The trait that the wind-runners “did not look like folk” is expressed in another form in H. P. S. Krag’s notes; he thinks that they
“were nothing else but Sinclair’s bloodhounds, which we may assume both from the description and from its being related of the one that was shot at Ödegaard that it ran about the field and barked.”
Something similar also occurs about the runners in Wineland in a late form of the legend of Karlsevne’s voyage, where we read that
“he sailed from Greenland south-westward until the condition of the country got better and better; he found and visited many places that have never been found since; he found also some Skrælings; these people are called in some books Lapps. In one place he got two creatures (‘skepnur’) more like apes than men, whom he called Hake and Hekja; they ran as fast as greyhounds and had few clothes.” [MS. A. M., old no. 77oc, new no. 1892, 3; cf. Rafn: “Antiquitates Americanæ,” 1837, p. 196.]
It may be mentioned in addition that in the Flateyjarbók’s saga of the Wineland voyages no runners appear, but on the other hand, in the tale of Leif’s voyage, which has features in common with Karlsevne’s, there is a “Southman” (“suðrmaðr,” most frequently used of Germans)[321] of the name of “Tyrker,” who was the first to find the wild vine in the woods (like Karlsevne’s runners) and intoxicated himself by eating the grapes.[322] As Moltke Moe observes, there is a remarkable resemblance between the rare name Tyrker and the fact that Sinclair’s runners were called Wild Turks.
Both in the legend of Karlsevne and in that of Sinclair the two runners are connected with Scots or Scotland. One is therefore inclined to suppose that some piece of Celtic folklore is the common source of both. Now there is a Scottish mythical creature called a “water-calf”; and the unintelligible Norwegian name “weather-calf” or “wind-calf” (“veirkalv”) may well be thought a corruption of this. It is true that this creature inhabits lakes, but it also goes upon dry land, and has fabulous speed and the power of scenting things far off. It can also transform itself into different shapes, but always preserves something of its animal form.
That the runners in Eric’s Saga have become a man and woman may be due to a natural connection with Thor’s swift-footed companions, Tjalve and Röskva. But there seems here to be another possible connection, which Moltke Moe has suggested to me. The strange garment they wore is called in one MS. “kiafal” and in another “biafal.” No word completely corresponding to this is known in Celtic; but there is a modern Irish word “cabhail” (pronounced “caval” == “a body of a shirt”), which shows so much similarity both in meaning and sound that there seems undoubtedly to be a connection here. That “caval,” corrupted to “kiafal” (through the influence of similar-sounding names ?), has been transformed into “biafal” may be due to the influence of the Norse “bjalfi” or “bjalbi” (== a fur garment without sleeves). As their costume plays such an important part in the description of the runners, and special stress is laid upon the Celtic word for it, it is probable that this word was originally used as a name for the runners themselves—in legend and epic poetry there are many examples of people being named from their dress. But gradually the Celtic word used as a name has been replaced by the corresponding Old Norse “hakull” (or “hokull” == sleeveless cloak open at the sides; cf. “messe-hagel,” chasuble) and its feminine derivative “hekla” (== sleeveless cloak, with or without a hood). The use of these two words of masculine and feminine gender may be due to conceptions of them as man and woman, derived from Tjalve and Röskva. In course of time it was natural that a personal name formed from the costume, like Hakull, should easily be replaced by a real man’s name of similar sound, like “Haki,” specially known in legend and epic poetry as a name of sea-kings, berserkers and troll-children. Then “Hekja” was derived from “Haki,” in the same way as “Hekla” from “Hakull.” Hekja as a name is not met with elsewhere.[323]
That the whole of this story of the runners in the Saga of Eric the Red has been borrowed from elsewhere appears also from its being badly fitted in; for the narrative of the saga continues without taking any notice of the finding of the sure tokens of Wineland: the self-sown wheat and the vine; and in the following spring there is even a dispute as to the direction in which the country is to be sought. Furthermore, after the discoveries of the runners Karlsevne continues to sail southward, at first, the same autumn, to Straumsfjord, and then still farther south the following summer, before he arrives at the country of the wheat and grapes that the runners had reached in a day and a half in a roadless land.
Mythical figures: Thorhall and Tyrker
The description of the stay in Straumsfjord also contains purely mythical features, such as Thorhall the Hunter’s being absent for the stereotyped three days (“dœgr”), and having, when they find him, practised magic arts with the Red-Beard (Thor), as the result of which a whale is driven ashore (see [p. 325]). There is further a striking resemblance between the description of Thorhall’s state when found and that of Tyrker after he had eaten the grapes. When, in Eric’s Saga, they sought and found Thorhall on a steep mountain crag,