The name of Wineland derived from Ireland
It results, then, from what has here been quoted, that a Grape-island (“Insula Uvarum”) makes its appearance in Irish literature in the eleventh century, at about the same time when Adam of Bremen mentions, from Danish informants, an island called “Winland.” Of the same century again is the Norwegian runic stone from Hönen in Ringerike, on which, as we shall see later, Wineland is possibly mentioned (?) From the form of the runes, S. Bugge ascribes it to the first half of the eleventh century, hardly older, though it may be later. “Insula Uvarum” translated into the Old Norse language could not very well become anything but Vínland (or Víney), since Vínberjarey or Vínberjarland would not sound well. We thus have the remarkable circumstance that an island with the same name and the same properties makes its appearance almost simultaneously in Ireland and in Denmark (and possibly also in Norway). That these Wine-islands or Winelands should have originated entirely independently of one another, in countries which had such close intellectual connection, would be a coincidence of the kind that one cannot very well assume, since it must be regarded as more probable that there was a connection. But Brandan’s Grape-island can scarcely be derived from a Wineland discovered by the Norsemen, since, as has been mentioned, the wine and wine-fruit play such a prominent part in the older Irish legends, and the ancient tale of Bran (“Echtra Brain”) describes the Irish Elysium (“Mag Mell”) as a land with magnificent woods and the true scent of the vine, etc. (see [p. 355]). In the next place, as has been mentioned, Brandan’s Grape-island bears a resemblance to Lucian’s Grape-island; but as Lucian’s descriptions seem also to have influenced, among others, the tale of the intoxicating wine-fruit in the “Imram Maelduin,” it looks as though Lucian’s stories had reached Ireland (e.g., by Scandinavian travellers or through Arabs ?) long before the Navigatio Brandani was written. As thus the Irish wine-island cannot well be due to a Norse discovery, it becomes probable that Adam’s name Winland (as well as the possible Norwegian name) was originally derived from Ireland, and that it reached the northern countries orally. If the Danes did not get the name from the Norwegians they may have brought it themselves, as they also had direct communication with Ireland.[353] This conclusion, that the name of Wineland came from Ireland, is again strengthened from an entirely different quarter, namely, the Landnámabók, where it is said that Great-Ireland lay near Wineland. As suggested on [p. 354], this shows that the Icelanders must have heard both lands spoken of in Ireland. As Ravn Hlymreks-farer is given as the original authority, and after him Thorfinn, earl of Orkney (ob. circa 1064), this may have been at the beginning of the eleventh century; but as the statement came finally from Thorkel Gellisson (and consequently was written down by Are Frode) it may also have been in the second half of that century. In this way we seem to have a natural explanation of the simultaneous appearance of the name in the North.[354]
As the statement in the Landnáma is due to Thorkel Gellisson, it is doubtless most probable that the Wineland that is mentioned for the first time in Icelandic literature in a gloss in Are Frode’s Íslendingabók also has Thorkel (who is mentioned immediately afterwards) for its authority (cf. [p. 258]), although the sentence might be by Are himself. Thorkel may have heard of this Wineland in Greenland; but it is more likely to be the country he heard of in connection with the mythical Hvítramanna-land from Ireland, and he may have heard that there were said to dwell there wights (or trolls) that were called Skrælings. Two possibilities suggest themselves: either this Wineland with its Skrælings was nothing but the well-known mythical land with its mythical people, which required no further description. It cannot be objected that the sober, critical Are would not have mentioned a mythical country in this way; for, if he was capable of believing in a Hvítramanna-land, he could also believe in such a Wineland. Or, on the other hand, it was a land which had actually been discovered and to which the name of the mythical country had been transferred. The latter hypothesis might be strengthened by other things that point to the Greenlanders having really found land in the west. But, on the other hand, if a country actually discovered is meant, it is curious that neither Are nor the Landnáma makes any mention of the discovery, whereas the discovery of Greenland is related at some length, and also that of Hvítramanna-land. Again, when Eric the Red came to Greenland, such a land had in any case not been discovered, so that it could not have been he who named the Eskimo after the inhabitants of that land, whereas Are might readily suppose that he had taken the name of Skrælings from the people of the mythical country; thus Are’s words, as they now stand, would have a clearer meaning.
It may also be worth mentioning that in the only passage of the Sturlubók where Wineland is alluded to, it is called “Irland et Goda.” This has generally been regarded as a copyist’s error; but that it was due to misreading of an indistinctly written “Vinland” is not likely; it might rather be due to a careless repetition, since “Irland et Mikla” is mentioned just before. This is most probable. It may, however, be supposed that it is not an error, and that just as the latter is an alternative name for Hvítramanna-land, so “Irland et Góða” may be a corresponding alternative name for Wineland, which was situated near it. We should thus again be led to Ireland as the home of the name. In any case the uncertainty which prevails in the versions of the name of Wineland given in the oldest authorities is striking (as discussed in the last note). Nothing of the same sort occurs in the transmission of other geographical names, and a form such as Vindland in Hauk’s Landnáma cannot be explained as merely a copyist’s error. Again, Eric’s Saga in the Hauksbók has the name correctly, although this saga as well as the Landnáma was to a great extent copied by Hauk Erlendsson himself. This may point to the form Vindland having occurred in the original from which the Landnáma was copied. This discloses uncertainty in the very reading of the name, and it seems also to point to its having been a mythical country and not the name of a known land that had been discovered.
