VV king king HeritageHeritagemagazine 2/2000 NORTH SEA VIKING LEGACY Viking Heritage Magazine Editorial IN THIS ISSUE Ships, navigation and We are very glad that so many of you readers enjoyed the new style migration from the north 3–5 of the Viking Heritage Newsletter. Many thanks for all your support! As you can see on the front cover, there is something new about this KRAMPMACKEN issue as well - the name has been changed to VIKING HERITAGE – a modern Viking ship MAGAZINE to better suit this new expanded version. reconstruction 5 Now we are in the midst of the summer season with many events like markets, plays, excavations etc. connected to the Viking Age The ’Vinland Map’: False testimony about theme. People with this common interest will come together in many Norse Exploration 6–8 different ways; see the list of some of these events, markets etc. in this issue. Especially highlighted are the Viking celebrations in North Eastwards – about the America. In the Viking Sail 2000 programme, about 15 replica Viking background to some ships will gather on the coast of Labrador, among them the ship on Viking Age items 8–10 the front cover, Krampmacken from Gotland. The knowledge of navigation during the Viking Age was passed by Vikings in word of mouth from generation to generation. In a few places this The Netherlands 11–13 tradition is still being upheld. "The Viking’s Heritage. Ships, navigation and migration from the North" article deals with this Norse religion subject. And what about the disputed Vinland map? In this issue we – a complicated one 14–15 are happy to present the results of the close research of the map by Kirsten A. Seaver. “Dómr of daudan hvern: a However, as you know, the Vikings also went far to the east. chronological survey of Swedish Luxury goods from the Orient were a great enticement to the Nordic picture stones” 16–19 Vikings, as you can read in this issue among many other interesting SCAR. A Viking Boat Burial subjects. on Sanday, Orkney 19 I hope you will enjoy this issue. And please, keep contacting us with any news, ideas and suggestions, big or small, on all issues connected with the Vikings and the Viking Age! Everyone here at Viking Heritage wishes you all a good summer and pleasant reading! Marita E Ekman Editor Fourth Board Meeting held at Viking Farm at Avaldsnes, 6 - 9 E-mail: [email protected] April 2000 20–21 Presenting RANERNA – A Viking- Words of age re-enactment group 21–22 FULL CIRCLE – First Contact: Vikings and Skraelings in Wisdom Newfoundland and Labrador 22–23 Cattle die, kindred die Every man is mortal: But the good name never dies Heritage News Of one who has done well From “Hávamál” Heritage News 24–26 (Words of “The High One”) Viking Viewpoints About the front page: The Viking ship replica ”Krampmacken” sailing eastwards from Gotland to Miklagård Viking Viewpoints 26–27 (Istanbul). Read more about the ship om page 5. Photo: Göran Sjöstrand. http://viking.hgo.se 2 Viking Heritage Magazine The Viking’s heritage Ships, navigation and migration from the north 250 nautical miles out into the Atlantic the wind had changed to west and was picking up. We experienced some tough sailing and some of our crewmembers started wondering if we ever would find land, or become a modern day Flying Dutchman. Photo: Olaf T. Engvig By: Olaf T. Engvig More than 1100 years ago, the people Raised by the sea and with a culture living along the rugged coast and fjords that encouraged bravery, the Vikings When David Lewis wrote his of Norway with good supplies of fine feared none. They developed great skill in shipbuilding material had developed a navigating the high seas and finding the books on Polynesian sailing unique boat. This lapstreak boat was way without instruments. These tribes and navigation they were light, swift and had a shallow draft, but were able to escape or challenge, overtake based on a living tradition was still a very seaworthy open Viking and capture. Even when cornered, they that was on the brink of boat. It had an optimal combination of got away moving their lightly built boats extinction. At the same time, sail and oars, making it superior to all over land. As a result, Vikings had high vessels of its time. moral and made good warriors. half way around the world, Olaf Engvig had started researching old Norse sailing and navigation. How could the Vikings find their way across huge bodies of open water and in a much hasher climate, basically without help from man made navigational aid? At a time when people living on other coasts rarely sailed far away from the shore, these two cultures of navigators regularly would set their course straight out into the They came by sea. Leif Eiriksson was the first known man to bring European culture to the new world. He and his party stayed for the winter. His countrymen later ocean to small islands or developed a settlement in Newfoundland that lasted for 30 years. Oil on canvas by masses of land on the other Norwegian painter Christian Krogh. Photo of a reproduction at the Norwegian Club in side. San Francisco. Original at the Norwegian Maritime Museum, Oslo. Photo: Olaf T. Engvig. 