The Norse Greenlanders Discovery/Exploration of America. 1000ce
Columbus was the worlds first Democrat.
When he left, he didnt know where he was going.
When he got there, he didnt know where he was.
When he got back, he didnt know where he had been.
And he did it all with other peoples money!
The Facts From Norse Force
The truth on the exploration of North America by Norsemen.
Columbus never actually set foot on the North American Continent. What a hoax!
I emphasize "Norsemen" and not Vikings because by this time they were not Vikings in the sense of the word
but farmers, merchants and explorers. Even though there was a couple of military campaigns yet to happen, Knut, Harold etc.
And "Exploration" as oppose to "Discovering" because North America was inhabited.
It was sparsely populated with Inuit(Canada) and Indians. If the Indians paddled to Europe can they say
they discovered it? I think not.

So lets begin with the Greenlanders Sagas of 1200ce.
This is about the only text left on the subject that wasn't lost at sea in a sinking of
a ship bringing writings back to Scandinavia and more writings lost in the Copenhagen fire.
Scholars and the like think the Sagas are not accurate because of earlier Sagas where the writers
sometimes tend to get a little creative .
Well don't forget. Homers Iliad and Troy were thought not to be factual and it has been proved
 that the battle of Troy did happen and Troy did exist.

We will start with the first siteing of North America by Eric the Red during a reconnaissance in 982-985 in Eric's Saga.
But it was a man named Bjarni Herjolfson who in the Greenlanders Sagas gets the credit for "Discovery",
and Lief Erickson for the exploration.
Bjarni was a merchant with his own knorr or merchant ship.
He comes back to Iceland from one of his trips and finds out his father has went back to Greenland.
So he heads out to visit his father.
He starts out on his voyage and gets lost in the North Atlantic fog in unfamiliar waters.
They drift for weeks with no wind or current. By the suns position they know they are off course and to far south.
They spot heavily forested land that faces east. It's not Greenland no trees can be seen from shore there.
This new land has no high mountains or glaciers. The crew wants to land for water and firewood but he has reservations and decides against it.
He later gets ribbed for not landing when he tells of his discovery in Norway.

Columbus never actually set foot on the North American Continent
he made 4 voyages in total. The first sighting was probably an island in the Bahamas,
and then he proceeded into the Caribbean. All his subsequent voyages were to the Caribbean,
Central and South America. He never landed on the North American mainland.
Word of the New Land was speading across Europe for 500 years.
Ever since Bjarni told of his adventure.

Now to the Explorers of North America and the New England area know as and named Vínland with an accent mark above the "i" or Vineland.
This is another area that these so called Scholars try to discredit Leif and the men.
They say that it might not mean Vineland which translates in Old Icelandic to Wineland.
They say they may have made a mistake with the accent mark and they meant Vinland without the accent mark above the "i" which means Meadow Land.
The word for Grapes in Old Icelandic is "Vín" As oppose to "Vin" that back then meant meadow.
The word for meadow now is "Eng"
which is part of the writer of this documents name.
Well one thing is for sure is that in the context of the Saga the term Vínland is written about 20 times referring to North America and clearly refers to Grapes.
And the word "Vin" is used a couple times and is clearly in reference to a meadow. The writers of the Sagas or scribes knew how to spell their own language. It's not even the spelling it's actually only the accent mark.

The Sagas tell of 5 subsequent Voyages to North America the first of which is about 15 years after the voyage by Bjarni.
Leif goes to Bjarni to barter for a ship intent on Exploration.
They set sail southward. They site the land that Bjarni spoke of and finally settle on an area to land and winter there.

Leif and his crew of 35 men including Trykr the "southerner" he was called who was the one who spotted the grapes and grapevines.
Leif notes that the winter there is unusually mild, they build temporary housing or "booths" do some exploring of the area
and in the spring load up the ship with wood and head back to Greenland rescuing some people from a shipwreck on the way and hence the term "Lucky Leif" is coined. No contact with the Natives is noted on Leif's expedition.

The Voyage of Leif's brother Thorvald is a different story. A few years later Thorvald and a crew of thirty set sail and find
Leifs property and winter there. They stay two summers and Explore.
He is the first Norse Greenlander to make contact with the Indians.
Thorvald and the Gang kill eight Indians. Old habit's died hard I guess.
Then the Indians stage a subsequent attack and Thorvald is wounded by an arrow and dies.
Before he dies requests that he be buried in this new land and he is.
There is a tree somewhere in New England that stands high above the rest and I bet that's where Thorvald lays.

