US History/Contents/Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir
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[edit] Who was She?
Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir (or Eiriksdottir; born in Laugarbrekka) was a discoverer who lived about the year 1000 in Iceland.
She was the first woman to give birth to a child of European heritage in the New World (about 1004).
[edit] Voyage with her father
After her father refused a marriage she wanted because she wanted to marry a slave's son, she left Iceland with her father to accompany Erik the Red (or Eiríkr rauði in Old Norse), whose son Þorsteinn she wed. They undertook an unsuccessful voyage to Vinland. In the end, her husband died after they had arrived in Greenland. After this, she stayed in Greenland and moved to Brattahlíð, where she then married a merchant named Þorfinnr Karlsefni Þórðarson. She and her new husband had a son named Snorri Þorfinnsson, he was the first child ever born in North America of European descent. Shortly after Snorri was born the small family traveled back to Greenland. After a while her husband died and his old farm was given to Snorri. After her son got married, Guðríðr went on a pilgrimage to Rome. She visited the Vatican and Rome and spoke to him about religion and what she had seen. While she was away, Snorri built a church near the estate. When she came back from Rome, she became a nun and lived in the church as a hermit.
[edit] Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir and the nunnery at Reynistaðr
Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir is a prominent figure in "Grœnlendinga saga" and this is even more the case in "Eiríks saga rauða’s" where she is effectively the principal character. Ólafur Halldórsson has argued persuasively that her origins and pre-history as set out in that saga are pure fabrication. In "Grœnlendinga saga" she arrives in Greenland almost out of the blue as the wife of Þórir, a shipwrecked Norwegian merchant (Olafur Halldórsson 1986:239-246). The available oral traditions may not have explained whether she originally came from Iceland or Norway. Yet even though her origins are not explained she is a central figure in the saga, along with her husband Þorfinnr karlsefni.
[edit] Tale of her voyage
She was also known as Gudrid of Iceland. Her tale is told in the 2000 novel The Sea Road by Scottish writer Margaret Elphinstone.
