Vinland:Sigurðshaugr
Contents
Sigurðshaugr[edit]
Overveiw[edit]
Sigurðshaugr is a riverside town, about 30 miles south of Mount Trinity, supported by multiple farmsteads in the immediate area. There is a small watermill[pretty new] . The blacksmith handles everything from farrier's work to repairing spears and replacing axe heads. Relations with local Skraelings are generlly peaceable, and ther has been some limited intermarriage.
Government[edit]
Einar Thorvaldsson, the Jarl who Founded the settlment still theoretically rules over it, although this largely means serving as a mediator in disputes. This function is shared with a Norse Law-speaker, (Name1), and his apprentice, (Name2). Father (Name3), the priest at the town's Christian church is often called upon to mediate in disputes involving the area's Christians.
Population[edit]
There are about 300 people in the town, most of them Norse, with a signifcant minority of Saxons from the Mount Trinity settlement. Mostly they are freeholders and artisans, but a few wealthy settlers have brought Irish and Saxon thralls with them, and a few skraelings taken in raids elsewhere.
Religion[edit]
The Jarl still mostly cleaves to Pagan ways, and there is a small temple to (Diety) next to his hall, but some of the other Norse townsfolk are Christian, sharing a church and priest with the Saxon population and a few Christian Skraelings from the surrounding area.
Economy[edit]
Sigurðshaugr serves primarily as an interface between the surrounding farms and the outside world, bringing worked metals down the river, where they are traded for furs and agricultural products. Barley and wheat are the primary local grains, although some farmers are experimenting with maize. Flax and hemp ae grown for textiles, and colorful cotton cloth is imported from the south, although at exorbitant prices. Several local farmers have taken to growing tobacco, and a bundle of cured tobacco can serve as currency up and down the Father of Rivers. Cattle in the area tend to be larger and hairier than those common in Iceland or Scandinavia, as local bison have bred into their bloodlines. The area is known for the particular quality of is woolen cloth, and farmers take great pride in their sheep.
People[edit]
Einarssons[edit]
Einar Thorvaldsson[edit]
Jarl Einar Thorvaldsson is the founder of Sigurdshaugr. He first encountered the area while on a raid downriver from Kebec. He put ashore for the night in a cove in the river, and found that there was a large meadow near, and abundant supplies of timber and game. On a nearby promontory, his crew found a burial mound, with a stone atop it insrcibed "Sigurd Ulfbani." Two years afterwards both of his sons went on a viking into the interior, and their ship never returned. Einar was devastated by the loss of both his potential heirs at once, and his wife died shortly therefter leaving him alone save for his adolescent daughter. He fell into a deep melancholy for a year and a half, until one day he seemed struck by a feeling of great energy. He arranged a marriage to the daughter of a fellow viking captain, and began to talk of accomplishing something more with his life. Finding hinself with a great deal of loot from his vikings, and a loyal band of followers who were now passing with him into middle age, he decided that it would be a brave deed to found a settlment where he could live with his new wife and have a legacy to leave a new family. He took his faithful folowers, and a number of young and landless men and sailed to the Howe of Sigurd, where he constructed a hall and began to clear the forests nearby. His daughter, Signe, was married to a local Skraeling Cheiftan to cement peace between honorable foes.
Hakon Strongarm[edit]
Hakon is the village smith. He is an enormous bear of a man, massivly muscled and with so much hair that only his eyes can be seen between beard and scalp. He has a very cheerful temper, and isn't inclined to hold a grudge against anyone. He is known throughout the district as a gentle man as well, who has never been observed to raise a sword or spear or even axe in violence. Despite this, no one in the district ever questions his bravery, as he is the best wrestler anyone has ever seen, and does not hesitate to prove it if cowardice is even mentioned around him. People still talk about the time that a young berserk from a ship passing by called him out in such terms that a duel could not be honorably refused. Hakon entered the duelling ground with his smithy hammer in hand, and with a single stroke shattered his opponents scramasax blade. He then hammered the fellow's shield into splinters before knocking his helmet to the ground, beating it into ruin, and then going back to his forge, never saying another word. He is assisted about the smithy by his son Aðalbrandr, who at thirteen is already nearly as tall as most men of the village, and also by Membertouchis, who has come to learn the arts of ironworking in order to take them back to his village.
