Vinland and Viking Colonization

General | Academic | Vinland Sagas | L'Anse aux Meadows | Runes and stones in the New World (hoax alert)

General

Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Gorgeous site to go along with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History's exhibit.

Web Archive: The Smithsonian "Artic Studies Center," posts "research updates" relating to "Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga."

Amazon. Vikings: The North Atlantic Saga. Exhibition book edited by William W. Fitzhugh and Elisabeth I. Ward. Contains McNaughton's attack on the Vinland Map.

"The Vikings: They Got Here First, But Why Didn't They Stay?" Entertaining, graphical article by Robert McGhee for Canadian Geographic, 1988. Includes image of the Vinland Map. Now working

"The Norse in the North Atlantic" from the Memorial University of Newfoundland's attractive Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage website.

Web Archive: Land of Wine and Forests: The Norse in North America by Kirsten A. Seaver for Mercator World. Nothing on the Vinland Map. Now working

Amazon. The Vikings and America by Erik Wahlgren, late Professor at UCLA. Published this year.

Publisher's blurb (Thames and Hudson).

Chronology of the History of Medieval Greenland and associated places, like Iceland and Vinland by Marc Carlson. Carlson's homepage contains a lot of interest to the history buff. I particularly enjoy his out-front declaration: "Myths aren't facts." Now working

Web Archive: Vikings in Canada by Vernon Currie. Biographical (dare I say "propographical") paragraphs.

Web Archive: Evidence of Viking Occupation of the New World Before 1492 by Katy Robertson. All the evidence, including the dubious stuff, handled nicely. I hate to say it,but it's particularly well handled, given that the author is 19.

Soc.culture.nordic's Iceland FAQ on Vinland.

"The Vikings in Vinland " (unknown author), Athena Review (hobby pub.) Vol. 1, No.3

Wikipedia's fair-minded, short entry--at least this was true when I found it, but being a wiki who knows what'll happen to it!

Web Archive: The Yoyage of the Icelander. Replica ship that sailed to New York in 2000.

Wikipedia: Leif Ericsson

Amazon. 985 The Discovery of America by Brian Cherry. Another popular book.

Academic

Web Archive: "Was Vinland in Newfoundland?" by the late Einar Haugen of Harvard University. Published in Arhus. 1977. This is a marvellous short atempt to advance the thesis that "Vinland" lay to the south of Newfoundland. Dicusses the literary problems of the sagas.

"VNLND: The Online Bibliography, Materials on & about the Norse Discovery of North America" maintained by Steve Smith. Smith's bibliography covers more than the Vinland map, of course.

Web Archive: "The Viking World and the Question of Vinland" Harvard University course taught by Stephen Mitchell. His Vikings and the Heroic Tradition course (due this fall) will have a much larger set of resources.

Vinland Sagas

Amazon. Vinland Sagas: Norse Discovery of America translated by Magnus Magnusson (Penguin edition)

The Discovery of North America by Leif Ericsson, c. 1000 from The Saga of Eric the Red, 1387 (Modern History Sourcebook).

Eirik the Red's Saga from Gwyn Jones, The Norse Atlantic Saga: Being the Norse Voyages of Discovery and Settlement to Iceland, Greenland, and America (Oxford, 1964)

The Vinland Saga, A Brief Summary from Parks Canada: L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland.

L'Anse aux Meadows

Web Archive: Parks Canada: L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland.

Web Archive: Unesco: L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland.

L'Anse aux Meadows: The Vikings have landed. Weekly feature from About.com.

Wikipedia: L'Anse aux Meadows.

Gorp! (a tourist site) has a surprisingly good article on L'Anse aux Meadows, especially if you plan to visit. Death by pop-up ad, though.

Runes and stones in the New World (hoax alert)

Dear Viking Answer Lady debunks nonsense (Kensington Runestone and, more generally, the notion that the Vikings discovered everything and had perfect maps) and lays out what we do know. For the larger (framed) site see The Viking Answer Lady (Christie Ward) homepage.

Detailed and erudite nuttiness about Vikings in the Pacific Northwest by John N. Harris.

Vinland the Good. Argues that L'Anse aux Meadows is not Vinland. Explores the so-called "Eriksson Runestone." Now working