In Northern Mists Volume I Part 22

"But Karlsevne wished to go south along the coast and eastward. He thought the land became broader the farther south it bore;[305] but it seemed to him most expedient to try both ways" [i.e., both south and north].

Thorhall then parted from them; but there were no more than nine men in his company. Perhaps they were desirous of going home; for from an old lay, which the saga attributes to Thorhall, it appears that he was discontented with the whole stay there: he abuses the country, where the warriors had promised him the best of drinks, but where wine never touched his lips, and he had to take a bucket himself and fetch water to drink.

And before they hoisted sail Thorhall quoth this lay:

"Let us go homeward, where we shall find fellow-countrymen: let us with our s.h.i.+p seek the broad ways of the sea, while the hopeful warriors (those who praise the land) on Furustrandir stay and boil whales' flesh."

"Then they parted [from Karlsevne, who had accompanied them out] and sailed north of Furustrandir and Kjalarnes, and then tried to beat westward. Then the westerly storm caught them and they drifted to Ireland, and there they were made slaves and ill-treated. There Thorhall lost his life, as merchants have reported."

The last statement shows that according to Icelandic geographical ideas the country round Kjalarnes lay directly opposite Ireland and in the same lat.i.tude.

Karlsevne, with Snorre, Bjarne, and the rest, left Straumsfjord and sailed southward along the coast [1004].

"They sailed a long time and until they came to a river, which flowed down from the interior into a lake and thence into the sea. There were great sandbanks before the mouth of the river, and it could only be entered at high water. Karlsevne and his people then sailed to the mouth of the river and called the country 'Hop' [i.e., a small closed bay]. There they found self-sown wheat-fields, where the land was low, but vines wherever they saw heights ('en vinvir allt ar sem holta kendi'). Every beck ('lokr') was full of fish. They dug trenches on the sh.o.r.e below high-water mark, and when the tide went out there were halibuts in the trenches. In the forest there was a great quant.i.ty of beasts of all kinds. They were there half a month amusing themselves, and suspecting nothing. They had their cattle with them.

But early one morning, when they looked about them, they saw nine hide-boats ('hukeipa'), and wooden poles were being waved on the s.h.i.+ps [i.e., the hide-boats], and they made a noise like thres.h.i.+ng-flails and went the way of the sun. Karlsevne's men took this to be a token of peace and bore a white s.h.i.+eld towards them. Then the strangers rowed towards them, and wondered, and came ash.o.r.e. They were small [or black ?][306] men, and ugly, and they had ugly hair on their heads; their eyes were big, and they were broad across the cheeks. And they stayed there awhile, and wondered, then rowed away and went south of the headland."

This then would be the description of the first meeting in history between Europeans and the natives of America. With all its brevity it gives an excellent picture; but whether we can accept it is doubtful. As we shall see later, the Nors.e.m.e.n probably did meet with Indians; but the description of the latter's appearance must necessarily have been coloured more and more by greater familiarity with the Skraelings of Greenland when the sagas were put into writing. The big eyes will not suit either of them, and are rather to be regarded as an attribute of trolls and underground beings; gnomes and old fairy men have big, watery eyes. The ugly hair is also an attribute of the underground beings.

"Karlsevne and his men had built their houses above the lake, some nearer, some farther off. Now they stayed there that winter. No snow fell at all, and all the cattle were out at pasture. But when spring came they saw early one morning a number of hide-boats rowing from the south past the headland, so many that it seemed as if the sea had been sown with coal in front of the bay, and they waved wooden poles on every boat. Then they set up s.h.i.+elds and held a market, and the people wanted most to buy red cloth; they also wanted to buy swords and spears, but this was forbidden by Karlsevne and Snorre." The Skraelings[307] gave them untanned skins in exchange for the cloth, and trade was proceeding briskly, until "an ox, which Karlsevne had, ran out of the wood and began to bellow. The Skraelings were scared and ran to their boats (keipana) and rowed south along the sh.o.r.e. After that they did not see them for three weeks. But when that time was past, they saw a great mult.i.tude of Skraeling boats coming from the south, as though driven on by a stream. Then all the wooden poles were waved against the sun ('rangsolis,' wither-s.h.i.+ns), and all the Skraelings howled loudly. Then Karlsevne and his men took red s.h.i.+elds and bore them towards them. The Skraelings leapt from their boats and then they made towards each other and fought; there was a hot exchange of missiles. The Skraelings also had catapults ('valslongur'). Karlsevne and his men saw that the Skraelings hoisted up on a pole a great ball ('knottr') about as large as a sheep's paunch, and seeming blue[308]

