Tjodhilde’s husband, Erik the Red, had the honour of being the first European to set foot in Greenland, and their son, Leif Eriksson, was the man who not only brought Christianity to the Viking community in Greenland, but was also the first European to make landfall in North America, some 500 years before Columbus.
Tjodhilde herself, however, also achieved remarkable feats: It was she who was behind the first Christian church on the North American continent in Brattahlid, and it was also she who converted her warlike, pagan husband to Christianity.