In Northern Mists Volume Ii Part 2

[Sidenote: Wineland in Faroese lays]

While probably the name of Hvitramanna-land is still preserved in the fairy-tale of Hvittenland, it is possibly the name of Wineland that has been preserved in that "Vinland" which is mentioned in the Faroese lay of "Finnur hinn Frii";[31] but if so, it is the only known instance of its occurrence in popular poetry. The Norwegian jarl's son, Finnur hinn Frii (Finn the Fair), courts Ingebjorg, the daughter of an Irish king; she is beautiful as the sun, and the colour of her maiden cheeks is like blood dropped upon snow.[32] She makes answer: "Hadst thou slain the Wine-kings, then shouldst thou wed me." To Wineland is a far voyage, with currents and mighty billows. But Finn begs his brother, Halfdan, to go with him over the Wineland sea. They hoist their silken sail, and never lower it till they arrive at Wineland. There they found the three Wine-kings. Thorstein, the first, came on a black horse, but Finn tore him off at the navel; the second, Ivint, also came on a black horse. But the third transformed himself into a flying dragon; arrows flew from each of his feathers, and he killed many of their men. The worst was that he shot venom from his mouth under Finn's coat of mail, who, though he could not be killed by arms, had to die. He then drew a golden ring from his arm and sent it by Halfdan to Ingebjorg, bidding her live happily. But Halfdan sprang into the air, seized the third Wine-king, and tore him off at the navel.

Halfdan sailed back to Ireland, brought Ingebjorg these tidings and the ring, and slept three nights with her, but on the fourth she dies of grief, since she can love no chieftain after Finn. Halfdan had a castle built for himself and pa.s.sed his years in Ireland, but all his days he mourned for his brother. Although the whole of this legend seems to have no connection with what we know about Wineland, it is most probable that it is the same name, but that--like the tale itself of the Irish king's daughter whose cheek was as blood upon snow--it came from Ireland. The name may thus be a last echo of the Irish mythical ideas from which the Wineland of the Icelanders arose.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map by the Icelander Jon Gudmundsson, born 1574 (Torfaeus, 1706)]

[Sidenote: h.e.l.luland in legend]

Curiously enough h.e.l.luland is the only one of the names of the western lands that has been widely adopted in Icelandic fairy-tales and legendary sagas. It has to some extent become a complete fairyland, with trolls and giants, and it is located in various places, usually far north, even to the north of Greenland, and sometimes on its north-east coast. In this fairyland was the fjord "Skuggi" (shadow); it is mentioned in orvarodds Saga (circa 1300), where the hero departs to seek his enemy, the wizard Ogmund, in h.e.l.luland, and again in Bararsaga Snaefellsa.s.s (fifteenth century), in the "attr" of Gunnari Keldugnupsfifl, in the Halfdanarsaga Bronufostra, in the Saga of Halfdani Eysteinssyni, and in Gest Bardsson's Saga.[33]

In the geography which under the name of "Gripla" was included in Bjorn Jonsson's "Gronland's Annaler," it is said of the countries opposite Greenland:

"Furustrandir is the name of a land, where is severe frost, so that it is not habitable, so far as people know; south of it is h.e.l.luland, which is called Skraelingja-land; thence it is a short distance to Wineland the Good, which some people think goes out from Africa...."

With this may be compared another MS. of the seventeenth century, where we read:

"West of the great ocean from Spain, which some call Ginnungagap, and which goes between lands, there is first towards the north Wineland the Good, next to it is called Markland farther north, thereafter are the wastes [i.e., the wastes of h.e.l.luland] where Skraelings live, then there are still more wastes to Greenland." [Cf. Gronl. hist. Mind., iii. pp. 224, 227.]

From this it looks as if h.e.l.luland was regarded as inhabited by Skraelings, which agrees with the reality, if it is Labrador. But these MSS. belong to the seventeenth century, and may be influenced by the geographical knowledge of later times. In Gripla there is evident confusion, as Furustrandir has been confounded with h.e.l.luland, and the latter with Markland[34].

