Vinland was the name given to an area of North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 by the Norsemen

Norsemen

Norsemen is used to refer to the group of people as a whole who spoke what is now called the Old Norse language belonging to the North Germanic branch of Indo-European languages, especially Norwegian, Icelandic, Faroese, Swedish and Danish in their earlier forms.The meaning of Norseman was "people...

, about the year 1000 CE.

There is a consensus among scholars that the Viking

Viking

The term Viking is customarily used to refer to the Norse explorers, warriors, merchants, and pirates who raided, traded, explored and settled in wide areas of Europe, Asia and the North Atlantic islands from the late 8th to the mid-11th century.These Norsemen used their famed longships to...

s reached North America approximately five centuries prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

. In 1960 archaeological

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 evidence of the only known Norse settlement

Norse colonization of the Americas

The Norse colonization of the Americas began as early as the 10th century, when Norse sailors explored and settled areas of the North Atlantic, including the northeastern fringes of North America....

 in North America (outside of Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

) was found at L'Anse aux Meadows

L'Anse aux Meadows

L'Anse aux Meadows is an archaeological site on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Discovered in 1960, it is the only known site of a Norse or Viking village in Canada, and in North America outside of Greenland...

 on the northern tip of the island of Newfoundland, in what is now the Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 province

Province

A province is a territorial unit, almost always an administrative division, within a country or state.-Etymology:The English word "province" is attested since about 1330 and derives from the 13th-century Old French "province," which itself comes from the Latin word "provincia," which referred to...

 of Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...

. This proved conclusively the Vikings' pre-Columbian

Pre-Columbian

The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences on the American continents, spanning the time of the original settlement in the Upper Paleolithic period to European colonization during...

 discovery of North America. Recent archaeological studies suggest that this site is not the Vinland of the Norse accounts in its entirety but was the entrance to a larger region called Vinland by the Norse.

Etymology

The name Vinland has been interpreted in two ways: traditionally as Vínland ("wine-land") and more recently as Vinland (meadow- or pasture-land).

Wine-land

The earliest etymology of "Vinland" is found in Adam of Bremen

Adam of Bremen

Adam of Bremen was a German medieval chronicler. He lived and worked in the second half of the eleventh century. He is most famous for his chronicle Gesta Hammaburgensis Ecclesiae Pontificum .-Background:Little is known of his life other than hints from his own chronicles...

's 11th Century Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 Descriptio insularum Aquilonis ("Description of the Northern Islands"): "Moreover, he has also reported one island discovered by many in that ocean, which is called Winland, for the reason that grapevines grow there by themselves, producing the best wine." (Praeterea unam adhuc insulam recitavit a multis in eo repertam occeano, quae dicitur Winland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum optimum ferentes). The implication is that the first element is Old Norse

Old Norse

Old Norse is a North Germanic language that was spoken by inhabitants of Scandinavia and inhabitants of their overseas settlements during the Viking Age, until about 1300....

 vín (Latin vinum), "wine".

This explanation is essentially repeated in the 13th Century Grœnlendinga saga

Grœnlendinga saga

The Grœnlendinga saga is an Icelandic saga. Along with Eiríks saga rauða it is one of the two main literary sources of information for the Norse exploration of North America. It relates the colonization of Greenland by Erik the Red and his followers...

, which provides a circumstantial account of the discovery of Vinland and its being named from the grapes (vínber) found there. New findings from L'Anse Aux Meadows show that these vinber were in fact seen by the Norse.

Pasture-land

Another interpretation of the name Vinland, quite popular in the late 20th century, is that the first element is not vín (with a slightly lengthened vowel sound) but vin (with a short sound), an Old Norse word with the meaning 'meadow, pasture'. (Proto-Norse winju.) Vin is a common name on old farms from Norse times in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

, and present-day use of the word are Bjørgvin, the Norse (and Icelandic

Icelandic language

Icelandic is a North Germanic language, the main language of Iceland. Its closest relative is Faroese.Icelandic is an Indo-European language belonging to the North Germanic or Nordic branch of the Germanic languages. Historically, it was the westernmost of the Indo-European languages prior to the...

