Vinland sagas

The veracity of the sagas was supported by the discovery and excavation of a Viking Age settlement in Newfoundland, Canada. Research done in the early 1960s by Norwegian explorer Helge Ingstad and his wife, archaeologist Anne Stine Ingstad, identified this settlement located at what is now the L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site of Canada, dating approximately 1000 A.D. == The Vinland Map ==

The Vinland Map, and manuscript named Hystoria Tartarorum, otherwise known as The Tartar Relation, was discovered by Yale University. These manuscripts were dated to have been copied in the mid 15th century and mid 13th century. The origin of these manuscripts are questioned due to the secrecy surrounding them. Analysts suggest that the text on the islands in the northwest were written by a different person than the text on the rest of the map. == Contact with Indigenous Peoples ==

The Norse interacted, and participated in, trade with the Indigenous peoples of Eastern Canada. The Indigenous groups approached the Norse requesting to trade furs for weapons, but the Norse traded them milk and cloth instead of weapons. Due to an attempted theft of their weapons, according to the Greenlanders saga, an Indigenous person was killed; starting a conflict which the Norse decided to abstain from, choosing to leave Vinland. == Family relations ==

Lineage of Erik the Red In the lineage of Erik the Red, Thorvald Asvaldsson was Erik's father. Asvlad was Erik's grandfather, Ulf was his great grandfather, and Oxen-Thorir was his great-great grandfather. Erik went on to marry Thjodhild who was the daughter of Jorund and Thorbjorg Shipbreast. Erik had four children, three legitimate sons with Thjodhild and one illegitimate daughter. His sons were Leif Erikson, Thorvald, and Thorstein. His daughter, Freydis, was described as a prominent, controversial figure in the expeditions to Vinland. Erik's son, Leif, had an illegitimate son named Thorgils, who was born to Thorgunna in the Hebrides. Lineage of Gudrid and Thorfinn Karlsefni Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir was the daughter of Thorbjorn Vifilsson, a Norwegian chieftain, and was married three times. Her first marriage was to a Norwegian named Thorir, who died in Greenland. The second was to Thorstein Eiriksson, the son of Erik the Red, who also died in Greenland. Her third husband was Thorfinn Karlsefni, who she led a major expedition to Vinland with. Thorfinn Karsefni was the son of Thord Horsehead. While in Vinland, Gudrid and Thorfinn had a son, Snorri Thorfinnsson. ==Translations==

English translations of both of the Vinland sagas can be found in the following works: • Reeves, Arthur Middleton, The Finding of Wineland the Good: The History of the Icelandic Discovery of America, London: Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1890. • Magnusson, Magnus; Palsson, Hermann, The Vinland Sagas, London: Penguin, 1973, . • Kunz, Keneva, The Sagas of the Icelanders, London: Penguin, 2005, . • Kunz, Keneva; Sigurdsson, Gisli, The Vinland Sagas, London: Penguin, 2008, . == In popular culture ==

The manga and anime series, Vinland Saga is a semi-fictionalized version and expansion of the Saga of the Greenlanders and Erik the Red depicting a fictional backstory of Thorfinn Karlsefni wherein he participates in Danish King Sweyn's conquest of England as a Viking warrior and later becomes a slave before committing his own expedition to Vinland. ==Notes==