Vikings in America (7 page)

Interpreting these results is problematic. The male distribution is most easily explained. The migration we know was from Norway, or of ethnic Norse from the Faroe Islands, Scotland and Ireland. The 10 per cent Irish males might perhaps represent slaves bought in Dublin and transported to Iceland as farm labourers. The result as far as the male composition is concerned is susceptible to ready explanation. By contrast the female split was completely unexpected. Immediately after the announcement explanations were advanced on the following lines: that the Norse who settled Iceland were predominantly men who arrived with scant provisions, struggled for a few years to found a farm, then made a voyage to Dublin to find an Irish wife. Yet this explanation simply doesn't hold water. It is not at all clear that the Viking migration to Iceland was predominantly male – indeed the accounts we have speak of family groups. Voyages from Iceland tended to be to Norway rather than to Ireland, Norway being the homeland of most of the settlers, suggesting that single men would have found Norse brides. Dublin was a Norse city; the Irish who were there were slaves. In Norse society there was a taboo against taking a slave as a wife, and while it doubtless happened, it was presumably not common.

An alternative and much simpler explanation is that the Vikings who arrived in Iceland found an established Irish population and intermarried with them. The gender balance suggests a marked male Viking dominance, suggesting that Irish men in Iceland were killed.

Military strategy gives a third insight into the fate of the Irish in Iceland. Accounts are precise in terms of the locations where the first explorers over-wintered, and the locations of the first settlements. Most of these sites can be identified today. They can be seen to have certain features in common:they are rarely the site of major later settlements, and frequently locations where no-one lives today, they are almost never close to good quality farm-land; usually they are by the sea and have a place where a ship could have been drawn up, but only rarely are they the best anchorages of the region. Typically it is found that the Vikings chose to establish their first settlements on barren headlands far from good land. In military terms they were taking up defensive positions. Looking at Viking military advances elsewhere, particularly in Scotland, we can see that they were carrying out a process of ‘ness-taking': seizing headlands which they could easily defend, and use
to sally out from and harry the population in the surrounding countryside. The settlement on the ness continued until Viking numbers increased, and they could move to a new farm or group of farms surrounded by richer land.

The Iceland that the Vikings settled was not an empty land. The comfortable story of just a few Irish priests living there who fled to islands off the coast has to be dismissed – rather, the Vikings invaded a populated country just as they had done in Orkney and Shetland and Scotland and Dublin.

Iceland provided two necessities the Vikings sought: land and freedom. That said, the land is not particularly rich. Much of Iceland is covered with lava fields from recent flows, which are of no value for farming whatsoever, and create the additional problem of hindering travel overland as it is not practical to walk or ride over a lava field. The remainder of the land is covered by typically thin soils, often glacial sands, which are difficult to work and not particularly rewarding. Even so, crops can be grown, aided by the long days of summer. The climate is far milder than the name Iceland suggests. While summers are cool, rarely exceeding a daily average of 10°C, winter temperatures only just drop below freezing point, with the result that Reykjavik, just below the Arctic Circle, has warmer winters than the cities of northern Italy or the cities of Canada. Given sufficient land per family – and at the time of the settlement there was plenty – Iceland provides adequate farm land. Even today most of the food eaten in Iceland is produced in Iceland. Freedom was also available in Iceland. While mediaeval Europe sank into the tyranny and barbarism of the feudal age, Iceland provided an environment in which the Viking ideals of self-determination and personal liberty could flourish. The basic settlement unit in Iceland in the years following the settlement age was the farmhouse. This would be isolated, as the low fertility of the land did not permit the clustering of farms to form villages. Typically a farm would comprise around 20 people. There was the head of the household – usually a man, though occasionally a woman – the householder's family, and a group of farm workers. The workers comprised both farm labourers, predominantly men, and weavers and dairy workers, predominantly women. In the years following the settlement these labourers would have included slaves, but within a couple of generations most slavery had ceased, and workers sold their labour to farms. Each farm was represented by the householder at local meetings, called
Things
, which provided basic justice, and a forum to debate and resolve matters of local concern. The principle was equality of power for all householders,
making the system a basic democracy. Each local
Thing
acted as an electoral college appointing its representatives to an annual all-Iceland parliament, the
Althing
. Representatives travelled long distances to attend, living for the duration of the
Althing
in temporary shelters, and meeting in the open on the parliament plains –
Thingvellir
– to enact their business. Iceland can boast that it established one of the earliest parliaments in post-classical Europe, and while the system was very far from perfect it did serve to offer a basic level of democracy, with a legislative and judicial process that strove towards openness and justice.
¹²