[Sidenote: Voyage to Markland, 1347]

No record is found of any voyage to Wineland after 1121; but on the other hand there is mention more than two hundred years later of the voyage, referred to above, to Markland from Greenland in 1347. Of this we read in the Icelandic Annals (Skalholts-Annals) for that year: "Then came also [i.e., besides s.h.i.+ps from Norway already mentioned] a s.h.i.+p from Greenland, smaller in size than the small vessels that trade to Iceland. It came to Outer Straumfjord [on the south side of Snaefellsnes]; it was without an anchor. There were seventeen men on board [in the Flatey-annals there are eighteen men], and they had sailed to Markland, but afterwards [i.e., on the homeward voyage to Greenland] were driven hither."

As the Skalholts-Annals were written not many years after this (perhaps about 1362), it must be regarded as quite certain that this s.h.i.+p had been to Markland; but on the homeward voyage, perhaps while she lay at anchor, was overtaken by a storm, so that the cable had to be cut, and was driven out to sea past Cape Farewell right across to the west coast of Iceland.

It is not likely that they sailed so far as Markland simply to fish, which they might have done off Greenland; the object was rather to fetch timber or wood for fas.h.i.+oning implements, which was valuable in treeless Greenland; the driftwood which came on the East Greenland current did not go very far. It is true that they could not carry much timber on their small vessel; but they had to make the best of the craft they possessed, and they could always carry a sufficient supply of the more valuable woods for the manufacture of tools, weapons and appliances. They must for instance have had great difficulty in obtaining wood for making bows; driftwood was of little use for this.

But if this voyage took place in 1347, and we only hear of it through the accident of the vessel getting out of her course and being driven to Iceland, we may be sure that there were many more like it; only that these were not the expeditions of men of rank, which attracted attention, but everyday voyages for the support of life, like the sealing expeditions to Nordrsetur, and when nothing particular happened to these vessels, such as being driven to Iceland, we hear nothing about them. We must therefore suppose that, even if they had to give up the idea of forming settlements in the west, the Greenlanders occasionally visited Markland (Newfoundland or the southernmost part of Labrador ?), perhaps chiefly to obtain wood of different kinds.

In the so-called Greenland Annals, put together from old sources by Bjorn Jonsson of Skardsa (beginning of the seventeenth century), it is said of the districts on the west coast of Greenland, to the north of the Western Settlement, that they "take up trees and all the drift that comes from the bays of Markland" (cf. vol i. p. 299). This shows that it was customary to regard Markland as the region from which wood was to be obtained. The name itself (== woodland) may have contributed to this view; but the fact that it survived long after all mention of Wineland had ceased may probably be due to communication with the country having been kept up in later times, and to this name being the really historical one on the coast of America.

According to the Icelandic Annals the voyagers from Markland who came to Iceland in 1347, proceeded in the following year (1348) to Norway. This was no doubt with the idea of getting back to Greenland, as there was no sailing to that country from Iceland, and they would not trust their vessel on another ocean voyage. But in Norway, where they arrived at Bergen, they had a long while to wait. "Knarren," the royal trading s.h.i.+p, seems to have been the only vessel that kept up communication with Greenland at that time. We know that "Knarren" returned to Bergen in 1346, and did not sail again until 1355. From a royal letter of 1354, which has been preserved, it appears that extraordinary preparations were made for the fitting-out and manning of this expedition, to prevent Christianity in Greenland from "falling away." Perhaps the presence in Norway of these Markland voyagers from Greenland had something to do with the awakening of interest in that distant country, and perhaps it is not altogether impossible that the intention was not only to secure and strengthen the possessions in Greenland, but also to explore the fertile countries farther west. It cannot be remarked, however, that it brought about any change in the fading knowledge of these valuable regions, and we hear no more of them until their rediscovery at the close of the fifteenth century.

[Sidenote: Norse ball-game in America]

Ebbe Hertzberg, Keeper of the Public Records of Norway, has shown [1904, pp. 210, ff.] that there is a remarkable and interesting similarity between the game of lacrosse, which is played by the Indians of the north-east of North America, and the ancient Norse game, "knattleikr"

(i.e., ball-game), so far as we know it from the sagas. It was greatly in favour in Iceland. If Hertzberg is right in his supposition that the Indians may have got this game from the Nors.e.m.e.n, this would lend strong support to the view that the latter had considerable intercourse with America and its natives.

