The underground people are called in Iceland “ljúflingar,” in German “die guten Leute,” in English-speaking Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man “the good people,” “good neighbours,” or “the men of peace.”[360] In Highland Gaelic they are called “daoine sith,” in Welsh “dynion mad.” In Swedish and Danish we have the designation “nisse god-dreng” (“nisse good boy”) or “goda-nisse,” in Norwegian “go-granne” (“good neighbour”); (in Danish also “kære granne,” “dear neighbour”); in German “Guter (or lieber) Nachbar,” or “Gutgesell” is used of a goblin; in Thuringia “Gütchen,” “Gütel”; in the Netherlands “goede Kind,” and in England “Robin Goodfellow.”
That the epithet “good” applied to supernatural beings, especially underground ones, is so widely spread, even among the Lapps, shows it to have been common early in the Middle Ages.
It is of minor interest in this connection to inquire what the origin of the epithet may have been. We might suppose that it was the thought of the departed as the happy, blest people; but on the other hand it may have been fear; it may have been sought to conciliate them by giving them pet-names, for the same reason that thunder is called in Swedish “gobon” (godbonden), “gofar,” “gogubben,” “gomor,” “goa” (goa går),[361] which is also Norwegian.
“Hit góða” is the altogether good, the perfect, therefore the fortunate land. When the legend of the “Insulæ Fortunatæ” and of the Irish happy lands—one of which was the sunken fairyland “Tír fo-Thuin,” the land under-wave—reached the North, it was quite natural that the Northerners should translate the name by one well known to them, “Landit Góða” (fairyland, the land of the unseen); indeed, the name of Insulæ Fortunatæ could not well have been translated in any other way. But as wine was so conspicuous a feature in the description of this southern land of myth, both in Isidore and among the Irish, and as wine more than any other feature was symbolical of the idea of happiness, it is natural, as we have seen, that the Northerners came very soon to call this country, like Brandan’s Grape-island, “Vínland”; thus “Vínland hit Góða” may have arisen by a combination of “Vínland” and “Landit góða,” to distinguish it from the native “Landit Góða,” the fairyland of the Norwegians. A combination of “hit góða” with a proper name is otherwise unknown, and thus points to “Landit Góða” as the original form.[362]
Laudatory names for fairyland
Moltke Moe has given me an example from Gotland of a fairyland having received a laudatory name answering to Wineland, in that the popular fairyland “Sjóhaj” or “Flåjgland,” out at sea, is called Smörland.[363] Sjóhaj is a mirage on the sea; and “Flåjgland” comes from “fljuga,” to fly, i.e., that which drifts about, floating land. It now only means looming, but it may originally have been fairyland, and it is evident that it is here described as particularly fertile. With “Smörland” may be compared Norwegian place-names compounded with “smör”: “Smörtue,” “Smörberg,” “Smörklepp.” O. Rygh includes these among “Laudatory names ... which accentuate good qualities of the property or of the place.”[364] Similarly in the place-names of Shetland: “Smerrin” (== “smjǫr-vin,” fat, fertile pasture), “Smernadal” (== “smjǫr-vinjar-dalr,” valley with fat pasture), “de Smerr-meadow” (== originally: “smjor-eng” or “smjǫr-vin”), “de Smerwel-park” (probably == “smjor-vollr”), “de Smorli” (probably == “smjor-hlið”). J. Jakobsen [1902, p. 166] says that “‘smer(r)’ (Old Norse ‘smjǫr’ or ‘smœr,’ Norwegian ‘smör,’ butter) means here fertility, good pasture, in the same way as in Norwegian names of which the first syllable is ‘smör.’” With this may be compared the fact that even in early times the word “smör” was used to denote a fat land, as when Thorolf in the saga said that “it dripped butter from every blade of grass in the land they had found” (i.e., Iceland, see above, [p. 257], cf. also “smjǫr-tisdagr” == “Fat Tuesday,” “Mardi gras”). That the fairylands were connected with fertility appears also from a Northern legend. Nordfuglöi, to the north of Karlsöi, was once a troll-island, hidden under the sea and invisible to men, thus a “huldre” island. But then certain troll-hags betook themselves to towing it to land; a Lapp hag who happened to cast her eye through the door-opening saw them come rowing with the island, so that the spray dashed over it, and cried: “Oh, what a good ‘food-land’ we have now got!” And thereupon the island stopped at the mouth of the sea, where it now is.[365] The fertility of fairyland is doubtless also expressed in the incident of the sow that finds it (see later), usually having a litter there. Its fertility appears again, perhaps, in H. Ström’s [1766, p. 436] mention of “Buskholm” (i.e., Bush-island) in Herö (Sunnmör), which was inhabited by underground beings and protected, therefore wholly overgrown with trees and bushes. The Icelandic elfland “is delightful, covered with beautiful forests and sweet smelling flowers” [cf. Gröndal, 1863, p. 25], and the Irish is the same.
Floating islands
Legends of islands and countries that disappeared or moved, like the fairylands, are widely diffused. To begin with, the Delos (cf. δηλόω, become visible) of the Greeks floated about in the sea for a long time, as described by Callimachus [v.]; now the island was found, now it was away again, until it was fixed among the Cyclades. Ireland, which also at a very early time was the holy island (cf. [p. 38]), floated about in the sea at the time of the Flood. Lucas Debes [1673, pp. 19 ff.] relates that “at various times a floating island is said to have been seen” among the Faroes; but no one can reach it. “The inhabitants also tell a fable of Svinöe,[366] how that in the beginning it was a floating island: and they think that if one could come to this island, which is often seen, and throw steel upon it, it would stand still.... Many things are related of such floating islands, and some think that they exist in nature.” Debes does not believe it. “If this was not described of the properties of various islands, I should say that it was icebergs, which come floating from Greenland: and if that be not so, then I firmly believe that it is phantoms and witchcraft of the Devil, who in himself is a thousandfold craftsman.” Erich Pontoppidan [1753, ii. p. 346] defends the devil and protests against this view of Debes, that it is “phantasmata and sorcery of the devil,” and says: “But as, according to the wholesome rule, we ought to give the Devil his due, I think that the devil who in haste makes floating islands is none other than that Kraken, which some seamen also call ‘Söe-Draulen,’ that is, the sea troll.”
Of Svinöi in the Faroes precisely the same legend exists as of similar islands in Norway (see [p. 378]), that they came “up,” or became visible, through a sow upon which steel had been bound [cf. Hammershaimb, 1891, p. 362].
In many places there are such disappearing islands. Honorius Augustodunensis makes some remarkable statements in his work “De imagine mundi” [i. 36], of about 1125. After mentioning the Balearic Isles and the Gorgades, he says: “By the side of them [lie] the Hesperides, so called from the town of Hesperia. There is abundance of sheep with white wool, which is excellent for dyeing purple. Therefore the legend says that these islands have golden apples (‘mala’). For ‘miclon’ [error for ‘malon’] means sheep in Greek.[367] To these islands belonged the great island which according to the tale of Plato sank with its inhabitants, and which exceeded Africa and Europe in extent, where the curdled sea (‘Concretum Mare’) now is.... There lies also in the Ocean an island which is called the Lost (‘Perdita’); in charm and all kinds of fertility it far surpasses every other land, but it is unknown to men. Now and again it may be found by chance; but if one seeks for it, it cannot be found, and therefore it is called ‘the Lost.’ Men say that it was this island that Brandanus came to.” It is of special interest that thus as early as that time a disappearing island occurred near the Fortunate Isles.