Westropp — Brasil and the Legendary Islands of the N. Atlantic. 233 



3.— THE NOESE SAGAS AND IRELAND.i 



It may be worth examining a side-current of thought likely to have 

 corroborated Irish belief, namely that derived from the Northmen. Dicuil, 

 about A.D.- 825, was told by monks who had been on Thule some thirty years 

 before, much about that island, the frozen ocean, and numerous small islands. 

 Some of the latter were " full of innumerable sheep and birds," recalling 

 Brendan's isles, " but now, from the Norse pirates, they are empty of Irish 

 monks. '"* The Landnamabok tells how Floke Vilgerdson came to Iceland 

 about A.D. 868. He brought three trained ravens, to be let out at intervals, 

 because (says the writer or editor, Ari Erode, a.d. 1148) the ISTorse had not 

 yet any loadstone (leidarsteinn). Eloke found that Christian " Papar " had 

 left Irish books, bells, and croziers.' Among Icelandic names referring 

 to the Irish are Irske leid, Irsku buter, Westmanna Eyjar. Nearly two 

 centuries later the sagas tell of a succession of sea-rovers reaching the 

 mysterious lands beyond Greenland, " The Vinland Voyage over the 

 Unknown Sea," and we must, even at risk of touching at too great length 

 well-known ground, tell somewhat about the men who preceded Columbus- 

 and see how far any of them may have been in touch with Ireland. None of 

 the sagas were written by or for critical persons ; some, like the late Flatoe Bok 

 {circa 1390), are full of mythic additions, perhaps none are free. Two 

 centuries of tradition, even under the most favourable circumstances (such as 

 prevailed in Iceland), may well have introduced marvels such as are found 

 even in such historic and nearly contemporary Irish sagas as the " Wars of 

 the Gaedhil " or the " Triumphs of Torlough." In other sagas of Iceland we 

 have vampires and ghosts, embodying themselves in cattle or hiding in a 

 heap of stockfish. So in the Vinland tales the grapes and self-sown corn 

 may be taken (as Nansen thinks) from Isodorus Hispalensis, or from the 

 Irish Imrama, or from monks trained by the Pentateuch and Psalms to 

 think of the " Land of Promise " as full of corn and wine. The grapes 

 (even leaving out the intoxicant ones of the Elatoe Bok) may be bilberries. 



'For the following see generally: — " Antiquitatea Americanae," 1837; The DiscoTery of 

 America by the Northmen (N. L. Beamish), 1840 ; "Discovery of Americu " (A. J. Weise), 1884 ; 

 "The Finding of Wineland the Good" (A. M. Eeeves), 1890; "Discovery of America'' 

 (H. Harrisse), 1892; "Discovery of the Norsemen in America" (Rev. J. Fisclier, transl. 

 B. H. Soulsby), 1902; and "In Northern Mists" (Dr. F. Nansen, transl. A. (i. Chater), 1911. 

 The first and fourth (especially the latter) collect all the Sagas and Annals. " The Heimskringla " 

 (civ), " The Landnamabok," and " The Eyrbiggia Saga " are also accessible in translations. 



- " De Mensura Orbis Terram." The monks " from our Scotia " had been on the island for 100 

 years before their expulsion. 



^ "Landnamabok." 



[32*] 



