Erik the Red and Viking Greenland

this episode of the history guide brought to you by magellan tv the vikings are probably best known for their raiding but also for their passion for the sea and exploration in the viking age norsemen sailed all across the north atlantic they raided down the west coast of europe they settled in france and created normandy in england years of conflict led to north settlement and culture from norway denmark and sweden they sailed across the baltic sea and established settlements along the shores and they sailed west and settled numerous islands including iceland and eventually greenland you've probably heard of eric the red he's probably one of history's most famous vikings and in many ways he lived the life of a normal viking except he established reputation for himself and his family that is so powerful that people still recognize his name more than a thousand years after his time he established the first permanent settlements in greenland and indirectly the first recorded landing by europeans on american shores it is history that deserves to be remembered and speaking of norse explorers i just happen to watch a fascinating documentary on magellan tv you've heard me talk about magellan tv before you know that i love my magellan tv subscription it's a new kind of streaming service it's made by filmmakers and now there's more than 3 000 documentaries on magellan tv everyone worth watching and the best news is there's a special offer just for our viewers to get an extended month-long trial for free and to get that special offer all you have to do is use the link that's in the description the norse and arctic mystery talks about a new understanding of archaeological evidence on the far north baffin island that might redefine our understanding of european contact with the americas centuries ahead of columbus the documentary talks not just about new archaeological findings but also new interpretations of discoveries that are decades old it's a fascinating look both into the history of connections between europe and north america but also in the process of archaeology it's also a very good reason to subscribe to magellan tv if you haven't already and if you have subscribed it's a good reason to keep watching because new documentaries like this documentary are added weekly i'm a big fan of history documentaries but you might enjoy science space or nature all of which magellan tv offers magellan tv has the richest and most varied history content available anywhere it's got ancient modern current early modern war biography and even non-historical genres like science and crime are historical in nature you can watch the norse in arctic mystery anywhere on your television laptop or mobile device magellan's is compatible with roku amazon fire tv apple tv google play and ios and you can even cast from your phone to your television and of course the best part is that magellan tv is giving a special offer just to our viewers an extended month-long trial free and to get that offer all you have to do is sign up using the link in the description you'll be glad you did eric tordelwald's son later to get the nickname the red was born around 950 a.d to torvald avalsan in norway when he was about 10 years old his father was banished from norway apparently because he'd killed another norseman fortunately for a 10th century norseman there were other lands filled with norsemen where he could migrate and he chose to take his family to iceland which had been settled by the norse beginning around 874 much of the best land had already been settled but thorvald was able to find a suitable place to build his home on the island's northernmost peninsula hornstrender which lies very near the arctic circle here torvald was able to successfully make a life for his family he died before 9 80. eric grew up in inhospitable and cold but beautiful land far from large cities it's possible he may have even seen greenland from here made possible only by a mirage called the hillinger effect in which temperature inversion at the earth's surface bends light in a way that lifts the image of something below the horizon into view at high points in northwestern iceland it may have been possible for him to see the lands that lay so far distant it isn't historically clear whether he saw this mirage or not although norseman would have certainly been familiar with the way such mirages can obscure distance eric married and moved south settling and building a new house for himself and his wife the land he settled may have belonged to his wife's family it was here that his son who would rival eric for historical fame was born archaeologists have excavated what they believe to be the site of eric's house where a reconstructed longhouse and an open air museum now stand much of what we know about eric and his family comes from two norse sagas that were written some 200 years after the events were supposed to have occurred the saga of the greenlanders and the saga of eric the red by the late 10th century the age of the vikings was coming to an end and the norse were no longer spending as much time raiding settlements and returning to their homelands in norway sweden and denmark norseman turned instead to a different equally lucrative activity business no other culture had the skills the navy or the sheer network that the norse mariners had built by settling across the north atlantic the norse had always been farmers and usually went raiding during breaks from crops eric and his wife had at least four children and seemed to have prospered they owned at least a few thralls a kind of slave or serve or kind of servant these thralls seem to have caused the first of eric's run-ins with norse law while doing some kind of work eric's thralls had caused a landslide that did damage to a neighboring homestead the thralls were killed for the damage and eric in turn retaliated by attacking the killer and killing both him and another like his father before him the settlement ordered him banished the worst kinds of banishings in norse law involved the forfeiting of property and could even make the banished an outlaw who could be killed without repercussion eric probably earned his nickname because he had red hair but it is possible that he also earned it because of his short temper after being exiled he chose to settle off the island of oxney part of a grouping of islands that sits near iceland's coast while he worked on building a new house he entrusted some of his most surprised possessions to a friend and fellow settler thoriest these were large wooden beams covered in intricate doors symbols brought by his father from norway and left to his son these kinds of beams were held in high regard and were of considerable religious symbolic and personal value when he finished his house he returned to collect the beams only to find according to the saga that they could not be obtained it isn't clear what happened to the beams but eric quickly decided to take some by force whether they were his or belonged to thoriest isn't clear in the saga eric apparently expected that thoriest would follow and so waited for it when he arrived with the band of our men eric and his own men attacked killing several of thorius's sons and others both then fortified their houses and assembled as many men as possible ready to escalate the dispute instead of resorting to more bloodshed the men eventually turned to the norse law which involved assembling all the local men for discussion at what was called a thing all free men of age could participate in the decision making which ultimately banished eric yet again for three years his family was allowed to keep his land and possessions and to take care of it while he kept himself occupied until he could return according to icelandic tradition eric was not the first norseman to lay his eyes on greenland that honor belonged to unborn olsen who was blown off course during a trip to iceland he claims to have seen islands in the distance