[Illustration: Map by the Icelander Jón Gudmundsson, born 1574 (Torfæus, 1706)]
Curiously enough Helluland is the only one of the names of the western lands that has been widely adopted in Icelandic fairy-tales and legendary sagas. It has to some extent become a complete fairyland, with trolls and giants, and it is located in various places, usually far north, even to the north of Greenland, and sometimes on its north-east coast. In this fairyland was the fjord "Skuggi" (shadow); it is mentioned in Örvarodds Saga (circa 1300), where the hero departs to seek his enemy, the wizard Ǫgmund, in Helluland, and again in Bárðarsaga Snæfellsáss (fifteenth century), in the "Þáttr" of Gunnari Keldugnúpsfífl, in the Hálfdanarsaga Brönufóstra, in the Saga of Hálfdani Eysteinssyni, and in Gest Bárdsson's Saga.[33]
In the geography which under the name of "Gripla" was included in Björn Jónsson's "Grönland's Annaler," it is said of the countries opposite Greenland:
"Furðustrandir is the name of a land, where is severe frost, so that it is not habitable, so far as people know; south of it is Helluland, which is called Skrælingja-land; thence it is a short distance to Wineland the Good, which some people think goes out from Africa...."
With this may be compared another MS. of the seventeenth century, where we read:
"West of the great ocean from Spain, which some call Ginnungagap, and which goes between lands, there is first towards the north Wineland the Good, next to it is called Markland farther north, thereafter are the wastes [i.e., the wastes of Helluland] where Skrælings live, then there are still more wastes to Greenland." [Cf. Grönl. hist. Mind., iii. pp. 224, 227.]
From this it looks as if Helluland was regarded as inhabited by Skrælings, which agrees with the reality, if it is Labrador. But these MSS. belong to the seventeenth century, and may be influenced by the geographical knowledge of later times. In Gripla there is evident confusion, as Furðustrandir has been confounded with Helluland, and the latter with Markland[34].
No record is found of any voyage to Wineland after 1121; but on the other hand there is mention more than two hundred years later of the voyage, referred to above, to Markland from Greenland in 1347. Of this we read in the Icelandic Annals (Skálholts-Annals) for that year: "Then came also [i.e., besides ships from Norway already mentioned] a ship from Greenland, smaller in size than the small vessels that trade to Iceland. It came to Outer Straumfjord [on the south side of Snæfellsnes]; it was without an anchor. There were seventeen men on board [in the Flatey-annals there are eighteen men], and they had sailed to Markland, but afterwards [i.e., on the homeward voyage to Greenland] were driven hither."