Ask, Embla and Erik The Red. S:2, E:4

So, where did all these Vikings come from? In this episode we talk about the Norse "origin story." A tale of a man named Ask and a woman named Embla. Then we travel down the road a few centuries and discuss Erik the Red, another OG worthy of an origin story all his own. Enjoy!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

That's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 0:01

So, okay. Okay. Okay. So we'll start.

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Okay. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_01 0:09

Yeah, I think so. Um, do you want to introduce it or do you want me to? Did you write up a little thing or no? You don't have to. Yeah, so I'll do it. Okay, so season two, episode four. Um, we're traveling through Gudrid's story and learning about the world as we go. And last week we talked about some of the foundation of Norse religion and then some of the variant variants in Christianity. And I think I just indulged myself, but really got into all the different ways pagans were converted to Christianity all throughout Europe at this time. So that was I did that. And then um today I wanted to start. Last time I know I left off with wanting to talk about the Norse pagan creation story. And it kind of ties into because I'm also then gonna talk about Eric the Red and his wife. I was gonna read the pronunciation for. Do you know how to pronounce? Uh oh, I can't hear you.

SPEAKER_00 1:19

Let me pull up, let's pull up Google and listen to these names together for a minute. Okay, here we go. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Or we'll just her name. I it's it's Thorn Thor dehild.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35

But there's a J. So it's T H, you know. T H J. This is Eric the Red's wife. THJ O D Hilde. Oh, it's not gonna be in my ad. Oh, pronunciate. Pronunciation. Okay, ready? Yeah. The I mean your air docs. F-Y-I. Oh, that's an ad.

SPEAKER_00 2:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 2:09

Teodhild. There's a dyodhill. So when there's a T H J, that's T-O, it's Tia Tio, Tyo. And then there's a D that you pronounce Hilde.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Tio D Hild. Okay. I just made that up. I just make my tongue go slow.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

So that's Eric Dured's waist.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, hild. Okay. So and I had more fun researching her than I did Eric the Red. Well, we can just hang out. I mean that why not? Just hang out with her.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

But um But it's quick. So um the creation story for Norse paganism, really quickly, is remember Odin, he's the all-father. Not necessarily meaning he's the father of all the children, but like he has a lot of he does have a lot. He does spread his seed around. But um but he's not like the god, he's he's the all-father. So anyway, he's revered, but he's not like a god we think of when we think of one god, right? He's one of many gods, but he's he's the one that sacrificed himself to himself. I keep thinking about that. And I I uh had a thought about that, but now I can't remember it. Trying to get that concept in my head.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

I read uh a good um explanation of how some people deal with it in this Ellis Davidson book. Nice. Um but it's gonna take me a second, so keep talking.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

I can't remember. I was watching something or listening to some podcast where um one way you could look at it is you give up your old self and get your new self, kind of thing, like sacrifice your old ways to your new ways to grow or whatever. So, anyway, um the pagan Norse pagans believed they have a creation story. And again, part of this I think does come from that pie, the Proto-Indo-European group that was all of Europe down into Hindu, you know, um, why so many stories are familiar or similar in a lot of these cultures, why vastly spread. They have a creation story, um, but theirs is different. It's from uh a giant that is a could have babies out of its armpit and sons out of its legs, and you could kind of procreate with itself, and um, and then it they used his body, his teeth are the mountains, his blood is the are the seas, his, you know, his his when you look at earth, you're looking at parts of his body. Ymir, why n y-m-ir is the name of it. So an Odin and his two brothers, Vili and Vay, uh um killed him. They but they killed him because they realized he had to be killed. If they were gonna create space between the fires and the cold ice, and there's nothing in between, there was just an emptiness, they wanted to create life and they wanted to create a place. And so, and some for some reason the way they could do it was to kill this giant and use his body and for people to live on, you know, humans to live on. Um then there what there's this really cool image of they've done that, they've killed the giant, they've created this place, there's no people on it, and they're walking along the beach, the three brothers, and they see two pieces of driftwood wash up what that's washed up on the beach. And they and I love that image because driftwood always has had kind of a human sense about it. I, you know, I think that's I don't know, there's something I think we recognize something in it.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

Do you feel like no? I feel like driftwood is well traveled, and every time I look at it, I can't stop looking at it, and I keep thinking about where it's been and what it's done, and the fact that it survives in water.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah, and it's smooth and it's con it's contorted. I mean, it's it's life. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Go ahead. Go ahead. Sorry. No, no. Well, I mean, it also was a source of life to them when they got rid of all the trees, or when they were in Greenland, they had to find it to build their houses and um Yeah, it was valuable for that culture.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

It was valuable because they would. They cut down all their trees. So when they did find driftwood, and I guess it burned really well, and it it yeah, it was good for you for building. So it was a valuable thing that they found. When these gods looked at saw them on the shore, they didn't just count them, they created something excellent out of it, right? So they stood the driftwood up long ways, the height of a man, you know, the height of hu humans, and they carved out, they each had a different job, and I'm trying to remember. Um but I think it was Odin that that carved out the shape of each one. That's right. And um let's see. The gods took the two logs, they set the logs so they were upright on the sand, the height of people. Olden h Odin held them, and one by one he breathed life into them. So he's breathing life into them. No longer were they dead logs on a beach, now they were alive. And he gave them clothing, which maybe is the Christian influence.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

What, go because they don't want to be naked?

SPEAKER_01 8:18

Yeah. And then he sent them. They, you know, they were he they named them, and the man is uh from an ash tree, so his name is Ash or Ask, and the woman is from an elm tree, and her name is Embla. So you have A and E, Adam and Eve, Ash, but you cannot supposed to do that, but I can't help myself. Ash and Embla are the two first humans on the earth, and they sent them off into the Midgard to have babies.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

I'm getting so reminiscent. This is a weird comment, so we can edit it. But um, when you said, you know, the wood drift coming up on the beach, and and Odin is trying to find that what is it, the hamja or out outer form in it. Uh it reminds me of that cute surfs up movie. Because I'm kind of reminiscent for my boys right now and how they lay the wood on the beach, that scene where he's teaching the young one how to find how to splane the wood to find its surfboard form, that the way it's supposed to be formed.

