ESKIMO AND SKRiELING 



Norway (like those in the letter to the Pope and in Walken- 

 dorf), mentions no other inhabitants of Greenland but the Es- 

 kimo (Pygmies and Karelians) ; ^ but they are still referred to as 

 semi-mythical and troll-like beings. 



The explanation must doubtless be sought in a fundamental 

 difference in the point of view. To the Icelandic authors, 

 brought up as they were in saga writing (and for the most part 

 priests), the life and struggles of their ancestors in Greenland 

 were the only important thing, while ethnographical interest in 

 the primitive people of the country, the heathen, troll-like 

 Skraelings, was foreign to them. To this must be added the 

 reasons already pointed out (p. 8i). In Norway, on the other 

 hand, kinship with the Icelandic Norsemen in Greenland was 

 more distant, and interest in the strange, outlandish Skrae- 

 lings was correspondingly greater. Here, also, different in- 

 tellectual associations, and intercourse with a variety of 

 nationalities, caused, on the whole, a greater awakening of the 

 ethnographical sense. 



A remarkable exception is the " King's Mirror *' (circa 

 1250), which makes no mention of the Skraelings, although 

 a good deal of space is devoted to Greenland and the Green- 

 landers. But this, as it happens, throws light upon the 

 curious silence on the Skraelings in Icelandic literature. 

 From the " Historia Norvegiae," which seems to have been 

 written approximately at the same time as or soon after the 

 "King's Mirror" (perhaps between 1260 and 1264), it appears, 

 as we have said, that the Greenland Skraelings were known 

 in Norway at that time; and in that case it is incredible 

 that the well-informed author of the " King's Mirror," who 

 shows such intimate knowledge of conditions in Greenland, 

 should not have heard of them. If he, nevertheless, does 

 not allude to them, it appears that this must be for a similar 

 reason to that which caused them to be so little mentioned in 

 Icelandic literature. That the Skraelings should have been 



1 In the account attributed to Ivar Bardsson, first written down in Norway, 

 the Skraelings also receive a good deal of attention. 



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