Northmen, the
The
Scandinavians ——inhabitants of
Denmark,
Norway, and
Sweden—were called Northmen.
They were famous navigators, and, in the ninth century, discovered
Iceland and
Greenland.
In the tenth century a colony led by
Eric the
Red was planted in the latter country (983). It is said that an adventurer named Bjarni discovered the mainland of
North America in the tenth century (986). These people were chiefly from
Norway, and kept up communication with the parent country.
According to an Icelandic chronicle,
Captain Lief, son of
Eric the
Red, sailed in a little Norwegian vessel (1001), with thirty-five men, to follow up the discovery of Bjarni, and was driven by gales to a rugged coast, supposed to have been
Labrador.
He explored the shores southward to a more genial climate and a well-wooded country, supposed to have been
Nova Scotia, and then to another, still farther south, abounding in grapes, which he named
Vinland, supposed to have been
Massachusetts, in the vicinity of
Boston.
Lief and his crew built huts and wintered in
Vinland, and returned to
Greenland in the spring, his vessel loaded with timber.
Thorwald, Lief's brother, went to
Vinland with thirty men in 1002, and wintered there in the vicinity of
Mount Hope Bay, R. I., it is supposed.
The next year he sent some of his men to examine the coasts, with the intention of planting a colony.
They were gone all summer, and it is believed they went as far south as
Cape May.
In 1004 Thorwald explored the coast eastward, and was killed in a skirmish with the natives (see
Skraelings), and the following year his companions returned to
Greenland.
Thorstein, a younger son of
Eric, sailed for
Vinland with twenty-five companions and his young wife, Gudrida, whom he had married only a few weeks before.
Adverse winds drove the little vessel on a desolate shore of
Greenland, on the borders of
Baffin Bay, where the company remained till spring.
There Thorstein died, and sadly his young wife took his body back to Eric's house.
During the next summer Thorfinn Karlsefui, a rich Norwegian
[
492]
living in
Iceland, went to
Greenland, fell in love with the young widow, Gudrida, and, with his bride and 160 persons (five of them young married women), sailed, in three ships, for
Vinland, to plant a colony.
They landed, it is supposed, in
Rhode Island.
Thorfinn remained in
Vinland about three years, where Gudrida gave birth to a son, whom they named Snorre, who became the progenitor of
Albert Thorwaldsen, the great
Danish sculptor.
Returning to
Iceland,
Thorfinn died there, and his widow and her son went, in turn, on a pilgrimage to
Rome.
Icelandic manuscripts mention visits to
Vinland in 1125, 1135, and 1147.
About 1390
Nicolo Zeno (q. v.), a Venetian, visited
Greenland, and there met fishermen who had been on the coasts of
America.
A remarkable structure yet standing at
Newport, R. I., Is supposed by some to have been erected by the Northmen.
Bishop Thorlack, of
Iceland, a descendant of Gudrida, compiled a record of the voyages of the Northmen from the old chronicles.
