﻿NO. 19 NORSE VISITS TO NORTH AMERICA — BABCOCK 1 65 



and there must have been divers European and perhaps Atlantic spots 

 where good grapes yet grew wild. If they reached America, as they 

 probably did, they would find such in abundance. But Irish fancy 

 working on cultivated grapes might add the element of wildness, 

 even without any information as to the latter in either hemisphere. 



(11) From the eleventh century onward, in Ireland and in the North, we meet 

 with a Grape-island or a Wineland, which it seems most reasonable to suppose 

 the same. 



We also meet apple islands, for example, the Hesperides? From 

 memory, I think the latter fruit more common in Irish and other 

 northern legend. Nevertheless the saga and the old Icelandic writ- 

 ings omit to place apples in America ; and in fact none were there. 

 Why were not the apples borrowed from Ireland, if the grapes were ? 



(12) From the Landnamabook it may be naturally concluded that in the 

 eleventh century the Icelanders had heard of Wineland, together with Hvitra- 

 manna-land, in Ireland. 



Each country may have heard it from the other, both items being 

 common property by that time. Perhaps the name Great Ireland or 

 Whitemen's Land may have a presumption in favor of Irish origin. 

 There can be none for the Irish origin of Wineland. It is likely that 

 Ireland first heard it from Iceland soon after Thorfinn's return to 

 the former. 



(13) Thorkel Gellisson, from whom this information is derived, probably 

 also furnished Ari Frode with his statement in the Islendingabook about Wine- 

 land; this is therefore probably the same Irish land. 



He is given as one transmitter of the Ari Marsson story, deriving 

 it from the Earl of the Orkneys. He supplied the Greenland infor- 

 mation of Ari Frode, having visited that country ; perhaps also some 

 about Wineland. But how can this disprove the existence of the 

 latter ? 



(14) The Irish happy lands peopled by the sid correspond to the Norwegian 

 huldrelands out in the sea to the west, and the Icelandic elf-lands. 



There is a general correspondence in fairy lore and the like every- 

 where. But we know that there were real far western islands, as 

 well as dubious and fanciful ones, and that everything between Eu- 

 rope and Asia was held to be an island until after Vespucius. 



(15) Since the huldre- and sid-people and the elves are originally the dead, 

 and since the Isles of the Blest, or the Fortunate Isles, of antiquity were the 

 habitations of the happy dead, these islands also correspond to the Irish sid- 

 people's happy lands, and to the Norwegian huldrelands and the Icelandic elf- 

 lands. 



