Talk:Erik the Red

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 13 January 2020 and 20 April 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Lunajb.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:48, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Problem
This article states as fact a great deal of hearsay and needs a heavy editing to seperate facts from what may or may not be true. Eric the Red and events in the early period of Greenland are recorded only in the Saga stories of Iceland - hundreds of years after the time period and with no attempt at historical accuracy. We have no idea, for example, how Eric the Red died or when or wether any plague took place in 1002. DHBoggs (talk) 11:59, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

My translation of Erik the Red's Saga has him alive and well after the return of Karlsefni's expedition to Vinland and long after Leif's accidental landing. This needs a more careful check of the sources. A 'plague' of sorts is recorded within the saga, wiping out several significant characters between Leif's return and Karlsefni's exploratory voyage, but not killing Erik.Anne Fenwick (talk) 22:49, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

mostly uninhabited?
Why did 71.50.86.162 remove the phrase "mostly uninhabited"? The island was indeed mostly uninhabited in the 10th century (there may have been Inuit in the far north). It's an important point, because uninformed readers ought to know that the Norse did not displace any native people when they settled southwest Greenland. Further, it may well have been the Little Ice Age and the resulting encroachment of the Inuit upon the Norse lands that led to (or at least contributed to) the disappearance of the latter in the 15th century. Their history very nicely illustrates the interplay of climate and human settlement, i.e. the Inuit were accustomed to a colder climate, hence throve in SW Greenland even as the Norse were just barely clinging on. Whereas in the 10th century those areas were just right for the Norse and too "tropical" for the Inuit. --Cubdriver 16:26, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

South of Cape Farwell?
What can this possibly mean? "Erik traveled southward from the tip of the island, soon to be called Cape Farewell and continued downward after having been discouraged to have found an area that was apparently too "formidable and uninviting." Eventually he reached a land with fair ouconditions similar to those of Norway that promised growth and prosperity. According to The Saga of Eric the Red, he spent his three years of exile exploring the coast of this land."

Cape Farwell is the southern cape of Greenland. Traveling south, and continuing downward, there is no land before Brazil! What am I missing here?

Banishment
Isn't the listing of the 2 incidents leading to Erik's banishment backwards? And with the extra information provided in the excerpt below, shouldn't we add in the greater details? WiseEyes 19:34, 2 May 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone have any details of the precise incident for which Eric was banished? This is important, because Eric the Red is known as the 'exiled murderer who was the son of an exiled murderer'. --Anon

I have the Penguin Classics translation of the Vinland sagas. Here is the text from Eirik's saga. The Saga of the Greenlanders shows the same facts but somewhat less extensive.


 * Eiriks's slaves started a landslide that destroyed the farm of a man called Valthjof, at Valthjofstead; so Eyjolf Saur, one of Valthjof's kinsmen, killed the slaves at Skeidsbrekkur, above Vatnshorn. For this, Eirik killed Eyjolf Saur; he als killed Hrafn the Dueller, at Leikskalar. Geirstein and Odd of Jorvi, who were Eyjolf's kinsmen, took action over his killing, and Eirik was banished from Haukadale.


 * Eirik then took possession of Brok Island and Oxen Island, and spent the first winter at Tradir, in South Island. He lent his bench-boards to Thorgest of Breidabolstead. After that, Eirik moved to Oxen Island, and made his home at Eirikstead. He then asked for his bench-boards back, but they were not returned; so Eirik went to Breidabolstead and seized them. Thorgest pursued him, and they fought a battle near the farmstead at Drangar. Two of Thorgest's sons and several other men were killed there.


 * After this, both Eirik and Thorgest maintained a force of fighting-men at home. Eirik was supported by Styr Thorgrimsson, Eyjolf of Svin Island, Thorbjorn Vifilsson, and the sons of Thorbrand of Alptafjord; Thorgest was supported by Thorgeir of Hitardale, Aslak of Langadale and his son Illugi, and the sons of Thord Gellir.


