Chapter 1. The Origins 



In the summer of the year 1001, a flotilla of Viking ships, those mag- 

 nificent craft with the high-lifted prow which were the pride of their mas- 

 ters, the Norsemen, left behind the high lands of Greenland, the distant 

 country of the northern seas where Erik the Red and his companions from 

 Iceland had landed in 982. After the death of the father, the three sons of 

 the brave Erik: Lief, Thornwald and Thorstein, had struck out after his 

 example for the discovery of new lands. 



Setting a course to the southwest, they had come first to a rocky land 

 where fox abounded. This was Labrador which they called Helluland, land 

 of rocks. 



Continuing their navigation to the south, they attained two days later a 

 shore with sandy soil covered with pines and birches where they saw many 

 animals. They had discovered the west coast of Newfoundland which they 

 named Markland, the country of forests. 



Following always the coast, which they traced to the west, they landed 

 in a region with rich vegetation where maize and wild vines grew in abun- 

 dance and the fresh water swarmed with salmon. This country, which they 

 called Vinland, the land of the vine, was actually the coast of Massachusetts. 

 They probably landed on Cape Cod, or, perhaps, at the place where later 

 arose the city of Boston. 



Up to the end of the 12th century, the Vikings maintained colonies in 

 the regions which are today Labrador, Nova Scotia and Massachusetts. 



After the abandonment of these territories, without doubt as a result 

 of combats with the natives, they maintained themselves during two more 

 centuries in Greenland. The last bishop of Gardar, the Benedictine Math- 

 ias, was elected in 1,492, the same year in which Christopher Columbus 

 made his discoveries in the west. Then at the end of the 16th century, this . 

 colony, which had been flourishing, disappeared in a catastrophe that some 

 attribute to an abrupt cooling of the harsh climate of Greenland, others to 

 an exterminating raid by the Eskimos, a thesis which agrees with the fact 

 that the Eskimos became dominant at the beginning of the cold. 



The discoveries of the Vikings in Newfoundland and on the American 

 continent fell into oblivion. It was in recent times that the study of their 

 sagas establishes this knowledge. 



