Who is Erik Haraldson?

Erik Haraldson is a fictitious character at the center of my first book in the Yellow Hair Series. He is among the first Norwegian Norse to grow up as a Christian. As a child and adolescent, he thought of himself as a stereotypic Viking who would be famous in war and raiding far from his homeland. On his “becoming a man” voyage to Greenland, which had been discovered less that twenty years and was an infant Norse Colony in 1006 CE when Erik arrived. He soon found himself in a life-threatening situation. After being saved from hypothermia by an adolescent Skraeling, Erik’s worldview and attitude changed dramatically. He became determined to change the Norse view of the inhabitants of the lands west of Greenland in order to make them allies and trading partners rather than subjects. When the opportunity to move his family to Greenland presented itself, Erik convinced two shiploads of settlers to accompany him to the new colony. But, as fate would have it, the migrants never reached Greenland. They encountered a series of storms that took the lives of nearly everyone aboard the two ships, leaving only Erik’s son, Tor, as the sole survivor who ends up on a deck plank stranded in a vast ocean. Before his death, Erik found that changing Norse beliefs would be difficult and tedious at best. But his dedication and determination were never dimmed by his failure to influence others. Erik’s strong convictions were kept alive in Tor. Learn his story in Tor’s Saga, Book Two in the Yellow Hair Series, coming soon from Dusty Saddle Productions.