THE VINLAND VOYAGES' 



The year looo is a veritable milestone in the history 

 of the Norse nations, associated with events of deep- 

 lying results whose significance has been felt through 

 all the subsequent centuries. 



It was early in the summer of that year that King 

 Olaf Tryggvason of Norway bade a last farewell to 

 his three guests of many months, the young Icelandic 

 chieftains Gissur Teitsson, Hjalti Skeggjason, and 

 Leif Ericsson. The last-named hailed from the Ice- 

 landic colony in Greenland and was the son of the 

 brave chief Eric the Red. Leif was born and brought 

 up in Iceland but had spent a number of years with 

 his father in Greenland. These three young men had 

 been converted to Christianity at King Olaf's court 

 and had made a solemn vow to him to act as mission- 

 aries in their respective homelands, Gissur and Hjalti 

 in Iceland and Leif in Greenland. 



The three young chieftains set out to sea, but King 

 Olaf left a short time after for the Land of the 

 Wends, on the southern shores of the Baltic, and was 



•'• The original paper of which this is a translation was published in 

 substantially the same form in Safn Til Sogu Islands og Islenzkra 

 Bokmenta, Vol. 6, No. i, Reykjavik, 1929. 



