Skræling

Skraelings was the name for the indigenous people of the North East of North America in the sagas of the Greenland Norse. It can not figure out whether " Skrælingar " referred to the Indians and the Inuit, the interpretation depends though on how far the Northmen in America have advanced to the south and as far north the Indians lived. According to the prevailing view, it is translated as Eskimo, bearing in mind that the encounter with them through the Icelandic settlers in Greenland and the meeting with the Inuit in Greenland so far apart even in time that can not be expected that later saga writers, z. example, the author of conquest book, nor could notice a difference.

Etymology

The word Skraelings could translate as with weakling, from Old Norse * skrāhilinga (Jan de Vries ) or * skrēhila ( Johannesson ), Norwegian skræling, shetländisch skrelin, Danish skrælling (Eng. weak person) < skrante ( sickly ) compare skral ( tight, lean) < middle Low German schraal ( = bad device, rattling, dry)

After a slightly different opinion " Skraelings " to something like " ugly people " or " ugly person" mean.

In today's Icelandic, a skrælingi is a " barbarian ", and in a Faroese skrælingur is a Native Greenland or Canada. Gerhard Kobler translated in its Old Norse dictionary skrælingr simply and solely with "Eskimo" and skrælingar with " Eskimos "; " Weakling, poor devil ," however, is " skræfa ".