A connection between the intellectual world of China and Japan and that of Europe in the Middle Ages may well be supposed to have been brought about by the Arabs, who penetrated as far as China on their trading voyages, and who, on the other hand, had close communication with Western Europe. Furthermore, it must be remembered how many of our mythical conceptions and tales are more or less connected with India, just as many of the Arabian tales evidently had their birthplace there [cf. E. Rohde, 1900, pp. 191, ff.]; while on the other side there was, of course, a close connection between India and the intellectual world of China and Japan, as shown by the spread of Buddhism. A transference of the same myths both eastward to Japan and westward to Europe is thus highly probable, whether these myths originated in Europe or in India and the East. It is striking, too, that even a secondary feature such as the curdled, dead sea (cf. "Morimarusa," see vol. i. p. 99; the stinking sea in Edrisi, vol. ii. p. 51) is met with again here as the "muddy sea" without fish (cf. resemblances to Arab ideas, chapter xiii.).
If we now look back upon all the problems it has been sought to solve in this chapter, the impression may be a somewhat heterogeneous and negative one; the majority will doubtless be struck at the outset by the multiplicity of the paths, and by the intercrossing due to this multiplicity. But if we force our way through the network of by-paths and follow up the essential leading lines, it appears to me that there is established a firm and powerful series of conclusions, which it will not be easy to shake. The most important steps in this series are:
(1) The oldest authority,[51] Adam of Bremen's work, in which Wineland is mentioned, is untrustworthy, and, with the exception of the name and of the fable of wine being produced there, contains nothing beyond what is found in Isidore.
(2) The oldest Icelandic authorities that mention the name of "Vinland," or in the Landnáma "Vindland hit Góða," say nothing about its discovery or about the wine there; on the other hand, Are Frode mentions the Skrælings (who must originally have been regarded as a fairy people). The name of Leif Ericson is mentioned, unconnected with Wineland or its discovery.