This is documentation that I wrote for the 2017 Ice Dragon A&S Pentathlon.
-------------------------------------------------------------
What the Norse Greenlanders Ate
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to list the type of food
available by Norse settlers of medieval Greenland, exploring the food mentioned
in the Greenland sagas, remains found in archeological digs, trace analysis of
bones and what food was available to be eaten. There is some question as to how
much food was available to the Norse and how nutritious it was. The US Military
recommends that an average sized male adult should take in a minimum of 4,500
kcal per day during Arctic conditions. [1] Estimates of medieval European diet shows that the average farmer, during the
Medieval Warm Period (the time period of the Norse occupation of Greenland)
consumed between 2000 and 2200 kcal per day. [2] Nobel Prize winner Robert Fogel calculated that the Basel Metabolic Rate of “an
adult male, 5’6” tall and weighing 140 pounds - that is, a fairly average
fourteenth-century farmer - the BMR is 1,576 Calories [3] a day. Fogel’s calculation for the additional calories needed to perform any
sort of labor is 720, for a total of just under 2,300 Calories a day.” [4] Estimates of energy output can increase to
7,403 kcal for eight hours of chopping wood. [5]
Numbers such as these shed an interesting light as to
medieval malnutrition. The human body can store up to 100,000 kcal within fat
reserves, but those reserves will have to be replaced at some point. If the
average European farmer was living most of the year at a caloric deficit,
surrounded by rich farmlands, mild winters and long growing seasons, how could
their Greenland counterparts have survived for almost five centuries? Many
words can describe Greenland, but “rich farmland” would not be two that I would
use. There is no doubt that the Norse managed to survive, the questions that I
wish to answer are these: what food did that have available in order to not
just survive, but to prosper. Where did they get their protein, vitamins and minerals,
as well as their dietary fibre?
Introduction to Greenland [6]
Greenland was first settled by Europeans in 986 by
legendary Norwegian hot head Erik the Red (Eirikr rauði Þorvaldsson). Exiled
from Norway for multiple killings, he resettled in Iceland in 960 and in 982
was exiled for murder. Taking advantage of the forced vacation, Erik followed
up on a report, by Gunnbjörn Ulfsson, of a large landmass West of Iceland. Erik
discovered a suitable base camp at the fjord now known as Tunulliarfik. From
this base camp, Erik and his crew spent the following two years exploring the
coastline. In 985, Erik returned to Iceland and convinced a few hundred people
to immigrate to this new Greenland. In 985, he set out with a fleet of 25 ships
with over 400 people, livestock and supplies. 14 ships arrived in the new land
and two major colonies were established: the Eastern Settlement (or
Eystribyggð) and the Western Settlement (or Vestribyggð), the two best
locations found to support farming, grazing and ship access. Several smaller
settlements were established as the population increased, however, the total
Norse population of Greenland never rose above 5,000; with around 1,000 at the
Western Settlement and 4,000 at the Eastern at their maximum population
density.
The Norse occupation lasted almost 500 years. They
constructed multiple churches, a cathedral (with a Bishop), [7] a monastery and a nunnery. They constructed houses, barns, dairy and sheep
farms; 400 stone ruins still remain. They traded falcons, eagles, polar bear
hides, walrus ivory, narwhale tusks (passed off as unicorn horns) and walrus
skin ropes for iron, tools, bells, stained glass, raisins, wine and other “luxuries”.
It is possible that food staples were imported: wheat; barley; honey; but
Norwegian and Icelandic trading vessels cannot carry that much cargo (estimated
at 7 pounds per Greenlander per year) [8] and did not make that many trips; perhaps two or three a year in the best of
years. As the weather grew colder, and the ice packs grew larger and the North
Atlantic grew rougher, the visits lessened until the island was cut off almost
completely.
The Greenlanders could produce bog iron, but the method
requires a great deal of wood, which has to be converted into charcoal. [9] Greenland did have alder and dwarf willow trees, but they grew slowly. Vinland
and Markland [10] were nearby, but as the pack ice grew, journeys there became too dangerous and
eventually stopped. Driftwood could have been plentiful if the ocean current
co-operated: driftwood from Siberia washes up on Greenland’s shores today. The
deforestation of Greenland increased soil erosion which reduced the number of
acres available for hay and crops. As did over grazing by sheep, goats and
cattle. As the climate of the North Atlantic grew colder, the summer growing
season shrunk; winters became longer and harsher and life became more
difficult.
The remains of one farm are indication of how difficult
life had become: the farmers killed and ate their entire livestock, including
newborn calves and lambs, right down to the hooves. Their bones were cracked
open to extract the marrow. The farmers even ate their dogs; the bones show
knife marks indicative of butchering. [11] How desperate they must have been to eat their livelihood and their hunting
dogs. When they made that decision they must have known that they were done
for. Without sheep and goats, they would not have any fleece to spin into wool.
Without hunting dogs, their ability to hunt down wild game would have been
diminished. Without cows, goats and sheep, there would be no milk to turn into cheese
and butter. Did these farmers decide to survive the winter and then leave for
better lands in the spring? We do not know: they did not leave any written
records.
One final note: I will avoid using the word ‘viking’ in
this paper. Greenland was not settled by vikings. The best definition of the
word viking would be ‘raider’. The settlers of Greenland were farmers for the
most part, not raiders. They were from Iceland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden and
as such, I will use the word ‘Norse’ to describe them. Any further usage of the
word ‘viking’ will come from quoted sources.
Nutrition
As mentioned in the purpose, the minimum daily Calories
for Arctic conditions is 4,500 kcal/d. In addition to Calories, humans require
certain vitamins and minerals for good health. Signs and symptoms of
malnutrition include:
Loss of fat (adipose tissue)
Breathing difficulties, a higher risk of
respiratory failure
Depression
Higher risk of complications after surgery
Higher risk of hypothermia - abnormally low body
temperature
The total number of some types of white blood
cells falls; consequently, the immune system is weakened, increasing the risk
of infections.
Higher susceptibility to feeling cold
Longer healing times for wounds
Longer recovery times from infections
Longer recovery from illnesses
Lower sex drive
Problems with fertility
Reduced muscle mass
Reduced tissue mass
Tiredness, fatigue, or apathy
Irritability. [12]
All of these symptoms would be harmful to the Norse living
on the knife’s edge that was Greenland. People can survive one bad year;
perhaps two without too many loses. But several bad years will reduce the
overall population. The famine of 1308 to 1315 killed off 5 to 12% of the
population of Northern Europe. [13] With a maximum population of 5,000
people, a 1% loss of life, in one year, could have been devastating to the
Greenland colony.
A lack of vitamin A can result in night blindness and poor
vision in dim light. Something required for the dimly lit homes and barns of
Greenland. [14] “In the absence of adequate exposure to sunlight, a lack of vitamin D can cause
rickets, which results in malformed limbs in infants and children because the
bones fail to harden properly. A lack of vitamin C causes scurvy, with symptoms
of bleeding gums and easily bruised skin.” [15]
“The diets of at least half of the population {of Europe} was
deficient not just in calories (particularly for growing children) but in
lipids, calcium, and vitamins A, C, and D; and they contained so much fiber as
to block the absorption of minerals like calcium, magnesium, and zinc. This was
a particular problem for women of childbearing age - and, since average age at
death was under forty, it affected virtually all women. Half of the adult
population of Europe was constantly pregnant, and therefore constantly in need
of vitamins B12, C and folic acid. And that was when things were normal.” [16]
Livestock
The Norse brought livestock with them to Greenland, namely
cows, pigs, goats, sheep, ducks geese and horses. I will ignore horses as there
was a Christian religious ban against the eating of horse flesh [17] and they were used for transportation and work.
“Greenland’s settlers started out with aspirations based on
the mix of livestock maintained by prosperous Norwegian chiefs: lots of cows
and pigs, fewer sheep and still fewer goats, plus some horses, ducks, and
geese. As gauged by counts of animal bones identified in radiocarbon-dated
Greenland garbage middens from different centuries of Norse occupation, it
quickly turned out that that ideal mix was not well suited to Greenland’s
colder conditions. Barnyard ducks and geese dropped out immediately, perhaps
even on the voyage to Greenland: there is no archaeological evidence of their
ever having been kept there. Although pigs found abundant nuts to eat in
Norway’s forests, and although Vikings prized pork above all other meats, pigs
proved terribly destructive and unprofitable in lightly wooded Greenland, where
they rooted up the fragile vegetation and soil. Within a short time they were
reduced to low numbers or virtually eliminated.” [18]
The lack of domesticated ducks and geese not only meant a
lack of meat, but a lack of readily available, easy to gather, eggs. [19] But, as I will cover later, the Norse had a source for eggs. Cattle, sheep and
goats were kept, with cows being the greatest in importance for status: The
largest and wealthiest of the farms had the greatest number of stalls for milk
cows. The greatest was on the Gardar farm which had a barn with room for 100
cows. [20] The meat of sheep was preferred over that of goats, [21] although none of the three animals were raised strictly for their meat.
“But in Greenland, as elsewhere in the world where rich and
poor people are interdependent, rich and poor people didn’t all end up with the
same average wealth. Instead, different people ended up with different
proportions of high-status and low-status foods in their diets, as reflected in
counts of bones of different animal species in their garbage. The ratio of
high-status cow to lower-status sheep bones, and of sheep to bottom-status goat
bones, tends to be higher on good than on poorer farms, and higher on Eastern
than on Western Settlement farms. Caribou bones, and especially seal bones, are
more frequent at Western than at Eastern Settlement sites because Western
Settlement was more marginal for raising livestock and was also near larger
areas of caribou habitat. Among those two wild foods, caribou is better
represented at the richest farms (especially Gardar), while people at poor
farms ate much more seal. ... As an illustration of these trends with some
actual numbers, the garbage of the poor Western Settlement farm known as W48 or
Niaquusat tells us that the meat consumed by its unfortunate inhabitants came
to the horrifying extent of 85% from seals, with 6% from goats, only 5% from
caribou, 3% from sheep, and 1% (O rare blessed day!) from beef. At the same
time, the gentry at Sandnes, the richest Western Settlement farm, was enjoying
a diet of 32% caribou venison, 17% beef, 6% sheep, and 6% goat, leaving only
39% to be made up by seal. Happiest of all was the Eastern Settlement elite at
Erik the Red’s farm of Brattahlid, who succeeded in elevating beef consumption
above either caribou or sheep, and suppressing goat to insignificant levels.” [22]
The fleece of the sheep and goats would have been prized
over their meat. The fleece would have been spun into wool thread and the
thread into clothing or sails. “The average Viking housewife like Gudrid needed
to clean, sort, and spin the wool of 100 sheep a year to produce clothing for
her husband and children and their servants and hired hands (who were paid in
food and clothing), along with bedcloths, wall hangings, tents for travel,
packs and sacks, diapers, bandages and burial shrouds.” [23] However, once the sheep or goat stopped growing decent fleece, it would have
been killed and butchered for food.
