Chapter 2

"First came they to a barren land covered with big flat stones, and this Leif named Helluland, the slate land. Southward sailed he for many days until he saw a coast covered with wooded hills, and there he landed, calling it Markland, the land of woods. Then southward again they bore and came to a place where a river flowed out of a lake and fell into the sea. The country was pleasant, with good fishing. Leif said that they would spend the winter there, and they built wooden cabins well-made and warm.

"Then at the season when the leaves are blood-red and bright gold came in from the woods Thorkel the German, smacking his lips and making strange faces and jabbering in his own language. When they asked what ailed him he said that he had found vines loaded with grapes, and having seen none since he left his own country, which was a land of vineyards, he was out of his senses with delight. Therefore was that country named Vinland the Fair. In the spring went Leif home, well pleased, with a cargo of timber, but his father being dead he voyaged no more to Vinland, but remained to be head of his house.

"Next went Thorvald, Leif's brother, to Vinland and stayed two winters in the booths that Leif built, until he was slain in a fight with the men of that land. His men buried him there and returned sorrowfully to their own land.

"Next went Thorestein, Leif's second brother, forth, with Gudrid his wife, to get the body of Thorvald but he died on the voyage and his widow returned to Brattahlid.

"Next came to Brattahlid Thorfin Karlsefne, the Viking from Iceland, who loved and married Gudrid and from her heard the story of Vinland, and desired it for his own. In good time went he forth in a long ship with his wife, and there went with him three other valiant ships. They had altogether one hundred and sixty men and five women, with cattle, grain and all things fit for a settlement. This was seven years after Leif Ericsson found Vinland. Among the stores for trading was scarlet cloth, which the Skroelings greatly covet, insomuch that one small strip of scarlet would buy many rich furs. But when they came to trade, hearing a bull bellow, with a great squalling they all ran away and left their packs on the ground, nor did they show their faces again for three weeks. Snorre, the son of Thorfin Karlsefne, born in Vinland, was three years old when the Northmen left that land. They had found the winter hard and cold, and in a fight with the Skroelings many had been killed, so that they took ship and returned to Iceland.

"They had gone but a little way when one of the ships, which was commanded by Bjarni Grimulfsson, lagged so far behind that it lost sight of the others. The men then discovered that shipworms[4] had bored the hull so that it was about to sink. None could hope to be saved but in the stern boat, and that would not hold half of them.

"Then stood Bjarni Grimulfsson forth, and said to his men that in this matter there should be no advantage of rank, but they would draw lots, who should go in the boat and who remain in the ship. When this had been done it was Bjarni's lot to go in the boat. After all had gone down into the boat who had the right, an Icelander who had been Bjarni's companion made outcry dolefully saying, 'Bjarni, Bjarni, do you leave me here to die in the sea? It was not so you promised me when I left my father's house.' Then said Bjarni, for the lot was fairly cast, 'What else can be done?' Then said the Icelander, 'I think that you should come up into the ship and let me go down into the boat.' And indeed no other way might be found for him to live. Then answered Bjarni making light of the matter, 'Let it be so, since I see that you are so anxious to live and so afraid of death; I will return to the ship.' This was done, and the men rowing away looked back and saw the ship go down in a great swirl of waves with Bjarni and those who remained.

"This tale my grandmother heard from her father, and he from his, and so on until the time of that Thorolf Erlandsson who sailed with Bjarni Grimulfsson and went down into the sea by his side singing, for he feared nothing but to be a coward."

Thorolf's eyes were as proud and his head as high as were his Viking forefather's when the worm-riddled galley went to her grave with more than half her crew, three hundred and forty years before. In the little silence which followed the fire crackled and whistled, the gusty rain-drenched wind beat upon the little hut. And then Nils repeated musingly the ancient saying from the Runes of Odin,

"'Cattle die, Kings die, Kindred die, we also die,-- One thing never dies, The fair fame of the valiant.'"

