In many of its features the Brandan legend, or similar Irish legends,

may be shown to have had influence on Norse literature. The theft of

the neck-chain (or bridle ?) by one of the brethren, who comes to

grief thereby, in the Navigatio and in other Irish tales, is found

again, as Moltke Moe points out to me, in the story of Thorkel Adelfar

in Saxo Grammaticus, as a theft of jewels and of a cloak, through

which the thieves also come to grief. The great fish (whale)

"Iasconicus," of which Brandan relates that it tries in vain to bite

its own tail, is evidently the Midgardsworm of Norse literature. In

the same way the little, apparently innocent, but supernatural cat in

the "Imram Maelduin" which suddenly destroys the man who steals the

neck-chain may be connected with the cat that Thor tries to lift in

Utgard. It is doubtless the same little cat that three young priests

took with them on their voyage in another Irish legend [in the Book of

Leinster, of the beginning of the twelfth century]. In the "Imram

Brenaind" this little cat they took with them has grown into a monkey

as large as a young ox, which swims after Brandan's boat and wants to

swallow it [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 139]. Again, quite recently Von Sydow

[1910, pp. 65 ff.] has shown that the Snorra-Edda's myth of Thor's

journey to Utgard is based on Irish myths and tales.

[Sidenote: The happy land in the west known in Northern Europe]

Legends of a happy land or an island far over the sea towards the sunset

were evidently widely diffused in Northern Europe in those days, outside

Ireland. In Anglo-Saxon literature there is a dialogue between Adrianus

and Ritheus (probably of the tenth century), where we read:

"Tell me where the sun shines at night."... "I tell you in three

places: first in the belly of the whale that is called 'Leuiathan';

and the second season it shines in Hell; and the third season it

shines upon the island that is called 'Glið,' and there the souls of

holy men repose till doomsday."[351]

This Glið (i.e., the glittering land) is evidently the Land of the Blest,

Brandan's Terra Repromissionis, that lies in dazzling sunshine, after one

has passed through darkness and mist; but whether the myth reached the

Anglo-Saxons from the Irish seems doubtful.

Pseudo-Gildas's description (twelfth century) of the isle of "Avallon"

(the apple-island of Welsh myth) is also of interest; it is connected with

exactly the same ideas as the Irish happy isles:

"A remarkable island is surrounded by the ocean, full of all good

things; no thief, no robber, no enemy pursues one there; no violence,

no winter, no summer rages immoderately; peace, concord, spring last

eternally, neither flower nor lily is wanting, nor rose nor violet;

the apple-tree bears flowers and fruit on the selfsame branch; there

without stain youths dwell with their maidens, there is no old age and

no oppressive sickness, no sorrow, all is full of joy."[352]

[Sidenote: The name of Wineland derived from Ireland]

It results, then, from what has here been quoted, that a Grape-island

("Insula Uvarum") makes its appearance in Irish literature in the eleventh

century, at about the same time when Adam of Bremen mentions, from Danish

informants, an island called "Winland." Of the same century again is the

Norwegian runic stone from Hönen in Ringerike, on which, as we shall see

later, Wineland is possibly mentioned (?) From the form of the runes, S.

Bugge ascribes it to the first half of the eleventh century, hardly older,

though it may be later. "Insula Uvarum" translated into the Old Norse

language could not very well become anything but Vínland (or Víney), since

Vínberjarey or Vínberjarland would not sound well. We thus have the

remarkable circumstance that an island with the same name and the same

properties makes its appearance almost simultaneously in Ireland and in

Denmark (and possibly also in Norway). That these Wine-islands or

Winelands should have originated entirely independently of one another, in

countries which had such close intellectual connection, would be a

coincidence of the kind that one cannot very well assume, since it must be

regarded as more probable that there was a connection. But Brandan's

Grape-island can scarcely be derived from a Wineland discovered by the

Norsemen, since, as has been mentioned, the wine and wine-fruit play such

a prominent part in the older Irish legends, and the ancient tale of Bran

("Echtra Brain") describes the Irish Elysium ("Mag Mell") as a land with

magnificent woods and the true scent of the vine, etc. (see p. 355). In

the next place, as has been mentioned, Brandan's Grape-island bears a

resemblance to Lucian's Grape-island; but as Lucian's descriptions seem

also to have influenced, among others, the tale of the intoxicating

wine-fruit in the "Imram Maelduin," it looks as though Lucian's stories

had reached Ireland (e.g., by Scandinavian travellers or through Arabs ?)

long before the Navigatio Brandani was written. As thus the Irish

wine-island cannot well be due to a Norse discovery, it becomes probable

that Adam's name Winland (as well as the possible Norwegian name) was

originally derived from Ireland, and that it reached the northern

countries orally. If the Danes did not get the name from the Norwegians

they may have brought it themselves, as they also had direct communication

with Ireland.[353] This conclusion, that the name of Wineland came from

Ireland, is again strengthened from an entirely different quarter, namely,

the Landnámabók, where it is said that Great-Ireland lay near Wineland. As

suggested on p. 354, this shows that the Icelanders must have heard both

lands spoken of in Ireland. As Ravn Hlymreks-farer is given as the

original authority, and after him Thorfinn, earl of Orkney (ob. circa

1064), this may have been at the beginning of the eleventh century; but as

the statement came finally from Thorkel Gellisson (and consequently was

written down by Are Frode) it may also have been in the second half of

that century. In this way we seem to have a natural explanation of the

simultaneous appearance of the name in the North.[354]

As the statement in the Landnáma is due to Thorkel Gellisson, it is

doubtless most probable that the Wineland that is mentioned for the first

time in Icelandic literature in a gloss in Are Frode's Íslendingabók also

has Thorkel (who is mentioned immediately afterwards) for its authority

(cf. p. 258), although the sentence might be by Are himself. Thorkel may

have heard of this Wineland in Greenland; but it is more likely to be the

country he heard of in connection with the mythical Hvítramanna-land from

Ireland, and he may have heard that there were said to dwell there wights

(or trolls) that were called Skrælings. Two possibilities suggest

themselves: either this Wineland with its Skrælings was nothing but the

well-known mythical land with its mythical people, which required no

further description. It cannot be objected that the sober, critical Are

would not have mentioned a mythical country in this way; for, if he was

capable of believing in a Hvítramanna-land, he could also believe in such

a Wineland. Or, on the other hand, it was a land which had actually been

discovered and to which the name of the mythical country had been

transferred. The latter hypothesis might be strengthened by other things

that point to the Greenlanders having really found land in the west. But,

on the other hand, if a country actually discovered is meant, it is

curious that neither Are nor the Landnáma makes any mention of the

discovery, whereas the discovery of Greenland is related at some length,

and also that of Hvítramanna-land. Again, when Eric the Red came to

Greenland, such a land had in any case not been discovered, so that it

could not have been he who named the Eskimo after the inhabitants of that

land, whereas Are might readily suppose that he had taken the name of

Skrælings from the people of the mythical country; thus Are's words, as

they now stand, would have a clearer meaning.

It may also be worth mentioning that in the only passage of the Sturlubók

where Wineland is alluded to, it is called "Irland et Goda." This has

generally been regarded as a copyist's error; but that it was due to

misreading of an indistinctly written "Vinland" is not likely; it might

rather be due to a careless repetition, since "Irland et Mikla" is

mentioned just before. This is most probable. It may, however, be supposed

that it is not an error, and that just as the latter is an alternative

name for Hvítramanna-land, so "Irland et Góða" may be a corresponding

alternative name for Wineland, which was situated near it. We should thus

again be led to Ireland as the home of the name. In any case the

uncertainty which prevails in the versions of the name of Wineland given

in the oldest authorities is striking (as discussed in the last note).

Nothing of the same sort occurs in the transmission of other geographical

names, and a form such as Vindland in Hauk's Landnáma cannot be explained

as merely a copyist's error. Again, Eric's Saga in the Hauksbók has the

name correctly, although this saga as well as the Landnáma was to a great

extent copied by Hauk Erlendsson himself. This may point to the form

Vindland having occurred in the original from which the Landnáma was

copied. This discloses uncertainty in the very reading of the name, and it

seems also to point to its having been a mythical country and not the name

of a known land that had been discovered.

[Sidenote: Landit Góða, Fairyland]

To any one who is familiar with Norse place-names, the addition "hit góða"

to Wineland must appear foreign and unusual. It is otherwise only known in

the northern countries from the name "Landegode" (originally "Landit

Góða") on the coast of Norway, for an island west of Bodö. The same name

was also used (and is still used in Stad and Herö) for Svinöi, a little

island off Sunnmör, and for Jomfruland (south of Langesund). It has been

generally taken for a so-called tabu-name;[355] but the explanation

suggested to me by Moltke Moe seems more probable, that it was a

designation of fairylands, which lay out in the ocean, and which were

thought to sink into the sea as one approached them. The above-mentioned

Norwegian islands would quite answer to such conceptions, especially when

they loom up and seem larger, and all three islands were formerly

fairylands ("huldrelande"). The original germ of the belief in fairies

("huldrer") is the worship of the departed. "Hulder" means "hidden" (i.e.,

the hidden people). Fairylands are therefore the islands of the hidden, or

of the departed, and these again are the Fortunate Isles or the Isles of

the Blest. A parallel to this is that "Hades" in Greek means the

invisible. And, as we have seen (p. 356), the nymph Calypso (== the hidden

one) answers to our "hulder." When Bran, in the Irish legend alluded to,

meets on the sea Manannán mac Lir (i.e., son of the Sea), king of the

sea-people, lord of the land of the dead, he tells Bran that without being

able to see it he is sailing over Mag Mell (the happy plain), where happy

people are sitting drinking wine, and where there is a splendid forest

with vines, etc.; and the Irish happy land "Tír fo-Thuin" is, as we have

said (p. 358), the land under the wave. The lands or islands of the

departed in course of time became the habitations of the invisible ones

(spirits), of those who possess more than human wisdom, and have a

specially favourable lot; by this means the idea of a fortunate land with

favoured conditions, far surpassing the ordinary lot of men, became more

and more emphasised. This development may be followed both with regard to

classical ideas of the Fortunate Islands and to Norse conceptions of

fairylands.

That the Greeks connected the happy land with the hidden people who move

upon the sea may perhaps be concluded even from the Odyssey's description

of the Phæacians, who dwelt in the happy land, the glorious Scheria, far

in the western ocean (see above, p. 347). That they may be compared with

our fairies ("huldrefolk") appears perhaps from the name itself, which may

come from φαιος (== dark) and mean "dark man," "the hidden man" [cf.

Welcker, 1833, p. 231].[356] They sail at night, always shrouded in clouds

and darkness, in boats as swift "as wings and the thoughts of men" [Od.

vii. 35 f.]. The "huldrefolk" also travel by night (cf. p. 378). In

Ireland and in Iceland the way to fairyland is through darkness and mist,

or sea or water [cf. Gröndal, 1863, pp. 25, 38]; and it is the same in

Nordland. A blending of the fairies ("síd"-people) and the inhabitants of

the happy land or promised land is particularly observable in the Irish

legends [cf. Zimmer, 1889, pp. 276 f.]. The people of the "síd" dwell

partly in grave-mounds (and are thus like our "haugebonde," or mound-elf),

they may also live in happy lands far west in the sea or under the sea,

and are thus sea-elves, but on the whole they most resemble our

"huldrefolk." The "síd"-woman entices men like our "hulder"; in the tale

of "Condla Ruad" [Connla the Fair; cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 262] she comes

from the Land of the Living ("Tír na-m-Beó"), far across the sea, and

entices Connla to go with her in a glass boat to the "Great Strand," where

there only were women and maidens. This Irish paradise of women out in the

ocean has, as we have said (p. 355), much in common with the German

Venusberg, and with the invisible country of our "huldrefolk." But the

"huldrefolk" dwell now in mountains and woods, now on islands in the sea

or under the sea. As will be seen, the ideas of the Fortunate Isles or of

the Promised Land and those of fairyland thus often coincide. It may be

added that among many peoples the souls of the dead are carried across the

sea in a boat or ship to a land in the west.

