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Historical Lectures and Essays By: Charles Kingsley (1819-1875) |
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Contents: The First Discovery of America
Cyrus, Servant of the Lord
Ancient Civilisation
Rondelet
Vesalius
Paracelsus
Buchanan
THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF AMERICA
Let me begin this lecture {1} with a scene in the North Atlantic 863
years since. "Bjarne Grimolfson was blown with his ship into the Irish Ocean; and
there came worms and the ship began to sink under them. They had a boat
which they had payed with seals' blubber, for that the sea worms will not
hurt. But when they got into the boat they saw that it would not hold
them all. Then said Bjarne, 'As the boat will only hold the half of us,
my advice is that we should draw lots who shall go in her; for that will
not be unworthy of our manhood.' This advice seemed so good that none
gainsaid it; and they drew lots. And the lot fell to Bjarne that he
should go in the boat with half his crew. But as he got into the boat,
there spake an Icelander who was in the ship and had followed Bjarne from
Iceland, 'Art thou going to leave me here, Bjarne?' Quoth Bjarne, 'So it
must be.' Then said the man, 'Another thing didst thou promise my
father, when I sailed with thee from Iceland, than to desert me thus. For
thou saidst that we both should share the same lot.' Bjarne said, 'And
that we will not do. Get thou down into the boat, and I will get up into
the ship, now I see that thou art so greedy after life.' So Bjarne went
up into the ship, and the man went down into the boat; and the boat went
on its voyage till they came to Dublin in Ireland. Most men say that
Bjarne and his comrades perished among the worms; for they were never
heard of after." This story may serve as a text for my whole lecture. Not only does it
smack of the sea breeze and the salt water, like all the finest old Norse
sagas, but it gives a glimpse at least of the nobleness which underlay
the grim and often cruel nature of the Norseman. It belongs, too, to the
culminating epoch, to the beginning of that era when the Scandinavian
peoples had their great times; when the old fierceness of the worshippers
of Thor and Odin was tempered, without being effeminated, by the Faith of
the "White Christ," till the very men who had been the destroyers of
Western Europe became its civilisers. It should have, moreover, a special interest to Americans. For as
American antiquaries are well aware Bjarne was on his voyage home from
the coast of New England; possibly from that very Mount Hope Bay which
seems to have borne the same name in the time of those old Norsemen, as
afterwards in the days of King Philip, the last sachem of the Wampanong
Indians. He was going back to Greenland, perhaps for reinforcements,
finding, he and his fellow captain, Thorfinn, the Esquimaux who then
dwelt in that land too strong for them. For the Norsemen were then on
the very edge of discovery, which might have changed the history not only
of this continent but of Europe likewise. They had found and colonised
Iceland and Greenland. They had found Labrador, and called it Helluland,
from its ice polished rocks. They had found Nova Scotia seemingly, and
called it Markland, from its woods. They had found New England, and
called it Vinland the Good. A fair land they found it, well wooded, with
good pasturage; so that they had already imported cows, and a bull whose
lowings terrified the Esquimaux. They had found self sown corn too,
probably maize. The streams were full of salmon. But they had called
the land Vinland, by reason of its grapes. Quaint enough, and bearing in
its very quaintness the stamp of truth, is the story of the first finding
of the wild fox grapes. How Leif the Fortunate, almost as soon as he
first landed, missed a little wizened old German servant of his father's,
Tyrker by name, and was much vexed thereat, for he had been brought up on
the old man's knee, and hurrying off to find him met Tyrker coming back
twisting his eyes about a trick of his smacking his lips and talking
German to himself in high excitement... Continue reading book >>
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