Mr. Babcock, indeed,[89] seems to me to have been unnecessarily puzzled by this weapon. He seems to regard the thing described by Schoolcraft as a ‘club’, whereas that author, by conferring on the implement the name ‘balista’, distinctly suggests that the stone was discharged as a missile. He also searches, not very conclusively, for evidence that the Indians in these latitudes used slings; but it is pretty clear that the remark about ‘valslöngur’ (war-slings) has reference exclusively to this weapon, the description of which immediately follows. So at any rate I read the passage (q. v., page 62). Of the Skrælings, then, who are said to have been seen in Wineland, we may say that the description contains practically no statement which might not be truly made of American Indians. It contains, moreover, points, such as the canoes under which three men slept and the balista above referred to, which can hardly be due to any other source but direct observation of the American natives. Possibly derived from a knowledge of the Greenland Eskimo comes the word ‘húðkeipur’, used for a canoe, and, as some have thought, the incident of the waving poles on the boats, though the latter strikes me as a quite unjustifiable inference. The description of the personal appearance of the natives will suit either Eskimo or Indian. On the whole, however, we may say with confidence that we have here a description of savages so realistic as to point to direct and careful observation. In support of Dr. Nansen’s claim that the tale is mainly a potpourri of borrowed folklore we have really nothing but the double who appeared to Gudrid in the Flatey Book version, the belated warning of the Skræling attack which came to Thorvald, and the uniped which in one version is said to have caused the death of this son of Eric the Red. Of these three incidents two are typically Scandinavian and no more than we must expect in the reports of an unscientific age. Did not even Hudson have his mermaid? The uniped incident shows traces of importation from some separate and later legend, e.g. the dying speech of Thorvald is clearly plagiarized from that of Thormod Kolbrunarskald at Stiklestad. And the story, as I have endeavoured to show, can quite well do without it. When these fabulous elements are admitted we may still ask in vain for a single clear instance of the adoption or adaptation of Celtic legend with its continuous insistence on the supernatural; of the source, that is, which Dr. Nansen claims as the chief contributor to the saga as we have it. _The Markland Skrælings._