According to Hertzberg's acute interpretation of the accounts of "knattleikr" in the various sagas, it was played on a large level piece of ground ("leikvollr," i.e., playing-ground), or on the ice, usually by many players. These were divided into two sides, in such a way that those most nearly equal in strength on each side were paired as opponents and stood near to each other, and the two teams were thus spread in pairs over the whole ground. Each player had a club with which he either struck or caught and "carried" the ball. The club had a hollow or a net in which the ball could be caught and lie. When the ball was set going, the game was for the one who was nearest to seize or catch it, preferably with his club, and to run off with it and try to "carry it out," i.e., past a goal or mark; but in this his particular opponent tried to hinder him with all his strength and agility. The other players might not interfere directly in the struggle of the two opponents for the ball. If the one who had the ball was so hard pressed by his opponent that he had to give it up, he tried to throw it to one of his own side, who then again had to reckon with his own opponent in his attempt to "carry it out." This game was much played by the Icelanders; it was apt to be rough, and men were often disabled, or even killed, by their opponents.

[Ill.u.s.tration:The game of Lacrosse among the Menomini Indians (after W. J.

Hoffmann, 1896). On the left, a "crosse," about a yard long]

Hertzberg shows how the Canadian Indians' game of lacrosse, which has become the national game of Canada, completely resembles in all essentials this peculiar Norse ball-game from Iceland. The game of lacrosse is, as Professor Y. Nielsen has pointed out [1905], more widely diffused among the Indian tribes of North America than Hertzberg was aware. Dr. William James Hoffman[35] has described it among the Menomini Indians in Wisconsin, the Ojibwa tribe in northern Minnesota, the Dakota Indians on the upper Missouri, and among the Chactas, Chickasaws and kindred tribes farther south. Hoffmann also mentions that opponents are picked and that the game is played in pairs [1896, i. p. 132]. Among the Ojibwas, he says, the player who is carrying the ball is often placed hors de combat by a blow on the arm or leg; serious injuries only occur when the stakes are high, or when there is enmity between some of the players. Among the more southern tribes, on the other hand, the game is much more violent, the crosse is longer, made of hickory, and it is often sought to disable the runner. This, then, is even more like the Icelandic game.

Hoffmann thinks that the game is undoubtedly derived from one of the eastern Algonkin tribes, possibly in the valley of the St. Lawrence.

Thence it reached the Huron Iroquois, and later it spread farther south to the Cherokees, etc. In a similar way it was carried westwards and adopted by many tribes. This then points to its having originated in just those districts where one would have expected it to come from, if it was brought by the Nors.e.m.e.n, as Hertzberg thinks. That the game is so widely diffused in America and has become so much a part of the Indians' life, even of their religious life, shows that it is very ancient there, and this too supports Hertzberg's a.s.sumption that it is derived from the Nors.e.m.e.n. It is true that Eug. Beauvois[36] has pointed out the possibility of the game having been introduced into Canada by people from Normandy after the sixteenth century; but before such an objection could carry weight, it would have to be made probable that the characteristic Norse game was really played in Normandy; but this is not known. In support of Hertzberg's view it may also be adduced--a point that he himself has not noticed--that the Icelanders appear to have introduced the same ball-game to another American people with whom they came in touch, namely, the Eskimo of Greenland. Hans Egede [1741, p. 93] says:

"Playing ball is their most usual game, especially by moonlight, and they have two ways of playing: When they have divided themselves into two sides, one throws the ball to another who is on his own side.

Those of the other side must endeavour to get the ball from them, and thus it goes on alternately among them...." (The other way of playing mentioned by Egede is more like football.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Game of ball among the Eskimo of Greenland (Hans Egede, 1741)]

This description, together with Egede's drawing, from which it appears, amongst other things, that the opponents are arranged in pairs, seems to show that the Eskimo game was very like the Icelanders' "knattleikr" and the Indians' "lacrosse"; but with the difference that according to Egede's account the Eskimo did not use any club or crosse; moreover, from Egede's drawing it looks as if both men and women took part, as with certain Indian tribes. That there is a connection here appears natural. The most probable explanation may be that the Eskimo as well as the Indians got this ball-game from the Nors.e.m.e.n. That the Eskimo should have learnt it from the whalers after the rediscovery of Greenland in the sixteenth century is unlikely, as also that it should have come to the Indians from the Eskimo round the north of Baffin Bay and through Baffin Land and Labrador; nor is it any more likely that the Icelanders should have learnt it of the Eskimo in Greenland, who again had it from America.