All three animal types would have been kept for their
milk, a far more valuable food source: You can only eat a cow once, but you can
milk one for months. The milk was used to make butter, cheese, whey and a
yogurt like substance called skyr. Whey was a popular beverage and was used for
pickling [24] and was turned into a porridge-like “cheese”. [25] “The cream was churned into butter, kneaded into a block, squeezed to get every
last but of buttermilk out of it, and stored in a box. Unsalted, it would sour,
but keep for decades.” [26] It is worth mentioning that animals only produce milk when they are nursing
young: medieval cows could not be milked year round like modern dairy cows. The
milk that was collected was then converted into food stock that could be stored
for later use, particularly during the long winters. Skyr was stored in barrels
and kept cold either in mountain streams or buried underground. [27]
As cattle do not produce wool, at least not the cattle
available to the Norse, males are only useful for work (ploughing or hauling)
and for making little cows. Realistically, a farm only needs one bull and only
a few oxen [28] for labor. Any additional male cattle would have been a drain on the farm’s hay
stocks. “{Erik the Red} may have kept up to twenty cows. Since they had to stay
in their stalls for 200 days of the year, they required 55 tons of hay, or 500
horse loads. ... He also kept goats, which can digest brush and scrub even
better than sheep.” [29] Unneeded male calves were fattened up and then, after weaning, slaughtered, as
dairy farmers have done throughout history.
All of the animal was used; meat, intestines for sausage
casing, the marrow from the bones, and the bones themselves could have been
carved into more useful things. Anything that remained would have been fed to
the dogs, boiled down into glue or used as fertilizer. The meat would have been
smoked, salted, pickled or cured to last throughout the year. Farmers might
also have had to cull their herds depending on how much hay and seaweed was
harvested: too little hay and the farmers would have had to kill some of the
cows to ensure that the remainder would have enough feed to survive the winter.
“Meat was available from the livestock just at times of
culling, especially in the autumn, when farmers calculated how many animals
they would be able to feed through the winter on the hay that they had brought
in that fall. They slaughtered any remaining animals for which they estimated
that they would not have enough winter fodder. Because meat of barnyard animals
was thus in short supply, almost all bones of slaughtered animals in Greenland
were split and broken to extract the last bits of marrow, far more so than in
other Viking countries. At archaeological sites of Greenland Inuit, who were
skilled hunters bringing in more wild meat than the Norse, the preserved larvae
of flies that feed on rotting marrow and fat are abundant, but those flies
found slim pickings at Norse sites. It took several tons of hay to maintain a
cow, much less to maintain a sheep, throughout an average Greenland winter.
Hence the main occupation of most Greenland Norse during the late summer had to
be cutting, drying, and storing hay. The hay quantities accumulated then were
critical because they determined how many animals could be fed throughout the
following winter, but that depended on the duration of that winter, which could
not be predicted exactly in advance. Hence each September the Norse had to make
the agonizing decision how many of their precious livestock to cull, basing
that decision on the amount of fodder available and on their guess as to the
length of the coming winter. If they killed too many animals in September, they
would end up in May with uneaten hay and just a small herd, and they might kick
themselves for not having gambled on being able to feed more animals. But if
they killed too few animals in September, they might find themselves running
out of hay before May and risk the whole herd starving.” [30]
Seal
The Norse hunted for seal to supplement their meat
supplies. They hunted for three species of seal: the harbor seal, which is
resident year round and bears their pups in inner fjords in the spring; the
harp seal and the hooded seal, both of which are migratory and arrive around
May along the seacoast, away from the majority of Norse farms. “To hunt those
migratory seals, the Norse established seasonal bases on the outer fjords,
dozens of miles from any farm.” [31] Seals, once on land, would have been easy to net and kill. Like modern seal
hunters, the Norse might have singled out the pups as easy pickings. Even in
the water, the Norse could have caught their fill of seal: “The bottleneck
where the fjords emptied into the ocean made the settlement a natural trap.” [32] Harbor and hooded seal are more frequently found near the Western Settlement
than the Eastern. [33]
“Seals were especially important to Inuit living on the
northern shores of Labrador and Newfoundland dating back to the early 18th
century when seal meat, which is high in fat protein and vitamin A, was a
staple in the early Arctic-dweller’s diet and often prevented explorers from
starving or getting scurvy during their hunting travels. (Some Antarctic
expeditions like Ernest Shackleton’s Ross Sea party suffered from scurvy for
lack of vitamins found in seal meat)” [34]
Seal meat is high in Calories and fat. One ounce of harp
seal meat contains 103 Calories with 63 coming from fat. [35] Compare that with 69 Calories for ground chuck, with 40 Calories from fat; 66
Calories, 28 from fat for mutton; 31 Calories, 6 from fat for goat and 34
Calories, 8 from fat for caribou. [36] Ounce per ounce, harp seal contained more chemical energy than other readily
available meat. As I have quoted above, poorer farms ate more seal than land
animals; why would wealthier farmers turn up their noses at so rich of a food
source?
“Having forced myself out of curiosity to taste seal while I
was in Greenland, and not gotten beyond the second bite, I can understand why
people from a European dietary background might prefer venison over seal if
given the choice.” [37]
“The meat itself is bizarre. It’s deep and dark like duck or
venison, but the animal has developed a totally different way of storing fat,
due to its life in the cold North Atlantic. It doesn’t have marbling; instead,
the fat is liquid, like oil, and permeates all of the meat. “When you handle
seal meat it’s almost like a lanolin kind of feeling, your hands get so soft,”
says Perrin. But that oil is also one reason seal hasn’t caught on away from
the coasts where it’s caught: like many oils (walnut and flax come to mind),
seal oil goes bad incredibly quickly; there’s no good way to preserve it.
That’s why the native seal-hunting peoples of Canada tend to eat it raw; it’s
not for religious purposes, it’s simply because seal meat has a very short
lifespan and is best when freshest.” [38]
“Seal flipper tasted like bear meat cooked with seaweed:
dusky, feral, tidal.”[39]
“Seal flipper pie as usually prepared is one of the worst
things I have ever put in my mouth. Imagine dog legs frozen in open air, tossed
into the bottom of a boat, stored in a freezer for months, cleaned to get rid
of residual fat, and baked in a pot pie. I’ve had edible pie exactly once in 25
years, done by a grad student from a freshly-killed animal without freezing.
Still tastes fishy. I’ll take a turkey pot pie any day.” Dr. Steven M. Carr. [40]
Yum.
Keep in mind that the Norse were christians, during this
time period, and did not eat meat on fast days or during lent. That was okay as
seals were considered “kosher” for lent and were, like beavers, swans,
capybaras and alligators, treated as fish. [41] So, even though the wealthiest of the Greenlanders could have better fare on
most days, they would have to choke down seal along with their poorer neighbors
on meatless days.
Whale
The Norse did not hunt for whale: they possessed no
harpoons and the sagas do not mention any whale hunting around Greenland, but
they did take advantage of washed up carcasses. The Saga of the Greenlanders
give the following description, “Soon, they got their hands on rich and
plentiful provisions when a large, fresh rorqual (whale) was stranded on the
beach. After they had cut it up, there was no shortage of food.” [42] The Norse of Norway, Iceland and the Shetland Islands were whale hunters, but
the technology and skill did not make their way to Greenland, which does make
sense: the settlers of Greenland were farmers, not whalers, and whaling was not
a skill one would just pick up. The Inuit were whalers but relations between the
Norse and Inuit were never good enough for the Inuit to teach the Norse how to
whale or to trade the all-important harpoons, air bladders and umiaks. [43] Also, the sea captains who visited Greenland were traders, not whalers, and if
any whale hunters did stop off at Greenland for re-stocking or trade, it would
not have been in their best interest to teach the Greenlanders how to hunt
whale.
There were enough washed up carcasses that the Norse were
able to fashion furniture from whale bones and to use baleen to lash together
their boats. [44] Even one whale carcass per year would have been seen as a boon. A bowhead whale
can grow up to 100 tonnes; if washed up freshly dead, it would provide enough
meat to feed all of the Norse on the island for months.
“Laxdaela saga describes a new settlement in Iceland as an
excellent location, because there was “an abundance of stranded whales and
plenty of salmon, and good fishing-grounds year round”. In the depth of winter
and the grip of famine, whales provided resources that the land could not, when
men were otherwise unable to provide for themselves. Gul-thoris saga depicts a
whale that feeds many farms in the north of Iceland as the end of winter: “a
whale drifted ashore on an island called Hvallatur...Thorir went out and cut up
the whale. He took some of it home, but game some to the people of the
district. A large part of the whale still lay there which had not been cut up.” [45]
One ounce of bowhead meat contains 130 Calories with 116
coming from fat, 3.5g of protein, a good deal of Vitamin A, Omega fatty acids
and calcium while one ounce of blubber [46] contains 244 Calories, with 243 from fat, and 14% of one’s daily intake of
cholesterol. [47] Various sources on the Internet state that whale meat tastes like moose or
reindeer, and that the blubber does not. I found references comparing the taste
of blubber to congealed gravy, to walnut oil flavored bubble gum, to, in the
words of scruffycat on Yahoo Answers, “As
to taste....ever smelled the rubber padding under a VERY old and worn carpet?
That’s exactly what it tasted like to me....or rather what the juices tasted
like, as I could not bite an actual piece off to chew.”
Game
Greenland also had a number of wild animals that the Norse
could hunt. Caribou, [48] Arctic hare and fox. [49] The hare and fox could have been hunted by bow and arrow, slings, traps, or
even with the Greenland gyrfalcon, which were caught and exported to falconers
across Europe. While hare and fox don’t provide much meat, anything to break up
the monotony of seal meat would have been welcome. Their pelts were also
collected and exported. [50]
“Ameralik and Kangersuneq Fjords still have the best caribou
hunting in Greenland, in the mountains behind the Western Settlement. The Norse
killed animals that walked by the farms even in the dead of winter, as the
caribou scratched through the snow to find reindeer moss, and used valley
bottoms for shelter from winter storms. The Norse had two types of dogs, one of
medium size presumably for herding, and a larger type like a longlimbed
deerhound. These large dogs drove the caribou down to the fjord to kill, or
through lines of waiting hunters, and even brought down wounded animals on
their own.” [51]
The Norse also traveled north to what was called the
Nordrseta to hunt for walrus and polar bear. Although, perhaps not strictly for
food.
“Walruses and polar bears were virtually confined to
latitudes far to the north of the two Norse settlements, in an area called the
Nordrseta (the northern hunting ground), which began several hundred miles
beyond Western Settlement and stretched farther north along Greenland’s west
coast. Hence each summer the Greenlanders sent out hunting parties in small,
open, six-oared rowboats with sails, which could cover about 20 miles per day
and could hold up to a ton-and-a-half of cargo. Hunters set off in June after the
peak of the harp seal hunt, taking two weeks to reach the Nordrseta from
Western Settlement or four weeks from Eastern Settlement, and returning again
at the end of August. In such small boats they obviously could not carry the
carcasses of hundreds of walruses and polar bears, each of which weighs about a
ton or half-a-ton respectively. Instead, the animals were butchered on the
spot, and only the walrus jaws with the tusks, and the bear skins with the paws
(plus the occasional live captive bear), were brought home, for the tusks to be
extracted and the skin to be cleaned at leisure back in the settlements during
the long winter.” [52]
An adult walrus can weight up to 2,200 pounds; polar bears
can weigh as much as 1,600 pounds. [53] Assuming that half of that weight was usable meat, two or three kills could
fill a boat. However, this appears to me to be waste of valuable resources and
manpower: Four to eight weeks of travel time, plus the time for hunting, for a
ton-and-a-half of meat? Plus the supplies necessary to accomplish that mission.
