Page:The Finding of Wineland the Good.djvu/244

 hostile, as in Magnus Barefoot's Saga, 'the barons raised aloft a white peace-shield' [Saga Magnús berfœtts, in Codex Frisianus, ed. Ungar, Chr'a., 1869, p. 267]. The red shield, on the other hand, was the war-shield, a signal of enmity, Sinfiotli declares in the Helgi song, 'Quoth Sinfiotli, hoisting a red shield to the yard,..."tell it this evening,...that the Wolfings are come from the East, lusting for war."' [Cf. Helga kviþa Hundingsbana, in Eddalieder, ed. Finnur Jónsson, Halle o. S. 1890, Pt. II, verses 34–5, pp. 4 and 5.] The use of a white flag-of-truce for a purpose similar to that for which Snorri recommended the white shield, is described in the passage quoted in note 52, 'Nouember the sixt two Canoas appeared, and one man alone coming towards vs with a Flag in his hand of a Wolfes skin, shaking it and making a loud noise, which we tooke to be for a parley, whereupon a white Flag was put out, and the Barke and Shallop rowed towards them.' [Purchas his Pilgrimes, l. c. vol. iv. p. 1880.]

(54) The natives of the country here described were called by the discoverers, as we read, Skrælingjar; since this was the name applied by the Greenland colonists to the Eskimo, it has generally been concluded that the Skrælingjar of Wineland were Eskimo. Prof. Storm has recently pointed out that there may be sufficient reason for caution in hastily accepting this conclusion, and he would identify the inhabitants of Wineland with the Indians [Beothuk or Micmac], adducing arguments philological and ethnographical to support his theory. The description of the savages of Newfoundland, given in the passage in Purchas' 'Pilgrims,' already cited, offers certain details, which coincide with the description of the Skrellings, contained in the saga. These savages are said by the English explorers to be 'full-eyed, of a black colour; the colour of their hair was diuers, some blacke, some browne, and some yellow, and their faces something flat and broad.' Other details, which are given on the same authority, have not been noted by the Icelandic explorers, and one statement, at least, 'they haue no beards ,' is directly at variance with the saga statement concerning the Skrellings seen by the Icelanders on their homeward journey. The similarity of description may be a mere accidental coincidence, and it by no means follows that the English writer and Karlsefni's people saw the same people, or even a kindred tribe.

(55) John Guy, in a letter to Master Slany, the Treasurer and 'Counsell' of the New-found-land Plantation, writes: 'the doubt that haue bin made of the extremity of the winter season in these parts of New-found-land are found by our experience causelesse; and that not onely men may safely inhabit here without any neede of stoue, but Nauigation may be made to and fro from England to these parts at any time of the yeare....Our Goates haue liued here all this winter; and there is one lustie kidde, which was yeaned in the dead of winter.' [Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. iv. p. 1878.] 'Captaine Winne' writes, on the seventeenth of August, 1622, concerning the climate of Newfoundland: 'the Winter [is] short & tolerable, continuing onely in Ianuary, February and part of March: the day in Winter longer then in England:...Neither was it so cold here the last Winter as in England the yeere before. I remember but three seuerall dayes of hard weather indeed, and they not extreame neither: for I haue knowne greater Frosts, and farre greater Snowes in our owne Countrey.' [Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. iv. p. 1890.]