INTRODUCTION. 7 



similar people. Tliey called them Skraellings, which means 

 persons of a diminutive size, and which the reader will 

 hereafter find is consonant to modem observation. The 

 native Greenlanders have amongst them some confused and 

 imperfect accounts of the Kablunaet, that is, the European, . 

 having called them by the name of Karalit, which, from 

 their mode of omitting the first letter of words dilferent 

 from their own, bears a resemblance to Skraelling, and in 

 some degree maintains the credit of the tradition. 



One remarkable trait in the character of this people is an 

 insurmountable aversion to the presence of intruders ; and 

 such they consider every one who is not of their OAvn 

 nation. In whatever manner they and the new-comers 

 agreed, whether adopting their usual measure, of with- 

 drawing to a remote distance to leave the helpless strangers 

 to perish, or to retire from their fisheries, is not related. 

 Ivar Beer, an early historian, mentions, that Greenland was 

 inhabited and tilled both on the eastern and western sides, 

 in the fourteenth century. This is further confirmed by 

 another statement, which represents Lief, the son of Eric 

 Raude, coming to Norway, in 999, to report on the state of 

 Greenland. Adam Bremensis, who wrote in the eleventh 

 century, makes mention of Lief having discovered New- 

 foundland, in the year 1001, and went the year following 

 to Greenland, probably on his father's course, and met 

 with Skraellings in boats. 



