Talk:Skræling

Wrong Map
Beothuk were an extension of Innu that arrived in the 13th century. The map is someone's fictional MS paint drawing. Someone fix it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.162.211.252 (talk) 05:35, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

æ
Isn't it skræling? —Chameleon 09:25, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Yeap, Oxford dictionary uses æ, but this character or ä isn't used longer in English. (?) // Rogper 13:23, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, we have never used ä, and æ is largely obsolete, but this is not an English word. I'm going to correct the articles. Chameleon 15:42, 23 May 2004 (UTC)
 * I've moved the page to Skræling (accidentally creating the page Ææ in the process) Chameleon 15:49, 23 May 2004 (UTC)

I thought it meant "thrall".

This article should be combinded with the one on the Dorset culture and the one on Thule and Classic Thule, since they all talk about elements of the same thing.

Micmac?
I thought the Micmac were also called by the Norse as Skraelings (Im sorry, I do not konw how to create the proper letter).
 * That's right. Noone can be sure on who the Skraelings were that the Norse met on the western coast of Baffin Bay and the David Strait and further south, it might have been several or all of the Dorset, Thule, Innu, Beothuk and Mi'kmaq or even more first nation tribes along the coast.Masae 14:25, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
 * The article should reflect that instead of focussing on the Thule/Dorset culture as if a conclusion about who they were has been made/verified.Skookum1 (talk) 16:22, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Vinland
Not sure Newfoundland should be equated with Vinland - this is a contentious issue (no vines grow in Newfoundland). 163.1.42.86 12:35, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Addition: seconding this. Newfoundland is not Vinland, it is most likely New Brunswick where vines grow. Mik'maq were there when Norse arrived according to the Sagas. Newfoundland had no other people at the time as Beothuk arrived in the 1200s. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.162.216.133 (talk) 09:47, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Addition: The norse word "vín" (with long i) did not mean wine but grassland. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 176.11.69.90 (talk) 10:21, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

In English
What? Who uses this term to describe AAVE speakers? Ubermonkey 15:51, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

A native name?
I have removed this from the article: "As recounted in the Greenlander (Grœnlendinga) saga, the word skraeling may have been the name of one of the North American tribes encountered during initial contact. A Norseman saved two Skraeling boys from the sea.  As was their custom, the Skraeling boys became the Norseman's life-long servants.  During this service the Skraeling boys indicated that the word "skraeling" was how their peoples' name was pronounced in Norse." This simply is not true. Nowhere in the Grœnlendinga saga is there anything about the Norse saving Skraelings and taken them to Greenland. On the other hand ther is in the Saga of Eric the Red a paragraph about how the Norse took with them two Skraeling boys back to Greenland (actually after trying to kill their parents) but there is no mentioning of them using or explaining the word "skraeling". Masae 22:32, 31 July 2007 (UTC)

RESPONSE: Please note; the story of a Norseman saving two skraelings from the sea is correct, but this is not located in the Greenlander Saga or the Saga of Eric the Red. As documented in Certain Pre-Columbian Notices of American Aborigines by William H. Babcock, the word skraeling may have been the name of one of the North American tribes encountered during initial contact. Norseman Bjorn the Bonde saved two Skraeling siblings from the sea. As was their custom, the Skraeling siblings decided to became the Norseman's life-long servants. During this service the Skraelings indicated that the word skraeling was how their peoples' name was pronounced in Norse. Eventually, “The brother and sister killed themselves and threw themselves down the cliffs into the sea when they were prohibited from following along with Bjorn Bonde. . .” to Greenland. [Certain Pre-Columbian Notices of American Aborigines by William H. Babcock, American Anthropologist, New Series,  Vol. 18,  No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1916), pp. 388-397]  —Preceding unsigned comment added by SouthernThule (talk • contribs) 03:00, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, but where did Babcock get this story from? He didn't "document" it since he wasn't there. Clearly he must have been deriving it from some Norse source? --Jfruh (talk) 16:16, 15 July 2011 (UTC)

