Leif The Lucky Sails To North America

Grade 5.1.1.1

Bold Norsemen set out from Greenland and explore the coast of an unknown land, but their discovery of North America is forgotten.

 A thousand years ago no voyager wanted to sail beyond the sight of land, for dark mystery haunted the open sea. No matter how carefully a navigator set his course, skies could blacken with an unexpected storm. Then rain fell, lightning flashed, thunder grumbled, and towering waves rose like walls around ship and crew. Equally dangerous, a cold night might be followed by a warm morning. At such times fog dropped like a curtain over the water and the winds grew still. In the silence, the sailors pulled on creaking oars. Cautiously their little ships edged ahead.
  In the year 986 A.D., Bjarni Heriulfsson, a brave Norseman, left Iceland to join his father in Greenland. Even though Bjarni [pronounced By-arni] never before had sailed these icy seas, old hands at the voyage told him not to worry. Cape Farewell, the southern point of Greenland, could be seen halfway across the sea from Iceland.

For three days, under fair winds, Bjarni and his crew skimmed over the waves to­ward Greenland. Then all at once the winds died away. That night, all next day, and the day that followed, fog settled over the water. No one knows for certain how many days Bjarni drifted, but long after he had ex­pected to reach Greenland, he was still on the open sea. At last the weather cleared and the following day Bjarni sighted land.

Bjarni now approached a shore that was level and wooded. Small hills rose in the distance. For some reason the Norsemen did not land, although they could not know then that instead of reaching Greenland, they probably were off the coast of New­foundland. Mystified, Bjarni sailed north­ward, first past a flat wooded country, then on to shores above which rose glistening ice mountains. The first white man known to have found the continent of North America simply looked and hurried away. In four days Bjarni arrived safely in Greenland.

Years went by, but Bjarni could not for­get the new country he had seen. Sometime after the year 1000, Bjarni told his tale to Leif the Lucky, son of famous old Eric the Red. Eager to see this strange land, Leif Ericson begged his father to go with him, for old Eric was the best navigator in the northern seas. Had he not, years ago, won fame as the discoverer of Greenland? Eric shook his head. He was too old now to at­tempt such an adventure. But Leif was young and strong. Go, Eric told his son. Seek your fame and fortune.

Leif bought a ship from Bjarni and en­gaged a crew of thirty-five men and women. One was a strange short fellow with a pro­truding forehead, a small face, and restless eyes. He was Tyrker, a German who had known Leif since childhood and was like a foster father to him. Next to Eric, Leif loved no man so much as Tyrker.

LEIF THE LUCKY EXPLORES THE NEW WORLD

Leif the Lucky left Greenland with strong winds filling the sails of his boat. Straight as an arrow he voyaged to the new country beyond the North Atlantic. His first sight of land was a bleak coast of many ice moun­tains (probably Labrador or northern New­foundland) and from the word hellur, meaning large flat stones, he gave the place the name of "Helluland." In a small boat a party went ashore, shivering in the breezes that swept down from the glaciers. There was not a single blade of grass on which to feed the cattle they had brought, and they decided to sail to the south.

The next land Leif saw may have been Cape Breton Island or Nova Scotia. Here the country was level and wooded, the beaches white and sandy, and Leif gave the country the name of "Markland," meaning Forest Land. Once more they set sail, seek­ing regions Bjarni had not described. Driven by a northeast wind, after two days they again sighted land.

Today no one can say for certain exactly where the Norsemen went ashore. But we do know that Leif and his followers landed upon an island somewhere along the Atlan­tic coast between northern Maine and southern Massachusetts. There was dew on the grass. When they touched moistened fingers to their mouths, the dew seemed sweeter than any they ever had tasted. They sailed across a sound to another strip of land, and Leif sent the swiftest runners in his party to explore the unknown country­side. These scouts, legend says, were a man and a woman, dressed in a kind of plaid and kilt such as Scottish Highlanders wear. They returned after two and a half days, with a cluster of wild grapes and a sheaf of wheat.

Leif decided to build dwellings and to spend the approaching winter in this land of the sweet dew. He sailed to an island where so many eiderducks nested the Norse­men found it impossible to step between the eggs. They discovered a river flowing into a lake where hundreds of salmon leaped in the water. Tall grasses supplied excellent food for the cattle, and close by were hillsides to shelter their huts. The year was 1003 A.D.

One day Tyrker the German—Leif's be­loved foster father—was missing. Twelve men were sent to search for him, but soon Tyrker returned, shouting that he had come upon hundreds of wild grapevines.

Leif embraced his old friend. He ordered the grapes gathered and dried so that they could be carried home. With the coming of the spring the ship was loaded and Leif set sail for Greenland. So ended the adven­ture of the first white men and women to dwell in North America.

THE  NORSEMEN ABANDON AMERICA

The following year Leif's brother, Thor-vald, visited the same land and found the winter dwellings that Leif had built. After this party left, other Norsemen visited these lands. Then mystery once more closed like a fog over the vast continent of North America. Almost five centuries passed, and not another white man appeared on the sandy beaches where Leif the Lucky had made his home.


By:                 Earl Schenck Miers
Paintings:      Alton Tobey