Some one knocked at the door. A real Viking in winged helmet and scale-armor would hardly have surprised them just then. But it was only a tall man in a traveler's cloak and hat, and they made quickly room for him to dry himself by the fire, and brought food and drink for him to refresh himself.

"I thought that I knew the way to the old place," he said, looking about, "but in this tempest I nearly lost myself. Which of you is Thorolf Erlandsson?"

The stranger was Syvert Thorolfson, a merchant of Iceland, Thorolf's uncle. He brought messages from Nikolina's grandmother in Stavanger, and from the Bishop, who was ready to see that all the children who had no relatives should be taken care of in Bergen. Within three days Asgard the Beautiful was left to the lemming and the raven. Yet the long bright summer lived always in the hearts of the children. Years after Thorolf remembered the words of the Wind-wife,--

"Make friends with the Skroelings--make friends. Friendship is a rock to stand on; hatred is a rock to split on. In the land of Klooskap shall you be Klooskap's guest."

NOTES

[1] In old Norse families names alternated from father to son. For example, Thorolf Erlandsson (Thorolf the son of Erland) would name his son after his own father, and the boy would be known as Erland Thorolfsson. A daughter was known by her given name and her father's, as Sigrid Erlandsdatter. In the case of the farm being of sufficient importance for a surname the name might be added, as "Elsie Tharaldsdatter Ormgrass."

[2] Northern sailors regard the Finns as wizards.

[3] Fladbrod is the coarse peasant-bread of Norway, made from an unfermented dough of barley and oatmeal rolled out into large thin cakes and baked. It will keep a long time.

[4] The teredo or shipworm was a serious peril in the days before the sheathing of ships. Even tar sheathing was not used until the sixteenth century.

THE VIKING'S SECRET

In the days of jarl and hersir, while yet the world was young, And sagas of gods and heroes the grim-lipped minstrel sung, With the beak of his open galley in the sunset's scarlet flame, Over the wild Atlantic the Norseland Viking came.

Life was a thing to play with,--oh, then the world was wide, With room for man and mammoth, and a goblin life beside. Now we have slain the mammoths, and we have driven the ghosts away, And we read the saga of Vinland in the light of a new-born day.

We have harnessed the deadly lightnings; we have ridden the restless wave. We have chased the brood of the werewolf back to their noisome cave. But far in the icy Northland, with weird witch-lights aglow, Locked in the Greenland glaciers, is a tale we do not know.

Out of Brattahlid's portal, southward from Herjulfsness, They came to their new-found kingdom, their Vinland to possess. Armored with careless laughter, strong with a stubborn will, The Vikings found it and lost it--it is undiscovered still!

Where did they beach their galleys? How were their cabins planned? Who were the fearful Skroelings? What was the Fürdürstrand? What were the grapes of Tyrker? For all that is written or said, The Rune Stones hold the secret of the days of Eric the Red!

II

THE RUNES OF THE WIND-WIFE

Salt and scarred from the northern seas, the _Taernan_, deep-laden with herring, nosed in at the Hanse quay in Bergen. Thorolf Erlandsson looked grimly up at the huge warehouses. Since the Hanseatic League secured a foothold in Norway, in 1343, most Norwegian ports had been losing trade, and Bergen, or rather the Hanse merchants in Bergen, had been getting it. Between the Danes and the Germans it looked rather as if Norwegians were to be crowded out of their own country.

The Hanse traders not only received and sold fish for the Friday markets of northern Europe, but sold all kinds of manufactured goods. It was said that they had two sets of scales--one for buying and one for selling. Norwegians had either to adapt themselves to the new methods or give their sons to the ceaseless battle of the open sea. From the Baltic and Icelandic fisheries, the North Sea and the Lofoden Islands, their ships got the heaviest and the hardest of the sea-harvesting.

But it takes more than hardship to break a Norseman. In his four years at sea Thorolf had become tall, broad-shouldered and powerful, and at eighteen he looked a grown man. He did more than he promised, and listened oftener than he talked, and his only close friend was Nils Magnusson, who was now coming down to the wharf. They had known each other from boyhood.

