In the course of that year the great event was the home-coming of Leif, Eric Red's eldest son. He sailed up the frith in the early morning of a June day, and when Eric came out of doors, there was Leif's fine ship in the anchorage, and many boats about it.
He had been away more than two years, adventuring greatly; but those adventures of his do not belong to this tale. He had been in Orkney for some time, and had fallen in love with a high lady whose name was Thorgunna. He knew her to be of great descent, and that she had the gift. He was much taken with her and she with him, and they set no bounds upon their intercourse, it is understood. When it came to the day before he sailed, Thorgunna said that she would go with him. Leif said that could not be, because her kindred would never allow it. "Maybe my people are as good as yours," he said, "but yours would not believe it, and I have to make my way in the world." "Think nothing of my people," she said, "but take me." But Leif would not. So then she told him the truth, that she was with child, and the child his. "If that's the case, then I stay here till the child is born. Him I will take, for it is the best thing for you." But Thorgunna said that she would bring up the child, and send him out to Greenland as soon as he was old enough. "I will accept him," Leif said.
He sailed, then, as he had intended, and went to Norway. There he fell in with King Olaf Tryggvasson, and was made a Christian. The King put great trust in him, and when he heard that he was going home to Greenland, gave it in his charge to change the people's religion. Leif said that would be a hard matter. "My mother is a Christian, I know; but my father is not, and never will be, and my brothers are of no account." But King Olaf was in earnest about it, and Leif promised that it should be as he wished.
Thore and Gudrid went to Brattalithe to see Leif. Gudrid thought that she had never seen so fine-looking a man. He was about thirty-five years old, and six feet four inches high. He looked as broad as a bull. He had golden hair and beard, and blue eyes. His face was burned to a hot brown colour. He was frank and open in speech, and full of fun and jokes. No secret was made of his intentions towards the religion of the people in Greenland. He told his father what he had undertaken; and he set about it at once. Theodhild, his mother, helped him, and Gudrid made Thore give money to increase the church. Thorstan and Thorwald were among the first to be sprinkled, but Freydis would have nothing to do with it, and Eric Red said that he was too old to change. Leif took that good-humouredly and laughed at his father. "If I were to tell you where was a great store of gold and silver coins, to be had for a little cold water on your back, you would strip to the skin in midwinter. But you will believe in no treasure which you cannot handle and run through your hands. Where do you expect to go when you die, with all that wickedness on your shoulders? You will come to a bad end, and ask me then to help you. I know how it will be. But go your way."
He spent that summer preaching to the people in the Settlement up and down the frith. Most of the people accepted what he told them, because it was he who told it. Others said that if the King of Norway was of that way of thinking it was more likely to be the right than the wrong way.
There was another matter very much in Leif's mind, and that was the voyage of Biorn Heriolfsson. He had to hear all about that, and he heard it first from Gudrid. Her face glowed and her eyes showed fire as she spoke of it. Leif watched her and thought her a lovely woman. "If you and I were to go out there together," he said, "we should never come back again. But your good man would take it in bad part." Gudrid said, "Yes, he would. But to go with us would seem to him still worse. Yet you will go." Leif considered.
"Yes," he said, "I shall go, and as soon as may be. But first I must know what course Biorn took, and next I must have his ship to go in. I would not take my own—she is neither roomy enough, nor strong enough built for such great seas."
Gudrid had by heart the figures and bearings of Biorn's voyage, for first Einar had drawn them on Orme's table, then Heriolf on his own, and then Biorn on Eric's table. She fetched a charcoal from the kitchen and drew the map, with all the company crowded about her. Leif was absorbed in it and her eager explanations. "I see just what he did," he said. "He drifted far south of Greenland, and didn't know it. Then when he got a wind he sailed south-south-west, and made that low-lying forest country. Then he steered north with a wind off the land, and came into the winter which we have here. He followed the coast along, and then, when it came on to blow from the south-west, he ran before it, and made Greenland. That's what he did. And that's what I will do."
"It is what I would do if I were a man," said Gudrid.
"Good for me that you are not a man," said Thore, who sat by the wall.