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My TL, at first out one of my favorite Alternate History discussions, Vinland.
Enjoy, and please excuse my poor grammar and lack of knowledge on Norse naming, and please also forgive my lack of the use of Nordic characters as I'm just going to anglicize it both to be easier on me and people who don't know how to pronounce the characters, (if there's a guide for the names Norse used for naming towns and land if someone posted a link that would be great). And if it's bad, say so I'm not going to be offended I know I'm not a good writer but writing it in a timeline style would be different I hope, in short I am open to criticism in the hope that I may in a year or so maybe do a remake with less of these errors hopefully.
That aside enjoy.

1008:
While Visiting Greenland, Thorfinn Karlsefni marries a woman named Gudrid, and it is said that it was her nagging that lead him to settle at vinland, he had Taken 60 men and 5 Women to start a Colony, when they set out due to storms ended up being carried west and ending up in Markland rather than leifs little camp at Leifsbudir. They landed in a Fjord they had tried to name Thorfinnsvik; but at the Notion it is said he laughed and said "T'was my wife who nagged me here, let it be named after her instead", though he was joking and probably intended to name it after himself, his close friends and soon everyone had messed with him by actually referring to the Fjord as Gudridsfjord, and so from then on they built a Temporary settlement at the edge of a small brook in the Fjord (OTL Mary's Harbor). However later due to Native attacks after some unrecorded misunderstandings the Colony was left building defenses and foraging for food, and due to one of the ships crashing against the rocks they couldn't evacuate everyone and if too many men left to look for Leifsbudir there would be a risk of weaker defenses, the only time they ever left was to Fish or to try and find a place close by that was more naturally defended that they could one boatload at a time evacuate people, they were able to hold off four native attacks and now has come to a standstill but there are signs of them hiding in the brush surrounding the camp.

1009-1010:

It was a Long and cold winter for the Camp at Gudridsfjord, however when ignoring the problems the Native Skraelings brought they has no trouble fishing and was easily able to make it through winter, and during early spring Thorfinn sent out a team of four to go out and see if the Skraelings were still stalking their camp, the answer came from two dragging one back that received and Arrow to the thigh. From that point on people knew that unless they left or dealt with the natives it would never end; but good luck came their way and a ship from Leifsbudir that happened to find them while exploring and helps ferry them to a small flat clearing to the east of the settlement that was on a island and was budged against the Crags, (OTL town of Battle Harbor). The Natives had no interest in the island, and probably couldn't even swim there, hostilities stopped for the most part. They had to go back to the Mainland to collect wood, and the small clearing against the crags was small for all 65 of them, their livestock, and their crops. Many left for Leifsbudir but many had stayed, the people used to living in the bleak mountains and Fjords of Greenland and Iceland found the Crags familiar and comforting. The settlement had seen enormous prosperity when someone let the goats out into the mountainous surrounding Islands, due to the small size of the Islands it was near the same as Farming, they near always came back, and they grew very fat on the grasses and became a small but prosperous community, there was Plans for retaking the original Camp but that would wait for another time.
(going to let you guys help me with the name for that town, Interactive TL best TL, also names for PEI, Nova Scotia, and lake Ontario are up for suggestion)

1011-1013:

As attacks on Leifbudir grow people began to grow desperate, even thinking of going back to Greenland; But one young man had the Idea to Burn some of the Forests and brush by swinging an ax a few times at the trunks to dry them out, and then waiting until Autumn to Burn the dying leaves. Though most of the trees did not burn down it did leave most of them dead or near dead, in any case it was said that the brush had been cleared and it was much harder to attack by surprise. Albeit native attacks still happened they were less common and put down much easier.

Meanwhile at the Gudrisfjord colony, bog Iron was being discovered and local smiths had been making new Axes, knives, spears, arrowheads, Kitchen items and the like, contact had been made with Skraelings to the south and through hand movements and basic body language, been able to communicate enough to be able to trade large amounts of Pelts for small knives. While after a month they were able to learn some words in each others language such as: deer, water, rock, rabbit, stream, tree, leaf, seal, mountain, and spear. Thorfinn Karlsefni had frustratingly tried to learn more but the Language was so different from Norse that they had much trouble pronouncing the words, it is assumed the same was true for the Skraelings.

