The Vikings

M ANY, many years ago there lived on the shores of the North Sea a wild and fearless people called vikings, or sea rovers. They were tall and strong, with blue eyes and yellow hair.

The vikings were pirates. They wore helmets and coats of mail, and fought with spears, swords, and knives.

The ships of the vikings were no larger than our fishing boats. They were low in the middle, and high at the bow and the stern. On the bow was carved the head of a sea monster. The ships had both sails and oars.

The vikings could handle their ships as a good knight could handle a horse. They laughed at the winds and the waves.

"The might of the storm," they sang, "aids the arms of our oarsmen. The tempest is at our command. It carries us whither we would go."

The vikings sailed along the coast of Europe, fighting and plundering.

After a time some of them settled in England, and from there made their way into Scotland and Ireland. Others settled in the northern part of France, about the mouth of the Seine River. In France they were called the Normans, a name which means the Northmen, and their country was called Normandy.

A ship of the vikings was once driven far out of her course by a storm, and was carried to the coast of Iceland. When the sailors got back home, they told of the strange new country. Soon afterwards some of the vikings went and settled in the new land.

In the colony was a viking called Eric the Red. One day he killed a man, and was exiled for three years. The chief took his men and sailed to the west, where he had heard there was another land. He found a rough, bleak shore, with little to be seen but snow and ice.

"It will be well to give the country a good name," said Eric, "if we would have others come and live here." So he called it Greenland.

When Eric went back home, he persuaded a large number of the Vikings to go with him and settle in the new country. Eric's colony lasted for nearly five hundred years. Ruins of stone houses and of a church are still to be seen.

Soon after Eric the Red had returned to Greenland, another viking sailed from Iceland to join Eric's colony. But he was carried far to the south. He sailed for many days through a dense fog, seeing neither sun nor stars. At last he came to a level coast covered with thick woods. He did not explore the land. He was only too glad to sail back to Greenland.

In the colony in Greenland was a viking named Leif, a son of Eric the Red. When Leif heard the story of the new land, he got a ship ready and started to the south. This was about the year 1000.

One morning, after many days' sail, he caught sight of land. Before him was a low, sandy coast. There were no snow-clad mountains or lofty crags, as on the bleak shores of Greenland.

After building a house, Leif divided his men into two parts. "Half of you shall remain at home at the house, while the others explore the land. But do not go so far that you cannot return in the evening, and do not separate."

One evening a man of the searching party was missing. Leif was much troubled, and set out with twelve men to find him. They had not gone a long way, when the man saw them and came toward them.

"Where have you been?" asked Leif. "What has happened?"

"I have not been much farther away, but I have something new to tell. I have found vines and grapes."

"But is that true?"

"Surely it is true. I was brought up in a land where there is no want of either vines or grapes."

The next morning Leif said to his men, "We will now set about two things. We will gather grapes, and then we will cut vines and fell trees to load my ship."

They did so. When spring came, they sailed away.

Leif called the new country Vinland. This land is supposed by some to have been the southern part of New England.

The next year Thorwald, one of Leif's brothers, wished to go to explore Vinland.

"Thou canst go with my ship, brother, if thou wilt," said Leif.

Thorwald spent about two years in the new country, but was killed by the natives. It is said that he was the first white man to be buried in America. More than eight hundred years after his death, a skeleton in armor was dug up near the spot where the viking was said to be buried. Some have thought that this was the skeleton of Leif's brother. Longfellow wrote a poem about this skeleton. The poem is called "The Skeleton in Armor."

For a few years after this other vikings came to settle in Vinland. But they were fought by the natives, and sailed away.

The vikings now began to lose interest in the new country, and soon forgot the brave deeds of their ancestors. Once more the land was given over to the natives.