| “Summar vildu hann á gálgan föra summar ríva hans hár, uttan frúgvin Lindin mjá, hon fellir fyri hann tár.” | Some would carry him to the gallows, some would tear his hair, except the damsel Lindin the slender, she shed tears for him. |
She sends for the bird “Skúgv,” which carries him on its back for seven days and six nights across the sea to the highest mountain in Trondhjem. [Cf. Hammershaimb, 1855, pp. 138 ff.]
From a MS. of the thirteenth century (Royal Library, Copenhagen)
The “Promised Land” (“Tír Tairngiri”) with the “Happy Plain” (“Mag Mell”)[340] became in the Christian Irish legends the earthly Paradise, “Terra Repromissionis Sanctorum” (the land of promise of the saints). Other names for the happy land or happy isles in the west are: “Hy Breasail” (== the fortunate isle), “Tír na-m-Beo” (== the land of the living), “Tír na-n-Óg” (== the land of youth), “Tír na-m-Buadha” (== the land of virtues), “Hy na-Beatha” (== the isle of life). The happy isle of “Hy Breasail,” which was thought to be inhabited by living people, was also frequently called the “Great Land” (which when translated into Old Norse might become “Víðland”); just as the “Land of the Living,” where there were only enticing women and maidens, and neither death nor sin nor offence, was called the “Great Strand” (“Trág Mór”).[341] There is also mention of “Tír n-Ingnad” (land of marvels) and “Tírib Ingnad” (lands of marvels). This Irish series of names and conceptions for the same wonderful land (or strand) may well be thought to have been the origin of the name “Furðustrandir.”[342] The Irish often imagined their Promised Land, with “Mag Mell” and also the land of women, as the sunken land under the sea (cf. [p. 355]), and called it “Tír fo-Thuin” (== the land under the wave).
Brandan’s Grape-Island
It is not surprising that a name like “Vínland hit Góða” should have developed from such a world of ideas as this. But Moltke Moe has drawn my attention to yet another remarkable agreement, in the Grape-Island (“Insula Uvarum”), one of the fortunate isles visited by the Irish saint Brandan. In the Latin “Navigatio Sancti Brandani”—a description of Brandan’s seven years’ sea voyage in search of the “Promised Land”—it is related that one day a mighty bird came flying to Brandan and the brethren who were with him in the coracle; it had a branch in its beak with a bunch of grapes of unexampled size and redness[343] [cf. Numbers xiii. 23],[344] and it dropped the branch into the lap of the man of God. The grapes were as large as apples, and they lived on them for twelve days.
“Three days afterwards they reached the island; it was covered with the thickest forests of vines, which bore grapes with such incredible fertility that all the trees were bent to the earth; all with the same fruit and the same colour; not a tree was unfruitful, and there were none found there of any other sort.”
Then this man of God goes ashore and explores the island, while the brethren wait in the boat (like Karlsevne and his men waiting for the runners), until he comes back to them bringing samples of the fruits of the island (as the runners brought with them samples of the products of Wineland). He says: “Come ashore and set up the tent, and regale yourselves with the excellent fruits of this land, which the Lord has shown us.” For forty days they lived well on the grapes, and when they left they loaded the boat with as many of them as it would hold, exactly like Leif in the “Grönlendinga-þáttr,” who loaded the ship’s boat with grapes when they left Wineland; and like Thorvald at the same place, who collected grapes and vines for a cargo [cf. “Grönl. hist. Mind.,” i. pp. 222, 230].