THE FIRST EUROPEAN TO EXPLORE, AND SETTLE IN, AMERICA.

ON the shore of a great fiord, or estuary of the sea, in the far northern country of Greenland, stood a little boy. He was sturdy-limbed, blue-eyed, flaxen-haired, and he was looking out across the water at a great high-prowed Viking ship which lay bobbing upon the waves.

He stood there thinking,—thinking, until, as he gazed enraptured upon the scene before him, a tall, bearded Norwegian came up behind him. He smiled upon the little boy, and, laying his hand upon his head, said:

“Little one, what are you dreaming about?”

The youthful Norwegian looked around and also smiled.

“Good Lothair,” he answered, “I am thinking of the time when I shall be able to sail far to the westward, with the older Vikings, and can have adventures of mine own.”

The other laughed.

“Ah, ha, that time will not be far distant,” said he, benignly. “You will wax tough and sinewy in this bracing air and by sailing in these blue fiords. And then, some day, one of the Vikings will want a stout fellow to man an oar. He will call upon Leif, little Leif. And I’ll warrant that little Leif will then be ready.”

“I will be.”

“And would you go far to the westward, to the land of the setting sun?”

“Even so.”

“And would you be willing to risk life and limb amidst ice and snow?”

“I’d be glad to do it.”

Lothair laughed loud and long.

“You are a true Viking, my boy. You are, indeed, one of those whom Thor has smiled upon and whom the Valkyrias would love to assist in battle. Keep up your spirit, and, some day, you may be famous,—who knows?”

So saying he walked away, still laughing softly to himself.

And the little boy still kept on thinking, thinking, and looking out upon the great, blue sea which seemed to beckon to him, to nod to him, and to sigh: “Come on! Come on! I have marvelous things to reveal to you, little boy.”

The youthful Viking turned around, went back to his home, and kept on working and sailing, and fishing, and playing, until a time came when he had waxed great in both strength and in stature, and, as he looked at himself in the polished surface of his shield he said: “Ah! Now, indeed, I am a true Viking. I am ready for great things.”

This little boy was the son of Eric the Red, a strong man, and a bad man, also. Eric’s father lived in Iceland, whither he had been forced to fly from Norway, for he had killed a man there and he would himself have been killed, had he not jumped into a boat, rowed to a Viking ship, and sailed to the westward. And Eric the Red seems to have inherited the traits of his father, for he, too, killed another. He had lent some of his furniture to a neighbor who would not restore it. Eric, therefore, carried off his goods and the other pursued him. They met, and hot words passed; so they had a struggle and Eric killed the fellow. He was thus made an outlaw, so he went sailing away to find some place where he could live in peace, far from his brother Vikings. He found a land, where he settled,—and called it Greenland, for, said he, “other Vikings will come here and settle, also, if I give this place a good name.”

Eric the Red, had two children, of whom one was called Thorstein, and the other, Leif. The first developed into a thin youth with black hair and a sallow complexion, but the second was rosy-cheeked, fair-haired, blue-eyed, and sturdy-limbed. He was, in fact, the little boy to whom Lothair spoke as he stood upon the banks of the fiord, gazing far into the distance, determined, some day, to sail towards the West where he was certain that adventure and treasure, too, perhaps, were waiting for him.

One of the men who accompanied Eric, the murderer, to Greenland was named Herjulf. This bold and daring adventurer had a son named Bjarni, who roved the seas over, in search of adventure, for many, many years. Finally, in 986, he came home to Iceland in order to drink the Yuletide ale with his father. Finding that his parent had gone away, he weighed anchor and started after him to Greenland, but he encountered foggy weather, and thus sailed for many days by guess work, without seeing either the sun or the stars. When, at length, he sighted land, it was a shore without mountains. He saw, through the misty murk, only a small height covered with dense woods. So, without stopping in order to make explorations, he turned his prow to the north and kept on. He knew that this was not Greenland, and, so we may think it strange that he did not stop to examine the rugged coastline.

The sky was now fair and a brisk breeze was astern, so, after scudding along for nine or ten days, Bjarni saw the icy crags of Greenland looming up before him, and, after some further searching, found his way to his father’s house. He had more than once sighted a heavily timbered shore-line, to the west, while steering for home, and, when he told of it, great curiosity was excited amongst the Norsemen.

Little Leif had now grown to be a man of size and strength. He had made many a journey to Norway, and, when there, in the year 998, found that Roman missionary priests were preaching up and down the land, and had converted the King, Olaf Tryggbesson, who had formerly worshiped the Gods Thor and Odin. Leif, himself, became a Christian and was baptized, so, when he returned to Greenland, he took several priests with him, who converted many of the people. Old Eric the Red, however, preferred to worship in the way of his fathers, and continued to believe in the mystical Valhalla, or hall of departed spirits, where the dead Vikings were supposed to drink huge cups of ale while feasting with their gods.

