WINELAND THE GOOD 



may have reached Iceland about the close of the eleventh 

 century. 



This Irish land may also be derived from an adaptation 

 of the ancients' myth of the western Isles of the Blest/ and 

 it evidently corresponds to one of the mythical countries of 

 the christianized 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 genera- 

 tion, the children, had clothes white as driven snow, the 

 second of the color 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 " Hvitra- 

 manna-land." There is yet another point of agreement, in 



1 Storm's explanation [1887, pp. 68 f.] : that it was Dicuil's account of the 

 discovery of Iceland by Irish monks (see Vol. I, p. 164) which formed the basis 

 of the myth of Hvitramanna-land, may appear very attractive and simple; but 

 Storm does not seem to have noticed the connection that exists between the 

 Irish mythical islands in the west and those of classical literature. When he 

 points out the similarity between the six days' voyage west of Ireland and 

 Dicuil's statement of six days' voyage to Iceland (Thule) northward from 

 Britain, it must be remembered that in Dicuil this is merely a quotation from 

 Pliny, and, further, that the six days' voyage has Britain and not Ireland for 

 its starting-point. In the Saga of Eric the Red Wineland lies six " doegrs' " 

 sail from Greenland. Cf. that in Plutarch [" De facie in orbe Lunae," 941] 

 Ogygia lies five days' voyage west of Britain, and to the north-west of it are 

 three islands, to which the voyage might thus be one of six days. Let us sup- 

 pose, merely as an experiment, that Ogygia, the fertile vine-growing island of 

 the " hulder " Calypso, was Wineland, then the other three islands to the north- 

 west might be Hvitramanna-land, Markland and Helluland, which would fit in. 

 The northernmost would then have to be the island on which the sleeping 

 Cronos is imprisoned, with " many spirits about him as his companions and 

 servants" (cf. Vol. I, pp. 156, 182). Dr. Scisco [1908, pp. 379 f., 515 f.] and 

 Prof. H. Koht [1909, pp. 133 f.] think that Are Marsson may have been bap- 

 tized in Ireland and have been chief of a Christian tribe on its west coast, 

 where Hvitramanna-land may have been a district inhabited by fair Norsemen. 



43 



