The Lost Saga of Jartan Ericson |
Issue 18
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Reprint from The North American Journal of Archaeology, February, 2029
Translator’s note: As far as we know, Jartan Ericson, the hero of the foregoing, is no direct relation of Leif Ericson, the famous Norse captain now credited with discovering North America around 987 A.D. But if he ever existed, Jartan would have lived around the same time. Thanks to the archaeological findings at Anse (1989) and elsewhere, historians are now certain that many early Vikings made landfall in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Labrador, and perhaps even as far south as the coast of Maine. The tribal people they may have encountered were Native Americans, among them the Abenaki. The new territory was known to the Vikings as Vinland. Tales of these explorers are recounted in the Icelandic Sagas, a unique form of Scandinavian epic which most agree were partly based on fact. Of course since the Sagas were composed 150 years after the events they chronicle, they are subject to many subjective and distorting elements. Much excitement has surrounded the puzzling Tollefson finding (2025) of what appears to be a canoe of Native American design in an ancient clan burial ground on the Icelandic coast. Some have doubted the authenticity of the artifact, whose origin is clearly mysterious. But its markings seem consistent with those found on Abenaki relics. And now we have the recent discovery of “The Jartan Saga,” a text unearthed in an excavated monastery in the mountains above the Skaragagald, not far from where the canoe was discovered. The saga tells an astonishing story that accounts for the presence of the canoe 2000 miles from North America. And oddly, the saga is written in Latin, not Norse, suggesting the author may be a monk named Gorm who lived contemporaneously with the story he tells. The original text is quite long and prolix, so I present forthwith an abridged abstract of the narrative in the third person. ABSTRACT OF “THE JARTAN SAGA” I. 986-998 A. D. Jartan Ericson was born at sea in the middle of a tempest during a perilous voyage from Norway to Iceland. Fleeing the tyranny of the Norwegian king and the plague of blood feuds, his father Thorstein, a legendary Viking warrior and clan chieftain, hoped to start a new life of peace and freedom for his family and clan. Taking inspiration from Jartan’s birth on his drakar[1] in a storm tossed sea, Thorstein managed to sail the vessel safely to Iceland’s verdant and undeveloped shores. Jartan’s early childhood was idyllic as Thorstein founded a successful fishing settlement on the island. He forged a truce with the warlike Wulfings, a rival clan to the north, and helped start the Althing, a loose democratic assembly which settled disputes by votes of the members rather than by armed conflict. And Jartan seemed always at his father’s side, having a special place in his heart. At 13, Jartan had become fast friends with Lars Wulfing, the adopted son of Keldur, the Wulfing chieftain. One day the two boys and Lars’ cousin Gudrun, both around Jartan’s age, happened upon Aud, a self-styled Soothsayer who predicted a life of hardship and early death for Jartan. Keeping this disturbing prophecy to himself, Jartan clung to the words of his father, who said, “We make our own fate.” And Jartan also concentrated on his budding feelings for Gudrun, who promised to return his affection. But this “first love,” innocent at their age, could not blossom before Lars, revealing a deeply evil nature, incited a catastrophe. With deliberation and malice, the young Lars deviously re-ignited the long standing but dormant blood feud with the Ericson clan. The Wulfings launched a surprise attack, and, in the massacre that followed, Keldur mortally wounded Thorstein. A devastated Jartan watched his beloved father die and then made a dramatic escape by boat into the open ocean. He was given up for dead. But after drifting for many days in the Atlantic, Jartan survived using his wits and seafaring knowledge learned from his father. He finally landed on the coast of Vinland where he was saved and adopted by the Abenaki, a benign Native American tribe. II. 1007 A.D. Jartan grew up to be a brave Abenaki hunter, assimilated into the tribe, with a Native American Wife and a toddler son, Chocorua. Not only had he left his past behind him (or so he thought), he’d all but forgotten the Soothsayer’s prophecy. And he did remember his father’s dying words, entreating him to forswear vengeance, break the cycle of bloodshed, and seek peace. But this tranquility was shattered on the day that a fleet of three Viking drakars arrived on the same shore and its warriors slaughtered many of Jartan’s tribesmen, including his wife. Sending Chocurua to safety in the mountains (and vowing to return to him), Jartan launched a brave counter attack, only to be taken prisoner along with Khatadin, his fierce Abenaki brother-in-law. The leader of this Viking raiding party was none other than Lars Wulfing, who, unaware of Jartan’s identity, brought him and Khatadin back to Iceland as slaves. In the slave compound, Jartan learned that Lars has become a cruel tyrant as the new Wulfing chieftain. He’d made the Althing his puppet, subjugated the other clans, and wreaked havoc as a Viking raider in Britain and beyond (his discovery of Leif Ericson’s map prompted his fateful trip west[2]). Now Lars prepared to launch a second voyage to permanently enslave and exploit the Abenaki settlement. Determined to stop him and return to his son, Jartan, with Khatadin and allied slaves Tovald and Thorir, formulated an escape plan. Meanwhile Jartan, an