) name of Bergen, Norway, and Granvin

Granvin

Granvin is a municipality in the county of Hordaland, Norway. The population is 964. About half of these, 444 people, live in the village of Granvin, situated at the end of a side arm of the Hardangerfjord.-Name:...

, where -vin translates as 'pasture' in both. A poetic Norse name of the Danish

Denmark

Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...

 island of Sjælland (Zealand) was Viney 'pasture island'. A cognate name also existed in Old English (Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon

Anglo-Saxon may refer to:* Anglo-Saxons, a group that invaded Britain** Old English, their language** Anglo-Saxon England, their history, one of various ships* White Anglo-Saxon Protestant, an ethnicity* Anglo-Saxon economy, modern macroeconomic term...

), in the name of the village Woolland

Woolland

Woolland is a village in north Dorset, England, situated in the Blackmore Vale under Bulbarrow Hill seven miles west of Blandford Forum. The village has a population of 76 . The village is first mentioned in Cartularium saxonicum from the year 939 Wonlond, the Domesday Book from the year 1086...

 in Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

: this was written "Winlande" in the 1086 Domesday Book

Domesday Book

Domesday Book , now held at The National Archives, Kew, Richmond upon Thames in South West London, is the record of the great survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086...

, and it is interpreted as 'meadow land' or 'pasture land'. However, linguistics

Linguistics

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....

 scholars demonstrated that, even as a suffix

Suffix

In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...

, this peculiar usage of vin had ceased long before the colonization of Iceland and Greenland.

The sagas

The main sources of information about the Norse voyages to Vinland are two Icelandic saga

Saga

Sagas, are stories in Old Norse about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, etc.Saga may also refer to:Business*Saga DAB radio, a British radio station*Saga Airlines, a Turkish airline*Saga Falabella, a department store chain in Peru...

s, the Saga of Eric the Red

Saga of Eric the Red

Eiríks saga rauða or the Saga of Erik the Red is a saga on the Norse exploration of North-America.The saga chronicles the events that led to Erik the Red's banishment to Greenland as well as Leif Ericson's discovery of Vinland the Good after his longship was blown off course...

and the Saga of the Greenlanders. These stories were preserved by oral tradition until they were written down some 250 years after the events they describe. The existence of two versions of the story shows some of the challenges of using traditional sources for history, because they share a large number of story elements but use them in different ways. For example, both sagas feature a mariner called Bjarni, who is driven off course on a voyage to Greenland and whose authority is subsequently called into question; in "Greenlanders" he is Bjarni Herjolfsson, who discovers the American mainland as a result of his mishap, but in "Eric" he is Bjarni Grimolfsson, who is driven into an area infested with shipworm

Shipworm

Shipworms are not worms at all, but rather a group of unusual saltwater clams with very small shells, notorious for boring into wooden structures that are immersed in sea water, such as piers, docks and wooden ships...

s on the way home from Vinland, with the result that his ship sinks. A brief summary of the plots of the two sagas, given at the end of this article, shows many more examples.

Medieval geographers

The oldest surviving written record of Vinland appears in Descriptio insularum Aquilonis, by Adam of Bremen, a German (Saxon

Duchy of Saxony

The medieval Duchy of Saxony was a late Early Middle Ages "Carolingian stem duchy" covering the greater part of Northern Germany. It covered the area of the modern German states of Bremen, Hamburg, Lower Saxony, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony-Anhalt and most of Schleswig-Holstein...

) geographer and historian, written in about 1075. To write it he visited the Danish king Svend Estridson, who had knowledge of the northern lands and told him of the "islands" discovered by Norse sailors far out in the Atlantic, of which Vinland was the most remote. Adam became confused between Helluland

Helluland

Helluland is the name given to one of the three lands discovered by Leif Eriksson around 1000 AD on the North Atlantic coast of North America....

 and Halagland

Hålogaland

Hålogaland was the northernmost of the Norwegian provinces in the mediaeval Norse sagas. In the early Viking Age, before Harald Fairhair, Hålogaland was a petty kingdom extending between Namdalen in Nord-Trøndelag and Lyngen in Troms.-Etymology:...