Due to the beginning of overpopulation once again in the Gudridsfjord and the many boats getting wrecked from sea rocks trying to get to the friendly trading natives Thorfinn, now the Chieftain of the settlement decides to create another settlement to the south with men from the overpopulated colony and new arrivals from Greenland and Iceland. At the area to the south there had been a bay with a brook mouthing out on the interior end (OTL bay next to Henley Harbor). Thorfinn had named it after his father Thord, the colony of Thordstad was growing little by little and had grown rich off of the pelts the natives had given them. It was said Thorfinn had one out of every five pelts given to Leif Eriksson to fund the colonies and to finance new colonists travel to the colonies.


1014-1015:

After a few years of trial and error, the wine made from the "Grapes" in vinland (none of the men had seen actual grapes before, so they had assumed, like a normal person mistaking Palm tree fruit for coconuts) had made very fine wine, fine enough that it had been shipped to Greenland and Iceland. He used the Wine both to make profit and to advertise the wealth of the land to try and gain more colonists, specifically women. The shortage of women in the Nyrfold (a term used by later historians but not at the time) was low compared to the amount of men, there were some captured skraeling thralls to take as wives however due to them having knowledge of how to survive in the wilderness often escape at any time they can and rarely stay long enough to bear any children. One wealthy man in Iceland had sent a message to Leif's family to lend him money and in return he would buy Female slaves from Europe.

However instead of buying slaves he had with the help of some men from the Faroes raided villages along the coast of Norway and put the females into slavery, he had killed or let go of all the males. The wealthy man whose name was lost to history sent most of his borrowed fleet back to Iceland to arrange the Women to be sent to Greenland and from there Vinland, but three ships remained. One went to Denmark to buy women, Two went to England to buy even more recently captured slaves from the various wars in the region. When the women had arrived in Vinland everyone was ecstatic, there was now a 12 to 10 ratio of women to men. Albeit this was not too large as the population of the colonies was before around four hundred and seventy and with the immigration it became clear that eventually the lack of women would become a problem once again.

Leif's son Bjarny Leifsson had been exploring the coast of Vinland under his older brother Thorkell, Bjarny was Fourteen at the time but had already grown to be as tall as most men and had manned the oars, the sails however were used much more liberally due to the westerlies helping them more often than not. It was said they came across a tremendous amount of fish of the eastern coast, and three days before found an Island with what one Norwegian smith knew was high quality Iron ore (OTL bell Island). Thorkell was thinking of establishing a colony in the Area to exploit the enormous amount of fish and the Iron ore which could make very high quality Iron goods far superior to bog Iron.


1016:

In the (two) Markland settlements, the Natives stopped trading and nearly all Native attacks ceased. With a mix of curiosity and fear for losing their trading partners Thorfinn led men to the area where they Believed the skraeling village was, the skraelings always came to them to trade and had never really mentioned where their home was. After four days of searching they found a camp, everyone was sick or dying. After some communication with the less sick ones they had put together that many of the people ran away, the sickness was well known to the Icelanders; this form of influenza had killed the great Erik the Red some 13 years Prior, it wasn't just the Natives that the disease was infecting. While due to a mix of luck and avoiding the infected the Marklanders only had got off with 13 dead , mostly being the old and young.

