There
is
very good evidence that the Vikings
journeyed to America about
491 years before Columbus. It is not quite so clear who was the
leader of
the first Viking expedition to land in North America. The main evidence
for this is from the Icelandic
Sagas, and they are not completely consistent about the question
of
whether Leif Erikson was the first, or whether other
Vikings had
landed there before him.
This is an account of the life of Leif
Eriksson based mainly on one of these
sagas.
Leif Eriksson
was born in Iceland
in about 960 ad. He was the son of Eric the Red, but does not appear to
have
had his father's bad habit of killing people which had earned him
the
name "The Red".
It is interesting that Erik's father had also been
banished for
killing a man
After
Eric the Red was banished from Iceland for
three years (He could not go to Norway because
he had already been
banished from there) Erik set sail, together with
his son Leif, and
discovered Greenland.
After the three years were up, Erik visited Iceland and told people how good Greenland
was. Iceland was going through a bad time and
many people went to Greenland.
Leif
became known for his
prowess involving sailing and things to do with
the sea. He watched the ship of Bjarni
Hergelfson limping into port
after being lost for over a year. Bjarni told Leif and the others how
they
had got lost, and had sighted several unknown lands before finding
their
way to Greenland.
In Greenland Leif decided to
explore and try to find the
lands Bjarni Hergelfson had seen.
He bought
Bjarni's boat and sailed 600 miles before he found a land
with rock and
glaciers. This
was probably Baffin Island.
Leif was not impressed and
set out again.
The next place
leif landed on was probably the Eastern Coast of Canada.
After that Leif sailed on again and found a very fertile
land. This land even had
grapes growing in it.
The
Vikings built houses, loaded their boat
and decided to overwinter in
this place.
The winter was much warmer than they were used to and the
days did
not get very short like they did in the Greenland winter.
Leif
named
this land 'Vinland' which is often translated as 'wine land'
although
there is uncertainty about this.
This has been identified as
being probably L'Anse aux Meadows in
Newfoundland. Evidence has been
found there of a Viking
settlement.
Some of the sagas
suggest
that the
Vikings
explored as far south as Florida although no concrete evidence has been found of this.
Curiously the Vikings
did not
keep up their settlements in America
and apparently only continued
going there for about three years.
Despite their
reputation, the
Vikings
were on mostly good terms with the native inhabitants of America, although some things suggest that
at least one Viking
settlement was attacked.
This may have been due to incompatibility of
food.
The Vikings were a major trading people and
apparently
traded their food with the people of the land. This included milk. (The
Vikings took cows with them.) People who have not had milk since
they
were babies lose the ability to digest it and the people would
have got
upset stomachs.
They may have believed the
Vikings had tried to poison
them.
One
of
the problems of growing old is that I remember things but do not
remember
how I know them. So, for
example, although I have known for
many years that Leif Erikson discovered America
about a thousand years
ago, and that he was the son of Erik The Red, the discoverer of
Greenland, I
have no idea when I was first told these things.
More
recently,
my daughter's partner, Erik Andersson, told me that Erik The
Red got the name "The Red"
from the amount of blood he spilt, and the
name had nothing to do
with the color of his hair.
Note
that Eric
the Red is often spelt with a "c".
I have used this letter in Leif's
name in the title because this is
what most people would look for, but
the normal Scandinavian spelling
is "Erik"
with a "k" so I have used this in most of the
article.
The
reason
I became interested in this subject was that I read an article
denying
the possibility of a methane runaway greenhouse effect, as
described
in The Methane Gun
because a thousand years ago Greenland was warm enough to
grow grapes.
I
thought that this incorrect, and rather it was explorers who set out
from
Greenland who found the grapes, but further south.
Steve
Challis
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