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- [00:01]
Matt Lewis
Hello, I'm Matt Lewis.
- [00:03]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
And I'm Dr. Eleanor Jaenega and we're.
- [00:05]
Matt Lewis
Just popping up here to tell you some insider info.
- [00:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
If you would like to listen to Gone Medieval ad free and get early access and bonus episodes, sign up to.
- [00:14]
Matt Lewis
History Hit with the History Hit subscription, you can also watch hundreds of hours of original documentaries such as my new.
- [00:21]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Series on everyone's favorite conquerors, the Normans.
- [00:25]
Matt Lewis
Or my recent exploration of the castles that made Britain.
- [00:29]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
There's a new release to enjoy every week.
- [00:32]
Matt Lewis
Sign up now by visiting historyhit.com subscribe or find the link in the show notes for this episode.
- [00:49]
Unknown
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- [01:42]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend. Hey everybody, I'm Jen. I'm Jess and we're Fat Mascara, the only beauty podcast you need in your life. We're beauty editors by day and podcasters by night. And we've got all the industry gossip.
- [01:59]
Unknown
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- [02:01]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Not gonna find online. And the best part is interviews with the most sought after experts in the beauty biz, Charlotte Tilbury, Jen Atkin, and makeup artist Sir John. That's just a taste of what you're gonna get on the Fat Mascara podcast, so come hang with us. New episodes drop every Tuesday and Thursday.
- [02:19]
Unknown
Acast helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere.
- [02:25]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Acast.com Foreign.
- [02:33]
Matt Lewis
Lewis welcome to Gone Medieval From History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research. From the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to Popes to the Crusades, we cross centuries and continents to delve into rebellions, plots and murders. To find the stories, big and small that tell us how we got here, find out who we really were with. Gone Medieval. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. The great age of exploration. Not medieval, you might say. Rubbish. I say everything is medieval. Few did more exploring during the period than the Vikings of Scandinavia. They made themselves known from north to south and from east to west. In this episode, it's the west that we're going to focus on, and one Viking in particular. You may have heard of Leif Erikson, but how much do you really know about the man? Many believe that was the first European to set foot on North America half a millennium before Columbus. I'm delighted to welcome back Eleanor Barraclough, who was last here to talk about her incredible book Embers of the Hands, to tell us more about this enigmatic figure. Welcome back to Gone Medieval. Eleanor, thank you for coming back to see us again.
- [04:08]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Oh, it's such a pleasure. It's so nice to be here. Thank you for having me.
- [04:11]
Matt Lewis
I think it's a good sign. It can't have been that bad the first time round. You've agreed to come back again.
- [04:14]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
It was an absolute joy. I feel like we're just having a n chat in the pub or something like that, you know, it's great. Yeah.
- [04:20]
Matt Lewis
We're here for another chat in the pub today about one of those people who I think that people will know the name. People will recognize the name, may not know what they know him for, may not know any detail about him. So we're going to get deep into the life and the exploits of Leif Eriksson. So could you start us off in a sentence? Who is Leif Erikson and why are we interested in him?
- [04:40]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I'll tell you why we're not interested in him. Today. I hear there's a really good spongebob squarepants episode featuring him, which I haven't seen. I should probably watch it for research purposes. But every time I mention him, everyone's like, oh, yeah, like in spongebob. So not spongebob.
- [04:54]
Matt Lewis
Today all of my questions were about spongebob squarepants. Do we need to go to a different set?
- [04:57]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
This is going to be awkward. It's all right. We can. I can do Bluey. There's plenty of. Just not SpongeBob. Yeah, okay. Okay. Well, look, let's pivot. So Leif Erickson essentially will break this down. Okay, so he is sort of known for being one possible European who discovered America or North America. That's kind of in essence, other than SpongeBob, what he's known for. But we'll go into the truth behind that statement.
- [05:27]
Matt Lewis
And one thing I like to ask about a lot of these people from the Viking sagas. Was he real? Because there's lots of questions about people like Ragnar Lothbrok, you know, was he even real? Is he kind of a semi mythical figure? Is he an amalgamation of lots of different figures flung together in a saga? Do we know if Leif Erikson existed?
- [05:44]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, I think it's sort of the answer is basically all of the above. You know, it's yes, he probably existed. He was probably a historical figure. But it's always that problem when sagas are your main textual sources. And these are the Icelandic sagas, because they're written down sort of predominantly in 13th century Iceland, and they have these long oral tales that kind of take us back in time. It's not that they have no historical value and they don't contain any historical figures. It's more that it just gets more complicated and other things come in that are more to do with, you know, storytelling and ways that people at the time looked at the world and their place within it that don't necessarily reflect what we would think of as history. And so then the same is true of the figures that feature in it. I mean, some of them absolutely not. And some of them in the story of Norse Greenland and this sort of series of explorations on the North American continent by the Norse, plenty there that isn't historical. But in essence, yes, I think we can say Leif Erikson was probably real.
- [06:48]
Matt Lewis
Fantastic. So spongebob's definitely real. Leif Erikson's probably real.
- [06:52]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
There we go. There we go. That's all we need to know. Done. We can go have another drink before.
- [06:56]
Matt Lewis
We get into too much more detail about him. People might also know him by the epithet Leif the Lucky. Where does that come from? Why does he get called that?
- [07:04]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah. So Liv the Lucky are in Hefni. I think it's Ericssaga. There were two sagas that we'll be talking about a lot today. One's called Eric Saga Raeda, which means the saga of Eric the Red, Eric being Leif's dad. And then there's Greyneninger Saga, which is the saga of the Greenlanders, and together they're known as the Vinland sagas. And the story of how he came to be called Leif the Lucky comes from the sagas. And it's said that essentially he's traveling, he's trying to get him to Greenland, and then he rescues a group of survivors who've been shipwrecked in the North Atlantic. And so it says, you know, he brought them home and he looks after them through the winter. And so because of this and for various other reasons, he becomes known as Leif the Lucky, which, yeah, just sticks, essentially.
