Mr. DowNES on the Norse Geography of Ancient Ireland. 91 



drifted ashore he founded the colony of Ingolfshbf^i, or " Cape Ingolf." Leif, 

 meanwhile, was driven so far westward, that the fresh water on board became 

 at length exhausted, upon which one of the Irish slaves kneaded meal and butter 

 together, asserting that this mixture would allay thirst. Rain falling soon after, 

 what remained of the mynn]>ak, as the mixture was called by the slaves — and the 

 first syllable of which word appears to be the Irish mm, " meal" — was thrown 

 overboard ; and the place on the southern coast of Iceland, where it was drifted 

 ashore, was thence named Mynn\pakseyri, " Cape," or rather " Strand — Mynn- 

 >ak." 



But the word Smerwick admits of a more dignified etymology. By Fynes 

 Moryson this locality is designated " St. Mary Wic, vulgarly called Smerwick," 

 and on Mercator's map as " Smerwik als S* Mary wyk." Of these names, 

 the one would appear to be a contraction of the other : nor will this contraction 

 seem forced when it is recollected, that Marie-la-Bonne has been degraded into 

 Marrowbone, as the name of a lane in this city, — and seems also to have become, 

 in a translated form, the parent of another word, very different both in sound and 

 associations, namely, gossamer, good St. Mary — in French, y?/ de la bonne vierge — 

 or, perhaps, gauze o' Mary (which is substantially a translation of the French 

 expression), though the last syllable has been otherwise derived, from the French 

 mere {mere de Dieu). Had the Danish writer been aware of the above expla- 

 nation of Smerwick, he would doubtless have adverted to it in connexion with 

 the Map, especially as a passage in Olave Tryggvason's Saga appears to throw a 

 little twilight on the obscure subject. It is recorded of this celebrated wanderer, 

 that in the year 993, when about twenty years of age, he was baptized in the largest 

 of the Scilly Islands, at a monastery, situated in a place called in Norse, Mariuhbfn, 

 and still St. Mary's Haven, and that he proceeded thence to England and 

 Ireland, from which latter country he returned to Norway, two years after his 

 baptism. Now, as Saxon localities are hardly found in Kerry, the termination wick 

 seems to ascertain the Norse origin of the word ; and no Northman was more likely 

 to confer the honour of local perpetuation on the name of Mary than the indi- 

 vidual, who, in addition to receiving the solemn rite of baptism at a seaport under 

 her special protection, had been on the same occasion elated by a prediction, 

 confirmatory of several preceding ones, that he would one day become king of 

 Norway, which was uttered by the abbot who baptized him. Nay, the very pre- 



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