This is evidently connected with the river of death, Styx, Acheron or

Cocytus, of the Greeks, over which Charon ferried the souls to the

lower regions in a narrow two-oared boat. Procopius [De bello Goth.,

iv. 20] relates that according to legends he himself heard from the

natives, all the souls of the departed are carried every night at

midnight from the coast of Germania to the island of Brittia (i.e.,

Britain) which lies over against the mouth of the Rhine between

Britannia (i.e., Brittany) and Thule (Scandinavia). He whose turn it

is among the dwellers on the coast to be ferryman hears at midnight a

knocking at his door and a muffled voice. He goes down to the beach,

sees there an empty, strange boat, into which he gets and begins to

row. He then notices that the boat is filled so that the gunwale is

only a finger's breadth above the water, but he sees nothing. As soon

as he arrives at the opposite shore, he notices that the boat is

suddenly emptied, but still he sees no one, and only hears a voice

announcing the names and rank of the arrivals. The invisible souls,

who always move in silence, answer to the elves.

In many ways the connection between the dead and the sea is apparent.

Balder's body was laid in a ship on which a pyre was kindled, and it

was abandoned to the currents of the sea. The body of the hero Scild

in the lay of Beowulf was borne upon a ship, which was carried away by

the sea, no one knows whither. Fiosi in Njál's Saga has himself

carried on board a ship and abandoned to the sea, and afterwards the

ship is not heard of again, etc.[357]

That the fairylands should be called "Landit Góða" may be due to their

exceeding fertility (cf. the huldreland's waving cornfields); but it may

also, as Moltke Moe has pointed out, have a natural connection with the

tendency the Germanic peoples in ancient times seem to have had of

attaching the idea of "good" to the fairies and the dead. In Nordland the

"huldrefolk" are called "godvetter" ("good wights") [cf. I. Aasen]; this

among the Lapps has become "gúvitter," "gufihter," "gufittarak," etc., as

a name for supernatural beings underground or in the sea;[358] the Swedes

in North Sweden use the word "goveiter." The mound-elf ("haugebonden"),

Old Norse "haugbui" (the dweller in the mound), who was the ancestor of

the clan, or the representative of the departed generations, is called in

Nordland "godbonden."[359]

The underground people are called in Iceland "ljúflingar," in German

"die guten Leute," in English-speaking Ireland, Scotland and the Isle

of Man "the good people," "good neighbours," or "the men of

peace."[360] In Highland Gaelic they are called "daoine sith," in

Welsh "dynion mad." In Swedish and Danish we have the designation

"nisse god-dreng" ("nisse good boy") or "goda-nisse," in Norwegian

"go-granne" ("good neighbour"); (in Danish also "kære granne," "dear

neighbour"); in German "Guter (or lieber) Nachbar," or "Gutgesell" is

used of a goblin; in Thuringia "Gütchen," "Gütel"; in the Netherlands

"goede Kind," and in England "Robin Goodfellow."

That the epithet "good" applied to supernatural beings, especially

underground ones, is so widely spread, even among the Lapps, shows it to

have been common early in the Middle Ages.

It is of minor interest in this connection to inquire what the origin

of the epithet may have been. We might suppose that it was the thought

of the departed as the happy, blest people; but on the other hand it

may have been fear; it may have been sought to conciliate them by

giving them pet-names, for the same reason that thunder is called in

Swedish "gobon" (godbonden), "gofar," "gogubben," "gomor," "goa" (goa

går),[361] which is also Norwegian.

"Hit góða" is the altogether good, the perfect, therefore the fortunate

land. When the legend of the "Insulæ Fortunatæ" and of the Irish happy

lands--one of which was the sunken fairyland "Tír fo-Thuin," the land

under-wave--reached the North, it was quite natural that the Northerners

should translate the name by one well known to them, "Landit Góða"

(fairyland, the land of the unseen); indeed, the name of Insulæ Fortunatæ

could not well have been translated in any other way. But as wine was so

conspicuous a feature in the description of this southern land of myth,

both in Isidore and among the Irish, and as wine more than any other

feature was symbolical of the idea of happiness, it is natural, as we have

seen, that the Northerners came very soon to call this country, like

Brandan's Grape-island, "Vínland"; thus "Vínland hit Góða" may have arisen

by a combination of "Vínland" and "Landit góða," to distinguish it from

the native "Landit Góða," the fairyland of the Norwegians. A combination

of "hit góða" with a proper name is otherwise unknown, and thus points to

"Landit Góða" as the original form.[362]

[Sidenote: Laudatory names for fairyland]

Moltke Moe has given me an example from Gotland of a fairyland having

received a laudatory name answering to Wineland, in that the popular

fairyland "Sjóhaj" or "Flåjgland," out at sea, is called

Smörland.[363] Sjóhaj is a mirage on the sea; and "Flåjgland" comes

from "fljuga," to fly, i.e., that which drifts about, floating land.

It now only means looming, but it may originally have been fairyland,

and it is evident that it is here described as particularly fertile.

With "Smörland" may be compared Norwegian place-names compounded with

"smör": "Smörtue," "Smörberg," "Smörklepp." O. Rygh includes these

among "Laudatory names ... which accentuate good qualities of the

property or of the place."[364] Similarly in the place-names of

Shetland: "Smerrin" (== "smjǫr-vin," fat, fertile pasture),

"Smernadal" (== "smjǫr-vinjar-dalr," valley with fat pasture), "de

Smerr-meadow" (== originally: "smjor-eng" or "smjǫr-vin"), "de

Smerwel-park" (probably == "smjor-vollr"), "de Smorli" (probably ==

"smjor-hlið"). J. Jakobsen [1902, p. 166] says that "'smer(r)' (Old

Norse 'smjǫr' or 'smœr,' Norwegian 'smör,' butter) means here

fertility, good pasture, in the same way as in Norwegian names of

which the first syllable is 'smör.'" With this may be compared the

fact that even in early times the word "smör" was used to denote a fat

land, as when Thorolf in the saga said that "it dripped butter from

every blade of grass in the land they had found" (i.e., Iceland, see

above, p. 257, cf. also "smjǫr-tisdagr" == "Fat Tuesday," "Mardi

gras"). That the fairylands were connected with fertility appears

also from a Northern legend. Nordfuglöi, to the north of Karlsöi, was

once a troll-island, hidden under the sea and invisible to men, thus a

"huldre" island. But then certain troll-hags betook themselves to

towing it to land; a Lapp hag who happened to cast her eye through the

door-opening saw them come rowing with the island, so that the spray

dashed over it, and cried: "Oh, what a good 'food-land' we have now

got!" And thereupon the island stopped at the mouth of the sea, where

it now is.[365] The fertility of fairyland is doubtless also expressed

in the incident of the sow that finds it (see later), usually having a

litter there. Its fertility appears again, perhaps, in H. Ström's

[1766, p. 436] mention of "Buskholm" (i.e., Bush-island) in Herö

(Sunnmör), which was inhabited by underground beings and protected,

therefore wholly overgrown with trees and bushes. The Icelandic

elfland "is delightful, covered with beautiful forests and sweet

smelling flowers" [cf. Gröndal, 1863, p. 25], and the Irish is the

same.

[Sidenote: Floating islands]

Legends of islands and countries that disappeared or moved, like the

fairylands, are widely diffused. To begin with, the Delos (cf. δηλοω,

become visible) of the Greeks floated about in the sea for a long

time, as described by Callimachus [v.]; now the island was found, now

it was away again, until it was fixed among the Cyclades. Ireland,

which also at a very early time was the holy island (cf. p. 38),

floated about in the sea at the time of the Flood. Lucas Debes [1673,

pp. 19 ff.] relates that "at various times a floating island is said

to have been seen" among the Faroes; but no one can reach it. "The

inhabitants also tell a fable of Svinöe,[366] how that in the

beginning it was a floating island: and they think that if one could

come to this island, which is often seen, and throw steel upon it, it

would stand still.... Many things are related of such floating

islands, and some think that they exist in nature." Debes does not

believe it. "If this was not described of the properties of various

islands, I should say that it was icebergs, which come floating from

Greenland: and if that be not so, then I firmly believe that it is

phantoms and witchcraft of the Devil, who in himself is a thousandfold

craftsman." Erich Pontoppidan [1753, ii. p. 346] defends the devil and

protests against this view of Debes, that it is "phantasmata and

sorcery of the devil," and says: "But as, according to the wholesome

rule, we ought to give the Devil his due, I think that the devil who

in haste makes floating islands is none other than that Kraken, which

some seamen also call 'Söe-Draulen,' that is, the sea troll."

Of Svinöi in the Faroes precisely the same legend exists as of similar

islands in Norway (see p. 378), that they came "up," or became

visible, through a sow upon which steel had been bound [cf.

Hammershaimb, 1891, p. 362].

In many places there are such disappearing islands. Honorius

Augustodunensis makes some remarkable statements in his work "De

imagine mundi" [i. 36], of about 1125. After mentioning the Balearic

Isles and the Gorgades, he says: "By the side of them [lie] the

Hesperides, so called from the town of Hesperia. There is abundance of

sheep with white wool, which is excellent for dyeing purple. Therefore

the legend says that these islands have golden apples ('mala'). For

'miclon' [error for 'malon'] means sheep in Greek.[367] To these

islands belonged the great island which according to the tale of Plato

sank with its inhabitants, and which exceeded Africa and Europe in

extent, where the curdled sea ('Concretum Mare') now is.... There lies

also in the Ocean an island which is called the Lost ('Perdita'); in

charm and all kinds of fertility it far surpasses every other land,

but it is unknown to men. Now and again it may be found by chance; but

if one seeks for it, it cannot be found, and therefore it is called

'the Lost.' Men say that it was this island that Brandanus came to."

It is of special interest that thus as early as that time a

disappearing island occurred near the Fortunate Isles.

Columbus says in his diary that the inhabitants of Ferro and Gomera

(Canary Isles) assert that every year they see land to the west.

Afterwards expeditions were even sent out to search for it. The

Dutchman Van Linschoten speaks in 1589 of this beautiful lost land

under the name of "San Borondon" (St. Brandan), a hundred leagues to

the west of the Canaries. Its inhabitants are said to be Christians,

but it is not known of what nation they are, or what language they

speak;[368] the Spaniards of the Canaries have made many vain attempts

to find it. The same island, which sometimes shows itself near the

Canaries, but withdraws when one tries to approach it, still lives in

Spanish folk-lore under the name of "San Morondon."[369]

On the coast of the English Channel sailors have stories of floating

islands, which many of them have seen with their own eyes. They always

fly before ships, and one can never land there. They are drawn along

by the devil, who compels the souls of drowned men who have deserved

Hell and are damned, to stay there till the Day of Judgment. On some

of them the roar of a terrible beast is heard; and sailors look upon

the meeting with such an island as a sinister warning.[370]

Curiously enough, there is said to be a myth of "a floating island"

among the Iroquois Indians. In their mythology the earth is due to the

Indian ruler of a great island which floats in space, and where there

is eternal peace. In its abundance there are no burdens to bear, in

its fertility all want is for ever precluded. Death never comes to its

eternal quietude--and no desire, no sorrow, no pain disturbs its

peace.[371] These ideas remind one strikingly of the Isles of the

Blest, and are probably derived from European influence in recent

times. Again, at Boston, in America, there is found a myth of an

enchanted green land out in the sea to the east; it flies when one

approaches, and no white man can reach this island, which is called

"the island that flies." An Indian, the last of his tribe, saw it a

few times before his death, and set out in his canoe to row, as he

said, to the isle of happy spirits. He disappeared in a storm the like

of which had never been known, and after this the enchanted island was

never seen again [cf. Sébillot, 1886, p. 349].

