Nine against the unknown

NINE AGAINST THE UNKNOWN 43
with it. Then the Skraelings came at her. She takes her breasts out of
her sark and whets the sword on them. At that the Skraelings are afraid
and run away back to their boats, and go off. Karlsevne and his men
meet her and praise her happy device. Two men of Karlsevne’s fell,
and four of the Skraelings ; but nevertheless Karlsevne had suffered
defeat. They now go to their houses, bind up their wounds, and consider
what swarm of people it was that came against them from the land.
It seemed to them now that there could have been no more than those
who came from the boats, and that the other people must have been
glamour. The Skraelings also found a dead man, and an axe lay beside
him ; one of them took up the axe and struck at a tree, and so one after
another, and it seemed to delight them that it bit so well. Then one
took and smote a stone with it; but when the axe broke, he thought it
was of no use, if it did not stand against stone, and he cast it from him.
Karlsevne and his men now thought they could see that although
the land was fertile, they would always have trouble and disquiet
with the people who dwelt there before. Then they prepared to set out,
and intended to go to their own country. They sailed northward and
found five Skraelings sleeping in fur jerkins. . . . They thought they
could understand they were outlaws, and killed them.
They reached Martha’s Vineyard again in safety, and
stayed there another year, but apparently uneasily, exploring
the country far and near. On one of these expeditions Thorvald,
Leif’s brother, was killed at a place called Crossness by a
creature who, the Saga solemnly informs us, was a Uniped,
a one-footed man. Him they did not catch.
On the fourth summer they cruised north—apparently
the entire colony—to Markland, and captured two young
Skraelingr there. These new thralls, learning Norse, enter¬
tained them with a variety of tales of Eskimo life, some of
which ring true enough, others fantastically improbable.
They told that a land of white men was indeed near, “where
white-clad priests marched down to the shore with a great
shouting.” This the Christian Norse knew must be Great
Ireland, Huitramanna-Land. Was it perhaps some rumour
or reminiscence of the Toltec civilization then nearing its
end in distant Mexico, some knowledge or legend of the
Mound Builders of the Mississippi ?
Of that we shall never know for certain. Karlsevne had
sickened of the adventure. It was a fat land, but ill to settle
in with the pressing attentions of the Skraelingr. He resolved
to sail for Greenland. The expedition was one with him in the
resolution.