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The Incredible Story of Erik the Red, Greenland’s First Viking
According to the legend recorded in the sagas, Erik the Red was exiled from Iceland for three years for killing another man in a fight. He used the time to explore the rugged island of Greenland. When he was able to return, he convinced other Vikings to join him in settling on the new island, and he became the chief of Greenland. Does archaeology support this account of the settlement of Greenland?
Erik the Red: A Legend is Born
Erik the Red, by Arngrimur Jonsson, 1688. Source: Wikimedia Commons
Around 950 CE, Thorvald Asvaldson welcomed a son named Erik into the world. Red-headed Erik was born in Norway during the reign of Haakon the Good. However, when Thorvald killed another Viking, his punishment was exile, and the family migrated to Drangar in northwest Iceland, which was first settled in 874.
By the time Thorvald and his family arrived in Iceland, competition for land had grown stiff. But Erik carved a path for himself by marrying well. He wed a local woman named Thjodhild Jorundardottir. They moved to Haukadale and started a family. Erik would have many children, including Leif Erikson, Thorvald, Thorstein, and Freydis. It is not clear if Thjodhild was the mother of all of Erik’s children.
Statue of Erik the Red searching for the next adventure. Source: Eiríksstadir Living Museum, Búðardalur, Iceland
Life in Iceland proved far from quiet and pastoral. The troubles began with a landslide that decimated the farm of Valthjof, Erik, and Thjodhild’s neighbor. Erik’s slaves were accused of intentionally starting the landslide. Valthjof’s relative Eyjolf took revenge by murdering Erik’s slaves, and Erik retaliated by murdering Eyjolf. He then moved away to another settlement in Iceland, but trouble found Erik once more.
Erik moved to an island in west Iceland, and as he was establishing himself, he asked a man named Thorgest to keep his setstokkr that his family had brought with them from Norway. These were ornamental pillars with significant religious value. When Erik finished building his new home, he went to retrieve his pillars, but Thorgest refused to return them, so Erik stole them back. Thorgest and his men pursued Erik, and in the resulting fight, Erik killed Thorgest’s sons and some other men. This led to a feud between the two men, with both keeping a large number of allies around them. When the problem was eventually resolved at the local Thing gathering in 982 CE, Erik and his allies were banished from Iceland for three years.
Aerial view of Norse ruins along the coast of Greenland. Source: UNESCO
Erik, joined by some of his exiled associates, took to the sea and found a place he had heard of before but never seen: the world’s largest island. It was reportedly discovered almost a century earlier by the Viking Gunnbjorn Ulfsson, who was blown off course off the coast of Iceland. Only a few years before Erik, in the 970s, the outlaw Snaebjorn Galti Homlsteinsson also reportedly tried to settle on Greenland with a group of settlers. However, he was reportedly killed by another settler in a land dispute and the colony imploded due to internal strife.
This new place had an extreme environment with some 75% of it covered in ice and less than 25% of the land inhabitable. According to the sagas, in 985 CE, Erik returned to Iceland and convinced some three hundred Vikings to migrate to this new place called Greenland. He apparently chose the name as a marketing ploy to sell the new settlement.
Settling In
Horses walking through the dramatic environs of Greenland. Source: UNESCO
Once Erik had gathered his party, 25 ships set sail, but eleven sank en route. Once in Greenland, the newcomers established two settlements on the island’s southern coast, named the Eastern and Western Settlements. According to the sagas, Erik settled in the Eastern Settlement. The Norse established farms near freshwater sources, where they would be able to farm and raise livestock in the desolate environment.
Unlike Iceland, Greenland had been settled before the Vikings arrived. According to the sagas, the first Viking settlers found traces of previous dwellings, boats, and artifacts when they arrived. These belonged to the Dorset people, a Paleo-Eskimo culture that lived across Canada and Greenland from around 500 BCE to the 14th century in the northwest of the island. While the Vikings must have encountered the Dorset people, DNA studies show no evidence of genetic mixing, so intermarriage, between the Dorset people and the Norse, though this is based on a limited mtDNA study of the remains of 16 Dorset people.
Qassiarsuk: Home of Erik the Red?
Norse ruins in Qassiarsuk, widely believed to be Brattahlið. Source: The Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, Virginia
According to the sagas, Erik the Red chose prime farmland in western Eriksfjord for his home. Erik’s farm came to be known as Brattahlið, meaning “steep slope.” As the leader of the colonists, Erik held great authority. As such, Brattahlið became a place of significance and power in the new Norse world. The sagas also cite Brattahlið as the location of one of the first churches in Greenland, following Thjodhild’s conversion to Christianity. But how much of the sagas can be believed?
Plan of the ruins of Qassiarsuk. Source: National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen
As habitable land was limited in Greenland, curious explorers began poking around Eriksfjord in the 19th century CE. They found human bones and cloth fragments, but nothing more. Then, in 1926, Danish scholars Poul Nørlund and Aage Roussell uncovered a trapezoid-shaped coffin in Qassiarsuk. When they opened the coffin, it was empty. They continued digging and eventually found a body and a stone with a runic inscription. They had proof that the Vikings had been in Qassiarsuk, but the grave was just the beginning of their discoveries.
