WINELAND THE GOOD 



of lucky, and the rich man is he who has luck with him (cf. further " auSna " 

 = luck, " au5nu-maSr "= favorite of fortune). Gudleif Gudlaugsson also oc- 

 curs 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 

 GuSriCr is the Christian woman among all the names beginning with Thor- and 

 FreySis, so the name of GuSleifr, which was placed in association with the 

 Christian Hvitramanna-land, was used because it had a more rehgious stamp 

 than " happ " and " heppen," which in any case are as nearly allied to popular 

 belief as to religiosity, and which were associated with the non-Christian 

 Wineland. 



The following tale in Edrisi, the Arabic geographer, whose 

 work dates from 1154, bears considerable resemblance to the 

 remarkable story of Gudleif 's voyage.^ 



Eight "adventurers" from Lisbon built a merchant ship and set out with 

 the first east wind to explore the farthest limits of the ocean. They sailed for 

 about eleven days (westward) and came to a sea with stiif (thick) waves (the 

 Liver Sea) and a horrible stench,- with many shallows and little light (cf. pre- 

 cisely similar conceptions, Vol. I, pp. 38, 68, 181, 182, note i). Afraid of perish- 

 ing there, they sailed southward for twelve days and reached the Sheep-island 

 (" Djazirato '1-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 coun- 

 try 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 follow- 

 ing day they were brought before the king, who asked them the same ques- 

 tion 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 trav- 



1 Cf. Dozy and De Goeje, 1866, p. 223 f.; De Goeje, 1891, pp. 56, 59. Moltke 

 Moe has called my attention to this resemblance. 



2 The stench may be connected with ideas like those in the " Meregarto," 

 that sailors stuck fast and rotted in the liver-sea, see Vol. I, p. 181. 



51 



