Creative Writing .... Historical figure

           Hunched down in a ragged circle around the fire, the men in their fur coats and leather mitts listened intently to the big, hairy man who was talking loudly, hands flying in the air.  It was cold and damp in the little village in Greenland as the winds from the Labrador Sea whipped across the shore– so the heat from the dry birch logs and willow branches felt good.

           “Throw another armful of that dry moss on the fire, Ragnar!”  Halvor shouted.

           “Aw, let Leif do it.”

           Leif got up from his seat on a flat rock that had finally warmed up enough to be comfortable. He quickly walked over to the pile of moss, grabbed it in arms and hurried back to throw it on the fire.  He didn’t want to miss a thing that Bjarni Herjolfson was saying.

`           “The wind,” Bjarni said, “it was terrible!  It came out of the north and we rowed as hard as we could.  But it didn’t help.  Olav could just barely see the coast here.  The wind just kept roaring and shoving us along into the open sea !”

           “Couldn’t you turn around?” Halvor asked.

           “No. Not then.  We kept going.  We looked and looked for land but it took many days and nights.  Then we saw it.  Huge boulders on the shores!  We got the boat as close as we could without crashing into rocks so we jumped out and towed it to a safe place.”  Bjarni paused for breath and looked around at the men and boys who were hanging on to his every word.  “We were so cold and wet.  And tired.   And hungry.  We were so thirsty that when we saw grass along the shore that looked wet, we sucked the dew from it!  Johann and Per brought the salted meat with them from the boat.  They couldn’t get at it while we were on the rough water.   Rigmor had wrapped the hardtack in oiled skins so there was some of that, too.”

           “Any wild animals?” Leif was curious.

           “Oh yeah.  Big animals with horns… bigger than the deer in Iceland and Norway.   I got away from a big bear!  And we saw another bear in the water, looking for fish!  He got ‘em, too!”

           “So how did the land look?  Was it barren?” someone called out.

           “Well, I tell you.  It was green.  More green than here at home.  Bushes everywhere!  And then there was trees!  Tall, big trees.  You could  cut them down and make many logs for houses or sheds.  Nothing like these little birch trees around here.  Oh, it was a beautiful land.”

           As he grew up, Leif thought about that conversation often.  He took the fishing boats out many times in the years that followed.  Going across the sea to Iceland to see his father’s family was a trip he made with relative ease in the 42 foot long boat with his family. He learned to tell his position on the water by use of a sextant and the stars.  With the help of his mother, Leif dried meat and fish.  By the time he was 25, Leif Ericsson had planned and organized an expedition to the south.  He had to see this New World for himself.