IN NORTHERN MISTS 



come in contact with the earlier people; but in the latter 

 case this is incredible, and moreover conflicts with Are's own 

 words in the passages immediately preceding, according to 

 which the Christians left after the heathen Norsemen 

 arrived. Three kinds of traces are mentioned in each case: 

 the " papar " left Irish books, bells, and croziers ; the Skraelings 

 left dwelling-places, fragments of boats, and stone implements. 

 This may have somewhat the look of a turn of style in the 

 sober Are, who thought it of more value to lay stress on 

 visible signs of this kind than to give a possibly less trust- 

 worthy statement about the people themselves. We must 

 also bear in mind how terse and condensed the form of the 

 islendingabok is. I therefore read Are's words as though he 

 meant to say something like the following : " As early as Eric's 

 first voyage to Greenland they found at once dwelling-places 

 both in the Eastern and Western Settlements, and fragments 

 of boats, and stone implements, so that from this it can be 

 seen that over the whole of that region there had been present 

 the same kind of people who also live in Wineland, and who 

 are the same as those the Greenlanders call Skraelings." 

 Nothing is said about the waste districts of Greenland, where 

 the Skraelings especially lived, and it is only in passing that 

 Wineland is mentioned in this one passage. Are's Islendinga- 

 bok cannot, therefore, be used as evidence that the Norsemen 

 had not yet met with the Skraelings of Greenland in Are's 

 time. As he expressly says that they found " manna vistir 

 baef>e austr oc vestr a lande " (human dwelling-places both 

 east and west in the land — i.e., both in the Eastern and 

 Western Settlements), this, too, shows that the stay of the 

 Eskimo in south Greenland cannot have been merely a short 

 and cursory summer visit; but there must have been many 

 of them who stayed there a long time, for otherwise they 

 would hardly have left remains so conspicuous and distributed 

 over so wide an area as to be mentioned with such emphasis 

 as this. 



That Eskimo were living on the south coast of Greenland when the Iceland- 

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