Large Fierce Mammal

Of the known Icelandic sagas, both Grænlendinga Saga (The Saga of the Greenlanders) and Eiríks Saga Rauða (The Saga of Eirik the Red) speak of the discovery of Vinland – what we call North America – by the Vikings. They also make mention of Freydís Eiríksdóttir.  Freydís was the daughter of Eirik the Red and, depending on which saga you choose to believe, either the sister or half-sister of Leif Eiriksson. Both men involved are well known to everyone with any knowledge at all of the Viking period, but less so Freydís, which is something I am resolved to correct because she was a woman worthy of study.

Freydís portrayed in a picture from a card game. While hot, this is probably not historically accurate.

The sagas tell two tales of Freydís – one that marks her as brave and admirable, the other much less so. But the sagas were written centuries after the events they describe, and as we know from reading incarnations of The Bible, influential literature can be depended upon to contain a healthy dose of axe grinding seasoned with the agenda of whoever wrote it. Add to this the fact that powerful, willful, and intelligent women have a poor record of being appreciated in European history, and you will not be surprised to find that the sagas sent Freydís into history as a conniving, spiteful, greedy, thieving, blood thirsty harpy.

It is said that Freydís came to Vinland twice. On the first occasion, in approximately 1004, she and her husband Thorvard led an expedition during which, at some point, she became pregnant. Obviously Freydís and Thorvard had the same attitude toward camping trips that Mrs. LFM and I do, although the sagas imply that, unlike me, Thorvard was not a stand by your woman kind of man.

The Vikings referred to the inhabitants they found to be living in any land they discovered as Skrælings – singular Skrælingi, plural Skrælingar in Old Icelandic, the language of the Sagas. The Saga of Eirik the Red tells of a meeting between Vikings and the Skrælingar that was rudely interrupted by an uncontained bull, and later developed into open conflict:

Now it came to pass that a bull, which belonged to Karlsefni’s people, rushed out of the wood and bellowed loudly at the same time. The Skrælingar, frightened thereat, rushed away to their canoes, and rowed south along the coast. There was then nothing seen of them for three weeks together. When that time was gone by, there was seen approaching from the south a great crowd of Skrælingar boats, coming down upon them like a stream, the staves this time being all brandished in the direction opposite to the sun’s motion, and the Skrælingar were all howling loudly. Then took they and bare red shields to meet them. They encountered one another and fought, and there was a great shower of missiles. The Skrælingar had also war-slings, or catapults.

Then Karlsefni and Snorri see that the Skrælingar are bringing up poles, with a very large ball attached to each, to be compared in size to a sheep’s stomach, dark in colour; and these flew over Karlsefni’s company towards the land, and when they came down they struck the ground with a hideous noise. This produced great terror in Karlsefni and his company, so that their only impulse was to retreat up the country along the river, because it seemed as if crowds of Skrælingar were driving at them from all sides. And they stopped not until they came to certain crags. There they offered them stern resistance.

Freydis came out and saw how they were retreating. She called out, “Why run you away from such worthless creatures, stout men that ye are, when, as seems to me likely, you might slaughter them like so many cattle? Let me but have a weapon, I think I could fight better than any of you.” They gave no heed to what she said. Freydis endeavoured to accompany them, still she soon lagged behind, because she was not well; she went after them into the wood, and the Skrælingar directed their pursuit after her. She came upon a dead man; Thorbrand, Snorri’s son, with a flat stone fixed in his head; his sword lay beside him, so she took it up and prepared to defend herself therewith.

Then came the Skrælingar upon her. She let down her sark and struck her breast with the naked sword. At this they were frightened, rushed off to their boats, and fled away. Karlsefni and the rest came up to her and praised her zeal. Two of Karlsefni’s men fell, and four of the Skrælingar, notwithstanding they had overpowered them by superior numbers.

Freydís Eiríksdóttir faces the Skrælings, as potrayed in The Saga Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland.

So let’s review. The Skrælingar attack in large numbers using weapons unfamiliar to the Vikings, and with such ferocity that the Norsemen commence a retreat to a more defensible position. Observing this, Freydis is wroth and loudly belittles the weakness she sees in their actions, but with no effect, and so with the Skrælingar closing in on her she follows the troops as best she can. In so doing, Freydis gets left behind because her ability to keep up is hampered by her “unwell” condition – she is, in fact, pregnant.

The saga says that the Skrælingar focused their chase on the sole straggler – Freydis – and when she came to a fallen Viking she took up his sword and turned to face her pursuers.

Now we have a splendid scene. Forensic analysis of period battle scenes exposes a grim truth – while combatants are facing one another, the death toll is minimal. It’s when one side loses its will to fight and tries to flee that the killing really starts. And yet we have the Skrælingar, with their enemies fleeing before them and inflamed by the chase, suddenly finding themselves faced with a sweating, panting, clearly pregnant woman who grabs a sword, stands over a fallen warrior, exposes her naked breasts to them, smacks the flat of her blade against her wishbone and dares them to take her down. That they ran en masse is no surprise to me.

The Saga of the Greenlanders spins a darker side of Freydis:

Once more people fell to talking of the journey to Vinland, for this seemed an open road to wealth and honor. The same summer that Karlsevni returned from Vinland, a ship arrived in Greenland from Norway. The skippers were two brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, who were of Icelandic stock from the East Fjords. They spent the winter in Greenland.

