Who Was Leif Erikson?

[Music] crappity the moderator certificate in it Ringo's ali every election and literati it could Bruce a rocket and I'm brevity Christian true is Oprah totally if and mean an altered master are the King a desert attract happy Leif Eriksson day school oh good stuff so we all know his name and we all know that he was the first European explorer to set foot on North American soil but what kind of man was Leif Ericson well pretty much all we know about his life comes from two short Icelandic sagas the saga of the Greenlanders and the saga of erik the red which roughly described the same events but contradict one another at several key points the saga of the Greenlanders was written first so it's generally considered to be more reliable but the saga of erik the red has a lot of great biographical information about Lee's family so by putting the two sagas together and sort of picking out information that might be useful we can make a pretty solid educated guess about the personality of the man who first discovered America its build meet on Miami the first thing we're pretty sure about is that Leif was never a Viking yeah he was a Norseman but he never went a Viking or you know off rating in search of plunder and profit so did leaf hop off the boat in Canada going well sorry to disappoint but almost certainly not Leif probably dressed a little something like this pretty typical garb for a well-to-do Norse for of the late Viking Age I've added a little pewter crucifix to my impression here was Leif a Christian when he landed in North America probably not certainly but probably a lot of online sources will state it as definitive fact that Leif was converted to Christianity by King Olaf Tryggvason of Norway and ordered by the King to evangelize the Greenlanders though there is actually some pretty compelling Oh God spilling my meat all over the place there is actually some pretty compelling evidence to suggest that this meeting never took place at all and that it was invented centuries later by an Icelandic monk I also find it hard to believe that Leif was a dedicated pagan he was very well-traveled young man and in the year 1000 it would have been very hard for Christianity not to have rubbed off on him in some way now his father Eric the red was a super dedicated pagan but that's not really that surprising I mean he was an old man in a rapidly changing world but one of the claims in Eric's saga does actually correspond to the archaeological evidence the rapid conversion of Leafs mother field healed so she built a church out of turf and wood very very close to Eric's farmstead at Breathitt so turf and wood that tells archaeologists that this church was built in the very early of 11th century all of the other Norse churches in Greenland are made of stone and considering it was so close to the family home I mean you know I really don't see any other explanation and that other than that she built it also by the way though Hilde refused to have sex with Erik until he too had converted which annoyed him greatly but anyway let's move on to the famous journey of discovery that Leif took around the Year 1000 once again the two sagas disagree on how exactly he went about it in the saga of the Greenlanders one be Arne Harrelson gets blown off course by a storm and he cites three lands to the west ends up settling in Greenland where Leif was growing up and years later Leif Bice's ship and goes on his own expedition to explore these three lands discovered by be yarning but in Eric's saga its Leif who's blown off-course by a storm when he's visiting the king in Norway and he discovers these American lands whose existence he had never even suspected once again I lean pretty heavily toward the saga of the Greenlanders explanation of events because Iceland and Greenland were discovered in just the same way somebody got blown off course by a storm they sighted the land they turned back and then later on somebody else followed up on that and went to actually land and explore these places the Greenland ur saga also just has much more detail in their account of that first journey to America so I'm gonna be pretty much going off of the saga of the Greenlanders from here on out according to the saga Leif landed in three places the first was headland land of flat stones the second Markland land of trees and the third finally famously Vinland land of grapes or berries or wine or meadows really kind of depends on who you ask the exact translation is very hotly debated hmm oh how did meat get on my sleeve traditionally the three lands have been identified as Baffin Island Labrador and Newfoundland and if you look at it on a map it makes sense the saga does identify these lands as three very distinct places but I don't entirely buy it and I'm not alone in that many saga scholars have questioned this traditional belief first off let's just assume that the saga of the Greenlanders is an accurate account of the expedition I know that's a big assumption to make I do consider it a fairly reliable account but it's a big leap going from this is a fairly reliable account - this is exactly what happened but it's also the only thing that we have to go off of here so here's how the saga describes Helou land by the way I'm going off of the Magnus Magnusson translations of the Vinland sagas which I realize is aging but it's the only one I have on hand so bear with me so haloo land there was no grass to be seen and the hinterland was covered with great glaciers and between the glaciers and shore the land was like one greatest lab of rock it seemed to them a worthless country yes that does sound like bath an island but it also