Even the Chinese have legends of the Isles of the Blest, which lie 700

miles from the Celestial Kingdom out in the Yellow Sea, and gleam in

everlasting beauty, everlasting spring and everlasting gladness. The

wizard Sun-Tshe is said once to have extorted from a good spirit the

secret of their situation, and revealed the great mystery to the

emperor Tshe-Huan-Ti (219 B.C.). Then the noblest youths and the most

beautiful maidens of the Celestial Kingdom set out to search for

Paradise, and lo! it suddenly rose above the distant horizon, wrapped

in roseate glow. But a terrible storm drove the longing voyagers away

with cruel violence, and since then no human eye has seen the Isles of

the Blest [after Paul d'Enjoy, in "La Revue"].[372]

This is the same conception of the floating mirage that we meet with

again in the Norse term "Villuland" (from "villa" == illusion, mirage,

glamour), which is found, for instance, in Björn Jónsson of Skardsá

applied to the fabulous country of Frisland (south of Iceland); it is

called in one MS. "Villi-Skotland," which is probably the mythical

"Irland it Mikla" (Great-Ireland), since the Irish were called Scots.

Are Mársson, according to the Landnáma, reached this "Villuland" and

stayed there. It is remarkable that his mother Katla, according to the

Icelandic legend in the poem "Kǫtlu-draumr" (Katla's dream), was

stolen by an elf-man, who kept her for four nights.[373] It may be

this circumstance that led to its being Are who found the elf-country

to the west of Ireland, although it is true that according to the

Kǫtlu-draumr it was his one-year-older brother Kar who was the

offspring of the four nights; but the elf-man had asked that his son

should be called Are.

[Sidenote: Fairylands which rise and fall]

There are many such fairylands along the coast of Norway, which used

to rise up from the sea at night, but sank in the daytime.[374] If one

could bring fire or steel upon them, then the spell was broken and

they remained up; but the huldrefolk avenged themselves on the person

who did this, and he was turned to stone; therefore it was usually

accomplished by domestic animals which swam across to these islands.

Many of them have come up in this way, and for this reason they

frequently bear the names of animals. The most probable explanation is

doubtless that they were originally given the names of animals from a

similarity in shape, or some other reason; and the myth is a later

interpretation of the name. It was often a pig, preferably a sow, that

had acquired the habit of swimming over to the fairyland, and it

frequently had litters there; the people of the farm, who noticed that

it occasionally stayed away, bound steel upon it, and the island was

hindered from sinking; "therefore such fairy islands are often called

Svinöi." In this way Svinöi in Brönöi (in Nordland, Norway) came up,

as well as Svinöi in the Faroes, and doubtless it was the same with

Svinöi or Landegode in Sunnmör. It was also through a sow that Tautra,

in Trondhjemsfjord, was raised, besides Jomfruland, and the

north-western part of Andöi (in Vesterålen). Nay, even Oland in

Limfjord (Jutland) became visible through a sow with steel bound on

it, which had a litter. Other islands, like Vega and Sölen, were

raised by a horse or an ox, etc. Gotland was also a fairyland, but it

stayed up through a man bringing fire to it.[375] Some fairy islands

lie so far out at sea that no domestic animal has been able to swim

over to them, and therefore they have not yet come up; such are

Utröst, west of Lofoten, Sandflesa, west of Trænen, Utvega, west of

Vega, Hillerei-öi, and Ytter-Sklinna, in Nordre Trondhjems Amt, and

hidden fairylands off Utsire, off Lister, and to the south-west of

Jomfruland.[376]

It is interesting that the notion of a sow being the cause of people

coming into possession of fertile islands can also be illustrated from

mediæval England. William of Malmesbury relates in his "De antiquitate

Glastoniensis ecclesiæ" [cap. 1 and 2], which belongs to the twelfth

century before 1143, that Glasteing "... went in search of his sow as

far as Wellis, and followed her from Wellis by a difficult and boggy

path, that is called 'Sugewege,' that is to say, 'the sow's way'; at

last he found her occupied in suckling her young beneath the

apple-tree beside the church of which we are speaking; from this are

derived the names that have come down to our time, that the apples of

this tree are called 'ealdcyrcenes epple,' that is to say, 'the apples

of the old church,' and the sow 'ealdcyrce suge.' While other sows

have four feet, this one, strangely enough, has eight. This Glasteing,

then, who came to this island and saw that it was flowing with all

good things, brought all his family and established himself there and

dwelt there all his life. This place is said to be populated from his

offspring and the race that sprang from him. This is taken from the

ancient writings of the Britons.

"Of various names for this island. This island, then, was first called

by the Britons 'Ynisgwtrin'; later, when the Angles subdued the

island, the name was translated into their language as 'Glastynbury'

or Glasteing's town, he of whom we have been speaking. The island also

bears the famous name of 'Avallonia.' The origin of this word is the

following: as we have related, Glasteing found his sow under an

apple-tree by the old church; therefore he called ... the island in

his language 'Avallonia,' that is 'The isle of apples' (for 'avalla'

in British means 'poma' in Latin).... Or else the island has its name

from a certain Avalloc, who is said to have dwelt here with his

daughters on account of the solitude of the place."[377]

This Somerset sow with its young and with eight legs, like Sleipner,

must be Norse. The Norse myth of the sow must have found a favourable

soil among the Celts, as according to the ideas of Celtic mythology

the pig was a sacred animal in the religion of the Druids, specially

connected with Ceridwen, the goddess of the lower world. The Celts

must have heard of the pig that by the help of steel causes fairylands

to remain visible; but regarded this as being connected with the

animal's sacred properties. It cannot have been an originally Celtic

conception, otherwise we should meet with it in other Celtic legends.

Moreover the island in this case is not invisible, nor has the sow any

steel upon her; these are features that have been lost in

transmission. On the other hand the incident of the sow becoming

pregnant in the newly found land has been preserved.

In the ocean to the west of Ireland there lay, as already mentioned

(p. 354), many enchanted islands. They are in part derived from

classical and oriental myths; but the native fairies (the síd-people)

and fairylands have been introduced here also (p. 371). Even in the

lakes of Ireland there are hidden islands, marvellously fertile with

beautiful flowers.[378] Giraldus Cambrensis (twelfth century) says

that on clear days an island appeared to the west of Ireland, but

vanished when people approached it. At last some came within bowshot,

and one of the sailors shot a red-hot arrow on to it, and the island

then remained fixed. The happy island "O'Brasil" ("Hy-Breasail," see

p. 357) west of Ireland appears above the sea once in every seventh

year--"on the edge of the azure sea ..." and it would stay up if any

one could cast fire upon it.[379]

It is no doubt possible that myths of "villulands" or "huldrelands" far

away in the sea may have arisen in various places independently of one

another;[380] they may easily be suggested by mirage or other natural

phenomena, and ideas about happiness are universal among men. But through

many of these myths may be traced features so similar that we can discern

a connection with certainty and can draw conclusions as to a common origin

of the same conceptions.

[Sidenote: The epithet "the Lucky"]

That Leif of all others, the discoverer of the fortunate land, should have

received the unusual surname of "hinn Heppni" (the Lucky) is also

striking. There is only one other man in the sagas who is called thus:

Hǫgni hinn Heppni, and he belongs to the period of the Iceland

land-taking, but is only mentioned in a pedigree. Just as according to

ancient Greek ideas and in the oldest Irish legends it was only vouchsafed

to the chosen of the gods or of fortune to reach Elysium or the isle of

the happy ones, so Leif, who according to tradition was the apostle of

Christianity in Greenland, must have been regarded by the Christians of

Iceland as the favourite of God or of destiny, to whom it was ordained to

see the land of fortune. It is just this idea of the chosen of fate that

lies in the words "happ" and "heppinn." That the name has such an origin

is also rendered probable by the fact that the saga-tellers were evidently

not clear as to the reason of Leif's being so called, and it is sometimes

represented as due to his having saved the shipwrecked crew (cf. pp. 270,

317), which is meaningless, since in that case it would be the rescued and

not Leif who were lucky, and moreover rescue of shipwrecked sailors must

have been an everyday affair. The saga-writers therefore knew that Leif

had this surname, but the reason for it had in course of time been

forgotten.

An interesting parallel to "Leifr hinn Heppni" has been brought to my

notice by Moltke Moe in the Nordland "Lykk-Anders," the name of the lucky

brother who came to the fairyland Sandflesa, off Trænen in Helgeland.[381]

It is important that this epithet of Lucky is thus only known in Norway in

connection with fairyland.[382] That the underground people, "huldrefolk,"

bring luck appears also in other superstitions.[383] He who is born with

the cap of victory (Glückshaube, -helm, sigurkull, holyhow), which often

seems to have the same effect as the fairy hat, is predestined to fortune

and prosperity, like a Sunday child.

Another possible parallel to the lucky name is the monk "Felix" (i.e.,

happy, corresponding to "heppinn") who occurs in widely diffused mediæval

legends. He has a foretaste of the joys of heaven through hearing a bird

of paradise; he thinks that only a few hours have passed, from morning to

midday, while he is listening to it in rapture, though in reality a

hundred years have gone by.[384] Moltke Moe considers it probable that in

this case the name Felix may be due to a Germanic conception of the lucky

one.

Moltke Moe sees another parallel--a literary one, to be sure--to Leif

the Lucky and Lykk-Anders in the Olaf Ásteson of the "Draumkvæde"

(Dream-Lay) which he explains as "Ástsonr" == the son of love, God's

beloved son. He is so called because he is so beloved that God has

given him a glimpse of the future, so that he sees behind the gate of

death.[385]

All this, therefore, points in the same direction.

[Sidenote: The oldest authority, Adam of Bremen, untrustworthy]

Even Adam of Bremen's brief mention of Wineland (cf. pp. 195, 197) bears

evident traces of being untrustworthy; thus he says that the self-grown

vines in Wineland "give the noblest wine." Even if wine could be produced

from the small wild grapes, it would scarcely be noble, and who should

have made it? It is not very likely that the Icelanders and Greenlanders

who discovered the country had any idea of making wine. If we except this

fable of the wine, and the name itself, which seems to be derived from

Ireland (cf. p. 366), but may have been confused with the name of

Finland[386] (cf. p. 198), then Adam's statements about Wineland

correspond entirely to Isidore's description of the Insulæ Fortunatæ, and

contain nothing new. Adam's statement that the island was discovered by

many ("multis") does not agree with the Saga of Eric the Red, which only

knows of two voyages thither, but agrees better with its being a

well-known mythical country, to which many mythical voyages had been made,

or with its being Finmark.[386] Although it may be uncertain whether Adam

thought the ice- and mist-filled sea lay beyond Wineland (cf. p. 199),

this bears a remarkable resemblance to similar Arab myths of islands that

lay near the "Dark Sea" in the west (cf. chapter xiii.); while in any case

it shows how myth is introduced into his description of distant regions,

and there also he places the mythical abyss of the sea. If one reads

through the conclusion of his account (pp. 192 ff.), it will be seen how

he takes pains to get a gradual increase of the fabulous: first Iceland

with the black inflammable ice and the "simple" communistic inhabitants;

then, opposite to the mountains of Svedia, Greenland, with predatory

inhabitants who turn blue-green in the face from the sea-water; then

Halagland, which is made into an island in the ocean, and which is called

holy on account of the midnight sun, of which he gives erroneous

information taken from older authors (cf. p. 194, note 2); then Wineland

(the Fortunate Isles), with Isidore's self-grown vines and unsown corn;

and then finally he reaches the highest pitch (unless in Harold's voyage

to the abyss of the sea) in the tale of the Frisian noblemen's voyage to

the North Pole, which does not contain a feature that is not borrowed from

fables and myths (cf. chapter xii.); now this expedition started from

Bremen, where he lived; and he mentions two archbishops as his authorities

for it. When we find that all these statements about the northern islands

and countries, both before and after the mention of Wineland, are more or

less fables or plagiarisms; when we further see what he was capable of

relating about countries that lay nearer, and about which he might easily

have obtained information--for instance, his Land of Women on the Baltic,

to which he transfers the Amazons and Cynocephali of the Greeks (cf. p.