That time could have been spent gathering seabirds and their eggs, fishing,
collecting seaweed and edible plants, or making repairs to houses and barns. I
think that these hunting parties were going after more valuable product than
meat. We do know that live polar bears were captured and given as gifts. The
Saga of Einar Sokkason tells of a Kolbein Thorljotsson who, in 1126, sailed to
Norway with a live polar bear that he gave as a present to King Harald Gilli. [54] “In the Hungrcaka it is stated that Bishop Isleif gave Emperor Henry III a
polar bear which had come from Greenland, and this bear was ‘the greatest
treasure’. In 1123 Einar Sokkason shipped a bear, along with his cargo of
walrus-hides and ivory, which, as already been explained, in due course he
presented to the King of Norway, in order to gain the latter’s support for the
establishment of a bishopric in Greenland.” [55] I would guess that it was much easier to capture and transport a cub than an
adult, still: not a boat ride I would want to take.
But, the occasional live bear aside, the pelt of a polar
bear was more valuable than the entire carcass. A shipload of polar bear pelts
was sent by the Western Settlement in 1327 for taxes and tithes and “was easily
converted to twenty-eight pounds of pure silver in Bergen for the Holy See.” [56] I’m willing to bet that the bears were skinned and only their pelts were
brought back. I was unable to find out the weight of a polar bear pelt, but
after checking with various hunting and taxidermy forums, a 6.5 foot black bear
pelt, with the head and paws attached, weighs between 50 and 60 pounds. I
estimate that a 10 foot polar bear pelt, with the head and paws, would weigh
well over 100 pounds. A six-oar boat could carry up to 30 pelts, with some meat
for the return voyage. The hunters most likely sustained themselves on the
meat, which, apparently, tastes like mutton. [57]
Walruses were also hunted for other things than meat. [58] Walrus tusks were very valuable when access to elephant ivory was restricted.
Excavations of the cathedral at Gardar, built in the 12th century, uncovered
gaming pieces and a crozier head made of walrus ivory. [59] I was unable to find a picture of the mentioned crozier head, but there appear
to be hundreds of pictures of medieval crozier heads made from walrus ivory from
all parts of Europe. Outside of the cathedral grounds, pieces of ivory are very
rare, although pieces of walrus skulls and jaws carved into gaming pieces are
common enough, it suggests that long-range trade in ivory was so important that
little to none of it was used locally. “Ivory was an export product, in the
production of which everyone in the Norse settlement participated as evidenced
by the extraction detrius found in almost every household. It was valuable
enough that almost none was kept for domestic production.” [60]
“In A.D. 1327, a load of walrus tusks from Greenland was sold
in Bergen. ... This was the Peter’s Pence and the six-years tithe, a crusade
tax which eventually helped finance King Magnus Eiriksson’s 1340ies crusade
against Novgorod ....The load of tusks may be estimated to 802 kilograms,
suggesting ca 520 tusks representing some 260 animals. ... The computed value
of the 520 tusks from A.D. 1327 runs into something like 780 cow equivalents,
or nearly 60 metric tons of stockfish. ... A record from A.D 1311 shows that a
total of 3,800 Icelandic farmers paid their (tax of) 20 ells of vaðmál (woollen
cloth). The value that went to the king has been estimated to 317.5 cow
equivalents, making the total (Greenlandic) payment twice as much, i.e. 635 cow
equivalents. ... Thus the value of the Greenland tusks from A.D. 1327
(representing the six years’ tithe) was worth more than the annual tax from
nearly four thousand Icelandic farmers.” [61]
Not just the tusks; walrus hide was also valuable. “Its
hide is thick and good to make ropes of; it can be cut into leather strips of
such strength that sixty or more men may pull at one rope without breaking it.” [62] Recent finds suggest that Iceland’s walrus population was driven to extinction
due to the value of the hides, tusks and meat. [63] Many of the Norse sagas speak of the value of walrus-hide ship’s ropes and
belts. [64] Walrus hide ropes were used for ship’s rigging and anchor lines due to their
natural strength and water resistance. [65] Like with polar bears, valuable cargo space could be filled with walrus heads
and hides rather then with entire animals. The meat of the skinned and beheaded
walruses would have been consumed by the hunters and it’s blubber burned for
fuel, as I don’t think the hunters would have brought very much firewood with
them.
“Walrus and polar bear bones are found in small numbers on
almost every Norse site investigated, in both settlement areas, and on both
inland and coastal farms. This unexpected distribution, like the distribution
of seal and sea bird bones, suggest the working of a social rather than a biological
mechanism. ... the most common walrus bone elements come from the skull around
the tusk (maxilla) or the peg-like post canine teeth behind the tusk. ...
Scapula and rub fragments suggest that while most of the walrus bone brought
back was associated with tusk butchery units, some meat bearing elements also
reached some farms participating in the hunt. The polar bear elements are
mainly those associated with final finishing of raw skins removed elsewhere.” [66]
Birds
Greenland is home to a number of bird species year round
and is the nesting site of many migratory bird species, all of which could have
been hunted for meat, feathers and for eggs. “They collected guillemots in late
summer, butchering the partly flightless sea birds in a seasonal glut, before
taking advantage of seasonal caribou migration in the autumn.” [67] Middens of three Norse farms near the head of the Ameralik fjord contained
nearly 30,000 bone fragments dated from around 1000 to 1400. 201 of these bone
fragments were from ptarmigan and 124 from a variety of guillemot. The middens
also contained bones from two species of divers, whooper swan, white-fronted
geese, Icelandic gull, and several other species. [68] Birds could have been caught with nets or traps; I do not think that the Norse
hunted the smaller birds with bow and arrows, but they could have used hunting
gyrfalcons.
It goes without saying that bird’s eggs have almost
everywhere been collected and eaten. Brunnich Guillemont’s eggs are “twice as
big and just as good to eat as hen’s eggs, and yield 1988 calories per kilogram
as opposed to ‘medium quality beef’ which yields only 1358 calories per
kilogram.” [69] Ptarmigan eggs are about the size of those from quail, [70] but they lay clutches of 8 to 10. [71] The Icelandic gull egg is the size of two modern chicken eggs. [72] While we don’t know if the Norse Greenlanders preserved their eggs, by cooking
and pickling them, or of they only ate them fresh, the Inuit of Greenland still
stash eggs under rocks to freeze them. Weeks or months later, the frozen eggs
were retrieved, shelled and eaten raw. [73] 18th Century Icelanders preserved eggs by packing away fresh eggs in certain
kinds of ashes, which preserved them for several months; [74] while there is no evidence that the Greenlanders did this, it does appear to be
a low-tech method of preservation well within the capability of the
Greenlanders.
Hunting eggs would have been easier; just chase the birds
away and take them from the nests. For birds that nested along steep cliffs, it
would have been a bit dangerous to get to the eggs, but Icelanders had a
tradition of hunting eggs on cliff faces, [75] There is no reason why Greenlanders would not have continued this tradition.
Fish
Surprisingly, this is a controversial subject. Well, as
controversial as the designated hitter rule.[76] Discussions of whether or not the Norse of Greenland ate fish range from polite
statements, both for and against, to screaming matches on Internet forums. We
must look at the existing evidence, both for and against the possibility of the
Norse catching and eating fish.
In the ‘against’ column, there is a distinct lack of fish
bones, in proportion to the bones of animals and birds. “Even at the GUS site,
which yielded the largest number of fish bones - 166, representing a mere 0.7%
of all animal bones recovered from the site - 26 of those bones come from the
tail of a single cod, and bones of all fish species are still outnumbered 3 to
1 by bones of one bird species (the ptarmigan) and outnumbered 144 to 1 by
mammal bones.” [77] There are many who support the theory that the Greenlanders made a conscious
decision to avoid fishing, for some reason; Diamond, Dugmore, McGovern, et al.
The various incarnations of this theory propose that the Norse did not eat fish
for some taboo reason, or they were convinced that the fish was harmful, or
that they spent their time hunting seals instead of fishing. There is no
evidence to support any of these theories.
There is also the nature of fish hooks. Medieval Norse, "apparently," only fished with a hook and line, not with a net [78] and there is a distinct lack of both fish hooks and sinkers from any of the
excavated sites in Greenland. Thomas McGovern, currently a professor of
environmental archaeology and zooarchaeology at Hunter College, concluded that
because of the lack of hooks and sinkers, and the comparative lack of fish
bones, the Norse did not make use of the abundant fish on and around Greenland.
I do wish to point out that the lack of evidence is not proof that the evidence
was never there.
A poor argument on the ‘for’ side is that of course the
Norse ate fish, why wouldn’t they? Well, a bad case of food poisoning can keep
one away from a particular type of food for life. A charismatic person could
have convinced others that fish were bad in much the same way that tomatoes and
potatoes took so long to be adopted by Europeans. I will admit that the
argument that the Greenlanders avoided fish due to religious reasons is
difficult to support, as the significance of fish in the Catholic faith. I
would also say that the counter argument to the missing fish bones that makes
the case that the soil of Greenland is acidic and small, fragile fish bones
just don’t last long in the ground just doesn’t add up. Yes, the soil is acidic
but small, delicate bones of birds and some of cod have been preserved. Fish
bones have survived in the middens and sewers of Pompeii and Hercalanium for
twice as long as those on Greenland. It is a poor argument.
There is no reason to assume that the Norse ‘only’ fished
with fish hooks, Jared Diamond recounts his visit to Greenland in seeing a
Danish tourist who had caught two 2 pound char with her bare hands. [79] The Norse had hands just as quick and clever as the above mentioned tourist:
there is no reason why they could not have caught a slow fish with fast hands.
There is also no reason why a Greenlander would not use a seal net to catch
fish: just because that’s not how Icelanders fish doesn’t mean Greenlanders
wouldn’t try it. Unfortunately isotopic data of human remains cannot
distinguish a between seal and fish in terms of diet [80] so we cannot make any definitive conclusions as to what marine life the Norse
actually ate and archaeologists will be debating this issue for quite some time
to come.
“In Iceland, fish (both marine and freshwater) were an
important wild resource (McGovern et al., 2007; Sveinbjörnsdóttir et al.,
2010), but this does not appear to have been the case in Greenland. Fish bones
are so rarely discovered in Norse contexts in Greenland that Dugmore et al.
