The Vinland Sagas

by Leifur Eiriksson

First published 2008

Amazon

4.6(431)

The Saga of the Greenlanders and Eirik the Red’s Saga recount the Norse settlement of Greenland and the voyages that carried seafarers farther west to lands they called Vinland. Leif Erikson, Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, Freydís Eiríksdóttir and other members of the Greenland settlements appear in overlapping but sometimes conflicting accounts of exploration, attempted colonisation and encounters with the Indigenous peoples of North America.

Written down centuries after the voyages, the two sagas preserve different traditions about who first sighted and explored the western lands. Their stories combine maritime travel, shipwreck, trade, conflict, family rivalry and the difficulties of sustaining settlements across the North Atlantic. Read together, they are the principal medieval Icelandic narratives of Norse Greenland and Vinland.