Page:Great Men and Famous Women Volume 5.djvu/87

 LEIF ER1CSON LEIF ERICSON* BY HjALMAR HjORTH BOYESEN (ABOUT 1000) T HE story of the Finding of Wineland the Good is con- tained, in somewhat differing ver- sions, in two parchment books, the one belonging to the first, and the other to the last, quarter of the fourteenth century. Both agree in attributing the discovery to Leif the Lucky, the son of Eric the Red ; though the Flatey Book says that he was induced to undertake this voyage by a certain Bjarne Herjulfson, who, having been driven out of his course by storms, had seen strange lands, but had not explored them. Leif's father, Eric the Red, was, like most Norsemen of his day, an unruly and turbulent man, whose sword sat loosely in its sheath. He was born about the middle of the tenth century at Jaederen, in Norway, but was outlawed on account of a manslaughter, and set sail for Iceland, where he married a certain Thorhild, the daughter of Jorund and Thorbjorg the Ship-chested. But the same high temper and quarrelsome spirit which had compelled him to leave Norway got him into trouble also in his new home. He was forced by blood-feuds and legal acts of banishment to change his abode repeatedly, and finally he was de- clared an outlaw. Knowing that his life was forfeited, Eric, as a last desperate chance, equipped a ship, and sailed " in search of that land which Gunbjorn, the son of Ulf the Crow, had seen when he was driven westward across the main ;" and promised, in case he found it, to return and apprise his friends of the discov- ery. Fortune favored him, and he found a great, inhospitable continent, which (in order to allure colonists) he called Greenland ; " for," he said, " men would be more easily persuaded thither, if the country had a good name." He landed in three or four places, hut, being dissatisfied, broke up and started in search of more favorable localities. At the- end of three years he returned to Iceland fought his foes and was defeated, but finally succeeded, by the backing of friends, in effecting a reconciliation with them. He spent the winter in Iceland, and sailed the following spring for Greenland, where he settled at a place called Brattahlid (Steep Lea) in Ericsfirth. Thirty-five ship-loads of people followed him, but only fourteen arrived safely. The remainder were shipwrecked, or driven back to Iceland. The interest now shifts from Eric to his son, Leif the Lucky, who becomes 4 'Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.