There is a Swedish tale of some sailors from Getinge who were driven by storms over the sea to an unknown island; surrounded by darkness they went ashore and saw a fire, and before it lay an uncommonly tall man, who was blind; another equally big stood beside him and raked in the fire with an iron rod. The old blind man gets up and asks the strangers where they come from. They answer from Halland, from Getinge parish. Whereupon the blind man asks: "Is the white woman still alive?" They answered yes, though they did not know what he meant. Again he asks: "Is my goat-house still standing?" They again answered yes, though ignorant of what he meant. He then said: "I could not keep my goat-house in peace because of the church that was built in that place. If you would reach home safely, I give you two conditions." They promised to accept these, and the blind old man continued: "Take this belt of silver, and when you come home, buckle it on the white woman; and place this box on the altar in my goat-house." When the sailors were safely come home, the belt was buckled on a birch-tree, which immediately shot up into the air, and the box was placed on a mound, which immediately burst into flame. But from the church being built where the blind man had his goat-house the place was called Getinge [in J. Grimm, ii. 1876, p. 798, after Bexell's "Halland," Göteborg, 1818, ii. p. 301]. Similar tales are known from other localities in Sweden and Norway. The old blind man is a heathen giant driven out by the Christian church or by the image of Mary (the white woman); sometimes again he is a heathen exile.
Here we have undeniable parallels to the storm-driven Icelanders' meeting with the exiled Breidvikinge-kjæmpe, who asks after his native place and his woman, Thurid,[48] and who also sends two gifts home, though with very different feelings and objects. It may be supposed that the Swedish-Norwegian tale is derived from ancient myths, and the Icelandic narrative may have borrowed features, not, of course, from this very tale, but from myths of the same type.
Remarkable points of resemblance both to the voyages of the Irish (Bran's voyage) to the Fortunate Isles in the west, and to those of Gudleif and of the eight Portuguese (in Edrisi), are found in a Japanese tale of the fortunate isles of "Horaisan," to which Moltke Moe has called my attention.[49]