Tyrkir

Reconstructed Viking ships head to the coast of Newfoundland for the millennial discovery of America in 2000

Tyrkir is the name of the German-speaking foster father of the Icelandic explorer of America Leif Eriksson , who plays a role in the Grænlendinga saga . The name Tyrkir is probably a Nordic form of the German name Dietrich , the short form of which is Dirk ( Old Low German also Thirk).

The wine country

Apparently Tyrkir was a clergyman , perhaps a monk enslaved on a Viking voyage; because he instructed the young Leif in Iceland in runic writing , foreign languages , rhetoric , botany and their rearing , history and also weapons . A universal knowledge that at that time - around the turn of the millennium - was only accessible to members of the monastery.

Tyrkir also took part in the discovery of the Leif in the year 1000 to America. In a sense, he is the initiator of the naming of Vinland . The Greenland legend tells of the following incident:

"Á einhverju kveldi bar þat til tíðenda, at manns var vant af liði þeira, ok var þat Tyrkir Suðrmaðr. Leifr kunni því stórilla, því at Tyrkir hafði lengi verit með þeim feðgum, ok elskat mjök Leif í barnæsku. Taldi Leifr nú mjök á hendr förunautum sínum ok bjóst til ferðar at leita hans ok tólf menn með honum. En er þeir váru skammt komnir frá skála, þá gekk Tyrkir í mót þeim, ok var honum vel fagnat. Leifr fann þat brátt, at fóstra hans var skapgott. Hann var brattleitr ok lauseygr, smáskitlegr í andliti, lítill vexti ok vesallegr, en íþróttamaðr á alls konar hagleik. Þá mælti Leifr til hans: "Hví varstu svá seinn, fóstri minn, ok fráskili föruneytinu?" Hann talaði þá fyrst lengi á þýzku ok skaut marga vega augunum ok gretti sik. En þeir skilðu eigi, hvat he hann sagði. Hann mælti þá á norrænu, he stund leið: “Ek var genginn eigi miklu lengra en þit. Can ek nökkur nýnæmi at segja. Ek fann vínvið ok vínber. “" Mun þat fed up, fóstri minn? " kvað Leifr. "At vísu er þat fed up," kvað hann, "því at ek var þar fæddr, er hvárki skorti vínvið né vínber". "

“One evening one of the crowd was missing, and that was Tyrkir, the German. Leif was very uneasy about this. Because Tyrkir had long been with him and with his father and had loved him very much in his childhood. Leif severely reproached his fellow passengers for this. He set out to find him, and twelve men went with him. But they had only been on the road for a short time when Tyrkir came towards them. He was received with joy. Leif soon realized that his foster father was not quite with himself. He had a steep forehead, flickering eyes and freckles on his face. He was short and unsightly, but highly skilled in all kinds of artistry. Then Leif said to him: "Where did you stay so long, dear foster father, and why did you separate from your companions?" Tyrkir spoke German for a long time, rolled his eyes and bared his teeth, and nobody understood what he was saying. After a while he said in Nordic: “I didn't go much further than you. But I have some news for you. I found vines and grapes. ”“ Is that correct, dear foster father? ”Asked Leif. "Certainly," replied Tyrkir, "where I am at home there is neither a lack of vines, nor of grapes."

- Grænlendinga saga. Cape. 4, transferred by Felix Niedner.

Many “grapes” were now also collected and brought back to Greenland, where Leif's father, Erik the Red , was the chief of the newly founded Icelandic colony in Brattahlíð . But Leif named the country after the "grapes" found, Vinland , or "wine country".

See also

• Vinland # The_grape
• Scandinavian colonization of America

Web links

Commons : Viking Age  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• The first German in America
• Tyrkir First German in North America
• Grænlendinga saga in Old Norse
• Flateyjarbók in Old Isl., Isl., Danish. and engl. translation

literature

• E. Ebel: "Grænlendinga saga" In: Lexicon of Germanic antiquity . Vol. 13, pp. 71-73, Berlin 1999.
• H. Beck: "Scandinavian conquest in the Atlantic area from a literary historical perspective". In: M. Müller-Wille: Selected problems of European land grabbing in the early and high Middle Ages . Vol. 2, 1994, pp. 97-211.