power of the god did not cease all at once. Thorhall, one of Thorfinn's companions on his expedition to our coasts in the year 1007, had been baptized a Christian, without abjuring sincerely his pagan belief. He was noted as a bad Christian and as the evil spirit who had induced his master, Eric the Red, to resist so long the zealous entreaties of Leif the Fortunate. One day Thorfinn and his crew were in a sore plight: they were short of the necessaries of life, bad weather preventing them from hunting and fishing. But lo! a dead whale was unexpectedly thrown out by the waves, and they all feasted on its blubber. Then Thorhall triumphantly exclaimed before his companions, "Now you see that the Red-beard [he meant Thor] has helped us sooner than your Christ, for this is the reward I obtained for the song which I composed in honor of our protector Thor; he has seldom disappointed me!" Yet Thorhall convinced no one of his superstitious belief; for, when the crews heard his impious boast, they threw the fish back into the sea, recommending themselves more fervently to the providence of God. Their faith proved to be their salvation. While they were recovering of a disorder entailed upon them by eating of the whale, the weather grew more favorable to fishing purposes; and from that day on they suffered no more of scarcity of food: they found game on the continent, eggs on the islands, and fish in the ocean.1 The text of the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne affords Rafn, Antiq. Amer., pp. 143. 175, seq.; Beauvois, Origines, p. 17; Herbermann, p. 52; Amer. Cath. Quar. Rev., vol. xiv. p. 614. Gravier, p. 77, allows on this, as on other occasions, his hatred of the true religion to subvert the truthfulness becoming a historian. He wantonly turns upside down the unmistakable statements, as if he were a devotee of the Scandinavian Red-beard. to some modern authors another instance of the superstitious credulity of the first Christians in Greenland. It is, indeed, related that when Thorstein Ericsson was lying in state in the house of Thorstein the Swarthy, who was still a credulous pagan, the dead man erected himself in a sitting position, called his wife, Gudrida, gave her advice and told her her fortune, and then sank down dead again. Such stories are evidently nothing but a version of facts, embellished in the fashion of popular tales, which, in the early literature of all nations, as well as in the romances of this day, clothe the most common incidents of their hero's life in such a garb as makes them appear stupendous and miraculous events. It is evident that the Swarthy spoke of his guest as dead when the son of Eric, in the throes of death, was able still to whisper to his wife a few parting words of consolation.1 1 Cf. Rafn, Antiq. Amer., p. 126, seq.; alii. The whole story, in its superstitious form, as copied by the American Catholic Quarterly Review, vol. xiv. p. 610, is as follows: "The Icelandic sagas relate thus: 'Now, it was not long before the sickness came also into Thorstein the Black's house, and his wife, who hight Grimheld, took the sickness first. She was very large and strong as a man, but still did the sickness master her; and soon after that the disease attacked Thorstein Erikson, and they both lay ill at the same time; and Grimheld, the wife of Thorstein the Black, died. But when she was dead, then went Thorstein out of the room after a plank, to lay the body upon. "Stay not long away, my Thorstein !" He answered that so it should be. Then said Thorstein Erikson, "Strangely now is our Then said Gudrid, housemother, Grimheld, going on, for she pushes herself upon her elbows, and stretches her feet out of bed, and feels for her shoes." At that moment came in the husband, Thorstein the Black, and Grimheld then lay down, and every beam in the room creaked. Now Thorstein made a coffin for Grimheld's body and took it out and buried it; but, although he was a large and powerful man, it took all his strength to bring it out of the place. Now the sickness attacked Thorstein Erikson, and he died, which his wife, Gudrid, took much to heart. They were all in the room. Gudrid had taken her seat upon a chair beyond the bench upon which Thorstein, her husband, had lain. Then Thorstein, the host, took Gudrid from the chair upon his knees, and sat with her upon another bench just opposite Thorstein's body. He com The story of Gudrida singing at a soothsayer's performance is also invoked by authors unfriendly to the Christian religion, as if the Church had not, from that day and before until now, combated all kinds of superstition as foolish and sinful; but it is apparent that, in this instance, the young girl yielded to importunities through the weakness of her sex and age, while her father's behavior clearly testifies to the teachings of