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By their very nature, rune stones in North America are controversial. Courageous Norse navigators such as Erik the Red and Thorfinn Karlsefni are known to have reached the mainland of North American, which they called Vinland, around the year 1000. They travelled by way of Greenland, upon which was based the Norse colony known as the Westvikings. This colony lasted for almost 500 years, being in its heyday around 1100-1200. By the middle 1300s, the colony was in decline, owing to climatic changes. The last Bishop of Greenland died in 1378, but there was constant contact untill 1408. Occasionally, sailors put into Greenland in later years, until the last inhabitants succumbed to the steadily-worsening climate around 1500.
So regular Norse visits to Vinland during this period are not at all unlikely. Unfortunately, due to the fact that it literally died out, the Westvikings' colony on Greenland is so badly documented that almost nothing is known of their expeditions into mainland America. Discoveries of runic artifacts there ask important questions about the extent and duration of Norse exploration in North America. Of these, the Kensington Runestone is the most controversial. This stone was discovered in 1898 near Kensington, Minnesota, by Olaf Ohman, a farmer. Pulling up a tree stump, he unearthed the stone, a slad of Greywacke, weighing about 100 kilos. Ohman showed the stone to his friends and neighbors, who were amazed. Soon, academics were asked about it. Naturally, they denounced it as a fraud. Their opinion was that their opinion was that there were 'anomalies' in the text and, anyway, such a stone was very unlikely in North America. But, despite this dismissal, this remarkable runestone was exhibited in the museum at Alexandria, Maine.
Translated, the inscription on the Kensington Stone reads:
8 Goths and 22 Norseman on an exploration-tour from Vinland of West. We had camp on 2 skerries, one day's journey north from this stone.
We went and fished one day.
After we cme home found 10 men red of blood and dead.
Ave Virgo Maria. Save from ill.
Have 10 men at sea to look after our ship 14 days's journey from this island. Year 1362.
The numerical figures are written in stave-numbers. When the Norse scholar Hjalmar Holand deciphered the text, he showed that the anomalies in the text, cited as evidence of fraud, were compatible with its foourteenth century dating. Then, in the 1960s, the Danish cryptographer Alf Monge analysed the runes, and found the date 24 April, 1362, encoded in them. But most academic rune scholars still consider the runestone to be a fake, i.e. that it does not date from 1362, but is from the later European settlements after Columbus. The date of 1362 for a Norse expedition to Minneasota does not correspond with known historical records of visits from Europe, and so this, rather than other evidence, is held to be conclusive proof that it is a fake. Unfortunately, one piece of crucial evidence is now lost. The root of a tree, which had grown in contact with the runes, and contained their imprint, hung on the wall of the farm's granary for years, but finally disappeared. Tree-rings analysis of the root could have provided valuable evidence of dating. Tragically, it seems to have been burnt as firewood.
From time to time, other runestones have turned up in North America, but they, like the Kensington Runestone, have been dismissed as fakes. They include stones from Poteau, Heavener and Shawnee, all in Oklahoma; from Rushvill, Ohio and Spirit Pond, Maine. The Heavener inscription on rockface, reads gaomedat, an undeciphered reading. Apart from the Kensington stone, the most remarkable runic artifact from North American is a horn found in 1952 by a milkman, Ronald Mason, near Winnetka, Illinois, near Chicago. He found it protruding from the earth of a freshly-cut bank by the roadside. On one side, it bears a carving of a man pointing to the Sun. He is standing amid vegetation next to the World Ash Tree, Yggdrasil. On the other side is Vidar, Odin's son, fighting the Fenris Wolf on the day of Ragnarsk, the Twilight of the Gods. His magic boot is in the wolf's mouth, while he pulls at its upper jaw with his gloved hands. Beneath the carving is a two-winged panel with runes. These read grundu; smidar; helgur; har; himin; skidi; breka; mundu; vidar; klifur; knar; kiaftin; stridani; freka. These words translate as: 'Ground'; 'build'; 'holy'; 'hair'; 'heaven' (new-born Sun); 'shine'; 'billowing'; 'fist'; 'vidar'; 'lift'; 'strength'; 'jaw'; 'struggle'; 'freka'. The arrangement of the runes was analysed by Alf Monge, who found the runemaster's name, Audin, and the date, 15 December 1317, encoded there. But although its age and origin are still a matter of opinion amoung runic commentators, the Winnetka Horn is a most remarkable artifact. It celebrates the rising of the new sacred order after the destruction of the old, the spirit of eternal return present in the runes.
