Did the Vikings discover North America

Q.Is there evidence that Vikings got to North America before Columbus

A. Yes' plenty. In 982AD, Eric the Red was outlawed from Iceland and exiled to a great land to the north. Eric spent three years exploring the country where he and his men marked sites for their future farms. He called it Greenland and sailed with 25 ships to settle there.

Q. So they stayed there

A. No ' it got too cold. The settlers moved across the land until their population numbered 3,000. But in the 1400s the climate changed dramatically for the worse and the settlement had gone within a few decades.

Q. And moved to America

A. Perhaps. Two medieval Icelandic sagas tell the story of the Viking exploration and attempted settlement of North America from Greenland. However, the geography and sailing directions are confusing. Great mention is made of a place called Vinland, but its whereabouts are so vague that it has been placed as New England, Labrador and Newfoundland.

Q. What did the sagas say

A. Adam of Bremen in 1075 mentions information he received from the Danish king Sven Ulfssen, who said ''There was another island in that ocean which had been discovered by many and was called Vinland, because vines grow wild there and yield excellent wine, and moreover, self-sown grain grows there in abundance.' Ari Thorgilsson, in his history of the Icelandic people, says of Greenland: 'They found there human habitations' from which it can be concluded that the people who had been there before were of the same kind as those who inhabit Vinland and whom the Greenlanders call Skraelings.'

Q. So, who's Leif Ericsson then

A. That's Eric the Red's son ' the man who discovered Vinland. According to the Groenlendinga Saga, Leif found it after getting information from Bjarni Herjolfsson. Bjarni had sighted the land mass of North America when he and his crew were blown off course for Greenland in a fog. They saw a country well wooded with low hills, but did not land. Leif and his crew first came across a land covered by glaciers with a rocky shore. It was probably Baffin Island. The second land was flat and wooded with white sandy beaches, probably northern Labrador. From there they again sailed on until they came into a sound between and island and a headland to the north. This was Leif's Vinland.

Q. Any archaeological evidence for all this

A. Yes. Dr Helge Ingstad and his wife Anne Stine Ingstad discovered the remains of an 11th-Century Norse community at L'anse Aux Meadows on the northern peninsula of Newfoundland. They were working from a 16th-Century Icelandic map showing part of North America.

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By Steve Cunningham