The Sagas of the Icelanders (102 page)

6
That same summer a ship from Norway arrived in Greenland. The skipper of the ship was named Thorfinn Karlsefni. He was the son of Thord Horse-head, the son of Snorri Thordarson of Hofdi.

Thorfinn Karlsefni was a very wealthy man. He spent the winter with Leif Eiriksson in Brattahlid. He was soon attracted by Gudrid and asked her to marry him, but she referred him to Leif for an answer. She was then engaged to him and their wedding took place that winter.

The discussion of a voyage to Vinland continued as before, and people strongly urged Karlsefni to make the journey, Gudrid among them. Once he had decided to make the journey he hired himself a crew of sixty men and five women.

Karlsefni and his crew made an agreement that anything of value they obtained would be divided equally among them. They took all sorts of livestock with them, for they intended to settle in the country if they could.

Karlsefni asked Leif for his houses in Vinland, and Leif said he would lend but not give them to him.

They then put out to sea in their ship and arrived without mishap at Leif’s booths, where they unloaded their sleeping-sacks. They soon had plenty of good provisions, since a fine, large rorqual had stranded on the beach. After they had gone and carved up the whale they had no lack of food. The livestock made its way inland, but the male animals soon became irritable and hard to handle. They had brought one bull with them.

Karlsefni had trees felled and hewn to load aboard his ship and had the timber piled on a large rock to dry. They had plenty of supplies from the natural bounty there, including grapes, all sorts of fish and game, and other good things.

After the first winter passed and summer came, they became aware of natives. A large group of men came out of the woods close to where the cattle were pastured. The bull began bellowing and snorting very loudly. This frightened the natives, who ran off with their burdens, which included
fur pelts and sables and all kinds of skins. They headed for Karlsefni’s farm and tried to get into the house, but Karlsefni had the door defended. Neither group understood the language of the other.

The natives then set down their packs and opened them, offering their goods, preferably in exchange for weapons, but Karlsefni forbade the men to trade weapons.

He sought a solution by having the women bring out milk and milk products. Once they saw these products the natives wished to purchase them and nothing else. The trading with the natives resulted in them bearing off their purchases in their stomachs, leaving their packs and skins with Karlsefni and his companions. This done, they departed.

Karlsefni next had a sturdy palisade built around his farm, where they prepared to defend themselves. At this time Gudrid, Karlsefni’s wife, gave birth to a boy, who was named Snorri. Near the beginning of their second winter the natives visited them again, in much greater numbers than before and with the same goods as before.

Karlsefni then spoke to the women: ‘Bring out whatever food was most in demand last time, and nothing else.’

When the natives saw this they threw their packs in over the palisade. Gudrid sat inside in the doorway, with the cradle of her son, Snorri. A shadow fell across the doorway and a woman entered, rather short in stature, wearing a close-fitting tunic, with a shawl over her head and light red-brown hair. She was pale and had eyes so large that eyes of such size had never been seen in a human head.

She came to where Gudrid was sitting and spoke: ‘What is your name?’ she said.

‘My name is Gudrid, and what is yours?’

‘My name is Gudrid,’ the other woman said.

Gudrid, Karlsefni’s wife, then motioned to her with her hand to sit down beside her, but just as she did so a great crash was heard and the woman disappeared. At that moment one of the natives had been killed by one of Karlsefni’s servants for trying to take weapons from them, and they quickly ran off, leaving their clothes and trade goods lying behind. No one but Gudrid had seen the woman.

‘We have to decide on a plan,’ said Karlsefni, ‘since I expect they will return for a third time, hostile and in greater numbers. We’ll follow this plan: ten men will go out on this headland and let themselves be seen there, while the rest of us go into the forest and cut a clearing for our cattle. When
approaching from the forest we will take our bull and let him head our group into battle.’

In the place where they planned to take them on there was water on one side and a forest on the other. They followed the proposal Karlsefni had made.

The natives soon came to the place Karlsefni had intended for the battle. They fought and a large number of the natives were killed.

One of the men in the natives’ group was tall and handsome, and Karlsefni thought him likely to be their leader.

One of the natives then picked up an axe, peered at it awhile and then aimed at one of his companions and struck him. The other fellow was killed outright. The tall man then picked up the axe, examined it awhile and then threw it as far out into the sea as he could. After that the natives fled into the woods at top speed, and they had no more dealings with them.

Karlsefni and his companions spent the entire winter there, but in the spring he declared that he wished to remain no longer and wanted to return to Greenland. They made ready for their journey, taking with them plenty of the land’s products – grapevines, berries and skins. They set sail and arrived safely in Eiriksfjord where they stayed over the winter.

