This is a kind of FAQ about the Vikings, so please forgive me to provides with the cut and paste from the previous thread, Why didn’t news of Leif Erickson’s discovery spread across Europe?

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This is indeed one of FAQs on the Vikings. Please also check the following answers either by /u/sagathain, /u/Platypuskeeper, and myself in the following thread:

• Did the Scandinavian people know about Vinland?
• Viking exploration rumors?

In short, the news reached also to Scandinavia, and out of Scandinavia in course of the 11th century. The oldest extant written account of Vinland was recorded in the late 11th century Germany.

Nevertheless, these points should be emphasized:

• We don't know what exactly the initial oral tradition told about Vinland: The famous two Vinland sagas were written first after more than a century after this oldest 'German' account, the history of the archbishops of Hamburg-Bremen, by Adam of Bremen (1075), and medieval Icelandic scribes must have known this written account (the oldest historical writing in medieval Iceland, the Book of Icelanders, was also in fact modeled after this work by Adam). Some part, especially grapes (with a Christian symbolic meaning), might well have been an later embellishment either by Adam himself or his informant, king of the Danes, even in this oldest written form.
• In this oldest written tradition of Adam of Bremen, Vinland is certainly fabulous, but just a otherworldly island that few people knew the exact location or sailing route. After the third decade of the 12th century, no one seemed to find and to reach Vinland, though Greenlanders seemed to travel Markland (the land of forest, identified with Labrador Peninsula) regularly. It indeed sounds like a promised, legendary isles in the famous legends of the voyage of St. Brendan in medieval Ireland.
• The importance of the new land itself and settlement in Viking Expansion has been hugely over-emphasized especially among non-specialists, I assume. While L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland did not last beyond a generation (though the latest research suggests some sporadic visits of humans in the 11th century), Norse Greenlandic settlements kept settled in about 4 centuries. It can mean that the Norse settlers regarded Greenlandic settlements, with colder climate and high latitude, primarily as more attractive than Newfoundland (I suppose the access to the exotic natural resources for import was the most important factor).

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I also wrote a summary about Leif in Can I hear about Leif Erikson, all I know about him is that he was the first important European to step foot in North America and I would like to hear about that and any other cool things he did?.

In short, Leif only appear in two medieval Icelandic sagas, put in writing more than 2 centuries after the original events (the exploration of Vinland) allegedly occurred. I don't say he was entirely invented by the later saga author(s) (there were probably some oral traditions on him also in the 13th and 14th century Iceland), but we are not sure whether he really played an important role in Vinland expedition as the later sagas claimed, since the oldest written account of Vinland, transmitted and recorded in late 11th century Germany (Adam of Bremen), does not allude to him at all.

Scholars have debated for long whether the saga can be regarded primarily as a history or a literature (or in oral or in written nature), and now very few of them consider the person only appear in the saga that allegedly narrated a course of events in the late 10th century Iceland primarily as a historical figure. If we apply this general pattern of source criticism to Leif, we don't have any clue on the historicity of Leif himself as well as his alleged discovery of Vinland, at least as told in Vinland Sagas. The popular history had paid attention to Vinland sagas first in the 19th century, before this turn of tide in saga scholarship and modern history study on medieval Scandinavia. This kind of more strict approach to sagas, tend often to be neglected out of academic discussions and/ or in USA especially in conjunction with Vinland/ Leif problem.

As I briefly suggested in Is there any physical evidence of Leif Erickson's settlement on North America?, Leif became really popular (that means to have surpassed the fame of his father, Erik the Red (settler of Norse Greenland settlement)) first in post-medieval times, or it was not until the 19th century that his current popularity originated. His 'fame' of the first European to 'discover' Vinland belongs rather to post-medieval his afterlife to him as a real, historical figure.