Erik the Red: The Saga of Viking Greenland

this video is brought to you by blink is the first hundred people to go to blinkist.com forward slash biographics we'll get one week to try it out for free you'll also get 25 off the cost of full membership if you want it more on them in a bit in the spring of 985 a.d a small fleet set sail on a history-making mission among the crew were hundreds of men and women looking to start afresh to begin new lives far from home they took with them livestock timber all of the things they need to establish themselves at the edge of the world it was a leap of faith not just because of the treacherous voyage not just because they were attempting to found a colony where no one had ever lived before no it was because these people were placing not just their futures but their lives in the hands of a single man his name was eric the red and he was destined to found greenland's first norse settlement born to a criminal father in norway eric had spent most of his life as a minor nobody eking out an existence on the edges of iceland but then he got involved in a dispute and everything had changed banished from his home eric was forced to sail west in search of new lands only to wind up settling the largest island of them all [Laughter] it was 950 a.d when eric thought valdson was born in a place called rogueland in the southwest of norway at least we assume it was as you're about to see pretty much everything to do with eric the red's life involves a bunch of guesswork a whole lot of caveats and the understanding that anywhere up to 90 percent might just be well porcelain that's because our hero today was born in a time and place in which complex written records weren't yet widely used instead people relied on oral traditions telling each other stories passing them down maybe certainly altering them with each telling famously this includes the sagas from where we get everything that we know about eric the red the problem the saga of eric the red and the saga of the greenlanders wasn't written down until something like over 200 years since it died so rather than me going historians assume that or it's suspected that every time i mention a fact let's just agree now that this entire episode comes with a massive caveat titled warning all of this could be absolute now with that being said we do have enough archaeological evidence to say that eric was a real person and that his most famous deeds did really happen it's just where his personal life is concerned that things get frustratingly vague to return to our opening we commonly assume eric was born in 950 because it matches up with the other dates given in the sagas but we don't actually know this any more than we know that he had the nickname eric the red which could be to do with the color of his hair or his legendary temper all we know for sure is what the sagas tell us that sometime around the 960s eric and his father thorbold arrived in iceland after thorvald managed to get his ass banned from norway likely for killing someone if that's the case then exile in iceland was certainly a fitting punishment first settled roughly a century earlier iceland had been one of the focal points of a great wave of norse migration brought on by political changes at home the migration had seen the norse settle all over northwest europe from england to ireland to the shetland islands and pharaohs iceland was simply the most distant land that they colonized in this the north were helped by something known as the medieval warm period a fourth century summer holiday in which temperatures spiked around europe making even an island on the edge of the arctic circle easily habitable all told about 20 000 people would settle iceland and that was a major problem for eric and his par by the time they showed up in the 960s all the good land was already gone even the not so good land the mediocre land and the actually kinda sucky land had all been snapped up the best eric and thorvold could manage was the super crappy land at hornstrandeer a place of poor soil quality and a short growing season clearly father and son were in trouble but they weren't the only ones who were going to have difficulties farming in iceland all across the island overgrazing was driving down soil quality making life harder so when eric eventually comes to pitch his greenland colony to the locals there's going to be a surprising number of people thinking well it's gotta be a lot better than here but look all of that is in the future for now eric and thorvold could do nothing but try to tend the unforgiving land and hope that their lives would soon be changed for the better luckily eric wouldn't have to wait very long at all in a few short years he was going to catch his first break the breaks that would set him on the path towards becoming one of the greatest norse explorers of all time in the end eric the red would escape his miserable corner of hornstrandeer not through hard work grit or sheer determination but by marrying upwards solitaire was the daughter of a wealthy man who owned a swath of hawk had deluxe a long valley the name of which can roughly be translated as valley of the hawks after she married eric a good old dad opened a corner of his estate for the couple to build their home on eric abandoned the island's north moved south and founded a small farm that he called eric stadia it was nothing fancy archaeologists uncovered the footprints and found it to be on the small side but at least it was an area that was better suited to farming unfortunately this lucky break was also accompanied by tragedy sometime around eric's marriage his dad sawvold kicked the bucket the exact date and cause of death are unknown all we know is that he exited the narrative before his son ever had a chance to do