Vinland

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Vinland was the Norse name for a rich and verdant land beyond Greenland. Until the mid-20th Century it was generally dismissed as a fantasy. However, in 1960, the remains of a small Norse settlement was discovered in L'Anse Aux Meadows, Newfoundland. Archaeological evidence showed that the Norsemen were driven out by a series of attacks by the local Native Americans, likely the ancestors of the Beothuk first nation.

Leif Eriksson's saga names these people the Skraeling, roughly meaning "savages". In the SCA this name was appropriated by the Barony of Skraeling Althing in the Kingdom of Ealdormere. An "althing" is a meeting or parliament, so it was thought that Skraeling Althing would be an appropriate name for the SCA group found in the modern city of Ottawa, Canada, the nation's capital and location of its national parliament.