The Greatest World Classics Retold for Children. Гарриет Бичер-Стоу
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of Iceland:
"I have not been so very far, but I have found something wonderful."
"What is it?" cried the men.
"I have found grapes growing wild," answered Tyrker, and he laughed, and his eyes shone.
"It cannot be," Leif said.
Grapes do not grow in Greenland nor in Iceland nor even in Norway. So it seemed a wonderful thing to these Norsemen.
"Can I not tell grapes when I see them?" cried Tyrker. "Did I not grow up in Germany, where every hillside is covered with grapevines? Ah! it seems like my old home."
"It is wonderful," Leif said. "I have heard travelers tell of seeing grapes growing, but I myself never saw it. You shall take us to them early in the morning, Tyrker."
So in the morning they went back into the woods and saw the grapes. They ate of them.
"They are like food and drink," they cried.
That day Leif said:
"We spent most of the summer on the ocean. Winter will soon be coming on and the sea about Greenland will be frozen. We must start back. I mean to take some of the things of this land to show to our people at home. We will fill the rowboat with grapes and tow it behind us. The ship we will load with logs from these great trees. That will be a welcome shipload in Greenland, where we have neither trees nor vines. Now half of you shall gather grapes for the next few days, and the other half shall cut timber."
So they did, and after a week sailed off. The ship was full of lumber, and they towed the rowboat loaded with grapes. As they looked back at the shore, Leif said:
"I will call this country Wineland for the grapes that grow there."
One of the men leaped upon the gunwale and leaned out, clinging to the sail, and sang:
"Wineland the good, Wineland the warm,
Wineland the green, the great, the fat.
Our dragon fed and crawls away
With belly stuffed and lazy feet.
How long her purple, trailing tail!
She fed and grew to twice her size."
Then all the men waved their hands to the shore and gave a great shout for that good land.
For all that voyage they had fair weather and sailed into Eric's harbor before the winter came. Eric saw the ship and ran down to the shore. He took Leif into his arms and said:
"Oh, my son, my old eyes ached to see you. I hunger to hear of all that you have seen and done."
"Luck has followed me all the way," said Leif. "See what I have brought home."
The Greenlanders looked.
"Lumber! lumber!" they cried. "Oh! it is better stuff than gold."
Then they saw the grapes and tasted them.
"Surely you must have plundered Asgard," they said, smacking their lips.
At the feast that night Eric said:
"Leif shall sit in the place of honor."
So Leif sat in the high seat opposite Eric. All men thought him a handsome and wise man. He told them of the storm and of Wineland.
"No man would ever need a cloak there. The soil is richer than the soil of Norway. Grain grows wild, and you yourselves saw the grapes that we got from there. The forests are without end. The sea is full of fish."
The Greenlanders listened with open mouths to all this. They turned and talked to Leif's ship-comrades who were scattered among them.
Leif noticed two strangers, an old man who sat at Eric's side and a young woman on the cross-bench. He turned to his brother Thorstein who sat next to him.
"Who are these strangers?" he asked.
"Thorbiorn and his daughter Gudrid," Thorstein answered. "They landed here this spring. I never saw our father more glad of anything than to see this Thorbiorn. They were friends before we left Iceland. When they saw each other again they could not talk enough of old times. In the spring Eric means to give him a farm up the fiord a way. It seems that this Thorbiorn comes of a good family that has been rich and great in Iceland for years. And Thorbiorn himself was rich when our father knew him, and was much honored by all men. But ill luck came, and he grew poor. This hurt his pride. 'I will not stay in Iceland and be a beggar,' he said to himself. 'I will not have men look at me and say, "He is not what his father was." I will go to my friend Eric the Red in Greenland.'
"Then he got ready a great feast and invited all his friends. It was such a feast as had not been in Iceland for years. Thorbiorn spent on it all the wealth that he had left. For he said to himself, 'I will not leave in shame. Men shall remember my last feast.' After that he set out and came to Greenland.
"Is not Gudrid beautiful? And she is wise. I mean to marry her, if her father will permit it."
Now Leif settled down in Greenland and became a great man there. He was so busy and he grew so rich that he did not think of going to Wineland again. But people could not forget his story. Many nights as men sat about the long fires they talked of that wonderful land and wished to see it.
Wineland the Good
On an autumn, a year or two after Leif came home, Eric and his men saw two large ships come to land not far down the shore from the house.
"They look like trading ships," Eric said. "Let us go down to see them."
"I will go, too," Gudrid said. "Perhaps they will have rich cloth and jewelry. It is long since I had my eyes on a new dress."
So they all went down and found two large trading ships lying in the water. A great many men were on the shore making a fire.
"Welcome to Greenland!" called Eric. "What are your names and your country?"
Then a fine, big man walked out from among the men and went up to Eric.
"I am Thorfinn," he said, "a trader. I sailed this summer from Iceland with forty men and a shipload of goods. On the sea I met this other ship from Iceland. The master is Biarni. Come and look at my goods."
So he rowed Eric and Gudrid out and they went aboard his boat. Thorfinn opened his chests and showed Eric gleaming swords and bracelets and axes and farm tools. But before Gudrid he spread beautiful cloth and gold embroidery and golden necklaces. As they looked, he told of doings in Iceland and asked of Greenland.
"We never see such things as these in this bare land," Gudrid said, as she smoothed a beautiful dress of purple velvet. "I envy the women of Iceland their fair clothes."
"There is no need of that," Thorfinn said, "for this dress is yours and anything else from my chests that you like. Here is a necklace that I beg you to take. It did not have a fairer mistress in Greece where I got it."
"You are a very generous trader," Gudrid said.
Then Thorfinn gave Eric a great sword with a gold-studded scabbard. After a while he took them to Biarni's ship. He also gave them gifts. They all talked and laughed much while they were together.
"You are merry comrades," Eric said. "I ask you both and all your men to spend the winter at my house. You can put your goods into my storehouses."
"By my sword! a generous offer," said Thorfinn. "As for me, I am happy to come."
Biarni and all the rest said the same thing. Thorfinn walked to the house with Eric and Gudrid, while the other men sailed to the ship-sheds and pulled their boats under them.
Then Thorfinn saw to the unloading and storing of his goods.
"Is this Gudrid your daughter?"