which would become known as gunborne's scaries some norsemen attempted to settle on these islands around 970 but the colony failed they were apparently a popular stop on later trips to greenland and settlements did exist later although the location of the islands isn't certain as in 1456 they were apparently burned up destroyed by some kind of volcanic eruption eric decided that he would spend his banishment doing something useful by taking his men and exploring the nearby waters around iceland they heard of the landmass that lay beyond iceland likely from stories of unborn and others and hoped to sail west and discover the lands for themselves perhaps even then eric hoped to find a new place he could settle after the scandal with georgest the distance between iceland and greenland is at least 180 miles the east coast of greenland was not terribly inviting and he couldn't find a good place to land so they followed the coast south until they passed the southern tip now known as cape farewell until they found a place they could make landfall on the western side of the island when he arrived he found the island deserted while there were likely ruins and remains of much earlier pre-inuit people who had lived in the area nearly 2000 years before at the time the only people living on the island seemed to have been far to the north eric and his men spent their first winter on the island that he named eric's island in the spring to begin exploring sailing in a nearby fjord which he named eric's fjord what they found was rich arable land and fields where they could graze their livestock over the next three years he traveled along the coast exploring the new found land finding plenty of good coastline where norse could settle and well little else he may have traveled thousands of miles by boat in this time coming across many of the things that made greenland a good site for a colony especially walrus for their tusk and animals like the arctic fox and polar bear with valuable pelts eric named a lot of locations on his first trip often after himself despite the island's abundant ice he chose to call the new island greenland according to the saga of eric the rad because men will desire much more to go there if the land has a good name sometime in 985 or 986 his term of banishment ended and he returned with a ship to oxny where his family had been dutifully working the soil and taking care of the house erica decided that he wanted to take his family to greenland but the job of building a new colony wasn't one he could take on alone he spent the winter talking people into traveling with him to establish their new colony it isn't certain who else went with him but ultimately he seemed to convince some 300 people that greenland was going to be a winning bet the sagas implied that those vikings living on poor land in iceland were the families that chose to follow him as well as those who had suffered from a recent famine first recorded famine in iceland was in 976. the following summer the fleet set off with at least 25 ships of which only 14 eventually reached eric's fjord eric who seems to have struggled to fit in with society in iceland turned out to be a good leader for the colony they successfully established two colonies in greenland the first called the eastern settlement which was the largest and where eric made his home and the smaller western settlement which sat close to the modern day capital of greenland newark both settlements were not set along the coast but miles inland where they had some protection from the wind and sea one issue the settlers ran into was greenland's lack of trees for the norse trees were a vital supply before building their low longhouse homes and for building ships in greenland they built with stone the eastern settlement sat at the end of eric's fjord and he built himself a house there that he called steep slope he became the paramount chief of the eastern settlement and seems to have finally found his place in the world if he killed any other norsemen it isn't reported the settlement survived by trading the rare and valuable goods like ivory and polar belt pelts back to europe where they could in turn retrieve boats timber and other necessary supplies they farmed and raved livestock traded back to iceland in norway eric's settlements grew holding at least 2 500 people and likely more they survived around 500 years before declining and disappearing for as yet uncertain reasons possible explanations include the intervention of the little ice age declining quality of the soil conflict with the native inuit who they met sometime in the 13th century and the falling value of walrus ivory and arctic pelts eric's contributions to world history amount to more than the first permanent european settlements in greenland his second son is just as recognizable as him if not more so leif erikson is now credited with the first european visit to mainland north america the two sagas tell slightly different versions of how life reached modern canada in the saga of the greenlanders leif first hears about the land to the west of greenland when a fellow norseman named bjarni accidentally cites land after being blown off course trying to reach greenland noting that there are no glaciers he determines that this land is in greenland and sails on according to the saga leif asks his father to lead an expedition to the new land but eric's horse stumbles on the way to the ship and eric enters his foot it is not ordained that i should discover more countries than that which we now inhabit his father says and sends his son out alone leif comes to be known as leif the fortunate or left the lucky he set out to follow yarny's journey in reverse visiting in turn halo land mark land and finally finland the various locations have never been certainly identified although helu land meaning stone slab land may refer to baffin island they've spent some time in finland so named because of the discovery of grapes some have identified la omedaux the only certain site of norse in north america as the place of his landing although he may have misidentified some kind of berries as grapes which mostly grow further south the greenlanders saga then relates several more trips to finland by lyft's brothers of varying success in the saga of eric the red it is leif who discovers the new continent returning to greenland after spending some time with norwegian king olaf the first to charge life with spreading christianity to greenland boone of course he spends the winter in finland before returning home another group led by other greenlanders and lace brothers and sister then travel to finland where they are eventually chased out by the locals who they call scrailing the sagas that tell these histories are written versions of oral history that were only written down hundreds of years after the events that they described but archaeology and further studies suggest that much of it is true at least the part about settlements in greenland and norse landings in finland and it's possible that there were many other settlements and many other norsemen in north america whose sagas didn't get written down and are now lost to history but what is clear is that eric's settlements in greenland represented the western end of a trade route that went all the way from the arctic circle to europe a connection between pre-inuit peoples in the castles of medieval europe and it's perhaps fitting that it occurred in true viking fashion because of two things boats and people who couldn't control their temper because of course if eric hadn't killed other norsemen then perhaps life never would have come to north america i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets of forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 140,181

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy, greenland, iceland, Erik the Red, Leif Erickson, viking, norseman

Id: zKrwcTB_2gc

Length: 14min 39sec (879 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 08 2021