The Vinland Sagas - The Norse Discovery of America

The two medieval Icelandic sagas translated in the volume tell one of the most arresting stories in the history of exploration - the discovery of America by Norsemen five centuries before Christopher Columbus. In spare and vigorus prose they record Europe's first surprised glimpse of eastern shorse of the North American continent and the Red Indian natives who inhabited them. The Sagas describe how Eirik the Red founded an Icelandic colony in Greenland and how his son, Leif the Lucky, later sailed south to explore and if possible exploit the chance discovery by Bjarni Herjolfsson of an unknown land.