen about the origin of the name. Vin has two meanings in Old Norse: with an accent on the i (also í) it means "wine", without an accent "pasture" or "farm" (the linguist Einar Haugen said that the meaning "pasture" in 10/11 Century in Iceland and in most parts of the Nordic world was probably very uncommon or unknown). The Greenland settlers may have been impressed by the green pastures compared to the barren Greenland soil. Consequently, the land may have been referred to as "pastureland". There is the possibility of reinterpreting the “pasture land” as the “wine land”, which enjoyed greater popularity. If the name Vinland is derived from "wine country", as originally assumed, either vines of wild North American wine (whose grapes are more or less inedible) could have inspired this name or the country was named after other wild berries, which is perhaps more likely, since at least the Grænlendingar have probably never seen vines or grapes.

According to tradition, Leif had previously discovered Helluland ( Baffin Island or Labrador ) and the wooded Markland (Labrador or Newfoundland ). The exact geographical location of Vinland is controversial, partly Nova Scotia and New Brunswick are suspected, partly New England near today's Boston , Massachusetts , partly also the island of Newfoundland. In the meantime, this representation has been called into question by archeology, as European artifacts from the time before Erik the Red up to Devon Island have been found. Many finds ascribed to Nordic Greenlanders have been found in Canada, particularly on Baffin Island, and in northern Labrador. A late 11th century coin , with a hole to allow stringing on a necklace, was also found in Maine.

Reconstruction of a Grænländingar settlement in Vinland in L'Anse aux Meadows ( Newfoundland )

The sagas also mention the places Bjarney ("Bear Island"), Furðustrandir ("Wonderful Beach "), Straumfjorður ("Stream Fjord" or "Bach Fjord"), Straumsey (" Stream Island ") and Hóp (" Haff "? / " Wiek "? ) as well as a "land of the one-legged". According to the Greenland saga, Leif Eriksson and his men are said to have settled in a place in Vinland that they named Leifsbuðir . According to Erik the Red's saga, other Grænlendingar founded Straumfjord in the north of Vinland and Hóp further south .

At least in the latter, in Newfoundland, the Grænlendingar definitely settled. There in 1961 the Norwegians Helge and Anne-Stine Ingstad discovered a settlement near L'Anse aux Meadows at the tip of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland. This settlement was excavated and reconstructed. It comprised several houses and a forge. The UNESCO declaring 1978 a World Heritage Site .

According to the saga of Erik the Red, Thorfinn Karlsefni is said to have settled in Vinland with 140 men. After initially good contacts with the locals, who were called Skrælingar by the Grænlendingar , conflicts are said to have arisen, whereupon the Northmen returned to Greenland.

Even though the fighting balance of the Grænlendingar in the confrontations with the Skraelingers does not seem to be decisive, according to the image that is made today of the "Vikings", their losses reported in the Vinland Sagas are - out of a total of only three participants killed by Skraelingers - but extremely small if you compare it with the reports on the journeys of later explorers, such as Jacques Cartier or Martin Frobisher , on whose first trip five crew members were kidnapped by Inuit . In addition, there were better employment prospects in Europe in the early 11th century for Scandinavians who were adventurous and belligerent, which may have made it difficult to seize the land in Vinland by force.

Snorri Þorfinnsson is considered to be the first child of European descent to be born in Vinland and thus in America.

Rating

“All in all, the Viking voyages in Vinland were a symbol of great courage and excellent seafaring skill, because the Viking ships were seaworthy and fast, but extremely uncomfortable vehicles for transatlantic crossings, especially in sub-polar waters. But from these discoveries in the western Atlantic ... there was no change of epoch and also no overturning of previous geographical ideas. They remained episodes and there was no lasting connection between the continents. "

- Holger Afflerbach : The unleashed sea. The history of the Atlantic

Grapes

Inflorescence of the hardy North American gold currant
Gold currant with wine-colored leaves and fruit in autumn

The saga vines found in Vinland may have been currants . In Scandinavia it is still referred to today as a wineberry , just like in the Swedish Vinbär . In the Middle Ages it was also called that in northern Germany, while in southern Germany / Alemannic areas it is also simply called Träuble or Meertrübli. The shrub grows up to 1.5 m high and has the monastic name black "currant" because the fruit can be harvested from June 24th on St. John's Day.

Its North American sister is because of its yellow inflorescence so called gold-currant , a rather unassuming, winter tough shrub plant, which grows up to 2 m height. The occurrence of this plant extends from northeast Canada to the highland steppes in northern Mexico . Nowadays fruit growers use them as a base for the refinement of gooseberries, josta and currants, precisely because of these robust properties.

