Herjolfsnes was a Norse settlement in Greenland, 50 km northwest of Cape Farewell. It was established by Herjolf Bardsson in the late 10th century and is believed to have lasted some 500 years. The fate of its inhabitants, along with all the other Norse Greenlanders, is unknown. The site is known today for having yielded remarkably well-preserved medieval garments, excavated by Danish archaeologist Poul Nörlund in 1921. Its name roughly translates as Herjolf's Point or Cape.
Establishment
As noted in the Landnámabók (Icelandic Book of Settlements), Herjolf Bardsson was one of the founding chieftains of the Norse colony in Greenland, and was said to be "a man of considerable stature." He was part of an exodus from Iceland accompanying Erik the Red, who led an expedition of colonists in 25 ships in AD 985. Landing on Greenland's southwest coast, Erik and his other kinsmen almost invariably chose to settle further inland away from the open Labrador Sea, at the heads of the fjords where the land was better suited to farming. By contrast, Herjolf's decision to establish himself at the end of a fjord directly facing the open ocean near Greenland's southernmost tip suggests that his primary intention was not farming, but rather the establishment of the new colony's major port of call for incoming ships from Iceland and Europe.
Herjolf's homestead was situated on the west shore of a fjord that came to bear his name, Herjolfsfjord, and was the southern- and easternmost major homestead of the colony's Eastern Settlement.
According to The Greenlanders Saga, Herjolfsnes played a significant role in the Norse discovery of North America. Herjolf's son Bjarni had been conducting business in Norway and returned to Iceland to spend Yule at the family's homestead, only to learn Herjolf had joined the exodus to the new Greenland colony. Bjarni set out to follow Herjolf, but was blown off course to the southwest, becoming the first known European to skirt, if not land on, the North American coast. Realizing he had overshot Greenland, Bjarni reversed course to the northeast and came to a land that matched the description he had been given. The saga states, "...they landed in the evening under a ness; and there was a boat by the ness, and just here lived Bjarni's father, and from him has the ness taken its name, and is since called Herjolfsness." The saga then relates how Bjarni travelled to Norway and made his discovery known to the court of Erik Jarl. Erik is said to have treated him well, but others in the court criticized Bjarni's lack of initiative for failing to explore the new lands he had seen. Upon Bjarni's return to Herjolfsnes, he is said to have given up seafaring and lived there with his father, and upon Herjolf's death "afterwards dwelt there" presumably as the chieftain of the homestead and the immediate district.
In Erik The Red's Saga (which covers essentially the same events as the Greenlanders Saga), the famous Icelander Gudrid Thorbjornsdottir is said to have landed at Herjolfsnes after a difficult journey, and lived there for a while. Curiously, although this saga specifically denotes the homestead as Herjolfsnes, it is described as being owned by a man named Thorkell, and makes no mention of Herjolf or Bjarni. Helge and Anne Stine Ingstad believed that the saga's author may have written the two men out of the story in order to elevate the exploits of Leif Eriksson, the first known European to land in North America. By contrast, in The Greenlanders Saga, Leif is said to have prepared for his voyage to Vinland by purchasing Bjarni's ship, during which he presumably received counsel and directions from Bjarni.
After the colony's conversion to Christianity in AD 1000, Herjolfsnes was one of 16 known sites in the Eastern Settlement on which a church was raised. The ruins that are visible today are those of a church built in the 13th century, which was likely raised on the site of an older, conversion-era church. It had a rectangular foundation similar to that of the churches at Hvalsey and Brattahlid further north in a style that was common in medieval northern Europe. The Herjolfsnes church was the 3rd largest in the Norse Greenland colony, behind Gardar and Brattahlid. Gardar was the seat of Norse Greenland's bishopric and also the seat of its Althing parliament, while Brattahlid was the most prominent single homestead due to its association with Erik The Red and his descendants, so Herjolfsnes' comparably sized church is an indication of the homestead's relative importance and stature among the Norse Greenland settlements.