As the Skraeling boats disappeared on their original route up the coast, we returned to our chores. You can imagine the chatter and speculation about when the Skraelings would reappear and what they intended. No one doubted that this was only the preliminary encounter.
The Skraelings took us even more unawares on their next visit by appearing from the landward side of the settlement. It must have been about six months later, and how they got so close to the settlement without being detected was alarming. At one moment we were going about our usual routine, and the next instant a couple of dozen Skraelings were walking down from the edge of the woods towards us. They seemed to have sprung from the ground. It was lucky that they came peacefully for we were taken totally off guard. Indeed, we were all dithering, not knowing whether to run for our weapons, cluster together or go forward to meet the Skraelings with another peaceful gesture, when, as luck would have it, our bull began to bellow. He was with the cows in the nearby meadow, and possibly the scent of the Skraelings — for they did smell rather powerfully - disturbed him. He let out a series of thunderous bellows and this terrified our visitors. Glancing back over their shoulders, they scampered for the safety of our houses as though pursued by a monster. Several of our more timid men had already taken up position inside the houses, the better to defend themselves, and had already shut the doors. The next thing they knew, the terrified Skraelings were beating on the door planks, crying out in their strange language, pleading to be let in. The Norsemen, thinking that an attack was in progress, pushed desperately against the doors from the inside, trying to keep them shut. For us who were outside the situation, once so fraught, was now totally comic. It was clear that the Skraelings meant no harm, and the fainthearts inside the houses were in a panic at the unseen onslaught. Those of us who could see what was happening burst into roars of laughter. Our guffaws reassured the Skraelings, who calmed down and began to look sheepish, and after a few moments the frightened house defenders began to peek out to see what had happened, only to make us scoff even more loudly. This ludicrous situation proved to be the ideal introduction — there's nothing like two sides making public fools of themselves and accepting the fact for a sense of mutual understanding to develop. With sign language and smiles the Skraelings began to open the packs they had been carrying. They contained furs, splendid furs, the pelts of fox and marten and wolf and otter. There were even a couple of glossy black-bear pelts. The quality was like nothing we had seen before, and we knew they would fetch a premium price in any market in Norway or Denmark. There was not one of us who did not begin to wonder what we might trade with the Skraelings in exchange.
The obvious item was metal — for we had noted that the Skraelings possessed only stone-tipped weapons. But Thorfinn was quick off the mark. He ordered sharply that no one was to trade weapons or metal tools to the Skraelings. Better weaponry was the only advantage we possessed against their superior numbers. Everyone was standing around racking their brains about what to do next and the Skraelings were gazing around curiously, when one of the women in a gesture of hospitality fetched a pail of milk and a wooden dipper. She offered a dipper of the milk to the leader of the Skraelings. He stared at the liquid in puzzlement, sniffed it suspiciously and then cautiously tried a sip, while the woman indicated that he should drink it. The Skraeling was delighted with the taste of milk. He must have also believed that it was a rich and rare substance, for he delved in his pack and offered the woman a marten skin. She had the wit to accept it. Another Skraeling stepped forward and gestured he wanted to try drinking milk, and before long the entire group were clustering around, reaching for the ladle and handing over valuable furs and pelts in exchange.
Even as an eight-year-old lad, I had seen the drunks at Brattahlid so desperate as to give their last coins for a draught of wine or strong mead, but this was the only time in my long and varied life that I have ever seen anyone pay so handsomely for mere cow juice. What is more, the Skraelings were totally happy with the bargain. After they had parted with their entire stock of furs, even leaving behind their empty packs, they were content to walk back into the forest, carrying their barter profit in their bellies, while we gleefully stowed away a small fortune in Vinland furs.
But however peacefully the Skraeling visit had turned out, their arrival had a more sinister implication. The following day Thorfinn told us to stop all our other work and start building a palisade around the settlement. We did not need urging. All of us had an uncomfortable feeling that our peaceful and profitable relationship with the Skraelings might not last. Everyone remembered how the Skraelings had killed Thorvald Eriksson with their darts on his earlier expedition to this land, and that a massacre by our men of eight Skraelings from their hunting party had preceded his lone death. If the Skraelings behaved like us, then they might still be looking for more blood vengeance to balance the account. Like one of those sea anemones who retract their tentacles when they sense danger, we shrank back inside a safer perimeter. The outlying houses were abandoned and the entire community shifted to live within the shelter of the palisade, just in case the Skraelings returned with less peaceable intentions. The only structure to remain outside the stockade was Tyrkir's little smithy down by the river, where he needed access to the bog iron and running water.
THE SKRAELINGS DID not return until the beginning of the following winter, when baby Snorri was nearly a year old. By then we felt we were getting the measure of this new land. We had cleared back the surrounding brushwood for additional pasture, fenced two small paddocks for our cattle, which now included three healthy calves, improved and strengthened the walls and roofs of our original hastily built dwellings, and our people were beginning to talk about the prospect of sending our knorr back to Greenland with a cargo of timber and furs, and attracting more settlers to join us. We had lived through the full cycle of the seasons, and though the winter had been cold and dreary, it had been no worse than what we had known in Greenland. Our settlement had begun to put down roots, but — as we soon learned — those roots were shallow.
This time the Skraelings came in much greater strength, and by land as well as by water. One group of about a score of hunters emerged from the forest, while their comrades paddled directly into the bay in glistening, grease-treated skin boats. Their visit seemed to have been planned well ahead of time because both groups were seen to be carrying no weapons, only their packs of furs. This time one of our fishermen had spotted the Skraelings at a distance and come ashore to warn us. Thorfinn, worried by their greater numbers, had already ordered the entire community to enter the stockade and shut the gate. So when the Skraelings approached they found no one to greet them. The fields and the beach were deserted. They came up to the palisade and hesitated. Thorfinn called out, asking what they wanted, but of course they did not understand a word of our language and we had no way of understanding their reply. Then one of the Skraelings, a tall, good-looking man who must have been their chieftain, lobbed his pack over the top of the palisade. It landed on the earth with a soft thump and we found it contained five grey wolf pelts. Clearly this was the result of their summer trapping and the Skraelings had come again to trade. 'Let's see if we can sell them only milk again,' Thorfinn warned us. 'Remember: on no account let them get their hands on our weapons.' The stockade gate was cautiously open and we began to trade.
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