Actually it was Eric (Eiríkur) that founded Greenland, his son, Leifur ;) was the one that found the mainland of North America.
Someone might say to me that, well actually it were the indians that found it first, and then again it might have been some proto-natives that the indians replaced. But that all is of no consequence as Leifur, found it, in the sense of making the western civilization aware of it, and thus the subsequent transfer of that knowledge to documents (i.e. Grænlendingasaga and more of our saga´s) that surely found its way to the archives of the builder of western civilization, the church in Rome.
And the ITALIAN, Christopher Columbus, quite likely had knowledge of found lands in the west, and stories of fishermen that had wandered upon it over the years.
Thanks all for the interest in our cultural heritage of patronyms, you are correct about our siffix, alhough they are written as such:
-son
-dóttir
and the first name of the father takes the dativ form which often adds another s in front of the suffix. Sometimes the mothers name is there instead, although you can guess that happens mostly where the father is unknown or not given up, or some arty hippy feminist circles, where f.e. both are given up, f.e. in the instance of one of the leaders of the social democratic party: Dagur Bergþóruson Eggertsson, with the middle name most often shortened to just B.
As to the article, the most important sentence in it is near the end, which reveals the single worst thing about this collapse and the reason hope is squashed and people see little future in the next decades, even though they voted for it, not in a sense that they would fix it, but to punish and vent their anger:
“Iceland’s first ever Left-wing government came to power last year after the previous Right-wing administration collapsed following a wave of protests blaming it for the state of the economy.”
Thanks for your clarification on Eric and Leif. I am aware that Leif brought Christianity to North America in the year 1000 AD.
I am also aware that Christopher Columbus was probably in contact with northern Africans who had previously visited North America. It is written that Portgal and Spain had already decided how to split South America before it was "discovered" because a map was available.
God bless you and your wonderful country. I hope that you can dig out of your economic mess -- but you will do this; Icelanders are rugged people.