LEIF ERICSSON (11. 999-1000), Scandinavian discoverer of America, of Icelandic family, the first known European dis coverer of "Vinland," "Vineland" or "Wineland, the Good," in North America. He was a son of Eric the Red (Eirikr hinn raudi Thorvaldsson), the founder of the earliest Scandinavian settle ments—from Iceland—in Greenland (985). In 999 he went from Greenland to the court of King Olaf Tryggvason in Norway, and was commissioned by him to proclaim Christianity in Greenland. Leif was driven far out of his course by contrary weather—this time to lands (in America) "of which he had previously had no knowledge," where "self-sown" wheat grew, and vines, and "mosur" wood. Leif took specimens of all these, and returned to his father's home in Brattahlid on Ericsfiord in Greenland.
Biarni Heriulfsson in 985 discover Helluland (Labrador?) as well as other western lands which he does not explore, not even per mitting his men to land; while Leif Ericsson follows up Biarni's discoveries, begins the exploration of Helluland, Markland and Vinland, and realizes some of the charms of the last named, where he winters. But this secondary authority (the Flatey Book narra tive) which till lately formed the basis of all general knowledge as to Vinland, abounds in contradictions and difficulties from which Eric the Red Saga is comparatively free. Looking at the record in Eric the Red Saga, it would seem probable that Leif's Vinland answers to some part of southern Nova Scotia. See VIN