, the northernmost part of medieval Norway, where the "midnight sun

Midnight sun

The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon occurring in summer months at latitudes north and nearby to the south of the Arctic Circle, and south and nearby to the north of the Antarctic Circle where the sun remains visible at the local midnight. Given fair weather, the sun is visible for a continuous...

" is visible. He also spelled Vinland in Latin the same as Wendland

Wends

Wends is a historic name for West Slavs living near Germanic settlement areas. It does not refer to a homogeneous people, but to various peoples, tribes or groups depending on where and when it is used...

, the German province which adjoins Denmark.

In the early 14th century, a geography encyclopedia called Geographica Universalis was compiled at Malmesbury Abbey

Malmesbury Abbey

Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, was founded as a Benedictine monastery around 676 by the scholar-poet Aldhelm, a nephew of King Ine of Wessex. In 941 AD, King Athelstan was buried in the Abbey. By the 11th century it contained the second largest library in Europe and was...

 in England, which was in turn used as a source for one of the most widely-circulated medieval English educational works, Polychronicon by Ralph Higden, a few years later. Both these works, with Adam of Bremen as a possible source, were confused about the location of what they called Wintland—the Malmesbury monk had it on the ocean east of Norway, while Higden put it west of Denmark but failed to explain the distance. Copies of Polychronicon commonly included a world map on which Wintland was marked in the Atlantic Ocean near Iceland, but again much closer to the Scandinavian mainland than in reality. The name was explained in both texts as referring to the savage inhabitants' ability to tie the wind up in knotted cords, which they sold to sailors who could then undo a knot whenever they needed a good wind. Neither mentioned grapes, and the Malmesbury work specifically states that little grows there but grass and trees, which reflects the saga descriptions of the area round the main Norse expedition base.
More geographically correct were Icelandic texts from about the same time, which presented a clear picture of the northern countries as experienced by Norse explorers: north of Iceland a vast, barren plain (which we now know to be the Polar ice-cap) extended from Biarmeland

Bjarmaland

Bjarmaland was a territory mentioned in Norse sagas up to the Viking Age and - beyond - in geographical accounts until the 16th century. The term is usually seen to have referred to the southern shores of the White Sea and the basin of the Northern Dvina River and - presumably - some of the...

 (northern Russia

Russia

Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...

) east of the White Sea

White Sea

The White Sea is a southern inlet of the Barents Sea located on the northwest coast of Russia. It is surrounded by Karelia to the west, the Kola Peninsula to the north, and the Kanin Peninsula to the northeast. The whole of the White Sea is under Russian sovereignty and considered to be part of...

, to Greenland, then further west and south were, in succession, Helluland, Markland and Vinland. The Icelanders had no knowledge of how far south Vinland extended, and they speculated that it might reach as far as Africa.

The "Historia Norwegiae" (History of Norway) compiled around 1200 does not refer directly to Vinland and tries to reconcile information from Greenland with mainland European sources; in this text Greenland's territory extends so that it is "almost touching the African islands, where the waters of ocean flood in".

Leif Eriksson's ship

The ship used by Leif Eriksson was a knarr

Knarr

The Knarr is a Bermuda rigged, long keeled, sailing yacht designed in 1943 by Norwegian Erling L. Kristofersen. Knarrer were traditionally built in wood, with the hull upside down on a fixed frame, then attaching the iron keel after the hull was completed. The hull planks were manufactured with...

, a clinker

Clinker (boat building)

Clinker building is a method of constructing hulls of boats and ships by fixing wooden planks and, in the early nineteenth century, iron plates to each other so that the planks overlap along their edges. The overlapping joint is called a land. In any but a very small boat, the individual planks...

 built ship. Leif bought the knarr from Bjarni Herjolfsson

Bjarni Herjólfsson

Bjarni Herjólfsson was a Norwegian explorer who is the first known European discoverer of the mainland of the Americas, which he sighted in 985 or 986.-Life:...