(2012) have hypothesized that the earliest Norse Greenlanders may have made a
conscious decision to avoid fishing and to focus on sealing. This, they argue,
was a pragmatic way of addressing a probable subsistence gap in early spring
(McGovern, 1994), which was filled by the harp and hooded seals that arrived
with the drift ice in the fjords of southern Greenland. Indeed, there is much
persuasive evidence to support such a conclusion, such as the paucity of fish
bones in middens and lack of any material culture relating to fishing (Dugmore
et al., 2012). Yet, this overlooks the fact that the absence of fish bone may
be a result of the Norse treatment of waste and the preparation of fish
products, which would have been cleaned at the fishing grounds (Arneborg et
al., 2012b). Furthermore, it fails to explain the near absence of freshwater
fish, which could have been exploited with ease (especially in Vatnahverfi).
Ívar Bárðarson made reference to ‘a great fishing lake’ in his Description of
Greenland (Ingstad, 1966), which suggests fish may have been of greater
importance to the Greenlanders than the archaeofaunal record currently
suggests.” [81]
“Fish Bones are extremely rare on Norse sites in Greenland,
in contrast to their abundance in contemporary context in Iceland. The single
specimen from I17a upper is a galid (cod family) vertebra." [82]
“Fish and molluscan remains are rare in the Vatnahverfi, as
they are in most collections from Norse Greenland.” [83]
“Fish bones are very rare in the excavated assemblages, which
has given rise to a debate as to whether the Norse Greenlanders fished at all.
The apparent lack of fish bones may well reflect the handling of refuse or
methods of fish preparation. For example, fish could have been cleaned at the
fishing grounds. The majority of the bone assemblages derive from midden
deposits outside the farm buildings. It is possible that dogs, foxes, or ravens
may have eaten the fish bones lying on these refuse dumps. In contrast, all
finds from GUS derive from inside the building complex itself. Here, meticulous
sieving of deposits from the house floors resulted in the retrieval of
relatively large numbers of fish bones, and there is no doubt that the Norse
did exploit the rich fish resources for dietary purposes. Sculpin
(Myoxocephalus scorpius), arctic char (Salvelinus alpinus), capelin (Mallotus
villosus), cod (Gadus morhua), three-spined stickleback (Gasterosteus
aculeatus), and halibut (Reinhardtius hippoglossoides) are all represented in
the bone assemblages from GUS.” [84]
“The marine element should derive first and foremost from
seal according to the animal bone assemblages found in middens in Greenland
Norse settlements. Fish bones are nearly absent in the collections. This may,
however, be explained by taphonomic biases such as the well-known poor
preservation of fish bone and its appeal as a food source to both birds and
domestic animals like dogs. It is hard to believe that the Greenland Norse did
not tap the very rich resources of fish in the fjords, as did their relatives
all over the North Atlantic and in Norway. Future isotope research may shed
light on the extent to which fish actually formed part of the Greenland Norse
diet.” [85]
“Both seaweed and fish were abundant, not at least the
herring-like ammassat (capelin/Mallotus villosus), which can at many places
close to the Norse farmsteads be “scooped” out of the water with buckets. It is
therefore surprising that a study of isotopic nitrogen and carbon values in
Norse animal husbandry show them - apart from the pigs and dogs - to have a
minimal marine intake (Nelson et al. 2012). Although marine fodder could taint
the taste of meat and milk, it is hard to believe that the Norse would have led
the valuable and hard-to-replace livestock starve to death rather than to have
them survive with an unpleasant aftertaste. If disbanding with a paradigm of
arctic marginality, could this be taken to indicate that other supplemental
fodder resources were preferred and sufficient? However, foraging for other
fodder sources at distance from the farmsteads must also have been labor
intensive.” [86]
“..given Norse traditions in fishing and curing cod, in which
head and spines were preferably removed before the cod were hung across wooden
poles to dry. Fish entrails apart from the valuable livers were often used as
fertilizer, while other fish scraps - dried and crushed heads and spines
included - would have been food supplements for both people and animals. A
large codfish head is still considered a delicacy in both Iceland and Norway. [87]
I think that the Greenland Norse did exploit fish, both
fresh and salt water varieties. They certainly made enough references to it in
the surviving sagas. A line attributed to Leif Erikson is “Greenland is like a
poor gnawed fish-bone and Vinland is like a huge sturgeon brimming with oil and
stuffed with roe”. [88] Greenland was settled by Icelanders, a people with a rich history of fishing
and unlike whaling, which requires specialized skill and tools, fishing can be
done by almost anyone. Not only did early descriptions of Greenland mention
fish, but so did Eirik’s Saga about Vinland, “There was a vast number of
animals of all kinds in the forests, and every river was full of fish. They dug
pits by the shore, and at low tide there was halibut in these pits.” [89] The translators, Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad, make the following note: “This
is an ancient Norse method of fishing, employed in northern Norway, but the
saga is on the wrong track when specifying halibut, a deep water fish - this
method was employed when catching flounder.” [90] If the Greenlanders did not eat fish, why would they make note of how many fish
there were in the Vinland rivers? That would not be of any interest for a
people who did not eat fish. That would be like selling property to vegans by
telling them that the rabbits are so tame they will hop right into the oven.
The Norse Greenlanders, in my opinion, ate fish and recognized how abundant the
fish were in and around their home.
“Additionally, fish abounded in both the fjords and mountain
lakes; Lysufjord got its name from lysa, a type of cod, while Agnafjord came
from agn, or fishing. Perfect suited for a windy, cold, and bright climate,
Atlantic cod ended up on racks drying into stockfish in Greenland, and provided
food on voyages and hunts “spread with butter or blubber for more calories.”
Nine years before Diamond’s comment about the Norse having a prohibition
against eating fish, Kristin Seaver, a naturalized American writer of Norwegian
birth, solved the issue of the Norse supposedly not eating fish in her 1996
book The Frozen Echo: Greenland and the
Exploration of North America ca A.D. 1000-1500. Medieval Norwegian sites
also lacked fish bones and fish heads, for these were too valuable to throw
away; rather they were ground into valuable protein powder to feed cattle and
horses. From her own childhood, Seaver remembered Norwegians grinding fish
bones into protein powder for human use during World War II.” [91]
“ ‘Next lies Eijnerfiord, and between it and Rampnessefiord
there is a large farm which belongs to the king; the farm is called Foss, and
there stands also a costly church dedicated to Saint Nicholas, which the king
holds to rent. Nearby is a large island with huge fish, and near it a great
lake. When rains come water flows in and out; here are countless fish lying on
the sand. When one sails into Eijnerfiord there lies on the left a bay which is
called Tordzualsviigh, and further into the fjord on the same side is the
little promontory which is called Kleinengh, and further still a bay called
Grauevigh. Further still is a large farm called Daler which belongs to the
cathedral, and on the right side, as one sails into the fjord to the cathedral,
which is at the end, there is a large forest that belongs to the cathedral, and
that provides all of its income, both large and small. The cathedral owns all
of Eijnersfiord, and also the large island which lies off the fjord and is
called Renøe, so-called because in autumn countless reindeer run there; hunting
is by common rights, but not without the bishop’s permission. On this island
there is the best soapstone, which in Greenland is of such good quality that it
is used to make pots and pans. It is so consistent that fire does not damage
it, and it is made into vessels large enough to hold ten or twelve tuns.
Further from land lies an island called Langhøø, and on this island are eight large
farms; the cathedral owns all of the islands except the tenth, which belongs to
Hualzør church’. Ivárr Bárðarson’s Description of Greenland (75-97), mid-late
14th c. AD” [92]
It is also worth noting that the Greenlanders had plenty
of methods for preserving fish, from freezing it underground, to pickling it,
to drying it. All it would take would be a cold and windy climate and someone
who knew what to do. Someone from Iceland perhaps, where the process of turning
freshly gutted and cleaned cod into stockfish was well known. “Stockfish
requires no salt, an expensive commodity in medieval Europe, which in turn
means that no extra investment was needed. The resulting high-protein product
was ideal for consumption during long voyages when drinking water would be at a
premium and cooking a high-risk endeavour.” [93]
Crops
Just as controversial as fish is the subject of grain: did
the Norse grow crops in Greenland? “The Kongspillet [94] in the early 1200s proclaimed: ‘But most of them do not know what bread is, and
have never seen bread!’” [95] The Norse, in other places, did grow a variety of crops, cereal and otherwise;
wheat, oats, barley, rye, cabbages, onions, peas, beans, hops and flax, for
linen. At all Norse sites, the importance of crops diminished the farther north
one traveled. [96] The wetter and colder the climate, and the reduced amount of daylight, the more
problematic crop growing became.
There is no evidence of Greenlanders growing the
traditional vegetables of the Norse, at least not on a long term basis, and it
is unlikely that the soil of Greenland could have supported such cereal crops
to sustain a population of 3,000 to 5,000 people year after year. “We know they
grew the sort of crops they would have grown in Norway, France, England and
Ireland - crops that may have been too intense for the soil.” [97]
“As to whether any sort of grain can grow there, my belief is
that the country draws but little profit from that source. And yet there are
men among those who are counted the wealthiest and most prominent who have
tried to sow grain as an experiment; but the great majority in that country do
not know what bread is, having never seen it. ... You ask what the inhabitants
live on in that country since they sow no grain; but men can live on other food
than bread. It is reported that the pasturage is good and that there are large
and fine farms in Greenland. The farmers raise cattle and sheep in large
numbers and make butter and cheese in great quantities. The people subsist
chiefly on these foods and on beef; but they also eat the flesh of various
kinds of game, such as reindeer, whales, seals, and bears. That is what men
live on in that country.” [98]
Modern cereals and vegetables do grow on Greenland; in
greenhouses and in small, fenced off fields in the south of the island. Soil
for the greenhouses was shipped in from Canada and modern fertilizers are
required for the barley to grow without depleting the soil of nutrients. [99] The soil of Greenland was, and still is, very fragile and susceptible to
erosion and over growing. Barley production has only been recently started
using modern varieties bred for resistance to cold weather and to have early
maturity, such as Tiril and Arve. [100]
“The mountains in South Greenland consist primarily of acidic
rocks such as granite, gneiss and sandstone. Soils that develop from these
rocks are acidic and low in nutrients. Many types of soil have a limited
capacity to absorb water, and occasionally there is a lack of precipitation,
particularly in the inner fjord areas. Droughts occur during the summer,
causing low coarse fodder yields and economic difficulties. Permafrost, which
is defined as soil that is at or below the freezing point of water (0°C) for at
least two years, is found sporadically in the lowlands of Southwest Greenland.” [101]
There has been little evidence for grain farming until
recently:
“”We excavated the rubbish heaps down to the bottom layers,
which date from the time the settlers arrived,” says Henriksen, whose team took
300 kg of samples for further analysis. “The sample we took from the bottom
layer of a heap contained grains of corn. The grains had been close to a fire
and were charred, which preserved them.” From their shape and size, the grains
of corn were identified as barley with complete certainty. And they came from
agricultural production. Wild barley is not strong enough to grow in Greenland,
says Henriksen, who also rules out imported barley, as even small quantities of
grain would be too much for the cargo hold of the Vikings’ ships. “If the corn
had been imported, it would have been threshed, so finding parts of grains of
barley is a very strong indication that the Vikings grew their own corn,” he adds.
