  THE AWAKENING OF MEDIÆVAL KNOWLEDGE OF THE NORTH KING ALFRED, OTTAR, ADAM OF BREMEN In the ninth century the increasingly frequent Viking raids, Charlemagne’s wars and conquests in the North, and the labours of Christian missionaries, brought about an increase of intercourse, both warlike and peaceful, between southern Europe and the people of the Scandinavian North. The latter had gradually come to play a certain part on the world’s stage, and their enterprises began to belong to history. Their countries were thereby more or less incorporated into the known world. Now for the first time the mists that had lain over the northern regions of Europe began to lift, to such an extent that the geographical knowledge of the Middle Ages became clearer, and reached farther than that of the Greeks a thousand years earlier. King Alfred, 849-901 But while in the foregoing centuries the clouds had moved slowly, they were now rapidly dispelled from large tracts of the northern lands and seas. This was due in the first place King Alfred had Orosius’s Latin history done into Anglo-Saxon, and himself translated large portions of the work. By about 880 he was at peace with the Danish Vikings, to whom he had been obliged to cede the north-eastern half of England. He died about 901. His literary activity must no doubt have fallen within the period between these dates. Finding the geographical introduction to Orosius’s work inadequate, especially as regards northern Europe, he added what he had learnt from other sources. Thus, from information probably obtained from Germans, he gives a survey of Germany, which he makes extend northwards “to the sea which is called ‘CwÊn-sÆ^.’” What is meant by this is not quite clear; it might be the Polar Sea or the White Sea; on the other hand, it may be the Baltic or the Gulf of Bothnia; for the text does not make it certain whether King Alfred regarded Scandinavia as a peninsula connected with the continent or not. He speaks of countries and peoples on the “Ost-sÆ^”,[160] and he mentions amongst others the South Danes and North Danes both on the mainland (Jutland) and the islands—both peoples with the Ost-sÆ^ to the north of them—further the “Osti” (probably the Esthonians, who also had this arm of the sea, the Ost-sÆ^, to the north), Wends and Burgundians (Bornholmers ?), Map of Northern Scandinavia and the White Sea Ottar’s voyage to the White Sea, ninth century King Alfred’s most important contribution to geographical knowledge of the North is his remarkable account of what the Norwegian Ottar (or “Ohthere” in the Anglo-Saxon text) told him about his voyage to the North. The brief and straightforward narrative of this sober traveller forms in its clearness and definiteness a refreshing contrast to the vague and confused ideas of earlier times about the unknown northern regions. We see at once that we are entering upon a new period. “Ottar told his lord, Alfred the king, that he dwelt farthest north of all the Norwegians.[161] He said that he dwelt on the northern side of the land by the ‘West-sÆ^.’ He said however that the land extends very far to the north from there; but that it is quite uninhabited (‘weste’), except that in a few places “The Beormas told him many stories both about their own country and the countries that were about it, but he knew not what was true, because he had not seen it himself. The Finns and the Beormas, as it seemed to him, spoke almost the same language. He went thither chiefly to explore the country, and Since King Alfred, as has been said, must have written between 880 and 901, Ottar may have made his voyage about 870 to 890. This remarkable man, who according to his own statement undertook his expedition principally from desire of knowledge, is the second northern explorer of whom we have definite information in history. The first was the Greek Pytheas, who went about as far as the Arctic Circle. Some twelve hundred years later the Norwegian Ottar continues the exploration farther north along the coasts of Norway and sails right into the White Sea. He thereby determined the extent of Scandinavia on the north, and is the first known discoverer of the North Cape, the Polar Sea (or Barents Sea), and the White Sea; but he did not know whether the latter The land of the Terfinnas, which was uninhabited, is the whole Kola peninsula. Its name was “Ter” (or “Turja”), whence the designation Ter-Finns. The common supposition that the river Ottar came to was the Dvina cannot be reconciled with Ottar’s narrative given above, which expressly states that he followed the coast round the peninsula all the What kind of people Ottar’s Beormas[170] may have been is uncertain. We only hear that they lived in the country on the other side of the river, that their country was well settled (i.e., was permanently inhabited by an agricultural population ?), that they were able to communicate with Ottar, and that they spoke almost the same language as the Finns. The This view, that the Beormas were Karelians, agrees with Egil Skallagrimsson’s Saga, which