Nils had been for three years a clerk in Syvert Thorolfsson's warehouse. While not tall he was neither stunted nor crippled, and easily kept pace with Thorolf. As he set out the silver-bound horn cups to drink _skal_[1] with his friend in his own lodging, the croak and sputter of German talk sounded in the street below.

"Behold a new Bergen," observed Nils whimsically. "Let us drink to the founding of a new Iceland. Did you go to Greenland?"

"We touched at Kakortok with letters for the Bishop. The people are sick and savage with fighting against the Skroelings."

"Now," said Nils, rubbing his long nose, "it is odd that you say that, for I was just going to tell you some news. The King has given Paul Knutson leave to raise a company to fight against the Skroelings in Greenland--and parts beyond. He sails in a month."

"I wish I had known of it."

"I thought you would say that. This is between us two and the candle, but Anders Amundson is going, and I am going, and you may go if you will."

Thorolf's gray eyes flamed. "What is Knutson like?"

"Well, they may call him Chevalier, but he has the old Viking way with him. I said that I had a friend who had long wished to lay his bones in a strange land, and he answered, 'If your friend sails with me I would prefer to have him bring his bones home again.' He kept a place for you."

Three weeks later Thorolf, looking backward as the _Rotge_, (little auk or sea-king) stood out to sea, saw the familiar outline of Snaehatten against the sunrise and wondered when he should see it again. Like a questing raven his mind returned to the summer spent at the saeter, and recalled that dark saying of the Wind-wife,--

"In the land of Klooskap shall you be Klooskap's guest."

The galley[2] rode the waves with the bold freedom of her kind. Her keel was carved out of a single great tree. Her seasoned oaken timbers, overlapping, were riveted together by iron bolts, with the round heads outside. Where a timber touched a rib, a strip was cut out on each side, forming a block through which a hole was bored. Another hole was bored in the rib to match and a rope twisted of the inner bark of the linden was put through both holes and knotted. In surf or heavy sea, this construction gave the craft a supple strength. Calking was done with woolen cloth steeped in pitch. The mast, of a chosen trunk of fir, was set upright in a log with ends shaped like a fishtail. The long oarlike rudder was on the board or side of the ship to the right of the stern, called the starboard or steerboard. The lading was done on the opposite side, the larboard or ladderboard. There were ten oars to a side, and a single large triangular sail.

Long and narrow, hardly ten feet above the water-line at her lowest, her curved prow glancing over the waves like the head of a swimming snake, she was no more like the tumbling cargo-ships than a shark is like a porpoise. When they were two days out, Nils said to Thorolf,

"A Viking in such a galley would sail to the end of the world. By the way, did the Skroelings in Greenland understand that language the Wind-wife spoke?"

"I was not there long enough to find out. I once asked a man who knows their talk well, and he said it was no tongue that ever he heard."

The Greenland folk welcomed them heartily. Finding that the white men had not after all been forgotten by their own people, the natives drew off and gave them no more trouble. The Northmen spent the winter in sleep, talk, song, and hunting with native guides. Besides the old man in white fur, as the polar bear was respectfully called, Arctic foxes, walrus, whales and seal abounded. Many of the new-comers became skilful in the making and the use of the skin-covered native boats called Kayaks. Nils had some skill in carving wood and stone, and could write in the Runic script of Elfdal. In the long evenings when winds from the cave of the Great Bear buffeted the low huts, he taught Thorolf and Anders what he knew, and talked with the Skroelings. But none of them understood the runes of the Wind-wife. Their speech was quite different.

Spring came with brief, hot sunshine, and the creeping birches budded on the pebbly shore. Encouraged by the reports from Greenland, new colonists ventured out, and house-building went on briskly. One day Thorolf was summoned to Knutson's headquarters.

"Erlandsson," began the Chevalier, "they say that you have information about Vinland[3] and the Skroelings there, from an old woman who lived among them. What can you tell me?"