[Sidenote: Difficulties in the way of colonisation]

It is in itself a strange thing that the discovery of a country like North America, with conditions so much more favourable than Greenland and Iceland, should not have led to a permanent settlement. But there are many, and in my judgment sufficient, reasons which explain this. We must remember that such an outpost of civilisation as Greenland offered poor opportunities for the equipment of such settlements; the settlers would have to be prepared for continual conflicts with the Indians, who with their warlike capacity and their numbers might easily be more than a match for a handful of Greenlanders, even though the latter had some advantage in their weapons of iron--and of these too the Greenlanders never had a very good supply, as appears from several narratives. There would also be need of s.h.i.+ps, which were costly and difficult to procure in Greenland; the few that were there certainly had enough to do, and could hardly manage more than an occasional trip to Markland for timber.

Moreover, as the Greenland settlements themselves and their oversea communications declined after the close of the thirteenth century, so also of course did their communication with America decrease, until it finally ceased altogether.

[Sidenote: Hvitramanna-land]

It would thus appear, from all that has been put forward in this chapter, that Wineland the Good was originally a mythical country, closely connected with the happy lands of Irish myths and legends--which had their first source in the Greek Elysium and Isles of the Blest, in Oriental sailors' myths, and an admixture of Biblical conceptions. The description of the country has acquired important features from Isidore's account of the Insulae Fortunatae and from older cla.s.sical literature. This mythical country is to be compared with "Hvitramanna-land" (the white men's land), "which some call Ireland the Great ('Irland hit Mikla')." Of this the Landnama tells us (cf. vol i. p. 353) that it lay near Wineland, in the west of the ocean, six "dgr's" sail west of Ireland (according to the Eyrbyggja Saga it lay to the south-west); the Icelandic chief Are Marsson was driven there by storms, was not allowed to depart, but was baptized there and held in great esteem. Furthermore, the same land is mentioned in the Saga of Eric the Red as lying opposite Markland (cf. vol. i. p. 330).

Finally, in the Eyrbyggja Saga there is a tale of a voyage (see later) which evidently had the same country as its object, though it is not mentioned by name. Since Thorkel Gellisson is given as the authority for the story in the Landnama, the legend may have reached Iceland about the close of the eleventh century.

[Sidenote: Origin of the name]

This Irish land may also be derived from an adaptation of the ancients'

myth of the western Isles of the Blest,[37] and it evidently corresponds to one of the mythical countries of the Christianised Irish legends. It bears great resemblance in particular to "the Island of Strong Men"

("Insula Virorum Fortium") in the Navigatio Brandani, which is also called there "the Isle of Anchorites" [Schroder, 1871, pp. 24, 17]. Three generations dwelt there: the first generation, the children, had clothes white as driven snow, the second of the colour of hyacinth, and the third of Dalmatian purple. The name itself, which in Old Norse would become "Starkramanna-land," shows much similarity of formation; besides which it is the Isle of Anchorites that is in question, and one of the three generations wears white garments; we are thus not far from the formation of a name "Hvitramanna-land." There is yet another point of agreement, in that, just as Are Marsson was not allowed to leave Hvitramanna-land, so one of Brandan's companions had to stay behind on the Isle of Anchorites.

It may also be supposed that the name of the White Men's Land is connected with the White Christ and with the white garments of the baptized; the circ.u.mstance of Are Marsson being baptized there points in the same direction.[38] But to this it may be added that various myths and legends show it to have been a common idea among the Irish that aged hermits and holy men were white. The old man who welcomes Brendan to the promised land in the "Imram Brenaind" [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 139; Schirmer, 1888, p. 34]