in colour, and slung it from the pole up on to the land over Karlsevne's people, and it made an ugly noise when it came down. At this great terror smote Karlsevne and his people, so that they had no thought but of getting away and up the river, for it seemed to them that the Skraelings were a.s.sailing them on all sides; and they did not halt until they had reached certain crags. There they made a stout resistance. Freydis came out and saw that they were giving way. She cried out: 'Wherefore do ye run away from such wretches, ye gallant men? I thought it likely that ye could slaughter them like cattle, and had I but arms I believe I should fight better than any of you.' None heeded what she said. Freydis tried to go with them, but she fell behind, for she was with child. She nevertheless followed them into the wood, but the Skraelings came after her. She found before her a dead man, Thorbrand Snorrason, and a flat stone ('h.e.l.l.u.s.tein') was fixed in the head of him. His sword lay unsheathed by him, and she took it up to defend herself with it. Then the Skraelings came at her.

She takes her b.r.e.a.s.t.s out of her sark and whets the sword on them. At that the Skraelings are afraid and run away back to their boats, and go off. Karlsevne and his men meet her and praise her happy device. Two men of Karlsevne's fell, and four of the Skraelings; but nevertheless Karlsevne had suffered defeat. They now go to their houses, bind up their wounds, and consider what swarm of people it was that came against them from the land. It seemed to them now that there could have been no more than those who came from the boats, and that the other people must have been glamour. The Skraelings also found a dead man, and an axe lay beside him; one of them took up the axe and struck at a tree, and so one after another, and it seemed to delight them that it bit so well. Then one took and smote a stone with it; but when the axe broke, he thought it was of no use, if it did not stand against stone, and he cast it from him."

"Karlsevne and his men now thought they could see that although the land was fertile, they would always have trouble and disquiet with the people who dwelt there before. Then they prepared to set out, and intended to go to their own country. They sailed northward and found five Skraelings sleeping in fur jerkins ('skinnhjupum'), and they had with them kegs with deer's marrow mixed with blood. They thought they could understand that they were outlaws; they killed them. Then they found a headland and a mult.i.tude of deer, and the headland looked like a crust of dried dung, from the deer lying there at night. Now they came back to Straumsfjord, and there was abundance of everything. It is reported by some that Bjarne and Gudrid remained behind there, and a hundred men with them, and did not go farther; but they say that Karlsevne and Snorre went southward with forty men and were no longer at Hop than barely two months, and came back the same summer."

[Ill.u.s.tration: From an Icelandic MS. (Jonsbok), fourteenth century]

Karlsevne went with one s.h.i.+p to search for Thorhall the Hunter. He sailed to the north of Kjalarnes, westwards, and south along the sh.o.r.e (Storm thought on the eastern side of Cape Breton Island to the northern side of Nova Scotia), and they found a river running from east to west into the sea.

Here Thorvald Ericson was shot one morning from the sh.o.r.e with an arrow which they thought came from a Uniped [legendary creature with one foot] whom they pursued but did not catch. The arrow struck Thorvald in the small intestines. He drew it out, saying: "There is fat in the bowels; a good land have we found, but it is doubtful whether we shall enjoy it." Thorvald died of this wound a little later. "They then sailed away northward again and thought they sighted 'Einfotinga-land' [the Land of Unipeds]. They would no longer risk the lives of their men," and "they went back and stayed in Straumsfjord the third winter. Then the men became very weary [so that they fell into disagreement]; those who were wifeless quarrelled with those who had wives."[309]

The fourth summer [1006] they sailed from Wineland with a south wind and came to Markland.

