In Northern Mists Volume Ii Part 3

Gudleif Gudlaugsson was the name of a great sailor and merchant; he owned a large merchant vessel. In the last years of St. Olaf's reign he was on a trading voyage to Dublin; "when he sailed westward from thence he was making for Iceland. He sailed to the west of Ireland, encountered there a strong north-east wind, and was driven far to the west and south-west in the ocean," until they finally came to a great land which was unknown to them. They did not know the people there, "but thought rather that they spoke Irish." Soon many hundred men collected about them, seized and bound them, and drove them up into the country. They were brought to an a.s.sembly and sentence was to be p.r.o.nounced upon them. They understood as much as that some wanted to kill them, while others wanted to make slaves of them. While this was going on, a great band of men came on horseback with a banner, and under it rode a big and stately man of great age, with white hair, whom they guessed to be the chief, for all bowed before him. He sent for them; when they came before him he spoke to them in Norse and asked from what country they came, and when he heard that most of them were Icelanders, and that Gudleif was from Borgarfjord, he asked after nearly all the more important men of Borgarfjord and Breidafjord, and particularly Snorre G.o.de, and Thurid of Froa, his sister, and most of all after Kjartan, her son, who was now master there. After this big man had discussed the matter at length with the men of the country, he again spoke to the Icelanders and gave them leave to depart, but although the summer was far gone, he advised them to get away as soon as possible, as the people there were not to be relied upon. He would not tell them his name; for he did not wish his kinsmen such a voyage thither as they would have had if he had not helped them; but he was now so old that he might soon be gone, and moreover, said he, there were men of more influence than he in that country, who would show little mercy to foreigners. After this he had the s.h.i.+p fitted out, and was himself present, until there came a favourable wind for them to leave. When they parted, this man took a gold ring from his hand, gave it to Gudleif, and with it a good sword, and said: "If it be thy lot to reach Iceland, thou shalt bring this sword to Kjartan, master of Froa, and the ring to Thurid, his mother." When Gudleif asked him who he was to say was the sender of these costly gifts, he answered: "Say he sent them who was more a friend of the mistress of Froa than of the 'G.o.de' of Helgafell, her brother...." Gudleif and his men put to sea and arrived in Ireland late in the autumn, stayed that winter at Dublin, and sailed next summer to Iceland [cf. Gronl. hist. Mind., i.

pp. 769, ff.].

It is clear that Bjorn Breidvikinge-kjaempe here is the same as Are Marsson in the Landnama, who was also driven by storms to Hvitramanna-land, had to stay there all his life, and according to the report of Thorfinn earl of Orkney (ob. circa 1064) had been recognised (by travellers like Gudleif ?), and was much honoured there. This incident of the travellers coming to an unknown island and there finding a man who has been absent a long while has parallels in many Irish legends. Thus it may be mentioned that Brandan, in the Navigatio, comes to the convent-island of Alibius, with the twenty-four Irish monks of old days, and meets there the old white-haired man who was prior of the convent and had been there for eighty years, but who does not tell his name. Brandan asks leave to sail on, but this is not permitted until they have celebrated Christmas there [Schroder, 1871, pp. 15, ff].[42]

[Sidenote: Gu-Leifr and Leifr hinn Heppni]

The resemblance between the two names "Gu-Leifr" (Gudleif == G.o.d-Leif) and "Leifr hinn Heppni" (Leif the Lucky) also deserves notice, as perhaps it is not merely accidental. One sails during the last years of St. Olaf from Ireland to Iceland and is carried south-westwards to Hvitramanna-land; the other sails during the last years of Olaf Tryggvason from Norway to Greenland and is carried south-westwards to Wineland the Good.

It might also be thought to be more than a mere coincidence that, while Leif Ericson is given the surname of "hinn heppni," a closely related surname is mentioned in connection with Gudleif in the Eyrbyggja Saga, where he is called "Guleifr Gulaugsson hins auga"

(i.e., son of Gudlaug the rich). In the one case, of course, it is the man himself, in the other the father, who bears the surname. "Auigr"

means rich, but originally it had the meaning of lucky, and the rich man is he who has luck with him (cf. further "auna" == luck, "aunu-mar" == favourite of fortune). Gudleif Gudlaugsson also occurs in the Landnamabok, but this surname is not mentioned, nor is anything said about this voyage, in exactly the same way as Leif Ericson is named there, but without a surname and without any mention of a voyage or a discovery; in both cases this is an addition that occurs in later sagas. In spite of the difference alluded to, one may suspect that there is here some connection or other. Possibly it might be that, as Gurir is the Christian woman among all the names beginning with Thor- and Freyis, so the name of Guleifr, which was placed in a.s.sociation with the Christian Hvitramanna-land, was used because it had a more religious stamp than "happ" and "heppen," which in any case are as nearly allied to popular belief as to religiosity, and which were a.s.sociated with the non-Christian Wineland.

