Torgils Orrabeinfostre (''Þorgils Orrabeinsfóstri'', Þorgils the step-son of Scarleg) is the Viking hero of

Flóamanna saga ''Flóamanna saga'' ( 'the saga of the men of Flói'), also known as ''Þorgils saga Ørrabeinsstjúps'' ('the saga of Þorgils, foster-son of Ørrabeinn') is one of the sagas of Icelanders. The saga has been especially noted for the realistic dep ...

. A Norwegian weather station built in

Nanuuseq Fjord Nanuuseq Fjord, old spelling ''Nanûseq'', is a fjord in the King Frederick VI Coast, Kujalleq municipality, southern Greenland.''Prostar Sailing Directions 2005 Greenland and Iceland Enroute'', p. 100 History In 1931 Norway sent two expeditions ...

in 1932 was named

Torgilsbu Torgilsbu was a Norwegian hunting, meteorological and radio station (Torgilsbu Radio/LMQ) located on the King Frederick VI Coast, Southeastern Greenland. Administratively the area were the hut stood belongs now to the Kujalleq municipality. The ...

, after this legendary hero. In 1940 this station was abandoned and the name "Torgilsbu" was transferred to one of the

Bluie Bluie was the United States military code name for Greenland during World War II. It is remembered by the numbered sequence of base locations identified by the 1941 United States Coast Guard South Greenland Survey Expedition, and subsequently us ...

WWII World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

weather stations, Bluie East One, a little further south on

Prince Christian Sound The Prince Christian Sound (Greenlandic: Ikerasassuaq; Danish:Prins Christians Sund) is a waterway in Southern Greenland. It separates the mainland from Sammisoq (Christian IV Island) and other islands of the Cape Farewell Archipelago near the so ...

Summary

The chapters 1-9 and 18 of the Flóamanna saga detail Torgils' ancestry according to

Sturla Þórðarson Sturla Þórðarson ( ; ; 29 July 1214–30 July 1284) was an Icelandic chieftain and writer of sagas and contemporary history during the 13th century. Biography The life of Sturla Þórðarson was chronicled in the Sturlunga saga. Sturla was th ...

's version of

Landnámabók (, "Book of Settlements"), often shortened to , is a medieval Icelandic written work which describes in considerable detail the settlement () of Iceland by the Norse in the 9th and 10th centuries CE. is divided into five parts and over ...

.Fornrit 2011
. Then the saga narrates Torgils' adventures in

Iceland Iceland ( is, Ísland; ) is a Nordic island country in the North Atlantic Ocean and in the Arctic Ocean. Iceland is the most sparsely populated country in Europe. Iceland's capital and largest city is Reykjavík, which (along with its s ...

and the

British Isles The British Isles are a group of islands in the North Atlantic Ocean off the north-western coast of continental Europe, consisting of the islands of Great Britain, Ireland, the Isle of Man, the Inner and Outer Hebrides, the Northern Isles, ...

. After converting to Christianity from

Norse paganism Old Norse religion, also known as Norse paganism, is the most common name for a branch of Germanic religion which developed during the Proto-Norse period, when the North Germanic peoples separated into a distinct branch of the Germanic peop ...

Torgils sailed to

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

with his wife, companions and serfs. The ship sank off the eastern coast of Greenland and the roughly 30 castaways made their way south with difficulty on account of the ice floes and bad weather. They survived by hunting seals and had to put up with great hardships, including a disease that killed some of them. In the first winter Torgils' wife gave birth to a son. One day, while Torgils climbed a mountain to check the condition of the ice some of the servants murdered the woman and escaped with the boat and the provisions, but the baby was unharmed. Thorgils and a few of the survivors built a small boat with skins and tried to reach the

Western Settlement The Western Settlement ( non, Vestribygð ) was a group of farms and communities established by Norsemen from Iceland around 985 in medieval Greenland. Despite its name, the Western Settlement was more north than west of its companion Eastern Sett ...

. Miraculously Torgils was able to breastfeed the child. Finally, after four years of struggles since the shipwreck, Torgils managed to reach the Norse settlement on the western coast with only his son and two remaining companions.Clements Markham, G. M. Gathorne Hardy & Fridtjof Nansen. ''The Norsemen in America: Discussion'', The Geographical Journal Vol. 38, No. 6 (Dec., 1911), pp. 575-580
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References

Sagas of Icelanders 10th century in Greenland Viking explorers 10th-century Norwegian people 10th-century Vikings {{Iceland-bio-stub

Summary

See also

References