THE GLACIAL MAN IN AMERICA. 41 



the final extinction of the Icelandic colony in Greenland may in part 

 be attributed. Nevertheless, from the year 985 down to the vicinity 

 of 1335, the Skrgellings, so far as the records go, do not aj^pear to have 

 given any trouble. But about that period they suddenly appeared in 

 force. At that time the western coast of Greenland was divided into 

 two districts, called the East and West Bygds, there never having 

 been any Europeans permanently inhabiting the eastern coast, though 

 the Saga of " Thorgill's Nursling " shows that a family or two of 

 Skraellings may have dwelt there. 



That the Skrcellings appeared in considerable force is indicated by 

 the fact that an expedition was organized to meet them. The " Chron- 

 icle " of Ivar Bardsen * shows that Bardsen himself was selected by 

 the colonists as their commander. This " Chronicle " was composed 

 during the second half of the fourteenth century, but it is impossible 

 to say in what year. It is certain, however, that upon the 6th of 

 August, 1340, Haquin, Bishop of Bergen, in Norway, commissioned 

 Bardsen to act in Greenland, as the latter was born in that country, 

 and was perfectly acquainted with all its affairs. His commission is 

 still preserved at Copenhagen, and a copy may be seen in Rafn's 

 " Amerikas Arctiske landes gamle Geographie," p. 47. Whether the 

 Greenland colonists appointed him their leader before or after 1340, 

 it is impossible now to say. Crantz, in his work on Greenland, inti- 

 mates that the killing of some eighteen persons by the Skraellings led 

 to the appointment of Bardsen. The natives gave Crantz a tradition 

 respecting a fight between their Skraelling ancestors and the colonists, 

 whom they called " Kablunaets." A quarrel sprang up about shooting 

 arrows, and blood was shed, the natives declaring that the Kablunaets 

 were exterminated. This may possibly explain what became of the 

 remnant of Europeans left in Greenland in the fifteenth century, but 

 it can not refer to the fourteenth, as the communication was kept up 

 with Greenland during that period. It was in the year 1379 that the 

 eighteen colonists were slain. "Islenzkir Annalar," page 331, says, 

 under that year, that hostile Skraellings invaded Greenland, killing 

 eighteen men, and carrying away two boys captive. It is probable 

 that from this time the Skraellings proved formidable, though, when 

 Bardsen went into the western district to meet them, they were no- 

 where to be found, having either hid themselves or fled into the inac- 

 cessible fastnesses of the north. He nevertheless secured some of the 

 cattle belonging to the colonists, and returned southward to Avhat was 

 called the East Bygd. In Bardsen's time the West Bygd was evi- 

 dently abandoned, owing to the weakness of the colonists ; and he 

 says, in his " Chronicle," that " now the Skraellings inhabit all the 

 west land and Dorps." It must have been from the deserted West 

 Bygd that they came to attack the colonists in 1379. The Ice- 

 landic annals of the fourteenth century mention no more fighting in 

 * Published by Munsell, Albany, as " Sailing Directions of Henry Hudson." 



