Leif Erikson: The Life and Legacy of the Most Famous Viking Explorer

Over the centuries, the West has become fascinated by the Vikings, one of the most mysterious and interesting European civilizations. In addition to being perceived as a remarkably unique culture among its European counterparts, what’s known and not known about the Vikings’ accomplishments has added an intriguing aura to the historical narrative. Were they fierce and fearsome warriors? Were they the first Europeans to visit North America? It seems some of the legends are true, and some are legend. 

The man credited for the Vikings’ discovery of North America has long been Leif Erikson, the son of Erik the Red, and several medieval sources documented the family’s history and accomplishments. Sturla Thordarson (1214-84), an Icelandic chieftain, compiled Landnamabok, or The Book of Settlements, which covered Icelandic history and genealogy. It lists the consequential settlers, with information on their families, marriages, who settled where, and what they did.

Adam of Bremen’s History of the Archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, written in Latin between 1073 and 1075, contains a geographical appendix (Book 4:38) documenting Vinland. Bremen’s text is the first surviving continental European record of Norse contact with North America, which proves that elite intellectual circles in medieval Germany already knew about Leif Erikson’s exploration in the same century he discovered Vinland.

These histories and genealogies briefly mention Vinland, Leif Erikson, Erik the Red, and other family members, but the most robust sources of information are the two Vinland sagas: The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Erik the Red. These stories were written between 1200 and 1265, about two centuries after Leif Erikson lived. Before that, they were told orally, which helps explain why modern scholars typically dismiss the sagas as historically unreliable because of the centuries-long gap between when the events happened and when they were finally recorded in writing.