COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. 51 be none in this pleasant land to molest them or make them afraid, for when, soon after their arrival, a great number of the natives came upon them suddenly, they came with signs of peace. They landed from their canoes, and loitered about the settlement, gazing in wonder upon the strangers and all that belonged to them, but they had apparently no hostile intent, and neither meddled nor were they meddled with. When they left, they disappeared beyond the cape, and nothing more was seen of them till the following spring. They are described as "black and ill-favored (or fierce), and with coarse hair on the head; they had large eyes and broad cheeks." But in the spring (1009) they came back again in much augmented numbers, "so many," it is related, "as if the sea was sowen Trade with with coal." But still they came in amity, and a brisk trade the natives. at once sprung up between them and the colonists. Red cloth was exchanged, as long as it lasted, for skins, sables, and other furs; when that was all gone the women made milk porridge, which satisfied the savages quite as well and brought quite as much as the bits of red cloth, though, as the Saga says, they only carried away in their bellies the results of a barter of which the Northmen gained the more substantial benefit. But this pleasing state of things was interrupted by an unfortunate incident. A bull belonging to Karlsefne rushed out of the woods with a hideous bellow, and so frightened the Skrællings that they fled to their boats and paddled away with all the strength that a new terror could give them. It was a ludicrous interruption to the profitable traffic of por ridge for peltries; but the natives evidently looked upon it as a hostile demonstration, having the same dread of this huge, unknown beast, that the Indians of Hispaniola had some centuries later of the horses of the Spaniards. Esquimaux Skin-boat. For weeks, perhaps for months, for the accounts differ, nothing more was seen of the Skrællings; but when they returned again, they came "like a rushing torrent," with the poles of their boats now turned away from the sun, whereas in their previous visit they had been turned toward it. The Northmen looked upon this as a sign of hostility, and accepted the challenge, holding up to them the red shield of war instead of the white shield of peace. nipped by biting cold." No truthful and accurate observer could write thus now of the bitter climate of Massachusetts, with its extremes of temperature in summer and winter. Battle with Then began a furious battle. The Northmen had the advantage of weapons, for they fought with swords. But they were overSkrællings. powered by numbers, and soon fled. Something like a panic, moreover, seized upon them, even more senseless than the fright which overcame the Skrællings the spring before at the bellowings of the bull. It is said that a huge ball at the end of a pole was flourished over them, and thrown to the ground with a horrid noise. The noise and the novelty of this method of warfare, with the accompaniment of shouts and yells, seem to have been the only frightful thing about it, for it did the Northmen no harm, though they fled before it like affrighted children. But there was one among them who was not frightened; this was Freydis, the natural daughter of Eric the Red, and wife of Thorvard. Rushing out among the combatants, she shrieked, "Why do ye run, stout men as ye are, before these miserable wretches, whom I thought ye would knock down like cattle? And if I had weapons, methinks I could fight better than any of ye." But they gave no heed to the dauntless woman, still seeking safety in flight to the shelter of the woods. Freydis, who was heavy with child, followed closely behind, pursued by the Skrællings. Coming presently to the dead body of a countryman,- dead with a stone arrow in his brain, she seized his sword and was ready to defend herself. She did more than this, for she completely turned the tide of batBravery of tle, and that in a way which has no parallel in any other Freydis. record of Amazonian exploits. She turned and faced the advancing savages; but instead of attacking them, she tore open her dress, and exposing her naked breasts, beat them with the sword with the aspect and the cries of a fury. The Skrællings, terrified at this strange action, turned and ran with all speed to the canoes, and seizing the paddles, flew, like a flock of startled wild duck just skimming the surface of the water in their swift flight, down the bay. Perhaps they thought the woman some powerful priestess whose incantations and imprecations would bring upon them swift destruction; or it may be that her frantic gestures and cries, her courageous defiance, and the exposure of her bare bosom to their attacks, daunted them because it was something they could not understand; but this picture of the fierce Norse warriors flying before a sheep's paunch tied to the end of a pole, and owing their safety to the fury of a woman beside herself with rage, is in ludicrous contrast with the tradition of their reckless and invincible courage. The colony This was virtually the end of Karlsefne's attempt at coloabandoned. nization, though, it was not absolutely abandoned till the following spring, of 1010. He and his companions were not again mo COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. 1 53 lested by the Skrællings, but they thought it not worth while to remain in a country, however otherwise desirable, where they were liable to such attacks. This decision was probably confirmed by meeting, on one of their excursions, with a Uniped, who, after killing one of their number, fled out to sea. Such marvels were believed in even in a much later and more enlightened age. Other natives were sometimes met and generally killed, no doubt without much compunction. Two boys they took as prisoners were carried back to Greenland, taught Norse, and baptized. From them it was learned that there were two kings over the Skrællings, one named Avalidania, the other, Valldidia; their people had no houses, but lived in dens and caves. In another part of the country, however, there was, they said, another people, who "wore white clothes, and shouted loud, and carried poles with flags." And this was supposed to be the White Man's Land, a mythical colony of Irish somewhere south of Vinland.2 1 Charlevoix (History of New France, vol. i. pp. 124, 128, Shea's edition) repeats