has no clothes, but his body is covered with dazzling white feathers, like a dove or a gull, and angelic is the speech of his lips. In the Latin account of Brandan's life ("Vita sancti Brandani") the man is called Paulus, he is again without clothes, but his body is covered with white hair,[39] and in both tales the man came from Ireland [cf. Schirmer, 1888, p. 40]. The cave-dweller Paulus on an island in the Navigatio Brandani [Schroder, 1871, p. 32] is without clothes, but wholly covered by the hair of his head, his beard and other hair down to the feet, and they were white as snow on account of his great age. It is evident that the whiteness is often attributed, as in the last instance, to age; but it is also the heavenly colour, and the white clothing of hair (or feathers) may also have some connection with the white lamb in the Revelation. In the tale of Maelduin's voyage, which is older than those of Brandan's, Maelduin meets in two places, on a sheep-island and on a rock in the sea, with hermits wholly covered with the white hair of their bodies--they too were both Irish--and on two other islands, the soil of one of which was as white as a feather, he meets with men whose only clothing was the hair of their bodies[40] [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 162, 163, 169, 172, 178]. In the Navigatio Brandan also meets on the island of Alibius an aged man with hair of the colour of snow and with s.h.i.+ning countenance. (Cf. Christ revealing himself among the seven candlesticks to John on the isle of Patmos: "His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire" [Rev. i. 14].)

Among the Irish the white colour again forms a conspicuous feature in the description of persons, especially supernatural beings, in ancient non-Christian legends and myths. The name of their national hero Finn means white. To Finn Mac c.u.maill there comes in the legend a king's daughter of unearthly size and beauty, "Bebend" (the white woman), from the Land of Virgins ("Tir na-n-Ingen") in the west of the sea, and she has marvellously beautiful white hair [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p.

269]. The corresponding maiden of the sea-people, in the "Imram Brenaind," whom Brandan finds, is also whiter than snow or sea-spray (see vol. i. p. 363). The physician Libra at the court of Manannan, king of the Promised Land, has three daughters with white hair. When Midir, the king of the sid (fairies), is trying to entice away Etain, queen of the high-king of Ireland, he says: "Oh, white woman, wilt thou go with me to the land of marvels?... thy body has the white colour of snow to the very top," etc. etc.[41] [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp.

273, 279]. A corresponding idea to that of the Irish sid-people, especially the women, being white, is perhaps that of the Norse elves being thought light (cf. "lysalver," light-elves), or even white. The elf-maiden in Sweden is slender as a lily and white as snow, and elves in Denmark may also be snow-white (cf. also the fact that elves are described as white nymphs, "albae nymphae").

It seems natural that these ideas--of whiteness as specially beautiful, and mostly applied to the "sid" or elves, to the garments of baptism, and to holy men and hermits--led to a name which, in conformity with the Strong Men's Island of the Navigatio, would become the White Men's Land, for the mythical western land oversea, where Are Marsson was baptized, but which he could not leave again, and where, according to the Eyrbyggja Saga, the language resembled Irish. This, then, is precisely the "Isle of Anchorites." The country may have originated through a contact of ideas from the religious world and the profane, original conceptions from the latter having become Christianised. Doubtless the white garments, which were connected with the other world, and which became the heavenly raiment of the Christians, have also played a part. In Plato a white-clad woman (i.e., one from the other world) comes to Socrates in a dream and announces to him that in three days he is to depart. During the transfiguration on the mountain Jesus' face "did s.h.i.+ne as the sun, and his raiment was white as the light" [Matt. xvii. 2], or "his raiment became s.h.i.+ning, exceeding white as snow" [Mark ix. 3]. On the basis of this Christian conception the image of the world beyond the grave has taken the form of a fair, s.h.i.+ning land, as in the immense literature of visions; and thus too in the Floamanna Saga [Gronl. hist. Mind., ii. p. 103], where Thorgils's wife Th.o.r.ey sees in a dream a "fair country with s.h.i.+ning white men" ("menn bjarta"), and Thorgils interprets it to mean "another world"

where "good awaits her" and "holy men would help her."

