Hunters range far and wide, bringing back meat and pelts. The Norse tend to be farmers with strong inclination towards animal husbandry, so trees are cut down and fields are plowed (domesticated versions of the wild wheat and some imported crops).īut the Vinlanders are not just farmers. Longhouses with a single great room morph into "passage houses" with multiple living quarters, stables and storerooms. The sod houses are, in time, replaced by sturdy log cabins with thatched roofs. "the land-taking"), the little Norse settlements prosper and grow, spreading both inland and along the coast of Vinland and Markand (Newfoundland). Over the next 70 years (a period that Vinlanders will call The Landnam, i.e. If they were going to stay that is.Īnd looking around at his bustling little village, Thorfinn Karlsefni figured they would. And women, they will definitely need more women. As soon as he can, he is sending a couple of ships back to Iceland to pick up more tools and other supplies. That just seemed strange, such a big place with no one in it. He didn't know how big this Vinland was, exactly, just having bumped around the edges a little looking for a suitable spot for a settlement, but he had a feeling that it was bigger than Iceland and Greenland combined. this was a land of marvels, just teeming with life, both strange and familiar. (One of the young men was working on a saga about that already.) One other creature, like a giant rat with tail like a paddle that swam like a fish, more than half as tall as a man, with teeth that could chew through tree-trunks, yielded amazingly waterproof fur. It had taken twenty of Thorfinn's best men to bring one of THOSE down, but its carcass had given them so much meat that they had to leave some of it behind and blankets for a dozen families. And some huge, shaggy walking beast with a nose like a great serpent. Giant beasts, the most terrifying of which is a great cat with fangs like spearpoints.
Strange creatures roam the fields and woodlands, like nothing that Thorfinn had ever seen before. Thorfinn likes this place, just upstream from the estuary of a little river, which he has named Freydisi, after Eric's daughter and near a little lake, which he has named Snorri, after his son. A hundred and sixty men, all told, and a handful of women, including his wife Gudrid, widow of one of Eric the Red's sons. Definitely better than Straumfjord, where they had wintered. And they found the vines that they were looking for and some very nice fields of wild wheat. Sod houses (including one serviceable bathhouse) coming along nicely. Not a bad settlement, all things considered. Thorfinn Karlsefni took a good look around.