doubtless was put into writing much later, but which mentions Ottar’s contemporary, Thorolf Kveldulfsson, and his expeditions among the Finns or Lapps to collect the Finnish or Lappish tribute (about 873 and 874). We read there: “East of Namdal lies Jemtland, and then Helsingland, and then KvÆnland, and then Finland, then Kirjalaland. But Finmark lies above all these countries.” Kirjalaland is Karelia, which thus lies quite in the east upon the White Sea, and must be Ottar’s Bjarmeland (Beormaland). On his Finnish expedition of 874 Thorolf came far to the east, and was then appealed to by the KvÆns for help against the Kirjals (Karelians), who were ravaging KvÆnland. He proceeded northward against them and overcame them; returned to KvÆnland, went thence up into Finmark, and came down from the mountains in Vefsen. This mention of the ravages of the Kirjals agrees with the impression of Ottar’s Beormas, who were so warlike that he dared not pass by their country. Ottar’s account of himself was that “he was a very rich man in all classes of property of which their wealth [i.e., the wealth of those peoples] consists, that is, in wild beasts (‘wildrum’). He had further, when he came to the king, six hundred tame, unsold animals. These animals they called reindeer. There were six decoy reindeer (‘stÆl hranas’), which are very dear among the Finns, for with them they catch the wild reindeer. He was among the principal men in that country [HÅlogaland], although he had no more than twenty horned cattle, and twenty sheep, and twenty pigs; and the little ploughing he did was done with horses [i.e., not with oxen, as among the Anglo-Saxons]. But their largest revenue is the tribute paid them by the Finns; this tribute consists of pelts and birds’ feathers [down] and whalebone [walrus tusks], and they gave ships’ ropes made of whales’ This description gives a valuable picture of the state of society in northernmost Norway at that time. Ottar’s Finns had tame and half-tamed reindeer, and their hunting even of such sea-beasts as walrus and seal was sufficiently productive to enable them to pay a considerable tribute. These early inhabitants of the most northerly regions of the old world will be treated of later in a separate chapter. Ottar’s mention of walrus-hunting is of great interest, as showing that it was regularly carried on both by Norwegians and Finns even at that time. Of about the same period (about the year 900) is the well-known Anglo-Saxon casket, called the Franks Casket, of which the greater part is now in the British Museum, one side being in Florence. The casket, which on account of its rich decoration is of great historical value, is made of walrus ivory. It has been thought that it might be made of the tusks that Ottar brought to King Alfred. If this was so, it is in any case improbable that so costly a treasure should be worked in a material the value and suitability of which were unknown. We must therefore suppose that walrus ivory sometimes found its way at that time to this part of Europe, and it could come from no other people but the Norwegians. They certainly carried on walrus-hunting long before Ottar’s time. This appears also from his narrative, for men who were not well practised could not kill sixty of these large animals in a couple of days, even if we are to suppose that they were killed with lances on land where they lie in big herds. If these sixty animals were really whales (i.e., small whales), and not walruses, it is still more certain evidence of long practice. We see, too, that walrus ivory and ships’ ropes of walrus hide had become such valuable objects of commerce as to be demanded in tribute. So difficult and dangerous an occupation as this hunting, which requires an The walrus, called in Norwegian “rosmal”[171] or “rosmÅl” (also “rosmar,” and in Old Norse “rostungr”), is an arctic animal which keeps by preference to those parts of the sea where there is drift-ice, at any rate in winter. It is no longer found in Norway, but probably it visited the coasts of Finmark not unfrequently in old times, to judge from place-names such as “RosmÅlvik” at Loppen, and “RosmÅlen” by Hammerfest. Even in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries its visits to the northern coasts of the country were frequent, perhaps annual [cf. Lillienskiold, 1698]. But as these places were certainly the extreme limit of its distribution, it can never have been very numerous here; like the herds of seals in our own time, it must have appeared only for more or less short visits. Curiously enough, so far as is known, walrus bones have not been observed in finds below ground in the North, while bones of other arctic animals, such as the ring-seal (Phoca foetida), are found. Since, therefore, the walrus cannot be supposed to have been common on the northern coasts of Norway at any time during the historical period, and since its hunting gave such valuable products, we must suppose that the Norwegian walrus-hunters were not long in looking for better and surer