sounds like many coastlines in this subarctic area again on a map it looks like there are three distinct looking lands but at sea level perspective is very different and much of the coast of Labrador does fit this hellooo land description even taking into account a thousand years of climate change so if you're sailing along the coast in your long ship with no knowledge of the eastern Canadian seaboard I find it highly likely that if you land here then put out to sea lose sight of land for a bit go down the coast and land here it might very well seem like a new Island especially since the ecology would be so drastically different next we have mark land the land of trees here's what the saga has to say about it this country was flat and wooded with white sandy beaches wherever they went the land just looked gently down to the sea well that definitely sounds like southern Labrador fun fact it's very probable that Norse Greenlanders throughout the rest of the Middle Ages went back to Markland many many times would so you know pretty cool right now we come to a possibly vital but often overlooked part of the saga after leaving Markland lief sailed on a northeast wind to Vinland for two days to me that screams a journey across the Gulf of st. Lawrence personally I think mark land was used to describe both southern Labrador and Newfoundland and that the famous archaeological site at Lonzo Meadows in northern Newfoundland was not Leif's puthiya or that first settlement that lief found it means beliefs houses but that it was a Waystation someplace to repair your ship before a more arduous journey further south damnest meat is good but let's get back on topic what does the sagas description of the voyage tell us about who Leif was as a person well we do have a literal description of Leafs personality in the sagas just a throwaway line it says Leif was tall and strong and very impressive in appearance he was a shrewd man and always moderate in his behavior but really wouldn't put too much stock in the sagas description of their heroes I mean the protagonists of Icelandic sagas were like the freakin action heroes of their day man and they would often go out of their way to describe how handsome and clever and wonderful their main characters were no instead let's look at Leafs actions in the saga actions speak louder than words after all so after landing in Finland Leif and his men put up the winter camp leaves booth you again Leafs houses we don't know where exactly that was but they decided to put up this camp and they spent the winter in Finland and they organized exploring parties basically half of the men would go off and explore the countryside and the other half would remain at leaf split theater now this is probably a pretty sound strategy especially since the Norse were unaware of the presence of Native Americans at this point Leif would take turns performing these duties one day he'd go off with the exploring party the other he would stay at the camp and manage things there one night Leafs foster father try Keir who is described as a southerner so probably a German got separated from an exploring party so Leif rebuked his men severely and set off with 12 men to find him when they finally did try kia was babbling on in his native language pulling all sorts of faces very very excitable so they finally got him to calm down and talk to them in Old Norse and he revealed very famously that he had discovered grapes or maybe berries okay so very contested translation but in any case those grapes / berries are what gave Finland its name but these episodes tell me is that Leif was probably someone who led from the front and also somebody who was very invested in the well-being and safety of his crew this is supported by his actions upon returning to Greenland so come spring Leafs mend loaded their ship with timber and grapes / berries and they headed home favourable winds took them all the way back to Greenland but as they were nearing breath a feed leaf saw something weird off in the distance none of his other men could see it but he could see just a little bit of a dark shape off on the water so he steered a little bit closer to it turned out to be a reef and on that reef were 15 shipwrecked Vikings so Leif rescued them he even allowed them to take as many of their belongings as could fit on the boat and when he returned home he got the nickname Leif the lucky I think this behavior demonstrates a sense of honor and compassion that was by no means ubiquitous in medieval Norse culture I mean when your nickname is Leif the lucky and there are a bunch of guys running around nicknamed skull-splitter then you're probably a pretty decent guy so as we celebrate Leif Eriksson day this year keep in mind you're not just raising your glass to a daring Explorer there have been plenty of those throughout history most of them douche bags you're also raising your glass to a good man and that's a far rarer thing this video is brought to you by Phil McCracken of McCracken plastering Phil will fill any crack in slathering white plaster all over the cracks of walls in your home or your office or your school or your church or your wait no this is oh yeah this is just Evan Janus [ __ ] with me again happy Leif Eriksson day Evan

Channel: Atun-Shei Films

Views: 175,997

Keywords: leif erikson, leif erikson day, leif eriksson, leifur eiriksson, viking, norse, explorer, greenland, canada, iceland, vinland, helluland, markland, native american, scandanavia, history, american history, viking age, medieval, funny, educational, informative

Id: C4cZLO1GJ40

Length: 12min 37sec (757 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 09 2019