As Moltke Moe has pointed out to me, there is a remarkable resemblance between these kivitut and the utilegumenn, 'out-liers' so common in the Icelandic popular legends—criminals, that is to say, who have fled to the mountains and live in the wilderness far from mankind. The great part which these 'out-liers' play in the popular fantasy, and the mystic fear with which they are regarded, has caused them, from a very early period, to be in great measure confounded in common belief with trolls, huldrefolk, and other legendary creatures, in whose supernatural faculties they partake. They can see into the future, they know what is happening in distant places, they can conjure up mists and lead the traveller astray, and they possess superhuman strength.[1] Like the kivitok, they seek the abodes of men in order to pick up something to eat; they steal sheep, food, and clothes from the people of the settlements. The most characteristic feature of both the Greenland and the Iceland legends is that men, by being cut off from society, obtain supernatural power. The coincidence becomes still more striking when we observe that both in Greenland and in Iceland these legends form an essential part of living popular tradition and
- ↑ See Arnasen, Íslenzkar þjóðsōgŭr, ii. 160-304, translation by Powell and Magnússon (London, 1866), pp. cxlvi, and 101-231. Maurer Isländische Volkssagen, p. 240; Carl Andersen, Islandske Folkesagn, 2nd ed., p. 258.
