Leifsbudir
Leifsbudir (Old Norse: Leifsbuðir) was a settlement, mentioned in the Greenland Saga, founded by Leif Eriksson in 1000 or 1001 in Vinland.
Later, 160 Greenlanders, including 16 women, established themselves there under the leadership of Norseman Thorfinn Karlsefni, the first European to come into contact with the local Skrælings, or North American Indigenous peoples. Thorfinn's son, Snorri Thorfinnsson, is believed to have been the first child of European descent to be born in North America outside of Greenland.[1] However the settlement was a temporary one—the settlers were forced to abandon Leifsbudir due to a lack of trade with natives and return to Greenland.[2]
Leifsbudir is believed by some scholars to have been located at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland.[3][4][5] Other scholars do not accept L'Anse aux Meadows as the site of Leifsbudir. Dr. Stuart C. Brown of Memorial University has written "...Dr. lngstad's Procrustean attempt to demonstrate that L'Anse aux Meadows is Leifsbudir is wholly unconvincing..." [Newfoundland Quarterly, Fall, 1988, page 42.] [6] In 1986 Birgitta Wallace, head of archeology at the site in the 1970's wrote in the appendix to Gwyn Jones' "The Norse Atlantic Saga", 1986 edition, that "...it was impossible to equate northern Newfoundland with Vinland." In his 2009 book "Vikings in America" Graeme Davis has written, [page 77,] - "The northern tip of Newfoundland does not resemble the saga description of a fertile Vinland, and its winters could not be described, as the sagas do, as being exceptionally mild. Nothing about L'Anse aux Meadows fits the description of Leifsbudir."
See also
References
[edit]- ^ Geoffrey Jules Marcus (2007). The Conquest of the North Atlantic. Boydell & Brewer Ltd. p. 59. ISBN 978-1-84383-316-1.
- ^ Number of Settlements in Vinland (Vinland Sagas)
- ^ Birgitta Wallace (2003). "The Norse in Newfoundland: L'Anse aux Meadows and Vinland". The New Early Modern Newfoundland. 19 (1). Retrieved January 27, 2016.
- ^ Ronald J. Mason (2006). Inconstant Companions: Archaeology and North American Indian Oral Traditions. University of Alabama Press. p. 69. ISBN 978-0-8173-1533-7.
- ^ Graeme Davis (2011). Vikings in America. Birlinn, Limited. p. 84. ISBN 978-0-85790-065-4.
- ^ Brown, Stuart (Fall 1988). "Review: "The Norse Discovery of America, Vol. 2: The Historical Background and the Evidence of the Norse Settlement Discovered in Newfoundland"" (PDF). The Newfoundland Quarterly (Fall, 1988): 40–41.