- [07:52]
Matt Lewis
Fantastic. And so you mentioned the Greenland sagas, the Iceland sagas. Is that the main way in which we know about Leif and his life? Is that the main evidence for him?
- [08:02]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, it is. It is exactly that. So, and it's really interesting there because the sagas, as I said, they come from these sort of much longer oral traditions, these storytelling and information traditions, genealogical traditions that are passed down the generations. And it's probably worth situating him in time. So he's born in the last decades, you know, maybe, I don't know, 9, 75, that sort of time, something like that. So the last decades of the 10th century, and he's born in Iceland, and of course that's the place that the sagas are written down in. But very soon he ends up moving to Greenland for reasons we can get into. And so we've got to think, okay, that's where the saga. That's where the stories are sort of coalescing in a way. But the two Vinland sagas, Granninge Saga, saga of the Greenlanders, Erik Saga, Raider saga of Erik the Red, they don't look like they've drawn directly on each other. One of them's not copying the other one's homework, essentially. So what that means is they have shared oral traditions. And that means it's really interesting because sometimes the information in both usagas is pretty much the same because they sometimes agree with each other and sometimes they have different ways of describing stuff, different characterizations of the main people featured in the stories. It's really hard to know exactly what is what we would think of as history, I think, you know, because what history is is also up for debate. But certainly when it comes to what Leif got up to, you know, in North America and also elsewhere, we are relying on these traditions that it's not that there isn't truth in them, it's just. It's really hard to pinpoint which bit is truthful, which is what makes them exciting. It's why I love the sagas. They're just. Just when you think you've got a handle on them, like, nah, I'm just going to pull that rug from underneath you and let's. Let's see, let's introduce a zombie or dragon, and then you see how you get on as a historian with that.
- [10:02]
Matt Lewis
As a body of evidence. What are the Icelandic sagas and why are they important?
- [10:07]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
So the Icelandic sagas are. Saga comes from. To say or to tell seja in. In old Norse. And again, that kind of tells us something about these oral origins of the sagas, in that they've been sort of passed down. They've been the stories told around the fire, the winter fires in Iceland. Very long, cold winter nights, you know, not very much to do. So it's this idea, they called it the kvjlvaka, like the evening wake, where essentially everyone's sitting around the fire hearing these stories. And when we're talking about sagas as sources, and it's not just the two Vinland sagas, but when we're talking about sagas as sources for Leif Erikson and Norse Greenland and, you know, the voyages to the edge of North America, we are really predominantly talking about a group of sagas that we call the Eastlendinger saga, the sagas of Icelanders. And those sagas are very much based in those early centuries of sort of like the Norse diaspora, the Viking age, we might say, the settlement of Iceland, which begins in the second half of the 9th century. So those are the ones that are in some ways easiest to work with, kind of from a historical perspective. I say that with many, many kind of caveats. But there are other types of sagas as well. So there are the king sagas, the Kuningasurgur, which are predominantly about Scandinavian monarchs. But these monarchs go very, very far back in time to the point where they become semi mythical or like downright legendary. And then they also. We have sagas of people we know very well to be historically accurate, or at least historically real, like people like Harald Hardrada and Olaf Tryggvason, you know, the big kings of Norway. Then we have other kind of sagas that are much more rooted in that sort of misty, mythical past of the Nordic world and the sort of Germanic world going back to the migration age. And those are called the Fornaldesagar, you know, the kind of sagas of ancient times. So it's a real body of source material, and it's a body of source material that has a lot of kind of native sort of influences, obviously coming from Iceland itself and the Nordic world, the diaspora more generally. But we've also got to remember that these sagas are written in a context that speaks to sort of continental learning and medieval Europe. And there's also romance sagas, Arthurian sagas, you know, they're Called Ridera Sagr, like the sagas of riders, the sagas of chivalric sagas. So there's a whole body of evidence, but luckily we have other sorts of evidence as well for people like Leif the Lucky, or at least the things that he was said to get up to. And that's where archaeology comes in. So.
- [12:57]
Matt Lewis
Valuable but tricky.
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Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Exactly that. Valuable but tricky.
- [13:00]
Matt Lewis
Valuable but tricky. And what do the sagas tell us about Leaf in terms of his character, his appearance? What do we actually know about him personally?
- [13:09]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
So both Erik Saga and the Saga of Greenlanders, they like him. They describe him as promising. They say he. I think it's Kleinninga Saga says he was sort of tall, he was strong, he was impressive, he was shrewd. This is a very sort of. Not a characteristic you would necessarily associate with high praise in this period, but it also says he was very moderate in his behavior. And that's important. You know, he was a good guy. He was someone you can rely on. And this becomes important later on. We know about his early life. So he was probably, as I say, he was probably born in Iceland, but there was a good reason. He ends up settling in Greenland and that's because of what his dad gets up to. So should we talk a little bit about Eric the Red?
- [13:53]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, definitely.
- [13:54]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah. Yeah. Eric the Red, as fiery as his nickname suggests, I think we might say. So Eric is in Norway. We're talking, yeah, sort of second half of the 10th century. Eric and I think his dad possibly. Don't quote me on that, I can't quite remember, but Eric gets outlawed from Norway because of some killings, and this becomes something of a pattern because then they move to Iceland, they settle in Iceland, and then, lo and behold, he gets outlawed from there because of some killings. But this time it's something called lesser outlawry, which is kind of outlawry light, where you basically have to leave the country for three years, and if you behave yourself, you're then allowed to return. So this is around the year 985. Eric is outlawed and he decides, possibly because he's already been outlawed from Norway, so there's no point in heading east. He decides to head west from Iceland.
- [14:49]
Matt Lewis
He's outlawed everywhere in the east, so just keep going west until you find somewhere that will cope with him.