anything of note if he did leave a legacy it seems to have been passing on to erica knack for getting banished from various places as we are about to see eric and soils created quite the little brood they had three sons and one daughter the latter of whom some sources say was born to another woman that eric was seeing there's not much point in us going into any detail on these kids was one exception around 970 thought gave birth to a son that they called leif since norse names were patronimic meaning they included the father's given name the boy's full name was leif eriksen and leif would soon grow up to rival his father as an explorer mother derek had actually really done any exploring yet he was too busy being a standard issue icelandic farmer raising his children quarreling with his neighbors and trying to keep his servants in line it was these two last points that were about to turn everything upside down around 9 80 some of eric's trolls accidentally caused a landslide captured slaves or serfs thralls were basically people's property so when their landslide damaged the farm of eric's neighbor valyoff valyoff dealt with them not as people but as things he dispatched his kinsmen the delightfully named i yolf the fowl who slaughtered the thralls and just like that i have signed his own death warrant remember earlier when we said that eric the red's nickname may have been due to his foul temper well this is the moment when we show you exactly why that might have been rather than just go to the lore eric grabbed his own weapons marched right over to valyoff's farm and slaughtered eye off the foul while this might sound like a tip attack killing today in eric's time it was like going ballistic and shooting your neighbor because he scratched your car thralls were property dudes like ielts that now pretty dead were people that meant legal proceedings being launched against eric it meant being banished from the valley of hawks as punishment and starting a new life on the island of oxney sadly for his family this was just the start of eric's neighbor-killing spree while building his new homestead eric lent some seat posts to a local carved with viking symbols and considered to have mystic powers these posts were hugely valuable eric's daddy brought them all the way from norway so when eric asked for the seat posts back in 982 the neighbor was all like actually they're kind of mine now and well the outcome was inevitable blinded with bright red ray jerich stormed his neighbor's farm and took the seat posts by force then he organized an ambush to attack the rival clan killing the neighbor's two sons the icelanders this was the last straw eric was tried again found guilty again and banished again only this time he wasn't just chucked out of his local area this time eric would be exiled from the whole of iceland now we'll get back to our video in just a minute but first here's a quick word from today's fantastic sponsor blinkist it's the heart of july which means that you're probably looking to check some books off your summer reading list a few things are better than sitting in the park or maybe just lying on the beach cracking a good book that 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sighting of greenland in european history over the following decades news of gunboarn's bizarre adventure spread across iceland by the time eric was sentenced to three years exile the sighting of this distant land was widely known so eric decided to go and explore it and to be clear this was absolutely nuts the denmark strait separating iceland and greenland is a 700 mile death trap frequently clogged with ice and plagued with thick fogs and dreadful storms and it's not like eric had nowhere else to go the pharaohs the shetlands ireland england none of these places to the east and south had yet banned him but for whatever reason eric had his heart set on this mysterious western land in the spring of 982 eric his family thralls and a small group of friends departed iceland on a three-year voyage they traveled in a ship called a gnar a sail-powered alternative to the classic norse longship their livestock traveled with them it could have been the end of eric's the last that anyone saw of him instead it wound up being his making the nurse survived the journey to greenland finally sighting land near what we today call the amisallic forward but because the approach was so blocked with ice eric was forced to follow the coastline all the way around the island's southern tip what he saw on the western coast was the best kind of shock unlike the east greenland's western coast is comparatively hospitable there's more habitable land easier approaches less of a sense that the ocean actively wants to kill you it's been said that for centuries era gave greenland its name as a piece of propaganda a way of enticing settlers to this cold and remote place but green is also a pretty fair description of that western coast for someone who'd just traversed 700 miles of frozen ocean it looked like a verdant paradise the majority of eric's first year was spent establishing a base at modern day casias a tempered island that would soon become the focal point of greenland's eastern settlement as spring returned his team began seriously exploring the unknown land taking ships further up the coast driving deeper into the interior what they found was a surprisingly inviting world while inland was frozen tundra there was a good 20 to 30 miles of arable land clutching the western coast the climate and these frauds were similar to iceland the soil was good too or at least as good as can be expected but while eric had found a place capable of supporting life he never found any other humans although indigenous peoples had previously settled this part of greenland by eric's