Leif Ericson

Standing only 152 centimeters and lightly built at around sixty-five kilograms, Leif looked unremarkable for a man of thirty-seven when the story opens. The years at sea have not been kind. By the time Thorfinn meets him again near age fifty, the crown of his head has gone bald, his remaining hair has turned gray, and deep wrinkles cover his face while his brows have thinned to almost nothing. He changes little through 1018 and 1019 apart from some stubble, but a single harsh summer around 1021 ages him drastically, adding still more creases, spots across his scalp, a drooping mustache, and eyes that stay half-shut. A stray arrow to the leg at Jomsborg leaves him leaning on a walking cane, and he trembles even when simply standing.

In the early days Leif liked to brag about his prowess as a fighter, though the villagers, grown-ups and children alike, dismissed him as a bearded man of little use in a real battle. What truly defines him surfaces after Thors dies. Blaming himself for the loss, he vows to track down the vanished Thorfinn and return him to his homeland, and he holds to that promise for more than ten years. The sheer persistence of that search marks him as loyal and warm-hearted, a man who does not abandon those he loves or break his word.

Leif's fame was hard-won. After relocating to Greenland, his ship became locked in bay ice near Brattahlid for a full month; once the food ran out and the hull was crushed, the crew set off on foot across the frozen sea, and after two nights of walking Leif found himself the only survivor of seven. He later crossed open water for years before sighting a vast new land he christened Vinland, befriended its native people, and returned a renowned voyager.

In 1002 he sat telling those adventures to the children of Thors's village, Thorfinn among the spellbound listeners. Soon after, the Jomsvikings and Floki descended on the settlement and forced Thors back to war over an old death sentence. Leif went along with several young men, including Ari, intending to ferry them home from Norway once Thors was delivered. Instead Askeladd's band ambushed and killed Thors, and Thorfinn vanished after stowing away aboard the enemy ship to avenge his father. For the next eleven years Leif searched the world for the boy in Thors's memory. He finally found him in York in 1014, but the young man was consumed by hatred and cared only for news of Vinland, not the mother and sister Leif wanted to speak of. Leif begged him to come home to Iceland; Thorfinn refused until Askeladd was dead, and left. The reunion collapsed further when Thorfinn was enslaved as punishment for striking Canute, who had just killed Askeladd before his eyes.

Learning that Thorfinn had become a slave, Leif searched on for years more, even adopting a boy he also named Thorfinn, commonly called Bug-Eyes, while hunting for any enslaved man matching the description. A chance encounter with Olmar and Ketil, who remarked that Leif's son shared a name with one of their slaves, led him to the farm. He smuggled the fugitive family back onto their own land in exchange for a meeting, then reunited with a grown, healthier Thorfinn. When Ketil refused to sell Arnheid, Leif joined the plan to spirit her away with Einar and Bug-Eyes, swearing never to leave Thorfinn behind again, though Arnheid died of her wounds before she could escape. Leif carried Thorfinn and Einar back to Iceland.

He then proposed selling narwhal horns gifted by Halfdan in Miklagard to fund the voyage to Vinland, and the group set sail. Amid a chase by Floki's men, who wanted Thorfinn to lead the Jomsvikings, Leif was captured with Einar and Gudrid, freed when Baldr let them slip away, and shot through the leg by a stray arrow while crossing the battlefield at Jomsborg. His health declined steadily after that wound. By the summer of 1021 he had aged sharply, losing much of his hearing and mobility and retiring for good at his Greenland home. When Thorfinn stopped there before continuing west, the two spoke of the two decades since Thors's death. Leif handed over the old pipe he had brought back from Vinland, called Thorfinn a great man he was proud of, and told him to keep following his heart, naming him son, while Thorfinn answered by calling him father.