The conversion of Helga's bride was probably one of the last among the Scandinavians of Greenland, since, as noticed already, most of the people were baptized during the very first years of the eleventh century. Several churches had soon been erected in the neighborhood of Brattalidha, along the banks of Einarsfjord and of Eiriksfjord. The first of these, if we except Thjodhilda's oratory, was the church of Dyrnesey or Dyrnes, not far from the mouth of Eiriksfjord, to the left when you sail up the inlet.1 It appears that there was no church, or, at least, no residing priest, in the western settlement yet in the year 1006; for, when Thorstein Ericsson was there at the time, and saw the men of his crew mowed down by an epidemic, he had their corpses laid in coffins and stowed away in his ship to transport them afterwards, for a Christian burial, to the church near Brattalidha. When he was on the point of death himself, he called his wife, Gudrida, and said to her, "Happy those who keep the faith, for in it are found mercy and salvation, and yet many keep it but ill. This is no proper custom," he said, "which prevails here, to inter men in unconsecrated ground with a little singing over them. It is my will that I be conveyed to the church, together with the others who have died here." 2 His wish was religiously fulfilled: his wife, Gudrida, and her host, Thorstein the Swarthy, sailed the following spring to Brattalidha, and had all the corpses buried with the proper ceremonies near the church.3 It had until then been the custom in Greenland 1 Björn Skardza, ap. Torfæum, Gronl. Ant., cap. vii. p. 48; Theod. Thorlak, ap. Torfæum, Gronl. Ant., cap. x. p. 76; Peyrère, p. 190. 'First Particula Gronlandorum, ch. iii., in Groenl. Hist. Mindesm., t. i. p. 230, ap. Beauvois, Origines, p. 119, Rafn, Antiq. Amer., pp. 50, 55, 128. Rafn; Antiq. Amer., pp. 55, 130; Herbermann, Torfason's Ancient Vinland, p. 34. since the Christian religion had been introduced, to bury the dead on the farmsteads where they had died. A pole was erected in the earth, touching the breast of the corpse, and afterwards, when the priest would come on a missionary tour, the pole was extracted, holy water was poured into the grave, and funeral services were held, although perhaps a long time after the interment had taken place. From the report of Thorvald Ericsson's death on the coast of the American continent, it would appear that the converted Northmen were also in the habit of placing on their graves, besides the pole over the breast, wooden crosses over both the head and the feet.1 From this fact the place of Thorvald's burial was called "Krossanes" or Cape of the Cross, probably Gurnet Point of to-day. Discoveries have recently been made in the ancient graveyard of Herjulfsnes, showing that the Greenlanders also put wooden crosses in the folded hands of their dead. One of these crosses was eight inches long and bore on its outer face the name "Maria" in runic characters.2 The funeral customs of Christian Greenland were thus the same as those of most Catholic countries today, and the people justly attached the greatest importance to the sacred rites of a religious burial, as is proved by the very name of the famous "Líka-Lodhin" or Lodhin-of-the-Corpses, a contemporary of Leif the Fortunate. His principal occupation was to go as far as the northern deserts and the glacial bays in search of dead bodies, to procure them a Christian sepulture by the side of some church. It is a well-established fact that many seamen who had perished in the frozen 1 First Particula Gronlandorum, ch. iv., and Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne, ch. v., in Groenl. Hist. Mindesm., t. i. pp. 230, 392, ap. Beauvois, Origines, pp. 15, 16; Rafn, Antiq. Amer., pp. 46, 129; Eiriks 'Beauvois, Origines, p. 16. waters of the North were thus laid down in the blessed yard of the church of Herjulfsnes, as, among others, the priest Ingimund and Einar Thorgrimson, his brother; whose large ship had been crushed between the icebergs, and whose bodies had long after, in the year 1200, been found, that of Ingimund being still incorrupt, on the adjacent coast.1 Another feature of the sincerity and devotion of the Scandinavian converts in Greenland was their liberality towards the poor and towards their churches, to which they secured an honorable support for all the time of their existence, as we shall notice farther on. It has been recorded of Thorstein Ericsson in particular that, when on the point of death, he also recommended to his wife, Gudrida, to distribute