Freydís
Eiríksdóttir was the daughter of Eiríkur
the Red at Brattahlíð.
She was an illegitimate child, so she was not Thjóðhildur's,
daughter (Thjóðhildur was the wife of Eiríkur the Red).
She had three brothers, and they were: Leifur the Lucky,
Thorvaldur Eiríksson and Thorsteinn Eiríksson.
Freydís was married to Thorvarður and they lived at Garðar.
Þorvarður was a big looser, but Freydís was a powerful
and greedy woman. These people all lived in Greenland.
[The picture of Freydís and Thorvarður was
made by Guðrún.]
The Misdeeds of Freydís
Two brothers, Helgi and Finnbogi, came to Greenland. They then
decided to continue their journey to Vínland. Freydís
made a deal with them to combine their and hers journey to Vínland
so they sailed together but on seperate ships.
After this they all went to Vínland and when they finally
got there they started to unload the ships. But when Helgi and Finnbogi
were going to move their things into Leifur's camp, she refused their company
and told them to move away.
Helgi and Finnbogi had to build a new camp, near to the camp of Leifur.
No
connection was now between Freydís, on the one hand, and Helgi
and Finnbogi on the other hand . Not until Freydís visited Helga
and Finnboga early one morning, and she asked them if they would like to
exchange their ship with hers. He answered positive. But when Freydís
returned home, she lied to her husband Thorvarður and told him
that Helgi and Finnbogi had abused her and she also told him that if he
didn´t do anything about it, she would leave him for good. Thorvarður
did as she told him to do and went with his crew to Helgi and Finnbogi's
camp. There they attacked the people and tied them down, after that
they took them out where all the males were killed. Five women were left
behind, Freydís noticed that, so she took an axe in her hand and
killed those five women on her own, and she was proud of it! It was
the most horrible deed of all time history.
[Guðrún Guðmundsdóttir took
the picture of the women sewing outside a tent, at the viking festival
in Haukadalur in the summer of 2000. Guðrún is Kristín's
mother and allowed us to use the picture on this webpage.]
Freydís and Thorvarður then went back to Greenland, where
they were regarded as outcasts because of the incident in Vínland.
