The Wanderer

Author’s Note

Norse explorers from Iceland really did discover Greenland and North America around the year ad 1000. It is all outlined in The Saga of the Greenlanders and The Saga of Erik the Red, although the descriptions of where the adventurers, including Gudrid and her husband, actually landed are tantalizingly obscure. Until the 1960s some historians believed these sagas were just myths, but then the Norwegian archaeologists Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad discovered the Viking settlement at L’Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland. Greenland is littered with Norse archaeological sites, including Erik’s farm at Brattahlíd.

A history of the discovery of America by Bartolomé de Las Casas written in the sixteenth century quotes a letter from Columbus to his patrons Ferdinand and Isabella describing in enigmatic terms a visit to Iceland in 1477. There is an oral tradition that an Italian nobleman stayed on Snaefellsnes near Ólafsvík, which had been a major port for trade with Greenland. At the time, the sagas, including the two Vinland sagas, were popular in Iceland — many of the greatest saga manuscripts were transcribed in the fifteenth century. If Columbus did spend any length of time in Iceland, and asked the locals about the western ocean, he would have learned all about Greenland and Vinland. Which I find interesting. But there is no evidence that he wrote a detailed letter to his younger brother about it; Emilio made that up.

I have used the traditional English versions of the names in the sagas rather than the modern Icelandic or Old Norse. So Gudrid is Gudrid, not Gudrídur (Icelandic) or Gudrídr (Old Norse). There are many ways of spelling Erik the Red in English; I picked the most prevalent. Many places in Greenland have two or even three names: modern Greenlandic, slightly older Danish and very old Norse. So Qaqortoq used to be called Julianehåb. I have gone for clarity rather than consistency here, so I use the Greenlandic Qaqortoq and Narsarsuaq and the Old Norse Brattahlíd (modern name Qassiarsuk) and Erik’s Fjord (Tunulliarfik Fjord). Inspector Paulsen would probably refer to Brattahlíd as Qassiarsuk, but she doesn’t because I don’t want to confuse the reader.

I should like to thank some kind and patient helpers: Humphrey Hawksley, Mary Will, Lilja Sigurdardóttir, Christoffer Petersen, Hilary Hale, Josepha, Ellen Sowerbutts, Edwin Thomas, Chief Superintendent Stefán Vagn, Quentin Bates, Richenda Todd, my agent Oli Munson, Florence Rees and my editors Sara O’Keeffe and Susannah Hamilton at Atlantic Books. And, as always, Barbara.