, who had seen Markland from it earlier.

Later Norse voyages

Icelandic chronicles record another attempt to visit Vinland from Greenland, over a century after the saga voyages. In 1121, Icelandic bishop Eric Gnupsson, who had been based on Greenland since 1112, "went to seek Vinland". Nothing more is reported of him, and three years later another bishop, Arnald, was sent to Greenland. No written records, other than inscribed stones, have survived in Greenland, so the next reference to a voyage also comes from Icelandic chronicles. In 1347, a ship arrived in Iceland, after being blown off course on its way home from Markland to Greenland with a load of timber. The implication is that the Greenlanders had continued to use Markland as a source of timber over several centuries.

Modern geographers and the location of Vinland

Sixteenth century Icelanders realised that the "New World" which European geographers were calling "America" was the land described in their Vinland Sagas. The Skálholt Map, drawn in 1570 or 1590 but surviving only through later copies, shows Promontorium Winlandiae ("promontory/cape/foreland of Vinland") as a narrow cape with its northern tip at the same latitude as southern Ireland. (The scales of degrees in the map margins are inaccurate.) This effective identification of northern Newfoundland with the northern tip of Vinland was taken up by later Scandinavian scholars such as bishop Hans Resen.

Although it is generally agreed, based on the saga descriptions, that Helluland includes Baffin Island

Baffin Island

Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut is the largest island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest island in the world. Its area is and its population is about 11,000...

, and Markland represents at least the southern part of the modern Labrador, there has been considerable controversy over the location of the actual Norse landings and settlement. Comparison of the sagas, as summarised below, shows that they give similar descriptions and names to different places. One of the few reasonably consistent pieces of information is that exploration voyages from the main base sailed down both the east and west coasts of the land; this was one of the factors which helped archaeologists locate the site at L'Anse Aux Meadows

L'Anse aux Meadows

L'Anse aux Meadows is an archaeological site on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Discovered in 1960, it is the only known site of a Norse or Viking village in Canada, and in North America outside of Greenland...

, at the tip of Newfoundland's long northern peninsula.

Other clues appear to place the main settlement farther south, such as the mention of a mild winter and the reports in both sagas of grapes being found nearby. A very specific indication in the Greenlanders' Saga of the latitude of the base has also been subject to misinterpretation. This passage states that in the shortest days of midwinter, the sun was still above the horizon at "dagmal" and "eykt", two specific times in the Norse day. Carl Christian Rafn

Carl Christian Rafn

Carl Christian Rafn was a Danish historian, translator and antiquarian. His scholarship to a large extent focused on translation of Old Norse literature and related Northern European ancient history...

, in the first detailed study of the Norse exploration of the New World, "Antiquitates Americanae" (1837), interpreted these times as equivalent to 7.30am and 4.30pm, which would put the base a long way south of Newfoundland. However, an Icelandic law text gives a very specific explanation of "eykt", with reference to Norse navigation techniques. The eight major divisions of the compass were subdivided into three hours each, to make a total of 24, and "eykt" was the end of the second hour of the south-west division, which in modern terms would be 3.30pm. "Dagmal", the "day-meal" which is specifically distinguished from the earlier "rismal" (breakfast), would thus be about 8.30am. The sun is indeed just above the horizon at these times on the shortest days of the year in northern Newfoundland - but not much farther north.