A name "based on what they said"
The Norwegian word "skrall" (in Norwegian)(on some dialects: "skrell") means lasting high noise. A skrelling would then be one who produces lasting high noise. Any old American movie about cowboys and Indians will show the correctness of the logic.St.Trond (talk) 06:55, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Old Hollywood movies about cowboys and Indians don't have anything to do with correctness; and like many Europeans you're assuming that there's a continuity of culture across North American indigenous peoples - i.e. by assuming that the Beothuks or Mikmaq share the same culture as the Sioux and Comanche and Cheyenne, i.e. "movie Indians". Do Norwegians dance like Spaniards, just because they're on the same continent??.  It's true that old-old movies used bona fide Indians and drew on actual cowboy and Plains Indian culture(s), but any idea you may have that native cultures were represented correctly is just make-believe.....Skookum1 (talk) 12:50, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * And Original Research. de Bivort 14:43, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to give an idea how far indigenous reality was from the stereotypes invoked by St. Trond, have a look at this, which is from the Kwakwaka'wakw people of northern Vancouver Island. Doesn't look like any Hollywood-scripted movie I've ever seen......Skookum1 (talk) 19:10, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Looking at the map, the bay west of "Promontorium Winlandiae" would probably end in Quebec. Then "Skralingeland" would be in continental Canada and may be in USA. Vinland would probably be along the coast south of Promontorium Winlandiae, as those who gave these names came from north by boat. ( See also:) St.Trond (talk) 18:53, 27 July 2008 (UTC) This may close in on the number of tribes that need to be considered.St.Trond (talk) 23:17, 14 June 2008 (UTC)
 * You're committing original research "Bzzzt! not allowed!" - and more qualified and more deeply-read scholars than you have puzzled over such maps and their potential correpondence to actual geography; Promontorium Winlandiae could be anything from Florida to Delaware to Long Island to Cape Cod to Cape Breton to Gros Morne; yes, this does narrow down the tribes involved (all Atlantic-area Algonkians) but they, too, looked and behaved nothing like your Hollywood Indians you seem to think are authentic or some kind of example; there's just no knowing - i.e. there is no answer, some things can never be unravelled; Farley Mowat made an engrossing (but highly inaccurate) stab at discerning/divining where Vinland was, and who was there, in his West-Viking but he's not considered a reliable source and his theories are all off-the-wall (albeit interesting).Skookum1 (talk) 02:06, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Skrælingi
It´s Skrælingi in nominativus as seen here And in nominativus here in Grænlendinga saga: Þá rétti Guðríður húsfreyja hönd sína til hennar að hún sæti hjá henni en það bar allt saman að þá heyrði Guðríður brest mikinn og var þá konan horfin og í því var og veginn einn Skrælingi af einum húskarli Karlsefnis... --157.157.240.50 (talk) 18:28, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Plural/singular
This is in the current article: Skræling (plural skrælingar)

Well I can understand that skræling may be an English word, as the Norse word was skrælingi, and the plural for the English word is skrælings, not skrælingar.

So, it should either look like this: Skræling (plural skrælings)

Or like this: Skrælingi (plural skrælingar)

Though, it may be that skræling is just an Anglicized version of the Norse word skrælingi, so the Norse plural version is still appropriate? -MrGulli (talk) 01:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

If "skræling" should be Anglicized it shoud be scraling/scralings, the "a" being pronounced like in "scratch". St.Trond (talk) 08:03, 21 November 2009 (UTC)

Meaning of Skrælling in modern danish
The article states that the word basically means weakling in modern danish -- being danish :-) I have alway thought the this is only one aspect of the word. To me the word has always ment a person who is weakwilled -- easily manipulated or controlled through force of will or physical power -- usually combined with cowardice. Another aspect is being physically frail, more so than weak, or even sickly. In all cases, to use the word skrælling about a person (to me) means that you scorn the person for being weak when they should have been strong (in some sense). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.167.145.44 (talk) 18:54, 10 November 2013 (UTC)

