Eric was born in the year 950 A.D. in Jaeren, in southern Norway. He was born Eric
Thorvaldson, but was called Eric the Red because of his red hair. Eric is most known as a
Viking explorer who colonized Greenland.
When Eric was approximately 10 years old, his father was outlawed for manslaughter. Both
men then moved to Iceland. After his father died, Eric too became involved in several quarrels
and killings and was exiled from Iceland for three years.
During his exile, Eric explored the waters west of Iceland for land that Gunnbjorn Ulfsson, a
Norwegian sighted 50 years earlier. Eric reached the east coast of present day Greenland and
continued around the southern tip to the west coast. He spent the rest of his exile there and
returned to Iceland. Eric named the new land Greenland to attract people to it.
About 985, Eric sailed for Greenland with 25 ships of colonists, but only 14 of the vessels
completed the voyage. Two settlements, with a total of about 450 people, were established.
Eric lived in the Eastern Settlement at Brattahlid, near what is now Julianehab. He was
recognized at the principal leader of both communities. The settlers farmed the land; raised
cattle, hogs, and sheep; and hunted bears, caribou and other animals.
Eric planned to lead an expedition west from Greenland in search of more land. However, he refused to make the journey after falling from his horse on the way to his ship. He feared that it was a sign of trouble ahead. Most information gathered about Eric the Red comes from two Icelandic stories written in the late 1100's, early 1200's, Eric's Saga and The Greenlanders' Saga.
Leif Erikson, or Leif the Lucky, as he is better know, was by all accounts a "golden viking". One
of the Norse sagas describe him as "a big, strapping fellow, handsome to look at, thoughtful and
temperate in all things, as well as highly respected". He earned his nickname because on his
return voyage to Greenland from Vinland he rescued fifteen shipwrecked men from a reef. He
was to become an accomplished sailor, explorer, colonizer, business manager, royal emissary,
and even missionary in his short lifetime.
Leif was born about the year AD 982, the son of another famous Viking - Erik the Red. He had
two brothers, Thorstein and Thorwald, and an illegitimate half-sister named Freydis.
It is not certain if Leif was born in Greenland, or Iceland, and taken to Greenland when young.
In any event, he grew up a Greenlander, raised in the harsh Arctic environment with its strenuous
and spartan way of life. Good seamanship was a necessity of life for Greenlanders, and by his
late teens Leif showed he was an accomplished mariner. He had established a reputation as an
able seaman and was one of the first Greenland Vikings to make direct voyages with trade
cargoes from Greenland to Scotland and Norway. These voyages were considered exceptional
feats since they required sailing some 1,800 miles on a straight latitude without any sight of
land.
On one of these trips Leif became enamoured with a fair, highborn maiden in the Hebrides
Islands and soon found she was with child. When she mentioned matrimony, Leif, in his Viking
seafaring way, bought her off with Greenland woollens and a promise. It is thought however, that
on a later voyage he returned to the Hebrides and took the woman and their child back to
Greenland with him.
In AD 985, when a trader named Bjarni Herjolfsson told his story of being blown off course and
sighting a new land far to the west and south of Greenland, the tale caught the attention of Eric
the Red, and he sent his son Leif to explore the land.
Leif set sail in 1001, with one ship and a crew of thirty-five. He sailed north, traveling Bjarni's
course in reverse. Turning west he encountered Baffin Island, which he named "Helluland",
then running south he coasted along Labrador, which he called "Markland", and finally landed
on the northern tip of Newfoundland, which he called "Vinland".
There he built a tiny village of communal houses and outbuildings, and spent the winter making
a cargo of timber for his return voyage to Greenland. Upon his return, Leif gave glowing
accounts of the "Vinland the Good" he had discovered. He told of its riches, and probably embellished his stories of the thick, tall forests he had found
that would supply excellent timber for their longships and houses, fast, rushing rivers full of
plump salmon, and lush, grassy meadows that would be plentiful pasture for their livestock.
Leif "the Lucky" probably died around the year 1025, at the age of forty-five. His short life was
a full and successful one. He was perhaps the "renaissance man" of the Viking era. He
personified the Viking spirit of adventure but spurned the savage and superstitious ways of his
forefathers in pursuing it. More importantly, he blazed the trail for the more "sophisticated
explorers" who followed him half a millennium later and returned with their reports of having
"discovered" the New World.