Clues at L'Anse Aux Meadows

Newfoundland marine insurance agent and historian William A. Munn (1864–1939), after studying literary sources in Europe, suggested in his 1914 book "Wineland Voyages: Location of Helluland, Markland & Vinland" that the Vinland explorers "went ashore at Lancey [sic] Meadows, as it is called today". In 1960 a Viking settlement was discovered by Helge

Helge Ingstad

Helge Marcus Ingstad was a Norwegian explorer. After mapping some Norse settlements, Ingstad and his wife Anne Stine, an archaeologist, in 1960 found remnants of a Viking settlement in L'Anse aux Meadows in the Province of Newfoundland in Canada...

 and Anne Stine Ingstad

Anne Stine Ingstad

Dr. Anne Stine Ingstad was a Norwegian archaeologist who, along with her husband Dr. Helge Ingstad, discovered the remains of a Viking settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador in 1960.-Biography:Anne Stine Moe was born and raised in Lillehammer, in...

 at that exact spot, L'Anse aux Meadows

L'Anse aux Meadows

L'Anse aux Meadows is an archaeological site on the northernmost tip of the island of Newfoundland in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Discovered in 1960, it is the only known site of a Norse or Viking village in Canada, and in North America outside of Greenland...

 in northern Newfoundland, and excavated during the 1960s and 1970s. It is most likely this was the main settlement of the sagas, a "gateway" for the Norse Greenlanders to the rich lands farther south. Many wooden objects were found at L'Anse Aux Meadows, and radiocarbon dating confirms the site's occupation as being confined to a short period around 1000 CE. In addition, a number of small pieces of jasper

Jasper

Jasper, a form of chalcedony, is an opaque, impure variety of silica, usually red, yellow, brown or green in color; and rarely blue. This mineral breaks with a smooth surface, and is used for ornamentation or as a gemstone. It can be highly polished and is used for vases, seals, and at one time for...

, known to have been used in the Norse world as fire-strikers, were found in and around the different buildings. When these were analyzed and compared with samples from jasper sources around the north Atlantic area, it was found that two buildings contained only Icelandic jasper pieces, while another contained some from Greenland; also a single piece from the east coast of Newfoundland was found. These finds appear to confirm the saga claim that some of the Vinland exploration ships came from Iceland and that they ventured down the east coast of the new land.

Based on such interpretations and archaeological evidence, it is now generally accepted that L'Anse Aux Meadows was the main base of the Norse explorers, but the southernmost limit of the Norse exploration remains a subject of intense speculation. Samuel Eliot Morison

Samuel Eliot Morison

Samuel Eliot Morison, Rear Admiral, United States Naval Reserve was an American historian noted for his works of maritime history that were both authoritative and highly readable. He received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1912, and taught history at the university for 40 years...

 (1971) suggested the southern part of Newfoundland; Erik Wahlgren (1986) Miramichi Bay

Miramichi Bay

Miramichi Bay is an estuary located on the west coast of the Gulf of St. Lawrence in New Brunswick, at the mouth of the Miramichi River. Miramichi Bay is separated into the "inner bay" and the "outer bay", with the division being a line of uninhabited barrier islands which are continually reshaped...

 in New Brunswick

New Brunswick

New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...

; and Icelandic climate specialist Pall Bergthorsson (1997) proposed New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. The insistence in all the main historical sources that grapes were found in Vinland suggests that the explorers ventured at least to the south side of the St. Lawrence River, as Jacques Cartier

Jacques Cartier

Jacques Cartier was a French explorer of Breton origin who claimed what is now Canada for France. He was the first European to describe and map the Gulf of Saint Lawrence and the shores of the Saint Lawrence River, which he named "The Country of Canadas", after the Iroquois names for the two big...

 did 500 years later, finding both wild vines and nut trees. Three butternuts were a further important find at L'Anse Aux Meadows: another species which grows only as far north as the St. Lawrence. These travels explain as well how the vinviðir (wine wood) the Norse were cutting down in the sagas is actually referring to the vines of Vitis riparia

Vitis riparia

Vitis riparia Michx, also commonly known as River Bank Grape or Frost Grape, is a native American climbing or trailing vine, widely distributed from Quebec to Texas, and Montana to New England. It is long-lived and capable of reaching into the upper canopy of the tallest trees...

a species of wild grape that grows on trees. As the Norse were searching for lumber

Lumber

Lumber or timber is wood in any of its stages from felling through readiness for use as structural material for construction, or wood pulp for paper production....

