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Vinland, Vineland, or Winland was an area of coastal North America explored by Vikings. Leif Eriksson landed there around 1000 AD, nearly five centuries before the voyages of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot. The name appears in the Vinland Sagas, and describes Newfoundland and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence as far as northeastern New Brunswick. Much of the geographical content of the sagas corresponds to present-day knowledge of transatlantic travel and North America.
Erik Thorvaldsson, known as Erik the Red, was a Norse explorer, described in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first European settlement in Greenland. Erik most likely earned the epithet "the Red" due to the color of his hair and beard. According to Icelandic sagas, Erik was born in the Jæren district of Rogaland, Norway, as the son of Thorvald Asvaldsson; to which Thorvald would later be banished from Norway, and would sail west to Iceland with Erik and his family. During Erik's life in Iceland, he married Þjódhild Jorundsdottir and would have four children, with one of Erik's sons being the well-known Icelandic explorer Leif Erikson. Around the year of 982, Erik was exiled from Iceland for three years, during which time he explored Greenland, eventually culminating in his founding of the first successful European settlement on the island. Erik would later die there around 1003 CE during a winter epidemic.
Gullveig is a female figure in Norse mythology associated with the legendary conflict between the Æsir and Vanir. In the poem Völuspá, she came to the hall of Odin (Hár) where she is speared by the Æsir, burnt three times, and yet thrice reborn. Upon her third rebirth, she began practicing seiðr and took the name Heiðr.
Freydís Eiríksdóttir was an Icelandic woman said to be the daughter of Erik the Red, who figured prominently in the Norse exploration of North America as an early colonist of Vinland, while her brother, Leif Erikson, is credited in early histories of the region with the first European contact. The medieval and primary sources that mention Freydís are the two Vinland sagas: the Saga of the Greenlanders and the Saga of Erik the Red. The two sagas offer differing accounts, though Freydís is portrayed in both as a strong woman.
Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir was an Icelandic explorer, born at Laugarbrekka in Snæfellsnes, Iceland.
The Saga of Erik the Red, in Old Norse: Eiríks saga rauða, is an Icelandic saga on the Norse exploration of North America. The original saga is thought to have been written in the 13th century. It is preserved in somewhat different versions in two manuscripts: Hauksbók and Skálholtsbók.
In Germanic paganism, a seeress is a woman said to have the ability to foretell future events and perform sorcery. They are also referred to with many other names meaning "prophetess", "staff bearer", "wise woman" and "sorceress", and they are frequently called witches or priestesses both in early sources and in modern scholarship. In Norse mythology the seeress is usually referred to as völva or vala.
Skræling is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the peoples they encountered in North America. In surviving sources, it is first applied to the Thule people, the proto-Inuit group with whom the Norse coexisted in Greenland after about the 13th century. In the sagas, it is also used for the peoples of the region known as Vinland whom the Norse encountered and fought during their expeditions there in the early 11th century.
Snorri Thorfinnsson was the son of explorers Thorfinn Karlsefni and Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir. He is considered to be the first child of European descent to be born in the Americas, apart from Greenland. He became an important figure in the Christianisation of Iceland.
Thorfinn Karlsefni Thórdarson was an Icelandic explorer. Around the year 1010, he followed Leif Eriksson's route to Vinland in a short-lived attempt to establish a permanent settlement there with his wife Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir and their followers.
Gísla saga Súrssonar is one of the sagas of Icelanders. It tells the story of Gísli, a tragic hero who must kill one of his brothers-in-law to avenge another brother-in-law. Gisli is forced to stay on the run for thirteen years before he is hunted down and killed. The events depicted in the saga took place between 860 and 980.
Great Ireland, also known as White Men's Land (Hvítramannaland), and in Latin similarly as Hibernia Major and Albania, was a land said by various Norsemen to be located near Vinland. In one report, in the Saga of Eric the Red, some skrælingar captured in Markland described the people in what was supposedly White Men's Land, to have been "dressed in white garments, uttered loud cries, bore long poles, and wore fringes." Another report identifies it with the Albani people, with "hair and skin as white as snow."
The Vinland Sagas are two Icelandic texts written independently of each other in the early 13th century—The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Erik the Red. The sagas were written down between 1220 and 1280 and describe events occurring around 970–1030.
Grœnlendinga saga is one of the sagas of Icelanders. Like the Saga of Erik the Red, it is one of the two main sources on the Norse colonization of North America. The saga recounts events that purportedly happened around 1000 and is preserved only in the late 14th century Flateyjarbók manuscript.
The Ice-Shirt is a 1990 historical novel by American author William T. Vollmann. It is the first book in a seven-book series called Seven Dreams: A Book of North American Landscapes.
Heiðr is a Norse female personal name.
Vápnfirðinga saga or Vopnfirðinga saga, named after Vopnafjörður, Iceland, is one of the sagas of Icelanders. It tells the story of Helgi Þorgilsson, a relative of Erik the Red, his murder and subsequent retaliation. The saga provides a window into how a feud might develop between Icelandic chieftains and demonstrates how a dispute could persist over several generations. The saga points at the futility of feud and promotes alternative, more positive forms of conflict resolution.
In Old Norse, seiðr was a type of magic which was practised in Norse society during the Late Scandinavian Iron Age. The practice of seiðr is believed to be a form of magic which is related to both the telling and the shaping of the future. Connected to the Old Norse religion, its origins are largely unknown, and its practice gradually declined after the Christianization of Scandinavia. Accounts of seiðr later made it into sagas and other literary sources, while further evidence of it has been unearthed by archaeologists. Various scholars have debated the nature of seiðr, some of them have argued that it was shamanic in context, involving visionary journeys by its practitioners.
Jórunn Bjarnadóttir is a female character who appears in Laxdœla saga, one of the Icelandic family sagas. She first appears in chapter 9, where she is introduced as the wife of a powerful Icelandic chieftain Höskuldr Dala-Kollsson from Höskuldsstaðir in Laxárdalur, Iceland.
Gambara is a Germanic wise woman who appears in several sources from the 8th to 12th centuries. The legend is about the origin of the Langobard people, then known as the Winnili, and it takes place either before they emigrated from Scandinavia or after their migration, having settled in modern-day northern Germany. It relates that Assi and Ambri, the leaders of their neighbours the Vandals, demanded that Ibor and Agio, the leaders of the Winnili, pay tribute to them, but their mother Gambara advised them not to. Before the battle, the Vandals called on Odin (Godan) to give them victory, but Gambara invoked Odin's wife Frea instead. Frea advised them to trick her husband, by having the Winnili women spread their hair in front of their faces so as to look bearded and present themselves as warriors. When Odin saw them, he was embarrassed and asked who the "long-beards" (longobarbae) were, and thus naming them he became their godfather and had to grant them victory. The legend has parallels in Norse mythology, where Frigg also deceives her husband in earthly politics.
References
- Kurz, Keneva. 2000. "Eirik the Red's Saga" (trans.) in The Sagas of Icelanders, pp. 653–674. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978-0-14-100003-9
- Sephton, John. 1880. Eirik the Red's Saga: A Translation. D. Marples. Online.
- Simek, Rudolf. 2007 [1993]. Dictionary of Northern Mythology. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. ISBN 0-85991-513-1
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