IN NORTHERN MISTS 



spoken of in a missing portion of the " King's Mirror," which 

 perhaps was never finished by the author, is improbable, as the 

 account of Greenland and its natural conditions seems to be 

 concluded.^ 



Concerning the " King's Mirror " as a whole one ought to 

 be cautious in drawing conclusions from its silence on various 

 subjects; from its mentioning whales in the Iceland sea and 

 seals in Greenland but not in Norway one might conclude that 

 neither whale nor seal occurred in Norway; and the same is 

 the case with the aurora borealis, which is only mentioned in 

 Greenland. 



If we attempt to sum up what we may conclude from the 

 historical sources as to the Eskimo or Skraelings of Green- 

 land during the first centuries of the Norse settlement there, 

 something like the following is the result: When Eric the 

 Red arrived in Greenland he found everywhere along the 

 west coast traces left by the Skraslings, but whether and to 

 what extent he met with the people themselves we do not 

 hear. The probability is that the primitive people retired 

 from those parts of the coast, the Eastern and Western 

 Settlements, where the warlike and violent Norsemen estab- 

 lished themselves; while they continued to live in the 

 *' wastes " to the north. The " Historia Norvegias " (besides 

 the accounts of the voyages to the north from Nort5rsetur 

 in 1266 and 1267) shows that the Norsemen met with them 



1 William Thalbitzer, the authority on the Eskimo, has lately [1909, p. 14] 

 adduced the silence of the " King's Mirror " and of the Icelandic annals on the 

 subject of the Skraelings of Greenland as evidence that the Norsemen had not 

 met with them on their northern expeditions to NorcSrsetur; but what has been 

 brought forward above shows that nothing of the kind can be concluded from 

 the silence of the " King's Mirror " (which, moreover, says nothing about the 

 NorSrsetur expeditions); and why in particular the Icelandic annals should 

 allude to the Skraelings in Greenland seems difficult to understand. This is no 

 evidence, especially as we see that the Skraelings are mentioned in other con- 

 temporary authorities, such as the "Historia Norvegia2," Ivar Bardsson's de- 

 scription, the account of the voyages in 1266 and 1267, etc. Besides, in the 

 last authority it is expressly stated that there were Skraelings in NorSrsetur 

 (Kroksfjar5arheifr, cf. p. 83). 

 88 