187), and his Wizzi or Albanians or Alanians (sic) with battle-array of

dogs (!) in Russia [iv. 19][387]--is it credible that what he says about

the most distant country, Wineland, should form the only exception in this

concatenation of fable and reminiscence, and suddenly be genuine and not

borrowed from Isidore, to whom it bears such a striking resemblance? It

must be more probable that he had heard a name, Wineland, perhaps confused

with Finland, and in the belief that this meant the land of wine, he

then, quite in harmony with what he has done in other places (cf.

Kvænland), transferred thereto Isidore's description of the "Insulæ

Fortunatæ."

When therefore Norsemen (like a Leif Ericson) really found new countries

in the west, precisely in the quarter where the mythical "Vínland hit

Góða" (or "Insulæ Fortunatæ") should be according to Irish legend, this

was simply a proof that the country did exist; and the tales and ideas

about it were transferred to the newly discovered land.

END OF VOL. I.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] Hecatæus of Miletus (549-after 486 B.C.) was the best-known geographer

of the Ionian school. He made a map of the world, and summarised the

contemporary Greek ideas of geography.

[2] Cf. Kretschmer, 1892, pp. 41-42.

[3] Berger, 1894, p. 13.

[4] Men like Empedocles, Leucippus, Heraclitus, Anaxagoras, and even

Herodotus entertained the naive view that the earth was a disc.

[5] Cf. Kretschmer, 1892, p. 99; Berger ii., 1889, p. 36.

[6] Cf. Theopompus (about 340 B.C.) in Ælian, "Varia," iii. c. 18.

[7] The celebrated physician Hippocrates (470-364 B.C.) makes Scythia

extend on the north to the Rhipæan Mountains, which stretch far enough to

be just below the Great Bear. From them comes the north wind, which

therefore does not blow farther north, so that there must be a milder

climate where the Hyperboreans dwell. The Rhipæan Mountains had become

altogether mythical, but seem often to have been connected with the Ural

and placed north of Scythia; sometimes also they were connected with the

Alps, or with the mountains farther east.

[8] The Cimmerians of the Odyssey (xi. 14) are undoubtedly the same as the

historical Cimmerians of the districts north of the Black Sea, who made

several inroads into Asia Minor in the eighth century, and whose name was

long preserved in the Cimmerian Bosphorus. Cf. Niese, 1882, p. 224, and K.

Kretschmer, 1892, p. 7. W. Christ [1866, pp. 131-132] connects the name

with the Cimbri of Jutland, whose name is alleged to have been somewhat

modified under the influence of the Phœnician "kamar," dark, which may be

doubtful; but Posidonius seems to have been the first to take Cimmerii and

Cimbri for the same name [cf. Strabo, vii. 293], and there is nothing

improbable in the supposition that the wandering Cimbri may have reached

the Black Sea and been the same people as the Cimmerians, who were

remarkable just in the same way for their migrations. Similarly, we find

the Goths both on the shores of the Baltic and by the Black Sea, where we

first meet with them in literature.

[9] O. Helm of Danzig has shown by chemical analysis that the amber of the

Mycenæ beads contains 8 per cent. of succinic acid, and is thus similar to

that found on the Baltic and the North Sea, and unlike all known amber

from districts farther south, Sicily, Upper Italy or elsewhere. Cf.

Schuchhardt, 1890, p. 223, f., and Kretschmer, 1892, p. 10.

[10] "The Times" of Sept. 28, 1909, pp. 9-10. A. W. Brögger [1909, p. 239]

mentions a find from a grave at Corinth of six necklaces of amber, of the

neolithic period, which is preserved in the Museum für Völkerkunde at

Berlin. Brögger informs me that nothing has been published about this

find, which was bought in 1877 from Prof. Aus'm Weerth of Kessenich, near

Bonn. Prof. Schaafhausen briefly mentioned it at the congress at Stockholm

in 1874 [Congrès internat. d'anthrop. et d'archéol. de Stockholm, Compte

rendu, 1874, ii. p. 816]. Assuming that this is Baltic or North Sea amber,

it points to an intercourse of even far greater antiquity, which is also

probable.

[11] Strabo, vii. 295.

[12] Damastes of Sigeum (about 450 B.C., and contemporary with Herodotus)

says that "beyond the Scythians dwell the Issedonians, beyond these again

the Arimaspians, and beyond them are the Rhipæan Mountains, from which the

north wind blows, and which are never free from snow. On the other side of

the mountains are the Hyperboreans who spread down to the sea."

[13] Since the form of the sphere was the most perfect according to the

opinion of the Pythagoreans.

[14] It was, moreover, a common belief in mediæval times that people who

were connected with the other world could not be killed by iron.

[15] "Hyperboreans" are first mentioned in certain poems doubtfully

attributed to Hesiod, but which can scarcely be later than the 7th century

B.C. The full development of the myth is first found in Pindar (about 470

B.C.); but his Hyperboreans cannot be considered as dwelling especially in

the north; their home, to which "the strange path could be found neither

by sea nor by land," lay rather beyond the sea in the far west, and

thither came Perseus borne by wings on his way to Medusa.

[16] This idea can be traced back to Delphi, where any one who had

incurred the god's displeasure was thrown from a cliff. Something similar

happened at the annual festivals of Apollo at Leucas, where he who was

chosen as a victim to ward off evil threw himself from the Leucadian rock

into the sea. It is true that all sorts of feathers and birds were

fastened to the victims to act as a parachute, and after their fall they

were rescued by boats and taken beyond the frontier, as bearers of a

curse. According to some it was the priests themselves who made this leap.

Among the Germanic peoples, if we may believe "Gautrek's Saga" [cf. J.

Grimm, 1854, p. 486; Ranisch, 1900, p. lxxvii. f.], there existed the

custom that the elders of the tribe, when tired of life, used to cast

themselves down from a high crag, called "ætternis stapi" (the tribal

cliff), so as to die without sickness and go to Odin. As a reward for

faithful service the head of the house took his thrall with him in the

leap, so that he too might come thither. After Skapnartungr had divided

the inheritance, he and his wife were conducted to the cliff by their

children, and they went joyfully to Odin. This reminds one strongly of the

happy Hyperboreans. Thietmar of Merseburg (about A.D. 1000) has a similar

legend about the tribal cliff. It is probable that the Germanic peoples in

very early times, like other peoples--the Eskimo, for example--may have

had the custom of taking the lives of the old and useless, or that these

may have taken their own lives, by throwing themselves into the sea, for

instance, as occurs among the Eskimo. On the other hand, it seems very

doubtful that there should have been such tribal cliffs; and it is more

probable that this legend is of literary origin and derived from the

cliffs of Delphi and Leucas, which through the Hyperborean legend came

down to the Roman authors Mela and Pliny, and from them was handed on to

the writers of the Middle Ages and to the scribe of the "Gautrek Saga." It

has been thought that many such "ätte-stupar" can be pointed out in

southern Sweden, but they seem all to be of recent date, and may have been

suggested by this saga.

[17] These may be the architectonical figures on the roof of the temple of

Delphi, transferred to the North together with the Hyperboreans. At Delphi

they were no doubt regarded as guardians of the temple's treasures.

[18] This idea has been explained as being derived from stories of people

dressed in breeches of goats' skin.

[19] Strabo [iii. 147] and Diodorus [v. 38], following Posidonius, mention

these three districts as the places where tin was found.

[20] In the three districts named tin oxide (SnO_{2}) occurs in lodes in

the solid rock, as well as (sometimes in conjunction with gold and silver)

in the gravel or sand of streams, and it was certainly in the latter form

that tin was first extracted, after its discovery by some accident or

other.

[21] It is possible, of course, that the first bronze, like silk, may have

reached the people of the Orient and Egypt from China, without their

knowing from whence it was originally derived. Bronze articles have been

found at Troy which may indicate a connection with China, and it has even

been asserted that Chinese characters have been found there [cf.

Schliemann, 1881, p. 519]. Tin is also known to occur in Persia, but it

has not been ascertained that it was worked there in ancient times. Strabo

[xv. 724] says, however, that the Drangæ in Drangiana, near the Indus,

"suffer from want of wine, but tin occurs with them." Tin is found in the

Fichtelgebirge, and it has been thought possible to identify prehistoric

tin-mines there [cf. O. Schrader, 1901, article "Zinn"].

[22] The Phœnicians' "Tarsis" (or Tarshish), rich in silver, called by the

Greeks "Tartessos," was on the south-west coast of Spain between the

Pillars of Hercules and the Guadiana. About 1100 B.C. Tyre established

there the colony "Gadir" (i.e., "fortress"), called by the Greeks

"Gadeira," and by the Romans "Gades" (now Cadiz).

[23] Cf. S. Reinach, 1892, p. 277. In Breton tin is called "sten," a name

which is certainly not borrowed from the Latin "stannum," as Reinach

thinks; according to the above-quoted opinion of Professor Torp we must

believe that the borrowing has been in the opposite direction.

[24] The explanation of this statement may be that Crassus sailed to the

Cassiterides from the mouth of the Garonne, up which river the route ran

to Narbo. What is alluded to here would then be the sea-passage from the

Garonne.

[25] Pliny [xxxiv. 162] mentions the tinning of copper objects as a

Gaulish invention.

[26] Strabo's repeated statement [ii. 120 and 175] that the Cassiterides

lay north of the land of the Artabri [north-west Spain] also points

decisively to Brittany. The idea must be derived from Eratosthenes, who

borrowed from Pytheas, and the latter placed Cabæum, the promontory of

Brittany, farther west than Cape Finisterre. Diodorus [v. 38] says that

the islands lay opposite Iberia in the Ocean. That they are always

mentioned in connection with the Artabri or north-west Spain shows that

the voyage to them was made from that country.

[27] Georg Mair [1899, p. 20, f.] has allowed himself to be led astray by

Sven Nilsson's fanciful pictures [1862, 1865] into regarding it as a

historical fact that the Phœnicians had permanent colonies in Skane and

regular communication with Scandinavia, even so far north as the Lofoten

isles, whose rich fisheries are supposed to have attracted them.

[28] In a translation of the cuneiform inscription on the obelisk of the

Assyrian king Asurnasirabal (885-860 B.C.) the Assyriologist J. Oppert has

the following remarkable passage, which is taken as referring to this

king's great predecessor Tiglath Pileser I., of about 1100 B.C.: "In the

seas of the trade-winds his fleets fished for pearls, in the seas where

the pole-star stands in the zenith they fished for the saffron which

attracts." [Cf. Schweiger-Lerchenfeld, 1898, p. 141.] Oppert has since

altered the latter part of his translation to "fished for that which looks

like copper." Both interpretations might mean amber, and if the

translation were correct this inscription would furnish a remarkable piece

of evidence for direct communication between Assyria and the Baltic as

early as the ninth century B.C., and in that case we might suppose it

established by means of the Phœnicians. But unfortunately another eminent

Assyriologist, Professor Schrader, has disputed the correctness of the

translation given above, which he thinks is the result of a false reading

of the inscription. According to Schrader there is no mention of pearls,

or amber, or fleets, or pole-star, or zenith; the whole refers merely to

this ancient king's hunting in the mountains of Assyria which took place

"in the days when the star Sukud shone, gleaming like bronze." [Cf.