The Vikings required wood, which Iceland rarely supplies. Confusingly, early accounts speak of Iceland being forested from the sea to the central ice, though today we understand this word ‘forest' to be a description for the scrub of dwarf birch and willow that covered much of the land. The climate is characterised by variable spring and summer weather, alternating mild weather, which coaxes trees into growth, with freezing spells which kill them. In Reykjavik gardens today, trees are grown by keeping them for the first few years of their life in greenhouses, and planting them out only when big enough to withstand the cold snaps. Curiously, there are a few outdoor-grown trees in the far north of Iceland around Akureyri. Though temperatures here are on average cooler, the area is less prone to the spring warm–cold alternations in temperature of the Reykjavik area.

The Vikings had three crucial uses for wood: firewood, the timber frame of their houses and ships. The absence of wood in Iceland created very real problems. In Orkney, Shetland and the Hebrides, where wood is also lacking, the abundant peat could replace wood on domestic fires. Driftwood and the scrub of dwarf willow and dwarf birch were among the materials used for fires throughout the Middle Ages, but the labour involved in collecting sufficient quantities even for a modest fire is prodigious. In time, a building style for farms was developed using ever-thicker turf walls to offer more insulation, and even building into the ground, which went some way to compensating for the lack of material to burn on a fire. However, the timber frame for farms proved problematic. Viking buildings in Iceland usually used turf walls as well as roofs, but in order to support the roof a number of substantial wooden beams were needed. The first settlers solved this problem by bringing their timber with them – a heavy cargo for a small ship. Problematic also was the timber needed for building and maintaining ships. Driftwood is not the solution for these various requirements for wood. While sometimes found washed ashore in Iceland, it is rarely found
in large quantities, and the quality of driftwood is usually poor, certainly inadequate for weight-bearing beams in farms or for the strength and suppleness required by ships.

The need was satisfied by trade, mainly to Norway. For this purpose every area of Iceland maintained ships, enabling voyages to be made every year to buy timber. Norway was the nearest major market, and well able to supply the timber required, as well as being the homeland of the majority of the first settlers. From Norway the Icelanders bought first timber, then a variety of luxury goods, often traded from the Mediterranean to Norway. In return, the Icelanders sold wool. Icelandic wool is still regarded as being of superb quality, and found a ready market in Norway. The trade was, however, unequal. While Norwegians were content to buy Icelandic wool, they had no absolute need for it, and could take the wool they needed from other sources or produce it at home. By contrast, the Icelanders did have an absolute need for timber, which forced them to trade on any terms. As a result, while trade from Iceland to Norway was considerable in volume it did not make the Icelanders rich. Rather, it created a dependency culture, where Iceland was unable to exist without the support of Norway. For Icelanders there was pressure to find different goods to trade; for Norwegians there was an expectation that their culture and values should be exported along with the timber to their Icelandic brethren. In time a broadening of Icelanders' trade goods happened, but not before Norwegian pressure resulted in an export of Norway's culture.

The conventional date for the conversion of Norway to Christianity is 1030, though in fact there had been some penetration during the reigns of Olaf Tryggvason (995–1000) and Olaf II Haraldsson (1015–30), both Christian kings, though both baptised outside Norway. Norwegian Christianity therefore post-dates the Vikings' settlement of Iceland, and Christian penetration of Iceland was far from universal. Throughout the Middle Ages and well into the modern period, Christianity and paganism lived side-by-side in Iceland, with the people worshipping the gods which make up the Norse pantheon, a complex group of gods and their myths which provide a way of understanding the world.
¹³
Thus Thor, in origin a thunder god, had developed into a representation of the values of strength, honesty and hard work, and became a favourite of the Icelandic farmers. He embodies their values, and is commemorated in many hundreds of place names, and the enormous popularity of personal names with the element Thor. Odin too, the All-father, was popular, associated with the heroic ideals of
personal independence and personal responsibility, as well as the god of war and magic. While Thor is the god of the farmers, Odin is very much the god of the Viking seafarer. These two sets of values around Thor and Odin are key to understanding the value system of the Icelanders: strong, honest, hard-working farmers who valued independence and were prepared to fight for it. A thousand years of Christianity have demonised the Norse pagan religious system, yet there is much in its values that is commendable, and much that should be applauded in the ethical values of the society the Vikings created in Iceland. In Iceland, the Viking way of life demonstrated its ultimate potential.

