Erik The Red

Erik returned to Iceland in and formed a colony. One of Erik the Red's four children was Leif Eriksson. He is believed to have been born in in Rogaland on the southwestern tip of Norway.

Asvaldsson settled the family in northwestern Iceland, in the Hornstrandir region. Around , Erik the Red entrusted his setstokkr large beams with Viking symbols that held mystical value in Nordic pagan religion to Thorgest, a fellow settler.

Later, when he went to reclaim the beams, Thorgest refused to relinquish them. Erik took them and made his way back to his settlement. Fearing retaliation, Erik set up an ambush for Thorgest and his clan.

Pirate raids, [20] conflict with Inuit moving into the Norse territories, and the colony's abandonment by Norway became other factors in its decline.

There are numerous parallels between the Saga of Erik the Red and the Greenland saga, including recurring characters and recountings of the same expeditions, though with a few notable differences.

The two accounts are largely similar otherwise, both with heavy emphasis on the exploits of Thorfinn Karlsefni and his wife Gudrid.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Norse explorer. This article is about the Viking. For other uses, see Erik the Red disambiguation. Note anachronistic details in his weapons and armor.

Main article: Eastern Settlement. Retrieved August Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada.

Baltimore: Penguin Books, April 19, The History of Canada. Archived from the original on Encyclopedia of World Biography. Retrieved November 8, Government of Greenland.

In the Hands of a Child. Olson, Julius E. Bourne editors. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, Online facsimile edition.

Erik the Red was successful in convincing many people in Iceland that Greenland held great opportunity.

In , he set sail with 25 ships and more than people to colonize Greenland. Out of 25 ships that had left only 14 arrived in Greenland as 11 were lost at sea or returned.

The Vikings established two major colonies on the southwest coast of Greenland, the Eastern Settlement in modern-day Qaqortoq and the Western Settlement close to present-day Nuuk.

There were also a number of smaller settlements between these two. Erik the Red held the title of paramount chieftain of Greenland and became both wealthy and greatly respected.

In the Eastern Settlement, he established his estate Brattahlid about 96 km from the ocean, on the opposite bank of Tunulliarfik Fjord.

It had some of the best farmland in Greenland and was later home to probably the first church in the New World. Erik the Red and his wife Thjodhildr had four children; a daughter named Freydis , and three sons named Leif, Thorvald and Thorstein.

Leif established a settlement at Vinland, on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada.

His brother Thorstein set sail for Vinland to retrieve his body but the expedition was a failure and had to return to Greenland. According to a saga, Leif Erikson invited Erik the Red on the voyage on which he would discover North America but Erik fell off his horse on his way to the ship.

He took this as a bad omen and decided to not continue. The Viking colony that he established in Greenland survived for around years and grew to a size of probably 5, people at its peak.

The reason for its demise is not known. Reasons put forward to explain its abrupt end include a colder climate, conflicts with the indigenous Inuit people , European pirates, overgrazing, and bouts of plague.

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