Page "Vinland" Paragraph 24

In Grænlendinga saga or the Saga of the Greenlanders, Bjarni Herjólfsson 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 ) and a land of forests ( Markland ).

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 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.