Viking thorfinn karlsefni biography
•
Thorfinn Karlsefni
11th century Icelandic explorer
Thorfinn Karlsefni Thórdarson[a] was an Icelandic explorer. Around the year 1010, he followed Leif Eriksson's route to Vinland in a short-lived attempt to establish a permanent settlement there with his wife Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir and their followers.
Nickname
[edit]The bynameKarlsefni means "makings of a man" according to the preface of Magnus Magnusson and Hermann Pálsson,[1] although the Cleasby-Vigfusson dictionary glosses it as "a thorough man",[2] elaborated elsewhere as a "real man", a "sterling man".[3]
History
[edit]Thorfinn's expeditions are documented in the Grœnlendinga saga ("Saga of the Greenlanders" henceforth Grl.) and Eiríks saga rauða ("Saga of Eirik the Red" Henceforth Eir.),[b] which together are referred to as "The Vinland Sagas."[4] The two sources differ significantly in their details (see #Saga sources below).[5]
Gr
•
THORFINNRkarlsefniTHORDARSON, first European to attempt to found a settlement on the American mainland; fl. 1000–20.
Thorfinnr was a wealthy Icelandic merchant who had made many merchant voyages before going to Greenland shortly after the year 1000 a.d. There he married Gudridr, the widow of Thorsteinn, the son of Eirikr Thorvaldsson (Eric the Red). Some time between the years 1003 and 1015 Thorfinnr led an expedition to colonize Vinland. The course he followed and the location of his settlement have elicited much speculation, as is the case with the voyage of Leifrheppni Eiriksson. The most detailed account of Thorfinnr’s venture is found in the Saga of Eric the Red, but it is vague enough to have given rise to widely divergent views. There is no agreement among scholars, but a tentative and not unconvincing case may be made for the following itinerary.
Thorfinnr and about 160 men and women left the Eastern Settlement of Greenland and sailed first to the Western Settlem
•
Thorfinn Karlsefni Thordarson
fl. 1000-1015
Icelandic Explorer
Thorfinn Karlsefni attempted the first permanent European settlement in America.
Thorfinn was the great-grandson of Thord Bjarnarson, one of the original settlers of Iceland. Thord's third son, Snorri Thordarson, married Thorhild Ptarmigan Thordardóttir, daughter of the powerful chieftain Thord Gellir Olafsson. Snorri and Thorhild's son, Thord Horse-Head Snorrason, and Thorunn, his wife, were the parents of Thorfinn Thordarson. The sobriquet "Karlsefni," bygd which he is commonly known, must have been given him when he was quite ung, because it means something like "auspicious boy." The family's home was at Höfdi on Skagafjord in the North Quarter of Iceland.
Karlsefni became a wealthy merchant. Sometime in the first decade of the eleventh century, he and his partner, Snorri Thorbrandsson, and Bjarni Grimolfsson and his partner, Thorhall Gamlason, all Icelanders, sailed two merchant ships with 80 men to the s