Short sagas of Icelanders. The Icelandic Discovery of America. Two Icelandic sagas, of Erik the Red and of the Greenlanders, describe the Icelandic discovery in 1000 of America and the attempt in 1008-1011 to establish a settlement there. These sagas are here condensed and merged into The Saga of Gudrid, after their remarkable protagonist Gudrid Thorbjornsdaughter who in 1008 gave birth to the first European in the New World.