Customer Reviews

New England's Viking and Indian Wars (New England's Collectible Classics)

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I read this book as part of my research on the history of New England for a book I am working on and I found the information to be interesting and helpful. I especially enjoyed the first part of the book as it went into discussing the Viking visits to New England. Many of the stories I found very fascinating and plausible. I did however find a few parts at the end of the book relating to the Indians encounters with the English did not match the facts that I have read in other books. At first I though that "This guy got it all wrong!" but after rethinking the book, I have decide to do more research to fine out (if possible) what is truth and what is fiction then it comes to the Native Americans of New England. This book has made me want to know more and I think that is the sign of a good book!

Many historians continue to claim the Leif Ericson's Vinland wasn't Cape Cod, but the Viking sagas seem to clearly contradict those skepticisms. A cape "that projected northward from the land itself" and the "peninsula's sharp elbow" sound very much like Cape Cod. And it was here that wild grapes grew which has always been the clearest thorn in the attempts to place Vinland farther north.

Cahill details the Norse sagas many references to Vinland. Perhaps most telling is when Bishop Bardson arrived in Greenland, found the Vikings missing and declared they had "turned to the people of Vinland." The author goes on to describe how Giovanni Verrazano would later meet "fair-skinned" Indians. Verrazano would also tell his king of a Norman Villla discovered in what is now Newport, Rhode Island (known as the "Newport Tower"). Described as "round with eight pillars supporting eight arches" it had a lookout tower facing the sea.

The author continues with many intriguing finds that Vikings left along the coast. There is no debate that the Vikings explored and settled America long before Columbus and did so for many years. The details of these travels deserve more careful research and field work.