Eric the Red

It was a spring day many years after Ingolf died. All the freemen in the

west of Iceland had come to a meeting. Here they made laws and punished

men for having done wrong. The meeting was over now. Men were walking

about the plain and talking. Everybody seemed much excited. Voices were

loud, arms were swinging.

"It was an unjust decision," some one cried. "Eric killed the men in

fair fight. The judges outlawed him because they were afraid. His foe

Thorgest has many rich and powerful men to back him."

"No, no!" said another. "Eric is a bloody man. I am glad he is out of

Iceland."

Just then a big man with bushy red hair and beard stalked through the

crowd. He looked straight ahead and scowled.

"There he goes," people said, and turned to look after him.

"His hands are as red as his beard," some said, and frowned.

But others looked at him and smiled, saying:

"He walks like Thor the Fearless."

"His story would make a fine song," one said. "As strong and as brave

and as red as Thor! Always in a quarrel. A man of many places--Norway,

the north of Iceland, the west of Iceland, those little islands off the

shore of Iceland. Outlawed from all of them on account of his quarrels.

Where will he go now, I wonder?"

This Eric strode down to the shore with his men following.

"He is in a black temper," they said. "We should best not talk to him."

So they made ready the boat in silence. Eric got into the pilot's seat

and they sailed off. Soon they pulled the ship up on their own shore.

Eric strolled into his house and called for supper. When the

drinking-horns had been filled and emptied, Eric pulled himself up and

smiled and shouted out so that the great room was full of his big

voice:

"There is no friend like mead. It always cheers a man's heart."

Then laughter and talking began in the hall because Eric's good temper

had come back. After a while Eric said:

"Well, I must off somewhere. I have been driven about from place to

place, like a seabird in a storm. And there is always a storm about me.

It is my sword's fault. She is ever itching to break her peace-bands

and be out and at the play. She has shut Norway to me and now Iceland.

Where will you go next, old comrade?" and he pulled out his sword and

looked at it and smiled as the fire flashed on it.

"There are some of us who will follow you wherever you go, Eric," called

a man from across the fire.

"Is it so?" Eric cried, leaping up. "Oh! then we shall have some merry

times yet. Who will go with me?"

More than half the men in the hall jumped to their feet and waved their

drinking-horns and shouted:

"I! I!"

Eric sat down in his chair and laughed.

"O you bloody birds of battle!" he cried. "Ever hungry for new frolic!

Our swords are sisters in blood, and we are brothers in adventure. Do

you know what is in my heart to do?"

He jumped to his feet, and his face glowed. Then he laughed as he looked

at his men.

"I see the answer flashing from your eyes," he said, "that you will do

it even if it is to go down to Niflheim and drag up Hela, the pale queen

of the stiff dead."

His men pounded on the tables and shouted:

"Yes! Yes! Anywhere behind Eric!"

"But it is not to Niflheim," Eric laughed. "Did you ever hear that story

that Gunnbiorn told? He was sailing for Iceland, but the fog came down,

and then the wind caught him and blew him far off. While he drifted

about he saw a strange land that rose up white and shining out of a blue

sea. Huge ships of ice sailed out from it and met him. I mean to sail to

that land."

A great shout went up that shook the rafters. Then the men sat and

talked over plans. While they sat, a stranger came into the hall.

"I have no time to drink," he said. "I have a message from your friend

Eyjolf. He says that Thorgest with all his men means to come here and

catch you to-night. Eyjolf bids you come to him, and he will hide you

until you are ready to start; for he loves you."

"Hunted like a wolf from corner to corner of the world!" Eric cried

angrily. "Will they not even let me finish one feast?"

Then he laughed.

"But if I take my sport like a wolf, I must be hunted like one. So we

shall sleep to-night in the woods about Eyjolf's house, comrades,

instead of in these good beds. Well, we have done it before."

"And it is no bad place," cried some of the men.

"I always liked the stars better than a smoky house fire," said one.

