Even if we
make allowance for the exaggeration or ignorance of the
writer of the saga, there is still a vast contrast between
this vessel and the little ship Centurion in which Anson
sailed round the world.
It is needless, however, to prove that the Norsemen could
have reached America in their ships. The voyages from
Iceland to Greenland which we know they made continually
for four hundred years were just as arduous as a further
voyage from Greenland to the coast of Canada.
The story of the Norsemen runs thus. Towards the end of
the ninth century, or nearly two hundred years before
the Norman conquest, there was a great exodus or outswarming
of the Norsemen from their original home in Norway. A
certain King Harold had succeeded in making himself
supreme in Norway, and great numbers of the lesser chiefs
or jarls preferred to seek new homes across the seas
rather than submit to his rule. So they embarked with
their seafaring followers--Vikings, as we still call
them--often, indeed, with their wives and families, in
great open ships, and sailed away, some to the coast of
England, others to France, and others even to the
Mediterranean, where they took service under the Byzantine
emperors.
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