II.

Saga of Erik the Red

According to the 13th-century Saga of Erik the Red, Leif, a sailor like his father, voyaged from Greenland to Norway, the homeland of his family, shortly before 1000. There, King Olaf I converted him to Christianity and later sent him back to Greenland to win its Viking settlers over to the Christian faith. Journeying westward, Leif lost his way and happened upon land in the west with which he was unfamiliar. There he found “fields of self-sown wheat” and a country rich with grapevines and trees of a kind called mösurr (said to be maple). Because of the grapes and the land’s fertility, Leif called the land Vinland (or Wineland).

The saga also relates that on Leif’s return journey, he came upon a wrecked trading vessel and rescued its crew. For this deed he received the vessel’s entire rich cargo and, subsequently, the nickname Leif the Lucky. After he reached his home in Greenland, he carried out his commission to bring Christianity to the settlers. One of his converts was his mother, Thjódhild, who is said to have built Greenland's first Christian church at Brattahlid.