IN NORTHERN MISTS 



and, after having visited many islands/ reached in their boat a land in which 

 there were generations of Irish, and they met women who sang to them and 

 brought them to the king's house (cf. Odysseus's meeting first with the women 

 in the Phaeacians' land, and their showing him the way to the palace of Al- 

 cinous). The king received them well and inquired from whence they came. 

 " We are Irish," they replied, " and we belong to the companions of Col- 

 umcille." Then he asked: "How goes it in Ireland, and how many of Dom- 

 naill's sons are alive?" They answered: "Three Mac Domnaills are alive, 

 and Fiacha Mac Domnaill fell by the men of Ross, and for that deed sixty 

 couples of them were sent out to sea." " That is a true tale of yours; I am he 

 who killed the King of Tara's son [i.e., Fiacha], and we are those who were 

 sent out to sea. This commends itself to us, for we will be here till the 

 Judgment [i.e., the day of judgment] comes, and we are glad to be here without 

 sin, without evil, without our sinful desires. The island we live on is good, 

 for on it are Elijah and Enoch, and noble is the dwelling of Elijah." . . . 



The similarity to the meeting of Gudleif and the Icelanders 

 with the likewise exiled great man and chief, who did not give 

 his name but hinted at his identity, is evident. If we suppose 

 that the island Gudleif reached was originally the white men's, 

 or the holy (baptized) men's land, then it may be possible that 

 the great man's words to Gudleif about there being men on the 

 island who were greater (" rikari ") than he is connected with 

 the mention of Elijah and Enoch. 



Thus we see a connection between Gudleif's voyage (and 

 the exiled Breidvikinge-kjaempe on the unknown island) 

 and Irish myths and legends, the Arabic tale, and finally the 



1 They first drifted to the north-west in the outer ocean, and after three days 

 suffered intolerable thirst; but Christ took pity on them and brought them to a 

 current which tasted like tepid milk. Zimmer's explanation [1889, p. 216] of 

 this current as the Gulf Stream to the west of the Hebrides is due to modern 

 maps, and is an example of how even the most acute of book-learned inquiries 

 may be led astray by formal representations. That the Irish should have pos- 

 sessed such comprehensive oceanographical knowledge as to regard this ocean- 

 drift as a definitely limited current is not likely, and still less that they 

 should have regarded it as so much warmer than the water inshore as to be 

 compared to tepid milk. The difference in temperature on the surface is in 

 summer (August) approximately nil, and in spring and autumn perhaps three 

 or four degrees; and of course the Irish had no thermometers. Last summer 

 I investigated this very part of the ocean without finding any conspicuous dif- 

 ference. The feature may be derived from Lucian's " Vera Historia," where 

 the travelers come to a sea of milk [Wieland, 1789, iv. p. 188]. 



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