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Interesting.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

And just feel it and go, you know, and and I picture driftwood and Odin and all that kind of stuff, same kind of spirit of a surfboard, you know. You're working with nature, you're trying to find a form that will propel you through nature. That's just an early morning one caffeine thought. I need some more.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Well, I love it because aren't woodworkers are supposed to pay attention to the grain and what's the shape, yeah. Like you're saying, what does this want to be? Yeah. I like how you describe that.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Yeah. And it also reminds me, which you're gonna get to it, I'm sure, but um how they always throw pillars off their ships.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 10:17

Right? Yeah. So you're yeah, but we'll get to that, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

Well, we don't have to let's get to it now. One that's cool because one of the so there's pillars and there's high seats. I think we talked about the high seats, and those are in, and so there are pillars, I'm and they usually are in the long house, but there are like even Eric the Red has a kill someone over the pillars. So yeah. Um they're very important, they're passed down through generation, they go in your each long house.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Yes, and then you could the way a lot of people find where they're supposed to live is they throw them overboard. So Odd, I think, was unique in that she used her high seats, unless I'm oh, that's really dedicated.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

So Odd the Deep Minded, when she was bringing Vifil to Iceland, you're saying she threw the high seats into the ocean and decided where to land, and they landed in who uh I'm not gonna ever say these words, right? I had a big dream. I this weekend I was gonna learn Danish.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah, I mean, I was gonna learn Old Norse. Icelandic, I was gonna learn. She they landed in Human Human Forder, Humaforter, which is I did write down translations. Ha uh, well, and then Hawka Doil, Hawk Valley or something, I don't know, but she yeah, they led her to this really amazing bay, bay within a bay. Um that's beautiful, and it's where Eric the Red went finally. Anyway, so yeah. So the pillars are important. So that's kind of I I love that, and and then I get to talk about Eric the Red, and why Kim would I be talking about Eric the Red as far as Gudred goes?

SPEAKER_00 12:21

Because he is not. He is he shows up, he has his own saga. Gudred shows up in his saga as well as another saga, and he is so interesting to me, because that you see the Christianity, the translator is bickering over was he a good man or a bad man. Yeah, but but he is a friend, one of the lit, I think, of Gudrid's father. So that's what I that was my answer to that.

SPEAKER_01 12:58

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

Now you can teach us.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Um okay, so I did. I started with his wife, because I want to so Eric the Red has a wife. Sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

Let me just real quick, did you finish everything you wanted to say on the creation story?

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Yeah, I think so. Okay, because we'll we'll hearken back to it now. We can harken back to it as much as we want.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:25

All right. Let's do it. Um Yeah, and it's cool because this is if you believe that that's your creation story and that's the creation story. I think that's a cool way to look at what these people are doing. Um I don't know. Like you said, driftwood, what driftwood was valuable to them. Do they look at it and think that they themselves are descendants of the driftwood? You know, it's just really cool. And then we're talking about seafaring people again that I never feel like they've ever been fearful of getting on a boat, pushing off. And so, um, yeah, it's just kind of a cool thing to have, and that's probably on their mind. But anyway, so Eric the Red, he is kind of people will maybe have heard of him or know of him as the guy who lived in Iceland, went to Greenland, and then he's the father of Leif Erickson, who, you know, he's legendary for some things we'll talk about later. But um, Eric the Red, I went to his wife first because I just think that's this inter it's always more interesting for me to find the important man and then I research the wife first and then get back to the man's story. And it turns out she is a fascinating woman. Um, Eric the Red and oh my gosh, but I can't say her name. Teodhilled. But yeah, you Teodhild. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

I feel like wait, hang on one second. I'm I'm the older sister. And I'm weird, but I the answer I should have given you was Eric the Red. I wasn't looking for a specific answer. I got it wrong, Sarah. I failed.

SPEAKER_01 15:25

I wasn't I wasn't looking for a specific answer.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

My answer was given the the answer I should have given was Eric the Red becomes Gudred's father-in-law.

unknown 15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

So that's why he's really important to talk about. Anyway, there you go.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 15:42

Okay. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Now I'm done. Okay. He's famous for us because of that. And then he's famous for other people because of us. But um, okay, so Eric the Red and Tjodhild um were both born, interesting, in the same town, same county in Norway. Isn't that interesting? Oh yeah. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:05

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

Which wouldn't be interesting if I just said, okay, that's where they met and fell in love and blah, blah, blah. But that's not. So, but it does show. Okay, so they're both born in the same place in Norway. They're both old and born in Jarin, Norway, which is Rogaland County. Uh and I didn't look it up, but um we know that just like what time period were they? So Eric was born in 950. She said, they say she maybe was born 945, 950, but I looked at the comparison of when I think she was maybe, I don't know. She was older than him. And some places are putting her way too old. So I think there's leeway on that. But about 950, they were both born in Jaren, Norway. At some point, she leaves Norway, and I don't know exactly. She does. Oh. Is she kidnapped? Nope. She is a fancy woman. She um she at some point leaves Norway. Her family history is she's got very close. We're she's not our grandma, but her half-sister is our uh grandma. I think it's our 31st great-grandma. So her mom married two men in Iceland, not in Norway. Well, that doesn't make sense. Somehow she was born in Norway, and then her father died very young, but I think she moved with her parents to Iceland. Okay. And her first dad died, and then her mom remarried and had another daughter, and that's our grandma, is her. And then also, though, if you go a generation, Tjordhild's great-grandma is our I mean, great-grandfather is our 33rd grandpa. So they're very intermixed.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Yeah. And we had a discussion about whether to be one of those girls that are like, I'm related to Eric the Red.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

But it makes sense that he is because the half-sisters have the same grandpa, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

But it's true, they are all like, they're all if we know one, they're all messing around with each other. So that's where what we're learning. It's the change.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

It's truly a ball of yarn to unravel. Yeah. Yeah. Um that's interesting. But then, so then if you go further back in her time, she's got a lot of Swedish people, lots of Swedish. And then uh a couple generations back, she's got Russian. So she's a Russian girl, Vikings, 750s. She's got ancestors in Russia. So that's what we're gonna talk about, I think, coming up. The old are Russian Vikings, which are phenomenal. She's also got a lot of um Norwegian, obviously, but her grandmother is uh Irish princess, is Irish royalty. Really? Somehow that was mixed. I think it had to do with, I'm assuming it was an odd situ odd AUD situation. Odd the deep-minded cattle, maybe, but she's got um, and uh and we have we're related to her that way too. Her our 31st great-grandmother is uh Malphilbal Ingen and King Serbal MacDulang or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Okay, I do have a note about that name. I all I have is one sentence through her father's mother, Bjorg, she was a great-granddaughter of the Irish King Serbal MacDungling. Wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

So, and they were um wow. They were Viking kings, right? They're not they're not genetically Irish, they were conquerors of Ireland, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:18

I don't know, because cur I at by that time it says they reflect the mixed North Gaelic. I don't know with that name. It almost seems like I don't know. I don't know. I haven't I can we'll have to research that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

Because Sjar's daughter definitely is a Norwegian name, even though it's Irish. So she's an Irish girl with a Vik with a Norse name, you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:42

So she does have even Eric the Red's wife has a blend in her of the Celtic pagan crossover.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Okay, and there's more known about her her genealogy than Eric the Reds. He's just got the Norse on up. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

So did she get kidnapped or married off, or how'd she, Eric the Red, manage to nab her?