hunting-grounds eastward in the Polar Sea, where there is plenty of walrus. It Norwegian whaling From Ottar’s statement that “in his own country there is the best whaling, they are forty-eight cubits long, and the largest are fifty cubits long,” we must conclude that the Norwegians, and perhaps the Finns also, carried on a regular whaling industry, with great whales as well as small (see later, chap. xii.). Ottar’s voyage to South Norway and Sleswick Of Ottar’s statements about Norway we read further in King Alfred: “He said that Nordmanna-Land was very long and very narrow. All that is fitted either for grazing or ploughing lies on the sea, and that, however, is in some places very rocky, with wilderness [mountainous waste] rising above the cultivated land all along it. In the wilderness dwell the Finns. And the inhabited land is broadest eastward, and always narrower farther north. On the east it may be sixty leagues broad, or a little broader; and midway thirty or more, and on the north, he said, where it was narrowest, it may be three leagues to the waste land; and the wilderness in some places is so broad that it takes two weeks to cross it; and in others so broad that one can cross it in six days. “There is side by side with the land in the south, on the other side of the wilderness, Sveoland, extending northwards, and side by side with the land in the north, CwÊna-Land. The CwÊnas sometimes make raids upon the Norsemen over the wilderness, sometimes the Norsemen upon them; and there are very great freshwater lakes in this wilderness; and the CwÊnas carry their ships overland to these lakes, and from thence they harry the Norsemen. They have very small ships and very light. “And from Sciringesheal he said that it was five days’ sail to the harbour which is called ‘HÆÐum’ [Heidaby or Sleswick]; it lies between the Wends and the Saxons and the Angles, and belongs to the Danes. When he sailed thither from Sciringesheal, he had on the port side Denmark[176] [i.e., southern Sweden, which then belonged to Denmark], and on the starboard open sea for three days; and for the two days before he came to Heidaby he had to starboard GÔtland and Sillende, and many islands. In those countries dwelt the Angles before they came to this land. And for these two days he had on the port side the islands which belong to Denmark.” This account of Ottar’s of his southward voyage is remarkable for the same sober lucidity as his narrative of the White Sea expedition; and as, on all the points where comparison is possible, it agrees well with other independent statements, it furnishes strong evidence of his credibility. Anglo-Saxon Map of the World, “Cottoniana,” Alfred next gives a description of Wulfstan’s (== Ulfsten’s) voyage from Heidaby eastward through the southern Baltic to Prussia, with references to Langeland, Laaland, Falster and SkÅne (“ScÓneg”), which all belonged to Denmark and lay to port. After them came on the same side Bornholm (“Burgenda land”), which had its own king, then Blekinge, “Meore,” Öland and Gotland, and these countries belonged to Sweden (“Sweom”). To starboard he had the whole way Wendland “Meregarto,” eleventh century In the old German poem “Meregarto,” which is a sort of description of the earth and probably dates from the latter half of the eleventh century [MÜllenhoff and Scherer, 1892, ii. p. 196], we find the following remarkable statements about the “Liver sea” and about Iceland:[177] “There is a clotted sea in the western ocean. We find in this poem the same idea of a curdled or clotted sea—here probably in the north-west near Iceland—as appeared early among the Greeks and Romans, perhaps even among the In this poem and in Adam of Bremen Iceland is mentioned for the first time in literature,[179] in both works as a country that was known, but of which strange things were told, which is natural enough, since it lay near the borders of the unknown. The pious Reginbrecht may have travelled to Iceland as a missionary or clerical emissary, which would not be unnatural, as the country was under the archbishopric of Hamburg. On the other hand, it is surprising that people as early as that time sailed thither from Germany with meal, wine and wood. But as these articles must have been precisely those which Europe on the Anglo-Saxon Map of the World, “Cottoniana” (eleventh century ?) The strange idea that the ice becomes so hard that it can be made to glow, which occurs again in another form in Adam of Bremen, is difficult to understand. Can it have arisen, as Professor Torp has proposed to me, from a misunderstanding Adam of Bremen, about 1070 The first author after King Alfred to make valuable contributions to the literature of the North is Adam of Bremen, who not only gives much information about the Scandinavian North and its people, but mentions Iceland, and for the first time in literature also Greenland and even Wineland, as distant islands in the great ocean. Of the life of the learned magister Adam we know little more than that he came to Bremen about 1067 and became