the stories told five centuries later, of voyagers who saw or heard of Unipeds, - men with only one leg and foot, and with two hands on the same arm, of pygmies, of giants, of men who never eat, of headless men, and of other monsters, of which, he says, it is easy to believe that there is some exaggeration, but it is easier to deny extraordinary facts than to explain them." 2 The Northmen called the country somewhere south of Vinland the White Man's Land, or Great Ireland, and believed that it was occupied by the Irish. Professor Rafn supposes it to have extended from Chesapeake Bay to East Florida. One of their narratives relates that in the year 928, one Ari Marson, an Icelander, was driven there by an easterly storm, and was not permitted to go away again. The story came from a Limerick merchant and from the Earl of the Orkneys, and it is therefore presumed that occasional intercourse was kept up between the people of this Hvitramanna-land and Europe. A romantic story is also told of one Bjarni Asbrandson, a famous viking, who was always fighting, or singing songs, or making love. The marital bond sat loosely upon the women of Iceland, and it was nothing unusual that Bjarni should overstep the limits of morality and propriety in his attentions to another man's wife, and that her husband and his friends should therefore attempt to kill him. The husband of this woman Thurid, Bjarni seems to have held in great contempt; but for her brother, Snorri, the high-priest, he entertained a very different feeling. After an encounter with him, in which they both showed a good deal of magnanimity, Snorri trying to kill Bjarni and failing, but frankly acknowledging his intention, and Bjarni having it in his power to kill Snorri but choosing not to do so, it was agreed between them that Bjarni should go abroad and not see Thurid for a year. He went, and the vessel he sailed in was never heard of afterward. Thirty years later an Icelandic ship was driven westward by a storm upon an unknown coast, where all her people were made prisoners. They were surrounded by a great crowd, and "it rather seemed to them that they spoke Irish." The prisoners were bound and taken inland, where they met, surrounded by a large number of persons, a white-haired and martial-looking chieftain, with a banner borne before him, whom all treated with the greatest deference. He spoke to the strangers in the Northern tongue, and when he learned that they came from Iceland and the district of Bogafiord, he asked for all the principal men of those parts by name, and was especially minute in inquiries about Snorri the priest, Thurid his sister, and her son Kjartan. The prisoners were soon released by his orders, with injunctions to depart with all speed from that country and never to return again, or to permit others to come thither. As they were about to leave, he took from his finger a gold ring, and putting that, and also COLONY OF THORFINN KARLSEFNE. 53 lested by the Skrællings, but they thought it not worth while to remain in a country, however otherwise desirable, where they were liable to such attacks. This decision was probably confirmed by meeting, on one of their excursions, with a Uniped, who, after killing one of their number, fled out to sea. Such marvels were believed in even in a much later and more enlightened age. Other natives were sometimes met and generally killed, no doubt without much compunction. Two boys they took as prisoners were carried back to Greenland, taught Norse, and baptized. From them it was learned that there were two kings over the Skrællings, one named Avalidania, the other, Valldidia; their people had no houses, but lived in dens and caves. In another part of the country, however, there was, they said, another people, who "wore white clothes, and shouted loud, and carried poles with flags." And this was supposed to be the White Man's Land, a mythical colony of Irish somewhere south of Vinland.2 1 Charlevoix (History of New France, vol. i. pp. 124, 128, Shea's edition) repeats the stories told five centuries later, of voyagers who saw or heard of Unipeds,-men with only one leg and foot, and with two hands on the same arm, - of pygmies, of giants, of men who never eat, of headless men, and of other monsters, of which, he says, "it is easy to believe that there is some exaggeration, but it is easier to deny extraordinary facts than to explain them." The Northmen called the country somewhere south of Vinland the White Man's Land, or Great Ireland, and believed that it was occupied by the Irish. Professor Rafn supposes it to have extended from Chesapeake Bay to East Florida. One of their narratives relates that in the year 928, one Ari Marson, an Icelander, was driven there by an easterly storm, and was not permitted to go away again. The story came from a Limerick merchant and from the Earl of the Orkneys, and it is therefore presumed that occasional intercourse was kept up between the people of this Hvitramanna-land and Europe. A romantic story is also told of one Bjarni Asbrandson, a famous viking, who was always fighting, or singing ongs, or making love. The marital bond sat loosely upon the women of Iceland, and it as nothing unusual that Bjarni should overstep the limits of morality and propriety in tention to another man's wife, and that her husband and his friends should therefore ll him. The husband of this woman Thurid, Bjarni seems to have held in but for her brother, Snorri, the high-priest, he entertained a very different An encounter with him, in which they both showed a good deal of magnaying to kill Bjarni and failing, but frankly acknowledging his intention, g it in his power to kill Snorri but choosing not to do so, it was agreed Bjarni should go abroad and not see Thurid for a year. He went, and in was never heard of afterward. Thirty years later an Icelandic ship nd by a storm upon an unknown coast, where all her people were made re surrounded by great crowd, and "it rather seemed to them that The prisoners umber of per him, whom ru tongu bound and taken inland, where they met, surwhite-haired and martial-looking chieftain, with eated with the greatest deference. He spoke to the when he learned that they came from Iceland and halall the principal men of those parts by name, and t Snorri the priest, Thurid his sister, and her son eased by his orders, with injunctions to depart with to return again, or to permit others to come thither. from his finger a gold ring, and putting that, and also |