"Can no bad fortune spoil your good nature?" laughed Eric. "But now we

are off. Let every man carry what he can."

So they quickly loaded themselves with clothes and gold and swords and

spears and kettles of food. Eric led his wife Thorhild and his two young

sons, Thorstein and Leif. All together they got into the boat and went

to Eyjolf's farm. For a week or more they stayed in his woods, sometimes

in a secret cave of his when they knew that Thorgest was about. And

sometimes Eyjolf sent and said:

"Thorgest is off. Come to my house for a feast."

All this time they were making ready for the voyage, repairing the ship

and filling it with stores. Word of what Eric meant to do got out, and

men laughed and said:

"Is that not like Eric? What will he not do?"

Some men liked the sound of it, and they came to Eric and said:

"We will go with you to this strange land."

So all were ready and they pushed off with Eric's family aboard and

those friends who had joined him. They took horses and cattle with them,

and all kinds of tools and food.

"I do not well know where this land is," Eric said. "Gunnbiorn said only

that he sailed east when he came home to Iceland. So I will steer

straight west. We shall surely find something. I do not know, either,

how long we must go."

So they sailed that strange ocean, never dreaming what might be ahead of

them. They found no islands to rest on. They met heavy fogs.

One day as Eric sat in the pilot's seat, he said:

"I think that I see one of Gunnbiorn's ships of ice. Shall we sail up to

her and see what kind of a craft she is?"

"Yes," shouted his men.

So they went on toward it.

"It sends out a cold breath," said one of the men.

They all wrapped their cloaks about them.

"It is a bigger boat than I ever saw before," said Eric. "The white

mast stands as high as a hill."

"It must be giants that sail in it, frost giants," said another of the

men.

But as they came nearer, Eric all at once laughed loudly and called out:

"By Thor, that Gunnbiorn was a foolish fellow. Why, look! It is only a

piece of floating ice such as we sometimes see from Iceland. It is no

ship, and there is no one on it."

His men laughed and one called to another and said:

"And you thought of frost giants!"

Then they sailed on for days and days. They met many of these icebergs.

On one of them was a white bear.

"Yonder is a strange pilot," Eric laughed.

"I have seen bears come floating so to the north shore of Iceland," an

old man said. "Perhaps they come from the land that we are going to

find."

One day Eric said:

"I see afar off an iceberg larger than any one yet. Perhaps that is our

white land."

But even as he said it he felt his boat swing under his hand as he held

the tiller. He bore hard on the rudder, but he could not turn the ship.

"What is this?" he cried. "A strong river is running here. It is

carrying our ship away from this land. I cannot make head against it.

Out with the oars!"

So with oars and sail and rudder they fought against the current, but it

took the boat along like a chip, and after a while they put up their

oars and drifted.

"Luck has taken us into its own hands," Eric laughed. "But this is as

good a way as another."

Sometimes they were near enough to see the land, then they were carried

out into the sea and thought that they should never see any land again.

"Perhaps this river will carry us to a whirlpool and suck us under," the

men said.

But at last Eric felt the current less strong under his hand.

"To the oars again!" he called.

So they fought with the current and sailed out of it and went on toward

land. But when they reached the shore they found no place to go in.

Steep black walls shot up from the sea. Nothing grew on them. When the

men looked above the cliffs they saw a long line of white cutting the

sky.

"It is a land of ice," they said.

They sailed on south, all the time looking for a place to go ashore.

"I am sick of this endless sea," Thorhild complained, "but this land is

worse."

After a while they began to see small bays cut into the shore with

little flat patches of green at their sides. They landed in these places

and stretched and warmed themselves and ate.

"But these spots are only big enough for graves," the men said. "We can

not live here."

So they went on again. All the time the weather was growing colder.

Eric's people kept themselves wrapped in their cloaks and put scarfs

around their heads.

"And it is still summer!" Thorhild said. "What will it be in winter?"

"We must find a place to build a house now before the winter comes on,"

said Eric. "We must not freeze here."

