[252] This incident is obviously connected with Irish legends, with which that same saga shows other points of resemblance. We read in the Floamanna-saga [cf. “Grönl. hist. Mind.,” ii. p. 118]: “They were then much exhausted by thirst; but water was nowhere in the neighbourhood. Then said Starkad: I have heard it said that when their lives were at stake men have mingled sea-water and urine. They then took the baler, ... made this mixture, and asked Thorgils for leave to drink it. He said it might indeed be excused, but would not either forbid it or permit it. But as they were about to drink, Thorgils ordered them to give him the baler, saying that he wished to say a spell over their drink [or: speak over the bowl]. He received it and said: Thou most foul beast, that delayest our voyage, thou shalt not be the cause that I or others drink our own evacuation! At that moment a bird, resembling a young auk, flew away from the boat, screaming. Thorgils thereupon emptied the baler overboard. They then row on and see running water, and take of it what they want; and it was late in the day. This bird flew northwards from the boat. Thorgils said: Late has this bird left us, and I would that it may take all the devilry with it; but we must rejoice that it did not accomplish its desire.”
In Brandan’s first voyage, in the Irish tale, “Betha Brenainn,” etc., or “Imram Brenaind” (of about the twelfth century; cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 137, 319), the seafarers one day suffered such thirst that they were near to death. They then saw glorious jets of water falling from a cliff. His companions asked Brandan whether they might drink of the water. He advised them first to say a blessing over it; but when this was done, the jets stopped running, and they saw the devil, who was letting the water out of himself, and killing those who drank of it. The sea closed over the devil, in order that thenceforth he might do no more evil to any one. The similarities are striking: both are perishing of thirst and about to drink urine, the Icelanders their own, the Irish the devil’s. They ask their leaders—the Icelanders Thorgils, the Irish Brandan—whether they may drink it. In both cases the leaders require a prayer to be said over it. Thereupon in both cases they see the devil: the Icelanders in the form of a bird that screams and finally leaves them to trouble them no more, and the Irish in the form of the devil himself, who is passing water, and disappears into the sea to do no more evil. The Icelandic tale is to some extent disconnected and incomprehensible, but is explained by being compared with the Irish; one thus sees how there may originally have been a connection between the bird (the Evil One) and the drink, which is otherwise obscure. The Icelandic account may have arisen by a distortion and adaptation, due to oral transmission, of the Irish legend.
[253] Cf. “Grönl. hist. Mind.,” ii. p. 656.
[254] Cf. “Grönl. hist. Mind.,” ii. p. 662.
[255] Ibid. pp. 684 ff.
[256] According to the “Islandske Annaler” [pp. 121, 181, 477] it was in 1200, therefore eleven years later, not fourteen; it is there related merely that Ingimund the priest was found uncorrupted in the uninhabited region, but the other six are not mentioned.
[257] I.e., wax tablets to write on.
[258] The Arab Qazwînî (thirteenth century) tells a story, after Omar al ’Udhri (eleventh century), of a cave in the west where lie four dead men uncorrupted [cf. G. Jacob, 1892, p. 168].
[259] Cf. “Islandske Annaler,” edited by G. Storm, 1888, pp. 50, 70, 142, 196, 337, 383.
[260] Cf. G. Storm’s arguments to this effect, 1888a, pp. 263 ff.; 1887, pp. 71 f.