Thorolf told the story of the Wind-wife. Knutson looked interested but doubtful.

"I have talked with the oldest colonists," he said, "and they know nothing of any Skroelings but those hereabouts. They say also that Vinland is hard to come at. Boats venturing south return with tales of heavy winds, dense fogs and dangerous cliffs and skerries--or do not return at all. One was caught and crushed in the ice, and the crew were found on the floe half starved and gnawing bits of hide. In the sagas of Vinland the Skroelings are spoken of as fierce and treacherous. To hold such a land would need a strong hand. The old woman may have forgotten--or the stories may be those of her own people."

Thorolf shook his head. "Nay, my lord. She was not a forgetful person--and the language is neither Lapp nor Finn."

"She was very old, you say?"

"I think so. I do not know how old."

"Old people sometimes confuse what they have heard with what they have seen. But I shall remember what you have said."

"If he had known the Wind-wife," said Nils when told of this conversation, "he would have no doubt."

Knutson wrote to the King, but got no reply for a long time. A ship with a cargo of trading stores was sent for, and was wrecked on the Faroes. But in the following spring an expedition to Vinland was really planned. There was no general desire to take part in it. Many of Knutson's party now longed for their native land, where the mountains were drawn swords flashing in the sun, and the malachite and silver waters and flowery turf, the jeweled scabbards. They dreamed of the lure sounding over the valleys, of bright-paired maidens dancing the _spring dans_. Nevertheless in due season the _Rotge_ left the Greenland shore and pointed her inquiring beak southeast by south. In the _Gudrid_ sailed Knutson and his immediate following, with the trading cargo and most of the provisions. By keeping well out to sea at first the commander hoped to escape the perils of the coast.

This hope was dashed by an Atlantic gale which drove them westward. For two days and two nights they were tossed between wind and tide. Toward the end of the second night the sound of the waves indicated land to starboard. In the growing light they saw a harbor that seemed spacious enough for all the ships in the world, sheltered by wooded hills. If this were Vinland, it was greater than saga told or skald sang.

They landed to take in fresh water, mend a leak and see the country, but found no grapes, no Skroelings nor any sign of Northmen's presence. On the rocks grew vineberries, or mountain cranberries, and Knutson thought that perhaps these and not true grapes were the fruit found in Vinland. He sent a party of a dozen men, Anders and Thorolf leading, to explore the forest, ascend some hill if possible and return the same day. He himself remained with the ships and kept Nils by him. He rather expected that the natives, learning of the strangers' arrival, would be drawn by curiosity to visit the bay.

The scouting party followed the banks of the little stream that had given them fresh water, Anders leading, Thorolf just behind him. Wind stirred softly in the leaves overhead, unseen birds fluttered and chirped, sunshine sifting through the maple undergrowth turned it to emerald and gold and jasper. Once there was a discordant screech from the evergreens, but it was only a brilliant blue jay with crest erect, scolding at them. A striped squirrel flashed up the trunk of a tree to his hole. Then sudden as lightning, from the bushes they had just passed, came a flight of arrows.

Two men were slightly wounded, but most of the arrows were turned by the light strong body armor of the Norsemen. The foe remained unseen and unheard. Nothing stirred, though the men scanned the woods about them with the keen eyes of seamen and hunters.

Thorolf was seized with an inspiration. He went forward a step or two, lifted his hand in salutation, and called,--

"Klooskap mech p'maosa?"[4] (Is Klooskap yet alive?)

There was a silence stiller than death. The Norsemen faced the ominous thicket without moving a muscle. Some one within it called out something which Thorolf did not understand. But no more arrows came. He tried another sentence.

"Klooskap k-chi skitap, pechedog latogwesnuk." (Klooskap was a great man in the country far to the northward.)

This time he made out the answer. In a swift aside he explained to his comrades,--

"'K'putuswin' means 'let us take council.' They want to have a talk."

