VOYAGES BEYOND · 1021 · VINLAND
The second fleet sails with families
Around the year 1000, Norse ships from Greenland reached a coast they called Vinland, the wine land, then gave it up after a few blood-soaked winters and the long distance home. In our timeline the camp at L'Anse aux Meadows lasted only a handful of years. This is the timeline where a larger second fleet arrives with families, livestock, and the patience to stay.
You are reading the timeline that almost was · notes marked THE RECORD are real history
1021 · LANDFALL
Around the year 1000, a Greenlander named Leif Erikson crossed a cold sea and found a coast of timber and wild grapes. He named it Vinland, the wine land. His brother Thorvald followed, admired a green headland, and died there with an arrow under his arm, the first European to fall on the continent. Then Thorfinn Karlsefni came to stay. He brought cattle in the holds and his wife Gudrid at his side. Some sixty followers came with him, and a son, Snorri, was born on the shore. But a loose bull broke the peace with the people already there, the fighting spread, and the Greenlanders were too few and too far from home. After three winters they loaded their ships and left the grapes to the birds.
In the timeline recorded here, a second fleet raises the same coast, and its longships carry families. They have come to stay. This time they will.
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