Book Reviews

Swedish American Genealogist Volume 33 | Number 1 Article 13 3-1-2013 Book Reviews Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag Part of the Genealogy Commons, and the Scandinavian Studies Commons Recommended Citation (2013) "Book Reviews," Swedish American Genealogist: Vol. 33 : No. 1 , Article 13. Available at: https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/swensonsag/vol33/iss1/13 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Augustana Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Swedish American Genealogist by an authorized editor of Augustana Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Book Reviews Here you will find information about interesting books on the immigration experience, genealogical manuals, books on Swedish customs, and much more. We welcome contacts with SAG readers, suggestions on books to review perhaps. If you want to review a book yourself, please contact the Book Review Editor, Dennis L. Johnson, at <1 [email protected]> or Dennis Johnson, 174 Stauffer Road, Bucktown Crossing, Pottstown, PA 19465, so he knows what you are working on. Vikings in the L'Anse aux Meadows by Norwegian launched works by several writers Helge Ingstad and his wife Anne and popular lectures about this Stine Ingstad, was further examined claim. Many items of physical evi- West and excavated over the next decades. dence were identified, including the After finding artifacts that were only Dighton Rock, the Newport Tower, a In Search of First Contact, The known to Vikings and not natives, skeleton in armor, and other objects Vikings of Vinland, the Peoples of and after carbon dating of some were claimed to support Rafn's argu- Dawnland, and the Anglo-American objects, this site came to be accepted Anxiety of Discovery, by Annette ments. All were later discredited as Kolodny, Duke University Press, by most authorities as real evidence Viking items, but other writers and 2012, 427 pages, Softcover, Illus- of a settlement by a group of Norse poets were inspired to support or to trated, Amazon.com, $23.55 plus Greenlanders. The remnants of their romanticize these claims. Examples shipping. houses, boat sheds, a charcoal kiln of poems attributed to these dis- and smithy, evidence of domestic coveries include Longfellow's "Skel- Vikings in North America have long animals, a woman's spindle whorl, a eton in Armor" and Whittier's "The been a subject of great interest to cloak-pin, and other Viking items Norsemen" which appeared in 1840. many Scandinavian-Americans, and confirmed the presence of Vikings in This early history of these claims to the people in their countries of about the year 1000. is traced thoroughly by the author, origin. Solid evidence of their pres- Theories about Vikings in North who views them as an effort to dis- ence in North America has, however, America did not begin with the credit or diminish the discovery of been scant and usually highly contro- L'Anse aux Meadows discovery, how- Columbus in 1492, mainly by those versial. A new book from a somewhat ever. In the Viking Age (750 A.D. to who had trouble crediting Italians unlikely source has been published 1050 A.D.) oral sagas recited by story- with this accomplishment. New Eng- this year which takes a fresh look at tellers were common. Many origin- land's romantic poets also saw these the history of this subject, and from ated in Iceland, which was settled events as a source for their own a somewhat different tangent. The from about 900 A.D. Many of these creative efforts. A lively competition author, Annette Kolodny, is described sagas were written down in Old continues to this day between Ital- as "a feminist literary critic, activist, Norse in the 13th century, and were ian-Americans and Scandinavian- and retired professor in humanities." eventually translated into English by Americans over who first "discovered She has written several books and the early 19th century. Both Ameri- America." This competition continues essays centered on the role of women can and Scandinavian writers soon to be disparaged, of course, by Native on the frontier, and on higher edu- found these sagas to be the basis for Americans who occupied North and cation in the twenty-first century. further theories and speculations South America for thousands of This is her first work on Vikings in about the voyages to North America years. The Viking supporters, bowing North America. led by Leif Ericsson, Thorfinn Karls- to political correctness, now cite Leif Until about 1960 no solid evidence efni, and others. Ericsson's voyage as "The First Euro- had yet been found of the presence of In 1837 a Danish philologist, Carl peans to visit North America." Vikings in the New World to confirm Christian Rafn, published large Ms. Kolodny devotes many pages the stories in the ancient Norse sagas. volumes including some