In John Macnab by John Buchan, an American archaeologist, digging on a Scottish estate, unearths Harald Blacktooth's coffin containing funerary adjuncts peculiar to North America, thus confirming the legends of Eric the Red and Leif the Lucky while also proving that a Scottish laird's ancestor crossed the Atlantic long before Columbus.
In "Time Patrol" by Poul Anderson, Manse Everard, posing as an American archaeologist, detects radioactivity inside a chest found in an ancient British barrow but immediately covers this discovery by claiming to recognize a poisonous ore of which he has heard in Indian territory, thus making a famous private detective wonder whether there is any truth in "'...these theories about early Phoenician voyages across the Atlantic.'" (Time Patrol, 4, p. 27)
Later in his career but earlier in history, Anderson accompanies Vikings across the Atlantic.
Buchan also refers to the famous detective. Janet pictures John Macnab:
"...as a sort of Sherlock Holmes..."
-John Buchan, John Macnab (Edinburgh, 2018), FOUR, p. 55.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
If historical, Harald Blacktooth is new to me! And King Harald Bluetooth was a king of Denmark, whom we see in Anderson's MOTHER OF KINGS.
And I can well believe there were seafarers who did make it across the Atlantic to the Americas, before Columbus' own voyages of discovery. Perhaps as long ago as St. Brendan the Navigator.
Sean
Sean,
After googling, I am sure that Harald Blacktooth is fictional.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
You beat me to googling "Harald Blacktooth." Fictional, not a real person.
Sean
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