Vikings Coming to America
Pages 61-64 in American Gods by Neil Gainman tell the tale of the vikings first landing in America. According to this interpretation, the vikings landed on American soil via navigating using the stars, but if it was a cloudy day they would rely on faith and the direction of the all-father (Odin). Upon arrival the vikings were exhausted, wounded, hungry, and feeling hopeless. After a motivational speech by the leader the vikings started constructing a hall out of trees and mud in honor of the God that created the land they are on. After the hall was built they celebrated by drinking, feasting, and singing songs that tell the story of Odin sacrificing himself for the men. Ironically, the next next the vikings find a scraeling whom the be-friend. After a night of feeding “him roasted meat to eat, and strong drink to quench his thirst” (63), the scraeling fell asleep upon which the vikings hung him, with rope around his neck, at the ash tree. According to the vikings they were sending their “sacrifice to the Heavens” (63).
One cold winter afternoon the vikings noticed that the remains of the scraeling’s body had been removed from the tree. That night the scraeling people formed a war party that entered the viking camping grounds and killed “each of the thirty men, in thirty different ways” (64). This chapter ends by saying the vikings were eventually forgotten and it was one hundred years later before Leif the Fortunate rediscovered the land and called it Vineland. It is also noted that Odin and Thor were waiting for Leif when he arrived.
I have decided to write my last blog post about this section of reading from American Gods because after reading it the for the first time myself, I did not understand it’s purpose in the novel. Although I am not completely sure it’s purpose for being in the novel, I do believe it is the first step in proving a framework, a base knowledge, of the viking history in America, and that this will have some importance later on in the story. Aside from that comment about this peculiar section, it is also important to note that since this could possibly be used as part of the base knowledge of the vikings discussed in the novel, the historical facts may not be completely accurate. Like it is mentioned at the end of the reading, “…the sailors were forgotten, by history and their people” and that “it was more than a hundred years before Leif the Fortunate, son of Erik the Red, rediscovered that land, which he would call Vineland” (64). With no survivor to pass on the history who is to say what is written is what actually occurred. Considering the scraeling people are natives of the land it can be assumed they do not speak the language of the vikings and therefore can not pass the story on to the vikings. What I am saying is not that all the information told in the section is false, but given the facts it may not be completely accurate and this is something to keep in mind when reading.
I interpreted the section as a way of saying that once a land is blessed by a god, that god remains there regardless of their followers' fates. The 30 men were all slaughtered, but when Leif sailed to North America the gods were waiting for him. The 30 vikings had celebrated in honor of their gods, and in doing so bound them to the new land. Even as the vikings were entirely forgotten to time, their gods lived on and thus Leif never needed to perform a feast for the gods to consecrate the new world in the Aesir's names. Later on it's revealed By Mama-Ji that every land has their own incarnation of a god (She mentions how she is not upset that the "her" in India fares far better than the "her" speaking to Odin in America) which adds many more questions such as whether the Thor and Odin Leif supposedly encountered were the same Thor and Odin from Iceland, and if they were different incarnations would Leif have had any way of knowing?
ReplyDeleteThank you for doing a blog to point out this story in the book!!!:) I was definitely confused and unsure when I read it. My guess was that it was relevant because it recounted how the Vikings first crossed to North America, and since the deities in the book are always talking about how they were brought over here, I took the whole tale to be significant for explaining how this happens. To me, it seems like they arrive someplace the moment that an individual from a culture believing in them who thinks they are real and worships them steps foot on the new territory. So after the Vikings all died, they left their gods behind in North America. I was having trouble figuring out how they were hopping from place to place, though, seeing as they had to have been in Europe too, by those standards. Gabriel clears it all up when he says that Mama-Ji referring to the beings’ different incarnations means they have multiple versions of themselves. For sure that starts a bunch of questions!!!:) I’m wondering whether any of them can really die now. Is it a Harry Potter kind of situation, do the alternative forms all count as Horcruxes???:) Also, yep, I’m curious as to whether these bits of history are true too. How much is being changed here??:)
ReplyDeleteI also found this section interesting when I read this section of the book. It puts in perspective how dangerous the terrain of a foreign land can be to people who explored during that time. America in general is a land that was settled by foreigners. The Vikings, due to their advanced navigation tactics, were able to get to the land first, but couldn’t establish a functioning colony due to the weather and to the natives that inhabited the land. I also find it interesting how this section of the book also shows how despite the Vikings were in trying to establish a new territory. Once the Vikings landed, they erected a shrine to Odin and made a sacrifice on a native for the God Odin to be pleased with what they have done. The Vikings in this section were desperate enough to sacrifice a native of the land to their pagan God so that the Gods can continue to bless them while they were on their expedition and grasped at straws when it came to understand if the Gods have accepted their sacrifice or not. Overall, this section of the book really puts in perspective how dangerous traveling was due to the unexpected nature of the land the Vikings were to come across.
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