Short Stories in English for Beginners

evidence
!’ He held up a small piece of cloth.
On the cloth there were strange images. ‘Someone made this! You must
believe me! I know something is there!’
The Vikings kept quiet and continued rowing. But they all had one
question on their mind: who told Chief Eskol there was land in the west?

---

Later that day, it suddenly began to rain. The wind became stronger. The
water began to get 
rough
. Soon, a 
storm
 developed like they had never
seen. It hit the ships so strongly that they could hardly sail. The Vikings
fought to keep the three ships together.
At last the storm passed. Chief Eskol could see the 
sky
again. He
checked where the ships were. Then he became angry. The storm had
changed their 
course
! He could not be sure where they were. He could not
tell the men. He could only hope he was still right. There had to be land if
they went west.
Days later, Thoric woke early. He looked to the sky. Suddenly, he saw
something. At first he couldn’t believe it. Then he looked again. Yes, they
were really there!
Thoric ran for Niels. ‘Niels! Niels! Wake up!’ he shouted.
‘What’s going on?’ said the explorer, his eyes still shut.
‘There are birds!’
‘What?’
‘There are birds in the sky! There’s land nearby!’
Niels’ eyes flew open. He looked up. There, far to the west, he saw birds!
‘So it is true!’ he cried.
Niels got up. He had to report to the Chief. Thoric went with him. ‘Chief
Eskol, wake up!’ shouted Niels.
Chief Eskol quickly woke up. ‘Niels? Thoric? What’s happened?’
‘There are birds in the sky!’ shouted Niels.
‘There’s land!’ cried Thoric.
Chief Eskol quickly stood. Then he shouted to the ships’ men, ‘Row!
Come on! Wake up, everyone! There is land nearby! Row!’
The men rowed hard and saw land at last. Chief Eskol ordered the ships
to stop at a nearby beach. The beach was very long. There were many trees
and mountains nearby. It was beautiful.
The Vikings got off their ships. Chief Eskol called the men together.
They broke into small groups. He said to one group, ‘You lot, gather sticks.
We need a fire.’ Then he looked at Thoric and Niels. ‘We have very few

---

resources
 left,’ he said. ‘We won’t last long unless we hunt. Shoot several
animals.’
Thoric and Niels hunted, but nothing felt natural. The trees and sounds
were different. Even the animals were different. But the men were hungry.
They killed and ate the unknown animals anyway. The meat was different,
but it was not bad.
Chief Eskol spoke to the men that night. ‘We’ve got food now. And we
are thankful for that,’ he told them. ‘But now we need to explore. We must
see what is beyond the beach. We need to find out if we can farm here. If
we can raise food here, more Vikings will come.’
One of the men asked, ‘How do we know where we are? Some men think
the storm took us off course.’
Chief Eskol didn’t speak for several minutes. In the end, he said nothing.
He ignored the question and said, ‘We must explore this place. We’ll start
tomorrow at