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Because um, well, that's how we'll talk about it. So she she also, just as a note, her great-grandfather on the North side, born in 794, so we're talking 200 years prior, okay, died in Greenland. He's marked as death in Greenland. So he may have been one of those, he's not Bjarni, but his name is Bjarni. So I had to go down that robble rabbit hole. He's not the Bjarni of the saga who sailed around and saw Greenland, and everybody made fun of him because he never actually Greenland. They think he saw Vinland, but he never got out of his boat. Yeah, never got out of his boat. Okay. Um, but she does have a great grandfather named Bjarni, um whose death is marked as Greenland. So maybe she's a good one.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

She told Eric about Greenland. It's interesting from her green.

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah, he maybe he was getting timber and and you know there's because Eric the Red is known as the first settler, like made at work in Greenland, not necessarily the first person to live there or explore there or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

Anyway, well and yeah, and they did it was the Sami tribe, right? Up there in Greenland.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

Greenland or Sweden.

SPEAKER_00 22:26

The Sami? Yeah, not them, but there must there were polar tribes up there.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yes, they were the polar tribes did use them as hunting grounds. I don't know if they live there yet. Yeah. Later they come down and they take they they take over.

unknown 22:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 22:45

In fact, I told I told Brandon, like, oh, I just found a story where the white man is run off by, you know.

SPEAKER_00 22:54

Yeah, it doesn't matter what color you are, someone's gonna kick you out of where you are, and someone's gonna live there, and then you'll kick them back out. That's what humans do.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

That's what we do. So anyway, so she moved, she gets to Greenland, and they go to this place called Horn Strandier. And if you look oh Iceland, sorry, Iceland. She goes to Iceland. And if you look at a map of Iceland, the very, very tippy tippy part. Here's a map, but the very tippy tippy part. Oh. Way up here. It's not even bold. Way up, way, way, way, way, way, way up here. The most northwest corner is called Hornstrandier. And that's where I think these Norse people went. I think your Irish kind of explorers and those kind of people came to the western side of it, and these Norse people went, I mean the eastern side of it, and the Norse people went to the seem to go to the west side, at least the people we care about. Maybe I need to care about more closer.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

Is that possibly because if you're coming from Norway, you're kind of coming north? That's what I thought. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

In the summer, maybe it's closer and quicker.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

And then maybe the Irish are coming and the Hebrides people are coming north.

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Yes. And then they go, and so the Norse would go to Faroe Islands and these other islands. Yeah. They really did. They ended up going on the north part, which I just have to recalibrate my head to thinking. Whoa. Um, but this place that they landed, it's called Hornstrandier, and I looked at the travel book for it, and it's um the people live there, and then in 1952 they gave up and everybody just left because it's just so hard to live there. And now it's just a nature reserve. You can go hiking and but it's just isolated, and but it was a thriving community because not only did uh Chordahill why can't I say her name? Should we give her another name?

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Eric's not Eric's wife, that would really make us hypocrites and ruin our whole distaff line. All of our grandmother's mad.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

Right. Chyothill. Yeah. Call her Teoty.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

That's our English translation of her. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Right. She ended up there. Um, and then when Eric the Red, he's still over in Norway as a kid, and when he's 10 years old, his dad becomes an outlaw. So his dad, Thorvald, um, he becomes Asvaldsen. He is exiled. And I looked up what it meant, and all that they say is that he for murders. So I looked up all the reasons in that time you could become outlawed. And exiled. How do you become exiled? And there's two different kinds. You can have you can kill someone as a VIG, V-I-G, and that's like daylight killing, a good reason killing. Um, you could call you could s pay a fee or compensate somehow uh if you killed someone in a VIG.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Daytime killing might happen over water or something.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Maybe, and if you can justify it, then you you just compensate in some way. Wow, but a more uh M O R D, but it's the D with the thing, so morph, like morph, morph is uh unjustified killing. Like you either did it at night, you did it at a in a rage. There's no excuse for it. Dishonorable to that. Dishonorable, yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

So he broke and an unwritten or maybe written code of honor. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Um, another reason you can get outlawed, and Eric the Red's dad definitely got outlawed for murder, but another way you could get outlawed would be breaking a truce or being disloyal, you know, breaking a because how we talked about these relationships between the men and the warriors were like contracts. They were bracing um breach of truce, uh, breach of pledges. So anyway, so Eric the Red's dad, Thor Thornwald, is kind of a he got exiled and he had a wife and kids, and they had to leave.

SPEAKER_02 27:42

And so um they go crazy.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

After talking about how um all you know, when more so you learn about it, you know, more death was a trade, but to be exiled from your group would have been hugely dishonorable.

SPEAKER_01 28:04

Yeah. And it makes sense why if he was a leader, and it's not so much, I don't think we see it in his case, but maybe that you would go with your if you were loyal to a person and they get exiled, it kind of makes sense you would go with them, which I have questions about that for Gudrid's dad and Eric.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

I feel like his bros, yeah. Yes, there are questions. I've been questioning it for him to know this because I that's important to know. Yeah. So he's not this honorable. We're talking last week about Vifil and his honorable bringing up and how he got insulted by someone saying he was losing money. But look at what Eric's the Red's father's dealing with. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:51

So they had to move and they went to this horns theater, this tippy-toppy place. And I wonder if it's just there was a line of uh they just knew to go there because if you go to Iceland, this is people from our town all go here or something, you know. So that's where they went.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Um or if I mean with the Icelandic, maybe they're a little bit more they're all outlaws in a sense, or they're all not.

SPEAKER_01 29:24

I don't know. I don't know because we've talked about all the different ways. The explorers in Landomabok, there's like six different people that discovered Greenland, you know, but they all have their own sagas. I don't know why people I don't think it was like in Australia where they banned their people. And I think once you were exiled, you didn't have to leave, go very far. You could go like in our colonial times, and I'm just gathering this from his second exile because he didn't go very far. Exiled twice. That's right. Well, Eric, so this is his dad. So his dad's exiled, they go to Iceland, they go to this barren town. I'm sure it was lovely. It is actually lovely, but this place, and um Eric the Red is a 10-year-old boy and living in this place, and his dad dies in 970. So Eric the Red is born in 950. By 970, they've moved to Iceland in exile, uh built a place, they've they've settled there, but in 970, Eric the Red's dad dies. And he's 20 years old, right? And then the story kind of things get moving for Eric. Okay. And he's either met George Hild by now in this, because uh she, you know, moved with her, her dad dies, somehow she ends up, her mom remarries a man from about this area, not necessarily this town, but close to it on that peninsula a little bit, I think. So they're associating. So at one point I thought, did he go back to Norway and get her?

unknown 31:11

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

And they found out they had been born in the same town, but she's got a life going on in Iceland with her mom. She does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

And so they didn't come with Eric as part of their group. She had already gotten there.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

From what I can see, she's already there in a different way, but but doesn't it make sense that if you're from the same town in Norway, you would all go to the same place in Iceland because trading and people families and and so somehow he falls in love with her pretty quick after the dad dies and they get married. So and he and they leave that that place. They they don't start building a family there. They go to Oddsbury, where by where Odd is from. They go to her baby, which is not that far. Is that all of this is happening in Western Iceland? Hey. All of this is happening in Western Iceland. Here's that barren town. Here's kind of the area where uh Thornhild's second dad settled them, I think. And this inlet right here is where Odd there says odd. Oh, okay. Odd. So that means hearse, that means Gudrud's dad, or you know, not yet, but that's where that stuff is happening. Eric and Thordhild move here in the same bay, but on the west eastern side of the bay, and they build Eric's Eric Stater.