Verhandl. d. Berliner Gesellsch. f. Anthrop. Ethnol. u. Urgesch, 1885, pp.

65, 66, 306, 372; and Mair, 1903, p. 47.] The last interpretation is

undeniably more probable than the first, and it may well be thought that

the bronze-coloured star which shone may have been Venus.

[29] That amber may have followed this route in early times is made

probable by the finds of ornaments of amber in graves of the Bronze Age

(Halstatt period) in the Caucasus, at Koban and Samthavro.

[30] Franz Mathias [1902, p. 73] draws attention to the statement of Von

Alten ["Die Bohlwege im Gebiet der Ems und Weser," p. 40 and Pl. V.; this

paper has not been accessible to me] that in 1818 there was found a piece

of amber with a Phœnician inscription on one of the oldest and

deepest-lying bog causeways ("Moorbrücken") on the prehistoric trade-route

from the district of the Weser and Ems to the Rhine. As one would expect

amber to be carried from the countries in the north-east towards the

south, and not in the reverse direction, this find, if properly

authenticated, might show that there were Phœnicians on the coast to the

north. But the piece, if it be Phœnician, may also have come from the

south by chance.

[31] See on this subject specially Müllenhoff, 1870, i. pp. 73-203. Also

W. Christ, 1866; Marx, 1895; G. Mair, 1899; and others.

[32] This epithet, which constantly recurs when Ireland is mentioned, may

perhaps in ancient times be due to the resemblance between the Greek words

"hieros" (holy) and "Hierne" (Ireland), which latter may be derived from

the native name of the island, "Erin." In later times, of course, it is

due to Ireland's early conversion to Christianity and its monastic system.

[33] In spite of Müllenhoff's contrary view [1870, p. 92], it does not

appear to me altogether impossible that it may have arisen through a

corruption of the name of the people whom Pytheas calls "Ostimians" or

"Ostimnians," and which in some manuscripts of Strabo [iv. 195] also takes

the forms "Osismians" [cf. also Mela, iii. 2, 7; Pliny, iv. 32; Ptolemy,

ii. 8, 5; Orosius, 6, 8] and "Ostidamnians" [i. 64], and who lived in

Brittany.

[34] In Cæsar's description [B.G., iii. 13] of the ships of the Veneti it

is also stated that "the keels were somewhat flatter than in our ships,

whereby they were better able to cope with the shallows and the falling

tides."

[35] It has been alleged as a proof that the Phœnicians really knew of the

Sargasso Sea that Sargasso weed is mentioned by Theophrastus ["Historia

Plantarum," iv. 6, 4], but I have not been able to find anything of the

sort in this author; nor can I find any statement in Aristotle [Miral.

Auscult.] which can be thus interpreted, as some have thought.

[36] Lycaon was the father of Callisto, and the latter became a she-bear

and was placed among the stars as the constellation of the Great Bear. At

the axis of Lycaon means, therefore, in the north.

[37] As to Pytheas, see in particular: Müllenhoff, 1870, pp. 211 f.;

Berger, iii., 1891, pp. 1 f.; Hergt, 1893; Markham, 1893; Ahlenius, 1894;

Matthias, 1901; Kähler, 1903; Detlefsen, 1904; Callegari, 1904; Mair,

1906.

[38] The principal authorities on Pytheas are: Strabo (1st century A.D.),

who did not know his original works, but quotes for the most part from

Polybius (2nd century B.C.), who was very hostile to Pytheas, and from

Erastosthenes, Hipparchus, and Timæus. Pliny has derived much information

from Pytheas, though he does not know him directly, but chiefly through

Timæus, Isidorus of Charax, who again knew him through Erastosthenes, &c.

Diodorus Siculus (1st century B.C.) knows him chiefly through Timæus.

Geminus of Rhodes (1st century B.C.), who has a quotation from him,

possibly knew his original work, "On the Ocean," but he may have quoted

from Crates of Mallus. Solinus (3rd century A.D.), who has much

information about Pytheas, knows him chiefly through Pliny and Timæus.

Further second-hand quotations and pieces of information derived from

Pytheas occur in Pomponius Mela (1st century A.D.), Cleomedes (2nd century

A.D.), Ptolemy (3rd century A.D.), Agathemerus (3rd century A.D.),

scholiasts on Apollonius of Rhodes, Ammianus Marcellinus (4th century

A.D.), Orosius (5th century A.D.), Isidorus Hispaliensis (7th century

A.D.), and others.

[39] A "gnomon" was the pillar or projection which cast the shadow on the

various Greek forms of sun-dial. In the case mentioned above the gnomon

was a vertical column raised on a plane. By measuring the length of the

shadow at the solstice, Pytheas found that it was 41-4/5 : 120 or 209/600

the height of the column. According to that the altitude of the sun was

70° 47' 50". From this must be deducted the obliquity of the ecliptic,

which was at that time 23° 44' 40", and the semi-diameter of the sun

(16'), as the shadow is not determined by the sun's centre but by its

upper edge, besides the refraction, which however is unimportant. When the

equatorial altitude thus arrived at is deducted from 90°, we get the

latitude of Massalia as 43° 13' N. The new observatory of Marseilles is at

43° 18' 19"; but it lies some distance to the north of the ancient city,

where Pytheas's gnomon probably stood in the market-place. It will be seen

that this is an accuracy of measurement which was not surpassed until very

much later times.

[40] It has been supposed that these three stars were β of the Little

Bear, α and κ of Draco. The pole was at that time far from the present

pole-star, and nearer to β of the Little Bear.

[41] Both "gnomon" and "polus" are mentioned as early as Herodotus; and

Athenæus [v. 42] describes the polus in the library on board the ship

"Hiero" which was built by Archimedes.

[42] It is not probable that Pytheas divided the earth's circumference

into degrees. Even Eratosthenes (275-194 B.C.) still divided the

circumference of the earth into sixty parts, each equal to 4200 stadia,

and the division into degrees was first universally employed by

Hipparchus. But Aristarchus of Samos, and perhaps even Thales, had already

learnt that the sun's diameter was 2 × 360 or 720 times contained in the

circle described by them. It is possible that they originally had this

from the Chaldæans.

[43] When it is brought forward as a proof of Pytheas having made such

angle-measurements [cf. Mair, 1906, p. 28], that Hipparchus is said to

have given the sun's height (in cubits) above the horizon at the winter

solstice for three different places in north-west Europe [cf. Strabo, ii.

75], it must be remembered that if these altitudes were direct

measurements by Pytheas himself, he must have been at each of these three

places at the winter solstice, that is to say, in three different winters,

where he found that in one place the sun stood six cubits, in another four

cubits, and in the third less than three cubits above the horizon. This is

improbable, and it is more reasonable to suppose that these altitudes are

the result of calculations either by Pytheas himself or by Hipparchus from

his data.

[44] In Diodorus it is called Orkan, but this may be the accusative of

Orkas, as in later writers, also in Ptolemy (Müllenhoff, 1870, p. 377,

thinks that Orkan is the real form), and from which the name Orcades has

been formed for the group of islands immediately to the north. Orkneyar or

Orkneys certainly comes from the same word, which must presumably be of

Celtic origin. P. A. Munch [1852, pp. 44-46] thought that the name came

from the Gaelic word "orc" for the grampus (the specific name of which in

Latin was therefore "Delphinus orca," now called "Orca gladiator"). This

species of whale is common on the coasts of Norway, the Shetlands and

Orkneys, the Færoes and farther west. It usually swims in schools, and is

the great whale's deadliest enemy, attacking it in numbers and cutting

blubber out of its sides. The Eskimo in Greenland assert that it is

sometimes dangerous to kayaks; I myself have only once seen a grampus

attack a boat; but in any case it is a species which easily draws

attention to itself wherever it appears.

[45] Allowing for the greater bays, and putting a degree of latitude at

700 stadia, the sides of Great Britain are about 4000, 7800 and 12,000

stadia; altogether 23,800 stadia, or about 2375 miles.

[46] Strabo erred just as much on his side in making the circumference of

Britain much too small.

[47] Cf. Hergt, 1893, p. 44. This hypothesis is supported by the round

numbers which answer to 7-1/2, 15, and 20 days' sail.

[48] The Greeks divided the day into twelve hours at all times of the

year; it was thus only at the equinoxes, when the day was really twelve

hours long, that the hours were of the same length as ours. These are,

therefore, called equinoctial hours.

[49] A similar statement in Cleomedes [i. 7], after Eratosthenes and

Posidonius [i. 10], may also be derived from Pytheas: "the longest day in

Britain has eighteen hours."

[50] If we assume that the length of the day was found by a theoretical

calculation of the time between the rising and setting of the sun's centre

above the horizon, without taking account of refraction, then a longest

day of nineteen hours answers to 60° 52' N. lat.; but if we suppose that

the length of the day was found by direct observation and was calculated

from the first appearance of the sun's limb in the morning until its final

disappearance in the evening, then horizontal refraction will be of

importance (besides having to take the sun's semi-diameter into account),

and a longest day of nineteen hours then answers to 59° 59' N. lat. Now

the Shetland Isles lie between 59° 51' and 60° 51' N. lat.; while the

northern point of the Orkneys lies in 59° 23' N. lat., and has a longest

day, theoretically of 18 hours 27 minutes, and actually of 18 hours 36

minutes. A longest day of 18 hours answers theoretically to 57° 59',

actually to fully 57° N. lat. Professor H. Geelmuyden has had the kindness

to work out several of these calculations for me. Hipparchus said that at

the winter solstice the sun attained to a height of less than three cubits

above the horizon in the regions where the longest day was of nineteen

hours. If we take one cubit as equal to two degrees these regions will

then lie north of 60° N. lat.

[51] It may be possible, as many think, that it was the Shetlands that he

called Orkan (or Orkas); but the more reliable of the known quotations

from him seem rather to show that it was really the northernmost point of

Britain, or the neighbouring Orkneys that were thus called by him, and

have thenceforward been known by that name; while it is later authors who

have extended the name also to Shetland. If this supposition be correct:

that the islands north of Britain mentioned by Pliny [Nat. Hist. iv. 104]

are originally derived from Pytheas, which may be doubtful, and that

Berricen (or Nerigon) is Mainland of Shetland, then Orkan cannot apply to

these. But, as we shall see later, it is very doubtful what Pliny's

islands may have been originally.

[52] Cf. Strabo [ii. 114] and Cleomedes [i. 7]. The Arctic Circle (or

Circle of the Bear) was, as already mentioned, the circle round the

celestial pole which formed the limit of the continuously visible

(circumpolar) stars, and it had been given this name because in Asia Minor

(and Greece) it ran through the Great Bear (Arctus). Its distance in

degrees from the north celestial pole is equal to the latitude of the

place of observation, and consequently increases as one goes farther

north. At the polar circle, as mentioned above, it coincides with the

Tropic of Cancer, and at the North Pole with the Equator. Cleomedes has

also the remarkable statement that the latitude for a summer day of one

month in length runs through Thule.

[53] It may be thought that Pytheas is merely relating a legend current

among the barbarians that the sun went to its resting-place during the

night, a myth which is moreover almost universal. But it seems more

probable that as an astronomer he had something else in his mind. If he

had had the two points accurately indicated to him, where the sun set and

rose on the shortest night of the year, he must easily have been able, by

measuring the angle between them, to ascertain how long the sun was down.

[54] These figures are kindly supplied by Professor H. Geelmuyden.

[55] According to existing MSS. of Solinus [c. 22] it was five days' sail

to Thule from the Orcades, which must here be Shetland, and which are

mentioned as the second station on the way to Thule; the Ebudes (Hebrides)

were the first station. Mommsen [1895, p. 219] regards the passage as

corrupt, and considers it a later interpolation of between the 7th and 9th

centuries.

