When Vikings Met Native Americans: The Voyage of Thorvald Erikson
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- Опубліковано 10 лют 2025
- Happy Leif Erikson Day! After Leif's discovery of unknown lands to the west of Greenland, his brother Thorvald set off on an expedition of his own. Thorvald's voyage, as related in the medieval Icelandic text The Saga of the Greenlanders, marks the first time in recorded history that Europeans came face-to-face with Native Americans. In this video, I regale you with this tale of adventure, exploration, and cultural collision. And for some reason, I spend about a third of the video talking about a bowl, a coin, and some yarn made of goat hair.
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~REFERENCES~
[1] Magnus Magnusson & Hermann Pálsson. The Vinland Sagas: The Norse Discovery of America (1965). Penguin Books, Page 59-61
[2] Sîan Grønlie. The Book of the Icelanders / The Story of the Conversion (2006). Viking Society for Northern Research, Page 4
[3] Ingeborg Marshall. “Beothuk Transportation” (1998). Heritage Newfoundland and Labrador www.heritage.n...
[4] Patricia Sutherland. Dorset-Norse Interactions in the Canadian Arctic (2000). Canadian Museum of Civilization, Page 2-9
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
The fact that Vikings vs Native Americans is an actual historical matchup that happened and wasn't just some piece of historical fanfiction as it sounds brings me endless amouts of joy
And the fact that video games and tv/movies have never (or rarely) capitalized on that is a travesty
@@nunyabizniss570 American Gods did have one scene of it
I want an AU where the Vikings stayed in the Americas long term.
@@fumarc4501 same tbh
@@fumarc4501 Its been done to death
Oh boy! It’s Lief Erickson day!
*HINGA DINGA DURGAN!*
Your username sounds suspiciously like Christopher Columbus. GTFO you mass-murdering swine. Only Erikson stans are allowed in my comment section.
@@AtunSheiFilms yikes
@@Wewwers I think he's kidding.
😄 Much, much love Chris, in DROVES 💜
@@AtunSheiFilms do you have a Christopher Columbus video coming up?
"Ask your friend who does HEMA. I guarantee he's been brewing mead in his laundry room for the past six months and can't wait to talk your ear off about the whole process" As someone with a friend who does HEMA, this is 100% accurate.
As a friend who used to do HEMA, IT IS.
Tf is HEMA?
Anthony B historical European martial arts
Or anyone who does Ren Faire
@@mattg-xy8jr @bonnie A Grazie!
Local man, armed with a sword, arrested for being intoxicated in the forest.
Alternative
Local wisconsin man found roaming the woods, armed with sword, calmly taken home and given another beer
Since when did they make that illegal?
@@dzhang4459 never heard of public drunken laws... also there are laws baring people to carry weapons while intoxicated.
@Chris Muller With Sports make sure they charge him for having glass on the beach!
The way you talk in Old Norse is exactly how Europeans mock Scandinavians.
ahh to some a mockery to others an ode
We usually just throw our beer after them and mock their sissy latin language 😁
@@KaptajnKaffe but then the whole, Ya know, your peoples turning Christian began.
@@KaptajnKaffe Sry man but keep your beer, it sucks.
@@matousplacek6699 limfjords porter, best in the world and it is thick as tar. Better than your pils 😘
*Ding-dong*
“Oh crap, honey, it’s Leif Erickson Day and we forgot the mead!”
BURN THE ENTIRE PLACE TO TH...
...wait, Leif’s Nordic?
Uhhhh...blast ABBA?
Jennifer LePage Vodka is no substitute for mead. However I will take it, as an accelerant...
@@pauly260
Doesn't matter what day it is. Blast ABBA anyway. Before they play anything and put you to sleep.
@@pauly260 We all know that as Lief's ship rose up the shoreline he was blasting out At The Gates
Wait, we're not getting to the angry pregnant woman, who scared off an entire war party for at least another year? Awwww c'mon!!!!
gotta wait until next year
Love the video but you have to be the skinnist viking I have ever seen. :)
Mister Right clearly you have never seen a viking who has just lived through a long winter on the west coast of Greenland!
