Leif Erikson Trivia
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47 free Leif Erikson trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Leif Erikson trivia quiz covers the Norse explorer who reached continental North America roughly five centuries before Columbus. The easy questions cover his famous father, the land he named for its wild grapes, the settlement his family founded in Greenland and the nickname he earned on the way home. From there the quiz moves through the two Vinland sagas: the ship he bought from Bjarni Herjolfsson, the crew of thirty-five, the lands he named Helluland and Markland, the foster father who found the vines, and the king who sent him home as a missionary. The hard end covers the archaeology and the afterlife: Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad at L'Anse aux Meadows, the tree-ring date of 1021, the butternuts that prove the Norse sailed further south, Adam of Bremen's passing mention, the Boston statue of 1887, President Coolidge at the Minnesota State Fair and why Leif Erikson Day falls on 9 October. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries for Leif Erikson, Erik the Red, Vinland and L'Anse aux Meadows before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our Vikings and Norse mythology quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 47 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which animated series features its hero celebrating Leif Erikson Day?
SpongeBob SquarePants
SpongeBob SquarePants. In the episode 'Bubble Buddy' he wakes up thrilled that it is Leif Erikson Day, finds no friend free to celebrate, and makes himself a friend out of a soap bubble.
Q 02According to one saga, how did Leif Erikson's father, Erik the Red, die?
In a winter epidemic
In a winter epidemic. The Saga of the Greenlanders says sickness struck the winter after Leif came home from Vinland, and Erik's death left his son to lead the colony.
Q 03By what nickname is Erikson also known?
Leif the Lucky
Leif the Lucky. The sagas give him the name for a rescue he made on the voyage home from Vinland, not for finding a new land.
Q 04Vinland, the name Leif Erikson gave the land he found, is usually translated as the land of what?
Wine
Wine. The sagas say his crew found grapevines there, and wine was a luxury that Norse chieftains prized; some scholars read the name as 'meadow-land' instead.
Q 05In which modern country is L'Anse aux Meadows, the Norse site often linked to Leif Erikson's settlement?
Canada
Canada. It sits on Newfoundland's northern tip, and the 'Meadows' is thought to be an English reshaping of an older French name for the cove, from the French fishing era centuries after the Norse.
Q 06On which family estate in Greenland's Eastern Settlement did Leif Erikson grow up?
Brattahlid
Brattahlid. The name means 'steep slope'; Erik the Red built it at the head of his fjord, and Leif later took it over as his own seat.
Q 07Leif Erikson's paternal grandfather was banished from Norway for what crime?
Manslaughter
Manslaughter. The family fled to Iceland, and the pattern repeated: his son Erik the Red was later outlawed there for killings too.
Q 08Leif Erikson's father Erik was nicknamed 'the Red' most likely for what?
His red hair and beard
His red hair and beard. He is said to have had the name from his youth, long before the feud killings that got him outlawed from Iceland and sent him exploring Greenland.
Q 09What was the name of Leif Erikson's sister, who reaches Vinland in both sagas?
Freydis
Freydis. In one saga she is pregnant when she scares off attackers by slapping a sword against her bared breast; in the other she leads her own voyage and has her partners killed.
Q 10Which member of Leif Erikson's Vinland crew did Leif call his foster father?
Tyrker
Tyrker. A southerner, probably German, he wandered off one evening and came back babbling in his own tongue about the grapevines he had found.
Q 11Whom did Leif Erikson rescue at sea on his way home from Vinland, according to the sagas?
A group of shipwrecked sailors
A group of shipwrecked sailors. One saga counts fifteen people on the reef and says Leif spotted them long before his crew could.
Q 12At whose court did Leif Erikson convert to Christianity?
Olaf Tryggvason
Olaf Tryggvason. The Norwegian king then sent Leif home to spread the faith in Greenland, a mission some historians suspect the saga writers invented.
Q 13In the Saga of the Greenlanders, which trader sighted North America before Leif Erikson but never went ashore?
Bjarni Herjolfsson
Q 21Which Norwegian husband-and-wife team identified the Norse site at L'Anse aux Meadows in the early 1960s?
Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad
Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad. Locals led Helge to grass-covered mounds near the village in 1960, and Anne Stine, an archaeologist, ran the digs that proved them Norse.
