The personal names in the Saga of Eric the Red are also striking. With the exception of Eric himself, his wife Tjodhild and his son Leif, and a few other names in the first part, which is taken almost in its entirety from the Landnámabók, almost all the names belonging to this saga are connected with those of heathen gods, especially Thor. Eric has got a third son, Thorvald, who is not mentioned in Landnáma, besides his daughter Freydis, and his son-in-law Thorvard. The name Freydis is only known from this one woman in the whole of Icelandic literature, and several names in Norse literature compounded of Frey- seem, according to Lind,[311] to belong to myths (e.g., Freygarðr, Freysteinn and Freybjǫrn). Other names connected with the Wineland voyages in this saga are: Thor-björn Vivilsson (his brother was named Thor-geir and his daughter’s foster-father Orm Thor-geirsson) came to Thor-kjell of Herjolfsnes, where the prophetess was called Thor-björg. Leif’s woman in the Hebrides was called Thor-gunna, and their illegitimate son Thor-gils. Thor-stein Ericson had a property together with another Thor-stein in Lysefjord.[312] We have further Thor-finn Karlsevne (son of Thord and Thor-unn), Snorre Thor-brandsson, Thor-hall Gamlason, Thor-hall Veidemand (who also had dealings with the red-bearded Thor), and Thor-brand Snorrason who was killed. An exception, besides Bjarne Grimolfsson (and the runners Haki and Hekja; see below), is Thorfinn Karlsevne’s wife Guðriðr,[313] daughter of Thorbjörn Vivilsson, and mother of Snorre. But perhaps one can guess why she is given this name if one reads through the description of the remarkable scene of soothsaying—at Thorkjell’s house on Herjolfsnes—between the fair Gudrid, who sang with such a beautiful voice, and the heathen sorceress Thorbjörg, where the former as a Christian woman refuses to sing the heathen charms “Varðlokur,” as the sorceress asks her to do. These numerous Thor-names—with the two women’s names, the powerful Freydis and the fair Gudrid—which are attributed to a time when heathendom and Christianity were struggling for the mastery (cf. the tale of Thorhall the Hunter and the whale), have in themselves an air of myth and invention. To this must be added mythical descriptions like those of the prophetess of Herjolfsnes, the ghosts at Lysefjord the winter Thorstein Ericson died, and others.
The Saga of Eric the Red tells of two voyages in search of Wineland, after Leif’s accidental discovery of the country. The first is Thorstein Ericson’s unfortunate expedition, when they did not find the favoured Wineland, but were driven eastward into the ocean towards Iceland and Ireland. In the Irish tale of Brandan (“Imram Brenaind,” of the eleventh century), Brandan first makes an unsuccessful voyage to find the promised land, and arrives, it seems, most probably in the east of the ocean, somewhere about Brittany (cf. Vita S. Brandani; and Machutus’s voyage); but he then makes a fresh voyage in which he finally reaches the land he is in search of [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 135 ff.]. This similarity with the Irish legend is doubtless not very great, but perhaps it deserves to be included with many others to be mentioned later.
The relative distances between the countries. The scale gives “dœgr’s”
sailing (== 2 degrees of latitude), according to the “Rymbegla.”
A white cross marks the valley of the St. John
If we now pass to the tale itself of Karlsevne’s voyage, we have already seen ([p. 321]) that its beginning with the journey to the Western Settlement is doubtful; next, the feature of his sailing to three different countries in turn (Helluland, Markland and Furðustrandir), with the same number of days’ sail between each, must be taken directly from the fairy tales.[314] Such a voyage is in itself improbable; in the saga the countries are evidently imagined as islands or peninsulas, but nothing corresponding to this is to be found on the coast of America. It is inconceivable that a discoverer of Labrador and of the coast to the south of it should have divided this into several countries; it was not till long after the rediscovery of Newfoundland and Labrador that the sound between them was found. If we suppose that Karlsevne was making southward and came first to Labrador (== Helluland ?), with a coast extending south-eastward, it is against common sense that he should voluntarily have lost sight of this coast and put to sea again in an easterly direction, and then sight fresh land to the south of him two days later; on the other hand, this is the usual mode of presentment in fairy tales and myth. But let us suppose now that he did nevertheless arrive in this way at Newfoundland (== Markland ?), and then again put to sea instead of following the coast, how could he know that this time instead of sailing eastward he was to take a westward course? But this he must have done, for otherwise he could not have reached Cape Breton or Nova Scotia; and he must have got there, if we are to make anything out of the story. The distances given, of two “dœgr’s” sail to each of the countries, as remarked on [p. 322], are also foreign to reality.[315] This part of the description has therefore an altogether artificial look. It reminds one forcibly of many of the old Irish legendary tales of wonderful voyages; in particular the commencement of one of the oldest and most important may be mentioned: “Imram Maelduin” (the tale of Maelduin’s voyage), which is known in MSS. of the end of the eleventh century and later, but which was probably to a great extent first written down in the seventh, or at the latest in the eighth century [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 289].