You forgot to mention she was also topples lol
@@vikingbraid7515 Specifically, that she tore open her dress to show them her breasts, while brandishing an axe and shield and a bull from the livestock pens had got loose, so you had these poor Native Americans, faced with this screaming crazy woman with an axe and her pet monster
Explorer: "Look, a human being vastly different than us. LET'S KILL IT!!"
@Rude English Suggestions Still doesn't make them better people by a very wide margin. Maybe slightly better, but still pretty bad.
Wait.. Did the natives attack them first?
Why immediately resort to killing?
@@michaelstodovski2219 vikings being vikings
I believe there was another incident where they came and gave the natives dairy, and the natives being lactose intolerant thought they had been poisoned and it caused another fight
Michael Stodovski Because that is the Christian way. The Vikings have been reformed.
Don't forget in Norse mythology any stranger you meet might be a fellow human, who could be affected by iron weapons, or something else like a troll, who couldn't. And there was generally only one way to find out...
“Look! A human being vastly different from us! Let’s kill it!”
Good thing nobody ever thought that way about foreign cultures again after this incident, right?
And then go to sleep at the same place...expecting nothing to happen. A litel hinch about the IQ of those Vikings. To bad that it was a madcap who did the first encounter.
@@jarlehansson3127 Those we call "vikings" were pretty incredible, there is plenty of evidence that on one of their journeys to America they sailed all the way down the coast around Argentina and back up to Peru (evidence for this is a breed of dog in Peru known to mysteriously not be a native breed, which has since been identified as a specific Danish breed of dog, which is reasonably believed and understood to of been part of the cargo on the fleet that sailed to America on an expedition, the occums razor explanation for how those dogs got all the way to Peru is that the Vikings decided to do what they always do and sail the coast looking for anything interesting, this would also help explain the also mysterious "ghost tribes" of Peru and south America who were very tall and pale skinned with blue eyes, reportedly only encountered again by Europeans 500 years later in the 1600-1700s).
I feel so called out by the HEMA comment... I mean you're not wrong, but I definitely feel called out.
My brewing rig is literally in my laundry room since it stays at roughly the right temperature, I also feel very specifically called out.
@@Yugophoto When I was living in the dorms of a dry university, I had my rig set up in the bottom of my closet. The RA turned a blind eye in return for a portion of every batch.
@@lebverderben hopefully his home wasn't burnt down because of your generous proceeds
As an archaeologist and historian with special interest in this period, Iceland and Greenland I like your idea of the skinboats. It makes sense to me, hadn’t thought of it in that way, hard to do so the otherside of the pond but very reasonable.
Same. Ive never thought about it. I do not have a good knowledge base about the variety of the northern native tribes ether, so I would have never thought of it.
The innu, also known as the montagnes used skin boats and they were on the South Shore of Labrador on the entrance to the Saint Lawrence Seaway, they spent much time Trading with both amerindians and Inuit, further south they were all birch bark canoes but where they were far enough North where they didn't have massive birch trees they would have used skin
Perhaps this 'skin boat' is identified as such, because it is representative of the fact that it ACTUALLY WAS just an Inuit skin boat, because maybe Helluland is Baffin Island, Markland is the coast of Labrador, and L'Anse aux Meadows is Vinland; perhaps Fridtjof Nansen was right, and the Vikings never got farther south than Newfoundland, and all this bullshit about 'wine and self-sown wheat' is just misappropriated from Isidore's description of the Insula Fortunata, and perhaps, asides from the now-extinct Beothuk (the original 'red men', as they were obssessed with ochre and red cloth), the Vikings never met any other kinds of Natives asides from what we would term Inuit ... The simplest answer is often the correct one
As a person from Dorset, I always do a double-take when I see "Dorset People" or "Dorset Culture" used to mean "prehistoric Greenlanders" rather than rural southern England.
Reminds me of another ancient tale of Vikings. A song of immigrants...
We come from the land of the ice and snow
From the midnight sun where the hot springs blow
Hammer of the gods will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde and sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming
On we sweep with the threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shore
Ahhh-ah-ah! Ahhh-ah-ah!
Press F# to pay respects.
f
Slight issue thorovalde's Christian
@@spartanx9293 I can’t say this for certain but from what I’ve read it seems many pagan peoples that adopted Christianity still believed in their old gods as well as the Christian god.
