Guðríðr Þorbjarnardóttir

Guðríð Þorbjarnardóttir is, quietly, the true center of the Vínland sagas — a woman of great presence, intelligence, and faith who is the most widely-travelled figure in the whole corpus. Born in Iceland, she crosses to Greenland, takes part in the attempt to settle Vínland with her husband Karlsefni, and there bears Snorri — the first child of European descent born in the Americas. She survives the failure of the colony, returns east, and in her old age, the saga says, makes a pilgrimage all the way to Rome before ending her days as an anchoress in Iceland: a single life that reaches from North America to the heart of Christendom. In a famous eerie scene she is pressed, though a Christian, to sing the spirit-songs that summon a seeress's prophecy. Guðríð is the saga world's great traveller and survivor — the calm, faithful woman at the still center of its boldest voyages.