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In 1007 the most important of the Norse expeditions sailed from Greenland. Its leader was Thorfinn Karlsefni. Thorfinn was both seaman and merchant. Sailing from Iceland to Greenland on a trading voyage, he had wintered at Brattahlid and there married his wife Gudrid. Naturally there had been much talk of Vinland the Good during the long Arctic winter and in the spring an expedition to explore the new country was fitted out. It consisted of three ships manned by one hundred and sixty men. With it went Gudrid and six other women, for it was proposed to colonize the land. Thorfinn spent the winter amid great hardships, caused by cold and lack of food, on what may have been one of the islands of Buzzard’s Bay. There his son Snorri was born, as far as we know the first child of European parents born upon the shores of the American continent. In the spring, coming at last to the place “where a river flowed down from the land into a lake and then into the sea,” they waited for the high tide, as Leif had done, sailed into the mouth of the river and called the place Hop.[5] On the lowlands about them were self-sown fields of grain; on the high ground the wild grapes grew in great profusion. Deer and other wild animals roamed through the forests. The brooks as well as the bay were filled with fish. They dug pits upon the beach before the high tide came and when the tide fell the pits were leaping with fish. Just so today flounders may be caught along the Narragansett shores. The booths that Leif’s party had put up could not accommodate the new comers and additional houses were built inland above the lake. No snow fell during the winter. The cattle they had brought with them needed no protection and lived by grazing. None of the privations of the previous winter were experienced, and all things went well until the Skraelings, or natives, appeared. At first the Skraelings came only for trading. They wished to exchange skins for goods, being especially anxious to obtain little strips of scarlet cloth, and willingly giving a whole skin for the smallest strip. The Norsemen benevolently attempted to satisfy the desires of all by tearing the cloth into smaller and yet smaller pieces as the supply diminished. While the bartering was going on one of the bulls Thorfinn had brought with him appeared upon the scene, bellowing loudly. Thereupon the savages rushed to their canoes and paddled away as quickly as possible. A month later they reappeared, this time not to barter but to fight. In the combat that followed two Northmen fell and many of the Skraelings were killed. This battle convinced Thorfinn that the lands though excellent in quality would be undesirable for a colony by reason of the hostility of the natives. He therefore turned his keels northward and returned to Greenland in 1010.