CANADA HISTORY

Thorvald Erikisson

One morning Karlsefni and his men saw something glittering on the far side of the clearing, and they shouted at it. It moved, and it proved to be a Uniped;3 it came bounding down towards where the ship lay. Thorvald, Eirik the Red's son, was sitting at the helm. The Uniped shot an arrow into his groin.

Thorvald pulled out the arrow and said, 'This is a rich country we have found; there is plenty of fat around my entrails.' Soon afterwards he died of the wound.

The Uniped ran off to the north. Karlsefni and his men gave chase, catching occasional glimpses of it as it fled. Then it disappeared into a creek and the pursuers turned back. One of the men uttered this stanza :

'Yes, it's true

That our men chased

A Uniped

Down to the sea;

The weird creature

Ran like the wind

Over rouah around;

Hear that, Karlsefni.'

Then they sailed away north and thought they could see Uniped-Land; but they decided not to risk the lives of the crew  any further. They reckoned that the mountains they could see there roughly corresponded with those at Hope and were part of the same range, and they estimated that both regions were equidistant from Straumfjord.

They returned to Straumfjord and spent the third winter there. But now quarrels broke out frequently; those who were unmarried kept pestering the married ~en. ,

It was in the first autumn that Karlsefni's son, ~norri, was ~ born; he was ~hree years old when th~y left.

They set saIl before a southerly WInd and reached Markland. i where they came upon five Smlings -a bearded man, two , women, and two children. Karlsefni and his men captured the two boys, but the others got away and sank down into the ground.

They took the boys with them and taught them the language, and baptized them. The boys said that their mother was called V~tild and their father Ov~gir. They said that the land of the Skr~lings was ruled by two kings, one of whom was called A valdamon and the other Valdidida. They said that there were no houses t4ere and tMt people lived in caves or holes in the ground. They said that there was a country across from their own land where the people went about in white clothing and uttered loud cries and carried poles with patches of cloth attached. This is thought to have been Hvftramannal,and} Finally they reached Greenland, and spent the winter with Eirik the Red.