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The Tamed Bull: Vinland Survives​

“I came to this land with axe and spear to tame it in the name of Odin. Instead I have claimed it in the name of Baldr - with trade and honeyed words. Long shall we live in this place - and our fathers shall find pride in this bloodless conquest of a sea of prosperity.”​
- Thorvald Karlsefni, first Chief of Nyrliggja


The Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefni

The voyage of Thorfinn Karlsefni, first Chief of Vinland and founder of the Norse colonies in upper Hafaegir*, is perhaps the most-recorded event in all of Vinnish history. It began the Thorfinnigan Exchange – the Storrskipan – and would grow to become the greatest world shift until well into the 1600s with the European Renaissance. Setting out with 150 people aboard three ships, he landed in what is today called 'Vinland' – the island, rather than the nation. They established a small village called Nyrliggja, the "New Lodge". It was there that they met the Skraelings – the people called the Beothuk in their own tongue. Trade was peaceful – the locals gladly trading bright red cloth for pelts. The winter was harsh – and the people of Vinland woefully lacking for both food and warmth. Despite a small scare by a bull's escape, which scared a few traders, the quick subduing by the Norse gave the traders a new found respect for these arrivals.

Peaceful trade established between the two, the Norsemen of Vinland settled into calm life in the wilderness. The first five years were harsh – but the birth of a dozen children including Snorri Thorfinsson offset this. Soon enough, with two bountiful harvests of grapes and wheat turned into fine bread, the village of Nyrliggja was on its way to proper survivability. Several trips by two of their ships, made by Thorvald Eriksson (brother to Leif), sent them new settlers – primarily Thule and Icelandic peoples seeking new bounties in places far away. These three hundred additional settlers over a period of two years left Nyrliggja at over 500 people by 1020. A solid foundation, for growth that was to come. It was in the year 1021 that Vinland found its first conflict amongst the people – with the first Catholic missionary landing in Vinland. While the locals had learned some of the language of the natives, this man sought not only to learn their language – but also convert and help them to grow in the European ways. Simultaneously, he managed to bring a dozen locals to his side – causing a rupture in the colony itself. The man, Sibering Haraldsson of what is now Jutland, left with his flock to join the Skraelings. For five years, contact with the barbarians was low. In this time, the populace had risen to 573, and they'd expanded south into the depths of Newfoundland.

Then, in the early summer of 1026, Sibering returned with the haggard remnants of the dozen and threescore tribesmen. He spoke of disease slowly killing off the many who had come to hear him preach, and his disillusionment with the gods he had once prayed to. The villagers, having learned some Norse ways and taught Sibering many of their own, integrated to have nearly 650 people in Vinland by 1030.

The vast distances heading northeast to Greenland and on to Iceland meant it took many months to head home and back. Despite shipments in 1031 and 1033 of some seeking more fertile lands, the population did not break a thousand souls until after the expeditions of Thorvald and Thorstein Erikson. The brothers of Leif, they set forth from Nyrliggja south and west – Thorvald landing far down a rivermouth to the west (OTL Quebec), his brother rounding a peninsula and landing deep in a bay (OTL Halifax), both founding settlements. Thorvaldsland and Eriksborg were barely fifty people apiece, but both found happier contact with the natives than that of Nyrliggjans.

Where Nyrliggja had mistrust and only light contact – followed up with mass disease – Eriksborg and Thorvaldsland made polite contact, learned the language, and traded what they knew (Ironworking) for what they didn't (farming, hunting, and how to make peace amongst the tribes) – resulting in easy coexistence with the Mi'iqmak peoples that inhabited the area. No longer Skraelings – a term reserved for the less than cooperative peoples of the Vinnish isle – these people received their true name, and kinship amongst the mead halls of the Nords

The sheer size of the American continent meant land was huge and the populations low, and as the saga of Thorfinn came to an end with his aging and illness in the 1040s, the population of the various settlements reached nearly 1,250 – mostly Norse, with some sporadic Skraeling joining the populace through intermarriage. Only sporadic trips between Vinland and Greenland meant the spread of Catholicism was nixed, if at all present, as the Norse seemed to go native...

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*= Lit. 'The Sea of Plenty', the name for North America ITTL. It does not adopt this name until widespread colonization of both New England and parts of central Canada.

Our POD is the people of Newfoundland don't lose their shit at the bull freaking out, as detailed in Erik The Red's saga. Thorfinn's expedition succeeds, and Thorvald/Thorstein Erikson survive a harsh death by natives. They thus develop semi-peaceful contact, and later an alliance as the Icelanders move inland.

Additional primary butterflies – the survival of the Aesir as a religion, Old Norse as a language, and the Viking culture/way of life. This is my first TL – and I expect to cast a pretty wide butterfly net outside of the Iceland/Greenland/Norway axis. Things that will change – a later Renaissance, earlier and more numerous expeditions by northern peoples, and the introduction of both cows and horses as livestock in the New World.
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