7
Discussion soon began again of a Vinland voyage, since the trip seemed to bring men both wealth and renown.

The same summer that Karlsefni returned from Vinland a ship arrived in Greenland from Norway. The skippers were two brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, who spent the winter in Greenland. They were Icelanders, from the East Fjords.

We now turn to Freydis Eiriksdottir, who set out on a journey from Gardar to meet with the two brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, and to propose that they all make the journey to Vinland on their ship and have a half-share of any profits from it. They agreed to this.

From there she went to her brother Leif and asked him to give her the houses he had built in Vinland. He replied as he had before, that he would lend the houses but not give them to anyone.

According to the agreement between Freydis and the two brothers, each was to have thirty fighting men aboard his ship and women in addition. Freydis broke the agreement straight away, however, and took five extra men, concealing them so that the brothers were not aware of them until they had reached Vinland.

They put to sea, having agreed beforehand to try to stick together if possible on the way, and they almost managed this. The brothers arrived slightly earlier, however, and had unloaded their ship and carried their belongings to Leif’s houses when Freydis arrived. Her group unloaded their ship and carried its belongings up to the houses.

Freydis then said, ‘Why did you put your belongings here?’

‘We thought,’ they answered, ‘that you intended to keep your word to us.’

‘Leif lent me the houses,’ she said, ‘not you.’

Helgi then spoke: ‘We brothers will never be a match for your ill-will.’ They removed their things and built themselves a longhouse farther from the sea, on the bank of a lake, and settled in well. Freydis had wood cut to make a load for her ship.

When winter came the brothers suggested that they hold games and arrange entertainment. This went on for a while, until disagreements arose. The ill-feelings split the party so that the games ceased and each group kept to its own houses. This continued for much of the winter.

Early one morning Freydis got up and dressed, but did not put on any footwear. The weather had left a thick dew on the grass. She took her husband’s cape and placed it over her shoulders and went to the brothers’ longhouse and came to the doorway. A man had gone out a short while earlier and left the door half-open. She opened the door and stood silently in the doorway awhile. Finnbogi lay awake at the inner end of the house.

He spoke: ‘What do you want here, Freydis?’

She answered, ‘I want you to get up and come outside. I have to speak to you.’

He did as she said. They went over to a tree trunk lying near the wall of the house and sat down there.

‘How do you like it here?’ she asked.

‘I think the land has much to offer, but I don’t like the ill-feeling between us, as I don’t think there is reason for it.’

‘What you say is true,’ she said, ‘and I agree. But my purpose in coming to see you was that I want to exchange ships with the two of you, as you have a larger ship than I do and I want to leave this place.’

‘I suppose I can agree to that,’ he said, ‘if that will please you.’

After this they parted. She returned home and Finnbogi went back to his bed. When she climbed back into bed her cold feet woke Thorvard, who asked why she was so cold and wet.

She answered vehemently, ‘I went to the brothers, to ask to purchase their ship, as I wanted a larger ship. They reacted so angrily; they struck me and treated me very badly, but you’re such a coward that you will repay neither dishonour done to me nor to yourself. I am now paying the price of being so far from my home in Greenland, and unless you avenge this, I will divorce you!’

Not being able to ignore her upbraiding any longer, he told the men to get up as quickly as they could and arm themselves. Having done so, they went at once to the longhouse of the brothers, entered while those inside were still asleep and took them, tied them up and, once bound, led them outside. Freydis, however, had each one of the men who was brought out killed.

Soon all the men had been killed and only the women were left, as no one would kill them.

Freydis then spoke: ‘Hand me an axe.’

This was done, and she then attacked the five women there and killed them all.

They returned to their house after this wicked deed, and it was clear that Freydis was highly pleased with what she had accomplished. She spoke to her companions: ‘If we are fortunate enough to make it back to Greenland,’ she said, ‘I will have anyone who tells of these events killed. We will say that they remained behind here when we took our leave.’

Early in the spring they loaded the ship, which the brothers had owned, with all the produce they could gather and the ship would hold. They then set sail and had a good voyage, sailing their ship into Eiriksfjord in early summer. Karlsefni was there already, with his ship all set to sail and only waiting for a favourable wind. It was said that no ship sailing from Greenland had been loaded with a more valuable cargo than the one he commanded.

8
Freydis returned to her farm and livestock, which had not suffered from her absence. She made sure all her companions were well rewarded, since she wished to have her misdeeds concealed. She stayed on her farm after that.

Not everyone was so close-mouthed that they could keep silent about these misdeeds or wickedness, and eventually word got out. In time it reached the ears of Leif, her brother, who thought the story a terrible one.

