ther eggs on the island, and catch fish from
the sea.'

Next spring Thorhall the heathen left them, laughing at the wine which
he had been promised, and sailed north. He and his crew were driven to
Ireland, where they were captured and sold as slaves, and that was all
Thorhall got by worshipping the Red Beard. Karlsefni sailed south and
reached a rich country of wild maize, where also was plenty of fish and
of game. Here they first met the natives, who came in a fleet of
skin-canoes. 'They were swarthy men and ill-looking, and the hair of
their heads was ugly. They had great eyes and were broad of cheek.'

The Icelanders held up a white shield in sign of peace, and the natives
withdrew. They may have been Eskimo or Red Indians.

The winter was mild and open, but spring had scarce returned, when the
bay was as full of native canoes 'as if ashes had been sprinkled over
it.' They only came to trade and exchanged furs for red cloth, nor did
they seem to care whether they got a broad piece of cloth or a narrow
one. They also wanted weapons, but these Karlsefni refused to sell. The
market was going on busily when a bull that Karlsefni had brought from
Greenland came out of the wood and began to bellow, whereon the
Skraelings (as they called the natives) ran! Three weeks passed when the
Skraelings returned in very great force, waving their clubs _against_
the course of the sun, whereas in peace they waved them with it.
Karlsefni showed a red shield, the token of war, and fighting began. It
is not easy to make out what happened, for there are two sagas, or
stories of these events, both written down long after they occurred. In
one we read that the Skraelings were good slingers, and also that they
used a machine which reminds one rather of gunpowder than of anything
else. They swung from a pole a great black ball, and it made a fearful
noise when it fell among Karlsefni's men. So frightened were they that
they saw Skraelings where there were none, and they were only rallied by
the courage of a woman named Freydis, who seized a dead man's sword and
faced the Skraelings, beating her bare breast with the flat of the
blade. On this the Skraelings ran to their canoes and paddled away. In
the other account Karlsefni had fortified his house with a palisade,
behind which the women waited. To one of them, Gudrid, the appearance of
a white woman came; her hair was of a light chestnut colour, she was
pale and had very large eyes. 'What i