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Leif Ericsson By Carolyn (Vicious accent) Hey! Listen to me! I’m Leif Eriksson and I’m not telling you twice. I was born in Iceland around nine hundred seventy-five so that makes me about a thousand thirty! Pretty wise, don’t you think? I’ll tell you how I got this way. As you likely know, I am worldly famous for finding North America, the land we are standing on, well before Columbus over there! (Motion to where Columbus is) If you are specific then you will know that I found three lands: Helluland, which was a flat rock land, Markland, which was a heavily wooded area, and lastly, Vinland, wine land, which got its name because of all the grapes there that were to be put to use as wine in Greenland. The other translations explain themselves. My younghood was like any other lad’s young hood. I left my family to go live with an unrelated Viking. The man I was left to was a man named Thyrker who was my school teacher. When I was 12 I went back to Iceland. While in Iceland my father Erik The Red was asked to appear at Thingveller, the law making group of the Vikings. Father got into a fight and killed at least one man and we were banished from Iceland for three years. Then I returned to Thyrker where I was taught how to read and write in runes as well as how to fish and how to sail. While still young I had my first voyage oversea without my father. The trip was to bring gifts to a great Viking, King Olaf. I got restless in Greenland so I decided to search for the land to the west which Bjarni Herolfsson a fellow Viking had told me about. I asked my father to lead the search but he fell off of his horse and sprained his ankle. Father was a superstitious man so he, being superstitious, thought this was a sign that he should not go on the trip. I was on my own, except for my crew of only 35 men. In 1000, when I was only twenty-five I left from the bay in Greenland. A year later in 1001 I was “the first European to set foot on North American soil.” We stayed in Vinland for the winter and then on the way back to Greenland I spied a shipwreck and saved the small crew of 15 men and women. When we returned home I was name “Leif the Lucky.” Not long after I returned, father died and I grieved his death but some men in the village were relieved to no longer have to hear his insults, for father was not as nice as I. After I was out of my grief state, I had three children: a daughter named Red and a son Thorkel and an adopted son, Thorgils. I died in 1020 when I was 45 years old, and I have rested in Greenland and will always except for my visit today. |
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47 Whiting Lane |