Thorkell and his younger brother Bjarni had set off with thirty four colonists to settle near the "Iron Island" to the east of it had been large swathes of flat land, large amounts of flat land was rare in Vinland and Markland, most had been farming in only a couple square feet worth of land before having another patch on another flat-like area; so in addition to the Iron and vast fish which people were already exploiting, there would be much wheat to sell. Essentially what this meant is that whoever had control over the Area had the most influence over vinland other than the Paramount chief himself. The plan was to first start a settlement on the Island for closer access to the metal, then a second to a Peninsula pointing north where they could start farming and build a port to monopolize on the fish in the area. They had with them three important Frankish blacksmith slaves, it had cost them two ships to trade for them. Once they had landed they had immediately started cutting down trees and creating smith charcoal, a small scouting ship checking to see if the fish populations were still in check came back loaded with fish even though there was only one poorly made fishing line to see if the fish were still there; according to them most of the fish had "jumped' onto the boat and they had to shovel many off to stop the boat from sinking. When contact was trying to be made with Skaelings it was found most of them had died off from the wave of those fleeing their sick tribes eventually working their way down that far south, the few that remained had been starving and had nothing to trade. The Christians in the group had taken pity on them and pleaded with Thorkell to take them in. While Thorkell rejected it coldly and wanted to leave them to their fate (most likely due to the death of his uncle), Bjarni being a well educated Christian had referred to the story of the Parable of the Good Samaritan; this had infuriated Thorkell due to his strong belief in the old faith. Eventually a falling out occurred and Thorkell being the elder had sent Bjarny and all the Christian colonists (who made up around half of the colonists) out of the camp that was founded not 3 days prior, with the ships Bjarni took the remaining skraelings who had no idea what was going on but after a while went on the ship with them and had decided to circumnavigate Vinland as he had heard one sailor say it was an Island. With the Skraelings that survived numbering only seven beginning to understand tidbits of the Norse language, whilst sailing west once they had gone south enough, they had seen land on the Horizon and when they investigated they had found it was a small Island that was in reality not interesting at all (OTL St Paul Island). However in the distance from there was an island that the saw smoke rising above, when they arrived they had found an elongated ring of an Island with a large lagoon in the middle (OTL Magdalene Islands), the Skraelings had appeared to be a on a temporary camp there to hunt the seals and walruses that came there. While during some accident of sorts a fight broke out with three dead on the Norse side but the entire Skraeling community either killed or captured. During some rage Bjarni had their eyes cut out and toes cut off and had made them into rowers, albeit cruel this had become a very effective model that was soon accepted all over Vinland, Markland, even Greenland and Iceland.

On the central landmass of the Island he had founded Bjarnystad, there was plenty of wood, animals, grazing area, flat land for farming, and albeit not as good as the grand banks had decent fishing. He had sent a ship to inform his father (Leif Eriksson) of what Thorkell had done, and also to advertise his new colony, when Leif all the way in Greenland had heard of this had gotten very angry and immediately set sail for "Thorkellsborg" to correct his son and get him to forgive his brother, when he arrived it was said that Thorkell "Had assumed it was Bjarny here to take the title of chieftain from me" and had loosed arrows on the ships hitting Leif in the Shoulder, when the ships came ashore and they realized Bjarny wasn't there Leif was a little more than upset. Eventually Leif had gotten Thorkell to convert to Christianity and not be hostile to his brother anymore, afterwords both of the new colonies had thrived and had made wealth and grew large and prosperous. It was that same year that much land to the south and west had been explored and mapped.


(open to suggestion names for: Prince Edward Island, cape Breton Island, Anticosti, St. Lawrence river, Lake Ontario, Main/New Brunswick/ part of Quebec south of the river, Saguenay River and the lake that it starts from, and even the Magdalene Islands as a whole)

skraeling.jpeg
 
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During some rage Bjarni had their eyes cut out and toes cut off and had made them into rowers, albeit cruel this had become a very effective model that was soon excepted all over Vinland, Markland, even Greenland and Iceland.
Should be accepted, not excepted.
He had sent a ship to inform his father (Leif Eriksson) of what Thorkell had done, and also to advertise his new colony, when Leif all the way in Greenland had heard of this had gotten very angry and immediately set sail for "Thorkellsborg" to correct his son and get him to forgive his brother, when he arrived it was said that Thorkell "Had assumed it was Bjarni here to take the title of chieftain from me" and had loosed arrows on the ships hitting Leif in the Shoulder, when the ships came ashore and they realized Bjarny wasn't there Leif was a little more than upset. Eventually Leif had gotten Thorkell to convert to Christianity and not be hostile to his brother anymore, afterwords both of the new colonies had thrived and had made wealth and grew large and prosperous. It was that same year that much land to the south and west had been explored and mapped.
I feel like the sentences ran on a bit too long here, try to add some more detail and use less commas.