[Sidenote: Voyage of eight adventurers in Edrisi]

The following tale in Edrisi, the Arabic geographer, whose work dates from 1154, bears considerable resemblance to the remarkable story of Gudleif's voyage.[43]

Eight "adventurers" from Lisbon built a merchant s.h.i.+p and set out with the first east wind to explore the farthest limits of the ocean. They sailed for about eleven days [westwards] and came to a sea with stiff (thick) waves [the Liver-sea] and a horrible stench,[44] with many shallows and little light (cf. precisely similar conceptions, vol. i.

pp. 38, 68, 181, 182, note 1). Afraid of peris.h.i.+ng there, they sailed southward for twelve days and reached the Sheep-island ("Djazirato 'l-Ghanam"), with innumerable flocks of sheep and no human beings (cf.

Dicuil's account of the Faroes, and Brandan's Sheep-island, vol. i.

pp. 163, 362). They sailed on for twelve days more towards the south and found at last an inhabited and cultivated island. On approaching this they were soon surrounded by boats, taken prisoners, and brought to a town on the coast. They finally took up their abode in a house, where they saw men of tall stature and red complexion, with little hair on their faces, and wearing their hair long (not curled), and women of rare beauty. Here they were kept prisoners for three days. On the fourth day a man came who spoke to them in Arabic and asked them who they were, why they had come, and what country they came from.

They related to him their adventures. He gave them good hopes, and told them that he was the king's interpreter. On the following day they were brought before the king, who asked them the same questions through the interpreter. On their replying that they had set out with the object of exploring the wonders of the ocean and finding out its limits, the king began to laugh and told the interpreter to explain that his father had once ordered one of his slaves to set out upon that ocean; this man had traversed its breadth for a month, until the light of heaven failed them and they were obliged to renounce this vain undertaking. The king further caused the interpreter to a.s.sure the adventurers of his benevolent intentions. They then returned to prison and remained there until a west wind came. Then they were blindfolded and taken across the sea in a boat for about three days and three nights to a land where they were left on the sh.o.r.e with their hands tied behind their backs. They stayed there till sunrise in a pitiable state, for the cords were very tight and caused them great discomfort. Then they heard voices, and upon their cries of distress the natives, who were Berbers, came and released them. They had arrived on the west coast of Africa, and were told that it was two months' journey to their native land.

[Sidenote: Resemblance between Edrisi's tale and Gudleif's voyage]

As points of similarity to Gudleif's voyage it may be pointed out that the Portuguese sail for thirty-five days altogether, to the west and afterwards to the south, and arrive at a country which thus lies south-south-west. Gudleif is carried before a north-east wind towards the south-west and reaches land after a long time. Both the Portuguese and the Icelanders are taken prisoners shortly after arrival; the former are surrounded by boats, the latter by hundreds of men. The Portuguese saw red-complexioned men of tall stature with long hair, the Icelanders saw a tall, stately man with white hair coming on horseback. They had to wait awhile before they were addressed in a language they could understand; the Portuguese being first spoken to by an interpreter in Arabic[45] who gave them good hopes, and afterwards brought them before the king, who a.s.sured them of his benevolent intentions; while the Icelanders were sent for by the great chief, who, when they came before him, spoke to them in Norse and was friendly towards them, and after long deliberations spoke to them again, and gave them leave to depart. The Portuguese had to wait in prison for a west wind before they could get away; the Icelanders had to wait for a favourable wind, which was again a west wind. The Portuguese were led away blindfold, obviously in order that they should not find their way back; when the Icelanders left it was enjoined upon them never to return.