, a material that was needed in Greenland, they found trees covered with vitis riparia south of L'Anse aux Meadows and called them vinviðir.

Other Norse finds in America

Numerous artifact

Artifact (archaeology)

An artifact or artefact is "something made or given shape by man, such as a tool or a work of art, esp an object of archaeological interest"...

s attributable to the Norse Greenlanders have been found in Canada, particularly on Baffin Island

Baffin Island

Baffin Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut is the largest island in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, the largest island in Canada and the fifth largest island in the world. Its area is and its population is about 11,000...

 and in northern Labrador

Labrador

Labrador is the distinct, northerly region of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. It comprises the mainland portion of the province, separated from the island of Newfoundland by the Strait of Belle Isle...

. A late-11th century Norwegian penny

Maine Penny

The Maine penny, also referred to as the Goddard coin, is a Norwegian silver penny dating to the reign of Olaf Kyrre . The Maine State Museum describes it as "the only pre-Columbian Norse artifact generally regarded as genuine found within the United States"...

, with a hole for stringing on a necklace, has also been found in Maine

Maine

Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

. Although there is no dispute about the authenticity of this small penny, its discovery by an amateur archaeologist in 1957 has become controversial; questions have been raised whether it was planted as a hoax. Other possibly Norse artifacts in the area south of the St. Lawrence include a growing number of stones inscribed with runic letters, such as the Kensington Runestone

Kensington Runestone

The Kensington Runestone is a 200-pound slab of greywacke covered in runes on its face and side which, if genuine, would suggest that Scandinavian explorers reached the middle of North America in the 14th century. It was found in 1898 in the largely rural township of Solem, Douglas County,...

. The age and origin of these stones is debated, and so far none has been firmly dated or associated with clear evidence of a medieval Norse presence.

Saga of the Greenlanders

In Grænlendinga saga

Grœnlendinga saga

The Grœnlendinga saga is an Icelandic saga. Along with Eiríks saga rauða it is one of the two main literary sources of information for the Norse exploration of North America. It relates the colonization of Greenland by Erik the Red and his followers...

 or the Saga of the Greenlanders, Bjarni Herjólfsson

Bjarni Herjólfsson

Bjarni Herjólfsson was a Norwegian explorer who is the first known European discoverer of the mainland of the Americas, which he sighted in 985 or 986.-Life:...

 accidentally discovers the new land when travelling from Norway to visit his father in the second year of Eric the Red's Greenland colony (about 986 CE). When he does manage to reach Greenland, making land at Herjolfsness, site of his father's farm, he remains there for the rest of his father's life and does not return to Norway until about 1000 CE. There, he tells his overlord (the Earl, also named Eric) about the new land and is criticised for his long delay in reporting. On his return to Greenland he tells the story and inspires Leif Ericsson to organise an expedition, which retraces in reverse the route Bjarni had followed, past a land of flat stones (Helluland

Helluland

Helluland is the name given to one of the three lands discovered by Leif Eriksson around 1000 AD on the North Atlantic coast of North America....

) and a land of forests (Markland

Markland

Markland is the name given to a part of shoreline in Labrador, Canada, named by Leif Eriksson when he landed in North America. The word Markland is from the Old Norse language for "forestland" or "borderland". It is described as being north of Vinland and south of Helluland...

). After sailing another two days across open sea, the expedition finds a headland with an island just offshore; nearby is a pool accessible to ships at high tide in an area where the sea is shallow with sandbanks. Here the explorers land and establish a base which can plausibly be matched to L'Anse Aux Meadows, except that the winter is described as mild, not freezing. One day an old family servant, Tyrkir, goes missing and is found mumbling to himself; he eventually explains that he has found grapes. In spring, Leif returns to Greenland with a shipload of timber towing a boatload of grapes. On the way home, he spots another ship aground on rocks, rescues the crew and later salvages the cargo. A second expedition, one ship of about 40 men, led by Leif's brother Thorvald, sets out in the autumn after Leif's return and stays over three winters at the new base (Leifsbúðir (-budir), meaning Leif's temporary shelters), exploring the west coast of the new land in the first summer, and the east coast in the second, running aground and losing the ship's keel

