[6] Erik Thorvaldsson was born in Rogaland, Norway in 950 CE, and was the son of Thorvald Asvaldsson (also spelled Osvaldsson).

[7] Medieval Icelandic tradition relates that Erik and his wife Þjódhild had four children: a daughter, Freydís, and three sons, the explorer Leif Erikson, Thorvald and Thorstein.

[13] Erik asked a man named Thorgest to keep his setstokkr—inherited ornamented pillars of significant mystical value—which his father had brought from Norway.

Styr gave assistance to Eirik, as also did Eyjolf, of Sviney, Thorbjorn Vifilsson, and the sons of Thorbrand, of Alptafjordr (Swanfirth).

[7] Erik's son Leif Erikson became the first Norseman to explore the land of Vinland–part of North America, presumably near modern-day Newfoundland–and invited his father on the voyage.

After Gunnbjörn, roughly eighty years later the outlaw Snæbjörn galti had also visited Greenland and attempted to settle there.

[16] As a result of Galti's failed expedition, Erik the Red is widely credited to be the first known, and successful, permanent settler of Greenland.

[3] During his exile, around 982, Erik sailed to a somewhat mysterious and little-known land that Snæbjörn galti Hólmsteinsson had unsuccessfully attempted to settle a few years before.

During the summers, when the weather was more favorable to travel, each settlement would send an army of men to hunt in Disko Bay above the Arctic Circle for food and other valuable commodities such as seals (used for rope), ivory from walrus tusks, and beached whales.

However, one group of immigrants which arrived in 1002 brought with it an epidemic that ravaged the colony, killing many of its leading citizens, including Erik himself.

[24] Nevertheless, the colony rebounded and survived until the Little Ice Age made the land marginal for European life-styles in the 15th century–shortly before Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas in 1492.

Pirate raids, conflict with Inuit moving into the Norse territories, and the colony's abandonment by Norway became other factors in its decline.

[citation needed] The two accounts are largely similar otherwise, both with heavy emphasis on the exploits of Thorfinn Karlsefni and his wife Gudrid.