There they found five Skraelings, and caught of them two boys, while the grown-up ones, a bearded man and two women, "escaped and sank into the earth. The boys they took with them and taught them their language, and they were baptized. They called their mother 'Vaetilldi'

and their father 'Vaegi.' They said that kings governed in Skraelinga-land; one of them was called 'Avalldamon,' the other 'Valldidida.' They said that there were no houses, and the people lay in rock-shelters or caves. They said there was another great country over against their country, and men went about there in white clothing and cried aloud, and carried poles before them, to which strips were fastened. This is thought to be 'Hvitramanna-land' [i.e., the white men's land] or Great-Ireland." Then Karlsevne and his men came to Greenland and stayed the winter with Eric the Red [1006-1007].

"But Bjarne Grimolfsson [on the other s.h.i.+p] was carried out into the Irish Ocean [the Atlantic between Markland and Ireland] and they came into the maggot-sea ('mak-sja'); they did not know of it until the s.h.i.+p was worm-eaten under them," and ready to sink. "They had a long-boat ('eptirbat') that was coated with seal-tar, and men say that the sea-maggot will not eat wood that is coated with seal-tar." "But when they tried it, the boat would not hold more than half the s.h.i.+p's company." They all wanted to go in it; but Bjarne then proposed that they should decide who should go in the boat by casting lots and not by precedence, and this was agreed to. The lots fell so that Bjarne was amongst those who were to go in the boat. "When they were in it, a young Icelander, who had accompanied Bjarne from home, said: 'Dost thou think, Bjarne, to part from me here?' Bjarne answers: 'So it must be.' He says: 'This was not thy promise when I came with thee from Iceland....' Bjarne answers: 'Nor shall it be so; go thou in the boat, but I must go in the s.h.i.+p, since I see that thy life is so dear to thee.' Bjarne then went on board the s.h.i.+p, and this man in the boat, and they kept on their course until they came to Dyflinar [Dublin] in Ireland, and there told this tale. But most men believe that Bjarne and his companions lost their lives in the maggot-sea, since they were not heard of again."

Thorfinn Karlsevne returned in the following summer (1007) to Iceland with Gudrid and their son Snorre, who was born at Straumsfjord in Wineland the first winter they were there. Karlsevne afterwards lived in Iceland.

[Sidenote: The composite and legendary character of the whole saga]

If we now review critically the Saga of Eric the Red and the whole of this tale of Karlsevne's voyage, together with the other accounts of Wineland voyages, we shall find one feature after another that is legendary or that must have been borrowed from elsewhere. If we examine first of all the relation of the various authorities to the events they narrate, we must be struck by the fact that in the oldest authorities, such as the Landnama, Eric the Red has only two sons, Leif and Thorstein, whereas in Eric's Saga and in the "Gronlendinga-attr," for the sake of the trilogy of legend, he has begotten three sons, besides an illegitimate daughter. In the oldest MS., Hauk's Landnamabok, Leif is only mentioned in one place, and nothing more is said of him than that he was Eric's son and inherited Brattalid from his father; he is not given the nickname "heppni" (the lucky), and it is not mentioned that he had discovered Wineland, nor that he had introduced Christianity. In the Sturlubok he is again mentioned in one place as the son of Tjodhild and Eric, and there has the nickname "en hepni"; but neither is there here any mention of the discovery of Wineland or the introduction of Christianity [cf. Landnamabok, ed. F. Jonsson, 1900, pp. 35, 156, 165]. As this pa.s.sage is not found in Hauk's Landnama, it may be an addition in the later MS., which was wanting in the original Landnamabok. In the great saga of St. Olaf[310] (chapter 70)--where King Olaf asks the Icelander Thorarinn Nevjolfsson to take the blind king Rorek to Greenland to "Leif Ericson"--the latter again is not called the Lucky, nor is Wineland or its discovery mentioned. This saga was written, according to the editors, about 1230. As neither this nickname nor the tales of Leif's discovery of Wineland are found earlier than in the Kristni-saga and Heimskringla, it looks as if these features did not appear till later. There is a similar state of things with regard to the mention of Thorfinn Karlsevne; only in one pa.s.sage in Hauk's Landnama is it mentioned that he found "Vin(d)land hit Goa"; but as this does not occur in the Sturlubok, it may be an addition due to Hauk Erlendsson, who regarded Thorfinn as his ancestor. The silence of the oldest authorities on the voyages to Wineland becomes still more striking when we compare with it the fact that the Landnamabok contains statements (with careful citation of authorities, showing that they are derived from Are Frode himself) about Are Marsson, his voyage to Hvitramanna-land, and his stay there, which have generally been regarded as far less authentic than the tales of the Wineland voyages. If Are Marsson's voyage is a myth, then one would be still more inclined to regard the latter as such. The objection that it would have been beside the plan of the brief and concise earlier works (islendingabok and Landnamabok) to include these things, scarcely holds good. If Are has room in the islendingabok for a comparatively detailed account of the discovery, naming and natives of Greenland, and further for a description of the introduction of Christianity into Iceland; if the Landnamabok also gives details, derived, as we have said, from him, of Are Marsson's voyage to Hvitramanna-land, then it is difficult to understand why neither Are Frode nor the authors of the Landnamabok, when mentioning Eric the Red and Leif, should have found room for a line about Leif's having discovered Wineland and Christianised Greenland--two not unimportant pieces of information--if they had known of it. At any rate, the Christianising of Greenland must have been of interest to the priest Are and to the priest-taught authors of Landnamabok. This silence is therefore suspicious.

