When Leif Eriksson was 23 years old, he sailed from Greenland to Norway on a boat he had bought from Bjarne Herjofsson.
As Leif's father, Erik the Red, had been exiled from Norway and Iceland, he was unable to go himself, and sent his son instead. Leif was supposed to set up a business relationship with the Norwegians, so that Norwegian trading ships would bring wood and grain to Greenland. In Greenland there was no wood for building ships and houses.
‘The Longhair gene is romantically thought to have entered America via six Angora cats owned by Marie Antoinette on board a ship that was supposed to take her to safety as the revolution threatened in France. She missed the boat and lost her head, but many of her personal effects, including her cats, made it safely. The Angoras are thought to have interbred with other cats there, spread the Longhair mutation around a little and ultimately given rise to the beautiful dense-coated Maine Coon variety. More likely, perhaps, given that the Maine Coon is a double-coated variety, is that the double-coated longhairs had already arrived 500 years earlier via Scandinavian traders.'
from Claws and Purrs, Peter Neville©, television pet therapist; Sidgwick & Jackson Ltd, London, 1992
ISBN 0283 06123 5On a beautiful summer evening, Leif steered his drakkar up the fjord to Kaupangen in Trondelag (in the mid-west of Norway). He was on his way to visit the king of Norway, who lived there. At that time the town was only two years old - today it is known as Trondheim. The next day, Leif went to see King Olaf Trygvasson, and he wound up spending the autumn and winter there.
One spring day, the king and Leif were out training a falcon that had been a gift of friendship from Erik the Red to the king. Suddenly Leif noticed something. 'Good heavens! What's that climbing around in those trees?' he asked. 'Forest Cats,' answered the king. Leif said they couldn't possibly be cats, the way they spiralled up and down the tree trunks.
King Olaf replied that these cats were often seen in the Norwegian woods, and that the reason they were able to climb so nimbly was that they had an extra claw. Some people claimed they were a cross between the squirrel and the lynx.
'You have to catch me some, so I can take them back to Greenland with me,' said Leif. The other Vikings laughed at him, and asked, 'Why do you want to take Forest Cats back to Greenland, where there aren't any forests?' Leif explained that he wanted them as ship's cats, and the king promised to catch him some, as a sign of friendship. It would, however, take some time to tame them.
Later, when Leif left Norway, he had wood, grain, and cats on board, and the king had given his promise that in the future, Norwegian trading ships would bring goods to Greenland.
It was summer when Leif got back to Greenland, and everybody was pleased with the deal he had made with the Norwegian king. The plan had been for Leif to settle down now on his father's land, as Erik the Red was getting older and couldn't handle all the work himself. But Leif was restless, and one thing in particular kept going around in his head. Bjarne Herjofsson had once told him about a land in the west, that he had seen but hadn't had time to visit. It was already late in the autumn, and Bjarne had to sail back to Greenland before the fjord froze over.
After Leif had been home for two years, he decided to take off and find that land Bjarne had described. One day in the spring of 1002 he left Greenland, taking along Ketil Svarte, an experienced pilot who had accompanied him to Norway. On board were more Vikings, slaves, grain, mead, and, naturally, cats, that were supposed to keep the ship free of rodent pests. Leif's godfather Tyrker decided to join them as well.
Toward the end of summer, Leif finally saw land. They had been sailing for 3 or 4 months to reach this coast. They rowed the ship up a river, where it would be safe from storms. The land was rich in vines, bushes, and fruit trees, and for this reason was called 'Vinland'.
They stayed there all winter, as there was plenty of game and enough berries to make wine. In the spring, they loaded their ship with wood and wine, and sailed back to Greenland.
And now to my theory, that the Maine Coon cat is descended from the Norwegian forest cats that Leif had on board his ship when he discovered 'Vinland/America'. Various facts speak in favor of my hypothesis:
King Olaf gave Leif some Forest Cats, that he used as ship cats and took with him to America.
Leif and his Vikings landed near Boston, which is just the area from which the Maine Coon originates. When the Maine Coon was recognized as a race in 1953, the first representatives came from the Boston area.
The Vikings spent a whole winter in this area. Surely the cats didn't spend all that time on board the ship, but, like the Vikings themselves, made exploratory excursions on shore. And everybody who knows cats knows how fast they reproduce! Most probably, some of Leif's cats ran away and stayed in America when the Vikings went back to Greenland. These remaining cats then reproduced and became the basis for the breed known today as the Maine Coon.
For this theory I have the support of scientists in Iceland and Greenland, who have made excavations in the area around Boston, to study Viking history. In Boston they found Viking graves containing the skeletons of cats - which leads us to think that the Vikings who discovered America held their cats in high regard.
Today in southern Greenland one still finds Norwegian Forest Cats, surely descended from those cats Leif Eriksson brought back from Norway.
So we see that the Norwegian Forest Cat has been well-known for even longer than we can imagine, all the way back to Viking times.
[The German version of this article, translated from Norwegian by Margarete Leleithner, appeared originally in the 1/1989 issue of Waldkatzen Magazin, the newsletter of the Interessengemeinschaft der Norwegischen Waldkatze im 1.DEKZV in Germany. It was passed to me several years ago by the late Austrian NFO breeder, Mr. Erich Brunner. I wish I could tell you the original source of the story! The mention of the extra claw is interesting. Of course, polydactylism is considered a fault today in all feline breeds. - Paula]
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