Gunnar, a young Dane, was the sole survivor of a disastrous Viking raid in England. He never wanted to kill another man, so he would never go on another raid.

"But he did want to see new places and at the same time get rich enough to marry Thyri, so he shipped out on a merchant vessel bound for Iceland. Off the coast of Norway his boat was wrecked and Gunnar was forced to spend a long winter in Norway. But there he met Leif Eriksson--and this meeting led to Gunnar's trip to a land he had not known existed.