@@SirDehumanized those who believe they're going to Valhalla don't ask ask to be buried and and have the cape they were buried at named Cape cross
Where was this shot?! I was just on the shore of the Atlantic 25 minutes ago and it looked just like this!
Ps I get it there is lots of shore on the Atlantic
He lives in Louisiana. Based on that I would guess this is the gulf coast but I don't think it looks like the gulf coast.
@Robert Bowles he is originally from Massachusetts so maybe it is up there.
@@hollyroom4503 He just did an onsite video about King Phillips war so it's definitely New England
@@crackpotofantioch4636 And shot a collab with Brandon F
"If you can't find mead, ask your friend who does hema" as someone who has been debating taking the plunge into Hema and Homebrewing, I feel attacked
"I died doing what I love: sailing to new lands. And killing people for no reason."
Thorvald Eiricksson.
GOOD ONE!
That's what I'd do. However, I love Sambo, and fighting, and matching up against different people. Some of us are more warrior like than others. I'd love to sail to an unknown land and test my weapons and brawn against an unknown people.
"Will drive our ships to new lands
To fight the horde, sing and cry
Valhalla, I am coming
On we sweep with threshing oar
Our only goal will be the western shore"
As a Mi'kmaq person in Cape Breton, NS we do have oral stories that can be interpreted as stories about Vikings. I've heard stories that they lived here with in peace for a while until they brought animals and started trading milk with us, we weren't able to drink the milk and as we died from it we thought they were intentionally trying to poison us so we chased them off our lands. And as for the part about skin boats, we also have stories both oral and written that say we used to not only use moose and caribou skins for canoes but also for our wigwams too up until both of those animals were overhunted and we started to use birch bark for our canoes, wigwams, water vessels, etc...
I had a history teacher who reminds me of Lord Atun-Shei. He was extremely knowledgeable about history in general but especially U.S. and specifically New England history. He would dress up in all kinds of gear. Indian, Viking, Colonial, British, Union, etc and he just brought it all alive. He was the best teacher I ever had. I wanted to learn far more than his teaching-that is a true gift. Lord Atun-Shei is doing a great thing with these videos and could be an incredible teacher if he wanted to be. I hope these vids don't end anytime soon........though nothing lasts forever.
*Looks over at the five gallons of mead above the washing machine*
"You know, it's a good thing I know HEMA, because I've just been attacked".
An interesting note about the "skinboats," a lot of medieval depictions of historical events were wildly anachronistic, depicting historical figures in distinctly contemporary and local styles and fashions. It doesn't seem like a stretch at all to me to imagine a saga-writer conceiving of a group they hadn't personally interacted with more immediately familiar terms, especially for something that was intended for cultural transmission.
Thorvald Erikson: *is a meek Greenlandic Christian*
Thorvald Erikson: *happens upon strange natives on a beach and immediately orders their totally non-pagan-ritual executions*
Where does it say that they were ritually executed? Furthermore it was common to both be christian and pagan at the same time.
Ecumenism moment
@@b.benjamineriksson6030 still is for a lot of people in places with large native american populations especially natives themselfs
In truth, though, if you turn over some skin boats and suddenly discover dudes under them, you’re gonna be a little startled and probably overreact! A perfectly excusable mass execution!
Hey man, we were never good at being christian. Just not our style
but before we start this video is sponsored by VIKINGS WAR OF CLANS
Missed opportunity right there
This channel is why I’m getting in A in my history class, thanks! Also wait I can go out and get free mead then burn stuff? I’m going to be very busy... 10/10 best viking metal video!
You can get mead *OR* burn stuff.
Arson is only applicable when mead is not to be had.
@@eldorados_lost_searcher I mean go to several houses and get mead or burn stuff.
Wow, two Atun-Shei Films videos in less than a week, it's a Leif Erikson Day miracle!
I've been working on a short story horror novel where a Drakkar runs afoul near one of the Algonquin natives and must face native folklore creatures.
I love the Vinland sagas so much.
Keep up the awesome work.
You’ll tell me “next year”? Awfully bold of you to presume that 2021 will exist.
