Read The Sagas of the Icelanders Online
Authors: Jane Smilely
The Sagas of the Icelanders (99 page)
20
Eirik and the men who were to accompany him got ready for their expedition. They sailed directly to Denmark without stopping and lay at anchor for some days at a good harbour in Jutland.
As soon as they arrived, an old man wearing a tattered cape and hood with two walking sticks and a hoary white beard came down from the country-side. They greeted him warmly and asked the old man’s name. He said that he was Sigtrygg. They asked where his family roots were. He said that he was Norwegian by ancestry, but had then been for some time in Denmark where he had become very poor. They said that he must be a good old fellow who could tell them many things. He asked what they wanted to learn. They said that they wanted to enquire about a man who was called Ref, and who, with some others, would have come there that summer in a ship.
Sigtrygg asked, ‘Is there something in it for me if I tell you what you want to know?’
They said he would not be short of food for days.
Sigtrygg spoke: ‘I won’t tell you where to find Ref just for food, because I know from the people’s talk that you will make an attempt on his life. These are my terms for leading you to where you will see Ref and his sons and the twelve men who accompanied him this summer: from each of you I will have an ounce of silver, and in addition a valuable item from your ship, and you, moreover, will be obligated to take me to Norway at your expense if I choose. And you must let me direct our expedition until we find Ref.’
They struck this bargain.
Sigtrygg spoke: ‘Now we must take down the ship’s tent and row out around the headland.’
They did so and anchored offshore.
‘Now I’ll go ashore,’ said the old man, ‘and two of you with me, and we’ll see what we can find out.’
Then they did so. There was a forest nearby. When they had gone a short distance into the forest, armed men ran up to them. These were Ref’s sons and the twelve followers all together. Both of the Norwegians were captured. Sigtrygg threw off his rags and his beard as well. They walked to the sea by another way. There before them were two longships at anchor with two hundred men. King Svein had sent this force to Ref as soon as he heard that spies had been sent against him. Ref and his men armed themselves and attacked Eirik and his men at sea. When they met, the outcome was quick: all but ten of Eirik’s men were killed and those were captured.
Then Ref spoke, ‘It has turned out, Eirik, that Sigtrygg, your partner and companion whom you met yesterday evening, has come. Now I have done what I promised you, so that you can see Ref and his sons here. Because I killed your brother, I will grant you your life if you swear that you will never make an attempt on my life or the lives of my sons. And you must tell King Harald the whole truth about our encounter. And tell him that now I have repaid him a little for plotting against me when he advised those who wished to take my life. But King Harald is probably not destined to have me killed. And in Denmark only he who has more power than I will be more dangerous to him than I.’
After that, Eirik swore to do all this. Then Ref gave him a twelve-oared boat and those things he needed to have. Ref took the longship they had brought with them and sent it to King Svein.
The king praised Ref’s actions highly, saying they were both valiant and magnanimous: ‘And now you will have this name,’ said King Svein, ‘here in our realm, and be called Sigtrygg, because the other name isn’t common in this country. And at your name-giving, we wish to give you this gold ring which is worth one mark. And therewith you will have twelve farms out west in Vendil, and those you will choose yourself because I see that you are a very wise man.’
Ref thanked the king eloquently for his princely gifts and the honour which he gave him. Ref and Helga his wife and Thormod, his son, now went to his farms which the king had given Ref. Sigtrygg became a great man.
And, when he had been there for some years, he went on a trip to Rome and visited the holy apostle Peter. And on that journey, Sigtrygg contracted the illness which caused his death, and he was buried in a rich monastery out there in France.
Stein and Bjorn were with King Svein a long time, and he valued them
so greatly that he arranged fine marriages for them in Denmark and both of them stayed there and were considered excellent men. From Stein was descended Bishop Absalon who lived in the days of King Valdimar Knutsson. Ref’s son Thormod returned to Iceland after the death of King Harald and took over the land at Kvennabrekka and married in Iceland, and many excellent men are descended from him.
And with that we close the saga of Ref the Sly.
Translated by
GEORGE CLARK
THE SAGA OF THE GREENLANDERS EIRIK THE RED’S SAGA
Gænlendinga saga
Eiríks saga rauða
Time of action:
970–1030
Time of writing:
1220–80
The Vinland Sagas
are two separate works that were written down independently in Iceland in the early thirteenth century. They contain the oldest descriptions of the North American continent and tell the story of several voyages undertaken by people from Iceland and Greenland to North America around the year 1000 – the first documented voyages across the Atlantic in which the peoples of Europe and America met for the first time. The pioneering voyage was led by Leif Eiriksson to a land he named Vinland (‘Wineland’). Leif, nicknamed ‘the Lucky’ after rescuing shipwrecked seamen on his way back from Vinland, was born on the west coast of Iceland between 975 and 980 and emigrated to Greenland as a young boy in 985 with his family and the band of explorers led by Eirik the Red, his father.
There is no doubt that
The Vinland Sagas
, like almost all other Sagas of Icelanders, contain memories of real characters and events, recounted in a literary medium. However, the roots in the oral memory of people in Iceland are more transparent in
The Vinland Sagas
than is the case with more stylized and consciously literary creations. Their episodes show little sign of having been reshaped into a literary form; they ask to be taken at face value, as true accounts presented with all the spontaneity of discovery and exploration. Of course, their oral background also means that
The Vinland Sagas
cannot be taken as trustworthy contemporary historical documents: They disagree with each other on certain details and contain material which we would now classify as fanciful and supernatural, however palpable a part of the
Travels of Leif Eiriksson
Travels of Thorvald Eiriksson
(The Saga of the Greenlanders,
ch.4
)
Travels of Gudrid Thorbjarnardottir and Thorfinn Karlsefni
(Eirik the Red’s Saga)
real world this may have been to people then. That said, the sagas are still our best proof that such voyages to the North American continent took place around the time the sagas tell us. Coincidence or wishful thinking simply could not have produced descriptions of topography, natural resources and native lifestyles which are from a world unknown to people in Europe, but can be corroborated in North America.