A few more voyages are made by others and more problems and skirmishes with the Indians and they say to hell with this.
Another story of an expedition of about 160 men is told in a Saga of 1260.
In that one they took with them cattle and women with the thought of settlement.
It also states that two children were born here in North America making
them the first Norse American's.
But again encounters with the Indian's turned into battle.
At first the Indians approach for trade. Then they want to trade for spears and swords but
this is not allowed. Much as how Charlemagne tried to prohibit the sale of Frankish
Swords to the Vikings. Or in modern times prohibit the sale of weapons to other Countries
so they won't be equally armed and maintain your advantage and subjugation of them.
If all nations today fought with equal weaponry the battles would have different outcomes.
Sword against sword the victors would be the ones with the most determination, ferocity and will, not technology which gives them a false sense of power and might.
So the Indian's get scared off by a snorting bull the Norsemen brought with them and the Indians return
3 weeks later and attack with arrows and ballistas killing some Norsemen.
A women saves the day by pretending to cut off her breast and the Indians flee.
The Indians are easily frightened by craziness and irate bulls it seems.
So the Norse pack up and head back to Greenland.
I guess this is one of the stories that Pathfinder was very loosely based on.
We resent Pathfinder because it makes the Vikings look inept.


Hundreds of trips most likely where made to North America for tree's and other resources.
It was common and none of these trips would have been written about.
Do you write about your trip to the Lumber Yard?

Another issue these Scholars have is that they have yet to find Leif's settlement.
Well  it's safe to say that with the Indian problem they could have burned them down,
destroyed them or they could have just fell apart with time. Or have just not been located as of yet
or will never be for that matter.
That is not a good reason to dismiss there achievement.

So why isn't Leif Erickson given proper credit for the discovery and exploration of North America.
(October 9th is Leif Erickson Day did you even know that?) instead we give Columbus all the credit.
A man who about 500 years later, after this land was known of in Europe. From who? the Norsemen.
Sets sail, gets blown so far of course he lands in Santo Domingo.
Santo Domingo is now the Dominican Republic and that was inhabited.
And then what? He goes on to the Caribbean,
Central and South America.
In know way shape or form did he discover the North American Continent
So why is this Italian given the credit? Maybe the same reason so many Italians are in local governments.
At least all the towns I lived in thus far!
I would say the Norseman were not interested in exploiting this land, their main interest was trees and lumber.
Of course the wildlife and furs did not hurt. But for the most part it was not worth the effort because there
was not much here. No wealth, no plunder or booty. The Indians had no gold or silver to pillage nothing of real value
so what the heh? Let them have it, we have our own land.
But more Europeans came later and stole a land already inhabited, in time slaughtered just about every Indian they could and
exploited this land in every possible way. One of the great injustices done to a people.
Another Heathen people that had to eliminated or tamed.


Now most of you probably know of the Norse settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows.
This was the only area that clear evidence was found that the Norsemen were there.
It is in Newfoundland Canada. The experts and skeptics that don't want to admit that the Norse Discovered/Explored
 New England first claim this is the "Vineland" Leif named, built houses and wintered at.
Well the facts are that the Sagas clearly state that they had to take one day to clear the heavy vines from the forest giants as they called them and one day to fell trees in this rotation everyday till the ships were full.
Well there are no trees at L'Anse aux Meadows and never were according to scientific data collected.
The biggest trees there and its the same as it was 1000 years ago are 4 feet maximum. They claim the scrub berry bushes that grow there are the Grapevines they wrote about.
These bushes don't over grow on tree trunks as they do in the New England forests if anyone that lives there knows.

 In fact L'Anse aux Meadows was a staging area/ half way point for trips to bring lumber back to Greenland
for sometime until problems with the Indians  there started, they would kill their cattle, skirmishes became more frequent
and it was eventually abandoned and used by the Indians after that.

These are the facts in a condensed essay. There is a lot more and I hope this entices you to study further on your own.
I encourage all truth loving people to read and study this issue and take up the battle standard.
Start a movement to abolish Columbus Day and make "Leif Erickson Day" the true First European Explorer/Discoverer of America Day.
We want to see scores and legions of Vikings and Norseman marching down the streets celebrating the Discovery of America.
What a grand site this would be and a day we will look forward too.
Amen.
Copyright 2011 Norse Force ™