What is going to happen tonight is that we will get to the last few seconds and then 61 62 63 2020 *2* we are *never* escaping (by the way I am joking just so you know)
As A Newfoundlander, I thank you for this
I originally subscribed to watch your video about the Civil war but your videos essays on explorations cinema and battles are actually really enjoyable for me. Keep up the good work!
What a coincidence watching this while playing as a Norse in Vinland in Ck2 AND learning that I'm doing it on Leif Erikson Day.
Hinga Dinga Durgen!
That HEMA comment is woefully accurate.
Going through the comment section looking for all the Atun responses is an amazing game, I love finding them
Atun-Shei Film is a channel run by creativity, history insights, film-making skills, but most essentialy, spirit.
And alcohol
Your Skål! in the end was Perfect. Thanks from a Dane
Can't wait for part 2!
I love this video so much, the humor is on point and the history even more so. Thank you sincerely, and happy Leif Erickson day.
That first background doesn't look too much different from Bar Harbor, Maine. I was there with my old man three years ago - the sunrise seen from Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park was EPIC!!! It would be interesting to travel across from Maine to the northern lands where the Vikings came, we have yet to do that.
Thanks for an entertaining video!
The boats used by the Skrealings could have been bark canoes. As bark canoes would have been unknown to the Vikings this could have been interpreted as skin. Another idea is that the bark of birch tree are sometimes called the skin of the tree (more common its called Näv er (sv), Never (no) , but this was used for most thin barks)
Damn, Atun Shei is a very rich viking. Full mail, ornate helm and a friggin cape? Must be a death throws of the iron age viking. Very cool!
Literally my favorite channel
You are fabulous! Thank you for sharing all of your historical knowledge
Oh boy, we'll get to thorfinn soon
Yep
I literally just started a weight loss mission to look like a Viking and this video drops the next day. Sign from Oðin?
most definitely
Hey pal, good luck on the weight loss!
ODIN IS WITH US!
Odin's ravens are looking out for you!
Did you see a raven?
"We should spare them."
"Uh, maybe you don't want XP, but the rest of us do."
Damn! I had to stop watching Atun-Shei to watch Atun-Shei!
Use leather straps around your arm and wrist to segment the mail sleeve, it will make it practical and comfortable to wear. Wearing the leather belt is not only to hold your weapons and your pants up, it splits the weight of the mail shirt making it easier on your shoulders and enhancing your mobility, so it’s worn tight. And for gods sake man, wear a gambeson or heavy wool padded shirt under the mail. Love the delivery of your videos, making history fun for everyone. Very underrated channel.
Great video Tim hanks
Thank you for making this video. People forget Thorvald and Korsevi.
If you ever want to visit Newfoundland and see the settlement yourself, you have a place to stay.
It’s possible that Thormvald never attacked the natives, all the tales of violent encounters with the locals where thrown in later to make the sagas more entertaining.
Rewatching in anticipation
So I'll be honest, I orignally thought your videos were campy and a bit nerdy. But honestly, you are an informed and well educated individual. I trust your interpretations and thoughts on history. I truly look forward to your videos. Youre also kind of a goober.
What is a goober?
Awesome video. Thank you!
Hey that's 1634 Meadery from Ipswich! I met them at a farmers market! Good stuff
i love that i don't get notifications for your channel :) /s
The HEMA joke at the end was too spot on. If you're watching Atun-Shei you either have the HEMA friend or you are the HEMA friend.
Good looking Viking soldier. 😆. Thanks interesting history. Thanks 4 taking time sharing.
Odin bless this video!
May it forever be eternalized in Valhalla
This has always been one of my favorite "history's what if"? I've always wondered what would happen if Leif & Thorvald Erikson kicked off a whole migration & settlement in the Americas a whole couple of centuries before Columbus.
Could have turned out realy wierd. We kinda forgot about Grenland for a few hundred years. So there would in that maby had been a medius sized norse colony for the french and english to discover later. Or just ruins and bones like the danish kings found when they rediscoverd Grenland
I love your videos so much man, you make me so happy with your videos and teach me a lot bro; 141,000 others probably feel the same way. Love you man ❤️😤✊🏼💯
Your 'Skål' was VERY convincing! Danish pronunciation, very nice!😁👍
Another excellent and informative video
Another awesome video man keep up the good work
As an Icelander don't worry about the pronunciation. Everyone messes it up and we're kinda used to it. Love your work.