(open to suggestion names for: Prince Edward Island, cape breton Island, Anticosti, St. Lawrence river, Lake Ontario, Main/New Brunswick/ part of Quebec south of the river, Saguenay River and the lake that it starts from, and even the Magdalene Islands as a whole)
Just take a look at the natural features and translate them into Norse, or something similar.

I also don't think Christians were in Vinland, unless you're talking about converted Norse pagans, whom I doubt would start a conflict.

I hope I wasn't too harsh :(
 
Just take a look at the natural features and translate them into Norse, or something similar.

I also don't think Christians were in Vinland, unless you're talking about converted Norse pagans, whom I doubt would start a conflict.

I hope I wasn't too harsh :(

Well I have tried looking for a place to translate English into Old Norse but not too many places where you can do that lol,

And yes there were Christians in Vinland, the discoverers were a mix of pagan and Christian. Albeit there was a slight Norse Pagan majority with the King of Norway having Leif spread Christianity to Greenland it would end up in three ways:
1. Pagans leave Greenland for Vinland
2. Pagans eventually convert to Christianity
3. Pagans convert to Christianity then leave for Vinland or go to Vinland first then get converted

What bugs me is that a lot of Vinland TL's have paganism always being the majority, true the pagan faith would without a doubt linger on for a few more centuries but with missionaries being sent from Norway and the Cultural indoctrinating paganism into non-existence, AKA Christian man marries Pagan women and their children grow up with both religions being a factor in their lives and due to the hard work on missionaries side they eventually start to lean toward Christianity.

And thanks for the criticism, able to fix some things now.
 
Well I have tried looking for a place to translate English into Old Norse but not too many places where you can do that lol,

Icelandic is pretty close to Old Norse, closer than any other language.


Do you know what be more interesting? Some kind of weird Pagan/Christian mixture. Maybe with Odin being melded into an Abrahamic God-like figure, and Thor mixing with Jesus in some strange way. A sort of "Vinlandic Heresy"; they view themselves as Christians, and so resist further attempts at absorption by the Roman Church.
 
Do you know what be more interesting? Some kind of weird Pagan/Christian mixture. Maybe with Odin being melded into an Abrahamic God-like figure, and Thor mixing with Jesus in some strange way. A sort of "Vinlandic Heresy"; they view themselves as Christians, and so resist further attempts at absorption by the Roman Church.

eh, something like that happens over the course of hundreds of years.
However something like a Vinlandic early form of Protestantism or some other split from Catholicism.
 
I was planning of writing Part 2 today but due to IRL things it'll have to wait until tomorrow, I have wrote a few paragraphs already but the rest will be tomorrow hopefully.
 
2

1017-1018

In a small ship there was a few men led by Olaf Thorgilson,most were cold and sick. They had been on a trip from Greenland to Thorkellsborg, two of their rowers had gotten to sick to row and in a storm had blown them off course and there was so much clouds they couldn't tell where the sun was which also went they had no idea which way was North. Eventually by chance they ended up on what they believed to be Heulluland. They had seen Walruses, Narwhals, seals and even a type of dolphin with a lump on its head, all over the place, after two days rowing south they had encountered some Skraelings. These skraelings however were different from skrealings usually seen by Norse, they were much farther north than they were usually found and knew nothing of the Norse from their expressions. Eventually after hand gesturing and basic body language they had figured they were on a seasonal trip to hunt the animals that came this way, after further "conversation" it was deduced that they had come from the west. They had traded iron items for things such as furs and gold nuggets that they had apparently brought from wherever they came from, the amount of gold they had was little but it had sparked great interest in the crew. The following day the crew went south and eventually landed in Leifsbudir and set upon the business they had originally intended on doing, but Olaf had ambitions of finding the source of the gold.