The personal names in the Saga of Eric the Red are also striking. With the exception of Eric himself, his wife Tjodhild and his son Leif, and a few other names in the first part, which is taken almost in its entirety from the Landnamabok, almost all the names belonging to this saga are connected with those of heathen G.o.ds, especially Thor. Eric has got a third son, Thorvald, who is not mentioned in Landnama, besides his daughter Freydis, and his son-in-law Thorvard. The name Freydis is only known from this one woman in the whole of Icelandic literature, and several names in Norse literature compounded of Frey- seem, according to Lind,[311] to belong to myths (e.g., Freygarr, Freysteinn and Freybjorn). Other names connected with the Wineland voyages in this saga are: Thor-bjorn Vivilsson (his brother was named Thor-geir and his daughter's foster-father Orm Thor-geirsson) came to Thor-kjell of Herjolfsnes, where the prophetess was called Thor-bjorg. Leif's woman in the Hebrides was called Thor-gunna, and their illegitimate son Thor-gils. Thor-stein Ericson had a property together with another Thor-stein in Lysefjord.[312] We have further Thor-finn Karlsevne (son of Thord and Thor-unn), Snorre Thor-brandsson, Thor-hall Gamlason, Thor-hall Veidemand (who also had dealings with the red-bearded Thor), and Thor-brand Snorrason who was killed. An exception, besides Bjarne Grimolfsson (and the runners Haki and Hekja; see below), is Thorfinn Karlsevne's wife Gurir,[313] daughter of Thorbjorn Vivilsson, and mother of Snorre. But perhaps one can guess why she is given this name if one reads through the description of the remarkable scene of soothsaying--at Thorkjell's house on Herjolfsnes--between the fair Gudrid, who sang with such a beautiful voice, and the heathen sorceress Thorbjorg, where the former as a Christian woman refuses to sing the heathen charms "Varlokur," as the sorceress asks her to do. These numerous Thor-names--with the two women's names, the powerful Freydis and the fair Gudrid--which are attributed to a time when heathendom and Christianity were struggling for the mastery (cf. the tale of Thorhall the Hunter and the whale), have in themselves an air of myth and invention. To this must be added mythical descriptions like those of the prophetess of Herjolfsnes, the ghosts at Lysefjord the winter Thorstein Ericson died, and others.