Thank you, I needed one more category for my work happy hour "Jeopardy" game. I'll make it about Leif Erikson
Atun-Shei, you simply can’t hit us with two outstanding videos this quickly. This is the shit I love abt your channel!
Happy Lief Erckson Day....Skål!
The guy is my favorite UA-camr
That's my favorite mead. There's a place nearby me that carries nearly their whole range.
Great video as always
I'm the HEMA friend who tried to brew my mead, failed two times horribly, and then I just started making mead vodka. And I do can talk your ear off about the whole process, yes.
This... this is what I subscribed for.
Can't wait till next year!
I'm loving these Erikson videos
7:20 might it also be that Thorvald or the interpretants may have considered birch bark to be the 'skin' of birch trees?
Where are the whale lungs raft houses?
What were the Viking explorers of Vinland sailing? When I picture a Viking longship, it's hard to imagine crossing the Atlantic ocean in that.
very good info that we need
A second(?) Leif Eriksson day video? Hell yeah!!! :D
That HEMA joke about mead is very personal and I feel attacked
Dude your vids rule. Thank You for sharing your knowledge..
history buffs watching this:
I agrre
HAH the bit at the end about brewing your friends brewing their own and being incredibly verbose on the subject is more accurate than most would think. *Laughs in currently brewing 18 gallons of various meads, wines and ciders*
Happy Leif Erikson day!
Hinga dinga durgen
nice name and pic
The "or they'll burn your fucking house down" had rollin!
I'm not a member of HEMA, but I am about to start making mead.
A minor note: L’Anse aux Meadows, despite appearing to be a French word (it probably comes from _L’Anse aux Méduses_ “Jellyfish Cove”), is pronounced /'lænsi 'mɛdoʊz/ LAN-see MED-ohz
So I'm from Maine and let me tell you when they found that coin it's all anyone could talk about!
LOVE THIS!!! Great vid! Nice job for a kid from Wayland!
Vinland
Happy Leif frictson day
Great video!
Awesome thanks very very interesting
NEXT YEAR!?!?! I feel like when I was a small child and my father would refuse to read me the next chapter of the book.
I resemble that remark about brewing mead! Thank you very much, just bottled a 1 gallon batch of pear mead!
As a proud Icelandic/American (there's a minority for ya'), I gotta' say that was a dandy little doc. No need to wait another year for the next one. ;)
Great presentation. Great sense of humor. ( as I hold up a card with 10 written on it ).
been celebrating Leif Erickson Day since the late 80s
My main gripe with Columbus Day isn't about Columbus himself but that it'd be much cooler (especially if true) that Vikings got here first.
It is true! The archaeological evidence is pretty solid.
100% it's been indisputable since 1960 when the Ingstads discovered L' Anse aux Meadows
@@AtunSheiFilms Thanks. I think my doubt stemmed not from the lack of evidence but for the inexplicable reason it's so unknown in the mainstream. Columbus Day is still on my calendar but we don't have a cool day where banks and the mail service shut down to celebrate Vikings and drink mead from a horn. This must be remedied. A Congressional Act must be proposed and passed. We'll even get President Trump to call it "Yuge". ;-)
The reason why Columbus still gets more attention, even if he technically wasn't the first, is because his voyage changed the world, the awareness in the "Old Wolrd" of a new continent, establishing the trans-Atlantic trade network, the beginnings of globalization, colonialism and the Age of Exploration.
Leif Eriksson's voyage, while still impressive and historically significant in its own way, didn't really change much, to the point that Europe even forgot that Vinland existed (if that knowledge was ever widespread in the first place).
@@SidheKnight That, and Columbus had a better PR flack running his publicity campaign....
The "wooden building" sounds a lot like a native Longhouse which is made by over laying panels of tree bark over a simple frame. They kind of look like a quonset hut made out of wood.
On a roll lately. Keep it up bud. Skoal!
That rocky cliff in the distance looks way too familiar, but the location seems like peak New England given the weather
I like your supposition, it seems to reside near Occam's razor.
That noise when he went to take the camera into the woods 🤣