Vinland

Vinland is the name given to a place in North America visited by the Vikings in the beginning of the 11th century. It represents the location of the first known European visit to the Americas.

The earliest surviving reference to Vinland is from Adami Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (translated as History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen) written by Adam of Bremen in about 1075. He was a German who had obtained his information from Danish king Sweyn Estrithson. In this work, Adam of Bremen mentions a land with grapes,rift gold which make superior wine, as well as self-sown wheat. He also mentions an ice buildup to the north, which makes sailing impossible. Scholarly research has shown that Adam’s writings were not always accurate, and it is likely that his mention of grapes and wine came from the interpretation of the word Vinland. In German this would refer to a land of wine, but in the Old Norse the prefix vin means a grassy field. In any case, the work of Adam of Bremen led to the repetition of this characteristic of Vinland in the sagas written more than a century later.

The chief sources of information on Vinland come from two Norse sagas, Groenlendinga (or the Saga of the Greenlanders) and Eiríks saga (or the Saga of Eric the Red). These stories had been passed down by word of mouth for centuries before being written. The first to be recorded, the Saga of the Greenlanders, written in ICELAND in about 1200, has proven to be the more reliable of the two. The story of the temporary settlement of Vinland begins with Viking BJARNI HERJULFSSON in about 985 or 986. On a trip from Iceland to visit his father in GREENLAND in a LONGSHIP,rift gold he was blown off course, to the southwest. Although he spotted land—three distinct coastlines, he reported— he did not make a landing. Eventually, he made his way to Greenland, where he related his findings. According to the sagas, on a voyage of exploration to find the land that Herjulfsson had seen, LEIF ERICSSON embarked with a crew of 35 from Greenland in about 1001. He came upon three different regions: The first he named Helluland, after its extreme flatness; the second he named Markland, referring to a land of woods; the third, and most southern, he called Vinland. At Vinland, he built houses and probably stayed for a year. He then returned to Greenland.