In the Markland a great many different farms had been established in the Area, it had started to resemble Iceland in the fact that there were a few towns but many farms, all areas that were able to support a farm twenty five miles north and south of Gudridsfjord. Thorfinn had sponsored a colonization effort to start a settlement on "Bear Island" (OTL Ile d'Anticosti). This was especially important because it was in the gulf and the closest. The most appealing virtue of all was it's very low Skraeling population, it is still unknown whether this was by chance or had to do with the Greenland plague (I'm naming it that because it killed many people in greenland OTL). The plague is what helped the Nyrfold colonies survive the unrelenting skraeling attacks, it had left nearly all of Markland devoid of non-Norse and the Northern half of Vinland had pretty much no skraelings save the ones who stayed in their villages and waited the plague out rather than run into the forests where exposure worsened the sickness, even so the ones who stayed in the villages only a tenth of them had lived. The soil on Bear Island was very sandy but the fishing was good (not as great as Thorkellsborg but enough to feed themselves), and the hunting was extremely profitable, as at first people had traded iron tools and cloth for pelts with the natives, but due to the massive die offs and what skraelings remained were very cautious around Norse or even hostile had resulted in furs becoming extremely valuable and some had taken up hunting as a way to obtain the furs, others decided to go further south or further inland to trade with natives that had not been affected by the Greenland Plague. The plague had at this point died off and newly discovered natives usually did not get sick, although the damage to populations in the affected areas had been near irreversible as skraelings were often captured, blinded, and chained to be forced as rowers.

In Thorkellsborg Thorkell had been amassing arms and been producing amour, and producing many ships. This suspicious activity was even made more severe when he had a dream that Odin had been disappointed in him for abandoning the Old gods faith, he immediately reverted to paganism and had ordered the local priest to leave, however he left the Christians in his town be due to them being a third of the population. This caused fear for Karlsefni, Bjarny, and Leif; all of which then began producing their own weapons and warships, this dire situation got even worse as Leif had gotten very sick while in Greenland. After this Thorkell had made his move, he had immediately sent his men to Leifbudir to take the town but met fierce resistance. Eventually at the cost of fourteen of his sixty seven men, however many ships had went to Markland to alert Thorfinn Karlsefni and the Greenlanders, and eventually Bjarny however he wanted to remain neutral in the "conflict", however he did heavily fortify his islands and used the bell originally used for a church to be temporarily used for an alert system and had a fast soldier transport system using the Islands interior lagoon to quickly travel men without any large waves (the Magdalene Islands are pretty much a bunch of Islands in a oval shape with a huge lagoon). Thorkell especially wanted to get revenge on his brother who in his eyes humiliated him, while the conflict would only have a few Hundred warriors fighting it would determine the next step of the history of the Nyrfold.


I'll try and continue tomorrow, sorry for the shortness but due to IRL things again I couldn't do as much as I wanted too.
 
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You'd think with so much land to settle, the Norse would be able to avoid fighting among themselves for a generation or two.
It's not so much they're fighting over Land (Land is another drive but not the Main), their fighting for Power over the Area.
And further colonization is slow and hard due to most of the people that come to Vinland just expand the prebuilt colonies because its easier and less chance of catching a stone arrow in the throat. Colonization's still happening it's just not exploding
 
North Sea Empire?

In your timeline what happens to the North Sea empire of Cnut the great? In your timeline do the Norse people play a much larger and significant role then they did in OTL?
 
In your timeline what happens to the North Sea empire of Cnut the great? In your timeline do the Norse people play a much larger and significant role then they did in OTL?

I fail to see how that could directly change the politics of Europe unless we go full butterfly mode: (someone who helped the adversaries of cnut had gotten robbed and killed when going to collect new taxes that were put in place because of the increased wealth of North American Furs) But I'm going to try and avoid going full butterfly and just try and keep it OTL-ish

I'm going to do a thing or two though, spoilers.
 
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1019

The war between Thorkell and the others had temporarily ceased due to the winter weather, however there were some attempted raids on Leifsbudir from the Markland colonies due to their extremely close distance (around twenty three miles). When spring came Bjarni had a change of heart and had amassed twelve ships that had originally built for trade and exploration and set out to Vinland, not to wage war but to find and ally with the Natives who spoke the language of the ones he had rescued. His strategy was to bribe the skraeling into helping him with Iron and even land ownership, then have them attack the many settlements that swore allegiance to Thorkell (most had sworn by force), and then attack their docks by ship. He had initial success but some ships had slipped through and warned the other settlements, when Thorkell heard of this he had left his friend Arvid Akeson in charge of the Markland front. When Thorkell arrived south he had decimated Bjarny's ships but the settlements that he had invaded had been able to defend against many attacks from Thorkell, much to the surprise of the defenders the civilians had willingly helped Bjarny's forces and allies.

