Westropp — Brasil and the Legendary Islands of the N. Atlantic. 235 



Ari, son of Mar, " drifted over ocean to "Whiteman's Land, which some call 

 Irlanda Mikla (the G-reat) ; it lies west away in the ocean nigh to Viuland, 

 the Good, six days' (? weeks') sail from Ireland due west." Ari, on his return, 

 told all to " Hrafn the Hlimrek trader," so called " because he spent a long 

 time at Limerick in Ireland." Lastly, if the story and pedigree of Karlsefne 

 be true, the latter was descended from a daughter of Kiarval, an Irish king. 

 How far these stories, told in Limerick and Dublin, reached the Irish is hard 

 to say ; but it is hardly possible that the accounts of the voyages did not reach 

 the country round the Danes' seaports. No trace of Vinland occurs in Irish 

 literature,' but (if only through the stockfish trade)- it must have come again 

 and again to the knowledge of the Irish, and strengthened their belief till 

 Great Ireland and other wonderful lands in the heart of the Atlantic became 

 known to Spain and Italy. The Arabian cosmographers of the twelfth 

 centmy, and the map-makers, who almost invariably showed unknown islands 

 on their charts, from 1300 onward, passed the story down to the explorers 

 from 1492, Columbus and his successors. 



Vinland, too, was never forgotten in the North. Adam of Bremen,^ about 

 1069, heard of the island of that name from Danes. The Icelandic Annals 

 tell of Bishop Erik Upse of Greenland going "to seek Vinland " in 1121; 

 how Adelbrand and Thorwald Helgisson found "ISTewland," west from 

 Iceland, in 1285 ; how, three years later. King Erik sent Rolf to explore it, 

 and, aided by Icelanders, he twice visited it (in 1289 and 1290) ; and lastly 

 how seventeen men reached Markland in 1347.'' Latest of all may be the 

 alleged voyage of Skolno to Labrador in 1476,' on the eve of the voyage that 

 once for all, in the fulness of time, opened America to the old World by the 

 South, where the North had failed. 



The stockfish trade linked Bristol and Iceland ; and Bristol was close linked 

 by trade to Dublin and Limerick ; so probably, from just after the battle of 

 Clontarf down to the very year of the voyage of Columbus, corroboration of 

 the deep belief engendered by the tale of Brendan was never lacking to 

 Ireland. 



The features in common" of the Norse sagas and Irish imrama are few — ■ 



' However, the same is true of many important events in English and Continental history, 

 secular and religious. 



= Hakluyt's "Voyages" (1.599), vol. iii, p. 201. Nordenskiold's "Periplus," p. 92. Weise 

 loc cit, p. 193. 



' " Descriplio insularum aqiiilonis." He adds, " it is not a fable." The next paragraph about 

 the ice sea is not found in tke oldest copies. (Fischer, loc. cit., p. 3.) 



*Annales lliseniani (c. 1319), Icelandic Annals, Annales Vetustissimi, Flatoe Annals. 



^ " In Northern Mists," vol. ii, p. 70. 



^ I wrote tbese lines (indeed this copy) before hearing of Dr. Nansen's conclusions. I fully 

 accept his views as to Isidore being a source, but think the " vine and corn" may also have a 

 biblical origin. 