eighteen to examining the literature of the This was greatly changed with the documents written in Iceland in the nineteenth century for opinions and discovery then of what appeared to original language. These, together theories about the Viking presence be remains of a Viking settlement on with certain objects discovered in in North America, most of which has the northern tip of Newfoundland, New England in North America, long been considered either spurious, Canada. First thought to be from claimed that the area was visited by misguided, or written to support a Native Americans, this discovery Vikings in about 1000 A.D. English particular agenda of the many wri- near the small fishing village of translations soon followed which ters. Events such as the Chicago 24 Swedish American Genealogist 2013:1 Book Reviews misunderstandings and problems evidence of the Vikings' explorations communicating in disparate lan- in North America a thousand years guages. As a result of these contacts, ago remains slim. What we know for the Vikings soon withdrew from sure today remains the sometimes further voyages when they found inconsistent accounts in the two that the lands were occupied by far sagas, backed up by the real Viking greater numbers of people with remains at L'Anse aux Meadows, roughly similar weaponry. Kolodny Newfoundland. The most recent view World's Fair of 1892 (The Columbian has searched the Native oral tradi- is that this location was not Vinland, Exposition) and the presence of a tions for traces of these first contacts. but Leif's houses and camp were to replica Viking ship which sailed from After interviewing several native be a base station for further explo- Norway to New York, thence through storytellers from tribes inhabiting rations in North America, but not a the Great Lakes waterways to Chi- New England and the Maritime permanent settlement. Birgitta Wal- cago, and many other events served Provinces, and other sources, she was lace, successor to the Ingstads in to keep the name of Leif Ericsson in able to find only a few references that investigating the Newfoundland site the news and in the public conscious- could be construed to relate to first (and one of many sources for Annette ness. Statues erected to Leif Erics- contacts, and those required a signi- Kolodny's book) puts forth this son are shown, and even the well- ficant stretch. There was a pattern theory, and the explorations to the known Kensington Runestone in of stories relating to the coming of south along the coast of the Mari- Minnesota deserves a mention. (It is the white man from the east, but not times and New England and possibly regarded by most experts as a hoax, specific enough to identify them with the coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, but avidly promoted by local ad- which white men. One story from a led to other sites referred to in the herents.) Its claimed date on the dream identified a "floating island sagas. A site in New England would inscription is 1362, more than three which approached the shore, the be more consistent with some of the centuries after the Viking visits to island had trees on it and bears in descriptions such as the presence of L'Anse aux Meadows. the trees subsequently identified as grapes, self-sown wheat, and days A unique contribution of the men." A Viking ship has a single where the "nights were more nearly author is her effort to seek out any mast, one spar, and has little need equal to the days." Possibly Vinland parallels to the North American for crew to climb up in the rigging. A was one of these sites. Thus far, no contacts by the Vikings in the sagas later multi-masted sailing ship with authenticated artifacts have been with Native Americans in their own crewmen working in the rigging found to support this theory, however. legends and oral histories. We do might have more likely accounted for Meanwhile, a presidential procla- know that these first contacts usually the natives' description in this story. mation still recognizes Leif Ericsson resulted in violence, mainly due to This search for native parallels to Day on Oct. 9 each year in the U.S., Viking sagas was exhaustively pur- and a Viking ship replica, The Norse- sued, described, and well document- man, based near Philadelphia, sails ed in the appendix, but it appears each year on that date and at other little solid evidence was found. What- times to remind Americans of the ever references were found that ap- accomplishments of the Vikings and peared to have some relevance re- Leif Ericsson a thousand years ago. quire as much if not more speculation For those new to this subject, In and conjecture than did the stories Search of First Contact provides an handed down to us from the Vikings' excellent and up-to-date summary versions of these contacts.

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