 * Eirik and his men were sentenced to outlawry at the Thorsness assembly. (...)

After this, the story goes on to tell that Eirik decides to look for 'Gunnbjarnar Skerries', a land found earlier in the west.

The sagas are much less clear on what happened in Norway. They just say that Eirik's father and Eirik "left their home in Jaederen, in Norway, because of some killings".

Andre Engels

Red Dragon?
The part that says that Eystribyggð means "Red Dragon" in old swedish seems really strange to me. I don't know Old Swedish, but in Norwegian the names of the two villages sound more like "Eystribyggð=Østerbygd=East Village" and "Vestribyggð=Vesterbygd=West Village" to me. user:Poccil, this phrase is a rather recent addition by you, do you have any basis for it?(Note left on Poccil's talk page).--MaxMad 09:34, 1 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Just to confirm the usage: yes, the accepted translations are Eastern Settlement and Western Settlement, so Max is correct. --Cubdriver 10:58, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

Spelling
In order to comply with the "Use Common Names" policy, this aricle should be moved to Eric the Red, because that name is more common. Nohat 20:44, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Eirik Raude
There is also a movable and extremely resistant drilling platform that goes by the name of Eirik Raude. Shouldn't that be mentioned, or a new article created?

--Cctoide 21:50, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Dates
Can anybody substantiate these birth and death years? DoCB gives only fl. 985 Fawcett5 2 July 2005 19:08 (UTC)

Last Name Issue
My last name is Eri, my dad is norweigian. Supposedly I'm decendent from Eric the red.. Is there any way to find out? please someone reply... thanks

Eric the Bloody?
The article sez "the Red" was "perhaps because of his surly temper". I've red he was driven out of every place he lived (Norway, Haukadal, Breida Fjord) because of "some killings", & "the Red" was more likely "the Bloody" (but more polite...). Trekphiler 17:45, 16 December 2005 (UTC)

if you go online to i think its famousfamilytrees.com you can search erik the red and it'll say up to today i beleve!

[b]Red hair[/b] It is most likely he was called 'The Red' because of his red hair. M0NG0LIANWARRI0R 12:13, 25 July 2007 (UTC)

fear of the verb "to be"
The most recent edit has careful removed all cases of the passive voice and replaced them with often awkward constructions. A body of water for example "takes the name" of Eriksfjord. This is just plain wrong: the fjord didn't go to court and get its name changed! It was given that name (and indeed has since been given an alternate, Inuit name) by persons unknown. I would urge the editor not to go around rigidifying other articles in this manner. I would like to see this one reverted, but I don't want to get into a rv war over it. --Cubdriver 10:56, 12 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I plead guilty as charged to fearing the verb "to be". On the other hand I don't feel terribly contrite about suffering from this disease. - I see this sort of stylistic revision as making our encyclopedia more precise and less biased (see E-Prime), and the Wikipedia style guide does frown on passive constructions in general. - If I have unintentionally changed or perverted a meaning, please correct it. In the case of Eriksfjord, I suggest that we could use "acquired the name ..." or "the Norse settlers gave [it] the name of ..." - Pedant17 00:10, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Fine, I'll revert it. --Cubdriver 10:47, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Jared Diamond explains Greenland Settlement collapse best?
I was wondering what basis with which Jared Diamond is considered to be an expert on the demise of the Greenland Settlement? "Collapse" is full of hypotheses that are not backed up with enough evidence for them to be considered fact. What evidence Diamond does use he does not properly cite the historians and archaeologists where he got the evidence. In mention of the Greenland Settlement and its demise Jared Diamond should not be mentioned. Thomas H. McGovern, who has done extensive research in the Greenland and written many papers on the subject, should be used as an expert instead. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 12.201.117.132 (talk • contribs). 22:15, 16 May 2006