SPEAKER_00 32:44

Which would kind of to me would make a little bit of sense if you're if what we're saying Thor Thordehild Thorhill's um Thordhill's grandma, uh, grandma the red um has some Celtic in her. Yes, because uh that whole area, right?

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Yeah, right, yeah, right. So I think I think her second dad uh yeah, there's some connection there too. And this um this place it's called Hawkild, or it's Hawk, the Valley of the Hawk. Um, which is cool to think about. That sounds familiar, right? Yes, it does. Hawk Valley. Yes, yeah. So anyway, they build Eric and Thjordhild build this Tjordhild, build the beautiful his dream place, Eric Stater, which means Eric's farm or you know, Eric's place. And it's nestled there between two hills. It's got water, it's the water that runs into the bay. To the north is Odd's lands, to the south is um Vilf Gudred's dad, yeah. His own land that he got got. And we're when we're when we're hearing about these people giving their slaves land, I think one of them says you can have land, you can have all the land that you can encircle in three days. Oh in three days, like no wonder it got crowded so fast, you know. Yeah, that's a lot. I by foot or by horse, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

But I um this is weird, but I was roting about Carthage Tunisia because one of our grandma's one of odds or someone, but she got exiled and she started Carthage. She went to the Petty King and she said, I want as much land as as this bear skin or whatever, and rolls it out. Oh. And he's like, sure, because it's just like what she wants, two feet. She cuts it into thin strips, ties them together, and does a whole big of stretch of land. So it's weird how if you can walk in three days.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

Watch out for these women. We know how to work it.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

It's it's um survival. Yeah, it is. So um sorry, okay. This is I love you telling this. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

Okay, and it's important, it's it helps us know our geo. If nothing else, it really helped me get a grasp on the geography of all of this.

SPEAKER_00 35:32

Well, and I do have a question, and and we may not know it yet, but isn't there the one place in the western side where they would all get together for their things? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

And I don't know it yet, but that's for the things they're all thinking.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Yeah, could he have met Tor Healda would they have a festival and meet each other?

SPEAKER_01 35:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

Any kind of romantic brave heart yesterday. I've never seen it in my life. So I'm crying. You never have seen brave heart.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

That's a big moment.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

Everything you were talking about the other tank, the pig, which was wrong, but they it was an homage to the pits when they came out. It was the most beautiful love story until she died.

SPEAKER_01 36:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Um, that I've seen in a long time. So I'm like crying like a 16-year-old girl. So now when you're telling the Eric the Red story, I'm thinking of the two of them.

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Well, they had to. They they were from the same place, you know, and they were on this new land. And he really did love, I mean, he did love her. He possibly maybe had children with other women. Maybe not, though. Maybe Freitas is her daughter. I don't know. But um, because in one saga, they have a daughter that is both their daughter, Freitas is their daughter, and in another saga, Freitas is his half-daughter.

SPEAKER_00 36:56

Well, and it's like what you were saying last week. There, these longhouses, these households or these kinship groups are looser than I think we think. Like there were other children showing up all the time and other wives and a little more looser. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

But yeah, it's um But they did love each other, even when she converted to Christianity and she wouldn't sleep with them, he stuck with her, you know.

SPEAKER_00 37:24

So anyway. Well, was that marriage? Um, was she considered like I'm starting to think about how Vilfil thought about things. Was did he have to work a little bit to be able to marry her because his dad was a maybe not a was a bad, not an honorable Nordic person? Or maybe you redeem yourself once you get to Iceland. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

You could get really romantic because she was coming from a pretty, pretty fancy, her second father was a fancy guy, her first father, her her Joran. I mean, he's the he's the one that connects her to the royalty, the Irish royalty and the Norse royalty. Really? That's right. I mean, she's a and then her mother is connecting her to the Swedish people and the Russian. So she's just a she's an she's I think I picture her as a as a well-sought after woman. Unless she's ugly, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 38:30

Well, and she probably, if they're living down by Odd and her family, they would rubbing shoulders. Odd was the queen of Brit, you know, queen of whatever she was.

SPEAKER_01 38:41

Odd would have been dead by then, but her legacy, right, would have been people would have known they would have known odd. They would have known. And there are there um there are sagas or things I I just started reading read like this morning about it. I shouldn't have Here Comes My Garbage Man. But maybe we won't hear it. It's life.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

Yeah. We're lucky that there are garbage.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

I know, really. Where they are, they're all associated associating. Nobody's isolated in this place. They're all associating with each other. They're meeting, they're fighting, they're falling in love. Ooh, it's loud, hang on.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yeah, I guess we can just cut this part out. You're telling a great story. I love it. Oh I love that you showed me the map because I couldn't have a concept of where they how close they were all together.

SPEAKER_01 39:38

Yeah, very close.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

And then we'll get to it, but Thornfin is so all of this is happening over here. Okay, and then Thornfin's people are all happening here.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Now Thornfin, remind me. Tower Snuffy, because Gudrid's Okay, so tell me how old Eric and Tjord build and then um Gudrid's parents would have been. How old would they have all been? Would they have been like young couples together?

SPEAKER_01 40:21

Um and or so Eric the Red and they get married 950. When do they get married? Their marriage is have so many different notes of so many different parents.

SPEAKER_00 40:33

I know, and and if this isn't where you want to go, I'll make a note of it and we can come back.

SPEAKER_01 40:37

Actually, he married Todahild in 970. Oh, right right about when his dad died. So 970. Uh Gudrid's born in 980. Okay. So her parents are probably at least gonna get married soon. So yeah, they're co they're they're contemporaries to each other, right? Okay, okay. In the same area. Um her dad would have been hardcore Christian. Um and Eric the Red's wife was kind of converted by Leaf, their son. Really?

SPEAKER_00 41:14

Their son. Interesting. So it wouldn't have been by odds descendants then.

SPEAKER_01 41:21

Maybe. Maybe there's an influence in it, but I think he came back from Norway after with King Olav and sealed the deal.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

So later then. Later.

