Week 7 Essay

          This week in history I learned about the Vikings. Two of the most important and well known Vikings are Erik the Red and Leif Ericson or Leif the Lucky, who happen to be father and son. In this essay, I will be writing about these two Vikings and what they are famous for.

          Erik the Red was born in Norway, but after his father was banished, he and his family moved to Iceland. However, it wasn’t long before he followed in his father’s footsteps and got banished too after killing someone. He sailed off on a boat and eventually found an unestablished island that was covered in ice. He went back to Iceland and gathered people to go and settle on the new island. To attract people to the island, he named it Greenland, which sounded better. 

          He did in fact gain settlers who colonized the island. They lived off of seals, beached whales, and all sorts of other fish. They made clothes out of blubber and learned to live on this cold, icy island. Technically, Erik was the first European to discover North America, but that name was given to his son, Leif Ericson.

          Leif was born in Greenland, but he lived in Norway for a time. In Norway, he was converted to Christianity, and felt that it was his calling to return to Greenland and convert the people there.

          However, on the voyage back to Greenland, his ship was blown off-course and he ended up in North America. He was fascinated by the land and named it Vinland. He also set up a colony there. More colonies were set up over time, but none of them made it and the Vikings were unable to completely inhabit the land. Today we are not 100% sure where the Vikings and Leif settled in North America, but we think it was somewhere in Canada.

          Leif did actually make it back to Greenland and spread Christianity. Some, like his mother, converted and changed their ways of life. Others, like his father, Erik the Red, stubbornly refused.

          Once, Leif was sailing somewhere where not many ships sailed at all, when he found some castaways in the ocean. He rescued them, and the castaways called themselves lucky that they were saved. This is how Leif got his nickname Leif the Lucky.

          It was interesting to learn about Vikings this week. I have always liked to learn about Vikings, especially Erik the Red and Leif Ericson, the real first Europeans to discover America.