Vikings in America (35 page)

6
. An account of Peary's discovery of the Cape York meteorite is in John Edward Weems,
Peary the Explorer and the Man
(Boston, 1967).

1
. The idea that Columbus visited Iceland was first proposed in J. K. Tornöe's
Columbus in the Arctic?
(Oslo, 1965).

2
. James Robinson,
The Lewis Chessmen
, (London, 2004, The British Museum Press); N. Stratford,
The Lewis Chessmen and the Enigma of the Hoard
(London, 1997, The British Museum Press).

3
. The Secret Archive of the Vatican has its own website,
http://asv.vatican.va/
, which includes some general information about the archive and the documents, but neither a catalogue nor access information. The Secret Archive is separate from the Vatican Library, whose website is at
http://www.vaticanlibrary.va/
. In theory it is possible for scholars to gain access to the Vatican Library, though as the website expresses it “At present, all of the Library's collections are unavailable for consultation” (2009). Closure of the library will continue at least until summer 2010.

4
. Sean McGrail,
Boats of the World From the Stone Age to Medieval Times
(OUP, 2004).

5
. Writing about John Dee is extensive. A recent overview is offered by Benjamin Woolley's
The Queen's Conjuror: The Science and Magic of Dr. John Dee, Adviser to Queen Elizabeth I
(New York: Henry Holt and Company, 2001). His contribution to the creation of the British Empire is discussed in Nicholas Canny's
The Origins of Empire, The Oxford History of the British Empire Volume I
, Oxford University Press (1998).

6
. The major primary source for the voyage of the
Mayflower
and the establishment of the Plymouth colony is the account of William Bradford
Of Plimoth Plantation
, written 1620-1647 (and with the spelling
Plimoth
) though describing events from 1608. The most accessible edition is that by William Bradford and William T Davis (1908) with the title
Bradford's History of Plymouth Plantation, 1606-1646
. Numerous modern accounts of the Mayflower and the Colony exist, including Nathaniel Philbrick's
Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War
, (Viking, 2006).

1
. The Narragansett Indian Tribe's website is at
http://www.narragansett-tribe.org/
. The tribe now has around 2,500 members in Rhode Island, and is associated with an additional 2,500 members of related Mohegan tribes in Connecticut and Long Island.

2
. R E Wodehouse, “Tuberculosis in North American Indians”
Canadian Medical Association Journal
1926 June; 16(6); C W McMillen, ‘“The red man and the white plague”: rethinking race, tuberculosis, and American Indians, ca. 1890-1950',
Bulletin of Historical Medicine
, 2008, Fall:82(3).

3
. The primary source for Verrazano's voyage is “Voyage of John de Verrazzano, along the Coast of North America, from Carolina to Newfoundland, AD 1524”,
Collections of the New York Historical Society, Second Series, 1841, Volume 1
, pages 37-67. Verrazano's reputation as the explorer of coast including New York was long obscured, and the decision to name a New York bridge after him – the Verrazano Narrows Bridge – was controversial, and only happened because of extensive lobbying from the Italian Historical Society of America. The spelling Verrazano is now standard for his name, replacing the earlier Verrazzano.

4
. Charles Christian Rafn,
Antiquitates Americanae Sive Scriptores Septentrionales Rerum Ante-Columbianarum in America
(Copenhagen, 1837).

5
. The Chronognostic Research Foundation is a non-profit corporation interested in historical and archaeological investigation.

6
. A runic inscription on Norman's Island off the coast of Martha's Vineyard was “discovered” in 1926 and read “Leif Eiriksson MI” (ie 1001). It is now generally dismissed as there is a report of a Norwegian cook working in the area having carved it in 1913. Additionally it is most unlikely that the runes would survive around a thousand years (the rock is sea-covered at high tide), and because the use of Roman numerals for dates was not usual in Scandinavia at this time. It is of course possible to make a case of sorts for Viking presence from the evidence of the
Vinland Sagas
– Martha's Vineyard fits the description of mild winters, self sown corn and wild grapes. J R L Anderson's
Vinland Voyage
(1966) theorises that Native Americans living in Martha's Vineyard called the area Vinland, and when explorer Bartholomew Gosnold visited the area in 1602 he took a modified form of the native name, added the name of his daughter who had died in infancy and whom he wished to commemorate, and produced Martha's Vineyard.

7
. Waldseemuller's 1507 map
Universalis Cosmographia
is the only source for the link between the name America and Amerigo Vespucci. The key phrase is “… ab Americo Inventore … quasi Americi terram sive Americam” which translates “… from Americo the discoverer … as if it were the land of Americus, thus America”. Waldseemuller is clearly struggling in his misspelling of Amerigo and his erratic declension, as the continent's name is not Amerigo, Americo or even Americus but a wholly inexplicable America. Waldseemuller appears to have thought again about this dubious derivation, for in his 1513 re-issue of the map he removes both it and the name America. The one copy of the 1507 edition surviving today was discovered in 1901 by Joseph Fischer, curiously the man who has been proposed as a possible forger of the Vinland Map. There are however no grounds for considering the 1507 Waldseemuller map to be a forgery.

8
. Alistair Campbell,
Old English Grammar
, Oxford University Press.

