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Skraeling (Skræling)

"Skraeling" is an alternate name for the Beothuk tribe of Newfoundland. It was given to them by a band of Viking explorers who encountered them around the year 1000. The Vikings came to use "Skraelings" to refer not only to the Beothuk Native Americans, but also to other indigenous people they encountered later, particularly the Greenlandic Inuit. The origin of the word skraeling is uncertain. It came to mean "barbarian" or "heathen," but that is not the original meaning of the word in Old Norse. It may have been related to the Norse word for "scream," referring to the war cries uttered by the Beothuks. It may also have been related to a word for "scrawny" or a word for "hides."

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Here are links to our webpages about the Skraeling tribe and language:

Skraeling language
Beothuk
Skraelings
Beothuk numbers
Algonquian languages
Canadian First Nations
Subarctic tribes

Here are links to other online resources about the Skraelings:
The Skraelings of the Vinland Sagas
The Skraelings of Greenland
Wikipedia: Skræling

Here are a few good books about the Skraelings:
History and Ethnography of the Beothuks
The Last of the Beothuk: A Canadian Tragedy
The Beothucks or Red Indians

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