Summary

Eric the Red, father to Leif, believes that murder best solves problems like property and ownership disputes. He and his family are repeatedly forced to leave their homes and begin anew somewhere else: banished from Norway, from southern Iceland, from northern Iceland, they land finally in Greenland, a treeless and forbidding place. He calls it Greenland so that people will want to colonize it.

Eric’s troubles follow him to Greenland. His son Leif travels back to Norway and brings the Christian religion back with him. Eric refuses to accept Christianity, even though his wife banishes him from her bed.

Eric’s daughter, Freydis, is like her father -- fearless, strong and smart, but also ruthless, cunning and not afraid to murder. In Vinland, where she has followed Leif, she kills in cold blood the other leaders of the expedition and their families...