In the honored tradition of this blog, or at least in the honorable tradition of my own posts, I shall announce a holiday at the point when it’s mostly over.
Today is Leif Erikson Day. A legal holiday in some states, though not the kind you get off work for.
Leif Erikson (I prefer to spell it Eriksson, with two s’s), of course, was the Norse discoverer of North America. Other Europeans may have done it before him, but they don’t have proof and we do. As I mentioned on Facebook, it’s OK to celebrate Vinland, because the colony was unsuccessful. If it had prospered, it would be another egregious example of European imperialism.
Leif himself is something of a mystery. He’s not one of those saga heroes who jump off the page as a full-blown personality. The sagas that tell of his exploits are fairly laconic. He seems to have been a man of boldness, sense, and good luck. Unlike most saga heroes, we have no evidence he ever killed anybody. And he was a convert to Christianity.
I feature him in two of my novels, The Year of the Warrior and West Oversea. There’s every reason to believe he probably knew Erling Skjalgsson. Erling had family and business ties in Iceland, and Leif’s father, Erik the Red, came from a farm in Jaeren, Erling’s bailiwick. As the chief of the Greenland colony, dependent on Norwegian markets, Leif probably did business with Erling.
A Norwegian bachelor buddy of mine texted me and asked, “How shall we celebrate Leif Erikson Day?” After considerable deliberation, we decided to clean out my gutters. It was an amazing day, above 80 degrees in August.
Party people we are not. But we did have pizza.