director of the cathedral school, and that he spent some time at the court of the enlightened Danish king Svein Estridsson. This king, who had spent twelve years campaigning in Sweden, “knew the history of the barbarians by heart, as though it had been written down,” and from him and his men Adam collected information about the countries and peoples of the North. On his return to Bremen he wrote his well-known history of the Church in the North under the archbishopric of Bremen and Hamburg (“Gesta Hammaburgensis,” etc.), which in great part seems to have been completed before the death of Svein Estridsson in 1076. In the fourth book of this work is a “description of the islands [i.e., countries and islands] in the North” (“Descriptio insularum aquilonis”). Adam’s most important literary geographical sources seem to have been the following: besides the Bible, Cicero and Sallust, he has used Orosius, Martianus Capella, Solinus, Macrobius and Bede; he was also acquainted with Paulus Warnefridi’s history of the Langobards, and probably Hrabanus Maurus, possibly also with some of Isidore. In the archiepiscopal archives he Adam’s work has thus become one of the most important sources of the oldest history of the North. It would carry us too far here to go into this side of it, and we shall confine ourselves for the most part to his geographical and ethnographical statements. He describes Jutland, the Danish islands, and other countries and peoples on the Baltic. This too he calls [iv. 10] the Baltic Sea, “because it extends in the form of a belt (‘baltei’)[180] along through the Scythian regions as far as ‘Grecia’ [here == Russia]. It is also called the Barbarian or Scythian Sea.” He quotes Einhard’s description of the Baltic, and regards it as a gulf (“sinus”), which, in the direction of west to east, issues from the Western Ocean. The length of the gulf [eastwards] was according to Einhard unknown. This, he says, “has recently been confirmed by the efforts of two brave men, namely Ganuz [also Ganund] Wolf, Earl (satrapÆ) of the Danes, and Harald [HardrÅde], King of the Norwegians, who, in order to explore the extent of this sea, made a long and toilsome voyage, perilous to those who accompanied them, from which they returned at length without having accomplished their object, and with double loss on account of storms and pirates. Nevertheless the Danes assert that the length of this sea (ponti) has frequently been explored and by many different travellers, and even that there are men who have sailed with a favourable wind from Denmark to Ostrogard in Ruzzia.” It therefore looks as if Adam had understood that Scandinavia was connected with the continent, which also appears from his words [iv. 15]: “Those who are acquainted with these regions also declare that some have reached as far as GrÆcia [i.e., Russia] by land from Sueonia [Sweden]. But the barbarous people, who live in the intervening parts, are a hindrance to this journey, wherefore they rather attempt this dangerous route by sea.” Adam of Bremen’s geographical idea of the countries and islands But he nevertheless speaks of the countries of the North as islands, and he seems to draw no sharp distinction between island and peninsula. Kurland and Esthonia he seems to regard as true islands. The entrance to the Baltic, he says [iv. 11], “between Aalborg, a headland of Denmark [i.e., the Skaw], and the skerries of Nortmannia [Norway], is so narrow that boats easily sail across it in one night.” The Land of Women There are in the Baltic [iv. 19] “many other islands, all full of savage barbarians, and therefore they are shunned by sailors. On the shores of the Baltic Sea the Amazons are also said to live in the country which is now called the Land of Women (‘terra feminarum’).” This designation is a translation of the name “KvÆnland,” which was thought to be formed of the Old Norse word for woman: “kvÆn” or “kvÁn” (chiefly in the sense of wife; modern English “queen”); and it is very possible that the name was really derived from this, and not from the Cynocephali “some assert that they conceive by drinking water. Others however say that they become pregnant through intercourse with seafaring merchants, or with their own prisoners, or with other monsters, which are not rare in those parts; and this appears to us more credible.