A warrior in Breidafjord

„The country which is called Greenland was discovered and settled from Iceland. Eirik the Red was the name of a man from Breidafjord who went out there from here and took possession of land in the place which has since been called Eirkisfjord. He named the country Greenland, and said it would make people want to go there if the country had a good name. There, both in the east and the west, they found human habitations and fragments of skin boats and stone tools, from which it was evident there the same kind of people had been there as lived in Wineland(Vinland), whom the Grennlanders call Skrælingar. He began settlement in the country 14 or 15 years before Christianity came to Iceland, according to what a man who himself had gone there with Eirik the Red told Thorkel Gellisson (Ari´s uncle) in Greenland.”

These extract from the Book of the Icelanders by Ari the Learned (1067-1148) is completely reliable, though tantalizingly brief. He could be sure that his readers knew about Vinland, and so wasted no words on the story of its discovery and the early attempts that were made to settle there.

The Book of Settlements (Landnámabók) describes all the chief settlers of Iceland, telling where they settled and tracing their genealogy. That book was originally composed early in the twelfth century with Ari the Learned taking part in its composition. It is a much longer and more work than Ari´s Book og the Icelanders. Unfortunately it has not come down to us in its original form, and its extant versions contain interpolations from other writings, including some Sagas of Icelanders (Egil´s Saga, The Saga of the People of Eyri and others).

The Book of Settlements contains two accounts of Eirik the Red and his father Thorvald. The first of these is much more detailed, beginning as follows:

“Thorvald, the son of Astvald, son of Ulf-Oxen-Thorisson, and his son Eirik the Red lest Jæderen on acconunt of some killings and took possession of land in the Hornstrandir; they settled at Drangar, where Thorvald died. Eirik then married Thjodhild, the daughter of Jorund Atlason and Thorbjorg Ship-breast, who was then married to Thorbjorn the Haukadaler. Eirik then moved south and cleared land in Haukadalur. He lived at Eriksstadir near Vatnshorn.”

Thjodhild´s Churche in Brattahlid Eirik the Red´s saga tells of a church build in Brattahlid by Thjodhild, Eirik´s wife. Archaeological excavations on the site have revealed a church from the first decades of the settlement, surrounded by a Christian cemetery where nearly one hundred men, women and children were buried.