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THORFINN KARLSEFNI, or KARLSEFNL (ft....

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Originally appearing in Volume V26, Page 878 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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THORFINN KARLSEFNI, or KARLSEFNL (ft. 1002-1007) , Scandinavian explorer, See also:

leader of the See also:chief See also:medieval expedition for See also:American colonization. Thorfinn belonged to a leading Icelandic See also:family and had See also:great success in trading voyages. In I002 he came to See also:Greenland, married Gudrid, widow of Red See also:Eric's son Thorstein, and put himself at the See also:head of a great expedition now undertaken from Ericsfiord for the further exploration and See also:settlement of the western See also:Vinland (See also:south Nova See also:Scotia?) lately discovered by Leif Ericsson (q.v.). Three vessels took See also:part in the venture, with 16o men and some See also:women, including Gudrid, and Freydis, a natural daughter of Red Eric. They first sailed See also:north-See also:west to the Vesterbygd or " Western Settlement " of Greenland, thence to See also:Bear See also:Island, and thence away to the south till they reached a See also:country they named Helluland (some part of Labrador?) from its great See also:flat slabs of See also:stone (hellur). Two days' See also:sail farther southward brought them to a thickly-wooded See also:land they called See also:Markland (i.e. See also:Wood-land, our See also:Newfoundland?). Two days after this they sighted land to the right See also:hand, and came to a cape, where they found the See also:keel of a See also:ship—perhaps a relic of some earlier, possibly Scandinavian explorer—and which they called therefore Kialames (Keelness; Cape See also:Breton, or some adjacent point?); the See also:long See also:bleak sandy shores of this See also:coast they called the Wonderstrands (on the See also:east coast of Cape Breton Island?). After passing the Wonderstrands and reaching a coast indented with bays, Thorfinn put two See also:fleet Gael runners ashore, with orders to explore southwards (see LEIF ERicssoN): they returned with grapes and See also:wild See also:wheat, proofs that the Northmen were not far from Vinland. The fleet now stood in to a See also:bay called by the explorers .Streamfiord or See also:Firth of Currents, and wintered there (1003-1004), suffering some privations, and apparently getting no more See also:news of the fruitful country desired. Thorfinn's son Snorri was See also:born this first autumn in the new See also:world.

Next See also:

spring nine of the party, headed by the chief malcontent Thorhall, Red Eric's See also:huntsman, sailed off northward, intending to come to Vinland by rounding Keelness and thence working See also:round west (and south). Adverse See also:weather drove "them to See also:Ireland, where they were enslaved. Meanwhile Thorfinn, with the See also:rest of the venturers, sailed south " for a long See also:time," till they reached a spot they called See also:Hop, at the mouth of a See also:river which flows from a See also:lake into the See also:sea (several estuaries near the See also:southern extremity of Nova Scotia would do equally well here). Here they found the " self-sown " wheatfields and vines of Leif's Vinland, and here accordingly they settled and built their huts above the lake (1004-1005). After a fortnight natives, swarthy and See also:ill-looking, with ugly See also:hair, great eyes and;broad cheeks (See also:Beothuk or See also:Micmac See also:Indians?) appeared with many skin canoes; in the spring following these Skraelings came back and bartered with their visitors. Terrified by a See also:bull belonging to the latter they fled, and after three See also:weeks returned to fight. They were beaten off, but the Northmen narrowly escaped destruction, arid two of their number (one a leading settler) were slain. The See also:colony at Hop was there-fore abandoned and the whole force returned to Streamfiord. Thence Thorfinn revisited Hop, staying two months; and also made a voyage northward in See also:search of Thorhall, rounding Keelness and sailing westward (along the north coast of Cape Breton Island?), and apparently southward also, till they came to the mouth of a river flowing from east to west. Here Thorvald Ericsson was killed by a (Skraeling?) arrow, and the expedition came back to Streamfiord where they passed the next See also:winter (See also:tool-too6). See also:Internal dissensions now See also:broke out, mainly about the women of the colony, and in the next summer (ioo6) theentire project of Vinland settlement was abandoned and the fleet sailed to Markland. Two Skraeling See also:children were captured here and the expedition divided, Thorfinn making Greenland and Ericsfiord in safety with his own See also:vessel, while the other was lost in the Irish Sea, only See also:half the See also:crew escaping to Ireland in the ship's See also:boat.

It may be noticed that the Flatey See also:

Book narrative gives a somewhat different but much slighter See also:account of Thorfinn's expedition, making both Thorvald Ericsson and Freydis under-take See also:separate Vinland ventures—one before, the other after, Karlsefni's enterprise—Thorvald being killed on his (as in Red Eric See also:Saga, but with divergent details), and Freydis on her committing atrocities upon her comrades, the Icelanders Helgi and Finnbogi, which are unnoticed in Red Eric. The latter, however, in its mention of the domestic broils which arose over the women of the colony in its third winter, points to something which may have been the germ of the highly elaborated Freydis See also:story in Flatey. On Flatey Book, Red Eric Saga and the whole bibliography for the Vinland voyages, including that of Thorfinn, see LEIF ERIcssoN and VINLAND. The six Vinland voyages of Flaky, we may repeat, Red Eric reduces to three, wholly omitting the alleged voyage of Biarni Heriulfsson, and grouping those of Thorvald Ericsson and Freydis with Thorfinn Karlsefni's in one great colonizing venture.. (C. R.

End of Article: THORFINN KARLSEFNI, or KARLSEFNL (ft. 1002-1007)

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