Leif was wise, considerate, and strong man.
he was the middle son of Erik the Red, the founder of the Norse settlement in Greenland and his wife Thjodhild.
We don’t know when and where he was born but it’s believed to have been around 970AD in the recently-colonised Iceland.
His grandfather, Thorvald Asvaldsson, had been banished from Norway for manslaughter and lived in exile in Iceland with his son Erik.
During Leif´s stay in the Hebrides, he fell in love with a noblewoman, Thorgunna, who gave birth to son Thorgils.
He discovered Vinland after being blown off course on his way from Norway to Greenland. Prior to the voyage, Leif had spent time at the court of Norwegian King Olaf Tryggvesson, after exile from Norway for killing Eyiolf the Foul.
Leif heard the tale of Bjarni Herjolfsson.
He bought Bjarni’s ship and raised a crew of 35 and set out to discover the verdant land of the Americas. When Leif encountered the storm that forced him off course, he (accompanied by a priest) had been on his way to introduce Christianity to the Greenlanders.
They finally found a land that seemed like the place they were searching for.
They found wild grapes, self-sown wheat and maple trees. Afterwards, they loaded their ship and sailed east to Greenland, rescuing a group of shipwrecked sailors along the way.
Leif is last mentioned alive in 1025 he had passed on his chieftaincy of Eiríksfjǫrðr to another son, Thorkell.
