There were times when all of Europe trembled at the mention of the Vikings. These brave sailors on their swift ships made daring raids on coastal cities and villages, collected tribute and destroyed the rebellious. The Vikings not only felt at home in the British Isles, the Netherlands and France, but also made their way to Spain, Morocco and Italy.
Now few historians doubt that the Vikings visited North America long before Columbus. According to legend, the Viking Leif Eirikson (Leif the Happy) reached the shores of America hundreds of years before Christopher Columbus. Relatively recently, scientists have received confirmation that the Vikings really swam that far.
A special page in the history of the Vikings is their development of Greenland. Excavations on this island have shown that Vikings flourished here for hundreds of years, trading with Europe and probably even Native American tribes.
The history of the exploration of the North Atlantic by the Vikings began with Iceland, near the shores of which around 860 the Norwegian Nadzod and the Swede Gardar Svavarsson visited independently of each other. Their stories about the new land prompted the Norwegian Raven Floki to go there in order to found a colony. The colonists barely survived the harsh winter, so the island got the name Iceland - "Iceland".
However, many colonists liked the island rich in game, with picturesque fjords and forests. A mass migration of Vikings to Iceland began. By the 70s of the X century. in Iceland, there were already about 50 thousand colonists. It was during this period that a terrible famine began in the colony, then many wanted to leave the island and go in search of a better life. Soon such an opportunity presented itself to them.
In 982, Eric Torvalds, nicknamed the Red because of his fiery hair and repeatedly accused of murder, killed his two sons in another quarrel with his neighbor. Eric was not executed for this crime, but was sentenced to only three years of exile from Iceland. Eric decided to go on a trip.
He knew from a familiar sailor that there was some land 450 miles to the west. The redhead bought a ship and went with his friends to find her. In the summer of 982, Eric's ship was already circling the southern tip of the mysterious land. Soon he took a liking to one picturesque place with meadows covered with dense grass and flowers, in addition, with its fjords, it reminded travelers of their native places. Eric named this land Greenland - "Green Country".
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The travelers spent three years in their chosen place, and in 985, returning to Iceland, they began to assemble an expedition to colonize the land they discovered. 25 ships with 700 colonists set off for Greenland, but a fierce storm made its own adjustments: only 14 ships and 400 people reached the cherished land.
They founded the so-called Eastern Settlement on the southern coast of Greenland. In the next 10 years, groups of settlers arrived in Greenland several times, some of whom founded another colony on the southwest coast - the Western Settlement.
Despite the harsh living conditions of the colonists, the Viking outposts in Greenland flourished. The number of colonists gradually increased. According to archaeologists, there was a period when at least 3 thousand Vikings lived on the island.
The Vikings settled at some distance from the sea along the fjords, which reminded them of their native places. It was difficult to build a farm in Greenland due to the lack of large trees. Almost one fin was the source of the wood. Houses were built from driftwood, stone, or sod.
In order to provide sufficient insulation from severe frosts, the walls of some buildings were made 2 m thick or even more. Among the farms of the Western Settlement excavated by archaeologists, there is a so-called farm under the sand.
Scientists have discovered many interesting objects here that allow us to imagine the way of life of the Vikings in Greenland. One of the excavated structures turned out to be truly gigantic: in order to erect such a structure from turf, it was necessary to strip it off on an area of about 1000 square meters. m.
Summer in Greenland was too short to grow cereals, so the Vikings most likely got by without beer and bread. The settlers raised domestic animals - goats, sheep and even cows, slaughtered them for meat very moderately, mainly using by-products of animal husbandry - milk and cheese.
Reconstruction of a medieval house in Greenland.
Another reconstruction of a medieval Greenlandic house.
At first, the settlers differed little from their compatriots abandoned in Iceland and Scandinavia. They caught fish with nets and hunted seals and deer. The Greenland Vikings made clothes from wool and linen, sometimes using the fur of the Arctic hares.
Clothes made from bison skins and other exotic materials were also used - apparently, it was not without the influence of American tribes.
To survive, the colonists maintained trade with Scandinavia. In exchange for iron, grain and timber from Europe, they offered skins of bears and polar foxes, narwhal tusks, and sturdy ropes made of walrus skins. Whale whiskers were also in demand among European fashionistas. It is believed that the Greenlandic Vikings also traded … live bears.
It is possible that the Vikings from Greenland went to fetch timber even to North America. Remains of Viking buildings in Newfoundland testify to their brief stay on this continent.
In the XIV century, the climate in Greenland became colder. Glaciers slid onto Viking lands, bringing sand, mud and gravel with them. These sediments gradually deprived the colonists of pastures.
“The situation has worsened over time,” says archaeologist Jett Arneborg. - The Black Death (plague) mowed down Norway, killing two thirds of the population. Plague struck Iceland as well, killing a third of its inhabitants.
While there is no evidence that the plague reached Greenland, it certainly affected the development of trade. The colonists gradually adapted to the new conditions. Seafood began to dominate in their diet. Scientists found this out based on the ratio in the bones of the excavated settlers skeletons of two different forms of carbon. It turned out that closer to the XIV century. In the food of the Greenland Vikings, seafood began to make up about 80 percent.
The cold snap forced the Eskimos to migrate closer to the Viking controlled areas. Some scholars suggest that the Vikings could not only meet with the Eskimos, but even live among them. However, no confirmation of this has yet been received. It is more likely that the Vikings began to conflict with the Native Americans: the legends of the Eskimos speak about this.
More adapted to the harsh conditions of the North, the Eskimos endured the cold snap much more easily than the Vikings. Archaeologists were very surprised when they removed from the graves well-preserved samples of clothing of the Greenland Vikings. It turned out that the Vikings strictly followed the European fashion, it did not even occur to them to adopt some elements of the Eskimo clothing, more adapted for survival in the North.
Around 1350, some mysterious event occurred: the entire population of the Western Settlement, about 1000 people, suddenly disappeared. A Norwegian priest from the Eastern Settlement, who visited the Western Settlement of the colony, did not find a single living soul there, except for feral livestock. No corpses were found!
The last written testimony about the Greenland Vikings - the wedding record at Hvalsey Church dates back to 1408.
Among the hypotheses explaining the disappearance of such a large number of people, there are versions of the plague, famine, an attack by the Eskimos or even pirates, and a massive resettlement. However, almost all of these versions are canceled out by the absence of corpses and the presence of domestic animals. There is still no more or less suitable explanation for this mystery.
The eastern settlement existed until 1500. One of the last written sources of the Vikings of Greenland is a record of the Christian wedding ceremony in the church in Khvalsi, which has survived to this day. Historians believe that the last Vikings of Greenland left their colony and moved back to Iceland.
And according to the legend of the Eskimos, the last Vikings of the Eastern settlement were attacked by pirates, but excavations have not yet confirmed this story.
In 1540 the crew of the Icelandic ship no longer found a single living soul in the colony, only the remains of a man in a hood. Perhaps it was the last Greenlandic Viking …
Their secret still remains unsolved.
From the book "The Greatest Mysteries of History"