[56] Cf. Brenner, 1877, pp. 32, 98.

[57] Cf. Keyser (1839), 1868, p. 92.

[58] If we were able to make out the etymological origin of the name

Thule, it would perhaps give us some indication of where we ought to look

for the country. But the various attempts that have been made to solve

this riddle have been without success. It has been asserted by several

authors that it comes from an old Gothic word "tiele," or "tiule," which

is said to mean limit [cf. Forbiger, 1842, iii. p. 312], or an Old Saxon

word "thyle," "thul," "tell" (or "tell," "till," "tiul"), said to mean the

same [cf. Markham, 1893, p. 519; and Callegari, 1904, p. 47]; but

Professor Alf Torp, whom I have consulted, says that no such word can be

found in either of these languages. The word has been further erroneously

connected with the name Telemarken, which accordingly would mean

borderland, but which in reality must be derived from the Norwegian word

"tele," Old Norse "þeli," frozen earth, and it is by no means impossible

that Thule should be a Greek corruption of such a word. E. Benedikson has

supposed that Thule might come from a Gallic word "houl," for sun [cf.

Callegari, 1904, p. 47], which with a preposition "de" (or other prefix)

might have been thus corrupted in Greek; but Professor Torp informs me in

a letter that no such Gallic word exists, though there is a Cymric "haul,"

"which in Gallic of that time must have sounded approximately 'hâvel,'"

and it "is quite impossible that a preposition or prefix 'de' could have

coalesced with initial 'h' so as to result in anything like Thule." The

Irish "temel" (Cymric "tywyll") for dark, which has also been tried

[Keyser, 1839, p. 397; 1868, p. 166], or "tawel" for silent, still

[Müllenhoff, 1870, i, p. 408], are of no more use, according to Torp,

since both words at that time had "m," which has later become "w." The

only Celtic root which in his opinion might be thought of is "'tel' (==

raise, raise oneself), to which the Irish 'telach' and 'tulach' (== a

height, mound); but this does not seem very appropriate. The Germanic form

of this root is 'thel' (modification 'thul'); but in Germanic this is not

applied to soil or land which rises. I cannot find anything else, either

in Celtic or Germanic; it is thus impossible for me to decide to which of

the languages the word may belong; I can only say that the Greek θ (th)

rather points to Germanic. For no Celtic word begins with an aspirate,

whereas Germanic, as you know, has transmutation of consonants

(Indo-germanic 't' to 'th,' etc.), and it is not impossible that this

sound-change goes as far back as the time of Pytheas." Professor Torp has

further drawn my attention to the fact that from the above-mentioned

"thel," raise oneself, is formed the Old Norse "þollr," tree (cf. "þǫll"

== fir-tree), which in early times was "þull" as radical form. There might

be a bare possibility of Thule being connected with this word.

If it should appear, as hinted here, that the word Thule is of Germanic

origin, then the probability of the country lying outside the British

Isles would be greatly strengthened; for Britain and the Scottish Islands

were at that time not yet inhabited by a Germanic race, and the native

Celts can only have known a Germanic name for a country from its own

Germanic inhabitants. This land farther north must then be Norway.

It has been pointed out [cf. Cuno, 1871, i. p. 102; Mair, 1899, p. 15]

that the name Thule reminds one of "Tyle," the capital of the Celtic

colony which was established in Thrace in the 3rd century B.C. But we know

nothing of the origin of this latter name, and here again there is the

difficulty that it begins with "t" and not "th."

It may be further mentioned that C. Hofmann [1865, p. 17] has suggested

that Thule may come from such a name as "Thumla," which in the Upsala Edda

[ii. 492] is the name of an unknown island, but which was also the name of

an island at the mouth of the Göta river (cf. Thumlaheide in Hising). He

thinks that a Greek could not pronounce such a combination of sounds as

"ml" (μλ), but would pronounce it as "l" (λ). The word would therefore

become "Thula," or according to the usual form of the declension "Thule."

Meanwhile we know of no name resembling Thumla for any district which

Pytheas could have reached from Britain.

[59] That Thule was Norway or Scandinavia was assumed as early as

Procopius. In the last century this view was supported by Geijer, 1825;

Sven Nilsson, 1837; R. Keyser, 1839; Petersen; H. J. Thue, 1843, and

others. In recent years it has been especially maintained by Hergt, 1893.

[60] Müllenhoff's reasons for supposing that Thule cannot have been Norway

are of little weight, and in part disclose an imperfect knowledge of the

conditions. That Pytheas, if he came to Norway, must have found new

species of animals and new races of men, especially the Lapps with their

reindeer, which, according to Müllenhoff, he evidently did not find, is,

for instance, an untenable assertion; for in the first place it is very

uncertain whether the reindeer-Lapps had reached Norway so early as that

time, since they appear to be a comparatively late immigration. In the

second place, if they were really already living in Finmarken and the

northern part of Helgeland (Hálogaland), it is unreasonable to suppose

that a seafarer who went along the coast as far as to the neighbourhood of

the Arctic Circle should have met with these Lapps. Finally, it is

impossible to take it for granted that Pytheas did not mention all the

things that are not to be found in the chance quotations of later writers.

[61] The Arctic Circle at that time lay in 66° 15' 20". If we put the

horizontal refraction plus the sun's semi-diameter at 50' in round

figures, then the upper edge of the sun would be visible at midnight at

the summer solstice a little north of 65° 25'.

[62] Cf. Markham, 1893. If the longest day of the year is given in the

different authorities (Strabo, Geminus, etc.) at various places as

seventeen, eighteen, nineteen hours, etc., after the statements of

Pytheas, it must not, of course, be assumed that Pytheas was at each of

these places precisely on Midsummer Day. It was only one of the Greek

methods of indicating the latitude of places.

[63] The origin of this name for the northernmost or outer sea, which

occurs in several authors, is somewhat uncertain. It is usually supposed

[cf. Hergt, 1893, p. 71] that it comes from the Greek god "Cronos" (Latin

"Saturn"). R. Keyser [1839, p. 396, 1868, p. 165] thought (after Toland in

1725) that it was of Celtic origin and cognate with the Welsh "croni," to

collect together; "Muir-croinn" was supposed still to be Irish for the

Polar Sea, and to have some such meaning as the curdled sea; but no such

word is to be found in Irish or Old Irish [cf. Müllenhoff, 1870, p. 415].

[64] Hergt [1893, p. 71] lays stress on the use of "ultra" here and not

"trans," and thinks that this does not indicate an immediate connection

with Thule, but that we must rather suppose an intervening space (?).

[65] Perhaps it is worth while to remark in this connection that on its

second occurrence in the quotation the word is simply "lung" and not

"sea-lung." If this is not to be looked upon merely as an abbreviation, it

may indicate that the writer was really thinking of a bodily lung [cf.

Hergt, 1893, p. 74].

[66] It has occurred that drift-ice has been brought as far as the

neighbourhood of Shetland by the East-Icelandic Polar current; but this is

so entirely exceptional that it cannot be argued that Pytheas might have

seen drift-ice there.

[67] It is difficult to understand how he was able to converse with the

natives; but probably he took interpreters with him. In the south of

England, for instance, he may have found people who had come in contact

through the tin-trade with the Mediterranean peoples and understood their

languages, and who could thus act as interpreters with the Celts. It would

not be so easy with the Germanic people of Thule. But in Scotland he may

have found Celts who understood the speech of Thule, and who could act as

interpreters through the more southern Celtic people.

[68] It has already been mentioned that Avienus ascribes even to Himilco

some similar ideas of the extreme parts of the ocean; and that Aristotle

thought that the sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules was muddy and shallow

and little stirred by the winds.

[69] According to a communication from Professor Moltke Moe.

[70] It has been supposed by some that this name, which may remind one of

the "Æstii" (Esthonians) mentioned by Tacitus, is really a clerical error

for "Ostimii."

[71] The more usual spelling "Mentonomon" (after some MSS.) can hardly be

right [cf. Detlefsen, 1904, p. 9]. The name may be connected with the

Frisian "meden" (Old Frisian "mede" or "medu," English "meadow") for

low-lying, swampy pasture, and in that case would suit the German North

Sea coast well, between the Rhine and Sleswick-Holstein.

[72] The name may have some connection with those of Habel and Appeland

among the Halligen Islands on the west coast of Sleswick [cf. Detlefsen,

1904, p. 60]. It also has some resemblance to "Sabalingii," which is given

by Ptolemy as the name of a tribe in Jutland. The name Abalus (Greek,

Abalos) has a remarkable likeness to Avalon (the apple-island) of Welsh

folk-lore, and it is possibly originally the same word (?).

[73] As to what we know of the work of this important geographer see in

particular Berger [1880].

[74] According to Eratosthenes' accurate calculation the Arctic Circle lay

in 66° 9' N. lat.

[75] Cf. Strabo, i. 63, ii. 114. More accurately it should be 37,400

stadia.

[76] Cf. Strabo, i. 5-6. Seleucus of Selucia on the Tigris lived in the

middle of the 2nd century B.C., and was one of the few who (like

Aristarchus of Samos, c. 260 B.C.) held the doctrine of the earth's

rotation and movement round the sun.

[77] Herodotus [iv. 26] says of the Issedonians in Scythia that "when a

man's father dies, all the relatives bring cattle; and when they have

slain them as a sacrifice and cut the flesh in pieces, they also cut up

their host's deceased father; then they mix all the flesh together and

serve it for the meal; but the head they decorate with gold, after having

taken the hair off and washed it; and afterwards they treat it as an idol

and bring offerings to it every year." Such a cannibal custom, if it

really existed, may have been connected with religious ideas. But

Herodotus [i. 216] attributes to the Massagetæ the following still more

horrible custom: "when a man grows very old, all his relatives assemble

and slay him, and together with him several kinds of cattle; then they

boil the flesh and hold a banquet. This is accounted among them the

happiest end."

[78] Cf. M. Schanz: "Geschichte der Römischen Literatur," ii. p. 241,

1899; in I. Müller: "Handb. Klass. Altert.-Wiss.," bd. viii. See also

Müllenhoff, iv., 1900, p. 47.

[79] Cf. Detlefsen, 1897, p. 197; 1904, p. 45. By his voyage in 12 B.C.

with his fleet along the coast of the North Sea from the mouth of the

Rhine and the Zuyder Zee to the mouth of the Ems, Drusus won fame as the

first general who had sailed in the North Sea. The Romans, of course, were

not great seafarers.

[80] The MSS. have "flamine" (winds); but it has been thought that

"flumine" (streams) gives a better meaning [cf. Detlefsen, 1897, p. 198].

"Flamine" (winds) might, however, suit the ideas of the earth's limits

(cf. the description of Himilco's voyage in Avienus, see above, p. 37).

[81] The text has here "alium liberis (or 'libris') intactum quærimus

orbem," which might be: "towards another world untouched by books," that

is, of which no book has said anything. As such an expression is quite at

variance with the generally pompous style of the poem, Detlefsen [1897, p.

200, 1904, p. 47] has thought that "libris" here was "libra" == "libella,"

that is, the level used by builders, with two legs and a plumb hanging in

the middle, and the meaning would then be that this part of the earth's

circumference was not touched by the plumb of the level, but that the

latter was obliquely inclined over the abyss at the end of the world. This

explanation seems to make Pedo's poem even more artificial than it is, and

Detlefsen appears to think [1897, p. 200] that the builder's level is used

to find perpendicular lines, instead of horizontal. It is probable,

however, that such an idea of a gulf or abyss at the end of the world was

current at that time, as it was much later (cf. Adam of Bremen, and also

the Ginnungagap of the Norsemen), even if it does not appear in this poem.

