In the description of the personal appearance of the Skrælings there is little that is decisive, but much that is circumstantial. One of the two companion texts describes them as ‘swarthy’, the other as ‘small’. ‘Small’ sounds more like Eskimo than Indian, and may be a corruption of the original text based on knowledge derived from Greenland. Ugliness, unkempt hair, and broad cheeks would apply to many Indian tribes, e.g. Micmacs, as well as to Eskimo. Large eyes would seem at first sight to apply to neither, and Dr. Nansen therefore considers it to be a trait showing the introduction of troll ideas. Yet the eyes of Indians have struck many genuine observers as large; for example, Lescarbot tells us that these features ‘neantmoins ne sont petits, comme ceux des anciens Scythes, mais d’une grandeur bien agréable’. Carver, again (1779), says of the Indians, ‘their eyes are large and black.’ Verezzano likewise speaks of ‘large black eyes and a fixed expression’. Another characteristic claimed by Nansen as evidence of the influence of the troll-idea is the beard which we are told was possessed by one of the Skrælings discovered in Markland: but this strikes me as telling rather the other way, for all trolls are bearded, and the Norsemen were so commonly so as to be known to the Greenland Eskimo as ‘Long-beards’. The point therefore appears to have been recorded precisely because of its rarity among the Skrælings, and, while Indians for the most part take care to remove all hair from the face and body, the possibility of beards among this people is recognized by almost all writers on the subject (cf. Lescarbot, Schoolcraft, Carter, Catlin, &c.). It may be admitted, however, that the personal appearance of the Skrælings is not a point from which any very clear inference can be drawn either one way or the other. _The Waving Staves._ The savages whose appearance is described in these ambiguous terms made their appearance in canoes on board of which—we are told—certain objects were waved with a noise like threshing. The word used of these objects is variously written ‘trjánum’, ‘trjom’, and ‘trjónum’. It has been usually translated ‘staves’ or ‘poles’, but if ‘trjónum’ be the correct reading it would seem doubtful whether something more in the nature of a totem-mask or movable figure-head is not indicated. For ‘trjóna’ means primarily a snout, and then a detachable figure-head; cf. the interesting passage in Landnáma (IV. 7) referring to an old law whereby men were enjoined to remove their figure-heads before approaching Iceland, ‘and not to sail to land with gaping heads or open-mouthed snouts (trjónum) which might disturb the local spirits’. It might on the one hand be argued that figure-heads are things more intimately connected with the idea of boats than staves are, but for that very reason a copyist would be more likely to convert ‘trjánum’ into ‘trjónum’ in the passage under consideration than to err in the opposite direction.