The Settlers (PDF)

The Settlers An Axe of Iron Novel This is a tale about a medieval people whose lives are surprisingly like ours. They have the same basic desires for happiness, love, food, and shelter that has dominated the thoughts of generations of cultures the world over. Eirik the Red established Eiriksfjord in 986 and later Lysufjord, four hundred miles to the north. Just 22-years later, new settlers from the homelands found all the best land already occupied, the fragile Arctic environment strained by too many people and animals on too little arable land. The Settlers is the first novel of a continuing character-driven story of a company of men, women, and children whose wanderlust and yearning for adventure cause them to leave the two established settlements on Greenland and sail west, to the unexplored land later to be referred to as Vinland. Under the capable leadership of Halfdan Ingolfsson and his lieutenant, Gudbjartur Einarsson, 315 adventuresome souls set sail from Greenland in the spring of 1008, bound for the unexplored continent across the western ocean. See the saga unfold, in this first book of the Axe of Iron series, through the eyes of the characters as each day brings a continuation of the toil, love, hardship, and danger that they come to expect in this unforgiving new land.