SPEAKER_01 41:32

In Greenland. So that would have been in Greenland. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:35

So I don't think she converted until she was in Greenland, maybe.

SPEAKER_00 41:38

So what I'm gonna do is as you're talking, I'm gonna take notes of my questions and then we can do it. Oh, okay. Would that be a better way to do it? Maybe. Or I'd like to. Okay. No, I think that's better because I yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

Keep so anyway, so they move, they marry, they m move to this dreamy place, and I'm romanticizing Eric's daughter. And it's um, they have their three boys and possibly their girl. They have Thorvald's the oldest. Um no, Leif is the oldest, Thorvald's the middle one, and then Thornstein, who Gudred eventually marries, is the youngest.

SPEAKER_00 42:20

And they're all called Ericsson. Leif Ericsson. Yeah, Eride. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 42:26

And they're all born in the first in the 970s. Okay. So they're a little bit older than Gudrid, who was born in 980, but they're all gonna be kids together, and they're all gonna be, you know.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

So, but the problem is Eric doesn't the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. And Eric has his first exile.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Oh no, Eric.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Yeah, he has two exiles. Well, he has two events that lead to his exile. We'll say that. So 982. So the kids are born, but they're kids, they're little kids, right? They've got their dreamy Eric uh Eric Stot Eric Stater place. And um right on the day.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

Married into great family. Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:20

Yeah, she's got a good support system. She's got sister and her mom, and um I assume good father's father, new father, stepfather. But anyway, um, you've told this story before, but so Eric, his thralls, his slaves, for whatever reason, cause a landslide at one of their neighbors' place. And it it I can't tell if it kills the owner. Oh. But it does kill some other slaves.

SPEAKER_00 43:53

Kills some people. What do you think they were working on that would cause a landslide? Or unless it was intentional. Oh. I don't know. Oh.

SPEAKER_01 44:03

Like Eric was trying to get more land or something? I don't know. It's something that it was bad enough that they killed the his slaves, so Eric went over and he didn't kill the slaves back, which probably would have been fine. It would have been done, but he killed some of the guy's family. So he killed people from family from that farm. Um and the guy's name was Vault Hoffhoff's. So Eric gets banished from Hawkedale, which is the Hawk Valley, which is that Odd's land, this beautiful. He gets banished from his Eric Stater, which is very sad. But they don't go very far. They just go away for the winter. They go to Hoxney Island. Oh, they go to another island, huh? Just like this this bay that Odd settled in is it to get from the bay to the bigger bay, which is the o goes to the ocean. There's a bunch of cluster of islands. Just like there are those, what do we call those rocks that we s what do we call them when people are stuck on the rocks? What's the word for it? No. Ska Skittles? Can't remember. There's a word for the type of island where it's just a rock sticking out of the water kind of thing. Oh, interesting. Okay. That's what Leaf found people shipwrecked on it before. I can't remember the word.

SPEAKER_00 45:26

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

That's the word. Um so anyway, so it's just this island that and it's maybe five miles from their house, you know, but they go winter there. But while he's wintering there, um he asked his neighbor, Thorgist, to take care of his religious pillars, like we were talking about. So he's because he's I don't think he knows he doesn't think he's gonna settle on this island. I think he's assuming once summer comes, they're gonna head off to Greenland or somewhere. Oh but they have a winter on this, they have to leave their home. And when you are outlawed, it's you truly are outlawed. You have no protection. People can come take your property, people can come steal from uh steal anything they want from you. They can kill you without any kind of consequence. So when you're outlawed, it's scary to be outlawed too. You want to get out of there too.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

So that meant they would have packed up their as much as they could and they just And fled. I think they fled to this end.

SPEAKER_01 46:32

So when he Because I don't think he was truly exiled at this point, I think he was outlawed, if I'm understanding the sagas, right?

SPEAKER_00 46:39

Maybe they have to wait for the alting or whatever to decide on his fate.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Or yeah, or they're just they assume he'll go. They did have to leave, but I don't think he was truly exiled. Because when he gets exiled, it's for a set amount of time. It's three years, right? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:58

So okay, so you're saying he left his pillars, those are the long houses that hold your house. He left his pillars.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Because I think he intended to he did. He intended to come back once he found the place he was esta that he had established to come back and get them. So he had his neighbor, Thorgist, hold on to the pillars, and then he settles on this island for the winter and he went back to get them. You know, he's just sailing across the bay, it's not that far to get them, and the guy wouldn't give it to him. Thorgut wants to keep because he's an outlaw, right? They can keep whatever they want, I think.

SPEAKER_00 47:31

And those are very valuable. I mean, I'm learning about pillars just as we talk, and I'm glad you talked about it before because that um that big of trees, that much wood would be very valuable. Like you'd pass them down, I bet.

SPEAKER_01 47:49

Yeah, they do. They pass them down. These were passed, I think these came from Norway. They're they're from his family for a long, long time. Which maybe this guy, all these people, if they're coming from Norway, it could have been this kid, this guy's ancestors too came from, you know. It could have been like they're fighting over the rocking chair in Sampete County or something, you know. So he doesn't give him back, and of course, Eric kills him and there they fight.

SPEAKER_00 48:18

And um well, what's the difference between, you know, you could see a saga saying that was an honorable fight over his family's property that belongs to him, but I guess he's an outlaw, so he has no property. Yeah. So he's dishonorable no matter so that's bad that he did that.

SPEAKER_01 48:37

But he had buddies that fought with him, and Gudred's dad is one of the buddies that fought with him for the pillars. And Gudred's, and they it says it's his men, he and his men, he and some of his men were exiled for three years. Is it possible this is when they left, or no? She would have been too young, right? I think from a three-year-old girl.

SPEAKER_00 49:04

I did wonder about that, and what I thought I found was he actually was gone from these people for three years, and then he came back and told him how great it was. And I think it wasn't like a year later that's right. Are you talking about Gudrid's dad? I'm sorry, I'm talking about Eric the Red. Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

So Gudrud's dad fought with Eric the Red in 982. This happened. So from 982 to 985, that's when Eric then leaves. I think his family stays on this island and he sails around Greenland for three years. Um, so if Goodrid's I have two places that for Goodrudge dad. I have this villasdale, which is south of Eric's daughter, which is still inland, but then somehow he ends up in Lagerbreca, right? Which is on this. That's where she's born.

SPEAKER_00 50:00

Yeah. Which is still close enough.

SPEAKER_01 50:03

What are you saying though? I'm saying maybe her father got so here's where her dad lived, here's where Eric lived when all this stuff went down. That's how close those dots are. After Eric was exiled, he goes to this island. Maybe her dad goes to Lagerbrecka, and that's where she's born. But that would mean she was born not 980, 982, which is possible.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

So you're saying she's born in Lagerbrecca. And you're saying Lagerbrecker is not what Odd gave him? No. Really? Unless it is, unless it is. It's not Villifsdale. No, you're right. And and Lagerbrecca is where Orm was said to be living on that area. So I thought, well, maybe that's a county, and they each name their valleys after like Hawk Boy or whatever. Hawkboy. He what he attended um Gudrid's dad's feast that day. And Orm was there, and Hawk Boy was there too.