It might be thought that "libris" was here used in the sense of

sounding-lead, so that the meaning would be, "untouched by soundings," in

other words, a sea where no soundings had been made; but this meaning of

"libris" would be unusual, and besides one would then expect some word for

sea, and not "orbem."

[82] I cannot, with Detlefsen [1904, p. 48], find anything in this

expression to show that Augustus gives the Greeks the credit for having

penetrated beyond the Cimbrian Cape earlier.

[83] Cf. Müllenhoff, ii., 1887, p. 285, and iv., 1900, p. 45; Holz, 1894,

p. 23; Detlefsen, 1904, p. 47.

[84] K. Miller [vi., 1898, p. 105] proposes to read "Gotorum rex" (the

king of the Goths) instead of the "Botorum rex" of the MSS. The last name

is otherwise unknown, and has also been read "Boiorum." Pliny, who has the

same story almost word for word [Nat. Hist., ii. c. 67, 170] says that the

same Celer had the Indians from the king of the Suevi.

[85] This was a common idea among the Greeks about the Amazons [cf.

Hippocrates, Περι αερων, etc., c. 17; Strabo, xi. 504; Diodorus, ii. 45];

it has even been sought to derive the name itself from this, since "mazos"

(μαζος) means breast, and "a" (α) is the negative particle; this would

therefore be "without breasts." But other explanations of the origin of

the name have been given, e.g., that they were not suckled at the breast.

It is possible that the name meant something quite different, but that

owing to its resemblance to the Greek word for breast it gave rise to the

legend, and not vice versa. In Latin the Amazons were sometimes called

"Unimammia" (one-breasted), but in Greek art they were always represented

with well-developed breasts. Hippocrates says that the right breasts of

the Scythian women were burned off by the mother with a special bronze

instrument, while the girls were quite small, because "then the breast

ceased to grow, and all force and development were transmitted to the

right shoulder and the arm."

[86] Cf. Herodotus, iv. cc. 116, 117.

[87] Cf. Herodotus, iv. c. 22.

[88] These are Herodotus's "Argippæi" or "Argimpæi" [iv. c. 23], who lived

in tents of felt in winter. They were bald, whereas those of Mela go

bare-headed.

[89] To understand [like K. Miller, vi., 1898, p. 105] "vectæ" as the name

of an island ("Vectis" == the Isle of Wight) seems in itself somewhat

improbable, and is moreover excluded by Mela's rhetorical style, which

demands a clause following Hæmodæ to balance that attached to Orcades just

before.

[90] These "Belgæ" are, of course, the same as the "Belcæ" already

mentioned by Mela as the Scythian people in the northernmost part of

Scythia (see above, p. 89). What people is meant is uncertain.

[91] Sophus Bugge [1904, pp. 156 f.] thinks that Codanus may come from an

Old Norse word "Kōð," which meant a shallow fjord or a shallow place in

the water (equivalent to old Indian "gādhá-m") and which according to him

is akin to the root "Kað" in some Norwegian place-names. "Codanus sinus"

("Kōda," accus. "Kōdan") is then the shallow sea, or Cattegat, especially

near the Belts. "Codan-ovia" is the island in "Kōdan." Müllenhoff [1887,

ii. p. 284] and Much [1893, p. 207] have connected "Codanus" with Old High

German "quoden" (== femina, interior pars coxæ) from the same root as the

Anglo-Saxon "codd" (== serpent, sack, bag), Middle Low German "koder" (==

belly, abdomen), Old Norse "koðri" (== scrotum). It would then mean a

sack-inlet or sack-bay, equal to the Frisian "Jâde," or else a narrower

inlet to an extended bay of the sea (the Baltic ?). The explanation does

not seem quite natural. R. Keyser [1868, p. 82] derives the name from

"Godanus," i.e., the Gothic, although the Goths at that time were usually

called "Gutones" by the Romans. Ahlenius's suggestion [1900, p. 24] that

Codanus might be an old copyist's error for "Toutonos" (Teutons), because

one MS. reads Thodanus, does not sound probable. Detlefsen [1904, p. 31]

thinks that the name Codanus is preserved in Katte(n)-gat, which would

mean the inlet (gat) to Codanus, which would then come to include the

whole of the Baltic. If Bugge's explanation given above is correct, it

might however mean the shallow gat or inlet.

[92] Professor Alf Torp calls my attention to R. Much's [1895, p. 37]

explanation of "Kobandoi" as a Germanic "*Kōwandōz," a derivation from the

word cow. This should therefore be divided "Kōw-and-," where "and" is a

suffix, and the meaning would be a cow-people.

[93] I have proposed this explanation to Professor Alf Torp; he finds that

it "might indeed be possible, but not altogether probable."

[94] It has been sought to derive "Daner" from an original Germanic word,

equivalent to Anglo-Saxon "denu" (Gothic "*danei") and "dene" for dale,

and its meaning has been thought to be "dwellers in dales or lowlands"

[cf. Much, 1895, p. 40; S. Bugge, 1890, p. 236].

[95] That they lived in the sea or bay must, of course, mean that they

lived on islands; and the northern part of Jutland, north of the Limfiord,

was probably looked upon as an island; but the Cimbrian Promontory is not

mentioned; it occurs first in Pliny. The Germanic form of the name,

"himbrōz," perhaps still survives in the Danish district of Himmerland,

the old Himbersyssel, with the town of Aalborg [cf. Much, 1905, p. 100].

[96] There is a resemblance of name which may be more than accidental

between Mela's "Œneæ," or Pliny's "Œonæ," and Tacitus's "Aviones"

["Germania," c. 40], who lived on the islands of North Frisia and the

neighbouring coast. "Aviones" evidently comes from a Germanic "*awjonez,"

Gothic "*aujans," Old High German "ouwon" (cf. Old Norse "ey," Old High

German "ouwa" for island), which means islanders. In the Anglo-Saxon poem

"Widsid" they are called "eowe" or "eowan" [cf. Grimm, 1880, p. 330 (472),

Much, 1893, p. 195; 1905, p. 101]. It is possible that the Greeks, on

hearing the Germanic name, connected it with the Greek word "Œonæ" (==

egg-eaters), and thereby the whole idea of egg-eating may have arisen,

without anything having been related about it.

[97] To this it might be objected that he ought in that case to have

obtained much information also about the interior of Scythia and Sarmatia;

but in the first place this is not certain, as the special goal of the

merchants was the amber countries, and they would therefore keep to the

known routes and travel rapidly through--and in the second, Pliny actually

mentions a good many tribes in the interior. He says, it is true [iv. 26,

91], of Agrippa's estimate of the size of Sarmatia and Scythia, that he

considers such estimates too uncertain in these parts of the earth; but to

conclude from this, as Detlefsen [1904, p. 34] has done, that Pliny's

Greek authorities cannot have received their information by the land

route, seems to me unreasonable, since Pliny perhaps did not even know how

his authorities had obtained their knowledge.

[98] This river is not mentioned elsewhere and must be invented, Hecatæus

of Abdera (circa 300 B.C.) having imagined that it rose in mountains of

this name in the interior of Asia and fell into the northern ocean.

[99] This is certainly wrong. The name "Amalcium" cannot come from any

northern language, but must come from the Greek "malkios" (μαλκιος), which

means "stiffening," "freezing"; "a" must here be an emphatic particle.

[100] This Greek is given as an authority in several passages of Pliny; he

is also mentioned by Ptolemy, but is not otherwise known. He may have

lived about 100 B.C. [cf. Detlefsen, 1904, pp. 23-25].

[101] On account of the syllable "rus," which is found in Phœnician names

(e.g., Rusazus, Ruscino, Ruspino) and which means headland, cape, it has

been sought to derive it from the Semitic; but Detlefsen [1904, p. 24]

thinks it more reasonable to suppose it Germanic. Not the smallest trace

of Phœnician names has been found in the north. R. Keyser [1868, p. 165]

thinks the name, which he reads "Rubeas," "is without doubt the Welsh

'rhybyz'" (rhybudd == sign, warning); but the word cannot have had this

form in Pliny's time.

[102] The name may be either Celtic or Old Germanic. In Celtic "mori,"

Irish "muir," Cymric "môr," is sea; but R. Much [1893, p. 220] thinks that

Germanic "mari" and Gothic "marei" (German "Meer," Latin "mare") may also

have been pronounced formerly with "o." "Marusa" is related to Irish

"marb," Cymric "marw" for dead; but according to Much it may be of

Germanic origin and have had the form "*marusaz" (cf. "*marwaz") with the

meaning of motionless, lifeless. "Morimarusa" would thus be the

"motionless sea," which reminds one of Pytheas's kindred ideas of the

sluggish, congealed sea ("mare pigrum, prope immotum mare"). If the name

is of Germanic origin, this does not debar its being derived from Pytheas

(and taken from him by Philemon); he may have got it from Norway. If

Rusbeas is southern Norway, this would point in the same direction. But it

is doubtless more reasonable to suppose that the name is derived from the

Cimbri, who are mentioned in connection with it, while Pliny does not

mention any people in Norway.

[103] Hergt [1893, p. 40] thinks that "Morimarusa" would be the Baltic

(and the Cattegat), which was called dead because it had no tides and was

frozen in winter. "Rusbeas" would thus be the point of the Skaw. In this

way he has two names for the Baltic, and two, if not three, for the Skaw.

This interpretation seems to be even less consistent than that given

above. Pliny in another passage mentions (see pp. 65, 106) that the sea

called "Cronium" was a day's sail beyond Thule, which lay to the north of

Britain and within the Arctic Circle. This in itself makes it difficult

for Cronium to begin at Lindesnes, but if it has to begin at Skagen, and

thus be the Skagerak, it becomes still worse.

[104] This must come from an Old Germanic word "*glez," Anglo-Saxon

"glær," for amber. It is the same word as the Norwegian "glas" or Danish

"glar," which has come to mean glass.

[105] The origin of the name "Sævo" cannot be determined with certainty.

Forbiger [1848, iii. p. 237] thinks it is Kjölen, and asserts that it is a

Norwegian name which is still found in the form of "Seve," ridge; but no

such name is known in Norway. It seems possible that the name may be

connected with the Gothic "saivs" for sea (cf. Old Norse "sær"); but it

may also be supposed to have arisen from a corruption of "svevus"; in any

case it was so regarded in the Middle Ages. Solinus says [c. 20, 1],

following Pliny, that "Mons Sævo ... forms the commencement of Germany,"

but Isidore Hispalensis says that "Suevus Mons" forms the north-east

boundary of Germany, and on the Hereford Map (about 1280) a mountain

chain, "Mons Sueuus," runs in north-east Germany to a bay of the sea

called "Sinus Germanicus," which may be the Baltic. On the Ebstorf map

(1284) "Mons Suevus" has followed the Suevi southwards to Swabia. It is

also possible that Ptolemy's mountain chain "Syēba" (Συηβα, vi. c. 14) in

northernmost Asia (62° N. lat.) has something to do with Pliny's "Sævo."

There has been much guessing as to where the latter is to be sought: some

[cf. Detlefsen, 1904, p. 28] think it was Kjölen, although it is quite

incomprehensible how this far northern range could be connected with

Codanus; others [cf. Lönborg, 1897, p. 20] that it was in Mecklenburg or

Pomerania or even in Jutland [Geijer, 1825, p. 77], where no mountain is

to be found, least of all an immense one ("inmensus"). Pliny's words could

be most simply connected with the Norwegian mountains [cf. Holz, 1894, p.

