WINELAND THE GOOD 



away with his boat. They killed the eight. . . ." This is altogether improb- 

 able. Since one man could run away with his boat, the hide-boats must be sup- 

 posed to be kayaks, and the men Eskimo; but in that case only one man 

 would have been lying under each; if they were larger boats (women's boats?) 

 it would be unlike the Eskimo for three men to lie under each, and in any case 

 one man could not run away with a boat. 



The tale of the kidnaped Skrasling children also shows 

 incidents and ideas from wholly different quarters that have 

 been introduced into this saga. That the grown-up Skrasling 

 was bearded (" skeggjaSr ") agrees, of course, neither with 

 Eskimo nor Indians, but it agrees very well with trolls, 

 brownies, and pygmies, and also with the hermits of the Irish 

 legends who were heavily clothed with hair. That this 

 man, with the two women who escaped, " Scink down into 

 the earth " has already been mentioned as an underground 

 feature. That the Skraelings of Markland had no houses, 

 but lived in caves, does not sound any more probable; 

 unless, indeed, this feature is taken from underground gnomes, 

 it may come from the hermits in Irish legends. Thus the 

 holy Paulus [Schroder, 1871, p. 32] dwelt in a cave and was 

 covered with snow-white hair and beard (cf. the bearded 

 Skraeling), whom Brandan met on an island a little while 

 before he came to the Terra Repromissionis (cf. the cir- 

 cumstance that Markland lay a little to the north of Wine- 

 land). The myth of Hvitramanna-land is derived from 

 Ireland, and has, of course, nothing to do with the Skraeling 

 boys. Storm, it is true, thought they might have told of a 

 great country (Canada or New Brunswick) with inhabitants 

 in the west, which later became the Irish mythical land; 

 but this, too, is not very credible. The names they gave are 

 obviously not to be relied on: they may be later inventions, 

 from which no conclusion at all can be drawn as to the 

 language of the Skraelings, as has been attempted by earlier 

 inquirers.^ The two kings* names, "Avalldamon" and 



1 W. Thalbitzer's attempt [1905, pp. 190 f.] to explain the words, not as 

 originally names, but as accidental, misunderstood Eskimo sentences, which are 



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