Leif then took three men from Freydis’s company and forced them all
under torture to tell the truth about the events, and their accounts agreed in every detail.

‘I am not the one to deal my sister, Freydis, the punishment she deserves,’ Leif said, ‘but I predict that their descendants will not get on well in this world.’

As things turned out, after that no one expected anything but evil from them.

To return to Karlsefni, he made his ship ready and set sail. They had a good passage and made land in Norway safely. He remained there over the winter, sold his goods, and both he and his wife were treated lavishly by the leading men in Norway. The following spring he made his ship ready to sail to Iceland.

When he was ready to sail and the ship lay at the landing stage awaiting a favourable wind, he was approached by a southerner, from Bremen in Saxony. He asked Karlsefni to sell him the carved decoration on the prow.
^*

‘I don’t care to sell it,’ he replied.

‘I’ll give you half a mark of gold for it,’ the southerner said.

Karlsefni thought this a good offer and the purchase was concluded. The southerner then took the decoration and departed. Karlsefni did not know of what wood it was made, but it was of maple
^†
which had been brought from Vinland.

Karlsefni then put to sea and made land in north Iceland, in Skagafjord, where he had his ship drawn ashore for the winter. In the spring he purchased the land at Glaumbaer and established his farm there, where he lived for the remainder of his days. He was the most respected of men. He and his wife, Gudrid, had a great number of descendants, and a fine clan they were.

After Karlsefni’s death Gudrid took over the running of the household, together with her son Snorri who had been born in Vinland.

When Snorri married, Gudrid travelled abroad, made a pilgrimage south and returned to her son Snorri’s farm. By then he had had a church built at Glaumbaer. Later Gudrid became a nun and anchoress, staying there for the remainder of her life.

Snorri had a son named Thorgeir, who was the father of Yngveld, the mother of Bishop Brand. Snorri Karlsefnisson’s daughter Hallfrid was the wife of Runolf, the father of Bishop Thorlak. Bjorn, another son of
Karlsefni and Gudrid, was the father of Thorunn, the mother of Bishop Bjorn.

There are a great number of people descended from Karlsefni, who founded a prosperous clan. It was Karlsefni who gave the most extensive reports of anyone of all of these voyages, some of which have now been set down in writing.

Translated by
KENEVA KUNZ

1
There was a warrior king named Oleif who was called Oleif the White. He was the son of King Ingjald, who was the son of Helgi, who was son of Olaf, who was son of Gudrod, who was son of Halfdan White-leg, king of the people of Oppland.

Oleif went on Viking expeditions around Britain, conquering the shire of Dublin, over which he declared himself king. As his wife he took Aud the Deep-minded, the daughter of Ketil Flat-nose, son of Bjorn Buna, an excellent man from Norway. Their son was named Thorstein the Red.

After Oleif was killed in battle in Ireland, Aud and Thorstein went to the Hebrides. There Thorstein married Thurid, the daughter of Eyvind the Easterner and sister of Helgi the Lean. They had a large number of children.

Thorstein became a warrior king, throwing in his lot with Earl Sigurd the Powerful, the son of Eystein Glumra. They conquered Caithness and Sutherland, Ross and Moray, and more than half of Scotland. Thorstein became king there until the Scots betrayed him and he was killed in battle.

Aud was at Caithness when she learned of the death of Thorstein. She had a knorr built secretly in the forest and, when it was finished, set out for the Orkneys. There she arranged the marriage of Groa, Thorstein the Red’s daughter. Groa was the mother of Grelod, who was married to Earl Thorfinn the Skull-splitter.

After this Aud set out for Iceland. On her ship she had a crew of twenty free-born men. Aud reached Iceland and spent the first winter in Bjarnarhofn with her brother Bjorn. Afterwards Aud claimed all the land in the Dales between the Dagverdara and Skraumuhlaupsa rivers and settled at Hvamm. She used to pray on the Krossholar hill, where she had crosses erected, for she was baptized and a devout Christian. Accompanying her on her journey to Iceland were many men of good family who had been taken prisoner by Vikings raiding around Britain and were called bondsmen.

One of them was named Vifil. He was a man of very good family who had been taken prisoner in Britain and was called a bondsman until Aud gave him his freedom. When Aud gave her crew farm sites, Vifil asked her why she had not given him one like the others. Aud replied that it made no difference [whether he owned land or not], he would be considered just as fine a man wherever he was. Aud gave him Vifilsdal and he settled there. He had a wife and two sons, Thorgeir and Thorbjorn. They were promising men and grew up with their father.