Landit Góða, Fairyland
To any one who is familiar with Norse place-names, the addition “hit góða” to Wineland must appear foreign and unusual. It is otherwise only known in the northern countries from the name “Landegode” (originally “Landit Góða”) on the coast of Norway, for an island west of Bodö. The same name was also used (and is still used in Stad and Herö) for Svinöi, a little island off Sunnmör, and for Jomfruland (south of Langesund). It has been generally taken for a so-called tabu-name;[355] but the explanation suggested to me by Moltke Moe seems more probable, that it was a designation of fairylands, which lay out in the ocean, and which were thought to sink into the sea as one approached them. The above-mentioned Norwegian islands would quite answer to such conceptions, especially when they loom up and seem larger, and all three islands were formerly fairylands (“huldrelande”). The original germ of the belief in fairies (“huldrer”) is the worship of the departed. “Hulder” means “hidden” (i.e., the hidden people). Fairylands are therefore the islands of the hidden, or of the departed, and these again are the Fortunate Isles or the Isles of the Blest. A parallel to this is that “Hades” in Greek means the invisible. And, as we have seen ([p. 356]), the nymph Calypso (== the hidden one) answers to our “hulder.” When Bran, in the Irish legend alluded to, meets on the sea Manannán mac Lir (i.e., son of the Sea), king of the sea-people, lord of the land of the dead, he tells Bran that without being able to see it he is sailing over Mag Mell (the happy plain), where happy people are sitting drinking wine, and where there is a splendid forest with vines, etc.; and the Irish happy land “Tír fo-Thuin” is, as we have said ([p. 358]), the land under the wave. The lands or islands of the departed in course of time became the habitations of the invisible ones (spirits), of those who possess more than human wisdom, and have a specially favourable lot; by this means the idea of a fortunate land with favoured conditions, far surpassing the ordinary lot of men, became more and more emphasised. This development may be followed both with regard to classical ideas of the Fortunate Islands and to Norse conceptions of fairylands.
That the Greeks connected the happy land with the hidden people who move upon the sea may perhaps be concluded even from the Odyssey’s description of the Phæacians, who dwelt in the happy land, the glorious Scheria, far in the western ocean (see above, [p. 347]). That they may be compared with our fairies (“huldrefolk”) appears perhaps from the name itself, which may come from φαιός (== dark) and mean “dark man,” “the hidden man” [cf. Welcker, 1833, p. 231].[356] They sail at night, always shrouded in clouds and darkness, in boats as swift “as wings and the thoughts of men” [Od. vii. 35 f.]. The “huldrefolk” also travel by night (cf. [p. 378]). In Ireland and in Iceland the way to fairyland is through darkness and mist, or sea or water [cf. Gröndal, 1863, pp. 25, 38]; and it is the same in Nordland. A blending of the fairies (“síd”-people) and the inhabitants of the happy land or promised land is particularly observable in the Irish legends [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 276 f.]. The people of the “síd” dwell partly in grave-mounds (and are thus like our “haugebonde,” or mound-elf), they may also live in happy lands far west in the sea or under the sea, and are thus sea-elves, but on the whole they most resemble our “huldrefolk.” The “síd”-woman entices men like our “hulder”; in the tale of “Condla Ruad” [Connla the Fair; cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 262] she comes from the Land of the Living (“Tír na-m-Beó”), far across the sea, and entices Connla to go with her in a glass boat to the “Great Strand,” where there only were women and maidens. This Irish paradise of women out in the ocean has, as we have said ([p. 355]), much in common with the German Venusberg, and with the invisible country of our “huldrefolk.” But the “huldrefolk” dwell now in mountains and woods, now on islands in the sea or under the sea. As will be seen, the ideas of the Fortunate Isles or of the Promised Land and those of fairyland thus often coincide. It may be added that among many peoples the souls of the dead are carried across the sea in a boat or ship to a land in the west.
This is evidently connected with the river of death, Styx, Acheron or Cocytus, of the Greeks, over which Charon ferried the souls to the lower regions in a narrow two-oared boat. Procopius [De bello Goth., iv. 20] relates that according to legends he himself heard from the natives, all the souls of the departed are carried every night at midnight from the coast of Germania to the island of Brittia (i.e., Britain) which lies over against the mouth of the Rhine between Britannia (i.e., Brittany) and Thule (Scandinavia). He whose turn it is among the dwellers on the coast to be ferryman hears at midnight a knocking at his door and a muffled voice. He goes down to the beach, sees there an empty, strange boat, into which he gets and begins to row. He then notices that the boat is filled so that the gunwale is only a finger’s breadth above the water, but he sees nothing. As soon as he arrives at the opposite shore, he notices that the boat is suddenly emptied, but still he sees no one, and only hears a voice announcing the names and rank of the arrivals. The invisible souls, who always move in silence, answer to the elves.
In many ways the connection between the dead and the sea is apparent. Balder’s body was laid in a ship on which a pyre was kindled, and it was abandoned to the currents of the sea. The body of the hero Scild in the lay of Beowulf was borne upon a ship, which was carried away by the sea, no one knows whither. Fiosi in Njál’s Saga has himself carried on board a ship and abandoned to the sea, and afterwards the ship is not heard of again, etc.[357]
That the fairylands should be called “Landit Góða” may be due to their exceeding fertility (cf. the huldreland’s waving cornfields); but it may also, as Moltke Moe has pointed out, have a natural connection with the tendency the Germanic peoples in ancient times seem to have had of attaching the idea of “good” to the fairies and the dead. In Nordland the “huldrefolk” are called “godvetter” (“good wights”) [cf. I. Aasen]; this among the Lapps has become “gúvitter,” “gufihter,” “gufittarak,” etc., as a name for supernatural beings underground or in the sea;[358] the Swedes in North Sweden use the word “goveiter.” The mound-elf (“haugebonden”), Old Norse “haugbui” (the dweller in the mound), who was the ancestor of the clan, or the representative of the departed generations, is called in Nordland “godbonden.”[359]