- [14:53]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
He's like, well, I'll take my chances. I mean, this is it. Greenland. The settlement of Greenland by the Norse is a really interesting one because it's sort of the Wild West. You know, these are sort of. Not all, but there is a sort of roguish quality to the Norse Greenlandic settlement, which kind of makes sense because this is a place which is sort of quite hard to survive in. You have to build everything up from scratch. It can be quite dangerous. So it is these sort of slightly renegade characters that end up there initially. So Eric goes off to Greenland and it's worth saying, and this is always like slightly annoying. It's easier to sort of picture on a map. We end up with the Norse settlement is on the west coast of Greenland and there are two main areas they settle in that they call annoyingly, the eastern settlement, which is actually further south down the western coast. Right, Just got to picture that. And the western settlement, which is a few hundred miles further up the coast. So thanks for that, North Greenlanders.
- [15:56]
Matt Lewis
So the western settlement is north of the eastern settlement, which is to the south east.
- [16:01]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Ridiculous, isn't it? So the way I think about it, I just imagine Greenland as a big triangle. Okay. Sort of. Don't ask me what sort of triangle. There's a reason I didn't do maths, you know, big pointy triangle. And on the right hand side of the triangle, that's the east coast. That's really icy. Lots of polar bears. You don't really want to be there. Occasionally the sagas say that explorers get sort of washed up there, shipwrecked there. And it's never brilliant because it's just like incredibly cold. There's a type of wind that comes down from the ice sheets onto the east coast, which today's Greenlanders they call, I'm not going to pronounce it in Greenlandic, but that they call it that which attacks you. Which just about sums it up. Right. So you forget that part of the triangle. We want to go to the sort of left hand length of the triangle. That's the west coast. And then you just got to imagine two blobs. And one's the smaller western settlement, which is further north towards the Arctic Circle. It's around Nuuk, modern day Greenlandic capital. And then the eastern settlement, which is sort of further down that triangle. Let's go back to Eric the Reds. Eric the Reds goes off, he basically explores that western coast and he finds, you know, there's good hunting grounds, there's actually a lot of good land to settle and farm on that sort of the lower part of the western coastline. And it's absolutely true. I've done lots of research out there. Everyone always says, oh, he names it. And actually the sagas say this too. He named it Greenland. So people would be encouraged to settle there. Yes, you know, the sagas do tell us that, but actually there was a lot of good farming lands. The problem is that the winters are very, very long, very harsh, and the connections to sort of that wide and Norse diaspora are, you know, further away, essentially, you know, so. So it's harder to get the things.
- [17:50]
Matt Lewis
You need which sort of suited Eric, I guess, in his circumstances, but it must be quite isolating, so.
- [17:54]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Exactly, exactly that. And so this sort of explains why after three years, when his lesser outlaw is up, he comes back to Iceland. He basically gathers up all his followers and his family, and he says, right, off we go, we're going to settle Greenland. And the later texts tell us that of the sort of, I don't know, 24, I think it is ships that set off, about half of them get to Greenland and the other half are either lost in the ocean or driven back to Iceland again. That's important. That tells us something about just the sheer distances and the danger in which, I think is often quite easy to forget. So Eric and his wife Joelhildr and his children settle in a place called Brattaglith, which sort of means, like, steep slopes. It's a very nice place. There's a lot of farming land. There's still a farming community there today. And that is essentially where Leif sort of is situated. That's where he grows up. And, yeah, he has two brothers called Thorsten and Thorvald, and he has a sister, possibly a half sister, called Freydis. So this is sort of Greenland Norse Greenland in its infancy, just before the year 1000 or so. And the year 1000 or so is important because it's around that time, by the time Leif has grown up, that he starts to set out. You know, he's making contacts with the Norwegian king, according to the sagas, back in Norway. And then, of course, we have these expeditions to the edge of North America. And the first one is said by the sagas, although the two accounts do differ slightly as to how it happens, is said to be led by Leif.
- [19:34]
Matt Lewis
And so I guess my first question is, why would he be going even further west if he's been pushed west and pushed west and pushed west and it's got more and more hard living. Is he intentionally going even further west just to see what's there? Why is he setting out on the expedition that will supposedly discover America?
- [19:52]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
That's a good question. Well, I suppose we can look to the sagas again, see at least what they say about it. Because there is some disagreement as to who actually, I think, discovers it. As if people haven't been living there for thousands of years before the Norse tip up. But you know what I mean in terms of sort of the Norse, the first people to see, site it, land on it, explore it. So in the saga of the Greenlanders, it's actually a merchant and his name's Bjadny, and he first sights land, very importantly, site, not lands on land to the west of Greenland. They're blown off course. That tends to be how lands are discovered. You know, it's usually accidental. He doesn't land there. And the saga is quite critical of that in a slightly passive aggressive way. And it says people thought he had shown a great lack of curiosity. And so then sometime later, Biadnir is visiting Erik the Red. He says, you know, he's seen this land. It says, the saga says there was talk of discovering new countries. And then Leif buys Biadni's boat off him. He goes to explore these new lands. And Eric is meant to come too. And there's this very famous moment. It's basically one last hurrah for the old man. But he's. He's essentially saying to Leif, look, I don't know if I'm up for this. I'm. I'm so tired. I'm so much older than I used to be. Leif's saying, oh, come on, dad, come on, we'll go have this adventure together. And Leif is at the boat and Eric is traveling down on horseback to the boat and he's actually thrown off the horse and this is said to be a very bad omen. And he says, look, I'm not meant to discover more countries. I've already discovered this one. You're on your own. Off you go. So Leif then goes off with his crew to sort of go and essentially land on and explore the lands that Bjartny has sighted. In the saga of Erik the Red, it's Leif who's the first explorer to site North America. And he's on his way back from Norway to Greenland. He's swept off course. And then it says he came upon lands whose existence he'd never suspected. And there were fields of wild wheats and vines and maples, and essentially like one of those Victorian botanists, the saga says Leif took samples of all these and then headed off home to show everyone what he'd got. So one way or the other, the saga tradition is that it's Leif who is involved, not by Himself, you know, he has a crew. And actually in both sagas, he has enslaved people with him. In one saga, it's Tyrkir, who's his foster father, he's German. In the other saga, it's two sort of Scottish slaves called Haki and Hecia. And in both versions, it's actually the enslaved people who go off and discover, you know, properly are set to sort of explore the land and come back with the resources that the land has to offer, things like wild grapes. But either way, it's very much Leif, who is placed at the heart of the tradition of the first Norse exploration of this place that they then called Vinland. And they call it Vinland because although they've already sighted and sort of landed on other lands as they go, and we can talk about those. It's Vinland, this name for the wild grapes, which is where they set up essentially overwintering camps. They call them Leif's Boothir, sort of Leif's booths, Leif's huts. And this is where it's said that they spend the winter.