In the late Middle Ages, Iceland went on to produce a northern renaissance of learning and literature built around a society which valued democracy, justice and peace. This North Atlantic island is a key stepping stone in the route from Europe to America, and also a key in the development of the values which prompted the Viking expansion to America.

Iceland is the last truly European stepping stone of the North Atlantic. It is a short step from Iceland to Greenland.

The discovery of land to the west of Iceland must have been contemporary with the first settlement of Iceland. From a ship at sea it is possible on a clear day to see at one time both the glacier-clad peak of Snaefell in Iceland, and the central ice cap of Greenland. In exceptional weather conditions it is even possible to glimpse Greenland from Iceland, from the top of Snaefell. Cloud patterns and the flight of birds make it clear that there is land west of Iceland, and even the very first Icelanders must have been aware that a land mass existed. Yet the sea between is one of the world's most dangerous. The Denmark Strait has a strong, cold current from the north which in summer brings down a constant stream of pack ice, and frequently icebergs, while in winter the sea freezes out from the coast of Greenland, in a particularly cold winter forming an ice sheet right across to Iceland. The Denmark Strait is a very major challenge for navigation. For the coracle-using Irish living in Iceland it was an absolute barrier, for coracles cannot withstand ice. Whatever westward movement the Irish may have managed – and there is little doubt that they voyaged further west – was accomplished without a stop in Greenland. For the Vikings, the Denmark Strait was challenging, but just passable. Their route was not straight across through the pack ice, but took
them well out to sea. Out of the way of the pack ice they sailed south along the coast of Greenland until its southernmost point, Cape Farewell, was reached. Here the ocean breaks up the pack ice, and they were able to round the cape and land on Greenland's western coast.

Icelandic sources record the name of the Viking credited with the first landing on the coast of Greenland – Gunnbjorn Ulfsson. A Norwegian bound for Iceland, he was blown off-course in 900 and made landfall on some islands off Greenland's east coast around present-day Tasiilaq which, with a view to preserving his name, he called Gunnbjorner Skerries. This coast had little to offer, and Gunnbjorn corrected his error and sailed to Iceland. Indeed, even today the east coast of Greenland is the most marginal of human habitation, supporting only a few hundred East Greenlandic Inuit along well over 1,000 miles of shore. There is a strip of land between ocean and ice cap which is free of snow for the summer, but the resources it offers are exceptionally meagre. The problem is compounded by the navigational difficulties presented by the pack ice and icebergs which are pushed close into shore and prevent access by sea. There can be no surprise that Gunnbjorn was keen to head to Iceland.

There is no record of another voyage to Greenland for 78 years. In 978 Snaebjorn Galti became entangled in the endemic Viking feuds, committing a revenge killing which left him and his companions liable to a death penalty at the
Althing
. Snaebjorn and his companions fled Iceland for Gunnbjorn's land to the west. A saga passage records a dream by one of Snaebjorn's companions on the eve of their departure: ‘I can see death in a dread place, yours and mine; north-west over the waves, with ice, and cold, and countless wonders.' Snaebjorn nonetheless set out, retracing Gunnbjorn's steps to Gunnbjorner Skerries, and establishing a homestead nearby on the fjord at Blaeserk. Winter fell, effectively confining the men to the shelter they had built, and in this claustrophobic environment they turned first to arguing, then to murdering one another. In the spring a handful of survivors made the return voyage to Iceland, concluding the first attempt at the settlement of Greenland.