The find also confirms researchers’ theory that the Vikings tried to continue
the form of life they knew so well from their original homes.” [102]
“Archaeobotanical studies have never played an important role
in the analysis of Norse resource utilization, and our knowledge of the Norse
use of plants and berries is virtually non-existent. Knud Krogh (1982:103)
reports on pollen of oats found in the turf wall that surrounded the small
11th-century church at Brattahlid, showing that the Norse Greenlanders, at
least in the first period of settlement, grew or tried to grow cereals for
either porridge or bread. At GUS in the Western Settlement, a fragment of a
quernstone made of local material was found bordering an 11th century
fireplace. This find, quernstones from other farms, and a single fragment of a
baking plate - unfortunately without provenance - confirm that the Norse
Greenlanders may have made bread, though not the leavened bread made with yeast
which is mentioned in the King´s Mirror, but flat bread called leiv
(Norwegian). Leiv was made from flour kneaded with water and baked in the hot
ashes on flat baking plates.” [103]
“Aside from these weedy species agricultural plants such as
the cereals barley (Hordeum-type) and oats (Avena-type) were introduced.
Hordeum appears more frequently in pollen diagrams (Erlendsson, 2007) whilst
Avena is much rarer and where identified, such as at Ketilsstaðir, it is often
interpreted as a weed within the barley crop (Erlendsson et al., 2009). Given
the difficulties of identifying cereal-type pollen (Andersen, 1979) it is
possible, that some of the Hordeum-type could be Elymus arenarius, a native
wild grass historically used as a substitute for cereal in times of famine
(Guðmundsson, 1996). A single occurrence of Linum (flax) has also been noted
(Einarsson, 1963), which is similar to a rare occurrence of the plant at the
site of Sandnæs in the Western Settlement of Greenland (Fredskild and Humle,
1991).” [104]
“The common perception is that cultivation of cereals in
southern Greenland was not viable as a result of the harsh climate (Barlow et
al., 1997). Documentary evidence from the Kings Mirror, a Norwegian manuscript
dating to the early 13th century, records that some of the wealthiest
Greenlanders at least attempted to grow grain (Larsen, 1917), although whether
this can be substantiated is a matter of debate. Böcher et al., (1968) suggest
that four cereal crops - Hordeum vulgare, Hordeum distichum (barley), Secale
cereale (rye) and Triticum aestivum (bread wheat) - can be found in southern
Greenland today. Of these there is plentiful evidence that Hordeum vulgare
will, and is, grown today, but does not necessarily ripen (Schofield et al.,
2007; Edwards et al., 2008; Moetzfeld per com., 2010). Additionally, Fredskild
(1978: 37) suggests that ‘the south Greenland sheep farmers today grow barley,
rye and oats for hay and ensilage’. Therefore it is plausible to assume that
early Norse settlers made similar efforts to cultivate grain. Indeed, there is
a growing corpus of ecofactual evidence to suggest that at the very least the
Norse Greenlanders had access to cereal grains.” [105]
“The Greenland Vikings certainly played a part in their own demise,
not just through the over-farming mentioned above, but also through destroying
native vegetation for farmland and cutting turf that was not as rich in
minerals as they were used to. Thanks to a heavy reliance on livestock farming,
trees and crops may have been trampled by introduced livestock in the fragile
winter months; there is soil evidence from the lakes and rivers that many
nutrients were simply washed away. We know this from the extensive palynology
(pollen analysis) and radiocarbon dates that show a severe change in the
topography and the crops that were being planted between the Viking arrival at
the end of the 10th century, and the early 14th century where it all went
wrong, replaced native trees on a mass scale.” [106]
It is very difficult to distinguish between natively grown
cereal crops and imported varieties. While it was possible for Norse traders to
bring ship loads of grain to Greenland, it is unlikely that they could have
brought enough, year after year to feed the masses on the island. Also, it
would not have been economical to transport cereals prior to threshing: not
only would have taken up too much space aboard the open decked longships, but
it would have been very difficult to keep dry on the voyage from Iceland. Once
wet, cereal straw suffers from rotting unless it can be dried out. If grain
were imported, it would have had to have been threshed and sealed in water
proof containers.
“It has previously been discussed whether it was at all
possible to grow barley to maturity in southern Greenland during the Norse
period (Hansen 1991). Experiments conducted in 1997 by local agricultural
consultant Kenneth Høegh showed that Norwegian and Icelandic barley types can
reach germination maturity in the inner, warmest regions of the Eastern
Settlement (K. Høegh 2011, pers. comm.). The climate during the beginning of
the Norse period was as warm as at the present day or slightly warmer (Arneborg
2005) and would not have prevented barley cultivation.” [107]
If the Norse did
grow barley, which it appears that they did towards the beginning of the
colony, it was most likely grown in small quantities, in enclosures no bigger
than their ability to weed and irrigate the crop. The grain would have to have
been tightly fenced in to keep hungry sheep, goat, caribou, and cattle out. I
also believe that there would have been a competition of time between any
barley that was grown (ploughing, harrowing, planting, weeding, and threshing),
and the amount of work needed to reap, dry, bundle and transport hay used for
winter fodder. Examining the importance of livestock, I will conclude that once
the soil in these enclosures became depleted of nutrients, and grain yields
dropped below the ratio of work to yield, barley farming was discontinued
almost everywhere on the island. My guess is that, eventually, barley might
have been grown solely to make the bread used for communion: [108] I feel that that is more likely than the Bishop and priests depending on
imported corn to provide enough bread, year round.
Seaweed
The shores and shallows of Greenland contain seaweed,
which can be used for food for both humans and animals. The Norse collected and
dried seaweed in barrels. [109] “The inhabitants of both Iceland and the Faroe Islands seem to have learnt how
to supplement their diet with edible seaweed, as witnessed by the words slafak
‘sea-lettuce”, from OIr. slabac, and Icel. myrikjani ... which clearly derives
from a Gaelic word (a variety of local forms exist, e.g. mircean in Scots
Gaelic.” [110] “Dulse {seaweed} was used as a trading commodity on Iceland since the 700’s.
... Written sources, namely sagas and law codes, record the use of seaweeds as
human food on Iceland as far back as the 10th century. ... For the preparation
of a meal, seaweed was mixed with butter or lard and served with dried
fish....” [111]
“Burnt residue of knotted wrack ... was found in many samples
from most of the middens from both coastal and inland farmsteads, for example
at Ø36 which is located 5 km from the coast. Its presence in the domestic
middens shows that it was commonly used in Norse households. Seaweed can be
used for insulation, fuel or animal feed but is also very tasty (author
experience) with a high vitamin and mineral content (Pedersen 2011) and may
therefore have been a beneficial part of the diet. The use of knotted wrack as
feed for sheep is known from Norway (Pedersen 2011) but isotopic analysis of
animal bones from Norse farms in Greenland shows that marine fodder was not
used (Nelson et al. 2012).” [112]
Greenland is home to a number of edible species of seaweed
aside from dulse: winged kelp, sugar kelp, bladder wrack, and knotted wrack.
Inuit of modern Greenland still forage for these varieties. While not very
Calorie ladened, (12 Calories per ounce) seaweed is loaded with needed vitamins
and minerals. That same ounce of raw kelp contains Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids,
vitamins A, K and folate, a small amount of Vitamin C, pantothenic acid,
choline, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, sodium and selenium. As
well as plenty of iodine. [113] No goiters for our seaweed eating Norse. Seaweed also contains plenty of
soluble fiber, something that would be seriously lacking in an otherwise all
meat diet: up to 7.7g per 100g of seaweed. [114]
“A number of edible species of seaweed or marine algae occur
along rocky shores of the arctic seas and several are used regularly, if mostly
in times of scarcity, by the Eskimo. In Greenland, several species, including
Rhodymenia palrnata and Laminaria spp. are eaten raw, dipped in boiling water
or with seal oil. Rodahl (1950) estimated that 50 per cent of the vitamin C
intake of the east Greenland Eskimo is derived from marine algae.” [115]
Since seaweed contains salt, both sodium and potassium
salts, it is possible to produce salt by burning seaweed and extracting the
salt from the ashes. [116] “The salt found in seaweed attracts both bovines and caprines - it is
mesmerizing to watch Icelandic sheep devouring fresh seaweed down by the shore
when they have only to walk a few steps up a sloping shore to reach green
grass.” [117] Sheep in the Orkeneys are still fed seaweed and their meat is famed for its
salty flavor. [118]
Wild Plants
In addition to growing European crops, at least for a
brief time, the Norse would have had access to many of Greenland’s native,
edible plants. Not only did the settlers gather berries and mushrooms, but they
raised linseed, knot grass, chickweed, lyme grass, angelica and Iceland moss. [119] There are no known poisonous mushrooms, berries or roots native to Greenland [120] so anything that grew was safe to eat, although not all of it would have been
tasty or nutritious.
“Finds from the midden deposits at the Sandnes farm in the
Western Settlement indicate that the Norse also exploited edible plants. For
example, seeds of crowberry (Empetrum) and mountain cranberry (Vaccinium) were
found in small heaps highly reminiscent of human feces. Seeds and other
macro-remains of knotgrass (Polygonum), corn spurrey (Spergula) and flax
(Linum), which may also have played a role in the human diet, were present in
the midden deposits as well (Fredskild and Humle 1991:77-80). In the midden at
Niaquusat in the Western Settlement, pollen of Flax and spurrey was found.
Spurrey is not an indigenous plant in Greenland, but is a common weed of
Northern European grain fields, and the plant may have come to Greenland along
with imported corn (Sørensen 1982:302). Flax is represented by both pollen and
macro-remains and was most probably grown locally. It may have served as either
animal fodder and/or for making linen.” [121]
The Norse would have had access to scurvy grass, [122] which can prevent and cure scurvy due to its high levels of vitamin C. Scurvy
grass is not unique to Greenland as it grows throughout Canada, Iceland and
northern Europe, however, due to the Arctic’s shorter growing season and
reduced sunlight, the scurvy grass of Greenland is not as potent as that of
lower latitudes. David Nicholson, writing for the Royal Society in the 18th
century, said that the taste of the whole plant was, “as insipid as the
colewort or beet.” [123] Dr. Richard Mead wrote that a Dutch sailor, disabled by scurvy, was put ashore
in Greenland and, after partaking of scurvy grass, was cured. [124]
“It was the first herb I found in Spitzbergen, when we landed
the first time; it was so small I could hardly discern it to be scurvy-grass,
but afterwards we found it in it’s full perfection, and it seeded in the month
of July. It is observable, that the leaves of this herb have but little
sharpness at Spitzbergen, and therefore is much weaker than the scurvy-grass of
our countries, so that we eat it instead of salad at Spitzbergen, which we
could not do our scurvy-grass.” [125]
“It is of interest to note that, although native plants have
never been extensively used by whites living in the Arctic, those eaten-mostly
in emergencies-have generally been different species from those used by the
aborigines, and, in the light of our present knowledge of vitamins, of lesser
value. Thus there are numerous examples in the narratives of arctic expeditions
of the uses made of lichens-especially “rock tripe” or “tripe-de-roche” of the
early Canadian Voyageurs-besides mushrooms, puffballs, and scurvy grass
(Cochlearia), none of which is ever eaten by aboriginal tribes. Likewise,
berries such as the mountain cranberry or cowberry ( Vaccinium Vitis-ldaea),
bilberry or whortleberry (Vaccinium uliginosum), and to a lesser extent
baked-apple (Rubus Chamamorus) are perhaps among the most frequently and most
readily used vegetable foods of white men living in the Arctic, whereas these
fruits are generally ignored by aboriginal peoples who prefer the crowberry
(Empetrum) which, in turn, is not favoured by whites.” [126]
Since the Norse did not leave us any cookbooks, we don’t
know what, exactly, they ate. I have collected a list of native plants that are
edible by humans and would have been available to the Norse. This list comes
from various sources.
