The Doctor grinned. "See, I knew I'd get it out of you." Being the rambling, history-fascinated guy he was, he began to ramble about Erik the Red, the Vikings, and Lief Ericson. Once you got him going, it was hard to get him to stop.
"Leif Ericson's a Norse explorer regarded as the first European to land in North America, if you don't include Greenland, nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus did. Can you believe that? And to think humans actually believed it was some silly Italian. Anyways, according to the Sagas of Icelanders, Lief made a Norse colony at Vinland, thought to have identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day - depending on what you identify as modern - Canada, if you go by a map," he rambled at high speed, grinning at her. He took a breath, then continued,
"It is thought and believed by many that Leif was born around the 970s— to Thjodhild and Erik the Red, an explorer and outlaw from Western Norway. Erik founded the first Norse settlementss in Greenland, and was based at the family estate Brattahlíð in the so-called Eastern Settlement, where Leif had his upbringing. Leif had two known sons: Thorgils, born to noblewoman Thorgunna in the Hebrides; and Thorkell, who took Leif's place as chieftain of the Greenland settlement once he was finished. Pretty fascinating, isn't it?" He finally stopped, hardly out of breath and still grinning.
"Leif Ericson's a Norse explorer regarded as the first European to land in North America, if you don't include Greenland, nearly 500 years before Christopher Columbus did. Can you believe that? And to think humans actually believed it was some silly Italian. Anyways, according to the Sagas of Icelanders, Lief made a Norse colony at Vinland, thought to have identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day - depending on what you identify as modern - Canada, if you go by a map," he rambled at high speed, grinning at her. He took a breath, then continued,
"It is thought and believed by many that Leif was born around the 970s— to Thjodhild and Erik the Red, an explorer and outlaw from Western Norway. Erik founded the first Norse settlementss in Greenland, and was based at the family estate Brattahlíð in the so-called Eastern Settlement, where Leif had his upbringing. Leif had two known sons: Thorgils, born to noblewoman Thorgunna in the Hebrides; and Thorkell, who took Leif's place as chieftain of the Greenland settlement once he was finished. Pretty fascinating, isn't it?" He finally stopped, hardly out of breath and still grinning.