But the walls were breaking and Bjarnystad was the only settlements not under siege from Thorkell, it had seemed that Thorkell would win but a surprise came when a mixed fleet of colonists from the Faroes, Shetlands, Iceland, and some from Greenland and Norway who had originally intended to colonize but when hearing of the war modified their Knars for warfare. While not being very battle worthy they were able to push Arvid's forces nearly completely off the Markland coast. Meanwhile Thorkell had reclaimed three settlements and in a hurry Bjarny had pushed his ship builders into making six more ships that were more appropriate for warfare and his smiths had been working the bog Iron into mail, axes, and spears; It was known at this time the people of the Bjarnystad islands used peat for fires because all the non green wood was being used for either ship building or charcoal for smithing. The Fleet at Markland had moved south taking settlements and farms eventually Thorkellborg was under siege from Bjarny's fleet, the immigrant fleet now led by Thorfinn Karlsefni, and Bjarni's native allies accompanied by Norse warriors on the ground. Thorkell had caught an arrow in the Arm which had punctured an artery or vain (The Norse could not distinguish the two), it led to him being so weak that he had been easily captured by the ship being led by Thorfinn himself. He was bound and sent to Byarnystad for his brother to decide his fate, however it is unknown which happened to him but there are two stories: One is that he had bitten his tongue off when the ship left dock, the other is that he had nudged himself overboard to be eaten by a pack of Orcas, it has most likely been exaggerated but what is clear is that he had committed suicide in some way before seeing his brother.

Arvid is said to have surrendered and pledged allegiance to Thorfinn Karlsefni and his son Snorri, he had went to establish a settlement of fifteen people at the mouth of the Kaltdrulla river (OTL Natashquan river), in Bjarny's eyes he viewed it as a challenge to his Dominion over the mouth of the great River. He was right, a few months later he had found ships exploring the region and going to the Great River. In defense he immediately sent his Native allies who he swore land to to the mouth of the Great river to build a settlement, this was a particularly great as the many Islands at the mouth were fertile and easily defensible; from there he launched many explorations into the river and found many waterfalls in which settlements had to be built. There was a problem brewing in the Nyrfold, the population was being stretched thin and could not keep up with the Ambitious chieftains trying to expand their power. This was being fought off with immigration from Iceland and Skraelings who had been intrigued with Norse society and willingly joined settlements, however it had not removed the problem and Ambitious rulers like Thorfinn, Arvid, and Bjarny had resorted to bribing people from Iceland and Greenland to join, lack of women had begun to be a problem once more.

Olaf Thorgilson had exaggerated his claims about the north gold, eventually he put together one ship filled with light trinkets and tools to trade for furs and gold in the Helluland region, he had also planned to build small sod houses that they could stay in and come back to next time, on an Island he founded Olafsvera (Olaf's stay). He had traded small copper rings for masses of pelts and caribou meat but no gold, he had left eight men to stay at the camp while he took the ship and went west to a large Island he named Gullnaeyja (golden Island) and he had found some nuggets of gold there and apparently jewels of some kind according to the saga. He had decided to build another temporary camp there and search the Island for Skraelings to trade with but they had found none and went back to Olafsvera and for another month traded then went home to Greenland before the winter came.


Will try to make another part as soon as I can but again due to IRL things I can't do too much, mother is in the hospital and between school and visiting her can't write too much, but I don't want this thread to be a pity party so lets not talk about it.
 
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Good news, mother got out of the Hospital, so again please do not be against using helpfull critisism.

