Who Really Discovered America

by Patrick I.N. Bury

Leif Ericsson, Christopher Columbus, Jacques Cartier, and the brothers John and Sebastian Cabot are the Europeans most famous for early transatlantic voyages. But who were the first across? Two Irish scholars, Mr. Moon and Mr. Ashe, have recently suggested that their early forefathers have that honour.

The story is that early in the eighth century, monks and lay brothers of the ascetic Celtic Church left Ireland for Faroe. About the year 770, however, Norwegian Vikings attacked and colonised Faroe, Shetland, Orkney and the Hebrides or Western Isles. The invaders were ruthless and the Celts, their solitude broken and their lives endangered, set sail for Iceland in their small craft, taking with them their religious objects and writings and their tools.

In their new homeland, they maintained their faith, fished, raised sheep and grew a scanty harvest in the poor soil. Then, one stormy day in 874, a Danish trader named Gardar sought shelter in a cove and spent the winter there. When he went home he reported his discovery and, eleven years later, two Norwegian leaders named Ingolf and Hjorlaf arrived with a number of Viking compatriots, keen to settle.

We can well imagine the dismay with which they greeted the advent of the Norwegians. Setting off once more in their boats, they left their homes for ever and sailed on to Cape Breton, being the first White men to reach America, if the evidence is true. Nobody knows for sure where on Cape Breton Island they settled, but two young Eskimos who were kidnapped in 1016 by a Scandinavian named Karlsefi, on what is now the Labrador coast, told him of men dressed in white who dwelt by the Gulf of St. Lawrence and walked about singing loudly, carrying before them poles to which were attached pieces of cloth. This confirmed a report made by one Thorvald, a Scandinavian, ten years previously.

Mr. Moon goes on to say that, about the year 1000, one Bjorn Abrandson landed on Cape Breton and was found there in about 1029 by Gudlief Gudlangsson, living among a group of Irish people. The writer adds that the saga of Saint Olaf and the oldest of the nautical guides mention commercial contacts between Iceland, Ireland and Cape Breton Island, and place the Irish colony "west of the ocean near Vinland" (now called Newfoundland) and "some distance beyond". This colony, says Mr. Moon, was called "Greater Ireland" or "Huitramannaland" (literally, "Whitemanland"), later "Albania" ("the White Country"). Mr. Moon mentions an ancient Scandinavian map, probably made in 1565, used by a Scandinavian mariner about 1630, clearly showing the settlement on the southern shore of what must be the Gulf of St. Lawrence. In the appendix to the "Landnama Bok" the lands south of Greenland are listed as the country of the Skraelings. Markland, Vinland, and "White Man's Land", also called "Irland ed Mikla", was referred to as having been visited by Irishmen and Icelanders in past times.

Some readers will be aware that Scotland was also called Albania in former times, but this was a corruption of Alba, its Gaelic name. The modern republic of Albania, on the other hand, is so-called because a medieval Roman visitor compared its scenery to that of the Alban Hills.

Mr. Moon tells how the Celtic community dwindled, being partly celibate, with little fresh blood from new settlers and with only wood, fur and fish for trade. Their language and religious rites still survived in 1020, but eventually the Micmac tribe of Redskins assimilated the remnant of the colony.

When Europeans visited Cape Breton in the sixteenth century, they found evidence of adoration of the Cross among the inhabitants, who venerated it for its protective powers and asserted that it had been handed down from their ancestors. French explorers found crosses at the doors of councils, planted on tombs and at hunting and fishing grounds. And in 1604 Samuel de Champlain found a wooden cross in the grass, so old that it disintegrated into dust at the first touch.

Going further south, and further back into legend, the Irish historian Mr. Ashe points to the famous and, as he :says, largely fabulous Voyages of St. Brendan. The saint is said to have visited a country far across the Atlantic Ocean, which Irish popular tradition identifies as America, and certain passages in the story suggest that St. Brendan may even have reached Bermuda.

St. Brendan the Navigator defnitely existed, for he founded the monastery of Clonfert in County Galway about 558 and co-operated with Gildas and other pupils of St. Illtud. He was a seafarer who undoubtedly sailed to the Hebrides, like his compatriot St. Columba. So much is known. We are also told that he fared westward to seek the land promised to the Saints, the given or implied date being 525. But Mr. Ashe's precis and commentary are best left in his own words:

1. St. Brendan and his companions, heading northward from Ireland, come to a rocky isle with no obvious landing place. After sailing round it they discover a single cove where they go ashore. (St. Kildas)
2. They sail onwards to an island in northern seas where there are many sheep and a monastic community. (The Faroes)
3. They wander back and forth in an archipelago, staying ashore for long periods. (The Shetlands)
4. They sail north to another island, a place of fire and smoke, where it looks as if a great number of smiths are at work on glowing metal. As they watch, the mass blazes and becomes molten. (To Iceland, witnessing an eruption of Hecla)
5. After returning to a point previously visited and obtaining advice, they sail west for forty days.
6. They are surrounded by darkness, which is said to be the prelude to arrival in the land they are seeking. (Fog on the Newfoundland banks)
7. They come to a huge crystal pillar in the sea with a canopy over it. (They sight an iceberg drifting south with the Greenland current)
8. They reach an inhospitable coast where there are creatures with tusks and speckled bellies. (They put in briefly at Newfoundland and encounter walruses)
9. They sail into a semi-tropical lagoon. (They make for a warmer zone and eventually enter the Bahamas)
10. They put in at an island and are attacked by small, dark savages.
11. They sail over transparent waters where they can see a long way down. (Exploring the Caribbean fringes, they notice the famous transparent sea, still frequently observed)
12. They disembark in the Promised Land, which is sunshiny and warm and abounds in fruit. After forty days of exploration they reach a river. The land seems to stretch indefinitely beyond and they give up the attempt to find its limit. A celestial messenger tells them to go home; the country wlill be revealed to the world in God's good time. (Florida or the Gulf coast, an area which has since inspired similar fancies, both in the time of Ponce de Leon and in that of Coolidge)

Mr. Ashe tells us that the maritime historians, James Hornell and George A. Little, have agreed that a wooden ship of the period could have done this easily and dismisses as unimportant the fact that the Irish mariners had no compasses, sextants or chronometers. In common with the late Mr. Harold Gatty he suggests that they followed the flight of birds, ". .. on the correct assumption that they are not flying into absolute emptiness". He states that a bird track extends from Scotland at least as far as Iceland and the stars would act as a guide at night.

The author dismisses as irrelevant the question of St. Brendan's actual participation in the voyages. He points out that the Saint may be "... only a peg on which the exploits of anonymous seafarers have been hung and it is the exploits that most concern us, rather than the identity of the doers". He concludes thus: " St. Brendan's alleged voyage is only one of several clues pointing to an Irish knowledge of the New World ante-dating that of the Vikings." We wonder what the truth really was! Certainly, as Mr. Ashe puts it, St. Brendan's journeys are themselves mere incidents "in an impressive history of northern travel which the Celtic springtime inaugurated".

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