SPEAKER_01 51:06

Yeah, I think they're all connected. I think they're all, I think I'm seeing on a map how far apart they are, but in reality, it's not that far apart. So Villifsdale maybe went all the way to Lagerbrecca. But she there's a sign, there's a um a monument in Lagerbrecca as Gudred the Royal Traveler's birth birthplace. So So that's where he was farming then. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Or he went there, or he went there in exile for three years and had her and then went back. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

I don't know. I could I could see yeah, I can see that the timing gets a little fuzzy in here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:46

Which I like that I'm I appreciate the fuzzy timing.

SPEAKER_00 51:50

Okay. But somehow we know that Gudrid's father, you're it's it's you're saying he was probably one of those guys helping Eric. He was for sure.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

He's listed as one of the guys helping Eric fight for the pillars. It's just unsure if he got exiled or whatever. If he did just said some of the men went in exile with Eric. So Eric gets exiled, he leaves his family and his little boys, and off they go. He goes and explores Greenland for three years. He comes back and in 985-ish, tells them about Greenland. He he calls it Greenland, like we said, to as a uh marketing campaign to make it sound better than Iceland. It's Greenland. And it was, it had trees and stuff, but it was mostly ice, you know. Yeah. So he gets 25 ships worth of people that love him and follow him to come with him. 25 ships. 25 ships, and that's the tale. Only 14 of them make it. They hope most of them turned back around, but they assume some were lost on this voyage from Iceland to Greenland. And that is where he makes, he's got two, he has two Eric Stadter. So this is also the thing, don't get confused about. He's got Eric Stodder in his original dreamy place, and then on this island where his family has to live while he's exiled, it's this, it's he calls that Eric Stoddard, too. So there's two Eric Staders, if you're ever reading. And but the place he calls his Greenland New Farm, where he's gonna live and die, all these adventures are gonna come from, is called Brattahild. Okay. And it's translated into Steep Hillside. And that's in 985. Eric the Red and his wife and his children and his loyal followers all moved to Greenland, and they successfully create, they successfully settle Greenland. Um and during that time, Tordhild converts his son goes to Norway and she converts to Christianity, and she's it's she's credited with having the first Christian chapel on Greenland built. So her chapel is the first chapel. Right.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:24

So they ended up they stayed married, and he died on the eve or the morning of the great adventure that his son and daughter-in-law that we'll talk about later, as they were gonna set off and explore the this mysterious land to the West. Um, he died. Um, I've told this before too, but he's Leaf wants his dad to come on this big adventure. Because think of your, this is your dad, who's like a badass. I mean, he's been exiled, and he, and if somebody wrongs him, he goes and makes it right, and he never has been killed in all these fights and battles. And they want their dad to come on this one last adventure, and he doesn't he knows he's old, he doesn't really want to go, and he gets on his horse and he he hides all his gold first, and he gets on his horse, his horse stumbles and he breaks his arm or his leg or something, and he can't go on this big last adventure. And while they're gone, huh? He can't even get to the boat, how embarrassing. Can't even get to the boat, right? The guy can't even get to the boat. And um insane, so all this in 1000, this is when they're gonna launch for this new adventure, and then this boat full of people arrive in 1002 while the while the his kids well are gone. This adventure he was supposed to go on, they're still gone. Okay. This other boat arrives with sick people and there's an epidemic and he dies from some disease in Greenland in 1002, I think. So and she converts in 1000 to Christianity, he dies two years later.

SPEAKER_00 56:11

So that's the story of Eric the Red. So he's important because his his his sons oddly started Christi I mean brought Christianity. Leaf Erickson, of course, we know when went to adventure to North Atlantic, kind of went there first, right? So, okay, so that helps me understand how Gudred's family would have been linked to Eric the Red. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:43

Territory, and also I think um they weren't the same religion, but they were for some reason Eric the Red and her dad, the slave, aristocratic slave, turned free man, Irish, right? Or Scottish.

SPEAKER_00 57:01

He was honestly not any of he was Welsh. Welsh, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

He somehow really liked Eric the Red, like enough that he was loyal to him and let his daughter marry his.

SPEAKER_00 57:17

I wonder, you know, based on what we talked about last week, that the dad had declining resources, because in other parts we see him in some of the earlier sagas as being this Franklin and this, you know, having prosperous lands and stuff. So I wonder if that we see him with Einar after the exile, you know, and he is struggling. Right. If he's outlawed, he's struggling.

SPEAKER_01 57:45

Yeah. Interesting. So there's I think there's a I think there is a connection there. Yeah. Um anything else? Let's see. Did I get everything? There you can I mean there's so many rabbit holes you can go down. There's I don't even know this is not even worth saying. It's interesting, but say it. There's a there's a plaque. So Gudrid was born in Lagerbreca, right? On the tippy tippy tip of Iceland, the most tippy peninsula reaching out, which I think is beautifully symbolic. She was born on the furthest westernmost part of Iceland that literally like reaches out towards North America.

SPEAKER_00 58:29

So she would have um her vista or view would just be this water.

SPEAKER_01 58:34

So you can Google Sasha's oh, perfect. So I Googled Earth to see what she would see. Yeah. And there's this monument in one of the pictures is this tablet monument thing written in Icelandic. So I Google translated it, and it's it's um it's from a stone near Lagerbreca, Iceland. It says, Many years ago, in the long times past, sideways in time, there once lived the family of Skanus, respected neighbors known for their care of the land and forest. From this family came Ilila Mei Ning, a singer whose voice was so beautiful it could not be hidden. She sang with such power that it made even the people of Okinawa tremble. So right there I'm like, but her songs stirred emotion echoing across the land until the day she fled to her 144th hiding place and it goes on blah blah blah. And I'm like, Ella Maining and Okinawa, like, what are we talking about? Have you heard about this weird thing that's happening? No. Okay, so do I have a picture of it? I don't think I have a picture of it. I think you're just looks like a runestone. So I got super excited, but it's not runes, it's in Ice. So there's some artist, this is so off topic, but there, but he worldwide, he's telling a story through tablets one at a time, everywhere. There's one in Death Valley, there's some in China. He goes to these far-reaching weird like places and puts these tablets to continue this story of Aleia Meining, or and it's a full it's a following.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:21

People, that's what they that is how do I not know all this? There's so many cool things to know. Do they is he like that artist Banksy where he just pops up and places?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:33

Well, I think he's in the the I think he has the same mystique where mist, you know, he wants he he you know who he is and you can know where they are. And I can't tell if you know where they are because other people have found them or s and then they post it online and then you can go to it. Wow.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:53

