Part One
The Saga of Freydis Eriksdottir
1. Erik
There was a woman named Aud the Deep-Minded, daughter of Ketill Flatnose, who had been queen. She was the widow of Olaf the White, the warrior-king of Ireland. Upon the death of her husband, she travelled to the Hebrides and on to Scotland, where her son, Thorstein the Red, in turn became king. Then the Scots betrayed him and he perished in battle.
When she learned of her son’s death, Aud took to sea with twenty freemen and travelled to Iceland, where she colonised the territories between the Day-meal and the Giantess’s Leap rivers.
With her were many noblemen who had been taken prisoner during the Viking expeditions to the west, and whom she treated as slaves.
There was a man named Thorvald, who had left Norway after committing murder, and his son Erik the Red. They were farmers who cultivated the earth. One day, Eyiolf the Foul, a relative of one of Erik’s neighbours, killed some of Erik’s slaves because they had caused a landslide. Erik killed Eyiolf the Foul. He also killed Hrafn the Duellist.
So he was banished.
He colonised the Isle of Oxney. He asked his neighbour to look after his beams, but when he wanted them back, his neighbour refused to return them. They fought and other men died. He was banished once again, this time at the Thorsnes Thing.
He could not stay in Iceland, nor could he return to Norway. That was why he chose to sail towards the land glimpsed by the son of Ulf the Crow one day when he had navigated too far west. He named this country Greenland, because he reasoned that people would want to go to a country with such a beautiful name.
He married Thorhild, granddaughter of Thorbjorg the Ship-Chested, and together they had several sons. But he also had a daughter by another woman. The girl’s name was Freydis.
2. Freydis
Nothing is known about Freydis’s mother. But Freydis, like her brothers, inherited her father Erik’s wanderlust. So it was that she embarked on the ship lent by her half-brother Leif the Lucky to Thorfinn Karlsefni so that he could find the way to Vinland.
They sailed west. After a stopover in Markland, they reached Vinland and found the camp left behind by Leif Eriksson.
They found it a beautiful land, with forests not far from the sea and white sand along the coastline. There were many islands and shallows. Day and night were of a more equal length than in Greenland or Iceland.
But there were also Skraelings there: beings that resembled small trolls. The legends were wrong: they were not unipeds. But they had dark skin and were fond of red fabrics. The Greenlanders swapped all the red cloths they had for animal skins. They traded. But one day, a bellowing bull belonging to Karlsefni escaped its enclosure and frightened the Skraelings. So they attacked the camp and Karlsefni’s men fled in fear, until Freydis furiously berated them for their cowardice, picked up a sword and prepared to defend herself from the enemy. She tore her shift open and beat the flat of the blade against her breasts while insulting the Skraelings. Seeing this, her countrymen were ashamed and turned back to help her, while the Skraelings, terrified by the vision of this voluptuous, ferocious woman, ran away.
Freydis was pregnant and bad-tempered. She got into an argument with two brothers. She wanted to take their boat because it was bigger than hers, so she ordered her husband, Thorvard, to kill them and their men, which he did. Freydis killed their women with an axe.
Winter was over and summer was coming. But Freydis didn’t dare return to Greenland because she feared the wrath of her brother Leif once he found out that she was guilty of murder. However, she felt that the others distrusted her and that she was no longer welcome in the camp. She fitted out the brothers’ boat, then set sail with her husband, a few men, some cattle and horses. Those remaining in the Vinland colony were relieved when she left. But before going out to sea, she said to them: ‘I, Freydis Eriksdottir, swear that I will return.’
They headed south.
3. The South
The wide-sided knarr sailed along the coast. There was a storm and Freydis prayed to Thor. The ship almost crashed into some rocks. The terrified animals thrashed so violently that the men were on the verge of throwing them overboard for fear that they would capsize the ship. But in the end, the god’s anger abated.
The journey lasted longer than they had expected. The crew could find nowhere to land because the cliffs were too high, and when they did come across a beach, it was defended by Skraelings with bows who shot stones at them. It was too late to sail east and Freydis did not want to turn back. The men survived on the fish they caught, but some of them drank seawater and became ill.
One day, when there was no north wind to help swell their sails, Freydis gave birth in the aisle between the benches of oarsmen. The baby boy, whom she wanted to name Erik after his grandfather, was stillborn, and she gave him to the sea.
At last, they discovered a cove where they could anchor.
4. The Land of the Dawn
Copyright © 2019 by Éditions Grasset et Fasquelle
Translation copyright © 2021 by Sam Taylor