112 : The Atlantic 



post of the Catholic Church. Ecclesiastical administration of Iceland 

 was first conducted from Hamburg, and, at the end, was transferred 

 to Nidaros in Norway. Nidaros was the old name for the city later 

 called Trondhjem. Not only the interests of the Church but also the 

 interests of trade were represented in frequent communications be- 

 tween Europe and Greenland during the next several centuries. 

 Adam of Bremen, in 1070, wrote the history of the Church of Ham- 

 burg. He writes as though a general knowledge of Iceland and 

 Greenland could be taken for granted and refers to voyages made to 

 Vineland. He refers also to the fact that a Norwegian king, Harald 

 Hardrade had made an expedition to Spitsbergen and thus, in an- 

 other way, reflects the wide range of navigation of the time. But this 

 is getting a little ahead of the story. 



Eric had two sons. One of them. Lief by name, in the year 999 

 sailed to Norway by way of the Scotch Islands. He spent the winter 

 in the court of the king, Olaf Tryggvason, and the king, who was 

 an ardent churchman, persuaded him to take with him two priests 

 in the following spring when he set sail for Greenland. The usual 

 procedure would have been for Lief to sail for Iceland and then to 

 proceed to Greenland but he decided to make the passage direct. In 

 addition, owing either to poor weather or to some slip in his navi- 

 gation of the open ocean, Lief missed Greenland, and the first land 

 he saw was either Newfoundland or a part of the Labrador coast. He 

 then turned around and sailed in a northeast direction and arrived at 

 the colony which his father had founded. This is the first authentic 

 record of an uninterrupted crossing of the Atlantic. 



On his way back to Greenland Lief rendered assistance to a vessel 

 in distress. Because of this, and other accomplishments, he earned 

 for himself the title of "Lief the Lucky." He used the name Vineland 

 for the land that he had discovered. 



On Lief's return he started preaching Christianity and, during the 

 winter, plans were made for an expedition to the land that Lief had 

 discovered. This expedition met with consistently bad weather. The 

 contrary winds carried them so far back that they saw Iceland, and 

 at another time saw birds coming from Ireland, but they could not 

 succeed in getting to the west. The ship returned widi Eric and his 

 son but with nothing accomplished. 



Thorstein Eriksson married a beautiful young woman named 

 Gudrid— the wedding taking place at his father's home, Brattahlid. 

 After the wedding, the newly married pair went to Thorstein's farm 

 in the northern setdement. Here diere was a great deal of sickness. 