- Crowberry: these berries were, and still are, an important
part of Inuit diet and grow abundantly to latitude 70”N. They can be eaten
fresh or can be frozen and stored all winter. A good source of ascorbic acid.
- Arctic bilberry: similar to European billberry. Can be
found almost as far north as crowberries. Not only a good source of ascorbic
acid, but they are a traditional herbal remedy to treat diarrhea. The National
Institute of Health states that the leaves are “possibly effective for problems
with the retina of the eye for people with diabetes or high blood pressure.”
WWII pilots stationed in England, reported that eating bilberry before night
raids improved night vision.
- Mountain cranberry or cowberry: related to the
lingonberry. Found in bogs and wet pastures. Contain vitamin A, C, B1, B2 and
B3, as well as trace elements.
These berries can be converted into jams and jellies, all
three contain enough natural pectin, although I do not think the Norse would
have had access to sugar. Most likely they were eaten whole, squeezed for their
juice, mixed in with porridge or baked into bread.
- Angelica or kvan: found from Canada, east to Greenland,
Iceland, Ireland, Scotland and Scandinavia. This is a very versatile plant. The
roots are fragrant and can be found in modern pot pourris. A yellow dye can be
extracted from the roots. The stems are used in herbal cough drops. They are
candied and used in breads and cakes. The stems taste similar to juniper
berries and are used to flavor gin. Young stalks can be substituted for celery
stalks. The seeds are used to flavor Vermouth and Chartreuse, and the leaves,
which are alkaline, are often added to other dishes to neutralize acidic
ingredients.
“In the southern parts of east and west Greenland the kvan
(Angelica Archangelica) is common along brooks, and in sheltered spots in the
fiords may grow to a height of 6 feet. The tender, young leaf-stalks and
flowering stems are considered a great delicacy and, when available, are eaten
raw in great quantities. Because the kvan does not grow near the open sea
coast, where most Greenland towns and villages are situated, and because this
vegetable is in such great demand, long journeys are regularly undertaken by
the Greenlanders to obtain it. The kvan is equally relished by the Danish
residents who generally eat it cooked and creamed. Incidentally, the frequency
with which the word kuaneq occurs in Eskimo place names antedating the present
colonization of Greenland, shows that the Eskimo borrowed the Scandinavian word
kvan an from the language of the medieval Norse settlers of Greenland. Since
the ancestors of the present Greenland Eskimo arrived in Greenland after the
Norse, they could have had no previous knowledge of the kvan, and clearly
adopted both the word and the eating of this plant from the Norse. This is of
particular interest because it shows that some, at any rate, of the early
Norse-Eskimo contacts were not hostile.” [127]
- Bladderwrack: actually a seaweed found along the coast.
Made up of liquid filled globules. When freshly harvested, the liquid tastes
like “salty grape juice.” In the 19th and early 20th centuries, a wine was
made, in Wales, of bladderwrack and grape juice. The seaweed can be boiled and
eaten, but in the last 100 years, it has been used primarily as fertilizer and
animal feed. The juice, and the leaves, contain iodine and salt.
- Broad-leaved willow-herb: the flowers can be eaten raw as
a salad. The leaves are only edible when cooked and taste like spinach.
- Hairy fernweed: modern Chukchi turn the stems into a
sauerkraut like dish. The rootstocks can be boiled into a soup base.
- Hairy stonecrop: A variety of the Sedum family, which is
found throughout Europe. The leaves can be eaten raw or cooked, but it is
recommended that they should only be eaten when young in the early spring,
otherwise the flavor is harsh and unpleasant. The leaves have mild pain
relieving properties. It is written that it can cure scurvy, but the plant
contains little to no vitamin C.
- Labrador Tea: grows in swamps and wet places of northern
Europe, Asia, and America. The leaves are rich in vitamin C, gallic acid and
tanins. The leaves have a pleasant odor to humans: they repel moths as they
contain ledum camphor. In Russia, the leaves are used for tanning leather.
Water infused with the leaves can be used to kill body lice and fleas. German
sources indicate that leaves were added to ale before widespread use of hops.
And the leaves contain some narcotic properties that are released when the
leaves are boiled in water or alcohol.
- Linseed: also known as flax. While flax was grown
primarily for linen, the seeds are loaded with oil, which can be extracted for
a multitude of uses: from medicines, to cooking oil, to fueling lamps, to
boosting animal fodder.
- Lyme or couch grass: grows throughout Europe. In the same
family as rye, millet, barley and wheat. The roots have a sweet taste, somewhat
resembling liquorice. The seeds can be harvested like those of wheat, rye and
barley, however, unlike its more cultivated cousins, lyme grass doesn’t hold
onto its seeds until the stalks have been harvested and threshed: the seeds
have to be harvested before they fully ripen and are blown off of the stalks by
wind. Once harvested and removed from the stalks, the corn can be ground into
flour or boiled to make pottage.
- Marsh Fleabane: found in swampy places and grows well in
manured soil. The young leaves and flowering stems may be eaten as a salad or
cooked as a potherb. The leaves contain tannins and volatile oils that, while
smell nice, give a bitter taste, like hops. Can be used to eliminate body odor
or bad breath.
- Marsh Marigold or “cowslip”: native to wetlands in Europe
and North America. The leaves can be cooked as eaten like spinach, but they
must be boiled in fresh water several times as they contain heborin, which is
an irritant and a mild poison. Was used up until modern times as a purgative
and a wart remover. The flower buds can be pickled and used as a substitute for
capers.
- Mouse ear chickweed: an herb with pairs of smooth-edged
leaves with a white flower. The leaves have an anise like flavor. The leaves
can be eaten raw or boiled and are best before the plant starts to flower.
- Mountain Sorrel: grows on shaded slopes from mountain
sides to as far south as New England. Leaves and stems are edible, although
acidic when young. When cooked it looks and tastes like cooked spinach.
- Roseroot: found in southern Greenland. You can eat the
young leaves raw in a salad as it adds a slightly bitter taste to mixed greens.
They can be cooked like spinach and the stems can be cooked as one would
asparagus. Roseroot gets its name from the rose like smell of the plants roots,
when they are dried. High in vitamins A and C.
- Shrubby cinquefoil: varieties are found throughout Europe.
The five-leaved flower can be found in medieval heraldry and carved into French
churches. Tradition says that picking a perfect flower on a Wednesday when the
moon was waxing and then pressing it in a Bible would produce a charm that
would protect a house from witches. I couldn’t find out what it tastes like:
all of my references relate to medicinal uses. Documentation dated to the 11th
century detail that the whole plant can be used for inflammations, sore
throats, joins pain, toothache, bruises, running sores, and “ to cool and
temper the blood and humours in the body.” Modern Greenlanders use its dried
leaves as a substitute for tea.
- Snakeweed or bistort: grows almost everywhere in the
northern hemisphere. The ancient Greeks wrote about it and its uses. It
apparently doesn’t have much of a flavor other than “starchy”. The roots are
full of tanins and starch; enough starch that they can be pounded into flour.
Its seeds are oily can be pressed like rapeseed. A traditional dish, that is
still eaten in Westmorland, is a pudding made mostly of bistort roots, nettle
leaves and oatmeal.
- Star Chickweed: young leaves tastes like baby spinach.
Loaded with beta-carotene, Vitamins C and B complex, zinc, iron, manganese,
calcium, potassium, phosphorous, selenium silica, magnesium and sodium.
Nicholas Culpeper, writing in his 17th century Herbal, says that Chickweed is a
“fine, soft, pleasing herb.”
- Taraxacum dandelion: very similar to the dandelions
plaguing our lawns. The whole plant is rich in vitamins A, B complex, C and D,
iron, potassium and zinc. They can be used to reduce mild fevers and as a mild
laxative. The root can be roasted and then ground to make a coffee substitute.
The leaves can be used to make ale and wine, if one had sugar and the right
sort of yeast. The leaves can be make into soup and taste like mild endive.
- Woolly and Arctic fernweeds: their roots are sweet and can
be eaten like young carrots: raw or cooked. The stem can be boiled as a pot
herb and its flowers contain a sizeable about of sweet nectar.
“Among the most easily recognized edible lichens are certain
rock lichens of the genera Gyrophora and Umbilicaria - commonly known as “rock
tripe” or “tripe-de-roche - and a few species of Cladonia and Cetraria, often
mistakenly referred to as “moss” or “reindeer moss”. The former, as the name
implies, grow on rock or boulders to which their irregularly shaped,
saucer-like, leathery, brown, green, or black fronds are attached by the
centre. When dry they are hard and brittle, but in damp weather become soft and
cartilaginous and in this condition are easily detached from the rocks. The
“mossy” kind grow on the ground, often among other plants, and sometimes form
dense and almost pure carpets. The most important of these are the Iceland moss
(Cetraria islandioa), said to contain 80 percent “lichen-starch”, besides some
protein and fat, and “reindeer moss” (Cladonia rangiferina, Cl.. sylvatica, and
Cl. alpestris). These are low, bushy, coral-like lichens. The first is dark
brown, its fronds strap-like, crisply ciliated on ‘the edges while the fronds
of “reindeer moss” are more coral-like, composed of round, hollow gray or
greenish-gray, branches. These lichens, too, are brittle when dry and are best
collected when moist. After parboiling with soda, the lichen should be dried,
preferably in an oven, until brittle and then powdered; this may be done by
rubbing between the palms of the hands, or by pounding, or better yet by a
grist mill. The powdered lichen, if put to macerate in water overnight, will
jell when boiled with water or milk. One pound of powdered Iceland moss will
produce four quarts of jelly similar to blancmange and is considered very
nutritious and digestible. In Iceland and in northern Scandinavia, Iceland moss
is used in puddings and in soups; and formerly, in times of scarcity, flour
prepared from this and other lichens was added to the bread-flour. The
moistened lichen-flour will not form a dough unless mixed with a small quantity
of wheat-flour. Very tasty biscuits may be prepared from equal parts of lichen-
and wheat-flour. The starch-like substance contained in the lichen may be
fermented, and in Scandinavia formerly found a limited use in the manufacture
of alcohol.” [128]
Conclusion
When I started planning this paper, I was certain that
Greenland was a caloric wasteland. That the Norse had very little food
available to them; mostly meat. I had thought, based on cursory reading, that
the Norse were constantly dying of scurvy and rickets. However, it would appear
that they had access to a wide variety of food and could have had a rich and
varied diet. As I had stated, we don’t have any written sources of meal plans
or recipes, but I feel that it is unlikely that the Norse would have eschewed
plants and animals found in Greenland, particularly when much of those plants
and animals were already part of the Norse culture of Iceland, Great Britain,
Norway and Scandinavia. If the Norse took advantage of all of the food
resources that I have listed in this paper, they would certainly have had not
only the required 4,500 kcal/day, but all of the necessary vitamins and
minerals needed for a healthy diet.