There is further a possibility that some of the conceptions attached to Hvitramanna-land may be connected with ancient Celtic tales which in antiquity were a.s.sociated with the Ca.s.siterides (in Celtic Brittany); in any case there is a remarkable similarity between the mention in Eric the Red's Saga of men who went about in white clothes, carried poles before them, and cried aloud (see vol. i. p. 330), and Strabo's description (see vol. i. p. 27) of the men in the Ca.s.siterides in black cloaks with kirtles reaching to the feet, who wander about with staves, like the Furies in tragedy. That Strabo should see a resemblance to the Eumenides (Furies) and therefore make his men black, while the Northern author has the Christian ideas and in agreement with the name of Hvitramanna-land gives them white clothes, need not surprise us. Even if Storm [1887] is correct in his supposition that the white men's banners, or "poles to which strips were attached" (see vol. i. p. 330), are connected with ecclesiastical processions, this may be a later popular modification, just as the white hermits out in the ocean may be a modification of pre-Christian, or at any rate non-religious, conceptions in Ireland.

Reference has been made (p. 32) to the resemblance between the accounts of the inhabitants of Wyntlandia (== Wineland), who were versed in magic, and of the Celtic priestesses in the island of Sena off Brittany. One might be tempted to think that here again there is some connection or other between these Breton priestesses and, on the one hand the Irishmen in Hvitramanna-land, on the other the men of the Ca.s.siterides (near Sena) who were like the Furies. Dionysius Periegetes [510; c.u.m Eustath. 1] relates that on this island of Sena women crowned with ivy conducted nocturnal baccha.n.a.ls, with shrieks and violent noise (cf. the men in white clothes in Hvitramanna-land, who carried poles and cried aloud). No male person might set foot on the island, but the women went over to the men on the mainland, and returned after having had intercourse with them (cf. vol. i. p. 356).

Exactly the same thing is related by Strabo [iv. 198] of the Samnite women on a little island in the sea, not far from the mouth of the Liger (Loire); inspired by Bacchus they honour that G.o.d in mysteries and other unusually holy actions. The druids had their sanctuaries on islands, and Mona (Anglesey) was their headquarters. Tacitus [Ann.

xiv. 30] tells of their fanatical women who, in white clothes (grave-clothes), with dishevelled hair and flaming torches, conducted themselves altogether like Furies on the arrival of the Romans.

The circ.u.mstance of Hvitramanna-land being, according to the Eyrbyggja Saga, a forbidden land may correspond to that of men being prohibited from setting foot on the priestesses' island, or again to the way to the Ca.s.siterides being kept secret and to the precautions taken to prevent people from reaching them (cf. vol. i. p. 27). Something similar, it may be added, is told of the rich, fertile island which the Carthaginians discovered in the west of the ocean, and which, under pain of death, they forbade others to visit [Aristotle, Mir. Auscult., c. 85; cf. also Diodorus, v. 20]. That in late cla.s.sical times there was a confusion between the Ca.s.siterides and the mythical isles in the west appears further from Pliny's saying [Hist. Nat., iv. 36] that the Ca.s.siterides were also called "Fortunatae," and from Dionysius Periegetes making tin, the product of the Ca.s.siterides, come from the Hesperides.

[Sidenote: The name Great-Ireland]

It was mentioned above (vol. i. p. 357) that the name of the promised land, "the Land of Marvels," was also called in Irish legend the "Great Strand" ("Trag Mor"), or the "Great Land" ("Tir Mor"); "two or three times as large as Ireland" (vol. i. p. 355). It does not seem unlikely that the Icelanders, hearing from Ireland of this great land, should come to call it "Irland hit Mikla" (Ireland the Great); and this seems to be a more natural explanation than Storm's [1887, p. 65] interpretation of the name as meaning "the Irish colony," like "Magna Graecia" (the Greek colony in Italy) and "Svijod it Mikla" (the Swedish colony in Russia, the name of which may however have been derived from the name of the latter: "Scythia Magna"); on the other hand, he gives an obvious parallel in "Great Han,"

the mythical land in the Great Ocean beyond China (Han).

In the Eyrbyggja Saga we read of Bjorn Asbrandsson, called Breidvikinge-kjaempe, and his exploits. He bore illicit love to Snorre G.o.de's sister, Thurid of Froa, the wife of Thorodd, and had by her an illegitimate son, Kjartan. Finally he had to leave Iceland on account of this love; but his s.h.i.+p was not ready till late in the autumn. They put to sea with a north-east wind, which held for a long time that autumn.

Afterwards the s.h.i.+p was not heard of for many a day.

[Sidenote: Gudleif's voyage]