Pygmies
This needs rewriting. Seaver's views can be seen at but it's an older idea. Fridtjof Nansen wrote about it in his book In Northern Mists which can be found at which should be linked to the appropriate page. Dougweller (talk) 17:00, 18 May 2015 (UTC)


 * I looked at Nansen's text, the Norwegian original of which is here. Basically, what Nansen says is that the accounts of the skrælings in Norse literature have elements of the fantastic (which he demonstrates with quotes), and show similarities with other accounts of mythical creatures, like pygmies. Nansen also mentions the monopod pointing out that it occurs in an account of events in Vinland. Nansen quotes a professor Alf Torp, who says some German dialects (Ober-Pfalz) have a word "schrähelein", "ein zauberisches Wesen, Wichtlein", possibly derived from Middle High German, "walt-schreckel", translated as "faunus".
 * My conclusion is that it's true that the Viking's accounts of the skrælings have fantastic elements. Whether that's relevant to a Wikipedia article on skrælings I guess is debatable. Further, we have two theories for the etymology of the term, one by Nansen from German (which might have some plausibility) and one by Seaver from Latin (which seems very stretched, unless you want to argue Latin -> Old Germanic -> Norse, in which case, where's the evidence?).
 * Nansen's theory might reasonably be added to the etymology section. If a literary evaluation of how the norse wrote about the skrælings is considered relevant, it should be moved to the end (together with the worldview section), and rewritten. I can have a look at Seaver's text as well before making such an attempt. It may be that her actual text is more reasonable than the paraphrase of it given in this article. Thoughts on this? LarsMarius (talk) 07:18, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
 * Seaver's a recognised expert in the general field of Vinland, Greenland and related issues, which is why I'm suggesting it should stay in the article. I haven't been able to read her paper, but the book says "No explanation would have been needed in either Greenland and Iceland, because Skr£eling(j)ar was a direct Old Norse translation of Pygmaei (Pygmies), used specifically about one of the monstrous races assigned to the extreme edges of the world, first by the authors of Antiquity and then perpetuated in the medieval Christian canon. Skrasling(j)ar were the small people who constituted the least threatening and most evolved of the monster races, and who lived on the far northeastern fringes of the habitable world as imagined by knowledgeable Europeans - Eirik the Red, Thorfinn Karlsefni and other leading figures in the two Vinland sagas among them." Dougweller (talk) 11:57, 21 May 2015 (UTC)
 * That explanation makes no sense. Far less than 0.1% of all Norse who ever lived would have known Latin, so how could they understand "skrælingar" as a translation of "pygmaei"? Even if they did know Latin, how would they know that specific word was the Norse translation of that specific Latin word? Explanation would definitely have been necessary. The authors of Antiquity and the medieval Christian canon were both unknown to the Norse of Greenland and Iceland. That Eirik the Red and Thorfinn Karlsefni should have read Pliny is absurd. Even to assume they could read Latin characters at all is quite a leap. She may be an authority, but even so her theories have to conform to basic logic. LarsMarius (talk) 17:07, 28 May 2015 (UTC)
 * I'm wondering if you understand what we mean by reliable sources. If you think she doesn't meet the criteria here, see if people at WP:RSN agree. The important thing it to attribute the idea explicitly to her so that it's not being said in Wikipedia's own voice. Doug Weller (talk) 21:00, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Norse Worldview?
As it is now, this section says absolutely nothing about Skrælings aside from a completely weak introductory sentence clearly intended to justify the section's inclusion in this article. The section is interesting, but unless rewritten I don't see why it's here. 71.37.51.247 (talk) 01:59, 1 April 2016 (UTC)
 * Agreed - which is why I just deleted this paragraph. Albrecht Conz (talk) 22:14, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Indigenous?