Christianity. Beauvois says well that, if pagan superstitious practices continued for a long while among the converted Northmen, yet, from the very time of the Scandinavians' conversion, they were condemned by the better-informed among them. It may not be out of place to remark here that, while duelling, a savage crime originating in pagan superstition, was a kind of judicial process in England as late as the year 1818, and is still in vogue in some countries, it was forted her in many ways and she may be the better reconciled to my death, for I have now come to a good resting-place. But this can I tell thee, Gudrid, that thou wilt be married to an Icelander, and ye shall live long together and have a numerous posterity, powerful, distinguished and excellent, sweet and well-favored; ye shall remove from Greenland to Norway, and from thence to Iceland; there shall ye live long, and thou shalt outlive him. Then wilt thou go abroad and travel to Rome and come back again to Iceland to thy house; and there will a church be built, and thou wilt reside there and become a nun, and there wilt thou die." And when he had said these words Thorstein fell back, and his corpse was set in order and taken to the ship.'" 1 See supra, p. 179. solemnly declared illegal in Iceland, and likely in Greenland, as early as the year 1011.1 The rapid and radical change of religious belief and worship in Iceland and Greenland in the beginning of the eleventh century testifies to the zeal of the first Christian missionaries in those countries; especially when we take into consideration the paucity of their number, which must necessarily have been very small at the time when the mother country, Norway itself, was yet in great need of foreign priests. The Norwegian king, St. Olaf, still took along with him from England a great number of bishops and priests, for the further evangelization of his native country.2 Besides that of Thormod, who accompanied Leif the Fortunate in the year 1000, we find hardly any names of priests who labored in the missions of Greenland during the eleventh century. Lyschander mentions a certain Eric or Henry among the clergymen of the island in the year 1024; and, in the year 1052, another Eric, priest or bishop, seems to have been ministering to the Greenland colonists.3 There is no doubt, however, that some other missionaries arrived in Greenland during the first decades of this century, as it is plainly stated by Adam of Bremen that "St. Olaf gave charge to the bishops and priests introduced from England and from the archdiocese of Bremen to preach and establish the kingdom of Christ, not only in Norway, but also in Gothland and Sweden and in all the islands beyond Scandinavia." The saintly king did not forget Greenland in his pious zeal, keeping up friendly relations with the lay apostle, Leif 1 De Costa, Precolumbian Discovery, p. 39, n. 1. 2 Adam Bremensis, ap. Pertz, t. vii. cap. xciv. p. 326. 4 3 Cf. Torfæum, Gronl. Ant., cap. xxix. p. 240. * See Document XLIX. the Fortunate, and his son, Thorkell Leifson.1 His influence seems, on the contrary, to have been so extraordinarily effective that Nicholas V., in the year 1448, ascribed to his efforts the conversion of the distant island.2 It appears to have been during St. Olaf's time that Greenland enjoyed the ministry of the personage who is the first to be called "Grónlendinga Biskup" or bishop of Greenland. His name was Olaf, and he is reported as having visited Iceland after Bishop Bernard had left probably in the year 1021, and before the arrival of Bishop Kól, in A.D. 1095, according to the list of visiting bishops drawn up by Skardza, in his "Additions to the Landnámabók." The authors of the Historic Monuments of Greenland seem to have confounded him with the Bishop Olaf who sojourned in Iceland in the year 1265, because Ari Frode does not mention the former in his Islendingabók; but there are no reasons to show why Skardza should have disturbed the chronological order, while Ari justly neglected to place him on the roll of the bishops who visited Iceland in their official capacity.* The small city of Bremen was in the eleventh century regarded and visited as the Rome of the North. Among the most distant pilgrims who called upon Archbishop Adalbert were the Icelanders, the Greenlanders, and the people of the Orkney group. They came to ask him for preachers of the gospel, and the primate granted their request, says his contemporary, Adam of Bremen. He consecrated a number of bishops for Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, and for the islands of the sea, it is 1 Wetzer und Welte, 2te Aufl., art. Grönland. 2 See Document XXIX. 3 Islendinga Saegur, p. 331, ap. Beauvois, Origines, pp. 24, 25. Groenl. Hist. Mindesm., t. iii. p. 896; Islendinga Saegur, p. 13; Beauvois, Origines, pp. 24, 25. |