d in Vineland all winter, and sailed home to
Greenland in the spring (1001 A.D.). As they brought timber, much
prized in the Greenland settlement, their voyage caused a great deal of
talk. Naturally others wished to rival Leif. In the next few years
several voyages to Vineland are briefly chronicled in the sagas.

First of all, Thorwald, Leif's brother, borrowed his ship, sailed away
to Vineland with thirty men, and spent two winters there. During his
first summer in Vineland, Thorwald sent some men in a boat westward
along the coast. They found a beautiful country with thick woods
reaching to the shore, and great stretches of white sand. They found a
kind of barn made of wood, and were startled by this first indication
of the presence of man. Thorwald had, indeed, startling adventures. In
a great storm his ship was wrecked on the coast, and he and his men had
to rebuild it. He selected for a settlement a point of land thickly
covered with forest. Before the men had built their houses they fell in
with some savages, whom they made prisoners. These savages had bows and
arrows, and used what the Norsemen called 'skin boats.' One of the
savages escaped and roused his tribe, and presently a great flock of
canoes came out of a large bay, surrounded the Viking ship, and
discharged a cloud of arrows. The Norsemen beat off the savages, but in
the fight Thorwald received a mortal wound. As he lay dying he told his
men to bury him there in Vineland, on the point where he had meant to
build his home. This was done. Thorwald's men remained there for the
winter. In the spring they returned to Greenland, with the sad news for
Leif of his brother's death.

Other voyages followed. A certain Thorfinn Karlsevne even tried to
found a permanent colony in Vineland. In the spring of 1007, he took
there a hundred and sixty men, some women, and many cattle. He and his
people remained in Vineland for nearly four years. They traded with the
savages, giving them cloth and trinkets for furs. Karlsevne's wife gave
birth there to a son, who was christened Snorre, and who was perhaps
the first white child born in America. The Vineland colony seems to
have prospered well enough, but unfortunately quarrels broke out
between the Norsemen and the savages, and so many of Karlsevne's people
were killed that the remainder were glad to sail back to Greenland.

The Norse chronicles contain a further story of how one of Karlsevne's
companions, Thorward, and