obvious Norseman compared to his Native American brethren, had explained his presence in the Abenaki settlement by claiming to be a deserter from another Viking voyage. His true identity was only suspected by Gudrun, now a beautiful woman bristling at her imminent marriage to Lars, arranged by her Father, who would profit from the match. A brief encounter with Jartan reawakened the flame of their first innocent love. This galvanized her desire to flee a loveless marriage to Lars, risking the dire consequences of his wrath. Finally Jartan and his allies executed the daring plan, during which Jartan slayed the warrior who killed his wife, disrupted Lars’s pre-nuptial feast, and dramatically revealed his identity. It was later noted that Jartan could have escaped without these histrionics, but that he had succumbed to the temptation for revenge, contrary to his father’s wishes, which may then account for what was to follow. In any event, Lars was furious, especially since Jartan had also stolen the map with the sea route back to the Abenaki settlement, as well as the drakar to take him there. Lars immediately dispatched men and ships to hunt Jartan, kill him, and retrieve the map. He was further incensed to learn that Gudrun, defying her father and scoffing his affections, had fled to the mountains. There she found secret refuge with her former tutor Gorm[3], a kindly monk who lived in a decaying monastery. Jartan’s voyage west was cut short when bad weather forced him to land at the site of his childhood home, now a ruin. Here he joyously reunited with his Uncle Njal, a survivor of the massacre who greeted him as the potential liberator of the island. News of Jartan’s dramatic return and survival had fueled the hope of the oppressed clans: a legend was born. Though flooded by emotions from his past, Jartan resisted the idea of leading a rebellion. His allegiance was to his son and his true people, the Abenaki, who had shown him such kindness and made him one of their own. But Njal warned of the Soothsayer’s dire prophecy. It was rooted in a curse resulting from his father Thorstein’s fleeting infidelity with a Hebridean woman, Red Rachel, while trading in the islands years before. The spawn of that liaison was Lars, now revealed to be Jartan’s half-brother. Thorstein abandoned the woman, reputed to be a witch who had charmed him, and in revenge, she empowered a powerful spell with her own horrific suicide – which made Lars the agent of her hatred. To lift the spell, or curse, Jartan must slay Lars. If he failed, said Njal, not only was Jartan doomed, but so were all his progeny and all people he loved, including his son Chocurua, though he was thousands of miles across the sea. Shocked yet convinced of the truth of these assertions by a sign he believed to come from his own Abenaki god Hobbomock, Jartan decided to stay on the island. He rallied a ragtag army of the oppressed clans, and led them into several stunning victories over the surprised Wulfing warriors. But after Jartan’s tense encounter with Lars on a remote cliff, treachery within his own ranks resulted in a bloody ambush. Njal was slain, and Jartan barely escaped with a wounded Khatadin, only one step ahead of Lars’ ferocious warriors. Timely help came from Gudrun, who had been secretly tracking Jartan from the hills. She gave the two fugitives refuge in the monastery, despite cantankerous Gorm’s resistance.[4] Meanwhile, Lars intensified the manhunt. As Khatadin recovered, Jartan and Gudrun’s passion was rekindled. But fearful of the curse’s reach to those he cared about, Jartan resisted its consummation. Taking this in stride, Gudrun showed her loyalty by staying to help Jartan, rather than fleeing to Norway (her original plan). She guided Jartan to an old sage Wrathgar, who provided a possible key to Jartan’s defeat of Lars and his mother’s magic. Lars could be slain with the Spear of Odin, a legendary weapon reputed to be buried in the foreboding glacier above the monastery. Now Jartan set out to find the spear, and, after enduring many months of great hardship during a long winter, he finally succeeded. III 1008 A.D. Lars, while preparing for his second voyage to Vinland, became increasingly enraged as he learned of Jartan’s exploits and reunion with Gudrun. It was then that he revealed that he also received a prophecy from the Soothsayer years ago, which predicted his rise to power and invincibility, but warned of his vulnerability to “a warrior west of Greenland carrying Odin’s spear.” The very existence of such a person seemed impossible years before, because Icelanders believed there was only the void west of Greenland, and the spear was a fairy tale. But now this warrior appeared to be embodied in Jartan. Puffed with his own egoism, Lars scoffed at the warnings of his aide Eirik, who nevertheless prepared a talisman to combat the efficacy of the spear. Uniting around Jartan, inspired by his retrieval of the spear, the clans made common cause once again, planning to overthrow Lars. An expert horsewoman, Gurdrun bravely rode as messenger on a dangerous journey between the rebel groups. When she was late in returning, Jartan ventured forth to escort her back. Making camp at nightfall at the same spot they had met as children, the couple finally quenched their passion. But a traitor within Jartan’s ranks, Thorir, revealed their whereabouts to Lars, leading to Gudrun’s capture. Soon afterwards Jartan unmasked Thorir as the traitor, but spared his life, denying him an honorable death and sending him off in shame. Consumed by guilt, Thorir committed suicide. Lars then held Gudrun hostage demanding that Jartan surrender himself with the map in