Skræling is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the peoples they encountered in North America and Greenland. In surviving sources, it is first applied to the Thule people, the proto-Inuit group with whom the Norse coexisted in Greenland after about the 13th century. In the sagas, it is also used for the peoples of the region known as Vinland whom the Norse encountered during their expeditions there in the early 11th century.
Etymology
The term is thought to have first been used by Ari Thorgilsson in his work Íslendingabók, also called The Book of the Icelanders, written well after the period in which Norse explorers made their first contacts with indigenous Americans. By the time these sources were recorded, skræling was the common term Norse Greenlanders used for the Thule people, the ancestors to the modern Inuit. The Thule first arrived in Greenland from the North American mainland in the 13th century and were thereafter in contact with the Greenlanders. The Greenlanders' Saga and the Saga of Erik the Red, which were written in the 13th century, use this same term for the people of the area known as Vinland whom the Norse met in the early 11th century. The word subsequently became well known, and has been used in the English language since the 18th century. The word skræling is from Greenlandic Norse, the Old Norsedialect spoken by the medieval Norse Greenlanders. In modern Icelandic, means "barbarian", whereas the Danish descendant,, means "weakling". The origin of the word is not certain. William Thalbitzer speculates that skræling might have been derived from the Old Norse verb skrækja, meaning "bawl, shout, or yell". An etymology by Michael Fortescueet al. proposes that the Icelandic word skrælingi may be related to the word, meaning "dried skin", in reference to the animal pelts worn by the Inuit.
Norse exploration of the New World began with the initial sighting of North America by an Icelander named Bjarni Herjólfsson, who spotted land after drifting off course on a journey to Greenland in 985 or 986. His voyage piqued the interest of later explorers including Leif Eriksson, who would explore and name the areas of Helluland, Markland and Vinland.
First contact
Eriksson laid the groundwork for later colonizing efforts in the generations to come by establishing a foothold on Vinland, when he constructed some "large houses." Upon his return to Greenland, Thorvald has the first contact with the native population which would come to be known as the skrælings. After capturing and killing eight of the natives, they were attacked at their beached ships, which they defended:
Thorfinn Karlsefni
was the first Norse explorer to attempt to truly colonize the newly discovered land of Vinland on the same site as his predecessors Thorvald and Leif Eriksson. According to the Saga of Erik the Red, he set sail with three ships and 140 men. Upon reaching Vinland, their intended destination, they found the now famous grapes and self-sown wheat for which the land was named. They spent a very hard winter at this site, where they barely survived by fishing, hunting game inland, and gathering eggs on the island. The following summer they sailed to the island of Hop where they had the first peaceful interactions with the native people, with whom they traded. Karlsefni forbade his men to trade their swords and spears, so they mainly exchanged their red cloth for pelts. Afterwards they were able to describe the aboriginal inhabitants in detail, saying: Shortly thereafter, the Norsemen were attacked by natives who had been frightened by a bull that broke loose from their encampment. They were forced to retreat to an easily defensible location and engage their attackers; at the end of the battle two of his men had been slain, while "many of the natives" were killed. As with anywhere in this foreign land, Karlsefni and his men realized that After this adventure, they returned to Greenland. Their three-year excursion would be the longest lasting known European colony in the New World until Columbus's voyages nearly 500 years later initiated full-scale colonization.
Inuit folktales of the Norse
There are also accounts from the Inuit peoples which describe interactions with the Norse: Kavdlunait was the Inuit word for foreigner or European, compare modern Greenlandic , formerly spelled ĸavdlunâĸ.