Upon a bright, warm day in the year 1000 a.d., a great Viking ship lay calmly upon the waters of the bay before the town of Bratthalid in Greenland, and on shore all was bustle and confusion. Leif Ericson, in fact, had determined to sail far to the westward, even as he had dreamed of doing when a little boy; and so, with thirty staunch adventurers, he was preparing to load his ship with sufficient provisions to last for the journey to that strange country of which Bjarni had brought news. It took several weeks to gather provisions and men, but at length everything was ready. The sail was hoisted, the great oaken oars were dipped into the water, and the sharp bow of the Viking ship was turned toward the open sea. “Huzzah! Huzzah!” shouted the Norsemen. “Huzzah!”

The Viking ship, which had a huge dragon’s head at the prow, was such a tiny affair, when compared with the massive ocean liners of to-day, that one can well imagine how she must have been tossed about by the great, surging waves; but she kept on and on, ever steering westward, until a land was discovered which seemed to be filled with flat stones, so they called it Helluland, or flat-stone land. This was the Newfoundland of our maps, to-day.

Leaving this behind them, the Vikings kept on steering southward and westward, until they saw a low-lying and heavily wooded shore. This was Nova Scotia, and they coasted along it, for many days, occasionally coming to anchor in one of the deep bays, and heaving overboard their fishing lines, so as to catch some of the many fish which seemed to abound in these waters.

They sailed on towards the south, and at last reached a place where a beautiful river flowed through a sort of an inland lake into the sea. Many islands were near the mouth of this stream, and, as salmon seemed to abound in the waters of this blue and clear-flowing estuary of the Atlantic, Leif decided that this was a good place in which to spend the winter. So down went the anchor, the Viking ship was moored near the shore, and the men scrambled to the beach in order to erect huts in which to spend the cold season. Thus the dream of the little boy, as he had stood upon the shore of Greenland, years before, had come true, and Leif had reached a new world, to which he had been led by his daring and his love of adventure.

You see, that, although it was long supposed that Columbus was the first white man from Europe to ever set his foot upon the shore of America, such is not the case.

The real discoverer of America, of whom we have any definite record, was Bjarni, the son of Herjulf, who, in the midst of fog and murk, coasted along the shore of Nova Scotia in 986 a.d.

And the first European to make a settlement upon the shores of the new world was Leif Ericson, who sailed into that blue, salmon-filled river which flows “through a lake into the sea.” So, if you look along the coast of New England, and try to find a river which answers this description, you will, I think, find but one. This is the river Charles, which, emptying into the Charles River Basin—a huge lake, if you wish—flows into the blue Atlantic. And, if you search the shore upon the Cambridge side near the hospital, you will find, to-day, the cellars of four houses,—the houses, no doubt, which Leif and his men erected in the year 1000 a.d.

The Vikings built their huts, caught many salmon, and journeyed inland, where they found a profusion of wild grapes, so many, in fact, that they dried a great mass of them, loaded them into the hold, and called this land Vinland, the Good. They also found a race of people living in this country, who were ferocious in aspect, with ugly hair, big eyes, and broad cheeks. They were clad in the skins of the beaver, the lynx and the fox, and their weapons were bows and arrows, slings, and stone hatchets. As they screeched dismally when about to attack in battle, the Vikings called them Skraelings, or Screechers. It is apparent that the Skraelings were more like the Esquimaux, than like the Indians found by Columbus.

The Vikings spent a peaceful winter in Vinland and had no difficulty with the Skraelings, who left them alone. The Norsemen felled a great many trees and loaded their ship with lumber, with dried fish and grapes. Spring at last came and the ice and snow melted in the deep forests, the gray geese began to fly northward, and the robins chanted a melodious welcome from the budding thickets. The followers of Leif deserted their huts, clambered aboard their low-lying vessel, and, singing a song of thanksgiving, turned her prow towards the blue Atlantic. They coasted past the islands at the harbor-mouth, and, driven by a stout breeze, were soon careening over the waves upon their journey to Greenland.

But adventures were not entirely over, for, upon the way home, a dark spot appeared upon the horizon, and, upon sailing up to it, Leif and his seamen discovered a boat-load of sailors. These poor fellows had been out in a large vessel, but she had foundered, and had gone to the bottom in a squall. The castaways were rescued, were taken aboard the home-going Viking ship, and were carried along to Bratthalid, where Leif and his followers received a royal welcome, and great interest was taken in the story of their adventures. Leif was christened Leif the Lucky, and by that name he was to be known forever afterwards.