3 http://viking.hgo.se Viking Heritage Magazine The Viking raiders, adventurers or people from the North in their swift and immigrants were a confident band, able boats settled on the American which would venture wide and far in continent hundreds of years before search of trading objects or new places to Columbus. settle. In doing so, they discovered land Even the Vikings who lived a that was better than the challenging, thousand years ago found life to be easy barren and weather-beaten coasts where on the new continent to the west. Leif they came from. The Norse left marks in Eiriksson was called ”Leif the Lucky” most of today's Europe, in Russia, because of the fine land he discovered. Constantinople and Baghdad, in the He gave America its first name, Mediterranean and south to the Canary Vineland the Good. Later generations of Islands. They ventured far into the immigrants were drawn to this newly North Atlantic Ocean to Svalbard, discovered continent. Many of them did settled Iceland and Greenland, and well in America and we know their story. established colonies in the Americas. Indeed, they proved the old Vikings to Based on the fine seaworthy vessels be right. Even if they did not go there in they used, their social and adventurous Viking ships, many emigrants from the spirit and the navigational skills they North went there on a one-way ticket on possessed, it is reasonable to assume that ships chartered for the sole purpose. they sailed beyond L'Anse aux Meadows Emigrants from other parts of Europe to the shores and mighty rivers of the used regular packet-or passenger ships. American continent itself, as well as the The Viking heritage is still alive. At an Caribbean Islands. These ventures would early age my father, the old master only be a mirror of what they did on the The traditional Norwegian longboat we mariner, taught me how to navigate and other side of the Atlantic Ocean. used during five voyages ”The Viking tell time by observing the movement of Unexplainable recordings of names Way”. It was built at Hårstad, Åfjord, in the sun. Later, as a scholar, I talked to 1863. The boat is 29 x 6 feet with a two and maps of land and islands to the old fishermen and learned that they feet draft, and has 10 oars and a square hardly ever used maps, or owned a watch west, made before Columbus, only make sail. It is 100% original. sense if they are related to lost Photo: Olaf T. Engvig. or a compass, but often sailed on the information from Norse navigators that Atlantic Ocean outside Norway without describe the land where they had been. sight of land. Columbus himself had knowledge that and traces of their achievements are When I decided to do my first voyage obsessed him with going to a land west forgotten. Records are often lost, if not, from Norway around the North Sea to of the ocean. It would jeopardize his they still need to be understood. York, I wanted to do it the old way. brave voyages and his claims to indicate It is challenging to prove that some Viking Chief Ottar describes his voyage that he was copying others. Columbus Norsemen traveled wide and far in to England a thousand years ago. Why was a leader in need of success, but as America. One day laboratory research in not see if his old description would work leaders before and after him, he was micro-biological and gene technology, today? We set out in an open longboat, inspired by earlier accomplishments. along with archaeological developments, and kept land to port and observed the The coast of ”Vinland de Goda” and will give us new material that might shed obstacles Ottar mentions. I later made islands far to the southwest was places light on old maps and puzzling artifacts several sailing missions, using only basic where Norsemen would go. But since and supply missing pieces of a lost navigational skills and my knowledge of these places were well inhabited, the men history. This might prove that some the sea and my boat to find the way. from the North did like they did everywhere else. They simply left the area, were killed, or made peace and blended into the existing population.