Skraeling

English

Alternative forms

skraeling, Scraeling, scraeling, Skræling

Etymology

After Old Norse skrælingi (of disputed etymology), the Norse name for the native inhabitants of Greenland and continental North America (Eastern Canada).

Pronunciation

IPA^(key): /ˈskɹeɪlɪŋ/

Noun

Skraeling (plural Skraelings)

(historical, ethnology) A member of a race of native people encountered by early Norse settlers to Greenland, often equated with Inuit or American Indians.
- 1974, H. F. McGee, Native Peoples of Atlantic Canada, Carleton University Press, page 2,
  This time all the staves were being swung anti-sunwise, and the Skraelings were all yelling aloud, so they took red shields and held them out against them.
- 2005, Jonathan Clements, A Brief History of the Vikings, Constable & Robinson (Robinson), unnumbered page,
  The Skraelings were soon back in greater numbers, and openly hostile. The Vikings killed many of them in the ensuing battle, and witnessed a Skraeling chief hurling a captured Viking axe into the lake – purportedly in fear of its magical properties.
- 2014 [1911, William Heinemann], Arthur G. Chater (translator), Fridtjof Nansen, In Northern Mists, [1911, Nansen, Nord i Tåkeheimen], Cambridge University Press, page 80,
  A valuable piece of evidence of the Norsemen having early had intercourse with the Skrælings in Greenland is a little carved walrus, of walrus-ivory, which was found during excavations on the site of a house in Bergen, and which appears to be of Eskimo workmanship.

Translations

member of a race

Danish: skrælling c
Swedish: skräling (sv) c

Proper noun

Skraeling

(linguistics) A little-known language once spoken by the now extinct Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland (also called Beothuk or Red Indian).