Game of ball among the Eskimo of Greenland (Hans Egede, 1741)
This description, together with Egede’s drawing, from which it appears, amongst other things, that the opponents are arranged in pairs, seems to show that the Eskimo game was very like the Icelanders’ “knattleikr” and the Indians’ “lacrosse”; but with the difference that according to Egede’s account the Eskimo did not use any club or crosse; moreover, from Egede’s drawing it looks as if both men and women took part, as with certain Indian tribes. That there is a connection here appears natural. The most probable explanation may be that the Eskimo as well as the Indians got this ball-game from the Norsemen. That the Eskimo should have learnt it from the whalers after the rediscovery of Greenland in the sixteenth century is unlikely, as also that it should have come to the Indians from the Eskimo round the north of Baffin Bay and through Baffin Land and Labrador; nor is it any more likely that the Icelanders should have learnt it of the Eskimo in Greenland, who again had it from America.
Difficulties in the way of colonisation
It is in itself a strange thing that the discovery of a country like North America, with conditions so much more favourable than Greenland and Iceland, should not have led to a permanent settlement. But there are many, and in my judgment sufficient, reasons which explain this. We must remember that such an outpost of civilisation as Greenland offered poor opportunities for the equipment of such settlements; the settlers would have to be prepared for continual conflicts with the Indians, who with their warlike capacity and their numbers might easily be more than a match for a handful of Greenlanders, even though the latter had some advantage in their weapons of iron—and of these too the Greenlanders never had a very good supply, as appears from several narratives. There would also be need of ships, which were costly and difficult to procure in Greenland; the few that were there certainly had enough to do, and could hardly manage more than an occasional trip to Markland for timber. Moreover, as the Greenland settlements themselves and their oversea communications declined after the close of the thirteenth century, so also of course did their communication with America decrease, until it finally ceased altogether.
Hvítramanna-land
It would thus appear, from all that has been put forward in this chapter, that Wineland the Good was originally a mythical country, closely connected with the happy lands of Irish myths and legends—which had their first source in the Greek Elysium and Isles of the Blest, in Oriental sailors’ myths, and an admixture of Biblical conceptions. The description of the country has acquired important features from Isidore’s account of the Insulæ Fortunatæ and from older classical literature. This mythical country is to be compared with “Hvítramanna-land” (the white men’s land), “which some call Ireland the Great (‘Irland hit Mikla’).” Of this the Landnáma tells us (cf. vol i. p. 353) that it lay near Wineland, in the west of the ocean, six “dœgr’s” sail west of Ireland (according to the Eyrbyggja Saga it lay to the south-west); the Icelandic chief Are Mársson was driven there by storms, was not allowed to depart, but was baptized there and held in great esteem. Furthermore, the same land is mentioned in the Saga of Eric the Red as lying opposite Markland (cf. vol. i. p. 330). Finally, in the Eyrbyggja Saga there is a tale of a voyage (see later) which evidently had the same country as its object, though it is not mentioned by name. Since Thorkel Gellisson is given as the authority for the story in the Landnáma, the legend may have reached Iceland about the close of the eleventh century.
Origin of the name
This Irish land may also be derived from an adaptation of the ancients’ myth of the western Isles of the Blest,[37] and it evidently corresponds to one of the mythical countries of the Christianised Irish legends. It bears great resemblance in particular to “the Island of Strong Men” (“Insula Virorum Fortium”) in the Navigatio Brandani, which is also called there “the Isle of Anchorites” [Schröder, 1871, pp. 24, 17]. Three generations dwelt there: the first generation, the children, had clothes white as driven snow, the second of the colour of hyacinth, and the third of Dalmatian purple. The name itself, which in Old Norse would become “Starkramanna-land,” shows much similarity of formation; besides which it is the Isle of Anchorites that is in question, and one of the three generations wears white garments; we are thus not far from the formation of a name “Hvítramanna-land.” There is yet another point of agreement, in that, just as Are Mársson was not allowed to leave Hvítramanna-land, so one of Brandan’s companions had to stay behind on the Isle of Anchorites. It may also be supposed that the name of the White Men’s Land is connected with the White Christ and with the white garments of the baptized; the circumstance of Are Mársson being baptized there points in the same direction.[38] But to this it may be added that various myths and legends show it to have been a common idea among the Irish that aged hermits and holy men were white. The old man who welcomes Brendan to the promised land in the “Imram Brenaind” [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 139; Schirmer, 1888, p. 34] has no clothes, but his body is covered with dazzling white feathers, like a dove or a gull, and angelic is the speech of his lips. In the Latin account of Brandan’s life (“Vita sancti Brandani”) the man is called Paulus, he is again without clothes, but his body is covered with white hair,[39] and in both tales the man came from Ireland [cf. Schirmer, 1888, p. 40]. The cave-dweller Paulus on an island in the Navigatio Brandani [Schröder, 1871, p. 32] is without clothes, but wholly covered by the hair of his head, his beard and other hair down to the feet, and they were white as snow on account of his great age. It is evident that the whiteness is often attributed, as in the last instance, to age; but it is also the heavenly colour, and the white clothing of hair (or feathers) may also have some connection with the white lamb in the Revelation. In the tale of Maelduin’s voyage, which is older than those of Brandan’s, Maelduin meets in two places, on a sheep-island and on a rock in the sea, with hermits wholly covered with the white hair of their bodies—they too were both Irish—and on two other islands, the soil of one of which was as white as a feather, he meets with men whose only clothing was the hair of their bodies[40] [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 162, 163, 169, 172, 178]. In the Navigatio Brandan also meets on the island of Alibius an aged man with hair of the colour of snow and with shining countenance. (Cf. Christ revealing himself among the seven candlesticks to John on the isle of Patmos: “His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire” [Rev. i. 14].)