title: Paramount chieftain
text: # Paramount chieftain
  
  The ancient Norse rulers of Greenland were called paramount chieftains.
  
  Among the island nation's chieftains were:
  
  * Erik the Red, or Eirikr Thorvaldsson, the nation's first chieftain and its first settler, began rule in 985.
  * Leif Ericson, likely the first European to set foot in North America
  * Thorkell Leifsson succeeded his father, Leif, sometime after 1018.
  