Leifur Eiríksson

Son of Iceland

 The first European in America

Leifur was probably born at Eiriksstadir about 970-980. As a  child he moved with his parents to Greenland and grew up on the farm at Brattahlid. Following the custom common among the sons of prominent Icelandic families o the time, he made a voyage to Norway as a young man. According to the account in the Saga of Eirikur the Red, hes ship was blown to Hebrides and he spent most of a summer there, during which time he begot a child with a woman named Thórgunnua.

He arrived in Norway in the autumn. The king of Norway at the time was Ólarfur Tryggvason (who ruled 995-1000), he made great efforts to convert Norway and the countries which had been settled from it to Christianity. Leifur met the king, was converted, and spent the winter with him. In the spring the king sent him to the same purpose, who succeeded in getting the Icelanders to adopt Christianity at the Althing in the summer.

Leifur was driven off course in this voyage, and found lands whose existence he had no previously known of. In one place there were fields of self-sown wheat and grapevines. Leifur named the country Wineland. On the way back to Greenland he found men on a wrecked ship and recued them, after which he made his way to his father’s home in Brattahlid. These took place in the year 1000 according to Snorri Sturluson’s Heimskringla.