Another option would be the blueberry . Traditionally, the Scandinavians were familiar with a weakly alcoholic drink made from fermented blueberries, which they called Win , which in later lore was mistakenly equated with the Latin vinum . The encounter with the North American currant cranberry or the American blueberry , which have much higher-yielding fruits, could also have prompted the discoverers to name them.

In an older publication it was noted that Leif Eriksson's companion, Tyrkir, who apparently reported excitedly about the "Wiitraub" or "Wiibeere", was a South German. In southern Germany - at least in the Alemannic-speaking area - "Wibeeri" are definitely currants (see also Alemannic dictionary, Post, Scheer-Nahor ; C.Braun Buchverlag 2009). Therefore, the possibility that it is the currant, which can be found much further north, is quite likely.

See also

swell

literature

  • René Guichard: Les Vikings, créateurs d'États: Islande et Norvège; découvreurs de nouveaux mondes: Érik le Rouge au Groenland en l'an 982, Leif l'Heureux au Vinland en l'an 1000. Picard, Paris 1972.
  • Paul Gaffarel: Le Vinland et la Norombega. Darantière, Dijon 1890.
  • Helge Ingstad : The first discovery of America. In the footsteps of the Vikings . Translated into German by Karl and Käthe Christiansen. Berlin / Darmstadt / Vienna: German Book Association 1967.
  • Rudolf Simek : Vinland! How the Vikings discovered America. CH Beck, Munich 2016, ISBN 978-3-406-69720-3 .
  • Charles Martijn, Andrée Faton: Le Canada depuis l'origine: villages esquimaux, indiens iroquois, les Vikings et l'énigme du Vinland, les Français en Acadie, fouilles à Québec, les forteresses. Archéologia, Dijon 1978.
  • Jörg Lechler : The discoverers of America before Columbus . With a contribution from Edward F. Gray , Consul General of the USA a. D. Reprint of the edition, Leipzig 1939. Bremen: Facsimile Verlag 1992.
  • Lutz Mohr : The Norwegian-Swedish "Vinland Expedition" under Poul Knutsson in the years 1355 to 1362 (?) - the last offshoot of northern America discoveries . In: Iceland Reports. Journal of the Society of Friends of Iceland V. (GdFI), Hamburg. Hamburg / Reykjavík, vol. 33, issue 1/2, 1992, pp. 10-18.
  • Björn Asbrandsson - An Icelandic Joms Viking in Pomerania, Sweden and the New World. In: Lutz Mohr: Dragon ships in the Pomeranian Bay. The Jomswikinger, their Jomsburg and the Gau Jom . (edition Rostock maritime). Ingo Koch Verlag, Rostock 2013, ISBN 978-3-86436-069-5 , pp. 156-163.
  • Le mystère du Vinland. ONF, Montréal 1994.
  • Charles Alphonse Nathanael Gagnon: La question du Vinland. In: Bulletin de la Société de geographie Québec. Quebec 1918.
  • Approaches to Vínland. A conference on the written and archaeological sources for the Norse settlements in the North-Atlantic region and exploration of America, The Nordic House, Reykjavík, 9-11 August 1999. Proceedings , ed. By Andrew Wawn and Þórunn Sigurðardóttir. Sigurður Nordal Institute, Reykjavík 2001.

Web links

Wiktionary: Vinland  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.civilization.ca/cmc/exhibitions/archeo/helluland/str0301e.shtml
  2. ↑ During Thorfinn Karlsefnis' journey in Chapter 10 of the Erik saga, two participants are killed by Skrälingers; see. in the translation by Felix Niedner. Thule Collection, vol. 13. Diederichs 1965, p. 44. While Thorvald Eriksson was driving, this Thorvald was fatally wounded by an arrow shot: Chapter 5 of the “Tale of the Greenlanders” translated by Felix Niedner. Thule Collection, vol. 13. Diederichs 1965, p. 59.
  3. ↑ cf. for example Hans-Jürgen Hübner, Jacque Cartier, Third Journey, last paragraph: http://www.geschichte-kanadas.de/Canada_biograph/cartier.html#Dritte_Reise_.281541-42.29 after hostilities with the Indians there: 35 dead
  4. ↑ Gunnlaug Schlangenzunge is reported to have been in Ethelred's service: Gunnlaugs saga ormstungu in the translation by Eugen Kölbing. In the Grettir saga there is even talk of Icelanders who served in the war guards in Constantinople. The story of the strong Grettir the Outlaw translation by Paul Herrmann. Thule Collection Vol. 5. Diederichs 1963. Chapter 85.
  5. ↑ Holger Afflerbach : The unleashed sea. The history of the Atlantic . A MALIK book, Piper series, Zurich / Munich, Piper Verlag 2003, chapter: The Normans in Iceland, Greenland and North America , pp. 67–88 (p. 87).