Leif Erikson, Leiv Eiriksson or Leif Ericson was a Norse explorer from Iceland. He is thought to have been the first known European to have set foot on continental North America. According to the sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland. The settlement made by Leif and his crew corresponds to the remains of a Norse Settlement found in Newfoundland, Canada.
About Leif Erikson in brief
Leif Erikson, Leiv Eiriksson or Leif Ericson was a Norse explorer from Iceland. He is thought to have been the first known European to have set foot on continental North America. According to the sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland. There is ongoing speculation that the settlement made by Leif and his crew corresponds to the remains of a Norse Settlement found in Newfoundland, Canada. Leif was the son of Erik the Red, the founder of the first Norse settlement in Greenland and of Thjodhild, both of Norwegian origin. His place of birth is not known, but he is assumed to have was born in Iceland, which had recently been colonized by Norsemen mainly from Norway. He had two known sons: Thorgils, born to noblewoman Thorgunna in the Hebrides; and Thorkell, who succeeded him as chieftain of the Greenland settlement. The only two known strictly historical mentions of Vinland are found in the work of Adam of Bremen c. 1075 and in the Book ofIcelanders compiled c. 1122 by Ari the Wise. LeIF apparently saw Vinland for the first time after being blown off course on his way to introduce Christianity to Greenland.
Later, when travelling from Norway to Greenland, Leif also claimed to have sighted land of west of Greenland after having been blown off the course. He was also known for pulling the arrow out, and poetically reciting the phrase, \”This is a rich country we have found; there is plenty of fat around my entrails upon which he dies.’” Leif’s birthplace is not accounted for in the Icelandic sagas, but it is likely he was born somewhere on the edge of Breiðafjörður, and possibly at the farm Haukadal where Thjóðhild’s family is said to be based. The sagas contain different accounts of the voyages to Vinland, both thought to be written around 1200, and both are written by men of Norse origin. Le if was not the first European to discover North America, he had heard the story of merchant Bjarni Herjólfsson who claimed to be the first to discover the land. He died in 986 and was buried in Greenland, where he established the first permanent settlement in the area he named Greenland in 986. His son Thorvald was killed by an arrow in a fight with the skrælingi, an archaic term for the indigenous people.
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This page is based on the article Leif Erikson published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 04, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
