| General Poetry posted June 22, 2015 | Chapters: |
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Free Verse
A chapter in the book Little Poems
Kensington Runestone
by Treischel
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Historical Fiction Free Verse Poem contest entry
This is a fictional characterization of what might have happened. Nobody knows for sure, and there is controversy over the authenticity of the Kensington Rune Stone that was found buried under the roots of a birch tree on the farm of a Swedish farmer in Northern Minnesota in 1898. Many believe that it is proof that the Vikings were in Minnesota from a Greenland (Vinland) colony prior to Columbus' discovery of America.
The Runestone is on display in a Museun in Alexandria, Minnesota. It has carvings on it known as ancient runes, in Old Norse script. The text translated reads:
"Eight Geats (Swedes) and twenty-two Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland to the west. We had camp by two skerries one day's journey north from this stone. We were [out] to fish one day. After we came home [we] found ten men red of blood and dead. AVM (Ave Virgen Maria) save [us] from evil."
"[We] have ten men by the sea to look after our ships, fourteen days' travel from this island. [In the] year 1362."
In 1354, King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden and Norway had issued a letter appointing a law officer named Paul Knutsson as leader of an expedition to the colony of Greenland, to investigate reports that the population was turning away from Christian culture. There is no firm evidence that the expedition ever took place. In a letter by Gerardus Mercator to John Dee, dated 1577, Mercator refers to one Jacob Cnoyen, who had learned that eight men returned to Norway from an expedition to the Arctic islands in 1364. One of the men, a priest, provided the King of Norway with a great deal of geographical information.
A possible route of such an expedition connecting Hudson Bay with Kensington would lead up either Nelson River or Hayes River, through Lake Winnipeg, then up the Red River of the North. The northern waterway begins at Traverse Gap, on the other side of which is the source of the Minnesota River, flowing to join the great Mississippi River at Saint Paul/Minneapolis. This route was examined by Flom (1910), who found that explorers and traders had come from Hudson Bay to Minnesota by this route decades before the area was officially settled.
I included a reference to the Mandans in the poem. The Mandans were a curious tribe that live in Upper Michigan. They were unusual for having blond hair and blue eyes. In the poem I have them intermarried, then suddenly disappear, due to other tribal incursions. Hjalmar Holand adduced the "blond" Indians among the Mandan on the Upper Missouri River as possible descendants of the Swedish explorers.
Source: Wikipedia
The Picture is from Yahoo images.
Pays
one point
and 2 member cents. The Runestone is on display in a Museun in Alexandria, Minnesota. It has carvings on it known as ancient runes, in Old Norse script. The text translated reads:
"Eight Geats (Swedes) and twenty-two Norwegians on an exploration journey from Vinland to the west. We had camp by two skerries one day's journey north from this stone. We were [out] to fish one day. After we came home [we] found ten men red of blood and dead. AVM (Ave Virgen Maria) save [us] from evil."
"[We] have ten men by the sea to look after our ships, fourteen days' travel from this island. [In the] year 1362."
In 1354, King Magnus Eriksson of Sweden and Norway had issued a letter appointing a law officer named Paul Knutsson as leader of an expedition to the colony of Greenland, to investigate reports that the population was turning away from Christian culture. There is no firm evidence that the expedition ever took place. In a letter by Gerardus Mercator to John Dee, dated 1577, Mercator refers to one Jacob Cnoyen, who had learned that eight men returned to Norway from an expedition to the Arctic islands in 1364. One of the men, a priest, provided the King of Norway with a great deal of geographical information.
A possible route of such an expedition connecting Hudson Bay with Kensington would lead up either Nelson River or Hayes River, through Lake Winnipeg, then up the Red River of the North. The northern waterway begins at Traverse Gap, on the other side of which is the source of the Minnesota River, flowing to join the great Mississippi River at Saint Paul/Minneapolis. This route was examined by Flom (1910), who found that explorers and traders had come from Hudson Bay to Minnesota by this route decades before the area was officially settled.
I included a reference to the Mandans in the poem. The Mandans were a curious tribe that live in Upper Michigan. They were unusual for having blond hair and blue eyes. In the poem I have them intermarried, then suddenly disappear, due to other tribal incursions. Hjalmar Holand adduced the "blond" Indians among the Mandan on the Upper Missouri River as possible descendants of the Swedish explorers.
Source: Wikipedia
The Picture is from Yahoo images.
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