Discovery of Vinland – America

It is common knowledge today that Christopher Columbus, who set foot on land in America in 1492, was not the first European to do so.

However, discovery of Vinland around 1000 A.D. - the real discovery of America – is but shrouded in mystery. Two early Nordic sagas, found in Island, report of Vikings who nearly 500 years before Columbus discovered land in the sea west of Greenland. They called their discovery “Vinland” because of the many vines with grapes they found in the wider vicinity of their landing. This Norsemen built houses there to provide later following sailors with a service- or gateway station on the new land. A Norwegian couple uncovered this gateway station in the 1960’s by way of archaeological diggings, they found the “Leifs Budir” of the sagas – L’Anse aux Meadows in Northern Newfoundland, Canada. This was the long searched for proof of the credibility and veracity of the sagas. There is no doubt today that America was discovered by Norsemen, just as the sagas tell.

But the two ancient sagas, which claiming to report of the same events a thousand years ago, telling the story not always in the same way, in certain points they differ, yes, even contradict each other. Therefore, since more than 300 years, scholars are puzzled by these contradictions, but it is commonly accepted in the academic world of today that in the sagas of Eric the Red and in the Saga of the Greenlanders, true cores are deeply imbedded. The finding of L’Anse aux Meadows is today clear rock proof of the discovery of America by Viking sailors.

Both sagas report also of a settlement expedition of Norse around the year 1010, starting from Eriksfjord in Greenland with 160 people on board their ships, having all kinds of cattle, tools, weapons and implements with them, to found a settlement on the new discovered land. Their destination was Vinland the Good, so the sagas tell us. The Vikings already distinguished in this early time between Vinland and Vinland the Good as their explorations in that short time since the founding of Leifs Budir (L’Anse aux Meadows), proved, that Land in the South was more fertile and productive, hence called Vinland the Good. This Vinland the Good and their settlement location were never found, but until today.

Otto Hans Feiden, a Canadian architect, painter and historian, expended years of research on this remaining and open question in human history. With a new approach, dissecting both sagas into their core meanings and building the resulting puzzle stones into a common picture, and under researching the early American historic literature for clues, he proves in his Book “ Ho’p - The Western Frontier of the Norsemen” where the Vikings understood the location of Vinland, Vinland the Good and also Ho’p, ( pronounce HOOP, Ring, Ring bay), the first European settlement in America ever. Feiden proves beyond any reasonable doubt, that the Vikings entered as the first Europeans the St. Lawrence River (centuries before Cartier did in 1534), called the south-east shore of this gulf Vinland the Good, and settled on the bay or basin at the mouth of the Riviere du Sud, at Montmagny, 52 km below today’s Quebec City. With these conclusions, a new chapter in Canadian and American history, nay, even world history is opened. His book provides the lay reader with an introduction and general knowledge, and contains a full English translation of both sagas. The book is hard cover folio and throughout illustrated, mostly in color.