The Norsemen in the West, R. M. Ballantyne [best books to read all time .txt] 📗

Shall we listen to what our friends say? We think not. Too long already have we caused them to break the silence which they have maintained for the last eight hundred years. Let us rather bid their shades depart with a kind farewell.

But before the memory of them is quite gone, let us say a word or two in conclusion.

Whether the Norsemen ever returned again to Vinland is a matter of uncertainty, for the saga is silent on that point; and it is to be feared that Snorro, the first American, did not return to take possession of his native land, for when the great continent was re-discovered about five hundred years later, only “red-skins” were found there; and the Pilgrim Fathers make no mention of having met with descendants of any colony of white men.

What ultimately became of Snorro and Olaf is, we regret to say, unknown. This, however, is certain, that Karlsefin, according to his oft-expressed intention, retired to Iceland, where he dwelt happily with Gudrid, Leif, Biarne, and Thorward for many years. It is therefore probable that Snorro and Olaf took to a seafaring life, which was almost the only life open to enterprising men in those days. If they did, they distinguished themselves—there can be no doubt whatever upon that point.

As to the other personages who have figured in our tale, we can only surmise—at least hope—that they lived long and happily, for the saga relates nothing as to the end of their respective careers. But of this we are quite sure, that wherever they went, or however long they lived, they never failed to retain a lively recollection of that romantic period of their lives when they sojourned in the pleasant groves of Vinland—that mighty continent which, all unsuspected by these men of old, was destined, in the course of time, to play such a grand and important part in the world’s history.

Thus ends all that we have got to tell of the adventures of the Norsemen in the West, and the Discovery of America before Columbus.

Note. An important Christian colony existed in Greenland for nearly 400 years—from some time in the tenth to near the end of the fourteenth century,—a colony in which, in the fourteenth century, there were 190 townships and a town called Garda, in which were a cathedral, bishop’s seat, and twelve or thirteen churches, besides other Christian establishments, with a regular succession of bishops for their superintendence, of whom seventeen are named in the sagas. This colony, strange to say, was obliterated, no one knew how or when, and its very existence was forgotten by the civilised world. It was chronicled, however, in the Icelandic sagas and brought to light by antiquaries of the highest authority. The statistical details given by the sagas have been corroborated by the actual discovery in Greenland, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, of vast ecclesiastical and other buildings. These are facts which do not admit of reasonable doubt—so writes Samuel Laing in his translation of “The Heimskringla, or Chronicle of the Kings of Norway,” volume one, page 141.