The Portuguese came to the west coast of Africa, from whence they afterwards had to sail northward to Lisbon; the Icelanders arrived in Ireland, and sailed thence the next summer northward to Iceland. It seems reasonable to suppose that there is some connection between the two tales; the same myth may in part form the foundation of both, and this again may be allied to the myth alluded to above of the Carthaginians' discovery of a fertile island out in the ocean to the west of Africa. But there are also striking resemblances between Edrisi's tale and the description in the Odyssey of Odysseus's visit to the Phaeacians in the western isle of Scheria. On his arrival there Athene warns Odysseus to be careful, as this people is not inclined to tolerate foreigners, and no other men come to them. Odysseus is brought before the king, Alcinous, who receives him in friendly fas.h.i.+on, and tells him that no Phaeacian shall "hold him back by force," and Odysseus relates his many adventures. Finally the Phaeacians convey him while asleep across the sea in a boat, carry him ash.o.r.e at dawn, and go away before he awakes [Od. xiii. 79, ff.]; this corresponds to the Portuguese being taken blindfold across the sea and left bound on the sh.o.r.e, until they are released at sunrise. The promise of the Phaeacians, after Poseidon's revenge for their helping Odysseus, never again to a.s.sist any seafarer that might come to them, may bear some resemblance to the incident of Bjorn Breidvikinge-kjaempe trying to prevent Icelanders from seeking a land which "would show little mercy to foreigners."

Moreover, the tales, both of Gudleif's voyage and of Edrisi's Portuguese adventurers, resemble ancient Irish myths.

[Sidenote: Irish myth]

In the "Imram Snedgusa acus meic Riagla" [of the tenth or close of the ninth century, cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 213, f., 216], the men of Ross slay King Fiacha Mac Domnaill for his intolerable tyranny. As a punishment, sixty couples of the guilty were sent out to sea, and their judgment and fate left to G.o.d. The two monks, Snedgus and Mac Riagail, afterwards set out on a voluntary pilgrimage on the ocean--while the sixty couples went involuntarily--and, after having visited many islands,[46] reached in their boat a land in which there were generations of Irish, and they met women who sang to them and brought them to the king's house (cf. Odysseus's meeting first with the women in the Phaeacians' land, and their showing him the way to the palace of Alcinous). The king received them well and inquired from whence they came. "We are Irish," they replied, "and we belong to the companions of Columcille." Then he asked: "How goes it in Ireland, and how many of Domnaill's sons are alive?" They answered: "Three Mac Domnaills are alive, and Fiacha Mac Domnaill fell by the men of Ross, and for that deed sixty couples of them were sent out to sea." "That is a true tale of yours; I am he who killed the King of Tara's son [i.e., Fiacha], and we are those who were sent out to sea. This commends itself to us, for we will be here till the Judgment [i.e., the day of judgment] comes, and we are glad to be here without sin, without evil, without our sinful desires. The island we live on is good, for on it are Elijah and Enoch, and n.o.ble is the dwelling of Elijah...."

The similarity to the meeting of Gudleif and the Icelanders with the likewise exiled great man and chief, who did not give his name but hinted at his ident.i.ty, is evident. If we suppose that the island Gudleif reached was originally the white men's, or the holy (baptized) men's land, then it may be possible that the great man's words to Gudleif about there being men on the island who were greater ("rikari") than he is connected with the mention of Elijah and Enoch.

Thus we see a connection between Gudleif's voyage (and the exiled Breidvikinge-kjaempe on the unknown island) and Irish myths and legends, the Arabic tale, and finally the Odyssey. What the mutual relations.h.i.+p may be between Edrisi's tale and the Irish legends is to us of minor importance. As the Norse Vikings had much communication with the Spanish peninsula[47] it might be supposed that the Norse tale, derived from Irish myths, had reached Portugal; but as the Arabic tale has several similarities to the voyages of Brandan and Maelduin, and to Dicuil's account of the Faroes (with their sheep and birds), which are not found in the Norse narrative, it is more probable that the incidents in the experiences of the Portuguese adventurers are derived directly from Ireland, which also had close connection with the Spanish Peninsula, chiefly through Norse s.h.i.+ps and merchants. We must in any case suppose that the Icelandic tale of Gudleif's voyage came from Ireland; but it may have acquired additional colour from northern legends.

