26 



in 1266, that description of the Eskimo wliicli is found in the 

 so-called Historia Norwegiæ becomes more valuable. This 

 work, which was found in tlie form of a manuscript in Scot- 

 land in 1849, and whose original tlie historians conjecture to 

 have been written in the IS**" C.*), contains, among other things, 

 a geographical description of the northern lands. '■'■Beyond the 

 Greenlanders toward the north"", we are told, ^4he hunters come 

 across a kind of small people called Scraelings : when they are 

 wounded alive, their wound becomes white without any issue of 

 blood, but the blood scarcely ceases to stream out of them when 

 they are dead. They have no iron whatever and use whale- 

 teeth for missile-ic capons and sharp stones for knives." This 

 certainly seems to indicate, as Fischer thinks"), that already in 

 the IS''' C, the Norsemen and the Skrælings had come into 

 conflict with each other in North Greenland. They must have 

 been seen not far north of Kroksfjord about the year 1300; the 

 Norsemen there prevented tiiem from proceeding farther lor tlie 

 time being. 



Now it is strange that just exactly from the region about 

 Umanak Fjord we have a tradition which treats of the Green- 

 landers' fight on the ice with the old Norsemen (qaw/jourit). 

 This tradition was sent to Dr. Rink in the years 186 J— 63 by 

 the "kateket" Abraham Eliasen of Umanak, who had written it 

 down**'). In it, the Greenlanders are called innuit, not kala'Xit, 

 as in South Greenland. According to the tradition, it seems to 

 have been the Norsemen who gave rise to the struggle, because 

 they had pursued some little girls who had been out to fetch 

 water. These girls came running home and shouted, "They are 



*) F. Jön8son : Den oldiiorske og oldisl. LiUeraturs Historie (1900) Vol.11, 



p. 602. — G. Storm: Monumeiila liistorica Norwegicae. ChrisUania 1S8S. 



The above quotation is found in this work pp. 7»j and 206. 

 **) J. Fischer, u. s. p. 64. 

 ***) Rink: Eskimoiske Eventyr og Sagn. Copenhagen 1866, p. 354, cf. pp. 362 ft'. 



and p. 206. — Tales and Traditions of the Eskimo. London 1875, 



p. 320—21. 