25]. It may indeed be supposed, as Müllenhoff [iv., 1900, p. 600] thinks,

that the men of Augustus's fleet, in 5 A.D., may have seen in the Cattegat

or heard of the "Sea-mountains" of the Scandinavian (or rather, Swedish)

coast, "*Saivabergo" or "*Saivagabërgia," which rose up over the sea, and

the same of which became in Latin "Mons Sævo"; but perhaps it is just as

reasonable to suppose that the information may be derived from the Germans

of Jutland, who had communication with Norway and knew its high

mountainous country, and that therefore it did not originate with the low

west coast of Sweden.

[106] One might be tempted to connect the name "Scadinavia" with the old

Norse goddess Skade or Skaði, who was of Finnish race; she was

black-haired, lived in the mountains in the interior of the country, and

was amongst other things the goddess of ski-running. The name Scadinavia

would then be of Finnish origin. This derivation has also been put forward

[cf. Müllenhoff, ii., 1887, pp. 55 f., 357 f.]. The termination "avi,"

"avia," must then be the same as "ovia" (see p. 94). This explanation

would take for granted an original non-Germanic, so-called "Finnish"

population in south Sweden (which does not appear impossible; see below);

but it will then be difficult to explain why the name should have survived

only in the most southern part, Skåne. Sophus Bugge [1896, p. 424] thought

that "Scadinavia" (later "Scadanavia") is related to the common Norwegian

place-name "Skǫðvin" or Sköien ("vin" == pasture) and may come from a lost

Old Norse word "*skaða" (old Slavonic "skotŭ") for cattle. "Skǫðvin" would

then be cattle-pasture. From "*skaða" the word "*skaðanaz" may be

regularly derived, with the meaning of herdsman; and "Skadan-avia" or

"Skadinavia" will be herdsman's pastures, since the termination "avia" may

have the same meaning as the German "Au" or "Aue" (good pasture, meadow).

The Old Norse "Skáney" ("Skáni," now "Skåne") would then come from

Skaðney, where the "ð" has been dropped as in many similar instances.

Bugge himself afterwards [1904, p. 156] rejected this explanation and

derived "Scadinavia" from the same word as "Codanus" (see p. 93), taking

it to mean the island or coast-land by "Kōdan," which has had a prefixed

"s," while the long "o" has been changed into short "a." This explanation

may be very doubtful. In many parts of Norway a name "Skåney" is known,

which comes from "skán" (meaning crust), and it may therefore not be

improbable that the Swedish "Skáney" or Skåne is the same name.

[107] Ahlenius [1900, p. 31] has tried to explain the name as a copyist's

error for "Æstingia," which he connects with the "Æstii" (Esthonians) of

Tacitus; but the people would then have been called Æstingii rather than

Æstii. One might then be more inclined to think of Jordanes' "Astingi" or

"Hazdingi," the same as the Old Norse Haddingjar (Hallinger).

[108] R. Keyser [1868, p. 89] explains the name as the same as in the Old

Norse name for a people, "Kylpingar," in northern Russia, neighbours of

the Finns. He thinks that there may have been an Old Norse name

"Kylpinga-botn" for the Baltic; but it is not likely that this word

Kylpingar existed at that time.

[109] Keyser [1868, p. 80] derives the word from Gothic "lagus"

(corresponding to Old Norse "logr") for sea.

[110] The same islands which are here spoken of as British, have been

previously referred to (see above, p. 101) by Pliny as Germanic, or rather

as a single island with the name "Glæsaria." This is another proof of how

he draws directly from various sources without even taking the trouble to

harmonise the statements. In this case he has probably found the islands

mentioned in connection with facts about Britain, or a journey to that

country. And it may be supposed that the original source is Pytheas.

[111] In his ignorance of astronomy Pliny adds that "this is said to

continue alternately for six months."

[112] Some MSS. read "Vergos."

[113] Tacitus, "Agricola," c. 10; see also c. 38. Cf. also Bunbury, 1883,

ii. p. 342.

[114] Tacitus, "Agricola," c. 28.

[115] Here Tacitus is mistaken, as amber was extensively employed for

amulets and ornaments even in the Stone Age (see above, p. 32).

[116] Much [1905, p. 133] connects the name with "ge-swio" == "related by

marriage." It may be just as reasonable to suppose that the name means

"burners" ("svier"), since they cleared the land by setting fire to the

forests [cf. Müllenhoff, iv., 1900, p. 499].

[117] Cf. Müllenhoff, iv., 1900, p. 502.

[118] This might be thought to show that arms of metal, especially of

iron, were still rarities in Scandinavia, which only rich and powerful

chiefs could obtain, and this might agree with the statement about the

esteem in which wealth was held among this particular people. But perhaps

the more probable explanation is that the idea may have arisen through

foreign merchants (South Germans or Romans) having been present at the

great annual "things" and fairs at some well-known temple, e.g., Upsala

[cf. Müllenhoff, 1900, p. 503], where for the sake of peace and on account

of the sacredness of the spot it was forbidden to carry arms, and where

arms were therefore left in a special "weapon-house," like those which

were later attached to churches in Norway, and there guarded by a thrall.

The foreigners may have seen this without understanding its meaning, and

Tacitus may have given his own explanation.

[119] The name "Sitones" reminds one forcibly of the "Sidones" mentioned

by Strabo and Ptolemy [cf. Geijer, 1825, p. 82]; but the difficulty is

that Strabo includes the latter among the Bastarni, with the Peucini who

lived on the north and east of the Carpathians and therefore far to the

south of the Baltic [cf. Ahlenius, 1900, p. 36]. Ptolemy's "Sidones" also

lived in the neighbourhood of the Carpathians, and to the north of them.

But it is nevertheless possible that Tacitus may have heard a similar word

and confused it with this name, or he may have heard a story of a reigning

woman or queen among Strabo's Sidones, somewhere north of the Carpathians,

and thought that anything so unheard of could only be found in the

farthest north. It is also to be noted that Tacitus himself mentions

"Peucini" or "Bastarnæ" as neighbours of the "Fenni" (Finns), and

therefore inhabiting some distant tract bordering on the unknown in the

north-east; on the other hand he does not mention the Sidones in this

connection, though they are spoken of in conjunction with the Bastarnæ

both by Strabo before him and by Ptolemy after him. Add to this the

similarity of names between Sitones and Suiones, and it seems likely that

he thought they must be near one another. Müllenhoff [ii., 1887, p. 9]

supposes that the word "Sitones" may have been an appellative which has

been mistaken for the name of a people, and he connects it with Gothic

"*sitans," Old Norse "*setar," from the same root as the Norwegian "sitte"

(to sit, occupy). If this is correct we might suppose it to be used in the

sense of colonists (cf. Norwegian "opsitter"). Much [1905, p. 31] suggests

that perhaps it may be derived from Old Norse "siða" == to practise

witchcraft (cf. "seid"), and mean sorcerers. On the "Sidones" cf. Much,

1893, pp. 135, 187, 188; Müllenhoff, 1887, pp. 109, 325.

[120] Wiklund [1895, pp. 103-117] thinks that the "Kvæns" in north Sweden

were not Finns, but colonists from Svearike (middle Sweden).

[121] Cf. Zeuss, 1837, p. 157; Müllenhoff, ii., 1887, p. 10.

[122] Cf. Lönborg, 1897, p. 136; Ahlenius, 1900, p. 37.

[123] Cf. Baumstark, 1880, p. 329; Müllenhoff, iv., 1900, p. 516.

[124] Many of his place-names in Ireland especially point to frequent

communication, probably due to trade, between this island and the

continent, perhaps with Gaul.

[125] Much [1895, a, p. 34] thinks that the "Alociæ" may have been some

small rocky islands which have now disappeared. Upon them he supposes

there may have been colonies of auks, which have given them their name, as

in Gothic, for instance, they may have been called "*alakô." The

hypothesis is improbable; even if any such rocky islets had been washed

away by the sea they must have left behind submerged rocks, and none such

are known in the sea off Jutland.

[126] Macrobius's division of the earth into zones after Parmenides with

an equatorial ocean like Mela, in graphic representation, had great

influence during the Middle Ages.

[127] Similar conceptions are to be found in Avienus ("Ora Maritima," vv.,

644-663), and are derived from ancient Greek geographers (Anaximenes, cf.

Müllenhoff, i., 1870, p. 77).

[128] This description would best suit the Baltic (and the Belts) as

forming the eastern side of Scandza; but the term inland sea ("lacus")

does not agree well with Scandza being an island and lying just opposite

the Vistula, which "with its three mouths discharged itself into the

Ocean"; and in the rear of the Vidivarii at the mouths of the Vistula

"dwelt likewise on the Ocean the Æstii, that very peace-loving people" [v.

36, cf. Tacitus]. Besides which Jordanes' Germanic Ocean may be the

Baltic, although his very obscure description may equally well suit the

North Sea, or both together. The supposition that the great inland sea and

the River Vagi might be Lake Ladoga and the Neva [cf. Geijer, 1825, p.

100] or Lake Vener and the Göta River [cf. Lönborg, 1897, p. 25, and

Ahlenius, 1900, p. 44] does not agree with the description of Jordanes,

which distinctly asserts that it lay on the east side of Scandza in

contradistinction to the immense ocean on the west and north. The fact

must be that Jordanes had very obscure ideas on this point, and this has

made his description confusing.

[129] These small islands have been taken to be the Danish islands [cf.

Ahlenius, 1900, p. 43]; but as we hear in immediate connection with them

of severe cold and of the wolves losing their eyes on crossing the frozen

sea ("congelato mari"), our thoughts are led farther north and we would be

inclined to take them for the Åland islands.

[130] This reminds us of Mela's statement respecting the Œneans, who lived

on fen-fowl's eggs (see above, pp. 91, 95).

[131] And or Amd was used formerly not only for the island of And (Andö),

but for a great part of Vesterålen and Hinnö.

[132] I will mention as yet another possibility a corruption of Ptolemy's

islands, the "Alociæ," which lay at the extreme north of his map, north of

the Cimbrian Chersonese and farther north than the island of Scandia (see

above, pp. 119 f.). A Greek capital lambda, Λ, may easily be mistaken for

a capital delta, Δ, especially in maps, and in such corrupted form may

have been transferred to Roman maps, and thence have been used for the

name of a people who were said to live specially far north. Läffler [1894,

p. 4] thinks that "Adogit" was a Lappish people, and that the name

certainly cannot be of Scandinavian-Germanic origin, but he does not say

why.

[133] Cleomedes says that the summer day in Thule lasted a month, while

the astronomically ignorant Pliny puts it at six months.

[134] As to these tribal names see especially Läffler [1894, 1907] and

Sophus Bugge [1907], besides P. A. Munch [1852], Müllenhoff [1887], and

others.

[135] The origin of the word "sappherinas" is uncertain. Lönborg [1897, p.

26] proposes that it may have meant deep sapphire blue, and have been used

of the skins of blue foxes. Probably it is rather a northern word, not

Germanic, but either Slavonic or Finnish (?).

[136] Müllenhoff, Mommsen, Läffler, and others think that the "mitiores"

(milder) of the MSS. may be an error for "minores" (smaller), which gives

better sense, in contradistinction to the "Suetidi" who come just after

and were taller than all the rest. Sophus Bugge proposes that "mitissimi"

and "mitiores" may be errors for "minutissime" and "minutiores," and that

it should therefore be translated "the very small Finns who are smaller

than all the other, etc." [cf. also A. Bugge, 1906, p. 18]; but the

necessity for so great a change is doubtful [cf. Läffler, 1907, p. 109].

[137] S. Bugge thought [1907, p. 101] at one time that these might be

people of Gond or Gand, i.e., Höiland, south of Stavanger, but afterwards

changed this view [cf. 1910, p. 97].

[138] Jordanes, who was a Goth, had even less reason for glorifying the

Northmen at the expense of the Germans or Goths.

[139] Cf. Mommsen, 1882, p. 154; A. Bugge, 1906, pp. 21, 33 f.