Do you know what it's up? Like, does he buy a little piece of land or they just it just looks like a stone cut, like a stump of a tree that's a rock.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

It's on Lagerbreca, which I don't know how I feel, but whatever. And it's this just maybe a paragraph's worth of language is it written in? It was written in Icelandic, but you can translate it. So eventually Alaya disappeared from view. Her flight to secret refuge and her remarkable voice left a lasting leg of three sous songs, stories, and poems. Because I got excited about the singing because we know Gudrid's gonna sing later. Yeah. So either he really knows his history and he put this part of the story here, or it's just he's found Gudrud the well-traveled's birthplace and put a stone there.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:43

I think that is very, very important because it links to her upbringing in Lauger Brecka, which one of the reasons she shows up in the sagas again is because of her voice, right? Yeah. I liked, I love, I wonder what he's doing with that story. Like, is is he I love that, Sarah?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

Yeah, I haven't, I didn't, I was like, whoa, this is gonna get me off track. So I say no. You're in danger, danger. I could paste, I made a file for it. I can go back if I want. I clipped the article, I printed the article, I thought, but I don't see it.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:22

Um it is kind of important because when we go into next week, um she said, and I can when you're ready, we could go into what her daily life in Laugure Brecke. Yeah, I'm done. This is it. That was it. Oh, so there I've I hope that so it says for Gudrid life at Lauger Brecka. So first of all, the two brothers married two sisters. So Gudrid's father and his brother married two sisters. They're it they're hard to find information on, but I think that's a a good hole to go down, but I didn't go down it. But sources when you compile them about what would Gudrid's life look like, it she had a little cousin that was her same age. So she grew up with a girl cousin who they don't show up in Greenland either. So I don't know if the brother followed him when they got exiled, but they were running Lauga Brecka together. So you'd have to.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:26

Do you know who her great, you know, who the great grandpa. Sorry. No, go. You know who the great grand her great grandfather is? No, there's somehow a connection to Einar. Ohm and Einar, Orm and Einar. Yes. And their grandpa is related to her aunt or somebody. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So there's this. Suppose you that Einar knew her.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:50

Right? Dandy. Okay, sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:52

Yes, Einar. Yes. And in fact, I think Einar shows up in some sometimes sources will say she she had a first husband who was a merchant. But that to me, in a lot of ways, has been disproven. I don't think she married Einar.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:10

And just to remind everybody, Einar is the guy who was a dandy merchant that saw Gudrid in the doorway and wanted to marry her, and he's not good enough because he's the son of a slave. And yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:26

And and it is weird because, you know, a typical he was her father was fairly successful. I mean, but she would have bent her lives, so she would have worked hard. She would have done, you know, she would have um done lives in the female domain, but she would have been busy with wool production, warls and warp and loons. Um, she would have, as the daughter of this well-run farm, she would have managed things. So she would have, but she would also been doing so. The dairy was a big deal. She'd have to, they'd make yogurt, butter, and cheese. Um, and the summer they would travel to their mountain pastures, and then she would always be milking sheep and goats. So you picture she's not a noble girl, she's a she's the daughter of a well-bred farmer, basically, who did have thralls, who did have, but she was working. Um, they were trained in the oral traditions. So what that is, is when families would get together, they would do their singing of lineage, which we talked about last week. Her father would not have a lot of that, but she it that would have been important. And so what's interesting here is and tell me if I'm getting off topic, but I I wanted to understand what she would have learned or how she would have been raised. Yeah, that's So um if her mother was a widow um and her grandmother a thrall, so these are ifs. Um we're not sure who her mother was, but we know that, you know, she and her sister were pretty important. But it says Gudrid would have been raised on stories of the hen agled, the old north, which we talked about. That would be the old north of Ireland, Celtic stuff. The highborn manners that Gudrid had, which the sagas emphasize, likely I'm reading a source that's sort of Wikipedia-ish. So take it, take it how you want, but um likely came from being taught that she was not just the granddaughter of a slave, but Britannic royalty. So I could see them trying to play up, you know. It said this secret history was likely passed down through the female line to maintain their dignity in captivity. So this is where you get the experience of the female thralls, that as a young girl, a typical girl would grow up learning her lineage story, which her dad didn't have, but perhaps her grandmother's or her mother's or Orm's wife would have taught her. Um it said this use of specific looms and patterns would reflect the origins of the women in her house. So I think probably the Celtic stuff, perhaps, if she's around them, but also Norse, right? We're thinking. Um The sagas record Gudrid knowing special songs like the Bardlokur, which she claimed she learned from her foster mother. These songs were likely a blend of Norse melody and Gaelic incantation. And so it says in growing up also. That's all I'm I'm almost, I'm gonna be done with this, but um, she would have had, and and all the sources kind of talk about this. They kind of throw it out lightly, but they talk about, and I'm trying to find it, that every girl, here it is, every girl was raised, every woman was raised with magic. They just say it like, but it's called household magic. So it was little charms or or skills that you would have to bless your household. Like you could sprinkle salt on your mat outside your door to to you know keep bad things from coming in. Um and so Haldis, we think would have helped her with that, and that's her foster mother.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:40

Yeah, and I had a question about that. Um is it possible she had to go? Probably not, but it just popped in my head. Do you think when if her husband, if her dad did go with Eric the Red, do you think that's when she was fostered?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:55

It's really when you said that, it really makes me wonder because her mom literally disappears from the record. And so does her aunt, who you would think would have taken her. So, um Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:12

So maybe and the other thing, just on this line, of if this at Lagerbreca her, if you're going again at that line of I think it was her dad's loyal people himself, maybe her grandfather's. There's a story where there was a woman there who her son Einar, a different Einar, um, had to bit had to go vindicate his mom because some people had wrote ridden out to accuse her of witchcraft. That's right. And that happens at Lagerbreca, and that would have been her grandmother, her grandmother? Yeah. Or maybe her aunt's grandmother, like a great aunt. Yeah. Some relation to driver was accused of witchcraft, and the son came home and she's like, they just came and accused me of witchcraft, and he put on all his armor and his sword and rode off and killed them all.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:09

Or tried to kill them. Oh my gosh, that's such an important story because um they, you know, I asked the question, were girls marked from birth to live a different life as a vulva? So if she was born with more than just your typical household magic skills, um they believe it was seen as a mix of personal fate, innate ability, and sometimes children would early on show a strange behavior, such as speaking to spirits or surviving near-death experiences, were seen as being marked by the gods for this powerful path of a vulva, which is um spiritual woman. Yeah, spiritual seer. And so while so you wonder if Haldas um was a mentor of maybe they perhaps saw that Gudrid had some inclination because her singing is described as so powerful in the next place she goes.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:10

