ESKIMO AND SKR^LING 



icebergs and drifting ice-floes, all on a vaster scale than 

 anything they had seen before, might in themselves fur- 

 nish additional food for superstition. Such an idea must, 

 from the very beginning, have influenced the relations 

 between the Norsemen and the natives, and is capable of 

 explaining much that is curious in the mention of them, 

 or rather the lack of mention of them, in the sagas, since 

 they were supernatural beings of whom it was best to say 

 nothing. 



In connection with what has been said earlier (pp. 12 f.) 

 as to the Skraelings being regarded as fairies (of whom the 

 name was originally used), it may be adduced that, as Storm 

 pointed out, the word was always translated in Latin by 

 "Pygmasi" in the Middle Ages (cf. above, p. 12). But 

 the Pygmies were precisely " short, undergrown people of 

 supernatural aspect " — that is, like fairies — and the Middle 

 Ages inherited the belief in them from the Greeks and 

 Romans, and, as Moltke Moe has pointed out, the northern 

 Pygmies ( BSpswi IIvniaToi ) were already spoken of in 

 classical times as inhabiting the regions about Thule. But 

 authors like Apollodorus and Strabo denied their existence, 

 and consigned them, together with dog-headed, one-eyed 

 one-footed, mouthless, and other similar beings, to the 

 ranks of fabulous creatures in which classical tradition was 

 so rich. Through St. Augustine the enumeration of these 

 creatures reached Isidore; and from him the knowledge of 

 the Pygmies was disseminated over the whole of mediaeval 

 Europe — partly in the same sense, that of a more or less 

 fabulous people from the uttermost parts of the earth; and 

 partly in the sense of a fairy people (cf. the demons in the 

 form of pygmies in the " Imram Brenaind," see above, 

 p. 10). Supported by popular belief in various countries, 

 the latter meaning soon became general. Of this Moltke 

 Moe gives a remarkable example from the Welshman Walter 

 Mapes (latter half of the twelfth century), who in his curious 

 collection of anecdotes, etc. (called " De nugis curialium "), 



75 



