The Discovery of America by the Northmen, 985-1015 — Context and Discussion

Saga as Historical Source

Slafter treats the Icelandic sagas not as transparent records but as documents requiring cautious interpretation. He notes that the sagas were first accessible to English readers only fifty years before his lecture, implying that earlier claims rested on incomplete or secondhand knowledge. The discourse summarizes key voyages—Bjarni Herjulfsson's sighting of land, Leif Erikson's exploration, and subsequent attempts at colonization—but does so without embellishment. Slafter emphasizes that the sagas describe encounters with indigenous people and attempts at trade, yet he refrains from asserting the precise locations of Vinland or other named regions. His approach is to present the narrative as plausible but unverified by physical remains.

Three Artifacts Under Scrutiny

Slafter devotes sustained attention to the Newport Tower, Dighton Rock, and the Fall River skeleton, each proposed as Norse evidence. He dismisses the Newport Tower by citing Benedict Arnold's will, which calls it "my stone built wind mill," and Roger Williams's silence on any pre-English structure. The Dighton Rock's inscriptions, he argues, have been read as Phoenician, Hebrew, Scythian, or Runic only through wishful thinking; they are likely Native American markings of "very trivial import." The Fall River skeleton, encased in brass bands, could be a European sailor or an Indian adorned with native-worked metal. In each case, Slafter applies documentary and contextual reasoning to undermine claims of Norse origin.

The Historian's Office vs. Poetic License

The discourse culminates in a sharp distinction between history and poetry. Slafter acknowledges that the Fall River skeleton inspired "an enchanting ballad" but insists that "history, the stern and uncompromising arbiter of past events, will never own the creations of the poet." He predicts that no further Norse artifacts will withstand scrutiny, a claim grounded in decades of failed searches. His final paragraphs reiterate the historian's duty to "sift the wheat from the chaff." The tone is conclusive, even elegiac, as he consigns the romanticized Norse discovery to the realm of fancy. Slafter's own evidence is entirely textual and negative—absence of proof—yet he treats this as sufficient to close the question.

Slafter's discourse is valuable as a document of late-nineteenth-century historical methodology, revealing how a trained scholar weighed saga tradition against material culture. Readers should note that the text is a lecture, not a monograph, and that its conclusions reflect the available evidence of 1888. The absence of archaeological proof does not disprove Norse visits, but Slafter's insistence on documentary rigor remains a useful corrective to uncritical nationalism. The discourse invites reflection on how historical claims are validated and why some stories persist despite lack of evidence.

I finished Slafter’s old discourse and felt strangely close to those Viking claims—so much wanting proof, so little left to hold. That ache for a place’s evidence, for what the earth keeps, is why the Wupatki National Monument, Arizona — A Reader’s Guide stayed with me like a quiet footprint in stone. Some stories just wait. It’s enough to sit with them.