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Updated: June 9, 2025
The people urged Rarlsefni to make the bold venture, so he determined to undertake the voyage, and gathered a company of sixty men and five women. He entered into an agreement with his shipmates that they should each share equally in all the spoils. They took with them all kinds of cattle, as they intended to settle the country if they could. Karlsefni asked Lief for his house in Wineland.
Especially did the strangers wish to buy red cloth, for which they offered in exchange peltries and quite grey skins. They also desired to buy swords and spears, but Karlsefni and Snorri forbade this. In exchange for perfect unsullied skins the Skrellings would take red stuff a span in length, which they would bind around their heads.
Karlsefni ordered trees to be felled; for he needed timber wherewith to load his ships. They gathered some of all the products of the land grapes, all kinds of game, fish, and other good things. In the summer after the first winter the Skrellings were discovered. A great throng of men came forth from the woods; the cattle were close by and the bull began to bellow and roar with a great noise.
Now they came to Straumsfjordr, where also they had abundance of all kinds. It is said by some that Bjarni and Freydis remained there, and a hundred men with them, and went not further away. But Karlsefni and Snorri journeyed southwards, and forty men with them, and after staying no longer than scarcely two months at Hop, had come back the same summer.
Thorfinn Karlsefni, who was a very wealthy man, passed the winter there in Greenland, with Lief Ericsson. He very soon set his heart upon a maiden called Gudrid, and sought her hand in marriage. That same winter a new discussion arose concerning a Wineland voyage.
A gale came upon them, however, and drove them onwards against Ireland, and there were they severely treated, enthralled, and beaten. Then Thorhall lost his life. Karlsefni proceeded southwards along the land, with Snorri and Bjarni and the rest of the company. They journeyed a long while, and until they arrived at a river, which came down from the land and fell into a lake, and so on to the sea.
THE SETTLEMENT IN VINLAND. Thornfinn Karlsefni, a successful trader between Iceland and Greenland, attempted to plant a colony in the new lands. Karlsefni and his friends, to the number of one hundred and sixty men and several women, set out in 1007 with three or four ships, loaded with supplies and many cattle.
One of Karlsefni's followers killed him for it. "Now we must needs take counsel together," said Karlsefni, "for I believe they will visit us a third time in greater numbers.
Then did Thorhall make ready for his journey out by the islands, and there volunteered for the expedition with him not more than nine men; but with Karlsefni there went the remainder of the company. And one day, when Thorhall was carrying water to his ship, he drank, and recited this verse: Eager God of the war-helmet!
The winter was mild and open, but spring had scarce returned, when the bay was as full of native canoes 'as if ashes had been sprinkled over it. They only came to trade and exchanged furs for red cloth, nor did they seem to care whether they got a broad piece of cloth or a narrow one. They also wanted weapons, but these Karlsefni refused to sell.
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