Observations placeholder
Gudrid and the disappearing Skraling - 1050, Vinland (Newfoundland)
Identifier
028785
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Skræling (Old Norse and Icelandic: skrælingi, plural skrælingjar) is the name the Norse Greenlanders used for the peoples they encountered in North America and Greenland. In surviving sources, it is first applied to the Thule people, the proto-Inuit group with whom the Norse coexisted in Greenland after about the 13th century. In the sagas, it is also used for the peoples of the region known as Vinland whom the Norse encountered during their expeditions there in the early 11th century.
A description of the experience
Helge Ingstad, Westward to Vinland (London: Jonathan Cape, 1969).
Ca. 1050, Vinland (Newfoundland): Woman in black
The Greenlanders Saga includes a report about a woman named Gudrid who was sitting near the doorway beside the cradle of her son Snorri when "a shadow fell across the door and a woman entered dressed in a black close-fitting dress. She was rather short, wore a band round her head and had light-brown hair; she was pale and had such large eyes that their equal had never been seen in a human head."
The entity walked over to where Gudrid was sitting and said: "What is your name?"
"My name is Gudrid, but what is your name?"
"My name is Gudrid," she replied.
"Then Gudrid the housewife held out her hand, that she should sit by her. But it happened at the same moment, that Gudrid heard a great crack, and was then the woman lost to sight, and at the same time one Skraling was killed by a house carle of Karlsefne's, because he would have taken their weapons. And went they now away as usual, and their clothes lay there behind, and their wares; no man had seen this woman, but Gudrid alone."