Scandinavian American. [volume] (Seattle, Wash.) 1945-1958, 1946-12-01
The Story Of
The Norsenlen
In Midanlerica

/ mil WIN, II 10 Sdlu, CdIllc lIlldIl0
to the head waters of the Missis-
sippi is always intriguing. 1t is
brought to attention again by an
interesting reference in the Chris
tian Science Monitor.
The brief story says that in
1898, the Kensington Stone was
found on a Minnesota farm. It's
runic inscription relates the at
tack, in 1862. upon a party of
eight Swedes and twenty-five Nor
wegians taking the western way
from Vinland. An Ave Maria was
appended
Hjalmer Holland, a Norwegian
immigrant who is a graduate of
the University of Wisconsin, and
who has followed the traces of the
early Norsemen for thirty years.
contends that the men who left
this record were detachment
from the religious expedition, sent
by King Magnus and led by Paul
knutson, to reclaim the Greenland
colonists who had renowned Chris
tianity and moved away. The band
of searchers thus surprised By In
dams had sailed, supposedly, by
way of Newfoundland, Hudson
Bay Nelson River, Lake Winni-
peg and Red River to Minnesota's
network of rivers and glacial
lakes. They were hoping to rejoin
the expedition, the body of which
they had left in Vinland Wine
land, on account of it's grapes, on
the southern coast of New Eng
land, visited centuries earlier by
1celandic rovers.
knutson had established his
headquarters on the site of New
port, r. l., in the so-called Old
Stone Mill, which Holland argues
was really a fortified church of
a kind the Norsemen had known
in Scandinavia.
This round, ght-columned,
three-storied tower is the same
structure which Longfellow, in
The Skeleton in Armor," roman
tically imagined was erected by
Viking for the blue-eyed princess
with whom he had eloped. If it
was, instead, what Holland MAIN
tains it was, it becomes one of the
most precious heirlooms in our his
tory; and its construction came,
we need hardly remind ourselves,
some 100 years before Columbus
arrived.
How much truth is there in his
contention To the reviewer, who
claims no special knowledge of the
Morse exploration or archaeology,
the authors clear headedness,
scholarship, and respect for ac-
curacy are impressive. He has
studied with patient care and good
sense the mooring-rocks, halberds.
and fire-steels found in Minnesota;
he has measured, photographed
and analysed the Newport Tower
stone by stone; he has consulted a
great variety of books and spe-
cialistS; and he has presented fair
ly and answered firmly all oppos-
ton as it has arisen. If cautious
readers still say to ourselves. "All
this may be true instead of This
must be true" it is no fault of the
author The expedition itself was
so preposterously daring that it
may leave us with more wonder
than conviction.
But, whatever the experts may
decide in the future there can be
no doubt now that Holland has
thus far done more than any other
individual to dispel the fogs sur
rounding the early explorations of
America. Even if later historians
can prove that he is substantially
wrong, his book asserts a high
claim to being a mastery mosaic
of fact, legend, and logic. One of
its chief virtues is that, despite its
scholarliness, it can be enjoyed by
any intelligent, historically curious
American. If it turns out to be
mistaken history, it at the very
least stands now as one of the
keenest, most satisfying detective
stories to be found