Among the characters of the Icelandic sagas, few travelled as much as Gudríð Þorbjarnardóttir. According to the narratives, she was born in Iceland, lived in Greenland, was in North America and, late in life, made a pilgrimage to Europe. The details come from two sagas that do not always agree with each other.

From Iceland to Greenland

Gudríð first appears as the daughter of Thorbjörn, a man of means in Iceland. When Greenland began to be settled by Erik the Red, around 985, her father decided to emigrate. On the voyage the ship suffered storms and took weeks.

In Greenland, Gudríð married Thorstein, a son of Erik. He died of illness shortly after, and the saga tells a famous scene in which the dead man rises and speaks before being buried again. The episode shows the mixture of Christian and older beliefs that existed in the colony.

Karlsefni and Vinland

Gudríð then married Thorfinn Karlsefni, a wealthy Icelandic trader. Both sagas say he organised an expedition to Vinland, the land found in North America, with some forty people and livestock. The details of the expedition differ greatly between the two versions.

In both, Gudríð goes with her husband. In Vinland the couple’s son, Snorri, is born. The sagas describe him as the first European born in America, though that depends on accepting the account as historical.

The dealings with the natives, whom the Norse called skrælingar, began with trade and ended in conflict. The group gave up staying and returned to Greenland, then to Iceland.

The pilgrimage

The final part of her life comes from the Saga of Erik the Red. After Karlsefni’s death, her son Snorri took over the farm in Iceland and built a church. Gudríð then set off on a pilgrimage to Rome. When she came back, she found the church finished and became a religious, living in seclusion.

The saga does not say she met the Pope, and there is no proof of it. What it states is that the pilgrimage took place and that Gudríð spent her last years in prayer.

What is history and what is not

The most important thing to say is that both sagas were written around the 13th century, more than two centuries after the events. They were not written by eyewitnesses. Excavations at L’Anse aux Meadows, in Newfoundland, proved that the Norse did reach North America around the year 1000. But there is no archaeological confirmation of Gudríð, of Karlsefni or of Snorri’s birth.

That does not take away the story’s value. It shows that people of that time imagined women able to face the ocean, death and distance, and that this memory was kept for generations.

To steer Gudríð’s ship between the ice floes, play Gudríð’s route.

Sources.

• Saga of Erik the Red (Eiríks saga rauða)
• Saga of the Greenlanders (Grænlendinga saga)
• Encyclopedia entries and the National Museum of Iceland on Gudríð