Myth America
TABLE TALK DENIS BROGAN
I'm pleased with the news of the discovery of a runic record of a Norwegian expedition to Oklahoma in the eleventh century. Why it should have gone round the Carolina coast and Florida and up to Oklahoma, not the most attractive of American states, I cannot imagine. But the Vikings were an odd people. The deciphering of the runes seems to have been extremely ingenious; and the fact that the runes are in code is also extremely interesting. Why the bishop put his record into cryptograms is even harder to understand than why Francis Bacon, Lord Verulam, concealed his authorship of the plays attributed to Lord Oxford by Mr Looney. (I am no expert in Shakespearian cryptography, relying on the lucid description of it in Dr P. G. Wodehouse's work, The Mulliner Omnibus, pp. 234ff).
I notice that some of the reports of the startling new discovery in Oklahoma refer to the Kensington Stone. This is a monument found in Minnesota in the middle of last century, recording a Swedish voyage to Minne- sota in the fifteenth century. Although by the fifteenth century, Sweden was a highly literate Country, there is no Swedish record of the departure or the disappearance of this expedi- tion.
Some cynics have thought it remarkable that these Swedish travellers should have marched 1,500 miles west and left the only record of their journey in the most Swedish state of the Union, Minnesota. A Danish-American friend of mine, a very learned professor at the University of Minnesota, was extremely interested in the Kensington Stone. He said whoever forged the stone (for he had no doubt that it had been forged), must have been learned, for there are some rare forms which a less learned forger would not have known about. 'Neverthe- less, this is not monumental Swedish of the fif- teenth century. But I would have to teach you monumental Swedish of the fifteenth century for you to see the point, so you will have to take my word for it.' I took Martin Ruud's word for it. I believe that his theory that it was the work of a learned pastor in the long winter nights, has now been replaced by the theory that it was the work of a learned schoolmaster. Yet the authen- ticity of the Kensington Stone is still defended by American Swedes as some Scots still defend the authenticity of Macpherson's Ossian.
My favourite story of the mythology of American discovery was the discovery in 1927 in Arizona, then a less populous state than it is now, of the records of a Roman-Jewish colon., near Tucson. The colonists were Jews who had fled from Jerusalem in AD 70, and had, for sonic obscure reason, kept their records in the language of their conquerors. Arizona tourist agencies and chambers of commerce welcomed this discovery. After a couple of months, some- one wrote in to the New York World, pointine out that all the Latin quotations in the inscrip- tions came from the pink section of Le Petit Larousse. For some reason or other, this killed the Arizona discovery. I may add that I firml believe that Saint Brendan discovered 'America' and that the Swedish, Italian and Norwegian attempts to deprive the Irish of the credit is a straight theft.
The history of bogus archaeological d.,-
coveries is, of course, an old one. There are the genuine mistakes. People with an inadequate
knowledge of ancient tongues and with a primi- tive knowledge of ancient history have, natur- ally enough, found relics of ancient societies which they have totally misunderstood. Then there are the results of patriotic fervour. I can remember a very distinguished Irish man of letters taking my wife and myself to see the excavations of 'Tara of the Kings.' They had been conducted in the most scientific way, for Irish archaeology is now very good (so I understand). But the `indomitable Irishry,' having been brought up on Moore's Melodies, naturally thought 'Tara's Halls' were the halls and walls of a highly advanced society. Some probably thought they were rather like Burn- ratty; others seemed to think that they were rather like an Odeon cinema, and so on. Of course, the results from this point of view were extremely disconcerting: a lot of holes in the ground where wooden structures had been erected. This was not what they came forth to see. More than that, we were told that the first important artefact discovered was a very phallic phallic symbol, an insult to Irish chastity.
This recalls to me the time I was taken over some celebrated Indian antiquities by a plump cultivated young woman from the local univer- sity who, before we entered the temple, asked me rather anxiously, 'I suppose you know what a phallic symbol is?' I replied that I did. But when we entered the temple, I discovered I had been deceived: these were not phallic symbols, but phalluses, 'long standing' like those which have been reported on in picture palaces in the famous limerick.
There are, of course, the ingenious frauds planted on gullible collectors: The type of The Antiquary is not confined to- Scotland, still less confined to Scotland in the lifetime of Sir Walter -Scott. -After all, it was in this century that Glozel was launched, one or the boldest of frauds. I took a great interest in this since it is near the area where my wife was conducting her excavations, and we were in close relations with the' lOcal erudits. One of them, a very learned than indeed, told ine that the forger of the Gloiel pottery had -known very little when he started on 'his nefariobs career, but he learned a 'great deal from his -numerous critics and was a much better forger and a - much better archaeologist by the time the boom came down. But the only way he could be dealt with by French law was by prosecuting him., for charging an entrance fee to his _dis- coveries, When he had no entertainment licence.
I felt he deserved better than that. _ I have, of course, no scientific- authority for suggesting that recent discoveries about the Vikings in Oklahoma are fraudulent. Still, one never knows. I have learned to note a great deal of the undercurrent of critical scepticism in the scholarly world. For example, not everybody is convinced of the authenticity of the Vinland map which Yale has bought. It is 'perhaps un- fortunate that it was bought by Yale when Yale had just bought a number of extremely interest- ing documents from a Spanish collection. The Spanish collection turned out to have been in the chapter library of Saragossa Cathedral and the Bishop of Saragossa—and the chapter as a body corporate—had no recollection of selling them. The unkind theory that one of the canons had passed them on to a dealer, was widely accepted. Yale stood firm and refused to name the dealer (although his name was in general circulation round New Haven) and, at any rate when I was last abreast of the controversy, was hanging
on to the manuscripts and not compensating the rather indignant Bishop of Saragossa.
This situation produced an amusing leading article in the Washington Post written, I am convinced, by a Harvard man. It expressed com- plete sympathy with collectors' mania, even of such corporate bodies as Yale. Collectors, it said, would do anything, as everyone knew. But a great university, perhaps, ought at least to compensate the Cathedral of Saragossa. The title of this leading article was a masterpiece of innuendo : it was 'The Yale Fence.' This is a joke almost impossible to translate, but intended to be very wounding, since the Yale Fence is the sacred palladium of New Haven Green. I cannot in fact think of anything so sacred in Oxford and Cambridge as the Yale Fence; it is Christ Church Meadows and the Backs com- bined. However, although it is now the great centre of the study of American antiquities, I suspect that even Yale will not buy the recent discoveries from Oklahoma.
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