The Saga of Eric the Red tells of two voyages in search of Wineland, after Leif's accidental discovery of the country. The first is Thorstein Ericson's unfortunate expedition, when they did not find the favoured Wineland, but were driven eastward into the ocean towards Iceland and Ireland. In the Irish tale of Brandan ("Imram Brenaind," of the eleventh century), Brandan first makes an unsuccessful voyage to find the promised land, and arrives, it seems, most probably in the east of the ocean, somewhere about Brittany (cf. Vita S. Brandani; and Machutus's voyage); but he then makes a fresh voyage in which he finally reaches the land he is in search of [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 135 ff.]. This similarity with the Irish legend is doubtless not very great, but perhaps it deserves to be included with many others to be mentioned later.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The relative distances between the countries. The scale gives "dgr's" sailing (== 2 degrees of lat.i.tude), according to the "Rymbegla." A white cross marks the valley of the St. John]

If we now pa.s.s to the tale itself of Karlsevne's voyage, we have already seen (p. 321) that its beginning with the journey to the Western Settlement is doubtful; next, the feature of his sailing to three different countries in turn (h.e.l.luland, Markland and Furustrandir), with the same number of days' sail between each, must be taken directly from the fairy tales.[314] Such a voyage is in itself improbable; in the saga the countries are evidently imagined as islands or peninsulas, but nothing corresponding to this is to be found on the coast of America. It is inconceivable that a discoverer of Labrador and of the coast to the south of it should have divided this into several countries; it was not till long after the rediscovery of Newfoundland and Labrador that the sound between them was found. If we suppose that Karlsevne was making southward and came first to Labrador (== h.e.l.luland ?), with a coast extending south-eastward, it is against common sense that he should voluntarily have lost sight of this coast and put to sea again in an easterly direction, and then sight fresh land to the south of him two days later; on the other hand, this is the usual mode of presentment in fairy tales and myth. But let us suppose now that he did nevertheless arrive in this way at Newfoundland (== Markland ?), and then again put to sea instead of following the coast, how could he know that this time instead of sailing eastward he was to take a westward course? But this he must have done, for otherwise he could not have reached Cape Breton or Nova Scotia; and he must have got there, if we are to make anything out of the story. The distances given, of two "dgr's" sail to each of the countries, as remarked on p. 322, are also foreign to reality.[315] This part of the description has therefore an altogether artificial look. It reminds one forcibly of many of the old Irish legendary tales of wonderful voyages; in particular the commencement of one of the oldest and most important may be mentioned: "Imram Maelduin" (the tale of Maelduin's voyage), which is known in MSS. of the end of the eleventh century and later, but which was probably to a great extent first written down in the seventh, or at the latest in the eighth century [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 289].

When Maelduin and his companions put to sea from Ireland in a coracle with three hides (while Karlsevne has three s.h.i.+ps), they came first to two small islands (while Karlsevne came to Bjarneyjar). After this for three days and three nights the Irishmen came upon no land; "on the morning of the third day" they heard the waves breaking on a beach, but when daylight came and they approached the land, swarms of ants, as large as foals, came down to the beach and showed a desire to eat them and the boat (these are the gold-digging ants of Indo-Greek legend). This land is the parallel to h.e.l.luland, where there were a number of arctic foxes (cf. the description of the arrival there, p.

323).--After having fled thence for three days and three nights, the Irishmen heard "on the morning of the third day" the waves breaking on a beach, and when daylight came they saw a great, lofty island with terraces around it and rows of trees, on which there were many large birds; they ate their fill of these and took some of them in the boat.

This island might correspond to the wooded Markland, with its many animals, where Karlsevne and his people killed a bear.--After another three days and three nights at sea, the Irish voyagers "on the morning of the fourth day" saw a great sandy island; on approaching the sh.o.r.e they saw there a fabulous beast like a horse with dog's paws and claws. For fear of the beast they rowed away without landing. This great sandy island may be compared with Furustrandir, where there were no harbours and it was difficult to land.--The Irishmen then travelled "for a long time" before they came to a large, flat island, where two men landed to examine the island, which they found to be large and broad, and they saw marks of horses' hoofs as large as a s.h.i.+p's sail, and nutsh.e.l.ls as large as "coedi" (a measure of capacity ?), and traces of many human beings. This bears a resemblance to Karlsevne's having "a long way" to sail along Furustrandir before he came to a bay, where the two Scots went ash.o.r.e to examine the country, were absent three days, and found grapes and wheat.--After that the Irishmen travelled for a week, in hunger and thirst, until they came to a great, lofty island, with a great house on the beach, with two doors, "one towards the plain on the island and one towards the sea"; and through the latter the waves of the sea threw salmon into the middle of the house. They found decorated couches and crystal goblets with good drink in the house, but no human being, and they took meat and drink and thanked G.o.d. Karlsevne proceeded from the bay and came to Straumsey, which was thick with birds and eggs, and to Straumsfjord, where they established themselves (i.e., built houses).