Um and she's so well educated on this pagany kind of ritual and craft that she learned it from somewhere. And she was, people were always trying to get magical with her, it seemed like.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:28

Well, it does seem like, which made me ask, you know, I wondered the question was she fated to be um a seer or a prophetess, no matter where she was.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

No matter what religion.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:40

She did end up being kind of that Christian religion. And what they would understand, even as a little girl, someone showing these indications is that um whiz they would have wisdom and foresight that would reveal deep understanding of cosmic cycles and destiny that hadn't been learned, taught yet. So she would have she, you know, it says most Norse women were expected to know basic household magic. Um however, the vulva that's a weird way to say it. That's probably more like the gynecologist way, right? I gotta learn a better way. V-O-L-V-A with two things over the A, I think. They were also so you had you may have had this spiritual gift that everyone recognized, but you had to possess, you had to learn a specialized ability for cedar or shamanic trance magic that not everyone could master. And this is where um, so it says even those with innate talent usually required training. They traveled with a mentor or an entourage of young girl girls who assisted in rip rituals, effectively acting as apprentices who learned the songs and herbal lore through years of sears. Often, however, this can um be construed as witchcraft if someone had something mad to you. Yeah. So they often talk about so so we know that she was a foster daughter in this household of Haldas and Orm. And you know, if her mother didn't teach her that stuff, for sure Haldas would have. Um what do you think about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:33

I think I think that makes me understand her better because um and again I have Eric the Red on the brain, but it makes sense that if she had grown up learning this, her dad's gone, he's so Christian, you know. Yeah and he's gone. It show at first it shows that they're they didn't they associated pagans and Christians associated and made truces and friendships. Like that wasn't a dividing category. Like if you're Christian, you still could have a a lith with pagans, right? Right. Um, so if she's raised with this pagan knowledge and gift, and I think she is one of these people, then when she came time to marry Eric the Red's son, Thornstein, which is their baby, their youngest son. And by then Dorchild is Christian, do you think she had to it, I don't know. I was thinking like maybe the mother-in-law made her convert to Christianity before she married her son, or she's just in with this hot, I don't know. It was like Christianity was always there, yeah, waiting for her. But she learned this so well that she even impresses a sorceress later on that we'll talk about. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:06

So I think her upbringing, even though it's kind of hidden, when we get to next week, um, we're gonna, I think it'll really show us um, you know, where the Christianity was. They say Haldas, okay, is a purely Norse name meaning stone goddess. So this is Gudrid's foster mother.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:29

Um, in the context of sagas, individuals with Norse, and I'm just I hate reading, I could pretend like I kn wrote I know this, but we'll say it, you know. Um individuals with Norse names and high social status, like being a foster mother to a chieftain's daughter, were typically treated as members of the Norse elite. So you almost wonder was Thorborn in his desire to be get his family to this higher status, let her go to be fostered in this household just because they were Norse and kind of maybe higher up. Like you were kept saying they're Norse, they're Norse. Orm isn't, and he you're right, he wasn't. He must have been a high-seated Nordic guy. We don't know. Maybe. Um but so anyway.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:21

Well, you have like you have your Eric the reds that are so on my map of genealogy, blue is Norway. And for him, it's all blue. And then you have his wife, Tordhild, and she's blue, and she's orange for Russian, and bright pink for Swedish, and light pink for Irish, and yellow for Icelandic, and um and like I said, I don't think it would be weird to have a super devoted Norse pagan living or influencing fostering Christian children, or I don't think so. Yeah. No, I don't think so. Because Iceland was Iceland was a pretty safe place to be both. Unlike anywhere else in Europe at the time, you know, it was a very dangerous place to to be straddling both worlds. But at this time, pre-1000 AD, right? Don't you think?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:25

Yeah. I mean, I do think, I think Gudrid is the symbol of a transitional figure, one who can travel through many different worlds, many different um religions.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:40

Um literally well traveled.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:42

Yeah. And, you know, they so some sources say the folklore Gudrid would have learned from Haldas um is like what you were talking, a blend of Norse high mythology and low folk magic of Gaelic. So you're saying she would have known the mythology of the Nordic pantheon and the stories of Odin and and that, that would be part of her, but she'd also have this household magic or this more of the Celtic pagan stuff going on. So she was traveling even that way, her DNA straddling stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:20

And I think this household magic never, never goes away. I think there's a point probably in every woman's life where they had to let go of one thing, take on another thing, and it's a big paganism, it's a big Christianity. But even in our colonial women that came over from England to the colony to Massachusetts, they were super Christian. They're Protestant, you know, super devoted, and they're living in a very hot, uh, highly regimented religious environment. And yet they still had their kitchen magic and their salt on the doormat. That's something we that's and the hiding the sausage and and yeah they're in the heart with the nails in it under the floorboards and scratching the sigils, all the same kind of because you wouldn't want to let that go. You wouldn't, if this is how you think you're protecting your children, you don't care who's telling you, you're gonna still maybe sprinkle salt on your door or cinnamon around, you know, you're gonna not, you're not gonna pick a certain herb in the dew on a full moon, and you're not gonna all these things. Even the men don't go hunting on a certain night, and so it's this kind of magic, I think, endured. It's practical magic, yeah. I mean the big sacrifices and blah blah blah blah blah and those had to go away.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:58

Yeah. But there's no way I would a reckoning woman would have said no to something that might help her children. Right. And I see, I think so. Next week we're gonna see where Gudrid struggles with this. She literally struggles with this idea of, you know, what do I do with my low pagan magic? What do I do with these beliefs that are helpful? Yes. And how do I fold that into these new beliefs that are also turning out to be helpful? Yes. Um it's it's for a woman in a thousand AD, it's just interesting. She's making the same choices that modern women have to figure out, you know? It's the same struggle. It's the same thing. Same dumb struggle. Like let us leave us the freak alone. Let me look at the moon. Let me let me be weird. Let me be weird. Yeah, be yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Because I'm all these things, I can get your ship to safety. I can because she would have been trained in the work of sea charms, and we can get into that next week. But she she would have been packing in these ships, um, you know, I not just a remarkably brave woman, but a remarkably prepared woman to transport herself and generations through different religions, spaces, spirits, waters, mythology. She's just so cool in that way. Um, so yeah. So next episode, she's gonna pack up that ship and she's heading over for right, and we're gonna fall in Greenland.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:52

Naughty Eric the Red and his family for some big adventures.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:57

Many times. Yeah. I'm excited because this is very good. We're ready. We've laid foundation basically, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:22:06

Yeah. Okay. So we're ready. She's we are ready to move her forward. Good job. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:13

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:14

Okay. Okay. Now we can get our our weird stuff done now.

unknown 1:22:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:20

Now we can breathe. This is the title, Udrid Gets Weird. And from now on, we get to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:31

Okay. All right. Well, stop recording. Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:36

Okay, bye. I'm still uploading.