[45] As Portugal was at that time under the Moors, Arabic must be regarded as these men’s mother-tongue.
[46] They first drifted to the north-west in the outer ocean, and after three days suffered intolerable thirst; but Christ took pity on them and brought them to a current which tasted like tepid milk. Zimmer’s explanation [1889, p. 216] of this current as the Gulf Stream to the west of the Hebrides is due to modern maps, and is an example of how even the most acute of book-learned inquirers may be led astray by formal representations. That the Irish should have possessed such comprehensive oceanographical knowledge as to regard this ocean-drift as a definitely limited current is not likely, and still less that they should have regarded it as so much warmer than the water inshore as to be compared to tepid milk. The difference in temperature on the surface is in summer (August) approximately nil, and in spring and autumn perhaps three or four degrees; and of course the Irish had no thermometers. Last summer I investigated this very part of the ocean without finding any conspicuous difference. The feature may be derived from Lucian’s Vera Historia, where the travellers come to a sea of milk [Wieland, 1789, iv. p. 188].
[47] It is doubtless due to this communication that an unknown Arabic author (of the twelfth century) relates that the “Fortunate Isles” lie to the north of Cadiz, and that thence come the northern Vikings (“Maǵûs”), who are Christians. “The first of these islands is Britain, which lies in the midst of the ocean, at a great distance to the north of Spain. Neither mountains nor rivers are found there; its inhabitants are compelled to resort to rain-water both for drinking and for watering the ground” [Fabricius, 1897, p. 157]. It is clear that there is here a confusion of rumours of islands in the north—of which Britain was the best known, whence the Vikings were supposed to come—with Pliny’s Fortunate Isles: “Planaria” (without mountains) and “Pluvialia” (where the inhabitants had only rain-water). That the Orkneys in particular should have been intended, as suggested by R. Dozy [Recherches sur l’Espagne, ii. pp. 317, ff.] and Paul Riant [Expéditions et Pèlerinages des Scandinaves en Terre Sainte, Paris, 1865, p. 236] is not very probable. We might equally well suppose it to be Ireland, which through Norse sailors (“Ostmen”) and merchants had communication with the Spaniards from the ninth till as late as the fourteenth century [cf. A. Bugge, 1900, pp. 1, f.]. The Arabic name “Maǵûs” for the Norman Vikings comes from the Greek μάγος; (Magian, fire-worshipper), and originally meant heathens in general.
[48] In one of his lays Björn Breidvikinge-kjæmpe also, as it happens, speaks of Thurid as the snow-white (“fannhvít”) woman.
[49] See D. Brauns: Japanische Märchen und Sagan. Leipzig, 1885, p. 146, ff.
[50] Cf. the resemblance to the second voyage of Sindbad, to the tales in Abû Hâmid, Qaswînî, Pseudo-Callisthenes’ romance of Alexander, Indian tales, etc. [cf. E. Rohde, 1900, p. 192].
[51] The Ringerike runic stone is not given here, as its mention of Wineland is uncertain.
[52] It should be remarked that the beginning of this saga, dealing with the discovery of Greenland by Eric the Red, is taken straight out of the Landnámabók, and is thus much older.
[53] It would be otherwise on the west coast of Greenland, with its excellent belt of skerries; but as the Eskimo could not reach this coast without having developed, at least in part, their peculiar maritime culture, it is, of course, out of the question that this can have been their cradle.
[54] Cf. on this subject H. Rink [1871, 1887, 1891]; F. Boas [1901]; cf. also H. P. Steensby [1905], Axel Hamberg [1907] and others. These authors hold various views as to the origin of the Eskimo, which, however, are all different from that set forth here. While Rink thought the Eskimo came from Alaska and first developed their sea-fishing on the rivers of Alaska, Boas thinks they come from the west coast of Hudson Bay, and Steensby that they developed on the central north coasts of Canada. Since the above was written W. Thalbitzer has also dealt with the question [1908-1910].