1020-1022

Thorfinn Karlsfni had been bitter about being at a disadvantage to Bjarny, he was cut off from the Mouth of The Great River and it would be impossible to try and colonize south as he would run into territorial issues as there were already colonies in Hnetaland ( PEI and CBI) and Saeturland (Quebec south of the river). Snorri his son was beginning to become of age and was able to read and write according to the sagas, he himself had accompanied several trips to Northern Markland and Greenland; it was there he had met Olaf Thorgilson and heard about his tales of the search for the Northwestern Gold. Snorri had asked for Olaf to show him the Heullulands (after discovering they were made of a very many Islands instead of naming everyone of them individually which wouldn't work out very well as people would likely never go back to the same ones again), Olaf agreed and they set out with the seven ships Snorri had and the one ship Olaf had in his possesion and they had set out for the Heullulands. When they had found Olafsvera they had found Skraelings living next to it waiting for the Norse to return, they had traded mainly wool clothes and small iron tools for Furs and some Food. Seven of the men and one of the ships had stayed behind, the rest had went south along a curve eventually finding a huge bay (OTL James bay, they didn't realize Hudson bay was a bay yet), it was at a river that in Snorri's words "Was so cloudy that it resembled badly made Mead" (Moose River) had established a settlement called Snorrisborg on the many Islands it bore and the land Elgurland, he had also theorized that the river may lead into the great Lake that was sighted by an explorer sent by Bjarny Leifsson the year before. He left the settlement to further explore the coast westward but only taking two ships with the others staying in Snorrisborg, they went west along the coasts and eventually left the bay, it was uneventful until they had hit another large river. It was even bigger than the Snorrisborg river and a Skraeling camp was visible and they had traded some cloth for provisions and even the gold nuggets they had in their possession for iron knives. The next day Snorri decided to row up the river and see if there was anything interesting, he had found many large lakes and eventually found one large lake, he had rejoiced as he had believed he had found the Great Lake of the Great river (OTL Lake Winnipeg) but after sailing found that it had not led to the great river but it had many large rivers flowing out of it one flowing south and another flowing in from the west where he believed to harbor great amounts of gold. They had turned back and gone back to the sea then had went north and found that they had been in a Larger bay, he had then went back to Snorrisborg and then eventually packed up and went back home to Greenland for Olaf and from there back to Markland intending to return to Snorrisborg permanently later.

In Thorkellsborg immigrants from Norway had introduced small scale Lime burning and most houses were whitewashed and the local Church had lime mortar and was said to have been taller and larger than churches in Norway and Denmark, small settlements to Islands south and west of Thorkellsborg (OTL Saint Pierre and Miquelon) had very poor clay-like soil but still was thriving from seal hunting, animal husbandry, and fishing and it's very close proximity to Thorkellsborg's and Hnetaland's farms meant no shortage of grain. Blacksmiths on the settlements there had used the clay for fire resistant material for building forges, it was noticed that when the charcoal was hot enough to melt Iron that afterwards the clay had become hard like stone. This had led to the first fired brick making in Vinland, it was not used for making houses but it was popular for making flooring and even pathways.
The new settlement at the Mouth of the great river original name is lost but the native allies who owned most of the land later nicknamed it Knawhasi, it was then Nordisized as Nawahlid (OTL Qubec city), while the chieftain of Nawahlid's original name is lost but his christian name given to him after he converted was John Kristinn, it is also said that one of his daughters was one of the Skraelings Bjarny had saved and he assumed was dead. The sagas say he was content being chieftain of the settlement and it's farm and pledged his allegiance to Bjarny Leifson, he did however supervise the building of a church that was in an unorthodox architectural style, in Bjarni's words when he had come to visit the colony on some business he had said "It was a circular wall of stones two men high with the seats surrounding it in rows and the inside was filled with dirt, then on top of the dirt was the Alter with a small wooden roof above it." It should also be noted it was that same year Vinland had gotten it's first Bishop, much to the disdain to the twenty-five percent pagan minority.

