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Updated: June 15, 2025
And strange to say, this very isolation from her father made her cling only the more desperately to him. It seemed to her as if Bjarne had deliberately thrown her off; that she herself had been the one who took the first step had hardly occurred to her. Alas, her grief was as irrational as her love.
It should have, moreover, a special interest to Americans. For as American antiquaries are well aware Bjarne was on his voyage home from the coast of New England; possibly from that very Mount Hope Bay which seems to have borne the same name in the time of those old Norsemen, as afterwards in the days of King Philip, the last sachem of the Wampanong Indians.
Among these was Leif, son of Eric the Red. Leif went to Greenland, found Bjarne, bought his ship, and manned it with a crew of thirty-five. Leif's father, Eric, now lived in Greenland, and Leif asked him to take command of the expedition. He thought, the saga says, that, since Eric had found Greenland, he would bring good luck to the new venture.
Toward evening, Bjarne Blakstad was summoned, and came at once. Thomas left the room, as the old man entered, and what passed in that hour between father and daughter, only God knows. When the door was again opened, Brita's eyes shone with a strange brilliancy, and Bjarne lay on his knees before the bed, pressing her hand convulsively between both of his.
At last, after many days, they saw land, but when they drew near they saw that it was not a rugged treeless region, such as they knew Greenland to be, but a country covered with forests, a country of low coasts rising inland to small hills, and with no mountains in sight. Accordingly, Bjarne said that this was not Greenland, and he would not stop, but turned the vessel to the north.
This is exactly what happened to a bold sailor called Bjarne, the son of Herjulf, a few years after the Greenland colony was founded. In 986 he put out from Iceland to join his father, who was in Greenland, the purpose being that, after the good old Norse custom, they might drink their Christmas ale together.
"Now I have done my duty before God and men," thought Bjarne, "and it is his turn to take the next step." "The fellow is proud," said Hedin to himself, "and he wants to show off his generosity. But I know the wolf by his skin, even if he has learned to bleat like a ewe-lamb." What the feud really was about, they had both nearly forgotten.
Most men say that Bjarne and his comrades perished among the worms; for they were never heard of after." This story may serve as a text for my whole lecture. Not only does it smack of the sea-breeze and the salt water, like all the finest old Norse sagas, but it gives a glimpse at least of the nobleness which underlay the grim and often cruel nature of the Norseman.
To-day travellers even on a palatial steamship, who spend a few hours shuddering in the chill grey fog of the North Atlantic, chafing at delay, may form some idea of voyages such as that of Bjarne Herjulf and his men. These Vikings went on undaunted towards the west.
Toward evening, Bjarne Blakstad loaded his horses with buckets, filled with cheese and butter, and started for the valley. Brita stood long looking after him as he descended the rocky slope, and she could hardly conceal from herself that she felt relieved, when, at last, the forest hid him from her sight.
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