North America, not a half bad call violeteyes, that was actually my next tilt at the guessing game windmill, having failed on two previous occasions. Welcome to the Oracle Forum by the way, this and your other contributions are much appreciated as another shoulder to the wheel of global change. Thank you.
Well, Nazheek, I am going to say Canada based on your latest set of clues, and that conclusion revolves around the following interesting piece of information, well at least I hope it will set enquiring minds alight as it proves that intercontinental migration on our planet was equally prevalent 10 centuries ago.
Viking exploration, migration and settlement was far more extensive than many people are aware, but most discoveries were treated as an expansion of their original homeland, with Nordic peoples having no geographic concept of the world as we recognise it today. Indeed as recently as the 15th century, most of Columbus' crew believed that the world was flat, the Atlantic Ocean to be populated with leviathans large enough to devour their ships, accompanied by horrifying waterfalls down which frail ships would plunge to their destruction. Columbus himself felt sure the earth was round. Nevertheless, looking upon North America as an extension of one's homeland made the whole adventure a lot more palatable I imagine.
Vinland (pronounced 'Winland'), was the name given to a part of North America reached and colonised by Icelandic Norseman Leif Eiríksson, around the year 1000. Beyond that later chronological archeological evidence of Norse settlement in North America was found in L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland, Canada.
Vinland was first recorded as an entity by cleric, geographer and historian Adam of Bremen, in his book Descriptio insularum Aquilonis written in circa 1075. In order to gather the information necessary to create the tome he visited Danish king Svend Estridson, who had considerable knowledge of the northern lands.
Descriptio insularum Aquilonis is an appendix to a master work entitled
Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (‘Deeds of the Bishops of Hamburg’) one of the most important sources of medieval history relating to Northern Europe, and the oldest textual source reporting the discovery of coastal North America. It is well worth reading in English translation.
This is the link to the University of Wisconsin's pertinent extract from the work:
http://www.americanjourneys.org/pdf/AJ-058.pdf
The first discovery made by full name Leifur Eiriksson, was according to other stories Helluland (flatstone land), possibly Baffin Island. Markland (wood land), most likely the Labrador Peninsula was the next discovery (there is some evidence that the tree line in northern Labrador has been diminished or eroded since approximately 1000) and lastly Vinland (commonly interpreted as wine land, but interpreted as pasture land by others), potentially Newfoundland. The Eirikisson expedition included both families and livestock and the aims were to begin new settlements. Straumfjorour was the name of the northern settlement and Hop the name for the southern settlement. However, according to the stories it was cancelled soon due to conflicts with the 'skraelingjar' (potentiallly the later Beothuks, or Dorset people). New voyages for woodcutting to source timber in short supply in colder homelands appears to have been discussed as late as the 1300s.
