Children of Ash and Elm: A History of the Vikings

by Neil Price

One individual from the later Viking Age can stand for them all, here at the end, someone we have already met. Shortly after the year 1000, Gudríd Thorbjarnardóttir coasted the shores of Helluland and Markland before landing in Vinland with her husband, Thorfinn karlsefni, and their crew. They were probably not the first Norse visitors and likely followed the path taken by others before them. Gudríd was pregnant, and while in Vinland, she gave birth to the first European child born in North America (and how appropriate to future history that he should be called Snorri). She had already come a long way, of Norwegian family from Iceland via Greenland, and from one set of beliefs to the new faith. She met First Nations people, and later—making a pilgrimage to Rome—she would almost certainly meet the pope; she had eaten wild grapes in Vinland, and she would taste Mediterranean wines under the Italian sun. By the time she reached old age as a Christian nun in Iceland, Gudríd was probably the most travelled woman on the planet.