i'm off to visit my son Alof in Greenland. Busla and her husband have come to Iceland from Greenland. i asked them what it was like there. the biggest problem was no woodland which makes it nigh impossible to build housing. pretty good source of food with caribou and fish, whales, seals, and warlrus. Alof apparently is the Law-Speaker so he's done well in life. well its been a month now and we still haven't found Greenland. for the past week we haven't found land either. this doesn't bode well.

Amma and I have set out to settle Iceland i couldn't even begin to tell you why. i will say i am enjoying the hot springs and the forests make it estremely easy to build a new house for ourselves. i don't know what the explorers problem with this place was theres a lake nearby that is an abundant source of salmon and trout. and the land were on will work perfectly for rye and barley so we should not be lacking for foodstuffs thats for sure. one very strange thing is it seems the only indigenous mammal is the arctic fox. well i'm sure Amma and I will be happy here

My neighbor Vali just got back from raiding Brittany. he's very puzzled as to why people aren't settling there. Vali also went to Scotland apparently the Picts are completely gone now whether we killed them all or drove them away Vali couldn't tell me. unfortunately Vali's wife died during the crossing. my son Alof also headed out to Jarlshof. i belive he's actually part of the assembly there.

i've grown restless here so i've decided to go out to sea again. i've heard some talk about this city called York from my brother Asgaut. i figure its time to expand my horizons and try my hand at purely trading with no raiding. i have a large amount of amber to use for trading. since Amber is one of the three primary luxury goods there I should be in good shape. the other two being Byzantine silkes and german wines.
i'm here in York now and its very interesting, the houses here are very different than the house i'm used too. however i can completely understand the necessity of two story houses versus the one story houses to save space. another interesting thing is Erik Bloodaxe died the day after i arrived and yet nothing is changing or will change it seems.

Asgaut has become quite the warrior. he recently came back a few days ago from wintering in the east with the huge network of t rivers to go up. he met up with a group of fellow traders at Staraja Ladoga. though i imagine he probably went to Kiev soon after to meet up with other raiders and try to find other good areas in the east to raid. he did bring my son Alof back with him. Alof was beyond exhausted from his travels so he's been reccuperating in peace. although i'm eager to hear of his travels. i'm especially interested in hearing about Constantinople from what Asgaut has told me it sounds like an ideal city to live in. i may have to go wintering in the East next year to see it!

I fear my son Alof is dead. He was heading out to the Mediterranean to raid, if i remember correctly he was off to France to find others for his first raid however i've heard rumors that many of our ships have been sunken by an enemy fleet. This makes returning home from successful raids extremely difficult if not impossible. Asgaut is in Camarague i've received a few letters from him. Raiding in Iberia appears to be an impossibility. My wife Amma refuses to accept that he is dead. i doubt we'll ever know the truth.

My neighbor Vali has just gotten back from a raid on Ireland. it seems the one monastery we generally raid is still there unlike the majority of the other ones we repeatedly raid over the years. it must be at least 6 years now that we've gone to raid them. we'll see how much longer they stay there. Apparently there is this trade that insisted on us giving them some of our trade goods?! can you imagine just giving away things. makes absolutely no sense. well Vali showed him what he thought of that you can be sure. It appears Vali is now in a feud with Sigurd so i'm off to help him and get Geir to come help us too. it seems Sigurd killed Vali's son.