When Maelduin and his companions put to sea from Ireland in a coracle with three hides (while Karlsevne has three ships), they came first to two small islands (while Karlsevne came to Bjarneyjar). After this for three days and three nights the Irishmen came upon no land; “on the morning of the third day” they heard the waves breaking on a beach, but when daylight came and they approached the land, swarms of ants, as large as foals, came down to the beach and showed a desire to eat them and the boat (these are the gold-digging ants of Indo-Greek legend). This land is the parallel to Helluland, where there were a number of arctic foxes (cf. the description of the arrival there, p. 323).—After having fled thence for three days and three nights, the Irishmen heard “on the morning of the third day” the waves breaking on a beach, and when daylight came they saw a great, lofty island with terraces around it and rows of trees, on which there were many large birds; they ate their fill of these and took some of them in the boat. This island might correspond to the wooded Markland, with its many animals, where Karlsevne and his people killed a bear.—After another three days and three nights at sea, the Irish voyagers “on the morning of the fourth day” saw a great sandy island; on approaching the shore they saw there a fabulous beast like a horse with dog’s paws and claws. For fear of the beast they rowed away without landing. This great sandy island may be compared with Furðustrandir, where there were no harbours and it was difficult to land.—The Irishmen then travelled “for a long time” before they came to a large, flat island, where two men landed to examine the island, which they found to be large and broad, and they saw marks of horses’ hoofs as large as a ship’s sail, and nutshells as large as “cōedi” (a measure of capacity ?), and traces of many human beings. This bears a resemblance to Karlsevne’s having “a long way” to sail along Furðustrandir before he came to a bay, where the two Scots went ashore to examine the country, were absent three days, and found grapes and wheat.—After that the Irishmen travelled for a week, in hunger and thirst, until they came to a great, lofty island, with a great house on the beach, with two doors, “one towards the plain on the island and one towards the sea”; and through the latter the waves of the sea threw salmon into the middle of the house. They found decorated couches and crystal goblets with good drink in the house, but no human being, and they took meat and drink and thanked God. Karlsevne proceeded from the bay and came to Straumsey, which was thick with birds and eggs, and to Straumsfjord, where they established themselves (i.e., built houses). And there were mountains and a fair prospect and high grass; and they had catches from two sides, “hunting on the land, and eggs and fish from the sea”; and where, to begin with, they did nothing but make themselves acquainted with the land.—From the island with the house Maelduin and his men travelled about “for a long time,” hungry and without food, until they found an island which was encompassed by a great cliff (“alt mor impi”). There was a very thin and tall tree there; Maelduin caught a branch of it in his hand as they passed by; for three days and three nights the branch was in his hand, while the boat was sailing past the cliff, and on the third day there were three apples at the end of the branch (cf. Karlsevne’s runners who returned after three days with grapes and wheat in their hands), on which they lived for forty days. Karlsevne and his men suffered great want during the winter at Straumsfjord; and from that place, where they lived on land in houses, they sailed “for a long time” before they came to the country with the self-sown wheat and vines, where there were great sandbanks off the mouth of the river, so that they had a difficulty in landing.
It is striking that in the voyage of Maelduin, the distance is only given as three days’ and three nights’ sail in the case of the three first passages to the three successive islands, after the first two small islands, while between the later islands we are told that they sailed “a long way,” “for a week,” “for a long time,” etc.; just as in the Saga of Eric the Red, where, after Bjarneyjar, they sail for two “dœgr” to each of the three lands in turn, and then they had “a long way” to sail along Furðustrandir, to a bay, after which “they went on their way” to Straumsfjord, and thence they went “for a long time” to Wineland, etc. I do not venture to assert that there was a direct connection between the two productions, for that there are perhaps too many dissimilarities; but they seem in any case to have their roots in one and the same cycle of ideas, and the original legend certainly reached Iceland in the shape of oral narrative.
The number three plays an important part in Eric’s Saga. Three voyages are made to or in search of Wineland, Karlsevne has three ships, three countries are visited in turn, three winters are spent away (as with Eric the Red on his first voyage to Greenland, but there this was due to his exile), they meet with the Skrælings three times, three men fall (two in the fight with the Skrælings, and afterwards Thorvald Ericson)—just as Maelduin (and also Brandan) loses three men—the expedition finally resolves itself into three separate homeward voyages, Thorhall the Hunter’s, Karlsevne’s and Bjarne Grimolfsson’s, etc. etc.[316] In the Irish legends and tales, e.g., those of Maelduin or of the Ua Corra, the repetition of the number three is even more conspicuous.
We may regard it as another feature of fairy tale that Eric the Red has three sons who set out one after another, first Leif, then Thorstein, and lastly Thorvald, who finds the land and takes part in the attempt to settle it. But this feature is not conspicuous enough to allow of our attaching much importance to it, especially as here it is the first son who is the lucky one, while it is not so in fairy tale.
Sweet dew and manna