It happened first in the history of the New World lands that the Northman Biorn Herjulfsson saw them when he had lost his way in journeying to Greenland. But he lacked the adventuresomeness to go ashore and explore them.

Then Leif the Lucky, son of Eric the Red of Greenland, heard of the omission and set out to remedy it. He rediscovered the lands and went upon them and named them, after which he built booths at a place he called Vinland and passed a winter there.

Next, Leif's brother Thorwald Ericsson came over the ocean; but his luck was less for he was shipwrecked on one cape and killed on another, and his men returned disheartened.

He was followed by the third brother, Thorstein; but this expedition had no success whatever for they spent a whole summer in wandering in a circle that landed them finally upon the west coast of Greenland itself. And here Thorstein died of a plague, leaving his young wife Gudrid to return to the hospitality of Leif at Brattahlid.

The explorer who came next and who did the most was Thorfinn Karlsefne of Iceland. While he was visiting at Brattahlid he married Gudrid, the widow of Thorstein, and she—together with others—talked to him so much about the new lands that he resolved upon settling them. In the spring of 1007 he set out from Greenland with three ships heavily laden and came to Vinland and wakened the sleeping camp to new life.

This story begins on an autumn day in the second year of Karlsefne's settlement, and on board the little ship called the Wind-Raven which he had sent out at the beginning of summer to explore the eastern coast.