their moneys between the church and the poor.2 It is not all virtue, however, that we have to notice in the history of the Christian people of Greenland. Their ancient race was highly intelligent, but more passionate than we might expect them to be in their frigid clime. They readily embraced the true religious doctrines, but often fell back into their inveterate superstitions when man's corrupt nature goaded them to find in their former religion an excuse for their evil inclinations. Of this fact we find an excellent proof in the indulgent epistle of Pope John IX. to Harvy, bishop of Reims, about the year 901. This prelate had requested the Sovereign Pontiff to give him a line of conduct in regard to the Northmen, who, baptized and baptized over again, behaved as pagans still, killed Christians of the French nation and massacred priests, sacrificed to their forsaken gods, and ate the horse-flesh offered to their idols. This pope 1 Torfæus, Gronl. Ant., cap. iv. p. 19; Langebek, t. iii. p. 72. 2 Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 129; Reeves, p. 39. pleads in their behalf the attenuating circumstances of their ignorance and recent conversion, and advises the use of leniency, except when some of them might be found ready to submit to the rigor of canon-law.1 One of the most striking examples of lasting superstition among the Scandinavians is set forth in a letter of Alexander III. to one of the bishops of Sweden, dated July 6, 1161. The Pontiff expresses his horror on hearing that a man killed in the state of drunkenness was venerated as a saint by some of the people, according to the custom of ancient paganism. He adds: "Whilst it is hardly allowed by the Church to pray for people who die in such a condition, since the Apostle says that drunkards shall not possess the kingdom of heaven; even though, therefore, many wonders should be worked through him, you would not be allowed to venerate him publicly, without the inquest and approval of the Church of Rome." 2 If it took so much pains and time to obliterate the tenets and practices of Odinism, it should be no wonder if, as old weeds appear on the newly broken land of the best husbandmen, some of the venerated vices of northern paganism have cropped out among the remarkable virtues of the Greenland converts. As human scalps are yet the costliest finery of our Red Skins, so was a bloody record the brightest title among the pagan Scandinavians; and many of them, "diabolica fraude decepti," at the devil's instigation, killed their fellow-beings to drink with Thor in heaven. This belief, however unnatural, was not suppressed at once. Freydisa, the natural daughter of the pagan murderer Eric the Red, felt no scruple in sacrificing to her avarice the life of her partners during her sojourn 1 See Document XLVII. 2 See Document XLVIII. on the American continent in the year 1012. Sanguinary broils were long the religious diversion of the Northmen, and we acknowledge our regret in stating that we could find no sufficient light to dispel the shadows cast upon the memory of Arnold, the first resident bishop of Greenland, by the feuds of the grandees under his jurisdiction. This pagan worship of Thor's murderous hammer was probably in Greenland, as it was in Iceland, the sad cause of the ruin of their independent republican government. Next to religious killing was the unchristian right of enslaving fellow-men. We do not wish to enter upon all the intricacies connected with slavery, serfdom, and vassalism as ethical subjects, but we are sorry to state that Christianity could not, at its very beginning, abolish the customs introduced by all the branches of the Scandinavian race during their longlasting and terrific raids into the Christian countries of central Europe. The first Scandinavian explorers of our continent employed the services of two men,-the Scotch Hake and Hekia,-who were given as a present by the Christian king, Olaf Tryggvason, to Leif the Fortunate; and, when taking into consideration the general circumstances of those times, we feel inclined to think that the first American freemen held under their sway many vanquished natives of Ireland and France, who proved afterwards to be great helps towards the increase of the religion of martyrs. The hammer of Odin's son, that had brought down so many Christians to death or into servitude, was now better employed in Greenland in breaking the rocks that hindered the cultivation of the land and in reducing them to building-material; but the imaginary 1 Rafn, Mémoire, p. 10; Antiq. Amer., p. 139. |