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Leif Ericson
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Leif Ericson (Old Norse: Leifr Eiríksson)[1] (c. 970 – c. 1020) was a Norse[2] explorer thought to be the first European to have landed in North America.[3] According to the Norse sagas he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, which has been tentatively identified with the L'Anse aux Meadows site in Newfoundland, Canada.
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It is believed that Leif was born about AD 970 in Iceland[4], the son of Erik the Red (Old Norse: Eiríkr inn rauði), a Norwegian explorer and outlaw and himself the son of a Norwegian outlaw, Þorvaldr Ásvaldsson. Leif's mother was Thjodhild (Þjóðhildr).[5] Erik the Red had founded two Norse colonies in Greenland, the Western Settlement and the Eastern Settlement, as he had named them.
Leif Ericson had two younger brothers, Thorvaldr and Thorsteinn, and one sister, Freydís. Leif married a woman named Thorgunna, and they had one son, Thorkell Leifsson.
During a stay in Norway, Leif Ericson converted to Christianity, like many Norse of that time. He also went to Norway to serve the King of Norway, Olaf I of Norway. When he returned to Greenland, he bought the boat from Bjarni Herjólfsson and set out to explore the land that Bjarni had found (located west of Greenland), which was likely Newfoundland, Canada.
The Saga of the Greenlanders tells that Leif set out in the year 1003 to follow Bjarni's route with 35 crew members, but going north.[6]
The first land he went to was covered with flat and shiny rocks (Old Norse: hellur, German: "hell"). He therefore called it Helluland ("Land of the Flat Stones"). This was possibly Baffin Island. Next he came to a land that was flat and wooded, with white sandy beaches. He called this Markland ("Wood-land"), which is possibly Labrador.
When Leif and his crew left Markland and found land again, they landed and built some houses. They found the area pleasant: there were plenty of large salmon in the river and the climate was mild, with little frost in the winter and green grass year-round. They remained at this place over the winter.
The sagas mention that one of Leif's men, Tyrkir, possibly a Hungarian (because at that time the Hungarians were named as Turks[7]), or a German, found wild grapes[8].
On the return voyage, Leif rescued an Icelandic castaway named Þórir and his crew — an incident that earned Leif the nickname Leif the Lucky (Old Norse: Leifr hinn heppni).
Research done in the 1950s and 1960s by explorer Helge Ingstad and his wife, archaeologist Anne Stine, identified a Norse settlement located at the northern tip of Newfoundland, known as L'Anse aux Meadows, which many have connected to Lief's settlement.
In 1964, the United States Congress authorized and requested the President to proclaim October 9 of each year as "Leif Erikson Day". That date was chosen for its connection to the first organized immigration from Norway to the United States, not for any event in the life of the explorer. The day is also an official observance of several U.S. states.
A few have speculated that Norsemen may have penetrated as far as Minnesota, either coming down from Hudson Bay or going west through the Great Lakes. A rather dubious runestone with carvings of a Scandinavian nature was discovered near Kensington, Minnesota, aptly titled the Kensington Runestone.[9] In the 19th century, the theory that Ericson and his men visited New England gained in popularity. The statue of Ericsson on Commonwealth Ave. in Boston, Massachusetts and the Norumbega Tower in Weston, Massachusetts were both created as monuments to this supposed Viking presence.[10]
There is only one piece of hard evidence that suggests Vikings may have visited what is now the United States: an 11th century Norse coin, the Maine Penny, found in Brooklin, Maine along with thousands of other artifacts during an excavation of a former Native American trading center. However, it is noted that this coin may have made it from Newfoundland via trade or may have even been brought to North America centuries later by the English or Portuguese.[11] Although there have been numerous attempts over the decades to show Viking presence in United States, such as fanciful translations of mysterious stone carvings, or supposed European traits in some Native American tribes, there has been no evidence accepted by the professional archaeological community.[12]
- ^ In modern Icelandic the first name is Leifur and in modern Norwegian Leif or less commonly Leiv. The patronym is Anglicized in various ways, such as Ericson, Eriksson, Ericsson, Erickson, Erikson and Eiriksson.
- ^ http://visindavefur.hi.is/svar.asp?id=5433
- ^ [1]
- ^ In both Eiríks saga rauða and Landnáma, Leif's father is said to have met and married Leif's mother Þjóðhildur in Iceland, so Leif was in all likelihood born there. See [2]
- ^ Sanderson, Jeanette. (2002) Explorers, Teaching Resources/Scholastic. p. 14. ISBN 0-439-25181-8.
- ^ Another saga, The Saga of Eric the Red, relates that Leif discovered the American mainland while returning from Norway to Greenland in 1000 (or possibly 1001), but does not mention any attempts to settle there. However, the Saga of the Greenlanders is usually considered the more reliable of the two.
- ^ Erdődy János: Küzdelem a tengerekért - A nagy felfedező utazások kora (the title in English: Fight for the Seas - Age of the Great Geographical Discoveries); Móra Ferenc Könyvkiadó, Budapest, 1981., pp. 10-11.
- ^ see also the Vinland's location debate, particularly about the short-i vs. long-i objection
- ^ Mystery of the Mandan by Charles Moore, 1998.
- ^ Vikings on the Charles
- ^ Archaeologist Buries Viking Theory
- ^ Archaeologist Buries Viking Theory
- Account of the discovery of North America from the “Saga of Eric the Red”.
- A reconstructed portrait of Leif Ericsson – Based on historical sources, in a contemporary style; from Reportret: gallery of reconstructed portraits
- Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
- Leif Ericson Homepage – From the Great Norwegians webpages, hosted by Metropolitan News Company's website MNC Online.
- [3] A writing about the Vikings in "vinland".