On the Bjarnystad Islands it was said that Bjarny had been very tired having to travel all over Vinland, Hnetaland (OTL Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia), and Saeturland (OTL Quebec/Ontario south of the St Lawrence river, it extends to about where new Brunswick borders nova Scotia), he had decided that with all the excess wood in the land he could have a very large boat built that would be more comfortable and used for long distance travel. What started as a slight interest grew into something more serious, the trees in Hnetaland were much bigger than the tree's in Europe so it was plausible. He had ordered the construction of a ship seven men wide and twenty eight men long, the shipbuilders had to specifically make the planks out of certain maples to get something that long and sturdy. Midway into the construction Bjarny saw how large it was and asked if it would be possible to have a second story in the middle, the shipbuilders after looking confused said it was possible and holes were cut in the middle for oars. When it was completed it was so large and the second story was able to stabilize a mast as tall as a tree and that it could not be taken down quickly so it was built that the sail could come down when needed but the mast would remain standing, it could not sail up small rivers or rivers that had to strong of a current but was great at using the winds that when in open sea would rarely need the oars at all. Bjarny had planned to sail to Iceland and use his wealth and his ship to show off the greatness of his land and himself, but he could only dock in large shoal free harbors meaning hopping to there from Greenland was impossible; he had decided that if it was jam packed with food and was accompanied by other ships it could Directly go to Iceland.

They had set off in the Late spring and had decided to not sail north for a week so as to avoid icebergs, they had stopped and resupplied in Thorkellsborg and had also carried some of the fine quality Vinlandic Wine to show to the Icelanders who knew of it from merchants already. After five days a storm had brewed that forced them southwards, they had tried going north and after it was through they had made significant progress north eventually after three months ended up on the southern coast of Ireland, all the accompany ships had been lost (two of the five had actually been able to make their way north and landed in Iceland), they had been able to make their way to Dublin and surprisingly enough the ship took little damage. From there they went straight to Iceland to tell of their Journey, most of the Icelanders were impressed by the size of his ship but they still believed he was lying, a few however didn't and came with him taking all the food they can and made the Trip for Leifsbudir. Leifsbudir was now the third largest settlement in the Nyrfold, the first being Thorkellsborg, the second being Bjarnystad, the fourth being Gudridsfjord, and the fifth being Nawahlid. The word of Bjarny's disappearance and assumed death at sea was followed only a week behind by Bjarny himself, Thorfinn Karlsefni took advantage of the situation and declared himself chief paramount of Markland, Vinland, Hnetaland, Saeturland, and Greenland. But before he could actually do anything to consolidate Bjarny had arrived and Thorfinn quickly renounced his claim, it was at that time many had praised Bjarny for his crossing of the open sea and Thorfinn was dishonored cowardly renouncing his claim that fast, while he was still in control of Markland and his son Elgurland it was clear now that he was ambitious and seen by many as cowardly.

In Saeturland merchants had seen the Skraeling way of tapping maple sap and boiling it into syrup and sugar, due to the best maple for the job was found mostly in Saeturland and Hnetaland; it was instantly popular for making pastries that were exported to Nawahlid and Bjarnystad, it was eventually popular everywhere in the Nyrfold and Bjarny had used it along with the wine and the pelts the riches of Vinland. Explorers from Saeturland also went deep into the great river and portaged over many waterfalls eventually leading to the Great lake and then they had circled it and entered what they named the Hvitur River (Fast flowing river, while being able to row up it for a couple miles they had to portage it over waterfalls and had seen a waterfall so huge and spectacular. They had on one of the Islands in the river found a skraeling village, it was not like the skraelings they were used too these ones grew a strange crop that grew very tall and had bean vines growing around it, and their houses were more advanced. The Skraelings were cautious to the Norsemen at first but had eventually nodded them into the camp where they sat and ate a meal together where the Norse ate their strange "Maize bread" which did not rise very well but was edible and was sweet, the squashes were made into pies of a kind and the Norsemen were surprised at the relative sophistication of them. The party leader Ragnar Bjornson had decided that they should stay for a while to learn their language and to use their fishing gear to feed themselves so as to not become unwelcome. After a month they begin to understand bits and pieces of their language and vise versa, what they do get through the language barrier is the vast trading systems to the south and west.


continuing in the next part,
 
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The butterflies here could be huge. They're already trading with Europe, so there must be a growing interest from other European powers.
 
The butterflies here could be huge. They're already trading with Europe, so there must be a growing interest from other European powers.

Yes but not territorial for the most part, you have to remember that the distance is great and the routes dangerous for ships not used to the frozen north seas. That and the thing the want most really is pelts and gold which they can easily get through trade.
But yes butterflies could change many things, perhaps Vinland could become a breeding ground for a plague that would be just as bad as the black death? Probably not but who knows that's in store for Vinland.
 
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