Thor in Vinland


Abstracted from Eirik's Saga, chapter eight.
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They [the Norsemen] stayed there [in Vinland] that winter, which turned out to be a very severe one.... They ran short of food and the hunting failed.... Then they prayed to God to send them something to eat, but the response was not as prompt as they would have liked.

Meanwhile Thorhall the Hunter disappeared and they went out to search for him. They searched for three days; and on the fourth day Karlsefni and Bjarni found him on top of a cliff. He was staring up at the sky with eyes and mouth and nostrils agape, scratching himself and pinching himself and mumbling. They asked him what he was doing there; he replied that it was no concern of theirs, and told them not to be surprised and that he was old enough not to need them to look after him. They urged him to come back home with them, and he did.

A little later a whale was washed up and they rushed to cut it up. No one recognized what kind of a whale it was, not even Karlsefni, who was an expert on whales. The cooks boiled the meat, but when it was eaten it made them all ill.

Then Thorhall the Hunter walked over and said, "Has not Redbeard turned out to be more successful than your Christ? This was my reward for the poem I composed in honor of my patron, Thor; he has seldom failed me."

When the others realized this they refused to use the whale meat and threw it over a cliff, and committed themselves to God's mercy. Then a break came in the weather to allow them to go out fishing, and after that there was no scarcity of provisions.


Notes:

Revised September 14, 1998.