Tess’ Weblog

This is an Humanities assignment. We had to chose an explorer and write a biography about them. I chose Eric the Red. I got an A for this piece of work.

Eric the Red

 

Eric the Red was born around 950 and died in 1003 or 1004, his dying date is not precise. Eric was a Viking explorer who was the first European in Greenland. Eric the Red was also called Erik Thorvaldson and was born in Norway, but his family settled in western Iceland, after his father, Thorvald Asvaldsson, was banished for murdering a man. Eric is called “the Red” because his hair was bright red.  

 

Banishment:

 

Eric killed two men and was banished from Iceland for three years.One of the murders was because of his neighbor named Thorgest who borrowed a shovel and when it did not come back to Eric, he wanted an explanation. When Thorgest refused to return it, Eric stole the shovel back. In the following trail, he killed Thorgest.

 The second crime happened when Eric insisted upon revenge for the deaths of his slaves who had “accidentally started a land slide” on Valthjof’s farm. Valthjof murderously punished the slaves for this disaster. Eric did not like what Valthjof had done, so killed him.

The Icelanders eventually found out that Eric had done these murders and banished him from Iceland for three years. This led Eric and a group of followers to travel to the lands nearly 800 kilometers west from Iceland.  

 

Discoveries:   

 

If it was not for Eric’s banishment he would have never explored Greenland. A century earlier GunnbjÖrn Ulfsson was the first person that sighted Greenland, but strong winds had driven him to a land he called “Gunnbjarnarsker”. Eric did not sail the seas and eventually bumped into Greenland, it was sighted before him.

 

In about 982 Eric the Red and his family sailed to a mysterious land. They were sailing in cold and dangerous seas. Storms raised waves higher than the mask, icebergs loomed out of the mist. Sometimes, a freezing fog blotted out the sun and stars, so they could not tell which way to steer. After several days they saw mountains on the horizon. Drawing nearer, Eric saw they could never land there. He eventually reached a part of the coast that seemed ice-free and had conditions similar to those of Iceland. He spent his three years of banishment exploring this land. The first winter he spent on the island of Eiriksey, the second winter passed in Eiriksholmar, close to Hvarfsgnipa. In the final summer he explored as far north as Snaefell and in to Hrafnsfjord.

 

In 985, Eric’s banishment from Iceland was over. Eric had promised his friends back in Iceland that, if he discovered a new land, he would come back and tell them. He decided to keep that promise. He and his men who had all made the journey safely on their way to Greenland, repaired their battered ships and sailed back to Breidafjord, Iceland. When Eric came back he was a famous man. News of the discovery spread from farm to farm. Many people wanted to learn more, and Eric was eager to tell them. He called this new land Greenland, even though it was covered with ice, to make it sound nicer than it was and to encourage settlement.

Eric purposely gave the land a more attractive name than “Iceland”. He explained, “People would be attracted to go there if it had a favorable name”.

Eric and 400 – 500 settlers in 14 ships, arrived to settle Greenland in 986. They settled in Brattahlid, the North Settlement and Godthab (now called Nuuk), the Western Settlement.

After doing well for a while, they experienced unusually cold weather. Some of the settlers returned to Iceland, but the rest of the settlers disappeared. It is thought that either the Inuit people attacked the settlers or they died from epidemics and starvation.           

 

Eric the Red had a wife called Thjodhild and had four children: a daughter, Freydís, and three sons, the explorer Leif Erikson, Thorvald and Thorstein.

 

Leif Ericson became the first Viking to explore the land of Vinland (part of Canada, Newfoundland). Leif invited his father on the voyage. At first Eric didn’t want to go because he was an old man (about 50, which was considered old in that time), but Leif persuaded him to go. Eric might have been old but he was the greatest man in Greenland. According to legend, Eric fell off his horse on his way to the ship and took this as a bad sign, leaving his son to continue without his company. Eric died the winter after his son’s departure in 1003 or 1004.

 

It is usually believed that Christopher Columbus was the first European to arrive in the New World in 1492. Indeed, Christopher Columbus is the first European to have settlement in America. However, he was not the first European to set foot in the New World. That happened during the Viking age, 500 years earlier, when Leif Ericson explored new lands west of Greenland in the year 1000 AD.

 

In conclusion, it doesn’t really matter which explorer is it or what he did. All explorers are amazing because they go places where no one has ever been before and find the determination to go there and see what they could find. They could have gone to explore and find nothing or even get killed during the way, but that didn’t happen he found a place were no had ever gone before. As well, he had the courage and was so persuasive that he managed to get 400 or 500 settlers to follow him, most of them died. Eric the Red got very lucky because some of his ships did not make it. 14 out of 21 ships had made it to Greenland, Eric and his family were on one of them. Eric was also very lucky that he did not die from the unexpected cold weather or fast growing diseases like some others.

 

What motivated Eric the Red to go on the journey was because of his banishment. He could not go to Norway because his father was banished and he was banished from Iceland, so he decided to take a chance, an adventure, a new beginning to go to Greenland. This has an effect on the world because there are other explorers and important people that were born on Greenland. That means that is Eric hadn’t found Greenland, then other explorers or important people wouldn’t have been born and discovered the places that they did or have done something amazing.

 

  By Tess