met, they may eventually have taken revenge in the fourteenth century by first (after 1341) attacking and devastating (?) the Wester-district, and later (1379) making an expedition against the Easter-district, which seems in the following century to have been entirely destroyed.[1] It was about this time, accordingly, that the Eskimos probably effected their first permanent settlements in the southern parts of the country.
There is evidence in the Eskimo legends as well of the battles between them and the old Norsemen. But from the same legends we also learn that there was sometimes friendly intercourse between them; indeed the Norsemen are several times mentioned with esteem. This appears to show that there was no rooted hatred between the two races; and the theory that the Eskimos carried on an actual war of extermination against the settlers seems, moreover, in total conflict with their character as we now know
- ↑ Some writers have concluded from the mention of 'troll-women' in the 'Flóamannasaga' that so early as the year 1000, or thereabouts, Thorgils Orrabeinsfostre must have encountered Eskimos on the south-east coast of Greenland. But, as Professor Storm has pointed out, the romantic character of this saga forbids us to base any such inference upon it. It must also be remembered that the extant manuscript dates from no earlier than about 1400, long after the time when the Norsemen had come in contact with the Eskimos on the west coast. Even if the Eskimos are meant in the passage about the troll-women, which is extremely doubtful, it may very well be a late interpolation.
