Scandinavia in the sixteenth century. Institute of Texan Cultures, 80-214

The Vikings were a people to generate legends. Accounts and artifacts support the fact of their travels from the Mediterranean to Central Russia and from Greenland to Africa.(1) Farther west than Greenland, the stories are thin. The Norsemen are, however, strong contenders as the European discoverers of America—or at least one-time discoverers whose settlement was not lasting. Their western claim rests on a number of sagas, stories written centuries after the actions they describe; several archaeological sites; a few questionable New World artifacts; church records; and a collection of runes on rocks.

There are no original maps. Early Vikings apparently did not have time for maps. (2)

Few people today doubt the truth of Viking voyages in the north Atlantic, including that of Bjarni Herjulfson, who apparently saw North America in C.E. 986 after he was blown there while trying to reach Greenland. (3) He did not land. Bjarni was on his way, with great resolution, to join his father for yuletide ale and could not be persuaded to go ashore, even though his crew gave him “hard words” about his refusal to land.

Greenland had been settled by Norse and native Icelanders about 950. Erik the Red was foremost of these settlers, and his son Leif, apparently curious, reversed Bjarni’s route and sailed to Vinland about 1000. (4)

After Leif came Thorwald, Thorfinn Karlsefni, and his wife Gudrid as part of a colonial effort. The Karlsefni’s son Snorri was born near or in Vinland about 1007. These settlers were followed by other Norse, whose ultimately unsuccessful colonies beyond Greenland came to an end as late as 1360 and probably much before. (5) Some of the colonists simply disappeared in the west.

Greenland and Vinland even had their own bishops. Quite a few were duly appointed, as noted in church records, over some two hundred years—the first being Erik Uppsi (Gnupsson) in 1112. (6) Even before the church records, before some of the sagas were written down, Adam of Bremen mentioned Vinland in 1073, the earliest dated reference that has survived. But where was Vinland and the other places the sagas mention west of Greenland? How far did the western voyagers go?

Imaginary concept of the discovery of Greenland by the Norse. Institute of Texan Cultures, 74-1558

This is not exactly known. Most scholars think Vinland was someplace on the northeast American coast. (7) Speculation on other possible sites strays into sheer guesswork. Dr. Helge Ingstad has discovered remains of Norse settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, which most professional archaeologists term clear, reliable evidence. The controversy of Minnesota’s Kensington runestone is not settled, but a mere handful of people think it genuine. Then, there are only a few investigators—and perhaps no professional archaeologists—who believe various islands in the Caribbean, the coast of Mexico, and sites in Paraguay were visited and settled by Viking groups. (8)

Vikings could have sailed almost anywhere. Their ships could take on the North Atlantic, and did. Norse ships, sixty to one hundred feet long and up to twenty feet in beam, could be beached easily and were also excellent river craft. They were best sailed before the wind, could be rowed fairly easily by crews of from six to thirty men, but were at the mercy of adverse storms. (9) They were capable of coasting North America and traveling on many an inland river.

But capability says nothing about an actual visit. If the Vikings ever sailed the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, their journey is now preserved only in legend. Juan de Torquemada does record a Native American story of such a landing—very close to Pánuco. He says that Mexican Indians met people from northern regions—white, fair-haired, bearded, finely built—who arrived wearing clothes of dark sacking, open in front, without cowls, cut out round at the neck, with short, wide sleeves. (10) The dress fits that of northern Europe, or the Norse Greenland settlers, after 1000.

These newcomers, traveling south and inland, were said to have been welcomed as they passed through the area of Tollan and settled for a time near present Cholula. This, of course, is an origin—one of several origins—of the Quetzalcoatl story. Those who came, in ships that looked like serpents and whose sides were girt with an ornament of coiled snakes, later departed saying that others would come again.

At least this is a story that the Spaniards had no motive for inventing. Concerned with colonial claims, the Spanish were usually reluctant to admit precedence. If Vikings saw present Texas, it was on this trip along the coast from the decks of their ships. The clearest evidence of a very different nature attesting to a Viking visit inland comes from a site in southeastern Oklahoma in the drainage of the Red River. A state park on Poteau Mountain near Heavener houses the much-studied, runic inscriptions called everything from fake to a place name to the coded evidence of a Norse visit on St. Martin’s Day, November 11, 1012. (11)

A transcription of the Heavener runes

Certainly the date is logical. A monk, traveling with the group, would have been capable of writing an encoded message—and his presence, a Christian, was an accepted thing among Vikings of that year. This is exactly the opinion of some contemporary scholars who claim that the main inscription, and several others found nearby, are all the work of not-too-transient Vikings in the early eleventh century.

The controversy continues. Unquestionably genuine runic engravings in the New World are simply unheard of. Those that exist gain little acceptance from the majority of American or European linguists. Indeed, at least one person has come forward to claim he carved some of the Oklahoma stones, but other first-hand observation dates the carving long before his lifetime. (12)

On Texas rocks, no definite runes—fake or otherwise—have come to light, although fleeting stories remain about carvings in the Panhandle and along the Rio Grande. (13)) Perhaps the trouble in Texas is that there is little suitable rock (Vikings especially liked granites and well-cemented sandstones) on coastal landing sites.

Some rock engravings of what seem to be Norse ships appear in Europe, and remotely similar outlines are found painted at Texas sites in Seminole Canyon in Val Verde County, Blue Mountain in Winkler County, and at the Paint Rock site in Concho County. (14) But to call these representations Norse ships (as recorded by Native Americans) within hearing of most Texas archaeologists is to risk instant ridicule. And justified ridicule it is, because there is no secondary support for the images.

Some paintings have faded away. At the Rocky Dell site, in Oldham County in the Texas Panhandle, a government surveying party reported seeing a rock painting resembling a ship with sails. (15) The site is rather an unlikely place for sailing craft. In any case, copies made at the time are now lost, and the original has been effaced.

Present-day Scandinavian Texans, at least the Norse of Bosque County and the Danes in the colony of Danevang, look with pride to their ancestors. Viking blood, as the Danes say, “is still warm in our veins,” and the Norse sport such headlines as “When the Norsemen Came to Texas: After Eight Centuries a Mild-Mannered Carpenter Leads His Race to New Homes in Land Discovered by Viking Ancestors.” (16) As far as “first arrivals” go, some Texas Scandinavians insist they simply never stopped arriving. Whether or not they were actually preceded by settlers in longboats is simply—at present—not known.

There are those who believe that historical statements should be displayed only when confirmed. There are those who believe that speculation is instructive. And there are those who think it pleasant that not everything is positively known. Perhaps some questions should never have answers.

“It may be fitting that the legends of the Northmen should
. . . supply just that indistinct and vague element which is needed for picturesqueness.” (17) At any rate, the legends are still around, some of them valuable because they provide examples of ways of thought.