To be certain, the weather of Greenland can change at the
drop of a hat. [129] Too much rain and hay yields suffer, which would impact the number of animals
that can be kept through the winter. Too long of a winter means the animals
need to be kept indoors longer and require more hay. Too cold of a summer and
ice drifts can block access to the seal hunting grounds. Too cold of a winter
and the bird, caribou and seal migration patterns can shift to less accessible
areas. Too dry of a summer and edible plants might not be available. The
colonies could survive one or two bad years (in a row), but they did not have
the resources to survive, intact, beyond that. A biblical seven year famine,
such as what hit Northern Europe in the early 14th century, would have
decimated the Norse on Greenland beyond the ability to recover without a major
influx of new colonists and herd animals. By the time the Norse reached that
point of desperation, there was little to no interest in immigrating to
Greenland.
We cannot deny that the climate of Greenland at the end of
the colony, sometime between 1450 and 1500, had changed to such an extent that
the Norse farm and gather system could not produce enough food to support the
population. Skeletons of the last of the Norse Greenlanders do show clear signs
of malnutrition which coincided with the end of the Medieval Warm Period:
shorter, wetter summers and longer, colder winters. The Norse did not adapt to
this new climate and continued to rely on dairy products from non-native
animals that required more fodder than what could be gathered or grazed. In
addition, the shorter growing season, coupled with the fragile ecosystem, meant
that less grass could grow before it could be reaped and dried into hay.
Eventually a tipping point was reached and first the Western, then the Eastern
colony collapsed and the Norse either died of malnutrition or cold, or fled
Greenland for warmer pastures. But, while the weather was nice, the Norse
thrived on Greenland for some 450 years, well fed and, presumably, happy with
their lot in life.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Abbas. “Herbs-Treat and Taste.” Blog post. Herbs-Treat
and Taste. N.p., 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 29 Jan. 2017.
<
http://herbs-treatandtaste.blogspot.com/>.
Adamson, M. W. Food in
Medieval Times. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 2004.
Adamson, M. W. Food in
the Middle Ages: A Book of Essays. New York: Garland Pub. 1995.
Arneborg, Jette; Lynnerup, Niels; Heinemeier, Jan; Møhl,
Jeppe; Rud, Niels; Sveinbjörnsdóttir6, Árný E. Norse
Greenland Dietary Economy ca. AD 980-ca. AD 1450: Introduction Greenland
Isotope Project: Diet in Norse Greenland AD 1000-AD 1450. Journal of the
North Atlantic: Special Volume 3:1-39: 2012
Arneborg, Jette; Heinem, Jan. Change Of Diet Of The Greenland Vikings Determined From Stable Carbon
Isotope Analysis And 14C Dating Of Their Bones. Arizona Board of Regents on
behalf of the University of Arizona. Radiocarbon, Vol 41, Nr 2, 1999, p 157-168
1999
Arneborg, Jette; Lynnerup, Niels; Heinemeier, Jan. Human Diet and Subsistence Patterns in Norse
Greenland AD: c.980-AD c.1450: Archaeological Interpretations. Greenland
Isotope Project: Diet in Norse Greenland AD 1000-AD 1450. Journal of the North
Atlantic: Special Volume 3:119-133: 2012.
Bandle, Oscar. The
Nordic Languages, Volume 1. Walter de Gruyter. 2002
Barnes, Geraldine. Viking
America: The First Millennium. Boydell & Brewer, 2001.
Barraclough, Eleanor Rosamund. Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas.
Oxford University Press, Oct 20, 2016.
Bauer, S. Wise. The
Middle Ages. Peace Hill Press, 2003.
Baye, Peter. Selected
Tidal Marsh Plant Species of the San Francisco Estuary: A Field Identification
Guide. Version 1.0. submitted July 2006. Printed March 2007. Prepared for
the San Francisco Estuary Invasive Spartina Project.
Beers, Mark H., MD; Robert Berkow, MD, editors.
“Malnutrition.” Section 1, Chapter 2. In The
Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy. Whitehouse Station, NJ: Merck
Research Laboratories, 2004.
Botanical.com. “Botanical.com.” Blog post.
Botanical.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Jan. 2017. <
http://botanical.com/>.
Brink, Stefan; Price, Neil. The Viking World. Routledge, Oct 31, 2008.
Brown, Neville. The
Geography of Human Conflict: Approaches to Survival. Sussex Academic Press,
2009.
Bown, Stephen. The Last
Viking: The Life of Roald Amundsen. Da Capo Press, Sep 25, 2012.
Brown, Nancy Marie. The
Far Traveler: Voyages of a Viking Woman. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008.
Carlin, M., & Rosenthal, J. T. Food and Eating in Medieval Europe. Bloomsbury Academic. 2003.
Chester, Sharon. The
Arctic Guide: Wildlife of the Far North. Princeton University Press, Sep 6,
2016.
Christiansen, Eric. Norsemen
in the Viking Age. John Wiley & Sons, Apr 15, 2008.
A Collection of
Documents on Spitzbergen & Greenland: Comprising a Translation from F.
Martens’ Voyage to Spitzbergen, a Translation from Isaac de La Peyrère’s
Histoire Du Groenland, and God’s Power and Providence in the Preservation of
Eight Men in Greenland Nine Moneths and Twelve Dayes. Edited by White,
Adam. The Hakluyt Society. London. 1855.
Cranz, David. The
History of Greenland, Vol 1. Brethren’s Society for the Fuetherance of the
Gospel among the Heathen. Pall-mall. London. 1767.
Crawford, R. M. M. Tundra-Taiga
Biology. Oxford University Press, 2013.
Culpeper, Nicholas. Culpeper’s
complete herbal: consisting of a comprehensive description of nearly all herbs
with their medicinal properties and directions for compounding the medicines
extracted from them. Published London: Foulsham. 1880. Originally published
in 1652 under title: The English physician.
Davis, Graeme. Vikings
in America. Birlinn, May 23, 2011.
Davis, Ray J. A Field
Guide to Rocky Mountain Wildflowers: Northern Arizona and New Mexico to British
Columbia (Peterson Field Guides) September 15, 1998
Diamond, Jared. Collapse:
How Societies Choose to Fail Or Succeed. Penguin, 2011.
Dyer, C. Everyday life
in Medieval England. Bloomsbury Academic. 2003
Fenton, A.; Kisbán, E. Food
in Change: Eating habits from the Middle Ages to the Present Day. Edinburgh:
J. Donald in association with the National Museums of Scotland. 1986.
Francis, Carol S. The
Lost Western Settlement Of Greenland, 1342. Thesis Submitted In Partial
Satisfaction Of The Requirements For The Degree Of Master Of Arts In History At
California State University, Sacramento. Fall 2011.
Frei, Karin M.; Coutu, Ashley N.; et al. Was it for walrus? Viking Age Settlement and
Medieval Walrus Ivory Trade in Iceland and Greenland. World Archaeology,
47:3, 439-466, 2015.
Henriksen, Peter Steen. Norse
Agriculture In Greenland - Farming At The Northern Frontier. Northern
Worlds - landscapes, interactions and dynamics. Research at the National Museum
of Denmark. Proceedings of the Northern Worlds Conference Copenhagen 28-30
November 2012. Publications from the National Museum. Studies in Archaeology
& History Vol. 22. Edited by Hans Christian Gulløv. Copenhagen 2014.
Hosking, Richard. Eggs
in Cookery: Proceedings of the Oxford Symposium of Food and Cookery 2006.
Oxford Symposium, 2007.
Hudson, B. Studies in
the Medieval Atlantic. Springer, 2012
Houtman, Anne; Karr, Susan; Interland, Jeneen. Environmental Science for a Changing World.
Scientific American. Macmillan, 2012.
Ingstad, Helge; Ingstad, Anne Stine. The Viking Discovery of America: The Excavation of
a Norse Settlement in L’Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland. Breakwater Books,
2000.
Jones, Gwyn. A History
of the Vikings. Oxford University Press, 2001.
King, Nancy. “Cold-Weather Field Feeding: Military
Rations.” Nutritional Needs In Cold And In High-Altitude Environments:
Applications for Military Personnel in Field Operations. U.S. National Library
of Medicine, 01 Jan. 1996. Web. 24 Dec. 2016.
<
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK232872/>.
The King’s Mirror (Speculum Regale - Konungs Skuggsjá). Written
ca. 1250 in Norway. Translated from Old Norwegian by Laurence Marcellus Larson.
New York: The American-Scandinavian Fountation, 1917.
Krogh, Knud J. Viking
Greenland. National Museum, 1967.
Le Couteur, Penny; Burreson, Jay. Napoleon’s Buttons. Penguin, May 24, 2004.
Ledger, Paul M. Norse
landnám and its Impact on the Vegetation of Vatnahverfi, Eastern Settlement,
Greenland: A thesis presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the
University of Aberdeen April 2013.
Lee, C. A. A Catalogue
of the Medicinal Plants, Indigenous and Exotic, Growing in the State of New
York. 1848
Leone, Mark P.; Knauf, Jocelyn E. Historical Archaeologies of Capitalism. Springer, May 27, 2015.
Lewis, C. P. Haskins Society Journal. Boydell Press,
2001.
Lynnerup, Niels. The
Greenland Norse: A Biological-Anthropological Study. Museum Tusculanum
Press. 1998.
Madsen, Christian Koch. Pastoral
Settlement, Farming, And Hierarchy In Norse Vatnahverfi, South Greenland:
Ph.D. Dissertation. Submitted To The University Of Copenhagen 09.07.2014.
Marcus, Geoffrey Jules. The
Conquest of the North Atlantic. Boydell & Brewer Ltd, 2007.
Marriott, Bernadette M.; Carlson, Sydne J. Preliminary Report: Nutritional Needs in Cold and
in High-altitude Environments: Applications for Military Personnel in Field
Operations. Committee on Military Nutrition Research. National Academies,
1996.
McGovern, Thomas. Climate,
Correlation, and Causation in Norse Greenland. Artic Anthrolology. Vol. 28,
No. 2. pp.77-100. 1991.
Mead, Richard. The
Medical Works Of Dr. Richard Mead, Vol III. Printed by A. Donaldson and J.
Reid for Alexander Donaldson. Edinburgh. 1765.
Miller-Keane. Encyclopedia
and Dictionary of Medicine, Nursing, and Allied Health, Seventh Edition.
