According to a literal interpretation of Einar Haugen's translation of the two sagas in the book "Voyages to Vinland", Leif was not the first European to discover America: he had heard the story of merchant Bjarni Herjólfsson who claimed to have sighted land to the west of Greenland after having been blown off course. Bjarni reportedly never made landfall there, however. Later, when travelling from Norway to Greenland, Leif was also blown off course, to a land that he did not expect to see, where he found "self-sown wheat fields and grapevines." He next rescued two men who were shipwrecked and went back to Greenland and Christianised the people there.