He managed to convey his assent to the unseen listeners, and every tree, rock and log sprouted Skroelings. They were quite unlike the natives of Greenland, though of copper-colored complexion.[5] These men--there were no women among them,--were tall and sinewy, and wore their coarse black hair knotted up on the head with a tuft of feathers. They were naked to the waist, and wore fringed breeches of deerskin, and soft shoes embroidered in bright colors. Some had necklaces of bears' claws, beads or shells, but the only weapons seemed to be the bow and arrow and a stone-headed hatchet or club. They stared at the white man half curiously and half threateningly.

Then began the queerest conversation that any one present had ever heard. Thorolf discovered the wild men's language to be so nearly like that learned from the Wind-wife that he could understand it when spoken slowly, and in a halting fashion could make them comprehend him. His companions listened in wonder. Not even Anders had really believed in that language.

At last Thorolf held out his hand, and the leader of the Skroelings came forward in a very gingerly manner and took it. Then walking in single file, toes pointed straight forward, the savages melted into the forest as frost melts in sunshine.

With a broad grin, the first he had worn for some time, Thorolf translated.

"He asked why we came here. I told him, to see the country and trade with his people. He says that white men have come here before, very long ago. I think they were killed and he did not wish to say so. He says that the Sagem, the jarl of his people, lives in a castle over there somewhere. I told him to give the Sagem greeting from our commander, and invite him to visit the place where our ships are. He says that it will not be safe for us to go further into the forest until the Skroelings have heard who we are and what we are doing here."

"That is very good advice," said Anders with a wry face, as he plucked some moss to stanch the wound in his arm. The arrow-head which had made it was a shaped piece of flint bound to the shaft with cords of fine sinew. "We are too few to get into a general fight. Besides, that is not in our orders."

They accordingly went back to the ships, arriving a little before sundown. Knutson was greatly interested.

"You have done well," he said. "A boat was hovering about soon after you left. This may have been a scouting party sent through the forest to cut you off."

All the next day they waited, but nothing happened. On the morning after, a large number of boats appeared rounding the headland to the south. In the largest sat the Sagem, a very old man wrapped in furs. The boats were made of birchbark laced on a wooden framework with fibrous roots, like the toy skiff Mother Elle had made for little Peder.

The Skroelings landed, and advanced with great dignity to meet Knutson, who was equally ceremonious. Nils and Thorolf had all they could do to interpret the old chief's long speech, although many phrases were repeated again and again, which made it easier. Knutson made one in reply, briefer but quite as polite, and brought out beads, little knives, and scarlet cloth from his trading stores. The red cloth and beads were received with eagerness, the knives with interest, and after a young chief had cut himself, with some awe. The Sagem in his turn presented the stranger with skins of the sable, the silver fox and the bear. He and a few of the warriors tasted of the food offered them, and all the white men were asked to a feast in the village the next day.

So friendly were the Skroelings, in fact, that Knutson determined to return to Greenland and see what could be done toward founding a settlement here. He would leave part of the men in winter quarters, with the _Rotge_ as a means of further explorations, or if necessary, of escape. Her captain, Gustav Sigerson, was a cautious, wise and experienced seaman. Anders Amundson, as the best hunter of the expedition, was to stay, with Nils as clerk and Thorolf as interpreter. Booths were erected, stores landed, and on a brilliant day in late summer some forty Norsemen and Gothlanders on the shore watched the _Gudrid_ slowly fading out of sight.

In talking with the natives Nils and Thorolf observed that their world seemed to be infested with demons--particularly water-fiends. A reason for this appeared in time. Half a dozen men one day took the stern-boat and went a-fishing. They came back white-faced, with a story of a giant squid with arms four times as long as the boat, that had risen out of the sea and tried to pull them under. Only their skill as rowers had saved them. Nils remembered the kraken, of ancient legends, and thought he could see why the Skroelings never ventured out to sea in their frail canoes. This put an end to plans for exploring along the coast.