Now talk began again about the journey to Wineland, for the voyage thither seemed both lucrative and honourable. The same summer that Karlsefni returned from Wineland there came a ship from Norway to Greenland, commanded by two brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, and they stayed that winter in Greenland. These brothers were of an Icelandic stock from Eastfjord. Now the story goes that Freydis, Eric’s daughter, made a journey from her home at Garda, and went to see the brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, and invited them to go to Wineland with their ship, and divide with her all the profit they might make out of it. They consented. From them she went and interviewed her brother Leif, whom she asked to give her the houses which he had had built in Wineland; but he gave her the same answer as before, that he would lend the houses but not give them.[53] So it was arranged between the brothers[54] and Freydis that each should take thirty fighting men on board, besides women. But Freydis broke these terms at once, and took five extra men, whom she hid, so that the brothers knew nothing of it before they reached Wineland.

Now they put out to sea, having arranged to sail together as far as practicable, and as it turned out there was not much difference between them, but the brothers were slightly the first to arrive, and took their belongings up to Leif’s camp. But when Freydis arrived her ship was unloaded, and her things taken up to the camp. Then Freydis said, ‘Why have you brought your property in here?’ ‘Because we imagined’, said they, ‘that the whole arrangement between us was going to be kept.’ ‘Leif lent me the houses,’ said she, ‘but not you.’ Then Helgi said, ‘We brothers are no match for you in wickedness’: so they carried out their goods, and made themselves a camp, which they placed further from the sea by the shore of a lake, and they thoroughly settled in, while Freydis had wood cut for her ship.

Now when winter set in the brothers suggested that games should be started to pass the time. This went on for a while, until a quarrel arose which led to discord between them, and the games stopped, and no one went from the one camp to the other. This state of things continued for a long time during the winter. Then one morning early Freydis got out of bed and dressed, but put nothing on her feet: and it happened that there was a heavy dew. She took her husband’s cloak, and went out to the brothers’ house, to the door: now a man had been out shortly before, and had left the door ajar. She opened the door, and stood for a while in the doorway without saying anything, till Finnbogi, who was lying furthest from the door and who was awake, said, ‘What do you want here, Freydis?’ She replied, ‘I want you to get up and come out with me, and I want to talk to you.’ He did as she asked, and they went to a log which was lying under the wall of the house, and sat down on it. ‘How are you enjoying yourself?’ she said. ‘I like the country,’ he replied, ‘but I do not like the quarrel which has sprung up between us, for I do not see any reason for it.’ ‘There you speak truly,’ said she, ‘and I am of the same opinion, but my reason for coming here to you is that I want to buy the ship which belongs to you brothers, for you have a larger ship than I, and I wish to go away from this place.’ ‘I will agree to that’, said he, ‘if it will please you.’ With that they separated; she went home, and Finnbogi went to bed. She climbed into bed with her cold feet, and waked Thorvard with them, so that he asked her why she was so cold and wet. She answered with great vehemence, ‘I have been to the brothers to bid for their ship, since I wanted to buy a larger ship; but they took it so ill that they beat me and grossly maltreated me: and you, miserable man, will neither avenge my shame nor your own; but I can realize now that I am not in Greenland, and I will separate from you if you will not avenge this.’ And when he could bear her reproaches no longer he ordered his men to get up at once and take their weapons, and having done so they went to the brothers’ house, and they went in to them as they slept, and took them and bound them, and brought each man out as he was bound, and Freydis had each one killed as he came out. Now all the men were killed, but the women were left, and no one would kill them. Then said Freydis, ‘Hand me an axe.’ So they did, and she killed the five women who were there, and left them dead.

Now after that outrage they returned to their camp, and Freydis appeared to them to think that she had arranged matters perfectly: and she said to her men, ‘If we are lucky enough to get back to Greenland I shall contrive the death of anyone who tells of these doings; we must rather say that they stayed behind here when we came away.’

So early in the spring they made the ship ready which had belonged to the brothers, and loaded it with all the good things which they could collect and the ship would hold. After this they put to sea, and had a rapid voyage, and came with their ship to Ericsfjord early in the summer. Karlsefni was there then, ready to put to sea, and waiting for a breeze, and it is said that no richer ship ever left Greenland than this which he commanded.

Freydis now went to her house, which had stood safe meanwhile, and having given large presents to all her followers, because she wished to hush up her misdeeds, she settled down at home. But all were not so close as to keep silent about their crimes and wickedness, that it should not leak out anywhere. So now it came to the knowledge of her brother Leif, who thought it a thoroughly bad business. Then Leif took three men of Freydis’s crew and tortured them till they told the whole of the circumstances, and their stories tallied with one another. ‘I cannot bring myself’, said Leif, ‘to treat Freydis, my sister, as she deserves, but I will predict of them that their stock will never be worth much.’ And the end of it was that no one from that time forward thought anything but ill of them.

Now we must go back to the point where Karlsefni made ready his ship and sailed to sea. He made a good passage, and arriving in Norway safe and sound he stayed there for the winter and sold his wares, and both he and his wife were honourably received by the noblest men in Norway. But in the following spring he made his ship ready to sail to Iceland, and when he was quite ready and his ship was waiting for a breeze alongside the quay, a southerner came to him who was of Bremen in Saxony, and bargained with Karlsefni for his ‘húsa-snotra’.[55] ‘I will not sell it’, said he. ‘I will give you half a mark of gold for it’, said the southerner. Karlsefni thought it a good bid, and thereupon they clinched the bargain. The southerner went away with the ‘húsa-snotra’; now Karlsefni did not know what wood it was, but it was ‘mausur’ come from Wineland.

Now Karlsefni put to sea, and came with his ship along the north of the land to Skagafjord, and his ship was laid up there for the winter. But in the spring he bought Glaumbæjarland, and built a house there, where he passed the remainder of his life: he was a most noble man, and many men and a good stock are descended from him and his wife Gudrid. And when Karlsefni was dead, Gudrid and Snorri her son, who was born in Wineland, took over the management of the place. But when Snorri married Gudrid went abroad, and made a pilgrimage to Rome (lit.: went south), and returned to the house of Snorri her son, who had by that time had a church built at Glaumbæjar. Afterwards Gudrid became a nun and lived the life of a recluse, and she remained there while she lived. Snorri had a son named Thorgeir, who was father of Ingveld, mother of Bishop Brand. Snorri Karlsefnison had a daughter named Hallfrid, she was the mother[56] of Runolf, the father of Bishop Thorlak. There was a son of Karlsefni and Gudrid called Björn; he was the father of Thorunn, the mother of Bishop Björn. Many men are descended from Karlsefni, and he became blessed in his descendants: and Karlsefni has told most clearly of all men the incidents of all these voyages, of which something has now been related.