In 1932, archaeologists led by Poul Nørlund, with the aid of the National Museum of Denmark and Swedish archaeologist Mårten Stenberger, traveled to Greenland. In Eriksfjord, they found ruins of turf and stone and conducted large-scale excavations at the village of Qassiarsuk. Structures consistent with Norse architectural designs emerged from the earth. Initial excavations at Qassiarsuk revealed multiple farms and 18 structures, including dwellings, barns, storehouses, and a church. The site is believed by many to be the legendary Brattahlið of the sagas and potentially the home of Erik the Red, though some skepticism remains.
Missing Structures
Norse church ruins in Greenland, Source: UNESCO
Excavations at Qassiarsuk recovered a whetstone engraved with Thor’s hammer, suggesting that some of the Norse Greenlanders maintained connections with the Norse pantheon of Viking Age Scandinavia. However, Nørlund and Stenberger also found ruins of a church in Qassiarsuk. This church dates from after the 10th century, suggesting that it is not associated with the story of Erik the Red. Considering the important role that the Greenlandic conversion to Christianity plays in his saga, could there really have been a Brattahlið without Thjodhilde’s Church?
Norse ruins in Greenland. Source: UNESCO
During the 1932 excavations at Qassiarsuk, Nørlund uncovered turf and stone walls that he interpreted as structures for temporary visitors, along with tent rings and hearths. This evidence has suggested to some archaeologists that there may have been a possible assembly or Althing site at Qassiarsuk. Written sources record lawmen living at Brattahlið, suggesting that it could also have functioned as an assembly site.
Animal Remains
Artifacts recovered from a Norse settlement in Greenland. Source: UNESCO
During the 1932 excavations, archaeologists also found a midden or trash deposit filled with animal bones. Greenland was different from medieval Scandinavia in many respects, including its wildlife. In Greenland, walruses, harp seals, and harbor seals frequented the waters. Seal bones are abundant at excavations of Norse farms in Greenland. Middens also contain the bones of caribou, showing that they were hunted as well.
Bones of cattle, sheep, and goats attest to the presence of other animals used for dairy products and wool. Chemical analysis shows that the Norse adopted a more marine-based diet over time. Additional analysis has revealed that marine protein was consumed more in the Eastern Settlement than in the Western Settlement.
The Vikings also encountered large herds of walrus in Disko Bay. Hunting walrus proved a lucrative enterprise for the Norse, who were invested in the European ivory trade. However, archaeologists are not convinced that the pursuit of walrus was a primary factor in the Norse settlement of Greenland. Rather, research has indicated that at the peak of Norse settlement in Greenland exports of walrus ivory to Europe were high, suggesting that it may have been an unexpected but lucrative market for the settlers.
Thjodhildes Church and a Killer Epidemic
Burials excavated from a cemetery in Greenland. Source: National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen
In 1003 CE, a new wave of immigrants arrived in Greenland. They brought much to the island, including a wave of powerful germs. Erik the Red succumbed to an epidemic that ravaged Norse Greenland just as a new millennium dawned. As a pioneering explorer, colonist, murderer, and leader, he is remembered as one of the last of the legendary Vikings. His place of rest remains a mystery.
In 1961, the construction of a school hostel in Qassiarsuk encountered human skulls. The bones were sent to a lab, where analysis confirmed that they were from the period of Norse colonization. Excavations began in earnest, and archaeologists and physical anthropologists excavated a small turf church and a burial ground. They excavated 155 burials around the churchyard.
Reconstruction of Thjordhildes Church, Greenland. Source: Visit Greenland
An analysis of the skeletal remains showed that men and women had been segregated, with the women buried in the northern section of the churchyard and the men buried in the southern section of the churchyard. Archaeologists tested nine of the skeletons using radiocarbon dating. The bodies dated to c. 1000-1100/1200 CE. Several aspects of this discovery intrigued those familiar with the saga version of Erik the Red. It looked as if Thjodhilde’s church had been found at last. If so, could archaeologists expect to find Erik the Red nearby?
The Death of Viking Greenland
Norse ruins in Greenland, Source: UNESCO
In the early 1400s CE, Greenland witnessed the wedding of Sigrid Bjornsdottir and Thorstein Olafsson, the burning of a witch at the stake, and the disappearance of the Vikings from the island. Scholars have proposed many theories to explain the Norse vanishing act in Greenland. Most explanations look outside of Greenland to external catalysts. There was a volcanic eruption in the 13th century that cooled the climate, and increased sea ice and ocean storms.
Progressive sea level rise may also have changed life in Greenland. Around the same time, European nations opened trade routes with sub-Saharan Africa, where elephants added unprecedented competition to the ivory market. And then there was the plague, which decimated Greenland’s European trade partners.
Photo of Native Greenlanders taken in 1903. Source: National Library of Norway
While any or all of these explanations may have spurred the Viking abandonment of Greenland, scholars remain divided as to whether there was a single dramatic event, a mass exodus, or a gradual population decline. The decline of the Vikings did not leave Greenland unpopulated, as the Thule people migrated into the area and are the ancestors of modern-day native Greenlanders.
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