- [23:23]
Matt Lewis
So either way, it's kind of an accident. Either Leif discovers it by accident, or he's following someone else who spotted some land that they found by accident as well. They weren't actively trying to find land to the west of Greenland.
- [23:37]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Exactly. But then you said, well, why would they continue to go, you know, keep going west? And actually, there's lots of reasons. So one of that, you think of what Yardnier is accused of basically lacking curiosity. And there is that there's something in the Norse sort of cultural DNA which is you've. You've. You've got to explore, you've got to push back the boundaries of knowledge. You've got to sort of prove yourself. There's definitely that. That comes across. It's like, oh, you didn't settle. You saw this amazing new lap. Oh, oh, you turned around. You know, there's. That's not great. That does not make for a good Viking.
- [24:14]
Matt Lewis
And I suppose by this point as well, in the Viking tradition, for those that have gone west, obviously, there's a lot going on in the east and the south as well. For those who've gone west, they've continued to find stuff. Every time they've gone, you know, they've made it to England and got incredibly rich from it. They've discovered Iceland, they've gone even further and discovered Greenland. And, okay, that's not the most hospitable place, but there must be a sense of which. How far does this go. That natural curiosity. What else is further west?
- [24:39]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Exactly. And I mean, and I should say, in Greenland's defense, that there is farmable land and there are amazing resources like walruses. And the settlement lasts for sort of 500 years plus in Greenland, almost 500 years. I'm a big fan of North Greenland, so I'm always going to stick up for North Greenland. But. Yes, but you've got to think when, as the sagas describe, when they reach the edge of North America, Vinland, it starts with this kind of rocky, bare land they call Hetlu land, which is probably sort of Baffin Island. Then they come down the coast, they find a place they call Markland, which means forest land, probably Labrador. And then they end up in Vinland. We've got to think they've already sort of named these lands for the resources. Hetlu land is named because essentially it's like, not a lot there land or a lot of stone land. Markland, yeah. He's like. But Markland is important because Greenland has very little natural timber of the sort of big, chunky sort that you need to make, say, longhouses or ships. So they were relying a lot of the time on sort of smaller, scrubbier trees that grew natively, but then also driftwood coming from, say, Siberia. So you come across a land which has enough trees. Trees that you're. You're calling it forest land. Well, that's a signal that this is important as a resource. Same thing again when we get to Vinland. The fact that it's wild grapes, it's vines, it's wheats, they talk about, you know, these enormous salmon they're finding just like, grab all this stuff. And several times in the sagas, again, thinking about the sagas, they say, we found a land of fine resources. And so it's very much about the resources. And we've already said that Greenland is really quite far in terms of that Norse cultural sphere. The Norse diaspora, it's far from particularly Norway becomes increasingly prominent in terms of bringing what the Norse Greenlanders need to keep their society going, you know, in exchange for what they can trade. These, like, Arctic resources, like, as I say, sort of walrus, ivory, particularly. But they're far away. So if they can find alternatives, resources like, amazing. They don't realize it's a whole continent. Right. But still incredible resources just on that little bit. And we know sort of archaeologically that they probably went further south down the coast as well, you know, down to the sort of St. Lawrence river area, because of what we find in this little archaeological site, we can talk about Lansome Meadows, but so actually it makes complete sense that they are trying to find more resources, possibly more land to settle. They plan to settle, but of course, it turns out people are living there already and they're not very pleased at the idea of people coming in.
- [27:26]
Matt Lewis
It doesn't normally stop the Vikings, to be fair.
- [27:28]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Right. But it's a really interesting one, this, because. So the name is not flattering. So in the sagas they call them Skrlingar, so wretched ones. And that's essentially a collective name for indigenous populations that they're coming across, both in Greenland, sort of in the far north, but particularly on the edge of the North American continent. Lots of different peoples who are living in this part of what is now essentially Canada. And initially it doesn't start badly. For the most part, they start trading. And there are some positive encounters, but the sort of mood changes quite quickly. And the people that the Skralingar are very frightened by, say, a big bull that the Norse have brought with them, they want to trade sort of furs, which they have in abundance for sort of dairy products that the Norse have, and strips of cloth, but also weapons, and the Norse are not keen for that. And sort of the relationship breaks down fairly quickly and certainly the Norse kill some of the people that they have encountered there. And there are also some Norse deaths as well. So when they say, we found a land of fine resources, the next bit of that sentence is, but we won't be able to enjoy them, we won't be able to leave. And they're actually saying this as they're leaving, when they're realising that this is not land that they can sort of reasonably expect to settle. Having said that, while the sagas are very much. It's not just Leif, but it's very much around the period of Leif's lifetime and the sort of subsequent exhibitions. It's almost like a family business, most of them sort of led by his siblings or his siblings sort of partners. But there's a Icelandic Annel. They talk about how a very small boat has basically washed up on the shores of Iceland and it had come from Markland and they said it was anchorless. It was obviously it being tossed in the storms that the people were in a very bad way. But some still. We have this little spark, you know, it's one. That lovely thing about history, isn't it? You suddenly, sometimes there's a big light on and you can see everything, and then sometimes it's just this tiny candle and you can't really see anything around the candle, but you can see there's a light. And I always love that annual entry because it feels like that. So there are still people going to Markland, presumably to collect wood and other materials he knows, sort of a few hundred years, a couple of hundred years after Leif has first explored, you know, this edge of the North American continent. And so the story is bigger than the story we know, and that's always quite exciting.
