Eiríks saga rauða or the Saga of Erik the Red is a saga

Norse saga

The sagas are stories about ancient Scandinavian and Germanic history, about early Viking voyages, the battles that took place during the voyages, about migration to Iceland and of feuds between Icelandic families...

 on the Norse exploration of North-America

Norse colonization of the Americas

The Norse colonization of the Americas began as early as the 10th century, when Norse sailors explored and settled areas of the North Atlantic, including the northeastern fringes of North America....

.
The saga chronicles the events that led to Erik the Red

Erik the Red

Erik Thorvaldsson , known as Erik the Red , is remembered in medieval and Icelandic saga sources as having founded the first Nordic settlement in Greenland. The Icelandic tradition indicates that he was born in the Jæren district of Rogaland, Norway, as the son of Thorvald Asvaldsson, he therefore...

's banishment to Greenland

Greenland

Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...

 as well as Leif Ericson

Leif Ericson

Leif Ericson was a Norse explorer who is regarded as the first European to land in North America , nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus...

's discovery of Vinland the Good

Vinland

Vinland was the name given to an area of North America by the Norsemen, about the year 1000 CE.There is a consensus among scholars that the Vikings reached North America approximately five centuries prior to the voyages of Christopher Columbus...

 after his longship

Longship

Longships were sea vessels made and used by the Vikings from the Nordic countries for trade, commerce, exploration, and warfare during the Viking Age. The longship’s design evolved over many years, beginning in the Stone Age with the invention of the umiak and continuing up to the 9th century with...

 was blown off course. By geographical details, this place is thought to be present-day Newfoundland, and is likely the first European discovery of the American

Americas

The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

 mainland, some five centuries before Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer, colonizer, and navigator, born in the Republic of Genoa, in northwestern Italy. Under the auspices of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, he completed four voyages across the Atlantic Ocean that led to general European awareness of the American continents in the...

's journey.

The saga is preserved in two manuscripts in somewhat different versions; Hauksbók

Hauksbók

The Hauksbók is one of the few medieval Norse manuscripts of which the author is known. His name was Haukr Erlendsson , and as long back as it is possible to trace the manuscript it has been called the Hauksbók after its author. It was partly written by Haukr himself, partly by assistants...

(14th century) and Skálholtsbók

Skálholtsbók

Reykjavík, AM 577 4to, known as Skálholtsbók , is an Icelandic saga-manuscript. It is now fragmentary: three gatherings of eight leaves and twenty individual leaves have been lost, leaving only 48 leaves...

(15th century). Modern philologists believe the Skálholtsbók version to be truer to the original. The original saga is thought to have been written in the 13th century.

See also: Vinland sagas

Vinland sagas

The Vinland Sagas are two Icelandic documents, The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Eric the Red, ....

, Grœnlendinga saga.

Translations

There have been numerous translations of the saga, some of the most prominent of which are:

• Jones, Gwyn (trans.), 'Eirik the Red's Saga', in The Norse Atlantic Saga: Being the Norse Voyages of Discovery and Settlement to Iceland, Greenland, and North America, new edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), pp. 207–35. Based on Skálholtsbók, showing some variants from Hauksbók.
• Kunz, Keneva (trans.), 'Erik the Red's Saga', in The Sagas of Icelanders: A Selection (London: Penguin, 2001), pp. 653–74. Apparently translates the Skálholtsbók text.
• Reeves, Arthur Middleton (ed. and trans.), 'The Saga of Eric the Red, also Called the Saga of Thorfinn Karlsefni and Snorri Thorbransson', in The Finding of Wineland the Good: The History of the Icelandic Discovery of America (London: Henry Frowde, 1890), pp. 28–52, available at http://www.archive.org/details/winelandthegood00reevrich. Based on the Hauksbók text (which Reeves refers to in the apparatus as ÞsK), though the text does draw some readings from Skálholtsbók (which Reeves refers to as EsR). Variants from both Hauksbók and Skálholtsbók are thoroughly listed. Editions and facsimiles of both manuscripts also included.
• Sephton, J. (trans.), Eirik the Red's Saga: A Translation Read before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool, January 12, 1880 (Liverpool: Marples, 1880), available at http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/17946 and http://www.sagadb.org/eiriks_saga_rauda.en (the former version, made by Project Gutenberg, is the closer to the printed version). Passages in square brackets are based on Hauksbók; other passages are based on Skálholtsbók, but with some readings from Hauksbók.

External links

• Saga of Erik the Red English translation at the Icelandic Saga Database
• Eiríks saga rauða The saga with standardized Old Norse spelling from heimskringla.no
• Arthur Middleton Reeves, North Ludlow Beamish
  North Ludlow Beamish
  North Ludlow Beamish , was a military writer and antiquary.He was the son of William Beamish, Esq., of Beaumont House, County Cork. In November 1816 he obtained a commission in the 4th Royal Irish Dragoon Guards, in which corps he purchased a troop in 1823...
  
  and Rasmus B. Anderson,The Norse Discovery of America (1906)
• The text of the saga according to Hauksbók; with manuscript spelling
• A part of the saga with the manuscript spelling and English and Danish translations
• The saga with standardized modern Icelandic spelling
• A treatment of the nationality of Leifr Eiríksson