This statue of Leif Erikson, located in front of Hallgrímskirkja Cathedral, depicts him larger than life sized, standing heroically at the edge of a mount. He holds an axe with his right hand and wears a sword on his left side. It is set on a rising marble plinth that bears the inscription:
"LEIFR
EIRICSSON
SON OF ICELAND
DISCOVERER OF
VINLAND
THE
UNITED STATES
OF AMERICA TO
THE PEOPLE
OF ICELAND
ON THE ONE
THOUSANDTH
ANNIVERSARY
OF THE ALTHING
A.D. 1930"
The 1930 bronze work is by Stirling Calder.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Leif Erikson or Leif Ericson...c. 970 – c. 1020) was an Icelandic[3] explorer (while his father was Norse) considered by some as the first European to land in North America (excluding Greenland), before Christopher Columbus. According to the Sagas of Icelanders, he established a Norse settlement at Vinland, tentatively identified with the Norse L'Anse aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland in modern-day Canada.
It is believed that Leif was born in Iceland around the 970s—the son of Icelandic mother Þjóðhildur (anglicized Thjodhild) and Norse father Erik the Red, an explorer and outlaw from Western Norway. Erik founded the first Norse colonies in Greenland, and was based at the family estate Brattahlíð in the Eastern Settlement, where Leif had his upbringing. Leif had two known sons: Thorgils, born to noblewoman Thorgunna in the Hebrides; and Thorkell, who succeeded him as chieftain of the Greenland settlement."