132 DANIEL BRUUN. 
horses, goats, cattle, and sheep, but everything is wild, and no people, 
christian or heathen.” [literally rendered] — — — 
“All this, refered to, was related by the Greenlander Ivar BAARD- 
son, who for many years was a superintendant at the bishop-see at 
Gardar in Greenland, having seen it himself, besides being one of them 
appointed by the "Lagmand” to go to the western settlement, to drive 
the Skrællmgs out of it, but when they got there, they found no 
people, neither christian nor heathen, but only some wild cattle and 
sheep. They fed themselves on the wild cattle and took as much as 
the ship could load and sailed home with it: the Ivar mentioned was 
with them.” 
According to this communication one would suppose that the Skræll- 
ings had brought, all the Norsemen still to be found in the western 
settlement, to a violent end. Perhaps there were only a few left, and 
they themselves have in all probability in certain cases occasioned the 
contentions with the Skrællings, who now appeared on territory where 
the Norsemen previously had been sole-rulers. 
On my journey in 1903 in the district of Godthaab, — the old western 
settlement's territory — I visited parts, where the tradition of fights 
between the Eskimoes and the Norsemen still prevail amongst the 
Eskimoes (“Greenlanders”) of our day. 
“In the beginning, after the forefathers of the last mentioned had 
come to the western settlement, they and the Norsemen lived — it is 
said — [in one of the legends recorded by the celebrated H. Rink] peace- 
fully together; but subsequently disagreements arose — a woman was 
the cause — and the Norsemen attacked the tent-places in Godthaab's 
fiord in the neighbourhood of Ujaragssuit, where now the ruin of a Norse- 
church is to be found. The men were on a reindeer hunt, and the saga 
relates, that there the Norsemen attacked the women and killed them; 
only one of them escaped. Now the Skrællings decided to revenge 
themselves, so they made an “Umiak” which they covered with beau- 
tiful white skins, so that it should resemble а hummock of ice. A few 
dark skins were amongst them, and the boat was so arranged that 
it could turn over onto the one side, whilst the crew lay in the bottom of it. 
When the boat was some distance from the land, it looked like a 
piece of ice without people, although it was filled with people, who 
could see everything that went on, through holes in the sides of the 
boat. When they let it capsize, it resembled a little [dirty] hummock of 
ice which had calved [i. e. broken off a glacier by the water] as its 
surface was alternately shining white and of a dusky hue. 
The first trial of attack on the Norsemen failed, as they in the 
meantime had fled southwards to Ameralikfiord’s head [Ameragdla] 
where they had joined their countrymen from other western settle- 
ment farms, as they thought they could better withstand the Skræll- 
ings when they were collected. Here the Eskimoes searched for them, 