Keel

In boats and ships, keel can refer to either of two parts: a structural element, or a hydrodynamic element. These parts overlap. As the laying down of the keel is the initial step in construction of a ship, in British and American shipbuilding traditions the construction is dated from this event...

 on a headland they christen Keel Point (Kjalarnes). Further south, at a point where Thorvald would like to establish a settlement, the Greenlanders encounter some of the local inhabitants (Skrælings) and kill them, following which they are attacked by a large force in hide boats, and Thorvald dies from an arrow-wound. After the exploration party returns to base, the Greenlanders decide to return home the following spring.

Thorstein, Leif's brother, marries Gudrid, widow of the captain rescued by Leif, then leads a third expedition to bring home Thorvald's body, but is driven off course and spends the whole summer wandering the Atlantic. Spending the winter as a guest at a farm on Greenland with Gudrid, Thorstein dies of sickness, reviving just long enough to make a prophecy about her future as a Christian. The next winter, Gudrid marries a visiting Icelander named Thorfinn Karlsefni, who agrees to undertake a major expedition to Vinland, taking livestock. On arrival, they soon find a beached whale which sustains them until spring. In the summer, they are visited by some of the local inhabitants who are scared by the Greenlanders' bull but happy to trade goods for milk and other products. In autumn, Gudrid gives birth to a son, Snorri. Shortly after this, one of the local people tries to take a weapon and is killed; the explorers are then attacked in force, but manage to survive with only minor casualties by retreating to a well-chosen defensive position a short distance from their base. One of the local people picks up an iron axe, tries it, and throws it away. The explorers return to Greenland in summer with a cargo of grapes and hides. Shortly afterwards, a ship captained by two Icelanders arrives in Greenland, and Freydis

Freydís Eiríksdóttir

Freydís Eiríksdóttir was a daughter of Erik the Red who was associated with the Norse exploration of North America. The only medieval sources which mention Freydís are the two Vinland sagas, believed to be composed in the 13th century but purporting to describe events around 1000...

, daughter of Eric the Red, persuades them to join her in an expedition to Vinland. They sail that autumn, but disagreements during the winter lead to the killing, at Freydis' order, of all the Icelanders, including five women, as they lie sleeping. In spring the Greenlanders return home with a good cargo, but Leif finds the truth about the Icelanders. That is the last Vinland expedition recorded in the saga.

Saga of Erik the Red

In the other version of the story, Eiríks saga rauða or the Saga of Erik the Red, Leif Ericsson accidentally discovers the new land when travelling from Norway back to Greenland after a visit to his overlord, King Olaf Tryggvason, who commissions him to spread Christianity in the colony. Returning to Greenland with samples of grapes, wheat and timber, he rescues the survivors from a wrecked ship and gains a reputation for good luck; his religious mission is a swift success. The next spring, Thorstein, Leif's brother, leads an expedition to the new land but is driven off course and spends the whole summer wandering the Atlantic. On his return, he meets and marries Gudrid, one of the survivors from a ship which has made land at Herjolfsnes after a difficult voyage from Iceland. Spending the winter as a guest at a farm on Greenland with Gudrid, Thorstein dies of sickness, reviving just long enough to make a prophecy about her future as a far-travelling Christian. The next winter, Gudrid marries a visiting Icelander named Thorfinn Karlsefni, who, with his business partner Snorri Thorbrandsson, agrees to undertake a major expedition to the new land, taking livestock. Also contributing ships for this expedition are another pair of visiting Icelanders, Bjarni Grimolfsson and Thorhall Gamlason, and Leif's brother and sister Thorvald and Freydis, with her husband Thorvard. Sailing past landscapes of flat stones (Helluland

Helluland

Helluland is the name given to one of the three lands discovered by Leif Eriksson around 1000 AD on the North Atlantic coast of North America....

