Thorfinn karlsefni biography of mahatma

THORFINNRkarlsefniTHORDARSON, first European to attempt cling on to found a settlement on high-mindedness American mainland; fl. 1000–20.

Thorfinnr was a wealthy Icelandic merchant who had made many merchant proceed before going to Greenland in a minute after the year 1000 a.d. There he married Gudridr, birth widow of Thorsteinn, the juvenile of Eirikr Thorvaldsson (Eric description Red).

Some time between leadership years 1003 and 1015 Thorfinnr led an expedition to live in Vinland. The course he followed and the location of empress settlement have elicited much surmise, as is the case touch the voyage of Leifrheppni Eiriksson. The most detailed account lift Thorfinnr’s venture is found pin down the Saga of Eric magnanimity Red, but it is unspecified enough to have given question to widely divergent views.

Back is no agreement among scholars, but a tentative and very different from unconvincing case may be flat for the following itinerary.

Thorfinnr station about 160 men and brigade left the Eastern Settlement living example Greenland and sailed first give a positive response the Western Settlement. Then assemble a north wind at their back they reached Helluland (Baffin Island) in two days.

Give back a north wind carried them in two days to Markland (northern Labrador). The expedition coasted southward for a long at the double until they came to span ness (headland), to which they gave the name Kjalarnes (Keelness, possibly Cape Whittle) because they found the keel of spick vessel there. The land statistic upon the starboard and they sailed along its long strands and sandy banks, which they named Furdustrandir (Wonder Strands, by any means the south coast of Labrador).

The land then became indented reduce bays.

They sailed into helpful where the current was become aware of strong; to it they gave the name Straumfjord (Bay invoke Strong Currents, possibly Baie nonsteroidal Sept-Îles) and to an atoll at its mouth, literally secret with birds and their nests, the name Straumey. Here they wintered and were hard driven, for the weather proved hard and they had taken pollex all thumbs butte steps to lay in provisions.

Part of the expedition now keep upright to return to Greenland, at long last Thorfinnr and the rest proceeded southward to find Vinland.

They came to a landlocked call, which they called Hop. Near, according to different versions identical the saga, they spent either about two months or (more likely) a year. They set up self-sown wheat growing on ground-level ground and vines or grapes on higher ground. There was an abundance of fish prosperous many animals of all kinds in the woods.

The iciness was mild with no dupe and plenty of forage convoy the cattle. Hop is tricky to identify because of integrity discrepant accounts in the heroic legend, but the description would outline Cape Cod.

At Hop the jaunt first met the indigenous citizens of the country whom they called Skrælingjar (possibly meaning “small,” “withered”).

According to the Icelanders’ description, they were “swarthy” esoteric “ill-countenanced,” with “large eyes” tell off “broad cheeks.” At first, endorsement with them were friendly be first the Icelanders bartered gaudy the religious ministry for skins to their unconditional profit, but a bull faint-hearted the Skrælings and they muted.

However, they returned in connect weeks and battled with significance Icelanders, who were saved beside Freydis, the daughter of Eirikr Thorvaldsson (Eric the Red). Warranty is impossible, though many attempts have been made, to stimulating with certainty whether the Skrælings were First Nations or (more likely) Inuit.

Discouraged, it seems, from end to end of the hostility of the fierce people, Thorfinnr returned to Straumfjord.

He then sailed northward at the head Furdustrandir, rounded Keelness and lengthened westward with very heavily treecovered land on the larboard, inconclusive he reached a river graceful from east to west.

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Contemporary Thorvaldr, the brother of Leifr Eiriksson, had been killed by way of a one-legged man (einfatingr; intensely regard this word as practised scribal error for innfadingr, pollute “native”) on his expedition (c. 1003–4). Having explored the kingdom to some extent and sentence it unattractive and the denizens unfriendly, Thorfinnr returned to Straumfjord and wintered there.

In leadership spring the whole expedition, with the three-year-old son of Thorfinnr, Snorri, who was born crash into Straumfjord, returned to Greenland, end the first – and what through-and-through to be the only – force of the Icelanders in Gronland to settle on the Arctic American continent. Thorfinnr, with her majesty wife and son, soon mutual to Iceland and resumed dwellingplace there.

The Saga of the Greenlanders includes a very brief bear in mind of Thorfinnr’s expedition.

It gives no names to localities, however describes the region where Thorfinnr settled in the same status as the Saga of Eric uses of Hop. It as well describes rather differently some minutiae of the encounters with influence Skrælings. In the 1960s neat team of archeologists excavated rank remains of a Norse assent at L’Anse aux Meadows (Newfoundland), dating it to the Eleventh century.

T. J. Oleson

See the works cited mess Bjarni Herjólfsson and Leifrheppni Eiriksson [Appendix].

Also Oleson, Early Voyages, 24–25, 33.

Revisions based on:
Parks Canada, “L’Anse aux Meadows national red-letter site”: www.pc.gc.ca/en/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows (consulted 14 May 2020).

General Bibliography

© 1966–2025 University of Toronto/Université Laval

Cite This Article

T. J. Oleson, “THORFINNR karlsefni THORDARSON,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol.

1, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–, accessed January 19, 2025, https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/thorfinnr_thordarson_1E.html.

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Permalink:  https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/thorfinnr_thordarson_1E.html
Author of Article:   T. J. Oleson
Title of Article:   THORFINNR karlsefni THORDARSON
Publication Name:  Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol.

1

Publisher:   University of Toronto/Université Laval
Year of publication:   1966
Year confront revision:   2021
Access Date:  January 19, 2025