To study the Norse voyages of exploration means to study the principal sources of data - the sagas. Written versions of an oral history passed down for centuries, these documents offer fascinating glimpses of life a millennium or more ago. But understanding their worth as historical records requires an understanding of how they came to be.

The written word as we know it, in the form of letters and books, essentially did not exist in the northlands at the time of the Norse explorations to North America. In its stead, there was a tradition of oral history that seems impossible to the modern mind because of the memory required to keep it accurate.

Saga telling was an art. Generation after generation told and retold the histories of the powerful or important families. It must be remembered that we are talking about a people living in an oft-harsh environment that offered little in the way of entertainment. Then, as now, political intrigue, family quarrels, and adventurous deeds provided juicy entertainment. These tales of the rich and famous offered diversion while preserving a living history of their ancestors' deeds and exploits.

Seen from today's perspective it becomes very easy to wonder how, after literally centuries of telling and retelling, any remote shred of truth or accuracy could remain in any of the sagas. This inference discounts the fact that the Norse, lacking even pencil and paper to jot down notes, routinely memorized amounts of data that boggle our underdeveloped minds. Being spoiled by a plethora of data storage and retrieval options, we rarely use our minds to near capacity. Like anything else that is not exercised, the mind atrophies from lack of use. (The advent of spell checkers on computers offers a good example. I used to use a dictionary when in doubt. Now I can tap out an approximation and know that the machine will find the error and offer correct alternatives for me. Gone is the need to spend a few moments learning the correct spelling and perhaps gaining knowledge of the word's origin etc. In short, the tool so simplifies the task, that my spelling is probably getting worse not better.)

Which is not to say that the Norse were perfect. Errors cropped up. But they generally would have been nipped in the bud before being perpetuated. This because at least some of those listening, usually knew the story just as well as the teller. Any mistakes quickly would be righted and the story preserved, more or less, intact. There were even 'professional' saga tellers and scalds that regaled audiences with their repertoire of knowledge. Eyvind Skialdespilder, it is recorded, performed his great work in praise of Iceland so well that the Icelanders gathered enough contributions to buy him a silver clasp of fifty marks weight. Such was the appreciation for a fertile, well-ordered mind.

Thus, the sagas that came to be recorded on parchment or vellum centuries after the events they relate, maintained a high degree of accuracy. This can be confirmed through archeological and other relevant data that corroborate saga details.

The gist of all this is, that the sagas offer historical records that can shed light upon the Norse voyages of exploration a millennium ago. Which does not make them infallible, indisputable inconsistencies or errors do exist, but on the whole, the sagas offer a solid historical source material from which to view the Norse voyages.

Any study of the Vinland voyages narrows the field to two principal sagas, the Greenlanders' Saga and The Saga of Erik the Red. The Greenlanders' Saga was originally written circa the middle of the twelfth century and appears to be the more reliable of the two with regards to Vinland. The Saga of Erik the Red was compiled about a century later and appears to have been an intentional revision of the former. The two share many common points, but disagree sharply on others. For example, the former credits Bjarni Herulfsson with the accidental first sighting of the North America, whereas Leif Eriksson stumbles upon it in the latter.

For several reasons, most notably the earlier date of the saga's original commitment to the written word, I strongly believe that the Greenlanders' Saga offers the most reliable and accurate source material. Unless otherwise noted, references to sagas used at this website refer to it.