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The next time the Skraelings came they were armed with slings, and raised upon a pole a great blue ball and attacked the Norsemen so furiously that they were running away when Erik's sister, Freydis, came out before them with bare arms, and took up a sword, saying, "Why do you run, strong men as you are, from these miserable dwarfs whom I thought you would knock down like cattle?
There are all the marvels and portents of the Eyrbyggja Saga to draw upon, there are Skraelings to fight, and why should not Karlsefni's son kill the last mastodon, and, as Quetzalcoatl, be the white-bearded god of the Aztecs? After that a romance on the intrigues to make Charles Edward King of Poland sounds commonplace. But much might be made of that, too, if the right man took it in hand.
The Skraelings and the Northmen were good friends for a time; until at last one of Erik's own warriors killed a Skraeling by accident, and then all harmony was at an end.
When Coronado heard of the pueblos of Arizona and New Mexico, he may have confounded them with the towns of Oppas, and to this day the seven cities of Cibola are a legend of our desert. Harold's Norsemen were told by the wild Skraelings of Maine of a pale-faced people farther south, who walked in processions, carrying white banners and chanting.
Give me weapons, and I will fight better than any of you." Then the rest took courage and began to fight, and the Skraelings were driven back. Once more the strangers came, and one of them took up an axe, a thing which he had not before seen, and struck at one of his companions, killing him.
They could not find that any European had ever visited this place; but some of the Skraelings told them of a place farther south, which they called "the Land of the Whiteman," or "Great Ireland." They said that in that place there were white men who clothed themselves in long white garments, carried before them poles to which white cloths were hung, and called with a loud voice.
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.
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 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.
Then returning, they brought furs to sell and wished to buy weapons, but Harald tried another plan: he bade the women bring out milk, butter, and cheese from their dairies, and when the Skraelings saw that, they wished for nothing else, and, the legend says, "the Skraelings carried away their wares in their stomachs, but the Norsemen had the skins they had purchased."
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