Diamond is not an expert at all. Further, his imagination of a catastrophic mass starvation is not generally accepted by those who are. For the most part he rehashes some very old ideas, some good and some a little far fetched - but that is a whole other discussion. DHBoggs (talk) 11:52, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Contradiction
There are several different dates of death given in the article, not sure which one is correct. Also, severely lacking in citations. --168.99.182.215 14:30, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Having several different dates would be fairly normal. Consider most historical figures. 70.55.200.47 23:42, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Popular culture
The popular culture section, which someone considers trivia, is entirely unverified. I'm moving it here.
 * Erik/Eric made a cameo appearance in The Wizard of Id. When asked to account for his name, "Eric the Red", he replied: "Go to a few meetings and you're marked for life!"
 * Satirist Will Cuppy discussed Erik/Eric in an essay centered on Leif. He stated that Eric's killing ways tapered off as he grew older: "He had learned that there is no use murdering people; there are always so many left, and if you tried to murder them all you would never get anything else done."
 * Thomas Holt's historical novel, Meadowland, portrays a reason for Erik/Eric's trip to Greenland: "all the bad stuff in his life, he decided, was because of other people - because he, left to himself, he was just a peaceful, harmless farmer who wouldn't hurt a mouse - and the only course left open to him was to up stick and go where there weren't any other people at all."

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 17:02, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Name listing
Is it really neccessary to list his name in 7 different languages? Isn't it fine just to stick with the English and then the Old Norse versions, instead of actually listing ALL the Nordic language version? I'd like to get consensus on this before I do any changes -- Palthrow (talk) 12:12, 17 May 2009 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea to me. Go for it.--Breandán MacAmhlaidh (talk) 08:30, 26 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Agreed. -- Alexf(talk) 09:52, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

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Revising for Class Project
Hi! In the course of the next couple of weeks, I will be working on this article as an assignment for a technical editing course. As I go, I plan to put any ideas in my sandbox before I make any changes. The main focus of these changes will be the structural organization of the article, and I will likely not change any of the existing content. Thanks! Lunajb (talk) 17:35, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Changes and Questions
I have made multiple changes to the structure of the article to make it more like similar articles, such as Leif Erikson. Because of this, some of the information is in new places and organized differently so it read chronologically. I also took away some of the information that only pertained to Leif Erikson since it was not necessary to understanding the context of Erik's life.

I have not done anything to the Greenland Saga section, but I do wonder if it is relevant to Erik the Red, himself. It seems to fall more in the topic of the Saga of Erik the Red instead. Would it be appropriate to delete it from this article or move it to the Saga of Erik the Red? Lunajb (talk) 06:12, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Modern Icelandic
We do not need the modern Icelandic names in the lead of Old Norse articles, for the same reason we don't add modern Italian to Roman articles. This is the English Wikipedia - the only relevant names are what he's known as in English and what he was known as in contemporary times. MClay1 (talk) 13:34, 20 August 2021 (UTC)


 * I believe we've reached a compromise on my talk page to include the information in a note. I've made the change. No information has been lost. MClay1 (talk) 14:52, 21 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: English 111 First-Semester College Composition
— Assignment last updated by Lincol7 (talk) 13:03, 4 December 2023 (UTC)

Lead Section Suggestions
''' The Lead Section should include a brief description of the article's major sections as currently it does not. '''

Lead section evaluation: I believe the lead section to be very concise and informative for someone doing a quick overview of who Erik was as it speaks on his greatest achievement, and important information such as where he was born, epithet, and that he is the father of the famous Leif Erikson. I do believe, however, that the lead section would benefit from including a brief rundown of the articles main sections, such as early life (name, birthplace, epithet speculation, maybe Norway banishment), brief rundown of his marriage and sons (speak on Leif Erikson), exile from Iceland, founded settlement in Greenland, and death (not specific cause just year). TheBigGorilla (talk) 23:22, 18 November 2023 (UTC)


 * I think that is a good suggestion, WP:LEAD advocates for generally four well composed paragraphs, this article has a single paragraph with plenty more content to draw from. TylerBurden (talk) 21:57, 19 November 2023 (UTC)