Jacques Privat - Mysteries of the Far North: The Secret History of the Vikings in Greenland and North America

In memory of my teacher, Rgis Boyer, who guided me through this gold mine that has yet to reveal all its secrets;

And Madame Hedwige Vincennot, who always gave me steadfast support and especially shed light on my travels on the roads of the North, which have never since been closed to me.

Jacques Privat revives the presence of the Scandinavians in Greenland during the Middle Ages. He sheds new light on contacts between Scandinavians and Inuit and on the premises of the great discoveries in Canada and North America.

JEAN-MARIE MAILLEFER, PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF SCANDINAVIAN LANGUAGES AND CIVILIZATIONS AT PARIS-SORBONNE UNIVERSITY

The work of Jacques Privat forms a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the medieval history of the Scandinavians in Greenland. He introduces a new historical, geographical, and ethnographical vision. He offers new definitions of the relationship of this people with the church, the Inuit people, and the other nations of Europe. This book offers a new view of the disappearance of these Scandinavian settlers by freeing itself from the overly restrictive context of some earlier analyses.

PIERRE ROBBE, PROFESSOR AT THE MUSUM NATIONAL DE LHISTOIRE NATURELLE

Privats research is enticing because of the wide variety of fields it tackles, and the result is a truly original theory. Another new aspect is his examination of the evidence provided by Inuit art, whose value is obvious.

REGIS BOYER, FRENCH LITERARY SCHOLAR, HISTORIAN, AND TRANSLATOR, SPECIALIZING IN NORDIC LITERATURE AND THE VIKING AGE

Having put together a vast and imposing collection of archival data, Privat was able to establish important parallels between the written source material, archaeological and ethnological evidence, and the contributions offered by ancient cartography.

JELLE ROBERT-LAMBLIN, RESEARCH DIRECTOR OF THE FRENCH NATIONAL CENTRE FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH (CNRS)

Qujanarsuaq Kalaallit Nunannni tamanut, igamik Narsarmiumut Kali Karlsenimut

Thanks to all those in Spain, Greenland, and Denmark (Hans Gullv, and particularly Jette Arneborg of the National Museum, and the cartography department of the Royal Library of Copenhagen) who assisted me in bringing this book, which was originally my Sorbonne dissertation, to fruition; and my thanks to Jean-Marie Maillefer for his work on the Latin texts.

My special thanks to Claude Lecouteux for his unwavering faith in this book, his self-sacrifice, his help, and his lengthy revision work, without which this text would have remained in the dusty drawers of university research.

ADanish, Swedish, and Norwegian translator, Jacques Privat is the first to have succeeded in retracing the history of Greenland in the Middle Ages from the time of the Viking arrival there. His work is truly pioneering. He has a thorough knowledge of this subject, having spent an entire year immersed in it coupled with many shorter visits to Greenland. Jacques Privat studied the Inuit language at the Eskimology Institute in Copenhagen and was even adopted by the village of Nassaq. Drawing on archives that have been overlooked until now and using every means at his disposal, this peerless researcher consulted the ancient maps; combed through the sagas, tales, and legends; and made good use of all the data from archaeological digs and set the record straight on many preconceived notions and even outright errors. Throughout his study, he brings in much information that will be completely new to most of us, whether it is the tribute paid to the Vatican in the form of falcons, furs, ivory, and eiderdown, or the presence there of the Germans, English, and Portuguese. It was these latter that gave this land the name of Terra LaboradorLabrador. He also cites the role played there by the Hanseatic League and the city of Bremen, as well as that of the Greenland Church with its many singular features.

Along the way, he solves a few geographical riddles such as the location of Estotilandia, Nurumbega, and the Illa Brasil and places Scandinavian colonies in North America (Maine, Newfoundland, Hudson Bay in Quebec).

It would take too long to discuss all the discoveries Jacques Privat shares with us in his booka book that plunges us into a poorly known past that clearly deserves to be retrieved from the shadows where the dust of centuries has buried it.

CLAUDE LECOUTEUX PROFESSOR EMERITUS AT THE SORBONNE UNIVERSITY

CLAUDE LECOUTEUX is a former professor of medieval literature and civilization at the Sorbonne. He is the author of numerous books on medieval and pagan beliefs and magic, including The Book of Grimoires, Dictionary of Ancient Magic Words and Spells, King Solomon the Magus, and The Encyclopedia of Norse and Germanic Folklore, Mythology, and Magic. He lives in Paris.

The remote lands of the Scandinavian Arctic are still poorly known today. It is easy to imagine what the situation was like five centuries ago when there were much fewer sources of information, which I would not hesitate to describe as practically unilateral as they were primarily the work of the church. This helps explain the bias of numerous written sources and the preference long granted to certain alarmist theories about the fate of the Scandinavian colonists and their relations with the indigenous peoples of Greenland. The Arctic is the preeminent domain of the Inuit people (who were long called Eskimos, an exonym that still survives in citations from the ancient historical periods). Less numerous are the people who knew of the existence of this Scandinavian colony (which was originally Icelandic, then Norwegian and Danish) that inhabited Greenland and very likely eastern Canada for several centuries during the very heart of the Middle Ages, long before Columbus. Rarer still are the people who could conceive of the constant presence of a variety of European nations in these territories that will be described throughout this book: the English, the Germans, the Flemish, the Portuguese, and so forth were all drawn there by the magnetic pole formed by the medieval Arctic and its wealth. Contrary to longstanding notions, the Arctic was a source of precious goods: unicorn and walrus ivory, deluxe furs, royal falcons, and so forth. A quick glance through medieval source texts will give us some information about the provenance of all these riches. During the Great Age of Discovery before Columbus, the Scandinavian Arctic would occupy a strategic position. For one thing, people then believed it offered a Northwest Passage to Cathay.*1

My first objective is to dispel once and for all the longstanding isolationist theories about medieval Greenland. It offered the advantage of explaining the disappearance of the Scandinavian colonists of the Arctic as a result of their forced isolation after contact with Norway became increasingly rare. We will show that Greenland and the neighboring Arctic regions were frequented quite often by sailors, hunters, and European expeditions in the Far North long before Columbus. Consequently, I also reject any Inuit responsibility in the disappearance of the Northmen, as is commonly and too easily believed.