A review about The Vinland Millenium
from Morgunblađiđ 27.11.97 by Erlendur Jónsson.
This book is interesting for a number of reasons. The author works on of Eirík the Red's Saga, the Saga of the Greenlanders, research both old and new, and finally on his own studies. According to him, the old sources may contain wrong and distorted information. But this does not mean that they are not to be trusted at all. He feels that the stories of Viking travels to Wineland (the New World) are, in principle, credible. Topographical features described in the New World, as well as various other information derived from the medieval seafarers, is largely consistent with what can be seen, or proved, today.

Although the seafarers who discovered and settled Wineland are heroes of Icelandic history, world historians have not yet taken notice of them.

What about their achievements? Some scholars cast considerable doubt upon the historical value of the sagas. Is it likely that they saw America at all? Yes, it is. On the contrary, it would have been strange if Norse Vikings had never found the New World. But what of the claim that they found grapes and "self-sown wheat"? Páll Bergţórsson answers such queries clearly, and speculates about where grapes could have been found, and also the "wheat," even though the cereal probably found by the settlers was not strictly wheat. But the author explains that it would be natural for them to call it wheat. The topographical descriptions in the saga are also consistent with reality.

People wonder, naturally enough, what the climate was like in the northern hemisphere in the saga age. Páll Bergţórsson believes that it was similar to the best conditions of the 20th century, that is, during the warm period of 1925 to 1965. Harsher periods in between were more like the climate of the past few decades. The settlement of Iceland, he says, could not have progressed so rapidly and easily as it did, had the climate been as hars as, for instance, it was in the latter part of the 19th century. Research on the east coast of Canada also indicates that vegetation and climate there have changed little in the past thousand years.
Although the book is based upon a large body of research and work, the another of this article feels that the most interesting aspect is Páll's assessment and testing of the historical sources. It would be short-sighted to suppose that those who wrote the sagas down thought of themselves as authors. It would be more reasonable to say that they saw themselves as historians. It is simplest to call them, simply storytellers.

In the nature of things, they had to base their written stories on oral accounts, of variable reliability. Garbled oral traditions, confusion, and misinterpretations by later copyists naturally weaken the historical value of the sagas. Yet a variety of studies, including those promulgated here by Páll Bergţórsson, go to prove, on the contrary, that the historical sources are, on the whole, reliable.

The text of the book is supported by many maps, diagrams and photographs. The original sagas, Eirík the Red's Saga and the Saga of the Greenlanders, are printed at the back of the book. Inside and out, the book is a testament to high standards.

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