IN NORTHERN MISTS 



that, just as Are Marsson was not allowed to leave Hvitra- 

 manna-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 circumstance of Are Marsson being baptized 

 there points in the same direction.^ But to this it may be 

 added that various myths and legends shov/ it to have been 

 a common idea among the Irish that aged hermits and holy 

 men were white. The old man who welcomes Brandan 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,^ 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 



1 Since the above was printed in the Norwegian edition of this book, Prof. 

 Moltke Moe has found a " Tir na-Fer Finn," or the White Men's Land, men- 

 tioned in Irish sagas of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The white 

 men (f er finn) are evidently the same as the " Albati " (i.e., the baptized 

 dressed in white). Tir na-Fer Finn and Hvitramanna-land are consequently 

 direct renderings of the " Terra Albatorum " (i.e., the land of the baptized 

 dressed in white), which is mentioned in earlier Irish literature. The origin of 

 the Icelandic legend about Hvitramanna-land seems thus to be quite clear. 



2 Hermits like this, covered with white hair, also occur outside Ireland. 

 Three monks from Mesopotamia wished to journey to the place where Heaven 

 and earth meet, and after many adventures, which often resemble those of the 

 Brandan legend, they came to a cave, where dwelt a holy man, Macarius, who 

 was completely covered with snow-white hair, but the skin of his face was like 

 that of a tortoise [cf. Schirmer, 1888, p. 42]. The last feature might recall an ape. 

 44 