time all their colonies had been long abandoned this wasn't an occupied place that colonists would have had to fight for it was truly virgin land right for the taking in 985 eric decided to do just that that summer he took his boat and turned to iceland but it wasn't settling back into his old life that was on eric's mind oh no he'd liked what he'd seen of greenland liked the climate the vegetation the open space most of all it liked the freedom the freedom to be someone important away from all these annoying laws about not killing your neighbors as he sailed away eric swore that he'd returned to greenland and this time he'd bring enough people with him to make it permanent [Music] while the name greenland might not have been pure marketing there's no doubt eric sold his new colony like a pr master back in iceland he told everyone who'd listened guys have i ever got a great investment idea for you before extolling the island's ease of living it was a long shot pitch up sticks with me and move 700 miles across dangerous ocean but for many it was also supremely tempting remember iceland's soil is in decline at this stage life is getting harder hard enough to convince hundreds of people to roll everything on one flame head explorer's mad gamble finally some 14 to 15 winters before christianity came to iceland the sagas say that eric was ready that year anywhere between 25 and 35 ships the number varies depending on the source cast off into the frozen seas for those of us used to hearing about the colonization of the americas the word can denote an ever-increasing mass of people that eventually just dominates everything but the norse experience in greenland was totally different at its absolute height long after eric's death it's estimated that the island was home to slightly over 2 500 people a tiny fraction of the number living on iceland in eric's time the number was even smaller his greenland consisted of maybe 350 people plus a whole bunch of livestock clinging to a tiny temperate zone on the edge of a frozen wasteland colonists soon divided into two settlements the eastern settlement centered around the ford eric at first occupied during execule and the smaller western settlement 240 miles north between the two tiny hamlets sprang up a little more than lone farmsteads dotted along the coast yet it would be a mistake to think farming was all the greenland colonists did while agriculture was an important part of their lives one which saw them push medieval farming to its limits in such high latitudes it certainly couldn't sustain them but one thing the growing season was brutally short for another samples show it probably took colonists a whole generation to adapt to the soil conditions so how did they survive in this inhospitable world for that we need to look away from the land and to the water while it might not have trees one thing greenland does have in abundance is seals pretty much all excavations of old greenland and middens or trash heaps have turned up seal bone suggesting the colonists turned to hunting to supplement their diet from day one but rather than just grabbing any passing seal bashing its brains out and feasting on the blubber the greenlanders did their hunting in a surprisingly sustainable way although harbor seals dotted the shores near their settlements the colonists seemed to have realized they could easily hunt these creatures to extinction so instead they targeted harp seals which were harder to catch but existed in far greater numbers meaning their stock could be easily replenished it was some sappy forward thinking one that runs counter to the popular image of vikings as a bunch of drunk bearded slaughter machines it also helped eric's new colony survive long term from the 350 odd first settlers the greenlanders would quickly grow to number a thousand but just establishing one major colony apparently wasn't enough for eric within 15 years he'd soon have his sights set even further west on a place that you and i know not as greenland but rather canada remember back when that random dude got blown off course and we said it would become a theme in this video well time to make good on that promise in the early years of eric's colony a guy called biani ho olfson sets out for greenland only for surprise surprise a massive storm to bloom of course when the winds died down he and his crew finally spotted land but not land any europeans had ever seen before the coast before them was heavily forested unlike greenland's treeless fords it was such an unexpected sight the biani refused to allow his men to land instead sailing up the coast past another land mass covered in ice before bearing east and returning to greenland in doing so he missed out on his chance to become the first european to set foot in north america today it's thought the icy hellscape yani saw was baffin island while the forested coasts were newfoundland and labrador had he agreed to let his men go ashore bayani would probably now be starry in his own biographics instead of just sulking in the corner of someone else's video still his tale of yet another undiscovered world to the west sent shock waves through eric's colony and planted a seed in its ruler's mind but before he could act on biany's tip eric needed to get greenland up and running by now he was head of the eastern settlement and living the life that he'd always dreamed of he had a large home authority and acted like he was lord of all that he surveyed which we guess he technically was however that didn't mean that eric was free to do whatever he pleased while he might have been chief of greenland there was still someone eric needed to stay on the good side of and that was the king of norway while it was remote greenland relied on trade with other norse territories in order to