Читать книгу Facts and fancies for the curious from the harvest-fields of literature - Charles C. Bombaugh - Страница 9

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If we are bound by circumstances to put Columbus in the forefront, we are not bound to ignore an early discovery for the reality of which there is so much authentic evidence. Sceptical comments come from critics who have not sufficient knowledge of Norse customs or of Norse literature, and are consequently not in a position to judge fairly the amount of credence to be put in Scandinavian tradition. Experience with oral tradition as exhibited among the Aryans of India might have suggested that the old Western mistrust of that method of transmitting information was founded in ignorance alone. For we now know that it is quite possible to hand down the longest statements through ages, without loss or change. But in the present case the written word has come in aid of oral tradition, and the oldest records of Leif Erikson’s discovery of Vinland are so near the period of the event that the chain of testimony may be regarded as practically complete. It is all but certain that Leif Erikson landed on the main continent, whereas it is not at all certain, but extremely problematical, whether Columbus ever saw, much less set foot on, the continent of America. The probability is that he did not get nearer than the Bahamas.

The result of modern investigation has been to reduce the glory of Columbus considerably, and to raise questions and doubts concerning him which, if they cannot be answered satisfactorily, must carry the depreciating movement farther. The prior discovery of the Northmen has been taken out of the realm of fable and established as an historical fact. On the other hand, the visit of the Northmen did not lead to permanent settlement. They may have colonized a little. They may have had relations with some of the American Indians, and even have taught the aborigines some of the Norse sagas. But they did not stay in the new land. After a longer or shorter period they sailed away, and left it finally, and no emigration from Iceland to Vinland was incited by the tales they told on their return home.

The incident was ended so far as they were concerned, and it was not reopened. Now, in the case of Columbus, it may be said that the first step was quickly followed up, and that there was no solution of continuity in the development of the new world. Certainty and perfectly clear demonstration is not to be had in the matter, but Columbus has the advantage of tradition, of familiarity, of the facility with which an at least apparent connection is established between the man and what came after him.