So they chose a little spot with hills about it to keep off the wind.

They made a house out of stones; for there were many in that place. They

lived there that winter. The sea for a long way out from shore froze so

that it looked like white land. The men went out upon it to hunt white

bear and seal. They ate the meat and wore the skins to keep them warm.

The hardest thing was to get fuel for the fire. No trees grew there. The

men found a little driftwood along the shore, but it was not enough. So

they burned the bones and the fat of the animals they killed.

"It is a sickening smell," Thorhild said. "I have not been out of this

mean house for weeks. I am tired of the darkness and the smoke and the

cattle. And all the time I hear great noises, as though some giant were

breaking this land into pieces."

"Ah, cheer up, good wife!" Eric laughed. "I smell better luck ahead."

Once Eric and his men climbed the cliffs and went back into the middle

of the land. When they came home they had this to tell:

"It is a country of ice, shining white. Nothing grows on it but a few

mosses. Far off it looks flat, but when you walk upon it, there are

great holes and cracks. We could see nothing beyond. There seems to be

only a fringe of land around the edge of an island of ice."

The winter nights were very long. Sometimes the sun showed for an hour,

sometimes for only a few minutes, sometimes it did not show at all for a

week. The men hunted by the bright shining of the moon or by the

northern lights.

As it grew warmer the ice in the sea began to crack and move and melt

and float away. Eric waited only until there was a clear passage in the

water. Then he launched his boat, and they sailed southward again. At

last they found a place that Eric liked.

"Here I will build my house," he said.

So they did and lived there that summer and pastured their cattle and

cut hay for the winter and fished and hunted.

The next spring Eric said:

"The land stretches far north. I am hungry to know what is there."

Then they all got into the boat again and sailed north.

"We can leave no one here," Eric had said. "We cannot tell what might

come between us. Perhaps giants or dragons or strange men might come out

of this inland ice and kill our people. We must stay together."

Farther north they found only the same bare, frozen country. So after a

while they sailed back to their home and lived there.

One spring after they had been in that land for four years, Eric said:

"My eyes are hungry for the sight of men and green fields again. My

stomach is sick of seal and whale and bear. My throat is dry for mead.

This is a bare and cold and hungry land. I will visit my friends in

Iceland."

"And our swords are rusty with long resting," said his men. "Perhaps we

can find play for them in Iceland."

"Now I have a plan," Eric suddenly said. "Would it not be pleasant to

see other feast halls as we sail along the coast?"

"Oh! it would be a beautiful sight," his men said.

"Well," said Eric, "I am going to try to bring back some neighbors from

Iceland. Now we must have a name for our land. How does Greenland

sound?"

His men laughed and said:

"It is a very white Greenland, but men will like the sound of it. It is

better than Iceland."

So Eric and all his people sailed back and spent the winter with his

friends.

"Ah! Eric, it is good to hear your laugh again," they said.

Eric was at many feasts and saw many men, and he talked much of his

Greenland.

"The sea is full of whale and seals and great fish," he said. "The land

has bear and reindeer. There are no men there. Come back with me and

choose your land."

Many men said that they would do it. Some men went because they thought

it would be a great frolic to go to a new country. Some went because

they were poor in Iceland and thought:

"I can be no worse off in Greenland, and perhaps I shall grow rich

there."

And some went because they loved Eric and wanted to be his neighbors.

So the next summer thirty-five ships full of men and women and goods

followed Eric for Greenland. But they met heavy storms, and some ships

were wrecked, and the men drowned. Other men grew heartsick at the

terrible storm and the long voyage and no sight of land, and they turned

back to Iceland. So of those thirty-five ships only fifteen got to

Greenland.

"Only the bravest and the luckiest men come here," Eric said. "We shall

have good neighbors."

Soon other houses were built along the fiords.

"It is pleasant to sail along the coast now," said Eric. "I see smoke

rising from houses and ships standing on the shore and friendly hands

waving."