70 DANIEL BRUUN. 
was fastened, and they shouted loudly, and the people believed that 
it was Hvitramannaland (i.e. the white men’s land) or the big Ireland.” 
This account has been interpreted as if white men had discovered 
and inhabited America long before the Greenlander's journeys to Vine- 
land, which is undoubtedly a mistake. National songs and poems have 
evidently had influence on the composition of the saga, so that one has 
confounded America with western Europe. Although many scholars 
have discussed this question, it is to this day an unsolved riddle. That 
Greenlanders have thought Skrællings in Greenland and Skrællings in 
Vineland to be the same sort of people is easily explained. Besides it 
is incredible, that, Thorfinn Karlsefni and his men should ever have 
seen Skrællings in Greenland where, when Eric the Red came it was 
only told that there were traces of their having lived there. The com- 
parison is of a later date. The name Skrællings is already found, as 
we have heard in Ari Frodi’s book, but the signification is indistinet. 
It is connected both to “Skraal” (roar) and “Skra” (leather patch), 
since the latter should either allude to the Skrællings costume or to their 
(wrinkled) skin. WILLIAM THALBITZER’S opinion is*) that the word 
“Skrelling” is rather an imitation of the Eskimoe word “Кагаек”. 
In Greenland the last mentioned name is certainly only preserved as 
a name of a tribe for the south Greenlander and central Greenlander, 
but the name seems to have been known in olden times far beyond 
the bounderies of Greenland. 
Eskimoes in Labrador already knew the name Karalek, when the 
first missionaries about 1760 came to them from Greenland. 
Thalbitzer has furthermore shown in his book on the Eskimoe 
language, certain linguistic resemblances between west Greenlander — 
especially central and south Greenlander’s — dialect and that spoken 
by the Labrador Eskimoes. The name Karalek has in all probability in 
the time of the Vineland travellers existed on the coast of Labrador, 
“and Thorfinn Karlsefni’s two captives can or shall I say must have 
known this old Eskimoe national name.” 
Thalbitzer also gives an explanation of the four names (or words, 
which Karlsefni and his men took for names) which are stated in the 
saga, when the two Skrælling-boys mentioned, were captured. It is inge- 
nious and natural and bears evidence in favour of the interpretation of 
the Skrællings in Vineland as Eskimoes. 
The saga’s record of the vegetation in Vineland has given reason to 
many inquires and surmises. There can be no doubt as to the wild un- 
cultivated grapes thriving in North America. Storm certifies that nearly 
all travellers in the 16th century mention them. The vine’s northern boun- 
deries were in the center of the country on 47° п. lat. they did not extend 
as far as the east coast. With regards to the wheat one has (Schübeler, 
! Skrællings in Markand and Greenland (ref. to the bibliography). 
