Three brothers & a sister

This statue of Leif Erikson, titled "Discoverer of America," was dedicated on October 9, 1946, the day which has become synonymous with remembering the Viking explorer. In the background is the Minnesota capitol building in Saint Paul. This Leif Erikson statue and another in Duluth were sculpted by John K. Daniels, a Norwegian immigrant. This statue also appears in the video below a few times.

The tale of two sagas

(Editor's Note: This is "Leif Erikson Day" in the United States and this is the second of three posts offering a glance at Leif Erikson's voyage from Greenland to North America in approximately 997 and at the 1926/27 duplication of that journey by four men and a dog in a hand-built replica of a Norse longship aptly named the Leif Erikson. A few details about Leif's life are part of this post, as well as saga accounts of other Viking trans-Atlantic crossings, including those by two of his brothers and one by a sister. The next "episode" will appear in a day or two or three and will focus on the 1926/27 adventure ....)

There have been countless books written about Viking explorations and discoveries and about one of the more notable members of the tribe -- Leif Erikson -- who other than having led the first known expedition of Norsemen to actually have set foot in the Americas was a somewhat unremarkable individual -- at least when measured by what data history records of his life.

The date of Leif's birth is uncertain, although I found one record which stated he lived from 970 Anno Domini (A.D.) to 1020. He is thought to have grown up in Greenland. According to the 13th-century Icelandic Eiriks saga (or "Saga of Erik the Red"), Leif sailed from Greenland to Norway sometime prior to 1000. On the way, he was believed to have stopped in the Hebrides, where he had a son, Thorgils, with Thorgunna, daughter of a local chief. In Norway, King Olaf I Tryggvason converted Leif to Christianity, and a year later sent him back to Greenland with a commission to spread faith among the settlers there.

According to the Eiriks saga, Leif sailed off course on his return to Greenland and landed on the North American continent. He called the region where he landed Vinland after the wild grapes that grew in abundance there and the general fertility of the land.

Another Icelandic saga, the Grænlendinga saga (or "Saga of the Greenlanders"), which scholars consider more reliable than the Eiriks saga, holds that Leif heard about the previously unknown/unnamed lands to the west from the Icelandic trader Bjarni Herjulfsson, who had sighted the North American continent from his ship about a decade before Leif's voyage, but not set foot on land.

In addition to uncertainty about the context of Leif's arrival in North America, the exact location of his landing is in doubt. The Grænlendinga saga claims he made three landfalls at Helluland (possibly Labrador), Markland (possibly Newfoundland) and Vinland. The location of Vinland was disputed until excavations at L'Anse aux Meadows, on the northernmost tip of Newfoundland in the early 1960s, turned up evidence of what is believed to be the camp of the 11th-century Vikings -- the Leifsbuðir of Leif Erikson.

It is probable that this was Leif the Lucky's one and only journey to Vinland. He returned to Greenland. Though his father proved unreceptive to the Christian faith, Leif was able to convert his mother, Thjodhild, who had Greenland's first Christian church built at Brattahild. When Erik the Red died, Leif took over as chief of the Greenland settlement. His son Thorgils was sent by his mother (whom Leif never married) to live in Greenland, but apparently was unpopular. Another (presumably legitimate) son, Thorkel Leifsson, became chief by 1025, after his father's death. Nothing further is known about Leif's descendants.

As for the Vikings in North America, Leif's brothers, Thorvald and Thorstein, as well as his sister, Freydis, set out on expeditions of their own. Thorvald and Freydis actually lived in houses that had been constructed by Leif and his crew. The Grænlendinga saga also tells of an expedition led by Thorfinn Karlsefni, in which Thorvald and Freydis appear as participants, not leaders of their own expeditions.

Here is some data to help confuse you. In chronological order as written in the Grænlendinga saga:

It is Bjarni Herjolfsson who first sights North America when he is blown off course sometime around 985 or 986;

It is Leif who buys Bjarni's ship sometime around 997 and with it "discovers" Helluland, Markland and Vinland; who builds houses and stays for a year; who rescues the crew of another ship on his way home;

It is Leif's brother, Thorvald, who leads another expedition which stays in Leif's houses and remains for two years. Thorvald is killed during an encounter with Native Americans;

It is Leif's brother, Thorstein, who leads an unsuccessful expedition;

It is Thorfinn Karlsefini, who leads an expedition which includes women and livestock with the intent of establishing a permanent settlement. He trades and fights with the Native Americans. Snorri Thorfinnsson, the son of Thorfinn and his wife Gudrid, was born, probably between 1004 and 1013. The expedition lasts two years.

It is Leif's sister, Freydis, who leads the next recorded expedition which includes women and livestock with the intent of establishing a permanent settlement. Internal quarrels and manslaughter end the expedition after a year. There is evidence Freydis herself killed two Icelandic brothers, with whom she had a bitter dispute, and, in the least, instigated the deaths.

There are variations of some of these items and omissions of some of this in Eiriks saga.

So, for now .... fare thee well, baby ....