Saunders. 2003.
Mouritsen, Ole G. Seaweeds:
Edible, Available, and Sustainable. University of Chicago Press, Jun 14,
2013.
Nansen, Fridtjof. The
First Crossing of Greenland, Volume 1. Longmans, Green, and Company, 1890.
Nelson, D. Erle; Heinemeier, Jan; Lynnerup, Niels;
Sveinbjörnsdóttir, Árný E.; Arneborg, Jette. An
Isotopic Analysis of the Diet of the Greenland Norse. Greenland Isotope
Project: Diet in Norse Greenland AD 1000-AD 1450. Journal of the North
Atlantic: Special Volume 3:93-118: 2012.
Nelson, D. Erle; Heinemeier, Jan; Møhl, Jeppe; Arneborg,
Jette. Isotopic Analyses of the Domestic
Animals of Norse Greenland. Greenland Isotope Project: Diet in Norse Greenland
AD 1000-AD 1450. Journal of the North Atlantic: Special Volume 3:77-92:
2012.
Panagiotakopulu, Eva; Buchan, Ashley L. Present and Norse Greenlandic hayfields - Insect
Assemblages And Human Impact In Southern Greenland. The Holocene. Vol 25,
Issue 6, pp. 921 - 931. First published date: March 17 2015.
Paterson, Alistair. A
Millennium of Cultural Contact. Routledge. 2016.
Porsild, A. E. Edible
Plants of the Arctic. Arctic Vol. 6, No. 1 (Mar., 1953). Published by:
Arctic Institute of North America.
The Philosphical
Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Vol. VIII, From 1735-1743.
Editors: Hutton, Charles; Shaw, George; Pearson, Richard. C and B Baldwin,
Blackfriar, London. 1809.
Preston-Matto, Lahney. Aislinge
Meic Conglinne: The Vision of Mac Conglinne. Syracuse University Press,
2010.
Reykdal, Ólafur; Kristjánsdóttir, Þórdís Anna;
Hermannsson, Jónatan; Martin, Peter; Dalmannsdóttir, Sigríður; Djurhuus,
Rólvur; Kavanagh, Vanessa; Frederiksen, Aqqalooraq. Status of Cereal Cultivation in the North Atlantic Region. The
Nordic Atlantic Cooperation (NORA). Matis Report. 23-14. September 2014.
Richards, Julian. Viking
Age England. The History Press, 2004.
Rodahl, Kaare. Content
of Vitamin C (1-Ascorbic Acid) in Arctic Plants. Pages 205-210 | Published
online: 29 Nov 2010. Transactions of the Botanical Society of Edinburgh. Volume
34, 1944 - Issue 1.
Rosen, William. The
Third Horseman. Viking. 2014.
Saga Book of the Viking
Society, Volumes 5-6. Viking Club. London. 1907.
Salmon, Thomas. Modern
History, Or, The Present State of All Nations: Describing Their Respective
Situations, Persons, Habits, and Buildings, Manners, Laws and Customs ...
Plants, Animals, and Minerals, Volume 1. T. Longman. London. 1744.
Salmon, William. Botanologia:
The English Herbal: Or, History of Plants : Containing I. Their Names, Greek,
Latine and English. II. Their Species, Or Various Kind’s. III. Their
Descriptions. IV. Their Places of Growth. V. Their Times of Flowering and
Seeding. VI. Their Qualities Or Properties. VII. Their Specifications. VIII.
Their Preparations, Galenick and Chymick. IX. Their Virtues and Uses. X. A
Complete Florilegium, of All the Choice Flowers Cultivated by Our Florists,
Interspersed Through the Whole Work, in Their Proper Places; where You Have
Their Culture, Choice, Increase, and Way of Management, as Well for Profit as
Delectation ; Adorned with Exquisite Icons Or Figures, of the Most Considerable
Species Representing to the Life, the True Forms of Those Several Plants;
the Whole in an Alphabetical Order. Dawks, Rhodes and Taylor. London. 1710.
Scully, T. The Art of
Cookery in the Middle Ages. BOYE6. 1995.
Seaver, Kirsten A. The
Last Vikings: The Epic Story of the Great Norse Voyagers. I.B.Tauris, Nov
30, 2014.
Singman, Jeffrey L. Daily
Life in Medieval Europe. Greenwood Press, 1999.
Somerville, Angus A.; McDonald, R. Andrew. The Viking Age: A Reader, Second Edition.
University of Toronto Press, 2014.
Steele, Thomas Sedgwick. A
Voyage to Viking-land. Estes and Lauriat, 1896.
Talbot, C. H. The
Anglo-Saxon Missionaries in Germany, Being the Lives of SS. Willibrord, Boniface,
Leoba and Lebuin together with the Hodoepericon of St. Willibald and a
selection from the correspondence of St. Boniface. London and New York:
Sheed and Ward, 1954.
Tiwari, Brijesh K.; Troy, Declan. Seaweed Sustainability: Food and Non-Food Applications. Academic
Press, Aug 27, 2015.
Vaughan, Richard. In
Search of Arctic Birds. A&C Black, Oct 30, 2010.
Vebaek, C. L. Narsaq - a
Norse Landnama Farm. Man & Society Vol 18. Museum Tusculanum Press.
1993.
Vebaek, C. L. Vatnahverfi:
An Inland District of the Eastern Settlement in Greenland. Man &
Society Vol 17. Museum Tusculanum Press. 1992.
Williams, Mary Wilhelmine. Social Scandinavia in the Viking Age. Macmillan, 1920.
Winroth, Anders. The Age
of the Vikings. Princeton University Press. 2014.
Winter, J. M. Spices and
Comfits: Collected Papers on Medieval Food. Totnes: Prospect Books. 2007.
Wolf, Kirsten. Daily Life
of the Vikings. Greenwood Publishing Group, 2004.
Image Credits:
Critical Perspectives on Historical Collapse Special
Feature - Social Sciences - Sustainability Science: Andrew J. Dugmore, Thomas
H. McGovern, Orri Vésteinsson, Jette Arneborg, Richard Streeter, and Christian
Keller. Cultural adaptation, compounding vulnerabilities and conjunctures in
Norse Greenland. PNAS 2012 109 (10) 3658-3663; published ahead of print
February 27, 2012.
[3] A Calorie is 1000 calories or 1 kcal, in terms of energy extraction from food
[4] Rosen, p157
[5] Dietary Requirements
[6] From various sources
[7] They did not construct the bishop, merely imported one as needed.
[8] Diamond, p.240
[9] Four pounds of wood can be reduced to 1 pound of charcoal.
[10] Modern day Canada
[11] Various sources
[12] Beers, Berkow
[13] Rosen. p.133
[14] Far too little can result in xerophthalmia which causes ulcers in the cornea and permanent blindness
[15] Miller-Keane
[16] Rosen, p125
[17] “You say, among other things, that some eat wild horses and many eat tame horses. By no means allow this to happen in future, but suppress it in every possible way with the help of Christ and impose a suitable penance upon offenders. It is a filthy and abominable custom.” Talbot, p85-6
[18] Diamond, p222
[19] It also meant a lack of easy to gather feathers for pillows, quills and flights for arrows.
[20] Various
[21] Observation based on the ratio of cow to sheep to goat at large/wealthy farms versus small/poor farms: poorer farms have more goats than cows (as a percentage of total number of animals); richer farms had more cows than goats
[22] Diamond, p233
[23] Brown, N. M., p229-230
[24] Wolf, p.82
[25] “...scarcely a true cheese, as the curd element is almost if not entirely wanting.” Nansen, p.64
[26] Brown, N. M., p.146
[27] Diamond, p234
[28] A castrated bull
[29] Brown, N. M., p.145
[30] Diamond, p.224-5
[31] Diamond, p.227
[32] Francis, p21
[33] Arneborg et al, Norse Greenland Dietary Economy, p.6
[34] Smith
[35] Lind
[36] SELF
[37] Diamond, p.233
[38] Nosowitz
[39] Kauffman
[40] Lind
[41] Goldman and Smith
[42] Somerville; McDonald, p.317
[43] Large kayaks designed for whale hunting and cargo transportation
[44] Vebaek, p.67
[45] Hudon, p.85
[46] Called muk tuk in the Inuit language.
[47] SELF
[48] North American reindeer
[49] Barraclough
[50] Barraclough and Cranz, p.73
[51] Francis, p25
[52] Diamond, p.241
[53] Various sources
[54] Various sources
[55] Marcus, p.92
[56] Seaver, p.92
[57] Cranz, p.73
[58] I asked Google what walrus meat tastes like: “a bit like horse meat with a slightly fishy taste.”
[59] Logan, p.60
[60] Leone; Knauf, p.211
[61] Frei, p.446, quoting from Keller 2010, 5-6
[62] The King’s Mirror, p.140
[63] Frei, p.441
[64] Although most of the sagas refer to walruses as whales.
[65] Marcus, p.50
[66] Vebaek: Narsaq p.66-7
[67] Francis, p.29
[68] Vaughan, p.38-9
[69] Vaughan, p40
[70] Hosking
[71] Various sources
[72] Hosking
[73] Vaughan, p.41
[74] Williams, p.186
[75] Williams, p.186
[76] I’m against it.
[77] Diamond, p.229
[78] Seaver, p.34
[79] Diamond, p.229
[80] Various sources
[81] Ledger, p.31
[82] Vebaek: Narsaq p.67
[83] Vebaek: Vatnahverfi p.96
[84] Arneborg, et al, Norse Greenland Dietary Economy, p.7
[85] Arneborg, Change Of Diet, p.165
[86] Madsen, p.245
[87] Seaver, p.34
[88] Barnes, p152
[89] Ingstad; Ingstad, p.90
[90] ibid
[91] Francis, p.24-5
[92] Frei, p.445 and Madsen,p.77
[93] Seaver, p.33
[94] King’s Play
[95] Francis, p.23
[96] Various sources
[97] Mason
[98] King’s Mirror, p.143-145
[99] Wrigley
[100] Reykdal; et al, p.22
[101] Reykdal; et al, p.20
[102] Hildebrandt
[103] Arneborg, et al, Norse Greenland Dietary Economy, p.7
[104] Ledger, p.38-9
[105] Ledger, p.48
[106] Mason
[107] Henriksen. p.429
[108] Something that could not be substituted with seal meat.
[109] Seaver, p.32 and Mouritsen, p.14
[110] Bandle, p.328
[111] Mouritsen, p.14-6
[112] Henriksen. p.429-30
[113] SELF
[114] Tiwari; Troy, p.350
[115] Porsild, p.34
[116] Various sources
[117] Seaver, p.38
[118] Tiwari; Troy, p.358
[119] Francis, p.23 and Seaver, p.32
[120] Porsild, p.17
[121] Arneborg, et al, Norse Greenland Dietary Economy, p.7-8
[122] Of the species Cochlearia
[123] The Philosphical Transactions..., p.391
[124] Mead, p.124
[125] White, p.50
[126] Porsild, p.17
[127] Porsild, p.19-20
[128] Porsild, p.34-5
[129] Various sources
