Herjolfsnes (Norse Greenland)

Herjolfsnes was a Norse settlement in Greenland, about 50 km northwest of Cape Farewell. It was established by Herjolf Bardsson in the late 10th century and is believed to have lasted about 500 years. The fate of its inhabitants, along with all the other Norse Greenlanders, is unknown. The site is known today for having yielded remarkably well-preserved medieval garments, excavated by Danish archaeologist Paul Norland in 1921. Its name roughly translates as Herjolf's Point or Cape.

As noted in the Landnámabók (Icelandic Book of Settlements), Herjolf Bardsson was one of the founding chieftains of the Norse colony in Greenland, and was said to be "a man of considerable stature". He was part of an exodus from Iceland accompanying Erik the Red, who led an expedition of colonists in 25 ships around AD 985. Landing on Greenland's southwest coast, Erik and his other kinsmen almost invariably chose to settle further inland, away from the open Labrador Sea, at the heads of the fjords, where the land was better suited to farming. By contrast, Herjolf's decision to establish himself at the end of a fjord on the open ocean near Greenland's southernmost tip suggests that his primary intention was not farming, but rather the establishment of the new colony's major port of call for incoming ships from Iceland and Europe.

Herjolf's homestead was situated on the west shore of a fjord that came to bear his name, Herjolfsfjord, and was the southern- and easternmost major homestead of the colony's Eastern Settlement.

According to The Greenlanders Saga, Herjolfsnes played a significant role in the Norse discovery of North America. Herjolf's son Bjarni had been conducting business in Norway and returned to Iceland to spend Yule at the family's homestead, only to learn Herjolf had joined the exodus to the new Greenland colony. Bjarni set out to follow Herjolf, but was blown off course to the southwest, becoming the first known European to skirt, if not land on, the North American coast. Realizing he had overshot Greenland, Bjarni reversed course to the northeast and came to a land that matched the description he had been given. The saga states, "...they landed in the evening under a ness; and there was a boat by the ness, and just here lived Bjarni's father, and from him has the ness taken its name, and is since called Herjolfsness."

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