And there were mountains and a fair prospect and high gra.s.s; and they had catches from two sides, "hunting on the land, and eggs and fish from the sea"; and where, to begin with, they did nothing but make themselves acquainted with the land.--From the island with the house Maelduin and his men travelled about "for a long time," hungry and without food, until they found an island which was encompa.s.sed by a great cliff ("alt mor impi"). There was a very thin and tall tree there; Maelduin caught a branch of it in his hand as they pa.s.sed by; for three days and three nights the branch was in his hand, while the boat was sailing past the cliff, and on the third day there were three apples at the end of the branch (cf. Karlsevne's runners who returned after three days with grapes and wheat in their hands), on which they lived for forty days. Karlsevne and his men suffered great want during the winter at Straumsfjord; and from that place, where they lived on land in houses, they sailed "for a long time" before they came to the country with the self-sown wheat and vines, where there were great sandbanks off the mouth of the river, so that they had a difficulty in landing.

It is striking that in the voyage of Maelduin, the distance is only given as three days' and three nights' sail in the case of the three first pa.s.sages to the three successive islands, after the first two small islands, while between the later islands we are told that they sailed "a long way," "for a week," "for a long time," etc.; just as in the Saga of Eric the Red, where, after Bjarneyjar, they sail for two "dgr" to each of the three lands in turn, and then they had "a long way" to sail along Furustrandir, to a bay, after which "they went on their way" to Straumsfjord, and thence they went "for a long time" to Wineland, etc. I do not venture to a.s.sert that there was a direct connection between the two productions, for that there are perhaps too many dissimilarities; but they seem in any case to have their roots in one and the same cycle of ideas, and the original legend certainly reached Iceland in the shape of oral narrative.

The number three plays an important part in Eric's Saga. Three voyages are made to or in search of Wineland, Karlsevne has three s.h.i.+ps, three countries are visited in turn, three winters are spent away (as with Eric the Red on his first voyage to Greenland, but there this was due to his exile), they meet with the Skraelings three times, three men fall (two in the fight with the Skraelings, and afterwards Thorvald Ericson)--just as Maelduin (and also Brandan) loses three men--the expedition finally resolves itself into three separate homeward voyages, Thorhall the Hunter's, Karlsevne's and Bjarne Grimolfsson's, etc. etc.[316] In the Irish legends and tales, e.g., those of Maelduin or of the Ua Corra, the repet.i.tion of the number three is even more conspicuous.

We may regard it as another feature of fairy tale that Eric the Red has three sons who set out one after another, first Leif, then Thorstein, and lastly Thorvald, who finds the land and takes part in the attempt to settle it. But this feature is not conspicuous enough to allow of our attaching much importance to it, especially as here it is the first son who is the lucky one, while it is not so in fairy tale.

[Sidenote: Sweet dew and manna]

In Leif's voyage in the "Gronlendinga-attr" (which voyage partly corresponds to Karlsevne's), when they came to a country south-west of Markland, they landed on an island, to the north of the country,

"looked around them in fair weather, and found that there was dew on the gra.s.s, and it happened that they touched the gra.s.s with their hands and put them in their mouths, and they thought they had never tasted anything so sweet as it was."

This reminds one forcibly of Moses' manna in the wilderness, which appeared like dew [Exodus xvi. 14]. In the Old Norwegian free rendering of the Old Testament, called "Stjorn,"[317] of about 1300, therefore much earlier than the "Gronlendinga-attr," the account of this says that dew came from heaven round the whole camp, "it stuck like slime on the hands as soon as they touched it" ... "they found that it was sweet as honey in taste...." But here again we come in contact with Irish legendary ideas.

In the tale of the Navigation of the Sons of Ua Corra (of the twelfth century) the voyagers come to an island with a beautiful and wonderful plain covered with trees, full of honey, and a gra.s.s-green glade in the middle with a glorious lake of agreeable taste. Later on they come to another marvellous island, with splendid green gra.s.s, and honeydew lay on the gra.s.s [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 194, 195].