- [30:26]
Unknown
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- [31:16]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
If you're like me and you love history, but in particular you love the smutty, salacious, gossipy history, then do I have the perfect podcast for you. If you fancy finding out about the slippery origins of lube or how Vikings linked sex and magic together, then listen no further. Join me, Kate Lister, on Betwixt the Sheets, where I delve into the most outrageous, the most taboo, and the downright sexiest parts of our history. It's the kind of history that you probably wouldn't bring up at a family lunch, but you might bring it up down the pub. From the history of swear words to answering important questions like just how incestuous were Neanderthals and so much more. Listen every Tuesday and Friday, wherever it is that you get your podcasts, a podcast by History hit.
- [32:18]
Matt Lewis
It is because I think we have the impression that kind of the Vikings go there. As you say, they have those encounters and they leave and that's the end of the story. But clearly there are people who haven't forgotten that there is some abundance there if you can go and get it safely.
- [32:30]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Exactly that. Exactly. And. And there is. So the end of Norse Greenland is fascinating because essentially it starts to break down. Lots of different reasons. Climate change not least, but also sort of decreasing contact with Norway and Iceland as the situation changed out there. We have Black Death. We have all sorts of sort of political, economic changes that kind of knock the relationship with Norse Greenland sort of off kilter, as it were. And so the last sort of textual evidence we have for people living in North Greenland is sort of 1407, 14, you know, first decade of the 1400s. We have archeological evidence that can push it a few decades past that, but then past that, we don't know what happens. And it's this amazing thing where we have. Because of the permafrost in Greenland, we have the last burials, but then someone buried those people. What happened to those people, you know, and in the past, I mean, there is, I say, absolutely no evidence, pretty much absolutely no evidence to suggest this is true. But, you know, you can never say never. One suggestion is that the last inhabitants of Norse Greenland, when they realize that the jig was up, essentially they went west rather than east, and they went to North America, and that's where they settled. I would like to see some evidence of that before, you know, whereas there is evidence to suggest that sort of people are going back to Iceland, for example. But, yeah, it's exactly as you say. There's this sort of spate of activity we know about around the year 1000. We know texturally, we know archaeologically, but yeah, there's these little candles in the darkness past that, which, I don't know, for me is almost the more exciting thing. It's. Ooh. But what was going on.
- [34:14]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, because I think it would feel odd if they'd got there, found all of this stuff, and then just gone home and forgotten about it. Because it feels a bit like you're talking about the links to Denmark in that they're reliant on Denmark for some of their stuff. So if you could get that from the west and not have to be reliant on Denmark, there's a degree of independence that they could get out of that. So it would feel od if they found this incredible wealth of resources and then just gone. Oh, feels like too much effort and gone home again.
- [34:41]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Exactly, exactly. And I mean, there are reasons they're so closely. As the centuries go on and sort of Norway becomes the dominant power, there's reasons why they are so closely connected, because Norway, in a way, is sort of a portal to a whole sort of European world. So it does make sense. And of course, you have other things in the east that are important, not least things like Christianity, you know, so there's a whole reason that they are, culturally speaking, facing east. But Resource wise. Yeah, it makes much more sense. The interesting thing, maybe we should think a little bit about the archaeological evidence because. Yeah, yeah.
- [35:23]
Matt Lewis
I was going to ask what kind of archaeological evidence exists for where we think they got to and how certain we can be of where they were.
- [35:29]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
This is really interesting because this does essentially fit very closely with Leif and this idea that it's his period of exploration that we're seeing represented in the archaeological material. Not just his, but certainly around that time. And I mentioned these, Leif's Budir, these little huts that they build. Right. And then later expeditions, essentially, they ask, oh, can we borrow your, say, holiday home? But you know what I mean, it does kind of feel like, oh, you know, just not take it, just borrow it. But there is this incredible site on the tip of Newfoundland called L'Anser Meadows that was essentially discovered in the 60s by the Ingstads. Because I don't want to sort of be too. It wasn't just the sagas at all, but it was very much, look, the sagas are telling us that something happened here. Let's try and find the evidence for this. And people living locally had sort of said, oh, there's these mounds over there. It's kind of like lumps in the ground. You might want to kind of dig around there. And what they found was. It's so interesting. It's one of those wonderful moments where the archeology and the textual information, you know, sagas specifically sort of. They don't match up perfectly. Of course they don't. But when you realize, oh, there is historical truth here, we just have to sort of slightly turn the dial to make them fit together. So what they find is a series of buildings. And some of these buildings look like workshops. You know, they'd have been used for, well, things like mending ships, essentially, which you really would need after a voyage of, what is it, sort of over 2,000 miles from Greenland to Newfoundland, and then others are bigger and it looks like people were living there. And what's really interesting about this is that this isn't a settlement. Now, whether it was intended to become a settlement in the long term, that's a different question. I don't think we can answer that. But there are no middens, There are no big rubbish deposits. There are certainly no burials. There's no sense that this is anything other than essentially an overwintering site that's used for a few years and a site that is possibly, we might say, used as a springboard for explorations further south. Now, I mentioned that St. Lawrence River. And the reason, sort of it seems very likely that they did get that far, at least when they were exploring further south on the coast, is because of these little butternuts that really don't grow as far north as Newfoundland, but they've been found in the archaeological layers in this north site. And so that's a pretty good indication that they're bringing stuff back. And again, we go back to the sagas, Remember Leif the botanist, essentially collecting all these samples and coming, you know, so similar sort of thing going on, perhaps. There's a really, really exciting piece of fairly recent research that is this sense that as scientific sort of techniques advance, it almost feels like we're getting closer to the past, you know, even as we sort of get further away chronologically from it, because this was to do with a solar flare. So essentially, the sun lets out this big cosmic storm. And big caveat here. I'm explaining this in the best way that I can, but feel free to write in and complain to Matt. Don't complain. Complain to Matt that his guests are rubbish. If you get this. There you go.
- [38:56]
Matt Lewis
Thanks very much.
- [38:57]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
My pleasure. So, right, let's try and get this right. So this.
- [39:00]
Matt Lewis
My email address is Eleanor Barraclough.
