Its Discovery by Norwegians
The beautiful Gudrida, tall and slender but muscular and lithe, stood by the side of Thorfin, whilst he audibly thanked God for their deliverance from the perils of the waters; and near them in the shadows of great trees were gathered the rest of the company, silently uniting in the thanksgiving. Gudrida, we may imagine, was dressed in a manner befitting the rank of her husband. She might have worn, in the costume of that day in Norway, a white linen tunic that descended to the instep. Over this a black grown of silk reaching only to the knees, with short flowing sleeves that left half the arm bare below the elbow, and clasped by a golden bracelet. A broad band of gold embroidery extended from the waist to the lower edge and around the bottom of the gown, and also around the edges of the sleeves; and over all hung gracefully a gray woolen mantle of fine and light texture, fastened at the throat with a brooch of gold and pearls. It hung in graceful folds to her waist, in front, and behind as low as the gown. Upon her head was a veil or hood of silk, loosely and tastefully arranged over the portion back of the ears, and falling in folds upon her shoulders and bosom. In front of this hood hung her beautiful auburn hair in a rich profusion of curls and ringlets. On her feet were black buskins, their open fronts laced with silken cords, showing her white hose.
Thorfin remained with the colony in Vineland about three years, when he and Gudrida, with a part of the company, sailed for Norway, with specimens of fruits and furs which they had gathered in the new country. After making several voyages Thorfin settled in Iceland, where he built a fine mansion, and lived in a style unrivalled by the richest chieftain in that country. There Thorfin died. Gudrida, who had become the mother of a son, whilst she was in Vineland, then went with her boy, on a pilgrimage to Rome, where she told the stories of the adventurers in the ears of Pope Benedict. After her return, she entered a convent. Her son, whose name was Snorre, became, in time, master of his father's estates, and the ancestor of a long line of descendants. Among these was Albert Thorwaldsen, the great Danish sculptor of our day.
Those of Thorfin's colony who remained in Vineland, were joined by two brothers, named Helgi and Fiombogi, with about thirty followers. They were Icelandic chieftains, who fitted out their expedition in Greenland. Freydisa, the daughter of Eric the Red, obtained a willing permission to go with them, and share in the profits of the voyage. She was an artful, intriguing, deceitful and fiery-tempered woman, and Lief and his family hoped she would remain in Vineland and be decently buried there. She was a fury and a firebrand among the colonists. Where peace had reigned she enthroned discord. Quarrels ensued which ended in a fight and the death of thirty persons. Then Freydisa, finding her own life in peril, returned to Greenland, where she died universally detested.
Such is the substance of the accounts of these adventurers, given in the chronicles of Iceland. They reveal the fact that Norwegians discovered America almost five hundred years before Columbus sailed westward from Spain, in search of India. The stony land with the snow-capped mountains was, doubtless, Labrador. The flat, wooded land, with its white beach, must have been Newfoundland; and the time given of the rising and the setting of the sun at the winter solstice--the shortest day at about Christmas time--indicates some point on the New England coast between Boston harbor and Narragansett bay, as the spot where the German lad discovered the grapes, and Lief named the country Vincland.
Where Thorwald was buried, or where Thorfin and Gudrida landed and lived, nobody knows. The best informed students of the subject believe it to have been on Rhode Island, and that the mysterious stone tower at Newport, with its massive cylindrical walls resting on seven columns, whose foundation stones are wrought spheres, was built by these Norwegian colonists. It was there when the English settlers came, and the Indians had no knowledge of its origin. If the Northmen did not build it, who did? Perhaps Gudrida's son was born there. Who knows?