exchange for her life. While many said Jartan should sacrifice Gudrun for the good of all, he could not willingly forsake this one individual. Instead Jartan pretended to acquiesce to Lars’s demands while hatching an audacious scheme for his men to infiltrate Lars’ compound. He surrendered himself and the map. Savoring his apparent victory, Lars was about to execute the pair by pouring molten lead down their throats when Jartan’s rebel cohort, disguised as Wulfings, arrived to save them. They paddled canoes, fashioned by Khatadin, which enabled them to navigate the treacherous stream that fed into the compound[5]. A climactic battle raged as the rebels overran the compound. Seeing the tide of battle go against him, Lars prepared to escape on a drakar with the map, treasure, and trusted warriors. He also wore the talisman, hoping to neutralize the spear. Jartan was able to intercept him and they engaged in a spectacular struggle in the bay. When Jartan accidentally dropped the spear, and it floated off harmlessly in the water, Lars gained the upper hand and wounded him badly with the sharp flukes of an old ship’s anchor thrown like a boomerang. It seemed that Jartan was finished, as the Soothsayer had predicted, and the spear’s power nothing more than a superstition. But as the fading Jartan sank to his almost certain doom, the spear re-appeared above him in the murky water. Jartan made a heroic recovery – grabbed the spear, and hurled it toward the escaping Lars, who had just dropped the talisman. Lars was struck in the chest and vanished beneath the waves in a wake of blood. The islanders proclaimed Jartan a hero and gathered around him on the beach in celebration. They shouted for him to be the new leader of the Althing, while Gudrun and Khatadin stood by in triumph. But Jartan refused the post, asking only for provisions and a drakar so he and Khatadin could return to the Abenaki and his son Chocorua. The grateful chieftains granted his request. That night Jartan stayed with Gudrun, and in the morning she began preparations to accompany him to Vinland. When she returned to the bedchamber, she found Jartan had been brutally murdered. Nearby was the quivering wife of Thorir who hated Jartan and blamed him for her husband’s suicide. She had come upon Jartan unawares and stabbed him innumerable times. So the islanders’ celebration was short lived, and Jartan’s fate was as predicted. They mourned their hero and gave him a unique form of burial, part Viking, part Abenaki. They put Jartan’s body in a canoe and buried it in the headland by the sea. Then a trader from the Orkneys arrived reporting that Lars had survived by removing the spear from his chest and clinging to debris floating in the bay. Rescued by his mercenaries in the drakar, they had set sail. Khatadin, devastated by the death of his friend and Lars’s escape, went down to the shore. There, drifting in the shallow water, he found the spear. Seizing the weapon, he knew what he must do. Lars had returned to his birthplace in the Hebrides, the abandoned cottage of his mother Red Rachel. There he had recovered from his wounds with his mercenaries, planning a new voyage to Vinland where he would make himself king of the Abenaki. His countenance showed the ravages of sin and age, and his followers clearly hated him. After many months, Khatadin tracked him down. When Lars saw the Abenaki hunter with the spear, he suddenly realized that he, too, could not evade his fate. Khatadin, not Jartan, was the “warrior from the west,” and that warrior now launched the weapon. It struck Lars in the heart, mortally this time, and he hurtled to his death off the same cliff from which his mother had killed herself years ago. Guided by the map that Lars had hidden in the cottage, Khatadin and Gudrun made the long voyage back to Vinland.[6] Gudrun had promised Jartan that she would look after Chocurua, and that’s what she did, blending in with the Abenaki and marrying Khatadin. Eventually, when Chocurua was eleven, old enough to understand, she told him the story of his father Jartan, whom he never really knew. A missing piece of his heart was restored. But not completely. For the rest of his life, it was said, he would often look east across the water, just as the sun was rising every morning, half expecting to see a drakar cruising into the harbor with Jartan at the helm. [1] Drakar: early Viking boats with square sails and six oarsmen. [2] There is evidence that Leif Ericson’s Vinland map was stored in a Scottish monastery and stolen by Viking raiders. [3] Gorm is the nominal author of the Jartan Saga text. There are several known instances of Benedictine monks sailing to Iceland to establish safe and isolated places to practice their faith. Staying north of the Edda River, an area alleged by the Icelanders to be infested with demons, the monks were safe from Viking intrusions. [4] Gorm claims that the source of the story was Jartan himself, who recounted his adventures to him during his stay at the monastery. [5] Gorm states that Khatadin oversaw the construction of the canoes from native spruce trees. [6] Here we must assume Gorm is imagining this final part of the narrative, as there is no way of his knowing what happened to Khatadin and Gudrun after they set sail for Vinland. |
GUY PREVOST, a native of Manhattan, is a film and fiction writer now living in Los Angeles. His background encompasses work as an award winning filmmaker, story editor in Hollywood, and college teacher. His short stories have appeared in SQ Mag, The North Atlantic Review, The London Reader, and elsewhere. He has just finished a novel, Vermont Rocks.
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