survive the colonists had stuff like timber they desperately needed to import while they also boasted one important export ivory at the time ivory artifacts were big business and with large herds of walruses sheltering in a base 300 miles north of the western settlement the greenlanders could easily call the market but opening a new trade route meant keeping in the good graces of those back home around 994 eric dispatched his son leif to norway under instructions to basically tell the king hey the colony is doing great here's some cool please do not invade us king olaf evidently liked what he heard because he agreed on one condition that leif take christianity back to greenland with him as a new convert earth was determined to hoist his religion on all norsemen everywhere iceland would be converted around 999. olaf wanted to ensure greenland followed suit so when blaif finally returned home around a thousand a.d it was supposedly with a priest at his side we say supposedly because there are some serious doubts that the greenland has converted so early one commonly cited date is 10 15 long after leif's journey to norway but that's not the story the sagas tell in their telling leif first convinced his mother theodhild to accept christ before embarking on a journey all up and down the western coast converting the colonists with maybe one exception unlike sodhild eric found christianity about as advertising as watching someone blow their nose in public and then open the tissue to examine its contents in one version told in the saga of eric the red he held out for as long as possible only being baptized long after everyone else in another the version in the saga of the greenlanders he went to his grave a stubborn pagan having never accepted christ if the latter is true it may well be because eric had something else on his mind in a thousand a.d around the same time leif returned he announced to his father that it had a grand new idea the two of them would sail west and settle that new land mass that bjarne hayevson had discovered together they'd be the first europeans in history to set foot in north america in the end eric the red just missed out on his chance to make history for the second time refusing to accompany his son on the voyage west as with so much in today's tale the reasons are frustratingly vague one reason has it that eric decided he was just too old another that he decided to go only to change his mind when he spotted bad omens in another he fell from a horse and injured himself on the day of departure forcing him to abandon the voyage whatever the reason when lafe set sail at the head of 35 men eric wasn't by his side for such a famous explorer this must have seemed like a tragedy on his own history changing voyage leif would first land on baff in ireland followed by heading south to overwinter in newfoundland the settlement he established there is known today as laos umedo and it signifies the beginning of a great chapter in norse history one which saw them set up the first european colonies in america but that's a tale for another time back in greenland an epidemic had broken out among the colonists killing hundreds although at least one saga says he survived longer eric the red is traditionally thought to have died in the outbreak around the year 1001. whether he lived long enough to see his son again and hear tales of the strange new land depends on which saga you read whatever the truth of his death there's no doubting what eric left behind despite the epidemic the greenland colony was thriving far from being a frozen failure it was attracting scores of new settlers every year drawn by the promise of land freedom and riches in fact the greenland colony would become so rich that according to a surviving document from 1327 it was soon producing more profit from ivory than all four thousand icelandic farms could produce together the date of that documentary should tell you something of greenland's fate while leif's american colony would last only a few winters norse greenland soon became a simple fact of geography the last known communication from the colony arrived in iceland in 1424 over four centuries after eric's death in case you needed a reminding the united states has so far survived for a little over half that time say what you like about eric the red but he knew how to build a colony that would last of course the greenland settlements eventually died out or were abandoned for reasons we're still not totally sure of the last evidence of any activity dates to around 1450. after that it would be another 300 years before scandinavians again returned to the frozen land today eric the red has lost his mantle as the founder of greenland while the name he bestowed upon the island survives modern inhabitants were almost uniformly of inuit descent rather than norse yet none of this detracts from his greatest achievement at a time when the universe seemed to firmly stop at iceland's western edge eric rolled everything on a perilous voyage to an unknown land that he didn't just survive but managed to establish a long-lived colony is all sorts of admirable we may know little about his inner life today or even what drove him but we do know that eric the red was one of the era's most accomplished and most fascinating explorers for that reason if no other he's worthy of being remembered so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do hit that thumbs up button below don't forget to subscribe also please do check out our fantastic sponsor blinkist link below and thank you for watching

Channel: Biographics

Views: 245,946

Keywords: biographics, biography, biographies, people, famous people, simon whistler

Id: zQu-VZVulbM

Length: 23min 17sec (1397 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 19 2021