) and forests (Markland

Markland

Markland is the name given to a part of shoreline in Labrador, Canada, named by Leif Eriksson when he landed in North America. The word Markland is from the Old Norse language for "forestland" or "borderland". It is described as being north of Vinland and south of Helluland...

) they round a cape where they see the keel of a boat (Kjalarnes), then continue past some extraordinary long beaches (Furthustrandir

Wonderstrands

Wonderstrands refers to the Furðustrandir, a stretch of coastline mentioned in the Icelandic "Eiríks saga" of Erik the Red.Some believe that it refers to the extended beaches located on the coast of Labrador, province of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada....

) before landing and sending out two runners to explore inland. After three days, the pair return with samples of grapes and wheat. After sailing a little farther, the expedition lands at an inlet next to an area of strong currents (Straumsfjord), with an island just offshore (Straumsey) – a location which can plausibly be matched to L'Anse Aux Meadows – and makes camp. The winter months are harsh, and food is in short supply. One day an old family servant, Thorhall the Hunter (who has not become Christian), goes missing and is found mumbling to himself; shortly afterwards, a beached whale is found which Thorhall claims has been provided in answer to his praise of the pagan gods. The explorers find that eating it makes them ill, so they pray to the Christian God, and shortly afterwards the weather improves.

When spring comes, Thorhall Gamlason, the Icelander, wants to sail north round Kjalarnes to seek Vinland, while Thorfinn Karlsefni prefers to sail southward down the east coast. Thorhall takes only nine men, and his vessel is swept out into the ocean by contrary winds; he and his crew never return. Thorfinn and Snorri, with Freydis (plus possibly Bjarni), sail down the east coast with 40 men or more and establish a camp on the shore of a seaside lake, protected by barrier islands and connected to the open ocean by a river which is navigable by ships only at high tide. The settlement was known as Hop, and the land abounds with grapes and wheat. The teller of this saga is uncertain whether the explorers remain here over the next winter (said to be very mild) or for only a few weeks of summer. One morning they see nine hide boats; the local people (Skraelings) examine the Norse ships and depart in peace. Later a much larger flotilla of boats arrives, and trade commences (Karlsefni forbids the sale of weapons). One day, the local traders are frightened by the sudden arrival of the Greenlanders' bull, and they stay away for three weeks. They then attack in force, but the explorers manage to survive with only minor casualties by retreating inland to a defensive position a short distance from their camp. Pregnancy slows Freydis down, so she picks up the sword of a fallen companion and brandishes it against her bare breast, scaring the attackers into withdrawal. One of the local people picks up an iron axe, tries it, and throws it away. The explorers subsequently abandon the southern camp and sail back to Straumsfjord, killing five natives they encounter on the way, lying asleep in hide sacks.

Karlsefni, accompanied by Thorvald Eriksson and others, sails around Kjalarnes and then south, keeping land on their left side, hoping to find Thorhall. After sailing for a long time, while moored on the south side of a west-flowing river, they are shot at by a one-footed man

Monopod (creature)

Monopods are mythological dwarf-like creatures with a single, large foot extending from one thick leg centered in the middle of their body...

, and Thorvald dies from an arrow-wound. The explorers return to Straumsfjord, but disagreements during the following winter lead to the abandonment of the venture. On the way home, the ship of Bjarni the Icelander is swept into the Sea of Worms (Madkasjo) by contrary winds. The marine worms destroy the hull, and only those who escape in the ship's worm-proofed boat survive. This is the last Vinland expedition recorded in the saga.

External links

• Parks Canada - L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site of Canada
• Vikings: The north Atlantic saga; Searching for archeological evidence of Vikings in Labrador and Newfoundland - from The Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History
• The Vinland Mystery - a National Film Board of Canada
  National Film Board of Canada
  The National Film Board of Canada is Canada's twelve-time Academy Award-winning public film producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary, animation, alternative drama and digital media productions...
  
   documentary
• "Where is Vinland?", Great Unsolved Mysteries in Canadian History website
• Skálholt Map - in the Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark
• Full text of Eirik the Red's Saga