Red Ravens

The following documentary is a free translation of the sagas of the north. These stories are not chronicled completely in any one place but are broadcast throughout several "Boks". Of these, there are numerous variations resulting from awkwardness of translation through the various languages or "Runic", to Latin and finally to English, mainly, and other languages only to a limited degree . There are two prime sources of the epics; several stem from a Greenland base which survived in the Icelandic dynamics themselves, and were further complicated by incursions by persons of Danish residence during the sovereignty of Iceland by that nation. Many of the documents themselves have been removed to Copenhagen where, for reasons best known to the Danes, they were kept in confidence. All surviving have been returned to Iceland where they are preserved in a museum. Some may have been lost during World War II; one, unrelated and in olden times wrought on sheepskin, was actually cut up and made into a vest for someone who wore it thus, complete with sagas all over - one is forced to read past the buttonholes.

However, the stories have been long transmitted and are well known in Iceland: enumerated, catalogued, and cross-referenced. The major documents are called "Flateyarbok" and "Hauksbok" but there is much more than in these sources; some references are extant in sagas of Norway and Denmark. Though little known, there is even a remarkable quantity of literature in medieval writings and maps, in Bremen, Germany and in archives of the Roman Catholic Church. The author makes no pretense to being an expert on the detail and accuracy of the "Runes". Read specifically, their meanings are difficult to extract. Indeed, it took me a year and a half of reading before I was able to 'connect' to the real message, and even at that some one before me had done the major work. Eventually I simply read with the object of extracting whatever truth might be found therein; tried as best I could to 'comprehend' them - to 'milk' them as dry of information as possible.

They are much more voluminous than might be expected.  The late Frederick J. Pohl, an outstanding Vinland Scholar, in correspondence to me said that he had identified some 83 or more statements of course changes by the varied ships that had occurred between Greenland and Vinland.  I have been unable to penetrate the sagas to that degree but I believe it  One which interested me is that Leif's approach to the island I refer to as "Island of Sweet Tasting Water" was from the NE.  Pohl's analysis was from an objective observation - in some way either by direct statement or implication he discovered that information.  My analysis of it is subjective - I arrived at the same conclusion for this course from analysis of plausible courses to and from the site proposed.  The sagas statement of what the course was from that Island to the Leifsbudir is clearly stated and is one of the more critical issues of understanding Vnland.

In most cases, the sagas are summarized much too briefly - often to a few paragraphs. They are actually much longer, possibly book length in total and if footnoted and indexed, they might take up several thick volumes. If this is done the matter becomes so complicated that the story line itself is lost. Hence, what follows is a rather straightforward narrative of the Vinland sagas made as readable as possible, and to the length necessary to the problem at hand; namely, discussion of a specific site as probably being Leifsbudir.

Some of the factors addressed in footnotes are direct extractions from the sagas, others from prior students' deductions, some from alternative sources, and one, my own humble contribution. For instance, the presence of maple trees in Vinland is not described directly in the sagas but is from a later tale of Thorfinn Karlseffni while he is in Europe and mentions "mossur"  (ON Maple) in a business deal there. What you will read here is controversial. No two readers seem to arrive with the same understanding but by and large ihist is the more commonly accepted version of several possible with one exception: a matter debated in several forms, of which this narrative selects a neglected, often over-looked, but acceptable version. Of the alternative versions at that point this one has the virtue of ultimately bringing the ship of our explorations into a harbor that now seems known to us - Leifsbudir.

Attribute text to: Voyage of Wave Cleaver, Inc.  Frederick N. Brown