It is now a well-established fact that Norse sailors reached the continent of North America hundreds of years before the more famous crossing of the Atlantic Sea by Columbus-but it is less well-known that many of these early voyages were mentioned, often in detail, in the Icelandic Sagas as well.


The Sagas-all dating from around 500 years before Columbus-spoke at length of numerous Norse voyages and settlements in North America. This work, written and compiled by experts who translated it directly from the original Icelandic, reveals that Columbus was aware of these Sagas and that this allowed him to even calculate approximately how many days sailing he would need to cross the Atlantic.


Included in the Sagas are details of the first settlements, the settlers' interaction with the Indians, their trade-and, of course, their conflicts. Finally, this work reveals the long-lasting effect of the Norse settlement and voyages, including evidence of Norse words were absorbed into Indian vocabulary and ends with a list of all of the known Norse/Irish trans-Atlantic voyages of exploration.


This new edition has been completely reset and contains the entire original text and illustrations.