In the ocean to the west of Ireland there lay, as already mentioned ([p. 354]), many enchanted islands. They are in part derived from classical and oriental myths; but the native fairies (the síd-people) and fairylands have been introduced here also ([p. 371]). Even in the lakes of Ireland there are hidden islands, marvellously fertile with beautiful flowers.[378] Giraldus Cambrensis (twelfth century) says that on clear days an island appeared to the west of Ireland, but vanished when people approached it. At last some came within bowshot, and one of the sailors shot a red-hot arrow on to it, and the island then remained fixed. The happy island “O’Brasil” (“Hy-Breasail,” see [p. 357]) west of Ireland appears above the sea once in every seventh year—“on the edge of the azure sea ...” and it would stay up if any one could cast fire upon it.[379]
It is no doubt possible that myths of “villulands” or “huldrelands” far away in the sea may have arisen in various places independently of one another;[380] they may easily be suggested by mirage or other natural phenomena, and ideas about happiness are universal among men. But through many of these myths may be traced features so similar that we can discern a connection with certainty and can draw conclusions as to a common origin of the same conceptions.
The epithet “the Lucky”
That Leif of all others, the discoverer of the fortunate land, should have received the unusual surname of “hinn Heppni” (the Lucky) is also striking. There is only one other man in the sagas who is called thus: Hǫgni hinn Heppni, and he belongs to the period of the Iceland land-taking, but is only mentioned in a pedigree. Just as according to ancient Greek ideas and in the oldest Irish legends it was only vouchsafed to the chosen of the gods or of fortune to reach Elysium or the isle of the happy ones, so Leif, who according to tradition was the apostle of Christianity in Greenland, must have been regarded by the Christians of Iceland as the favourite of God or of destiny, to whom it was ordained to see the land of fortune. It is just this idea of the chosen of fate that lies in the words “happ” and “heppinn.” That the name has such an origin is also rendered probable by the fact that the saga-tellers were evidently not clear as to the reason of Leif’s being so called, and it is sometimes represented as due to his having saved the shipwrecked crew (cf. [pp. 270], [317]), which is meaningless, since in that case it would be the rescued and not Leif who were lucky, and moreover rescue of shipwrecked sailors must have been an everyday affair. The saga-writers therefore knew that Leif had this surname, but the reason for it had in course of time been forgotten.
An interesting parallel to “Leifr hinn Heppni” has been brought to my notice by Moltke Moe in the Nordland “Lykk-Anders,” the name of the lucky brother who came to the fairyland Sandflesa, off Trænen in Helgeland.[381] It is important that this epithet of Lucky is thus only known in Norway in connection with fairyland.[382] That the underground people, “huldrefolk,” bring luck appears also in other superstitions.[383] He who is born with the cap of victory (Glückshaube, -helm, sigurkull, holyhow), which often seems to have the same effect as the fairy hat, is predestined to fortune and prosperity, like a Sunday child.
Another possible parallel to the lucky name is the monk “Felix” (i.e., happy, corresponding to “heppinn”) who occurs in widely diffused mediæval legends. He has a foretaste of the joys of heaven through hearing a bird of paradise; he thinks that only a few hours have passed, from morning to midday, while he is listening to it in rapture, though in reality a hundred years have gone by.[384] Moltke Moe considers it probable that in this case the name Felix may be due to a Germanic conception of the lucky one.
Moltke Moe sees another parallel—a literary one, to be sure—to Leif the Lucky and Lykk-Anders in the Olaf Ásteson of the “Draumkvæde” (Dream-Lay) which he explains as “Ástsonr” == the son of love, God’s beloved son. He is so called because he is so beloved that God has given him a glimpse of the future, so that he sees behind the gate of death.[385]
All this, therefore, points in the same direction.
The oldest authority, Adam of Bremen, untrustworthy
Even Adam of Bremen’s brief mention of Wineland (cf. [pp. 195], [197]) bears evident traces of being untrustworthy; thus he says that the self-grown vines in Wineland “give the noblest wine.” Even if wine could be produced from the small wild grapes, it would scarcely be noble, and who should have made it? It is not very likely that the Icelanders and Greenlanders who discovered the country had any idea of making wine. If we except this fable of the wine, and the name itself, which seems to be derived from Ireland (cf. [p. 366]), but may have been confused with the name of Finland[386] (cf. [p. 198]), then Adam’s statements about Wineland correspond entirely to Isidore’s description of the Insulæ Fortunatæ, and contain nothing new. Adam’s statement that the island was discovered by many (“multis”) does not agree with the Saga of Eric the Red, which only knows of two voyages thither, but agrees better with its being a well-known mythical country, to which many mythical voyages had been made, or with its being Finmark.[386] Although it may be uncertain whether Adam thought the ice- and mist-filled sea lay beyond Wineland (cf. [p. 199]), this bears a remarkable resemblance to similar Arab myths of islands that lay near the “Dark Sea” in the west (cf. chapter xiii.); while in any case it shows how myth is introduced into his description of distant regions, and there also he places the mythical abyss of the sea. If one reads through the conclusion of his account ([pp. 192 ff.]), it will be seen how he takes pains to get a gradual increase of the fabulous: first Iceland with the black inflammable ice and the “simple” communistic inhabitants; then, opposite to the mountains of Svedia, Greenland, with predatory inhabitants who turn blue-green in the face from the sea-water; then Halagland, which is made into an island in the ocean, and which is called holy on account of the midnight sun, of which he gives erroneous information taken from older authors (cf. [p. 194, note 2]); then Wineland (the Fortunate Isles), with Isidore’s self-grown vines and unsown corn; and then finally he reaches the highest pitch (unless in Harold’s voyage to the abyss of the sea) in the tale of the Frisian noblemen’s voyage to the North Pole, which does not contain a feature that is not borrowed from fables and myths (cf. chapter xii.); now this expedition started from Bremen, where he lived; and he mentions two archbishops as his authorities for it. When we find that all these statements about the northern islands and countries, both before and after the mention of Wineland, are more or less fables or plagiarisms; when we further see what he was capable of relating about countries that lay nearer, and about which he might easily have obtained information—for instance, his Land of Women on the Baltic, to which he transfers the Amazons and Cynocephali of the Greeks (cf. [p. 187]), and his Wizzi or Albanians or Alanians (sic) with battle-array of dogs (!) in Russia [iv. 19][387]—is it credible that what he says about the most distant country, Wineland, should form the only exception in this concatenation of fable and reminiscence, and suddenly be genuine and not borrowed from Isidore, to whom it bears such a striking resemblance? It must be more probable that he had heard a name, Wineland, perhaps confused with Finland, and in the belief that this meant the land of wine, he then, quite in harmony with what he has done in other places (cf. Kvænland), transferred thereto Isidore’s description of the “Insulæ Fortunatæ.”