[360] Cf. W. Grimm, Kleinere Schriften, i. p. 468.
[361] Rietz: Svensk Dialekt-Lexikon, 1867.
[362] It may also be worth mentioning that just as there is a Björnö (Björnö Lighthouse) near Landegode off Bodö, so is there mention of a Bjarn-ey near Markland on the way to “Vinland hit Góða.” This may, of course, be purely a coincidence; but on the other hand there may be some connection.
[363] Cf. P. A. Säve: Hafvets och Fiskarens Sagor, spridda drag ur Gotlands Odlingssaga och Strandallmogens Lif. Visby, 1880.
[364] Norske Gaardnavne. Forord og Indledning. 1898, p. 39.
[365] O. Nicolayssen: Fra Nordlands Fortid. Kristiania, 1889, pp. 30 ff.
[366] Remark that thus in the Faroes Svinöi is also a fairy island, as in Sunnmör and at Brönöi in Norway.
[367] This astonishing etymological explanation of the ancient Phœnician legendary islands of the Hesperides is evidently due to a confusion of Brandan’s sheep-island with Pliny’s statements [Nat. Hist., vi. 36] about the purple islands off Africa (near the Hesperides) which King Juba was said to have discovered, and where he learned dyeing with Gætulian purple. The idea that the sunken land Atlantis was where the “Concretum Mare” now is may be connected with the Greek myth which appears in Plutarch (see above, [pp. 156] and [182]) of Cronos lying imprisoned in sleep on an island in the north-west in the Cronian Sea (== “Mare Concretum”), where also the great continent was, and where the sea was heavy and thick.
[368] This is the same myth as that of Hvítramanna-land in the Eyrbyggja Saga; see later.
[369] Cf. A. Guichot y Sierra, 1884, i. p. 296; Dumont d’Urville: Voyage autour du monde, i. p. 27. The same idea that the island withdraws when one tries to approach it appears also in Lucian’s description (in the Vera Historia) of the Isle of Dreams.