Episode #246 - How Far Did the Vikings Voyage? (Part III)
Our Fake History
PodcastOne
4.7 • 3.7K Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2026
⏱️ 87 minutes
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Summary
For centuries the western Norse colony of Vinland was known only to scholars of the Icelandic Sagas. But in the 19th century the work of a few Scandinavian historians helped revive interest in these previously obscure tales. When the Danish historian Carl Christian Rafn published in his work in English in 1837, many American's were exposed to the idea that the Norse had beaten Columbus to North America by 500 years. Many New Englanders were also excited by the idea that the legendary colony of Vinland may have been in Cape Cod. However, this new interest in the American Vikings also kicked off a wave of Norse flavored forgeries. Some were inspired to create elaborate pseudo-histories that supplanted the America's true first people with a lost group of Norse settlers. The real history of the Norse in North America was soon clouded by a haze of hoaxes and fantasies. Tune-in and find out how runes in Minnesota, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and Newfoundlander named George all play a role in the story.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It was 1898, and a farmer living near Kensington, Minnesota, named Olaf Oman, was grubbing out a tree stump with his son when he made a very surprising discovery. |
| 0:20.5 | Tangled in the root system of a poplar tree was a curious |
| 0:24.5 | rectangular slab of sandstone. Upon closer inspection, the stone seemed to be covered in strange |
| 0:33.3 | markings that had clearly been engraved by a human hand. After hauling the 30-inch tall and 16-inch-wide |
| 0:42.4 | stone from the ground, Olaf realized that he had found something truly remarkable. But what exactly |
| 0:51.8 | was it? He would later tell curious journalists that at first he assumed that it must be what he called a quote-unquote Indian almanac, |
| 1:02.7 | some sort of calendar produced by Minnesota's first people. |
| 1:07.1 | But very quickly it was determined that the markings had the look of medieval Norse runes. |
| 1:15.3 | Could this have been an artifact left behind by some forgotten group of Norse adventurers? |
| 1:22.4 | Soon it was determined that the markings were indeed part of a legible runic system that could be translated. |
| 1:30.7 | When transcribed in English, the inscription read, quote, |
| 1:35.1 | eight Gotlanders, that is ancient Swedes, and 22 Norwegians on this exploration journey |
| 1:43.1 | from Vinland to the far west. We had a camp by two |
| 1:48.5 | scaries, or potentially two shelters, one day's journey north from this stone. We were fishing one |
| 1:56.9 | day. After we came home, we found ten men red from blood and dead. Ave Maria, save from evil. |
| 2:07.6 | There are 10 men by the sea to look after our ships 14 days journey from this peninsula, |
| 2:14.9 | year 1362, end quote. |
| 2:20.2 | Everything about this artifact that became popularly known as the Kensington Rune Stone |
| 2:26.6 | was very curious. |
| 2:29.6 | If it was authentic, then who were this band of Norse explorers pushing west into America's |
| 2:37.2 | interior in the year 1362? The events of the Icelandic Vinland sagas were usually dated to around |
| 2:47.0 | the year 1000. Even if the Icelandic sagas contained a distant historical memory of the Norse settlement |
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