The dwellings having been completed, Leif divided his men into two parties in order to explore the country. One party was to remain at home while the other went abroad, and the exploring party was always to return at nightfall. Especial charge was given the men to keep together. The fear of the unknown was a marked characteristic of the Dark Ages, even among the Norsemen who dreaded no human foes. One of the party was a German, Tyrker by name, a kind of foster father of Leif. He was missing one night when the explorers came home and Leif at once started in search of him with a party of twelve men. They were soon met by Tyrker, whom they welcomed with great joy. But the man acted most strangely. At first he spoke only in German, his mother tongue, and rolled his eyes and made strange facial contortions when they did not understand what he said. After a time the Norse language came back to him and he explained his queer behavior. He had chanced upon some wild grapes and the memories his discovery brought back were too much for him. Whether he had found some of the fox-grapes which are still so common in New England, or whether, as Professor Fernald conjectures, the fruit was either a wild currant or a rock cranberry, we can not know; but the adventurers were immensely pleased at his discovery. They filled the “long boat,” which was carried with them as a tender, with the dried fruit, when in the early spring they returned to Brattahlid, their home port. Because of the grapes the name Vinland was given to the region. The return of Leif and the account his sailors gave naturally caused intense excitement in that quiet community. In the spring of 1002 Thorvald Ericson, taking his brother’s ship and probably some of Leif’s crew as guides, sailed on another voyage to Vinland. His object was to make a more thorough exploration of the country. Thirty men made up Thorvald’s party. Nothing is told of their voyage until they reached Leif’s booths in Vinland. There they laid up their ship and remained quietly through the winter, living by hunting and fishing. The next year was spent in exploring the lands to the south. The second summer they turned their steps northward and in this northern expedition Thorvald was killed in a battle with the natives. His comrades buried him on the headland where he had proposed to settle. “There you shall bury me,” he told them after he had received his death wound, “and place a cross at my head and another at my feet, and the place shall be called Crossness ever after.” The winter of 1004-5 was passed in Leifsbooths gathering cargo for the return voyage. In the spring they sailed back to Greenland carrying large quantities of grapes as their companions had done. Because of Thorvald’s death the accounts of his voyage are probably more meagre than they otherwise would have been.