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Saga of Erik the Red:
"Leif put out to sea and was long voyaging, and he made landfall where he had never before expected to find land; there was self-sown wheat there, and vines; there were trees of the kind called Maple - and all of these they brought some tokens; some timbers so large that they were used for house-building.
Leif found men on a wreck and brought them home with him. In this he showed the greatest nobility and manliness, as in much else, when he brought the Christian faith to the land, and was ever since called Leif the Lucky."


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The Men on a Wreck:

The side winds were were so strong that Thorir ordered the sail to be taken down completely. With only a bare mast the knarr still traveled swiftly. The sea was rough, but the rains had stopped and the sky was growing lighter.

Thorir helped stow the sail and then he went under the tarpaulin in the center of the ship. There his wife Gurdrid tended to a sick man, Egil. A few days ago Egil was one of the strongest men on board, but now he lay on the deck boards shaking beneath a blanket. A glance at Gurdrid's eyes told him that she thought the Egil would soon die.

They had traveled long from Norway with a load of timber. They had stopped in Iceland and soon after that this storm had attacked them with its wolf-winds. Knarrs are wonderful ships but it takes skill to sail them, and luck to keep them on corse. Thorir was still confident: this storm may delay their journey, but nothing worse. Yes, Egil may die but death waits at the end of all men's journeys. Thorir left the cover of the tarpaulin and squinted into the sky. It was lighter now, but he had a sinking feeling that they had been blown much further south than hoped.

It took two days for them to reach land and find a good place to beach the knarr. Egil's brother, Ulf, was sick now as well. Some shelter was quickly built and the sick men were placed near a large fire. The crew had scouted the shoreline in both directions and had reported piles of sea shells and other signs of habitation. They easily found wood to repair the damaged spar and they saw that the rudder needed some work as well. Only a few hours later the first skraelings appeared. Thorir showed his colored wool cloth and iron axe heads to the natives and made them understand his intent to trade. The skraelings left with smiles and came back a few hours later. They seemed to have brought their entire village with them. They offered furs and ivory; Thorir got down to the business of trading.

It was getting dark when disaster struck. "My knife!" shouted a Norseman, "The screecher has stolen my knife!" The Norsemen swung his axe at the culprit who was motionless with surprise. The axe bit deep into the skraeling's chest and then a general melee broke out. Thorir's men gathered into a circle and swung at any native foolish enough to get near. The skraelings ran in all directions; men, women, and children all crying out loudly. The skraeling men remembered their bows and slings and pelted the cluster of Norsemen.

"To the ship!" Thorir commanded. A stone ball hurled by a native's slings struck Askel in the knee with a sickening noise, he fell and was unable to join with the group now moving steadily to the knarr. The Norsemen reached the beached craft and quickly scrambled aboard. A large number of skraelings swarmed the knarr but were easily beaten back.

The fighting stopped as the skraelings all backed away. Thorir had time to asses the situation. They were beached and surrounded by hostiles, night was falling, three men had been lost, but the rest were in good shape. Two of the three lost men were sick and may have died soon anyway, so Thorir figured the real loss was only Askel. The first order of business was to get the ship off the beach, but it would be a few hours before the tide favored them.

As night fell the men on the ship stood to all sides staring intently into the darkness, their ears straining to hear any movement above the noise of the water's edge. At last Thorir judged the tide full enough to unbeach the ship. With as little noise as possible the Vikings quickly dragged the knarr into free water. They then rowed further out to safety.

The next day they risked rowing close to shore again. There was no sign of the natives. There was also no sign of the three lost Vikings. They all felt the urge to strike back at the skrailings and rescue Egil, Ulf, and Askel. But all the men knew that would be foolhardy. They were alone in alien lands and the three lost comrades were most likely already dead. Grimly they turned and sailed North.

Thorir had decided not to risk landing again to finish the repairs and he ultimately suffered the consequences; his rudder failed him. His ship was stranded upon some rocks and death seemed inevitable. But then the sails of another Viking ship were seen! It was Leif Erikson, who demonstrated his newfound Christian charity and saved the men (and laid claim to all the cargo). Leif had just spent a year in the lands Thorir had just left, but Leif had not encountered the skraeling who killed three of Thorir's men. Together they safely finished their journey to Greenland.

But the sickness was in Thorir and he died. All of Thorir's men died of the sickness as well. Only Gurdrid, Thorir's wife, survived. Some of the Greenlanders died from the disease too, including Erik the Red, father of Leif the Lucky.
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