LEIF ERIKSSON DISCOVERER OF AMERICA? -BY AWAKE WRITER IN DENMARK

What Became of the Norsemen?

There is no record of a permanent Norse settlement in America.  There may have been a short-lived, abortive attempt at settling there; but conditions were harsh, and native Americans-whom the Vikings called Skraelings-proved to be more than a match for the intruders.  In Greenland the descendants of Erik the Red and of his son Leif Eriksson had a difficult time.  The climate grew harsher, and provisions became sparse. After four or five centuries, the Norse seem to have disappeared entirely of Greenland.  The last written record of  Norsemen in Greenland involves a weeding held in  a Greenland church in 1408.  Over a  century later, a German merchant ship found the Greenland colony entirely deserted but for a single body that had not been buried-that of a man, his knife at his side. After that, there is silence about the Norsemen in Greenland. Not until the 18th century did Norwegian and Danish settlers arrive to establish a permanent colony.  

It was from Greenland, however, that intrepid Norse navigators set out for a new world. One can still imagine those hardy sailors guiding their square-sailed boats across unknown waters until they gazed in wonder at a coastline on the horizon-never suspecting that five centuries later, Christopher Columbus would be hailed as the discoverer of this New World. 

Next time: "Look! I Am Making All Things New"

From the Awake! magazine