Thorstein then lay down again on the bench. Later his body was dressed and carried to the ship. Another crew was formed because many of his men also had died of plague, and with Gudrid aboard they returned to the main settlement.
That summer the Icelander arrived. He was a merchant named Thorfinn Karlsefni of noble lineage: we read on his family register such aristocratic names as Thorvald Backbone, Thord Horsehead, and Ragnar Shaggypants. As prophesied, he fell in love with Gudrid and asked permission to marry her. Eirik consented. Or perhaps old Eirik was now dead and his son Leif gave permission. In either case, we know there was great joy at Brattahlid, with gaming, the telling of sagas, and other diversions.
“There was also much talk of Vinland voyages. . . .”
Karlsefni, urged by Gudrid, organized a large expedition consisting of sixty men, five women including Gudrid herself, and various kinds of livestock. It appears that they hoped to establish a permanent colony.
They settled in Leif’s houses and the skraelings began to come around, peacefully. But one of the skraelings tried to steal a knife or an ax, he was killed by a Viking, and another battle took place.
At this point “The Greenlanders’ Saga” and “Eirik’s Saga” do not agree. The first says nothing about Leif’s terrible half sister Freydis being a member of the Karlsefni expedition; yet according to “Eirik’s Saga” she was present, and during this fight with the skraelings she did something so odd that it could hardly have been invented.
First, though, the ballistic missiles must be mentioned. The skraelings hurled some objects at the Vikings. These could have been Eskimo harpoons tied to bladders which served as floats, or they may have been stones sewn up in leather cases and launched from the poles—which would suggest Indians. Centuries ago the Algonquins are said to have flung leather-bound stones at their enemies, with a hideous face painted on each bundle. Yet there is no reference to Indian arrows. Whatever they were, these blue-black flying objects terrified the Vikings, who turned and ran.
Freydis then appeared. As the skraelings rushed toward her she picked up the sword of a dead Viking, pulled out her breasts, and whetted the blade on them. Some translators say she slapped the sword against her breasts, or made as if to cut them off. Anyway, this spectacle frightened the savages worse than the ballista had frightened the Vikings: “They were aghast and fled to the boats. . . .”
Karlsefni’s party spent one more winter in the New World. They liked it and wanted to remain but anticipated further trouble with the natives; so when spring came they returned to Greenland bringing a load of timber, grapes, and furs. With them was a new passenger—Gudrid’s baby son, Snorre, born in America almost six centuries before Virginia Dare.
It is said that Karlsefni, his wife Gudrid, and their son, Snorre, eventually went to Iceland where Karlsefni bought a farm at Glaumby. After his death Gudrid and her son managed the farm until Snorre got married. Then Gudrid made a pilgrimage to Rome, became a nun, and lived the rest of her life in accordance with the prophecy.
Next we hear of Helgi and Finnbogi, two Icelandic brothers who may or may not have been planning a trip to Vinland when they were approached by Freydis. She proposed a joint expedition in two ships, sharing equally whatever profit they might make. Each group would consist of thirty men and a few women. The Icelanders agreed to this, so Freydis went to Leif and asked for the houses he had built on Vinland. Leif said he would not give them to her, although she might have the use of them.
The ships sailed together. Helgi and Finnbogi arrived first. Assuming the expedition was to be fully cooperative, they and their men settled in Leif’s houses; but when Freydis arrived she ordered them to leave. And now the brothers learned something else about their business partner: she had brought along five extra men.
“We are no match for you in wickedness, we brothers,” said Helgi. The Icelanders then moved out and built a shed for themselves some distance away.
During the winter there was more trouble. The two parties began avoiding each other.
Early one morning Freydis got up, put on her husband’s cloak, and walked to the shed where the Icelanders lived. The door was half open. She stood by the door and Finnbogi, who was awake, saw her. He asked what she wanted.
“I want you to come outside,” she said. “I want to talk to you.”
Finnbogi came out of the shed and they sat down together on a log.
“How do you like things here?” she asked.
“I like this country,” he said, “but I don’t like the quarrel that has come between us. I see no reason for it.”
“What you say is true,” she answered. “I feel the same. But the reason I came to see you is that I would like to exchange ships. Your ship is larger than mine and I would like to get away from here.”
“All right,” he said, “if that will make you happy.”
Freydis then walked home. She had not worn shoes or stockings and when she climbed into bed her cold feet awakened her husband. He asked where she had been. She had gone to visit the brothers, she told him, and offered to buy their ship, which made them so angry that they had beaten her. “But you,” she said, “you wretched coward, you won’t avenge our shame! Now I know just how far from Greenland I am!”
Her husband called his men and ordered them to get their weapons. They walked to the shed where the Icelanders lay asleep and tied them up. As each man was brought outside Freydis had him killed. At last there were only five women left alive and nobody wanted to kill them.
“Give me an ax,” she said.
One of the men lent her an ax and Freydis slew the Icelandic women.
“After this wicked deed,” the saga tells us, the Greenlanders went back to their houses, and it was clear that Freydis felt she had handled the matter very well. This is what she said to her companions: “If we get to Greenland I shall be the death of any man who reveals what took place. Our story will be that they stayed here after we left.”
Early in the spring they loaded the brothers’ ship with as much as it could carry and sailed to Greenland. There, after bribing everybody to ensure silence, Freydis returned to her farm. But Leif heard rumors. He seized three of her men and tortured them until they confessed. When he learned the truth he said, “I do not have the heart to punish my sister Freydis as she deserves. But I prophesy that no good will come to her descendants.”
And after that, we are told, “no one thought anything but ill of her and her family.”
How many other Norse adventurers and colonists reached the American continent, either on purpose or by accident, is unknown. There must have been quite a few. Among the first was a certain Bjorn Asbrandsson who vanished after leaving Iceland in the year 1000. The chronicles are not clear as to whether he was on his way to Greenland; but about twenty-five years later, according to the “Eyrbyggja Saga,” a merchant named Gudleif who set out from Dublin was blown far to the west by a gale and finally anchored in a cove of some unfamiliar land. There he and his crew were captured by a group of dark-featured natives. They were released after an old white man spoke on their behalf. This man identified himself to Gudleif as Bjorn Asbrandsson. He said he had been living with the natives for a long time and had no wish to go back to Iceland.
In 1059 a Celtic or Saxon priest named Jon is said to have undertaken a missionary voyage to Vinland where he was murdered.
In 1120 or 1121 the bishop of Greenland, Eirik Gnupsson—or Upsi—“sailed in search of Vinland.” Or he sailed “to visit” that country, depending on how leitadi is translated. Nothing more is heard of him, and presumably he did not return because three years later King Sigurd Jorsalfare—Jorsalfare meaning a traveler to Jerusalem—King Sigurd gave the bishopric to a cleric named Arnald.
In 1226 the leaders of Greenland’s eastern settlement, Eystribyggd, which Eirik the Red had founded, became greatly disturbed by the arrival of Eskimos. They sent an expedition into Davis Strait, which