[Sidenote: Furustrandir]

The name "Furustrandir" (marvel-strands), as we shall see later (p. 357), may come from the "Tirib Ingnad" (lands of marvel) and "Trag Mor" (great strand) of Irish legend, far in the western ocean.

[Sidenote: Mythical figures: the Scottish runners]

When Karlsevne arrived off Furustrandir he sent out his two Scottish runners, the man "Haki" and the woman "Hekja," and told them to run southwards and examine the condition of the country and come back in three days. This is evidently another legendary trait; and equally so the circ.u.mstance that King Olaf had given these runners to Leif and told him "to make use of them if he had need of speed, for they were swifter than deer." We know of many such features in fairy tale and myth. Then, after the traditional three days, the man and woman come running from the interior of the country, one with grapes, the other with self-sown wheat in their hands. We are tempted to think of the spies Moses sent into Canaan, with orders to spy out the land, whether it was fat or lean, and who came back with a vine-branch and a cl.u.s.ter of grapes, which they had cut in the vale of Eshcol (i.e., the vale of grapes).[318]

But there are other remarkable points about this legend. Professor Moltke Moe has called my attention to a striking resemblance between it and the legends of the two runners or spies who accompanied Sinclair's march through Norway in 1612. They are called "wind-runners" or "bloodhounds,"

or again "weather-calves" or "wind-calves"; others called them "Wild Turks."

"They were ugly folk enough. Sinklar used them to run before and search out news; in the evening they came back with their reports.

They were swifter in running than the stag; it is said that the flesh was cut out of their thighs and the thick of their calves. It is also said that they could follow men's tracks."[319]

We are told elsewhere that "these 'Ver-Kalvann' ('wind-calves') were more active than farm-dogs, swift as lightning, and did not look like folk. The flesh was cut out of the thick of their calves, their thighs and b.u.t.tocks; their nostrils were also slit up. People thought this was done to them to make them so much lighter to run around, and every one was more frightened of them than of the Scots themselves. They could get the scent of folk a long way off and could kill a man before he could blow his nose: they dashed up the back and broke the necks of folk."[320]

The trait that the wind-runners "did not look like folk" is expressed in another form in H. P. S. Krag's notes; he thinks that they

"were nothing else but Sinclair's bloodhounds, which we may a.s.sume both from the description and from its being related of the one that was shot at odegaard that it ran about the field and barked."

Something similar also occurs about the runners in Wineland in a late form of the legend of Karlsevne's voyage, where we read that

"he sailed from Greenland south-westward until the condition of the country got better and better; he found and visited many places that have never been found since; he found also some Skraelings; these people are called in some books Lapps. In one place he got two creatures ('skepnur') more like apes than men, whom he called Hake and Hekja; they ran as fast as greyhounds and had few clothes." [MS. A.

M., old no. 77oc, new no. 1892, 3; cf. Rafn: "Antiquitates Americanae,"

1837, p. 196.]

It may be mentioned in addition that in the Flateyjarbok's saga of the Wineland voyages no runners appear, but on the other hand, in the tale of Leif's voyage, which has features in common with Karlsevne's, there is a "Southman" ("surmar," most frequently used of Germans)[321] of the name of "Tyrker," who was the first to find the wild vine in the woods (like Karlsevne's runners) and intoxicated himself by eating the grapes.[322] As Moltke Moe observes, there is a remarkable resemblance between the rare name Tyrker and the fact that Sinclair's runners were called Wild Turks.

Both in the legend of Karlsevne and in that of Sinclair the two runners are connected with Scots or Scotland. One is therefore inclined to suppose that some piece of Celtic folklore is the common source of both. Now there is a Scottish mythical creature called a "water-calf"; and the unintelligible Norwegian name "weather-calf" or "wind-calf" ("veirkalv") may well be thought a corruption of this. It is true that this creature inhabits lakes, but it also goes upon dry land, and has fabulous speed and the power of scenting things far off. It can also transform itself into different shapes, but always preserves something of its animal form.