Tommy Forsyth, age 12, of New York, N: Y., for his question:
Did the Vikings discover America before Columbus?
The voyage of Columbus was an expensive project and very risky. It took him years to persuade the persons of influence to provide him with ships and men necessary to undertake the journey. Few people believed that there was land westward across the Atlantic. But some people knew it. Their ancestors had visited America hundreds of years before.
The bold Vikings of the north lands were restless voyagers. Through some 400 years, from 700 to around 1100 A.D., these fierce adventurers were the terror of England, France, Spain and the Mediterranean countries. Their favorite vessel was a long, narrow ship with a sweeping raw of long oars on each side. The ship also carried a sail to catch the wind. The prow of the vessel was a tall, straight post carved with the image of some fierce animal
The mighty Vikings were strong men, well armed and always ready for a fight. Sometimes they settled in the conquered lands for a while, but more often they went on raids of pillage and plunder. Usually they sailed eastward to plunder the settled lands of Europe. But, sooner or later, such bold adventurers were bound to risk a westward voyage across the Atlantic.
The Viking hero who first reached the shores of the New World was Leif Ericson, alias Lucky Lem. He was the son of the famous Eric the Red, a red headed Viking so rebellious that his own people had exiled him to the icy shores of Greenland. From here, young Leif set forth westward across the stormy Atlantic, and there is every reason to believe that he reached our shores around 1000 A.D.
At this time of their history, the Vikings did not write down their adventures, but each story was handed down in spoken words. The story teller was a trained expert, and there were those around who remembered the actual events and interrupted to correct hint when he misstated the facts as they occurred. Thebe historic records, called sagas, were put into writing about 150 years after the Viking voyages to the New World, and the descriptions of the places visited are so exact that historians know more or less where the Viking ships landed. In recent times, the weapons of a buried Viking have been unearthed in Canada.. This, along with the sagas, seems sufficient proof that the Vikings landed here at least 400 years before Columbus.
The Vikings made many visits to the New World during the next 300 years. They tried to settle, but their quarrels with the Indians the original Americans made this impossible. Later, much later, the Viking voyages to the new world were read by Columbus. This bold mariner believed the stories and used them to strengthen his arguments that land could be reached by sailing westward from Europe.