 * Skræling (Old Norse and Icelandic: skrælingi, plural skrælingjar) is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the indigenous peoples they encountered in North America and Greenland.[1]

Norse people were in Greenland way before the Thule people arrived. How come can they be called indigenous, when it's clearly the Norse the indigenous ones? --46.25.48.186 (talk) 06:33, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

"Thule" refers to a culture, which is not neccesarily a 'people' or 'race'. The preceding Dorset culture were also indigenous and far more closely related to Thule culture. As the Norse left in the 15th c. applying the term 'indigenous' to them is silly. It's all semantics anyway.1812ahill (talk) 18:40, 17 November 2016 (UTC) 1812ahill (talk) 18:40, 17 November 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the Greenland tourist board tries to spin it that way. The Dorset culture was NOT connected to the Thule (the newly-arrived Eskimo culture).  Dorset society was quite different in terms of hunting and tools used.  And the Dorset are believed to have been gone before either Vikings or Inuit Eskimos arrived.  It's unclear which New World people the Vikings first encountered and even where the first contact happened.  However, the term skraeling was applied to all New World people, so when the Thule (Inuit Eskimos) did eventually reach Greenaland and work their way down the west coast, they were called skraelings when they came into contact with the Norse.  71.226.227.121 (talk) 14:24, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Correct meaning of Skræling
ItsACityOfApes has read extensively on the Vikings, their culture and in North America. Let us set you straight. The word has its origins in Germanic and means 'yelper' or 'screecher' and was derived from the fact that those tribes used captured people to temper their swords while they were still alive. The 'skræl' sound is the verbal sound of their screeching sound upon impalement. [At this time, the proto-viking peoples were also known to take captured children, fling them in the air, and impale them alive - but not in tempering their swords.] Skræling comes to mean 'outsider' in a generic way. If you were banished from the tribe, you were called a skræling, and if you helped a skræling you also became a skræling. The Vikings did indeed refer to the occupants of North America as outsiders and thus skræling. This was used to describe the Dorset - their main friendly trading partners on Elsemere Island obtaining walrus tusks from them; - and also to the Beothuk. The Inuit, arrive and wipe out the Dorset using bows and arrows which was a lost technology in North America c. 1450 AD. [The Inuit were a brand new culture emerging from the Inupiat culture in Point Barrow, being adapted to live on the ice only 3 years hence]. The Vikings did not hear from those in Settlement #3 in Northern Greenland for a few years and an expedition from Settlement #2 saw 'heathen' - that is, the Inuit occupying the site. Understanding the Viking North American sagas correctly, they are not a map of how to travel to North America [such trade and captain's knowledge was never written down but transmitted orally], but a lesson guide of how to live with the natives. The sagas state that when the North American Natives get uppity, you are to leave. The remainder of the Greenlanders, noting the aggressive Inuit occupying iron sites in the North and killing all others, left by migrating with their friends the Dorset to their homeland - Hudson Straight and Foxe Basin. The Vikings were slightly particular in the words they used in Greenland for outsiders; there were skræling banished from their culture, but the Dorset may not have been described as such because they were friendly, whereas the Inuit were a brand new culture and described as 'heathen'. The rest of the article is really about the Vikings exploring vast portions of North America which they did indeed do, but is not related to 'skræling'. ItsACityOfApes (talk) 18:39, 27 December 2022 (UTC)


 * user:ItsACityOfApes we only care about reliable published sources, see WP:RS. Doug Weller  talk 18:32, 27 December 2022 (UTC)
 * That's why it was placed in talk section. ItsACityOfApes (talk) 18:40, 27 December 2022 (UTC)

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 * Thorfinn Karlsefni 1918.jpg

Afrikaans 'skraal'
In Afrikaans the word 'skraal' means scrawny and is considered an insult. Not sure of the etymology or whether this is cognate with the English 'scrawny.' 2001:8003:1D5D:5401:207A:5BF8:100C:C24A (talk) 07:42, 7 July 2023 (UTC)


 * This is a bit off-topic for this talk page, but just to give a reply: 'Scrawny' could have Scandinavian origins, possibly Old Norse 'skrælna'. Afrikaans 'skraal' comes from Dutch 'schraal', which in turn seems to share a Germanic origin with these similar Scandinavian words. So 'skraal' and 'scrawny' are probably cognate, but the connection is a bit long and complex.213.219.153.155 (talk) 19:20, 12 February 2024 (UTC)