[Sidenote: Northern tales]

There is a Swedish tale of some sailors from Getinge who were driven by storms over the sea to an unknown island; surrounded by darkness they went ash.o.r.e and saw a fire, and before it lay an uncommonly tall man, who was blind; another equally big stood beside him and raked in the fire with an iron rod. The old blind man gets up and asks the strangers where they come from. They answer from Halland, from Getinge parish. Whereupon the blind man asks: "Is the white woman still alive?" They answered yes, though they did not know what he meant.

Again he asks: "Is my goat-house still standing?" They again answered yes, though ignorant of what he meant. He then said: "I could not keep my goat-house in peace because of the church that was built in that place. If you would reach home safely, I give you two conditions."

They promised to accept these, and the blind old man continued: "Take this belt of silver, and when you come home, buckle it on the white woman; and place this box on the altar in my goat-house." When the sailors were safely come home, the belt was buckled on a birch-tree, which immediately shot up into the air, and the box was placed on a mound, which immediately burst into flame. But from the church being built where the blind man had his goat-house the place was called Getinge [in J. Grimm, ii. 1876, p. 798, after Bexell's "Halland,"

Goteborg, 1818, ii. p. 301]. Similar tales are known from other localities in Sweden and Norway. The old blind man is a heathen giant driven out by the Christian church or by the image of Mary (the white woman); sometimes again he is a heathen exile.

Here we have undeniable parallels to the storm-driven Icelanders' meeting with the exiled Breidvikinge-kjaempe, who asks after his native place and his woman, Thurid,[48] and who also sends two gifts home, though with very different feelings and objects. It may be supposed that the Swedish-Norwegian tale is derived from ancient myths, and the Icelandic narrative may have borrowed features, not, of course, from this very tale, but from myths of the same type.

[Sidenote: j.a.panese fairy-tale]

Remarkable points of resemblance both to the voyages of the Irish (Bran's voyage) to the Fortunate Isles in the west, and to those of Gudleif and of the eight Portuguese (in Edrisi), are found in a j.a.panese tale of the fortunate isles of "Horaisan," to which Moltke Moe has called my attention.[49]

This happy land lies far away in the sea towards the east; there on the mountain Fusan grows a splendid tree which is sometimes seen in the distance over the horizon; all vegetation is verdant and flowering in eternal spring, which keeps the air mild and the sky blue; the pa.s.sing of time is unnoticed, and death never finds the way thither, there is no pain, no suffering, only peace and happiness. Once on a time Jof.u.ku, body physician to a cruel emperor of China, put to sea on the pretext of looking for this country and seeking for his master the plant of immortality which grows on Fusan, the highest mountain there. He came first to j.a.pan; but went farther and farther out into the ocean until he really reached Horaisan; there he enjoyed complete happiness, and never thought of returning to prolong his tyrant's life.

The old j.a.panese wise man, Vasobiove, who had withdrawn from the world and pa.s.sed his days in contemplative peace, was one day out fis.h.i.+ng by himself (to avoid many trivial visits), when he was driven out to sea by a violent storm; he then rowed about the sea, keeping himself alive by fis.h.i.+ng. After three months he came to the "muddy sea," which nearly cost him his life, as there were no fish there. But after a desperate struggle, and finally twelve hours' hard rowing, he reached the sh.o.r.e of Horaisan. There he was met by an old man whom he understood, for he spoke Chinese. This was Jof.u.ku, who received Vasobiove in friendly fas.h.i.+on and told him his story. Vasobiove was overjoyed on hearing where he was. He stayed there for a couple of hundred years, but did not know how long it was; for where all is alike, where there is neither birth nor death, no one heeds the pa.s.sing of time. With dancing and music, in conversation with wise and brilliant men, in the society of beautiful and amiable ladies, he pa.s.sed his days.

But at last Vasobiove grew tired of this sweet existence and longed for death. It was hopeless, for here he could not die, nor could he take his own life, there were no poisons, no lethal weapons; if he threw himself over a precipice or ran his head against a sharp rock, it was like a fall on to soft cus.h.i.+ons, and if he threw himself into the sea, it supported him like a cork. Finally he tamed a gigantic stork, and on its back he at last returned to j.a.pan,[50] after the stork had carried him through many strange countries, of which the most remarkable was that of the Giants, who are immensely superior to human beings in everything. Whereas Vasobiove was accustomed to admiration wherever he propounded his philosophical views and systems, he left that country in humiliation; for the Giants said they had no need of all that, and declared Vasobiove's whole philosophy to be the immature cries of distress of the children of men.