Q 22A trace of what in tree rings dates Norse woodcutting at L'Anse aux Meadows to exactly 1021?
Cosmic rays
Cosmic rays. A burst of them in 993 left a radiocarbon spike in trees worldwide, so counting rings out from it gave the year the Norse cut three trees with metal tools.
Q 23Which nut found at L'Anse aux Meadows shows that the Norse sailed well to the south of it?
Butternut
Bjarni Herjolfsson. Blown off course on his way to join his father in Greenland, he was later mocked for his lack of curiosity; Leif bought his ship and retraced the route.
Q 14In the video game Civilization VI, Leif Erikson can be recruited as which kind of Great Person?
Great Admiral
Great Admiral. Retiring him lets all of a player's ships cross open ocean without the usual technology, much as the Norse crossed the North Atlantic centuries before other Europeans.
Q 15Why did Erik the Red drop out of Leif Erikson's voyage just before it sailed?
He fell from his horse
He fell from his horse. In the saga, riding down to the ship, Erik was thrown and hurt his foot, took it as a sign he was not meant to find more lands, and went home.
Q 16Helluland, Leif Erikson's first landfall in one saga, is usually identified with which Arctic island?
Baffin Island
Baffin Island. In that saga Leif found only glaciers and slabs of rock there, judged the country worthless, named it for its stones and sailed on south.
Q 17Markland, the second place Leif named, has a name meaning what?
Forest Land
Forest Land. 'This land shall have a name after its nature,' Leif says in the saga, looking at a flat wooded shore now usually placed in Labrador.
Q 18The Leif Erikson statue in Reykjavik was made by the father of which American sculptor?
Alexander Calder
Alexander Calder. His father, Stirling Calder, won a national competition in 1929 to make the bronze; the son became famous for inventing the mobile.
Q 19Which fish was plentiful in the mild, verdant land where Leif decided to winter?
Salmon
Salmon. The saga says they were bigger than any the crew had seen; with no winter frost and grass for the cattle, Leif chose to build a house and stay.
Q 20Besides grapes, what cargo did Leif bring back to Greenland from Vinland in the spring?
Timber
Timber. Greenland had almost no trees of its own, so good wood was treasure there, and later Norse voyages kept sailing west to fetch more.
Butternut. The trees do not grow that far north, but they share their range with grapevines, so whoever gathered the nuts had probably come across the sagas' famous vines as well.
Q 24The Norse buildings at L'Anse aux Meadows were constructed of what material over a wooden frame?
Sod
Sod. The turf-walled halls match the Icelandic building style of the years around 1000, one of the clues that convinced archaeologists the site was Norse.
Q 25Which find suggests that women lived at the Norse camp at L'Anse aux Meadows?
A spindle whorl
A spindle whorl. The small weight for spinning thread is domestic textile gear, so archaeologists think women as well as men stayed at the camp.
Q 26Christian Krohg's painting of Leif Erikson sighting America was made for a world's fair in which city?
Chicago
Chicago. A Norwegian-American association ran a contest for the picture, Krohg won, and in 1893 it hung at the fair alongside a replica Viking ship sailed over from Norway.
Q 27Which medieval chronicler wrote the oldest known mention of Vinland, long before the sagas were written down?
Adam of Bremen
Adam of Bremen. The German cleric never went there: he heard of it at the Danish court from King Sweyn, and assured his readers the report was no fable.
Q 28Leif Erikson fell in love with a noblewoman named Thorgunna when his ship was driven to which islands?
The Hebrides
The Hebrides. Thorgunna asked to sail on with him; Leif refused to carry off a high-born woman from her kin, and the son she bore him was later sent to Greenland.
Q 29Which text last mentions Leif Erikson alive, in 1018?
The Saga of St. Olaf
The Saga of St. Olaf. It has the king ship a conquered rival off to Leif in Greenland, hoping he would never return; by about 1025 another saga shows Leif's son as chieftain.
Q 30What archaic term did the Norse use for the Indigenous peoples they met in Vinland?
Skraelingi
Skraelingi. Leif himself met none of them; it was the expeditions after his that traded with them, quarrelled, and were finally driven to give up Vinland.