[182] If their offspring are of the male sex, they are Cynocephali; but if of the female, beautiful women. These women live together and despise fellowship with men, whom indeed they repulse in manly fashion, if they come. Cynocephali are those who have their head in their breast; in Russia they are often to be seen as prisoners, and their speech is a mixture of talking and barking.” It has already been mentioned (p. 154) that the Greek writer Æthicus had already placed the Cynocephali on an Nortmanni or Hyperboreans “The Dani and Sueones and the other peoples beyond Dania are all called by the Frankish historians Normans (‘Nortmanni’), whilst however the Romans similarly call them Hyperboreans, of whom Martianus Capella speaks with much praise.” It does not seem as though Adam made any distinction between the names Norman and Norseman. [iv. 21.] “When one has passed beyond the islands of the Danes a new world opens in Sueonia [Sweden] and Nordmannia [Norway], which are two kingdoms of wide extent in the north, and hitherto almost unknown to our world. Of them the learned king of the Danes told me that Nordmannia can scarcely be traversed in a month, and Sueonia not easily in two. This, said he, I know from my own experience, since I have lately served for twelve years in war under King Jacob in those regions, which are both enclosed by high mountains, especially Nordmannia, which with its Alps encircles Sueonia.” Sweden he describes as a fertile land, rich in crops and honey, and surpassing any other country in the rearing of cattle: “It is most favoured with rivers and forests, and the whole land is everywhere full of foreign [i.e., rare ?] merchandise.” The Swedes were therefore well-to-do, but did not care for riches. “Only in connection with women they know no moderation. Each one according to his means has two, three or more [iv. 22.] “Many are the tribes of the Sueones; they are remarkable for strength and the use of arms, in war they excel equally on horseback and in ships.” Uniped (from the Hereford map) Adam relates much about these people, their customs, religion, and so forth: Finns and Skridfinns [iv. 24.] “Between Nordmannia and Sueonia dwell the Wermelani and FinnÉdi (or ‘Finvedi’) and others, who are now all Christians and belong to the church at Skara. In the borderland of the Sueones or Nordmanni on the north live the Scritefini, who are said to outrun the wild beasts in their running. Their greatest town [‘civitas,’ properly community] is Halsingland, to which Stenphi was first sent as bishop by the archbishop.... He converted many of the same people by his preaching.” Helsingland was inhabited by Helsingers, who were certainly Germanic Scandinavians and not Skridfinns; but Adam seems to have thought that all the people of northern Sueonia or Suedia (he has both forms) belonged to the latter race. “On the east it [i.e., Sweden] touches the RiphÆan Mountains, where there are immense waste tracts with very deep snow, where hordes of monstrous human beings further hinder the approach. There are the Amazons, there are the Cynocephali, and there the Cyclopes, who have one eye in their forehead. There are those whom Solinus calls ‘Ymantopodes’ [one-footed men], who hop upon one leg, and those who delight in human flesh for food, and just as one avoids them, so is one rightly silent about them.[184] The very estimable king of the Danes told me that a people were wont to come down from the mountains into the plains; they were of moderate height, but the Swedes were scarcely a match for them on account of their strength and It is probably the roving mountain Lapps that are here described. Descending suddenly into the plains with their herds of reindeer, they must then, as now, have done great damage to the peasants’ crops and pastures; and the peasants were certainly not content with killing the reindeer, as they sometimes do still, but also attacked the Lapps themselves. Although the latter are not a warlike people, they were forced to defend themselves, and that the Swedes and Norwegians are scarcely a match for them in strength and activity may be true even now. Cannibals in Eastern Europe (from the Hereford map) Nortmannia or Nordvegia [iv. 30.] “Nortmannia [Norway], as it is the extreme province of the earth, may also be suitably placed last in our book. It is called by the people of the present day ‘Norguegia’ [or ‘Nordvegia’] ... This kingdom extends to the extreme region of the North, whence it has its name.” From “projecting headlands in the Baltic Sound it bends its back northwards, and after it has gone in a bow along the border of the foaming ocean, it finds its limit in the Riphean Mountains, where also the circle of the earth is tired and leaves off. Nortmannia is on account of its stony mountains or its immoderate cold the most unfertile of all regions, and only suited to rearing cattle. The cattle are kept a long time in the waste lands, after the manner of the Arabs. They live on their herds, using their milk for food and their wool for clothes. Thus the country rears very brave warriors, who, not being softened by any superfluity in the products of their country, more often attack others than are themselves disturbed. They live at peace with their neighbours, namely the Sveones, although they are sometimes raided, but not with impunity, by the Danes, who are equally poor. Consequently, forced by their lack of possessions, they wander over the whole world and by their piratical expeditions bring home the greater part of the wealth of the countries.” But after their conversion to Christianity they improved, and they are “the most temperate of all men both in their diet and their morals.” They are very pious, and the priests turn this to account and fleece