Skræling (Old Norse and Icelandic: skrælingi, plural skrælingjar) is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the indigenous peoples they encountered in North America and Greenland.[1] In surviving sources it is first applied to the Thule people, the Eskimo 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 (probably Newfoundland) whom the Norse encountered during their expeditions there in the early 11th century.
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The term first appears in sources dating to 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.[2]
The word skræling is the only word surviving from the Old Norse dialect spoken by the mediæval Norse Greenlanders. In modern Icelandic, skrælingi means a barbarian or foreigner. The origin of the word is not certain, but it is probably based on the Old Norse word skrá which meant "skin"; and as a verb, "to put in writing" (written accounts, such as the Icelandic Sagas, were put on dried skin in Iceland). The Eskimo, both Thule and Dorset, as well as other indigenous people whom the Norse Greenlanders met, wore clothes made of animal skins, in contrast to the woven wool clothes worn by the Norse.
Some scholars have speculated that skrælingi came from the Scandinavian word skral or the Icelandic word skrælna. The word skral connotes "thin" or "scrawny". In the Scandinavian languages, it is often used as a synonym for feeling sick or weak. But, this speculation is probably a case of folk etymology or linguistic "false friend"; the word skral does not exist in medieval Norse texts (for example the Icelandic sagas) nor in modern Icelandic. It is a 17th-century loanword from Low German into the Scandinavian languages: Danish, Norwegian and Swedish. Skræling or skrælling means weakling in modern Norwegian and Danish.[3][4] Skrælna refers to shrinking or drying (plants for example). But, the written medieval texts do not use skræling in an adverse sense.
The Greenlandic ethnonym Kalaalleq may be based on the Norse Skræling (the combination skr is unknown in the Inuit language) or on the Norse klæði (meaning cloth).
As documented by William H. Babcock in "Certain Pre-Columbian Notices of American Aborigines", the word skræling may have been the name of one of the North American tribes encountered by Norse during initial contact. The story was that Norseman Bjorn the Bonde saved two Skræling siblings from the sea. As was their custom, in gratitude the Skrælings decided to become the Norseman's life-long servants. During this service, the Skrælings indicated that the word skræling was how their peoples' name was pronounced in Norse. Eventually, "The brother and sister killed themselves and threw themselves down the cliffs into the sea when they were prohibited from following along with Bjorn Bonde..." on his return to Iceland.[5]
Skrælingar inhabiting North America are first mentioned in the Icelandic sagas that related how the Norsemen of Greenland discovered the mainland of the American continent. There, they encountered a hitherto unknown race that they called Skrælingar. Thus, in the Saga of the Greenlanders:
| “ | After the first winter summer came, and they became aware of Skrælings, who came out of the forest in a large flock. | ” |
| “ | ...[The skrælings were] carrying their packs which contained furs and sables and pelts of all kinds...Then the skrælings put down their packs and opened them up and offered their contents, preferably in exchange for weapons; but Karlsefni forbade his men to sell arms. Then he hit on the idea of telling the women to carry milk out to the skrælings, and when the skrælings saw the milk they wanted to buy nothing else. | ” |
The story's setting is a forested area rich in all sorts of food and even grapes (Vinland). This suggests that the Norsemen first encountered the Skrælings somewhere on the Eastern Seaboard of present-day Canada.
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