By Bryndís Víglundsdóttir
The Icelandic Roots Writers Group wrote about L'Anse aux Meadows for their May assignment.
My first thought when I saw this photo was, “I wonder if it smells the same inside as the turf house of Lækjabotnar where I stayed many wonderful summers? There I was loved dearly and I loved being there. I wonder if there was much love in this turf house?”
The smoke from the open fire collects in the turf and loam that are used to bind the lava blocks and simply resides in the house. I sometimes go to the open-air museum in Árbær just to stay a while in the turf house there and become part of that smell and dwell with the good memories.
The longhouse on L’Anse Aux Meadows tells me that a group of people from Northern Europe sailed to that island and decided to stay so they built a turf house. I wonder what the daily life was like in that house. What animals did the people take with them on the boat, the knörr? What were the women doing all day when the men were out scouting and hunting? A spindle whorl was dug up from the ground, certainly an Icelandic or Nordic household tool. I think it is interesting to imagine the women of that house spinning the wool for a new garment, perhaps for a growing child. They must have taken some lambs with them for the wool, maybe for the meat and the milk, too. The lambs would grow and become ewes with lambs.
People in the Nordic countries of the poorer group lived in turf houses whereas those of better means used houses of sturdier material, such as wood or stone.
This was not the case in Iceland. Rich and poor lived in turf houses, albeit of different qualities. In the beginning, our houses were longhouses but eventually, Icelanders developed their own style of turf houses. For very practical reasons we gave up building longhouses and developed family unit-sized houses, each with its own roof but one entrance for the entire house. The cow shed was in most farms adjacent to the main house and usually so was the barn. During times when the weather was difficult this certainly made life easier.
What do we know about the people who did sail to North America in the year 1000? We know they were from Iceland, many living temporarily in Greenland. They were Icelanders, no matter some claim that Leifur Eiríksson was Norwegian. Everything we know about Leifur Eiríksson indicates that he was born and raised in Iceland, either on Strandir, the eastern part of the Westfjords where his parents lived a few years or at Eiríksstaðir in Haukadalur, which is more likely. Leifur was the son of Eiríkur the Red, a refugee from Norway and his wife Þjóðhildur Jörundardóttir a third-generation Icelander.
The family moved to Greenland and one summer Bjarni Herjólfsson from Drepstokk, a farm a short distance from Selfoss and Eyrarbakki, sailed to Greenland to stock up on merchandise to sell in Europe. The items the merchants were interested in were mostly walrus and whale teeth and oil from ocean animals, mostly whales, seals and cod ( the liver). He told remarkable stories of a large land he had seen in the west but not explored. He hoped other people would do so. Leifur bought Bjarni's ship and sailed from Greenland to North America with an Icelandic crew. Did Leifur Eiríksson move into a turf house in L'Anse Aux Meadows or did he perhaps not leave his boat unattended?
Leifur and his crew built turf houses to stay in over the winter. The Greenlanders Saga does not describe the houses they built as the readers of the saga would have known turf houses.
Looking at that house in the picture I am surprised to see several windows on the roof. That would never have been seen on an Icelandic turf house. During the settlement period, there were no windows in the turf house, only the so called ljóri, a small circular opening in the top of the roof that served both as a window and an opening for the smoke from the langeldur, the long fire burning at the center of the floor, and of course from the fire used for cooking.
Glass windows were not available to the common people of Iceland until in the 19th century. Then, a window was put on the front of the main section of the turf house.
When the Icelandic people had disrupted the peace in Newfoundland and were no longer on friendly terms with the Native people they seemed not to feel safe staying in their houses and made sure that their ships were safe. Eventually, they moved altogether to their ships and sailed off, back to Greenland and Iceland.
These are some of the thoughts that race through my mind when I look at the turf house on L’Anse Aux Meadows.