“Bjarn, we are Vikings, by the gods we must go ashore and plunder!”The crew was ready to charge onshore.
The Viking ship swayed as the men looked up at their leader, the young trader, Bjarni Herjolfsonn. Through piercing eyes he squinted at the pine forest onshore. After months at sea here was a land of wonder, but it would waste time to stay.
“No, we will not go ashore, and no one must ever speak of this.” The stout Norse leader held the tiller as the dragon prowed ship sliced through the sea.
As they skirted the shoreline, Bjarni and the crew gazed in awe at every type of greenery. They saw green meadows, wild grapevines, and forests of pine, a lush landscape never imagined back home in rocky Denmark.
With visions of a fantastic paradise, Bjarni and his Vikings sailed away into the northern sea. The goal was to find Greenland and this glorious land was definitely not Greenland, they had drifted off course and got lost.
Two months earlier the Viking trader had docked his ship in Denmark to find his father. He hadn’t seen him in two years and missed him greatly. He learned that he had sailed to Greenland with Bad Erik and his young son, Leif.
Bjarni had then set sail west to Greenland to find him. That was two months before and after seeing the majestic shoreline, the crew knew they had overshot Greenland and had seen a far and distant land.
After two weeks they saw the snowy peaks of Greenland and rejoiced. And of all the luck, they landed one mile from Bjarni’s father’s home. They hugged and walked back to his home. It was time to build a longhouse and settle down.
Ten long years passed. Biarni married and never told a soul of the new land they’d seen. It was a Viking law, when you find a place you must plunder it.
One fine day King Erik and his son, Leif invited Bjarni to their castle to a celebration for the God Odin. He walked into the great hall filled with drunken Norsemen and loose, laughing ladies. The wine and mead flowed freely and soon Bjarni was drunk. In a weak moment he stood up and yelled out to the crowd that years earlier he had found a land to the west.
Fifty drunken Vikings grew silent as Leif Erikson stood up and bade the trader tell him of this land. The story tumbled out and Leif was so impressed he bought Biarni’s ship to sail west again to find this new world.
On a bright morning, in the year 1000 A.D. bold Leif Erikson and his crew sailed west. They landed on a distant beach and this time they went ashore.
This story is based on facts. Bjarni Herjolfsonn’s voyage was real. Leif Erikson bought his ship and landed in North America 500 years before Columbus, but someone had been there before him.
It’s true, America was discovered by a guy named Barney, which is how we would say Bjarni.
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com.