A connection between the intellectual world of China and j.a.pan and that of Europe in the Middle Ages may well be supposed to have been brought about by the Arabs, who penetrated as far as China on their trading voyages, and who, on the other hand, had close communication with Western Europe.

Furthermore, it must be remembered how many of our mythical conceptions and tales are more or less connected with India, just as many of the Arabian tales evidently had their birthplace there [cf. E. Rohde, 1900, pp. 191, ff.]; while on the other side there was, of course, a close connection between India and the intellectual world of China and j.a.pan, as shown by the spread of Buddhism. A transference of the same myths both eastward to j.a.pan and westward to Europe is thus highly probable, whether these myths originated in Europe or in India and the East. It is striking, too, that even a secondary feature such as the curdled, dead sea (cf.

"Morimarusa," see vol. i. p. 99; the stinking sea in Edrisi, vol. ii. p.

51) is met with again here as the "muddy sea" without fish (cf.

resemblances to Arab ideas, chapter xiii.).

[Sidenote: Retrospect]

If we now look back upon all the problems it has been sought to solve in this chapter, the impression may be a somewhat heterogeneous and negative one; the majority will doubtless be struck at the outset by the multiplicity of the paths, and by the intercrossing due to this multiplicity. But if we force our way through the network of by-paths and follow up the essential leading lines, it appears to me that there is established a firm and powerful series of conclusions, which it will not be easy to shake. The most important steps in this series are:

(1) The oldest authority,[51] Adam of Bremen's work, in which Wineland is mentioned, is untrustworthy, and, with the exception of the name and of the fable of wine being produced there, contains nothing beyond what is found in Isidore.

(2) The oldest Icelandic authorities that mention the name of "Vinland,"

or in the Landnama "Vindland hit Goa," say nothing about its discovery or about the wine there; on the other hand, Are Frode mentions the Skraelings (who must originally have been regarded as a fairy people). The name of Leif Ericson is mentioned, unconnected with Wineland or its discovery.

(3) It is not till well on in the thirteenth century that Leif's surname of Heppni, his discovery of Wineland ("Vinland" or "Vindland"), and his Christianising of Greenland are mentioned (in the Kristni-saga and Heimskringla), but still there is nothing about wine.

(4) It is not till the close of the thirteenth century that any information occurs as to what and where Wineland was, with statements as to the wine and wheat there, and a description of voyages thither (in the Saga of Eric the Red). But still the accounts omit to inform us who gave the name and why.

(5) The second and later princ.i.p.al narrative of voyages to Wineland (the Flateyjarbok's Gronlendinga-attr) gives a very different account of the discovery, by another, and likewise of the later voyages thither.

(6) The first of the two sagas, and the one which is regarded as more to be relied on, contains scarcely a single feature that is not wholly or in part mythical or borrowed from elsewhere; both sagas have an air of romance.

(7) Even among the Greeks of antiquity we find myths of fortunate isles far in the western ocean, with the two characteristic features of Wineland, the wine and the wheat.

(8) The most significant features in the description of these Fortunate Isles or Isles of the Blest in late cla.s.sical times and in Isidore are the self-grown or wild-growing vine (on the heights) and the wild-growing (uncultivated, self-sown or unsown) corn or wheat or even cornfields (Isidore). In addition there were lofty trees (Pliny) and mild winters.

Thus a complete correspondence with the saga's description of Wineland.

(9) The various attempts that have been made to bring the natural conditions of the North American coast into agreement with the saga's description of Wineland are more or less artificial, and no natural explanation has been offered of how the two ideas of wine and wheat, both foreign to the Northerners, could have become the distinguis.h.i.+ng marks of the country.

(10) In Ireland long before the eleventh century there were many myths and legends of happy lands far out in the ocean to the west; and in the description of these wine and the vine form conspicuous features.

(11) From the eleventh century onward, in Ireland and in the North, we meet with a Grape-island or a Wineland, which it seems most reasonable to suppose the same.

(12) From the Landnamabok it may be naturally concluded that in the eleventh century the Icelanders had heard of Wineland, together with Hvitramanna-land, in Ireland.

(13) Thorkel Gellisson, from whom this information is derived, probably also furnished Are Frode with his statement in the Islendingabok about Wineland; this is therefore probably the same Irish land.