- [39:05]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
There we go. Right. Okay. So really trying to get this right now. Okay, so big cosmic storm sends out a lot of energy, okay? That means that the trees and sort of the growth, generally, they have this kind of extra bit of growth. It's like getting a bit more food. And what this then looks like is a bigger tree ring. Okay? Because so we can see the date on the trees. We know that the cosmic storm took place in the year 993. Okay? So what you have to do to work out when, say, a piece of wood has been chopped down is count forward from that spike you can see on the tree ring. Count forward the number of years and that tells you when, you know, basically, the tree stops growing because it's been cut down. Okay? So the really wonderful thing is, and I just love how, in a way, how mundane this evidence is, is that on this Norse site, Newfoundland and some meadows, you've got wood that has been chopped down by Norse at the site. And some of this wood bears the mark of this cosmic storm. And so the researchers basically counted up and they came to the year 1021. Now, that is a little tiny bit later than when Leif's expeditions are meant to have happened. Just saying. So it's not an exact match, but that means that 1021 becomes a year when we know that the Norse are on the edge of the North American continent chopping down some wood. And I don't know why, but I just find that absolutely fascinating because it's this moment where all these points start to match up and you're just. Do you know what I mean? You're suddenly. Then.
- [40:50]
Matt Lewis
So, yeah, talking about cosmic storms, it's something that the stars align. You've got these lumps in the ground that people know need to be investigated. Why don't you go and look at that? You've got this bit of PA from a thousand years ago that says they sailed over here and did this. And then you've got some scientific evidence that says at virtually the same time, there are Norse people cutting down trees and building buildings here. And it's just. It all comes together, isn't it, to almost prove. Almost all proves itself. Because if they're. If they're chopping that wood down in. In 1021 and they're building buildings, that probably suggests to me that's not the first time they've been there. Because you don't immediately arrive somewhere and say, right, let's build a house. You know, that suggests they may be going back and back and thinking, eventually we should build an overwintering campaign.
- [41:34]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Exactly, exactly. So it's not saying this is when they arrive. Definitely not. It's just this moment of there is someone from, you know, Norse, Greenland, probably at that moment in that year, chopping down a piece of woods on the edge of. What they don't realize at that point is like a vast continent. And I just. Yeah, the whole. I love it. I. Basically, the further west you get in the North Diaspora, for me, the more interesting it gets, partly because the picture gets blurrier, it gets misty. And then when you do get the evidence, it's like, oh, okay, that was going on. So I love it, and I love Leif within that context, because I think what happens now is, you know, we have Leif Erikson Day and everything like that, and I'm sure we'll talk about this. Leif sort of gets attached to a lot of different traditions and his meaning becomes sort of. It's almost like he's, you know, suddenly onto this figure whom we actually know so little about, really. You have all this extra cultural and historical weight and all these sort of arguments about identity and being hung on this figure. And, I mean, that's fascinating in itself. You know, I've. I've done research, I've written papers on, you know, I think, was it Sherlock Holmes? I may write a monograph on that one. It's very much that kind of, very niche. But I think it's incredible what people do with that myth of Leif Erikson, sort of, and the myths and the stories and the truths of the Norse expeditions to the edge of the North American continent, what they do with that, say, in the 19th century in America. It's fascinating, but it's almost like, I don't know, maybe you can think of a better way of describing. It's almost like we've got two lathes there, you know, and it's not like there's no connection between the two, but the real one is much shadowier.
- [43:34]
Unknown
Enjoy a brilliant sleep experience with Soundcore from Anchor. Stressed out by your partner's snoring? Having trouble falling asleep? Waking up too easily. Suffering from poor quality sleep. Now put on Soundcore Sleep A20 earbuds experience unparalleled pressure free comfort perfect for side sleepers. Choose your favorite sound in your curated playlist. Feel your body getting lighter and lighter and enjoy a full night of peaceful sleep with the A20's long lasting battery. Then wake up feeling fresh with a personal built in alarm. Get the sleep you deserve with Soundcore Sleep A20e earbuds. Discover more on soundcore.coms o u n D C O R E Soundcore Use code sleep at Checkout to get $30 off S L E E P in all caps.
- [44:35]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, I was thinking as you were talking and it's almost like if we could speak to him today and explain all of this stuff that we're talking about today. You know, we're talking about him a thousand years later. And having done all of these things, I imagine there's part of him that would think that's brilliant. I'm a legend. That's awesome. And then the bit inside him that would be thinking I was just a guy who was looking for some trees.
- [44:55]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah. Well, this is embarrassing.
- [44:57]
Matt Lewis
How did this happen?
- [44:58]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Well, because there are other sort of stories. They do seem to be more sort of storytelling rather than history or certainly we don't have any evidence for them historically. Past the sagas, there are other traditions that get attached to him, like the conversion of Greenland to Christianity. So it's said that he goes over to King Olaf Tryggvason, who's one of the big Christianizing kings of Norway. And Olaf basically says right, off you go, I want you to convert Greenland to Christianity for me. And sort of linked to that story is also another story. He ends up in the Hebrides, and he sort of hooks up with this. This really cool witch figure and they end up having a child together. And so there's all these rather. Well, the conversion isn't quite as cool as the hooking up with a witch. I mean, that's. That's more my sort of storytelling. Right.
- [45:44]
Matt Lewis
Leif and the witch. It sounds like there's a book in there somewhere.