The daring navigator never again sailed to the pine-clad coast of Vinland, but other Norsemen made the journey and some left their bones to bleach upon the shores of New England. Thus in 1002, when Eric the Red died, and Leif the Lucky succeeded to his Earldom, Thorstein (Leif’s brother) decided to explore the new-found country. So, with thirty or more men, he sailed to the westward, found the huts which the first adventurers had erected, and had the pleasure of spending the winter there. These voyagers stayed here for several years, for, in the Spring of 1004, while some of the party were exploring, the ship was driven ashore in a storm, near a ness, or cape. They put a new keel into their damaged vessel and stuck the old one into the sand, calling the place Kjalarness, or Keel Cape. The cape was undoubtedly near the end of Cape Cod.

Thorstein was subsequently slain in a battle with the Skraelings, but his men returned to Greenland, bringing lumber, dried fish, and many tales of this wonderful country; so that other Vikings longed to go and explore. Thus, in the summer of 1011, two ships set sail for Vinland, one with Leif’s brother and sister, Thorwald and Freydis, and a crew of thirty men; the other with two brothers, Helgi and Finnibogi, and a crew of thirty-five. There were also a number of women.

Helgi and Finnibogi were the first to arrive at the huts which Leif had constructed, and had taken possession of them, when Freydis, arriving soon afterwards, ordered them to leave. Bad blood arose, and Freydis one day complained that Helgi had given her evil words and had struck her. She told Thorwald that he should avenge this insult, and taunted him so mercilessly, that, unable to bear her jeering words any longer, he was aroused to a deed of blood. Surrounded by his followers, he made a night attack upon the huts of Helgi and Finnibogi, seized and bound all the occupants, and killed them with cold steel. The peaceful shores of the river Charles witnessed such a murder as has never occurred again.

In 1012 the survivors sailed for Greenland in the vessel of the murdered brothers, which was the larger of the two. The evil woman, Freydis, who had caused all this trouble, pretended that the other party had been left in Vinland, and that ships had merely been exchanged. She threatened her men, that, if any told on her, they would be murdered, but words were let fall which came to the ears of Leif the Lucky. Three of those who had just returned were put to the torture, until they told the whole story of murder and death in the peaceful country of Vinland.

Leif was greatly affected by the news, but said with great show of magnanimity: “I have no heart to punish my wicked sister Freydis as she deserves. But this I do say to Freydis and Thorwald,—that their posterity will never thrive.”

“And”—says an old Viking—“so it went that no one thought anything but evil of them from that time on.”

This is the last that we hear of Leif the Lucky. That little rosy-cheeked boy, who dreamed that one day he would be a great adventurer, had accomplished his purpose. He had found a new country, he had lived to see it explored by other Vikings, and he had opened the eyes of Europeans to the fact that, far away there was a land which was richer in furs and in timber than anything which they had about them.

The citizens of Boston, Massachusetts, have erected a bronze statue to this navigator, upon Commonwealth Avenue; where, with hand shading his keen eyes, the staunch Norwegian is going out upon the Charles River;—that river, upon the banks of which in the year 1000 a.d., he and his followers spent a peaceful winter in the land of the Skraelings, the beaver, the bear, and the pink-fleshed salmon. Skoal, then, to Leif the Lucky! And remember that it was he, and not Columbus, who first trod upon the shores of America as an adventurer from the European world.

VINLAND

’Neath the scent of the green hemlock forests, near the sands of the storm-driven sea,

Lies a land which is good, filled with balsamy wood, and a voice there is calling to me;

There the grapes grow in reddening clusters, there the salmon jump clear of the falls,

And in crystalline splendor, the moon, in November, shines bright, as the lynx caterwauls.

From Moosehead the wild loon is screaming, from Rangely the trout jumps at play;

And from Kathadyn’s bold peak, comes the osprey’s fierce shriek, while the brown bear creeps near to its prey.

Oh! that is the land for the Vikings; yea, that is the kingdom of rest;

In the rude deer-skin boats, the warrior gloats, as the strangers press on to the West.

There is thunder for Thor and for Odin; there is silver for Tyr and BrogÉ,

In Jotunheim’s palace, there is envy and malice; but nothing but love far away:

Come, Vikings, hoist up your rude anchors! Come, seamen, row hard, as ye should!

And steer to the West, where there’s peace and there’s rest; steer straightway to Vinland the Good.