Vinland sagas

This article is about the Norse sagas. For other topics, see Vinland Saga (disambiguation).

The Vinland Sagas are two Icelandic texts written independently of each other in the early 13th century—The Saga of the Greenlanders (Grænlendinga Saga) and The Saga of Erik the Red (Eiríks Saga Rauða). The sagas were written down between 1220 and 1280 and describe events occurring around 970–1030.^[1]

Summer in the Greenland coast c.1000 by Carl Rasmussen

Possible routes traveled in Saga of Eric the Red and Saga of the Greenlanders

The Saga of Erik the Red and The Saga of the Greenlanders both contain different accounts of Norse voyages to Vinland. The name Vinland, meaning "Wineland," is attributed to the discovery of grapevines upon the arrival of Leif Eiriksson in North America. The Vinland Sagas represent the most complete information available regarding the Norse exploration of the Americas, although due to Iceland's oral tradition, they cannot be deemed completely historically accurate and include contradictory details. However, historians commonly believe these sources contain substantial evidence of Viking exploration of North America through the descriptions of topography, natural resources, and native culture. In comparing the events of both books, a realistic timeline can be created.^[2][3]

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.^[4]

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, ISBN 0-14-044154-9.
• Kunz, Keneva, The Sagas of the Icelanders, London: Penguin, 2005, ISBN 0-14-100003-1.
• Kunz, Keneva; Sigurdsson, Gisli, The Vinland Sagas, London: Penguin, 2008, ISBN 0-14-044776-8.

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 and later Prince Cnut's conquest of England as a Jomsviking and later becomes a slave before committing his own expedition to Vinland.