- [45:46]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
If there isn't, there really should be. Yes, I would read that book. Yes, but exactly. So there's. There's all these sort of other traditions that build up around Leif. The figure is sort of the legend, the man, the myth, essentially. And again, I always feel a bit sorry in that context. For example, if we think about the conversion of Greenland to Christianity, there's a much more interesting character who's Eric the Red's wife, Jodhildr, and she's really cool. So she converts to Christianity, the sagas say. And then it said a couple of things. One, she builds a little church, which is, I'll come back to you. But the other is essentially she realizes, oh, wait, I'm married to this big hairy pagan who has absolutely no intention of converting to Christianity. So she puts him on a sex ban. And there's this wonderful line in the saga that's just like. And Eric was not pleased about this, which I just. I just feel like there's a. There's a sort of mat cartoon there or something, isn't there? Just it, you know, just grumpy Eric being kicked out of the marital bed. So I just love that because it's so much more human than sort of king sends off young noble Norse to convert. You do. It's like, it's much more human, it's much more real. And again, when we're talking about that sort of matchup or potential matchup, this one, you know, we've got to be careful with. But of textual sources and archeology, really wonderful thing is archaeologists found a very, very early, say, church, more like little chapel at the site that's almost certainly Brattalith, which is, you know, where Eric and Theotilda and these children settled. And so, you know, it's called Theoda's Church. And the sense that she's got potentially this little chapel. Again, we can't say for sure this was built sort of because Theod Hilden wanted it to be built and said, we can't say that. But the fact there is such an early Christian site, really teeny weeny one, at the site where there is a Very, very good chance that Theodhildr and Eric were living and Leif himself. Well, that's a better story in my book. Do you know what I mean? It's. That's. I find that. I mean, I've been there a couple of. In fact, when I was there. So they. They. For the millennium, because obviously it's a thousand years since sort of the official conversion. They built a replica of this, of Thiofieldr's sort of church at Brattalith. But it was. They. They had to bring a load of Icelanders over to mend it. And these Icelanders were just like. It was amazing. They were just Vikings reincarnated. And they invited me inside and they were like singing these kind of folk songs and they all have these huge beers and, you know, they're tools for building the turf, rebuilding on the. It just felt like going back a thousand years. I was just like, there is. There is no doubt you are the descendants of the people who set off on these long ships and just thought, yeah, let's see what we find. Yeah, what could go wrong? We'll just, we'll just give it a go. It was. I've never felt such a strong sense of essentially kind of time traveling and. Yeah, it was just wonderful.
- [49:05]
Matt Lewis
Incredible. Has there ever been any suggestion that in Going west, Leif was on any kind of Christianizing mission? Or is that a bit of a stretch?
- [49:14]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I think it's a bit of a stretch, yeah, I think so. By that would we be sort of assuming that Leif was trying to kind of convert the people who were already living there?
- [49:22]
Matt Lewis
If he might have been tasked with introducing Christianity to Greenland or he's seen it introduced there, they found people in the west and some land in the west.
- [49:30]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
So the reason that I'm kind of sort of hesitating before I answer this is because again, you can give your email at the, at the end of this program. So all complaints will be going straight to you. To my knowledge, I don't think there's any evidence for that at all. And my, My feeling there is that, well, when they first went there, they are. I mean, there's. There was this kind of story, but I think this is linked to Greenland where they essentially kidnapped two young. It's not Leif, though. They kidnap two young children from the sort of native populations and take them off and, you know, so there's definitely things like that. But I, Yeah, I think it's much more my understanding, my kind of interpretation of the sources. It's much more about resources and exploration and possibly settlement. They're not, if anything, they're just a bit pissed off to find other people already living there.
- [50:26]
Matt Lewis
Yeah. And it sounds like from what you said in the sagas, they kind of give up on those people anyway. It's not like we should go back and try harder with these people. It's like we can't work with them.
- [50:35]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
No, exactly. And there's also this very interesting thing because the Norse are very sort of far traveling culture, right? And they come across all sorts of different other cultures and people living in the world. And some of them, they settle amongst some of them, they subdue some of them. You know, they sort of in time become like there's all sorts of different ways. It's not colonialism as we might think about it from a sort of 19th century perspective. Okay, so. But what's really interesting is that in the west, the people they find there, and this is true of the people they come across in Greenland. The people they come across, native North America, they're almost like human, but not quite human in terms of how they're presented in the Sag. There's this horrible description of the people they find which they also call Skralinger, wretched, puny ones in the north of Greenland. And they say when you cut them, if it's only a little bit, they don't bleed. And if it's a lot, then they bleed and bleed and bleed. It's that sort of. It's like, how did you find that out? What. What were you. You know, and there's, there's very much that. And the sagas, when they describe when. When sort of relations break down with the people they are sort of engaging with, interacting with in North America, there's an element of magic. There's an element of, you know, suddenly these people disappear or they are capable of doing really strange things and, you know, making magical illusions. And so these are people who are not like us. These are. It's almost like here be. Almost here be monsters. There's also, at one point, there's the description of, from a Norse point of view, what is presented as a uniped, kind of like the medieval Mappa Mundi style unipeds, you know, that we sort of. That they've inherited from the classical world. And so it's more that. Yeah, and we've got to think as well, the sort of. The conversion is still very new in Greenland at that point. And you know, Eric's sort of sulking out the back in the cowshed because he's on his sex ban and everything. So it's not established enough to then be a missionizing religion in its own right, if that makes sense.
- [52:47]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, absolutely. And just to round off Leif's story, what do we know about what happens to him in the end?
- [52:53]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Ooh, well, okay. So in terms of what happens to him in the end. So it's not very exciting. It's not that. But he kind of essentially goes back home and settles is the really not very exciting way of putting it. So there are other little bits and pieces, really small bits and pieces of his life and sort of life in Norse Greenland during his lifetime that we can pick up from other sagas. And there the sense is very much, you know, he goes back home, he goes back to Brattlyd, and in time he takes over his father's farm and he becomes sort of, you know, a great leader. And he's probably dead by. I think it's sort of like 1028 is when there's a saga reference to. To his son now being essentially the local chieftain and living at Brattleheath. And so, yeah, it's basically that, you know, he has his youthful peregrinations and all this excitement and he's like, no, I'm going to do some farming, thank you very much.
- [53:56]
Matt Lewis
And then he dines out on that for the rest of his life with his feet up in front of the fire.
- [53:59]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I mean, wouldn't you. It's great. It's like I discovered a continent. Thank you very much. Mic drop. You know, you don't.
- [54:04]
Matt Lewis
I feel like my work is done.
- [54:06]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, exactly.
- [54:08]
Matt Lewis
And just to end with you, you mentioned that there is a Leif Erikson Day. What would you say is his legacy, particularly in America, and what role does he play in shaping perceptions of America and being American?
