Talk:Saga of Eric the Red

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is within the scope of the following WikiProjects:

[edit] is>

The article contained this piece of text:

By most accounts, it was written by Jon Thorharson in 1387, almost four centuries after the events in it, which were almost certainly handed down by oral tradition.

This saga is found in the Hauksbók, whose author died in 1334, so I wonder how the former contributor arrived at such a late year.--Wiglaf 15:07, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

I moved this article from Eiríks saga rauða to Saga of Eric the Red per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (use English). Nohat 18:48, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Hm... does somebody know where the actual saga is? Can we stick it here? --Bob the Great

[edit] Longboat?

Corrected longboat with longship, in a Viking context it makes much more sense -- Rocco

[edit] accident

It is misleading to say that Ericson discovered Vinland by accident (i.e., because his longship "was blown off course"). He sailed in search of the "southerly" lands following the stories told him by Bjarni Herjolfson. Here is a quotation from the Sagas, describing Leif's discovery of the place he would call "Vinland": "They went aboard their ship again and sailed into a certain sound, which lay between the island and a cape, which jutted out from the land on the north, and they stood in westering past the cape. At ebb-tide, there were broad reaches of shallow water there, and they ran their ship aground there, and it was a long distance from the ship to the ocean; yet were they so anxious to go ashore that they could not wait until the tide should rise under their ship, but hastened to the land, where a certain river flows out from a lake. As soon as the tide rose beneath their ship, however, they took the boat and rowed to the ship, which they conveyed up the river, and so into the lake, where they cast anchor and carried their hammocks ashore from the ship, and built themselves booths there. They afterward determined to establish themselves there for the winter, and they accordingly built a big house." -- delavagus

You're citing Grœnlendinga saga, this article is about Eiríks saga rauða, which tells a different story. Haukur 22:45, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Haukur: So this page is wrong, then? http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1000Vinland.html/ I'm perfectly willing to believe that the Fordham site got it wrong (there are many errors in their various sourcebooks), but are you sure? Delavagus 14:55, 20 June 2007 (UTC)