IN NORTHERN MISTS 



very top," etc. etc. [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 273, 279]. A corresponding idea to 

 that of the Irish sid-people, especially the women, being white, is perhaps that 

 of the Norse elves being thought light (cf. " lysalver," light-elves), or even 

 white. The elf-maiden in Sweden is slender as a lily and white as snow, and 

 elves in Denmark may also be snow-white (cf. also the fact that elves are 

 described as white nymphs, " albae nymphse "). 



It seems natural that these ideas — of whiteness as 

 specially beautiful, and mostly applied to the " sid " or 

 elves, to the garments of baptism, and to holy men 

 and hermits — led to a name which, in conformity with the 

 Strong Men's Island of the " Navigatio," would become the 

 White Men's Land, for the mythical western land oversea, 

 where Are Marsson was baptized, but which he could not 

 leave again, and where, according to the " Eyrbyggja Saga," 

 the language resembled Irish. This, then, is precisely the 

 " Isle of Anchorites." The country may have originated 

 through a contact of ideas from the religious world and the 

 profane, original conceptions from the latter having become 

 christianized. Doubtless the white garments, which were 

 connected with the other world, and which became the 

 heavenly raiment of the Christians, have also played a part. 

 In Plato a white-clad woman (i.e., one from the other world) 

 comes to Socrates in a dream and announces to him that in 

 three days he is to depart. During the transfiguration on 

 the mountain Jesus' face " did shine as the sun, and his 

 raiment was white as the light" [Matt. xvii. 2], or "his 

 raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow" [Mark. ix. 

 3]. On the basis of this Christian conception the image of 

 the world beyond the grave has taken the form of a fair, 

 shining land, as in the immense literature of visions; and 

 thus too in the " Floamanna Saga" [Gronl. hist. Mind., ii. p. 103], 

 where Thorgil's wife, Thorey, sees in a dream a "fair country 

 with shining white men" ("menn bjarta"), and Thorgils 



also occur in Icelandic literature, just as the lily-white arms are already found 

 in Homer. Cf. further such names as SnjofriSr, Snelaug, Schneewitchen 

 (Snow-white), etc. [Cf. Moltke Moe's communications in A. Helland, 1905, iL 

 pp. 641 f.]. 

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