9
. Laurence C Thompson and M. Terry Thompson, “Metathesis as a grammatical device”,
International Journal of American Linguistics
,
35
(1969).

1
. Katrin Niglas,
The Combined Use of Qualitative and Quantitative Methods in Educational Research
, (2004); J Mingers, J Brocklesby, “Multimethodology: Towards a Framework for Mixing Methodologies”,
Omega
, Volume 25, Number 5, October 1997.

The convention of indexing Viking and modern Icelandic names by first names has been observed here. For example
Leif Eiriksson
is indexed under his first name
Leif
, not his patronymic
Eiriksson
. Viking names and most modern Icelandic names do not contain a surname.

Active
134–135

Adalbert, archbishop
64

Adam of Bremen
49
,
63–65

Africa
74

Agder
25

Agnar Helgason
127

Ahnighito
139

Aidan, saint,
20

Akureyri
34

Alaska
49
,
135
,
138

Alert
10
,
90

Aleutian Islands
135

Alexander IV, pope
60

alexipharmic properties
143

Alf, bishop
55

Alfred, king of England
7
,
13
,
21

Algonquin
159

Algonquin Indians
72

Alicorn
95

Al Idrisi
49

Althing
34
,
37
,
47
,
51

Ambrose
96

Ambrosini, Maria Luisa
148

America, etymology
172–177

American dream,
179

American Museum of Natural History
140

Ameryke, Richard
174

Anatase
86–87

Andreas
65

Annealing
138

L'Anse aux Meadows
1
,
8–9
,
18
,
75
,
171
,
178

Antiquitates Americanae
166

Aquidneck Island
171

Arabs
15
,
152

Arctic Circle
6

Arctic fox
92

Arctic Ocean
108

Arctic Small Tool Tradition
153

Aristotle
95

Arnold, Benedict
166
,
168

Arthur, king
150
,
154

Asgard
14

Asiatic people
3

Astrakhan
14

Astrolabe
150–152

Athens,
7
108
,
180

Aud Ketildottir
30

Auroch
97

Axel Heiberg Island
113

Baffin Island
8
,
69

Babylon
see under
Baghdad

Baffin, William
90

Baffin Bay
93
,
94
,
132

Baffin Island
114
,
134
,
136
,
178

Baghdad
6
,
14
,
108

Ballad of Sigmundur Brestisson
24

Ballista
72

Baltic Sea
17

Barents, William
101
,
108

Barren Grounds
49
,
136

Basil
96

Basques
4
,
5

Bede
20

Bede's Death Song
65

Belle Isle Strait
77–78

beluga
see under
whale

Beowulf
65

Beowulf
79

Bergen
50
,
53
,
55

Bering Strait
3
,
49
,
126
,
135

berserkers
145

Bertius, Petrus
146

Bjarni Herjolfsson
68–69

Black Death
54
,
56
black houses
44

Black Sea
14
,
108

Blaeserk
37

‘Blond Eskimos'
125
,
160

Book of Enoch
154

Bornholm
169

Bosphorus
15

Brattahlith
38

Breithafjordur
38
,
142

Bremen,
48
,
64

Brendan, saint
4
,
31

Bristol
59
,
155
,
174

Britain, etymology
173

British Empire
150
,
153

British Isles
17

British Museum
145

Brutus
173

Butt of Lewis
147

Byzantium
see under
Constantinople

Butternut
9

Cabot, John
155–156

Cabot, Sebastian
156

Caedmon's Hymn
65

Cairns
98

California
2

Cambridge Bay
125
,
127

Canada
49
,
68
,
89–90

etymology of
172

Canadian Arctic Expedition
126

Canute

dynasty
7

king
21
,
64

Cape Dorset
134

Cape Farewell
37
,
43
,
48
,
50
,
68
,
104
,
136
,
147

Cape Wrath
22–24
,
146–147

Cape York meteorite
139–140

caribou
92

Carlton, Suzanne
167

Cartier, Jacques
172

Caspian Sea
14
,
108

Celtic

art
7

Christianity
20

kingdoms
19

languages
15
,
21

Chaucer, Geoffrey
119
,
152

Chesterfield Inlet
136
,
153

Chesterton windmill
166

Chicago
42

Christendom
49–50
,
59

Christian IV, king
103

Christianity
35–36
,
47

Chronognostic Foundation
168

Chukchi
136

Chukov Peninsula
135

Churchill River
153

Claus Magnus, archbishop
151

Claussen, Peder
101

climate change
91

Cloisters Museum
96

Cluny Museum
96

Cnoven, Jacobus
122
,
151

Cnoyen, James de Boise-le-Duc
see under
Cnoven, Jacobus

Coburg Island
97
,
114

Columba, saint
20

Columbus, Christopher
1–3
,
13
,
141
,
149–150
,
160
,
173
,
177–179

Constantinople
6
,
14–15
,
108

Coppermine River
138

Cormorant Lake
124

Cornwall
27

Coronation Gulf
138

Crusades
7–8
,
15
,
50
,
152

Crusading Tithe
52

Ctesias
95

Cumberland Sound
70

Coracle
4
,
23
,
28
,
36