- [54:22]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
This is a really interesting one because in a way it's almost disconnected from the Norse story. And that in itself, I think it's a whole other layer of history and sort of humanity going on there. So Leif erikson Day is the 9th of October. There is no significance to that date in terms of, you know, go back to the sagas. We don't get dates that precise anyway. And certainly nothing particularly exciting seems to have happened. The reason it was chosen was because in 1825, this was the date that the first sort of major ship carrying Norwegian immigrants arrived in New York. So that's what they're hanging it with. You know, it's not actually about any sort of medieval or Norse or Viking age legacy. It's about modern Scandinavian immigration. And that's really important because. And this goes back to what I was saying about, you know, this layer of sort of 19th century history, which actually isn't history at all in the sense of being sort of historically accurate in the way it looks back at the Norse medieval Viking past. But it is in itself a really fascinating sort of history. So what you find is in areas, this is no coincidence, but in areas that have been heavily settled by sort of Scandinavian immigrants in the 19th century, you find amazing pieces of evidence suddenly turning up that tell us things about, you know, the Norse Greenlanders, the Norse in this part of America, amazingly, because actually we have absolutely no evidence to suggest that they reached what we, you know, would now be the United States. It's very much sort of a Canadian thing going on there. And it's very much not really a Norwegian United States connection. It's very much sort of North Greenland, Iceland and Canada. You know, if we're talking about sort of modern national borders and how they map onto this history. But you find, for example, runestones, faked runestones, saying things like, oh, you know, we all made it here and we got attacked and many of us got killed.
- [56:32]
Matt Lewis
Leif was here.
- [56:33]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yeah, it basically is. Leaf was here. Exactly. And it's fascinating because those ideas then trickle into the sort of national cultural consciousness. And we see that. So I think it's in. Is it in Boston. You have the amazing bridge that's got sort of like Viking ships on it. So Rick Roden, who does the amazing Percy Jackson young adult series, and he also does the even more amazing. In my book, obviously I'm going to think this Magnus Chase series, and he is part of the reason I absolutely love what he does is because he's playing on these ideas. And what he's doing is he's taking these areas that essentially Americans, 19th century, particularly 20th century, to some extent decided were of Viking Norse historical significance, because essentially it's about their identity, right? And he's saying it's all true. Look at this. Actually, the whole of America is full of Norse gods. All this crazy stuff is true. But the joke and the cleverness of that is because everyone, it's not true. You know, we know that's not true. And so Leif, in terms of Leif erikson Day and SpongeBob SquarePants and all the rest of it, what he represents through that is actually it is history, but it's a different history. And it's about identity and it's about exploration, it's about settlement, but it's not about a Viking slash, Norse slash, medieval layer of that. It's very much about something that's much more modern. I love that. I think. I mean, that. That in itself is an incredible story, but they are just like we had two Leif Eriksons. They are too connected, but definitely different or distinct stories.
- [58:16]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, it sounds a little bit like it's kind of a bit of 19th century with a maybe a still empire imperial edge to it of people migrating to North America and seeking to say that they already have roots there. You know, we were here first, you know, constantly ignoring the indigenous population, but almost like, you know, we were here for. We have roots here that go back further than your roots.
- [58:43]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes, exactly that. Exactly. And it is no coincidence that Leif Erikson Day is sort of a counter to Columbus Day, because, of course, for sort of Northern European Protestant immigrant population. Do you really want a Southern European kind of Catholic to be your sort of immigrant origin story? Well, no, you. You don't really. So again, there's something going on there in terms of. Exactly. Is it claiming heritage, claiming belonging?
- [59:17]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, because I guess Columbus, you know, Columbus is Italian for an Italian American population. He came from Spain from a. For a Hispanic population. And this is a way of the Norse Scandinavian population being able to say, actually, we see your 1492 and we trump you.
- [59:34]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Yes, exactly that. Exactly that. And I do. I mean, I think that's incredible in itself. It says something about how humans construct identity through history, you know, and there's a whole other program or several. Many programs to be made there. Right. We could. We could be chatting in our podcast pub, as it were, for hours on, you know, what's the point of history? What do people do with history? But this is a really interesting example of that.
- [59:59]
Matt Lewis
Yeah, fascinating. It's been absolutely incredible to try and get a little bit closer to Leif Erickson, whether he's real or imaginary or whichever one it is that we're going to go with the Leif who was looking for some trees or the Leif who was looking for a whole new world. It's been great to speak to you again, Elena. Thank you so much for coming back and joining us. I hope to see you again in the future.
- [60:18]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Oh, yes, please. Yeah. Back in the park.
- [60:20]
Matt Lewis
Definitely. Get the pints lined up.
- [60:21]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
I'll get the first one in. Thank you so much.
- [60:23]
Matt Lewis
Thank you. You can find Elena's previous visit to Gone Medieval, all about how to live like an ordinary Viking in our archive. There are new installments of Gone Medieval every Tuesday and Friday. So please come back and join Elena and I for more from the greatest millennium in human history. Don't forget to also subscribe or follow us on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts and tell all of your friends and family that you've gone medieval. You can sign up to History Hit to access hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a new release every week and all of History Hit's podcasts ad free@historyhit.com subscribe what are you waiting for? Anyway, I better let you go. I've been Matt Lewis and we've just gone medieval with history Hits.
- [61:25]
Unknown
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- [62:17]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Best Podcasts Here's a show that we recommend.
- [62:23]
Unknown
Do you like being educated on things that entertain but don't matter? Well, then you need to be listening to the Podcast with Knox and Jamie. Every Wednesday we put together an episode dedicated to delightful idiocy to give your brain a break from all the serious and important stuff.
- [62:36]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Whether we're deep diving a classic movie, dissecting the true meanings behind the newest slang, or dunking on our own listeners for their bad takes or cringy stories, we always approach our topics with humor and just a little bit of side eye, and we end every episode with recommendations on all the best new movies, books, TV shows or music.
- [62:52]
Unknown
To find out more, just search up the Podcast with Knox and Jamie wherever you listen to podcasts, podcast and prepare to make Wednesday your new favorite day of the week. ACAST helps creators launch, grow and monetize their podcasts everywhere. Acast.
- [63:09]
Dr. Eleanor Jaenega
Com.