Now it happened that Freydis, Eirik’s daughter, made a special trip from her home in Gardar to meet the brothers Helgi and Finnbogi. She proposed that they should sail to Vinland in their vessel, and share with her all the profits they might gain together. They agreed to this. Then she called on her brother Leif and asked if he would give her the houses he had built in Vinland. He answered that he would lend them to her, but would not give them away. Freydis and the brothers agreed that each of them should have thirty able-bodied men on board, besides women. But Freydis broke this agreement at once by taking along five extra men, whom she hid so the brothers knew nothing of it before they got to Vinland.

Now the two ships put out to sea, having agreed to stay together, if possible. There was no great distance between them, but the brothers arrived shortly before Freydis, and carried their baggage up to Leif’s houses. When Freydis landed, her crew unloaded their ship and also began carrying their things up to the houses. Then Freydis exclaimed, ” Why did you put your stuff in here? “

” Because we thought,”‘ said the brothers, “That you would live up to all our agreements.”

” Leif lent these houses to me,” said she, “Not to you!”

Then Helgi remarked, “We brothers are no match for your wickedness! “

They carried their belongings away and built a house of their own. They set it up farther from the sea, on the bank of the lake, and put it in fine order. Meanwhile Freydis was having timber cut down to fill her ship.

Now winter set in, and the brothers proposed that they should while away the time by playing games and entertaining each other. They did so for a while, but soon the men got to quarreling, the games were given up, and there were no more visits between the houses. This went on far into the winter.

Early one morning Freydis got out of bed and dressed, but did not put on her shoes. The weather was such that a heavy dew had fallen. She put on her husband’s cloak, and then she went to the door of the house where the two brothers lived. Shortly before this a man had gone out and had left the door slightly ajar. She pushed it open, stood on the threshold a while, and said nothing. Finnbogi, who
lay farthest from the door, was awake. He said, “What do you want here, Freydis?”

She answered, ” I want you to get up and come out with me, so I can talk to you.”

He did so, and they walked over to a log that lay near the house wall, and sat down on it.

“How do you like it here? ” said she.

“It is a fine country,” he answered, “With great resources, but I am troubled by the squabble that has grown up between us, for I can see no reason for it.”

“There you spoke a true word,” said she, “And I agree with you. But my errand is that I should like to trade ships with you brothers, for you have a larger ship than I, and I am anxious to get away from here.”

” I shall agree to that,” said he, “If it is your pleasure.”

With these words they parted. She went home and Finnbogi back to his bed.

She got into bed with her cold feet, and awakened Thorvard with them, so that he asked why she was so cold and wet. She answered with great fury, “I went to see the brothers and asked them to sell me their ship, because I want a larger ship, but at that they lost their tempers, and they struck me and treated me roughly. But you are such a measly man that you would never avenge either my dis- grace or your own. I am certainly finding out how far I am from Greenland. But if you do not avenge this, I am going to separate from you.”

She kept it up until he no longer could bear her reproaches, and told his men to get up at once and seize their weapons. They did so, went to the brothers’ house, and entered it while they were still asleep; they seized the men, tied them up, and led them out one by one. Freydis had each one killed as he came out, until all the men were dead; but no one would kill the women. Then cried Freydis, ” Hand me an axe! ” When she got it, she killed the five women herself, and left them dead.

After this monstrous deed, they returned to their house, and it was clear that Freydis thought she had managed very cleverly. She told her crew, ” If we are lucky enough to reach Greenland again, I shall have any man killed who speaks of these doings. Our story will be that these people stayed on here after we left.”

Early in the spring they rigged up the ship that the brothers had owned and filled it with all the products they could find, as much as the ship would carry. They had a good sailing and got back to Eiriksfjord early in the summer. There lay Karlsevni’s ship all ready to sail, just waiting for a fair wind. It is generally agreed that no ship has ever sailed from Greenland more richly laden than the
one he commanded.

Freydis took up life again on her own farm, which had not been molested while she was gone. She gave her crew valuable gifts, for she wanted to hush up her crimes. But not all of the men were tightlipped enough to keep from talking about the misdeeds that had been committed. After a time the story leaked out and got to Leif, her brother, who was deeply distressed over it. He took three members of Freydis’ crew and tortured them until they revealed all that had happened, and their stories tallied exactly.

“I do not have the heart,” said Leif, “To punish my sister Freydis as she deserves, but I foresee that her descendants will enjoy little prosperity.”

It turned out as he said, for from that time on, no one thought anything but ill of them.

Yet again, quite a tale. The Sagas were written down from an oral tradition that often stands up well when it becomes possible to measure their accuracy against archaeological evidence. Nevertheless, where more than one saga speaks of the same series of events, contradictions are not unheard of and, as with the modern news coverage, when it comes to the motives and actions of the people involved, heroes are rarely so heroic, nor villains quite so vile, as they are painted.

The Saga Museum in Reykjavik, Iceland contains life sized figures of people spoken of in the Sagas, among them our woman of the hour. The exhibit that deals with her story shows her in her moment of truth; alone, bare breasted, and ready to rumble in the face of a Skræling horde. It’s title: Freydís Eiríksdóttir – Heroine or Ogress?

Whichever best describes reality, Freydís Eiríksdóttir was undoubtedly a woman of her times, and I suspect her truth lies somewhere between the two extremes portrayed here.