them. “Thus the purity of morals is destroyed solely through the avarice of the clergy.” Elles (elk) and Urus (aurochs) in Russia (from the Ebstorf map, 1284) “In many parts of Nordmannia and Suedia people even of the highest rank are herdsmen,[185] living in the style of the patriarchs and by the labour of their hands. But all who dwell in Norvegia are very Christian, with the exception of those who live farther north along the coast of the ocean [i.e., in Finmark]. It is said they are still so powerful in their arts of sorcery and incantations, that they claim to know what is done by every single person throughout the world. In addition to this they attract whales to the shore by loud mumbling of words, and many other things which are told in books of the sorcerers, and which are all easy for them by practice.[186] On the wildest alps of that part I heard that there are women with beards,[187] but the men who live in the forests [i.e., the waste tracts ?] seldom allow themselves to be seen. The latter use the skins of wild beasts for clothes, and when they speak to one another it is said to be more like gnashing of teeth than words, so that they can scarcely be understood by their neighbours.[188] The same mountainous tracts are called by the Roman authors the Riphean Mountains, which are terrible with eternal snow. The Scritefingi [Skridfinns] cannot live away from the cold of the snow, and they outrun the wild beasts in their chase across the very deep snowfields. In the same mountains there is so great abundance of wild animals that the greater part of the district lives on game alone. They catch there uri [== aurochs; perhaps rather ‘ursi’ == bears ?], bubali [antelopes == reindeer ?], and elaces [elks] as in Sueonia; but in Sclavonia and Ruzzia bisons are taken; only Nortmannia however has black foxes and hares, and white martens and bears of the same colour, which live under water like uri (?),[189] but as many things here seem altogether Then follows a reference to Trondhjem and the ecclesiastical history of the country, etc. The Western Ocean Of the Western Ocean, from which the Baltic issues, Adam says [iv. 10] that it “seems to be that which the Romans called the British Ocean, whose immeasurable, fearful and dangerous breadth surrounds Britannia on the west ... washes the shores of the Frisians on the south ... towards the rising of the sun it has the Danes, the entrance to the Baltic Sea, and the Norsemen, who live beyond Dania; finally, on the north this ocean flows past the Orchades [i.e., the Shetlands, with perhaps the Orkneys], thence endlessly around the circle of the earth, having on the left Hybernia, the home of the Scots, which is now called Ireland, and on the right the skerries (‘scopulos’) of Nordmannia, and farther off the islands of Iceland and Greenland; there the ocean, which is called the dark [‘caligans’ == shrouded in darkness or mist], forms the boundary.” Later [iv. 34], after the description of Norway, he says of the same ocean: The Orkneys “Beyond (‘post’) Nortmannia, which is the extreme province of the North, we find no human habitations, only the great ocean, infinite and fearful to behold, which encompasses the whole world. Immediately opposite to Nortmannia it has many islands which are not unknown and are now nearly all subject to the Norsemen, and which therefore cannot be passed by by us, since consequently they belong to the see of Hamburg. The first of them are the Orchades insulÆ [the Shetlands and Orkneys], which the barbarians call Organas” ... and which lie “between Nordmannia and Britannia and Hibernia, and they look playfully and smilingly down upon the threats of the foaming ocean. It is said that one can sail to them in one day from the Norsemen’s town of Trondhjem (‘Trondemnis’). It is said likewise to be a similar distance from the Orchades both to Anglia [England] and to Scotia [Ireland ?].”... Thule or Iceland Greenland [iv. 36.] “Furthermore there are many other islands in the great ocean, of which Greenland is not the least; it lies farther out in the ocean, opposite (‘contra’) the mountains of Suedia, or the Riphean range. To this island, it is said, one can sail from the shore of Nortmannia in five or seven days, as likewise to Iceland. The people there are blue [‘cerulei,’ bluish-green] from the salt water; and from this the region takes its name. They live in a similar fashion to the Icelanders, except that they are more cruel and trouble seafarers by predatory attacks. To them also, as is reported, Christianity has lately been wafted. HÁlogaland “A third island is Halagland [HÁlogaland], nearer to Nortmannia, in size not unlike the others.[192] This island in summer, about the summer solstice, sees the sun uninterruptedly above the earth for fourteen days, and in winter it has to be without the sun for a like number of days.[193] This is a marvel and a mystery to the barbarians, who do not know that the unequal length of days results from the approach and retreat of the sun. On account of the roundness of the earth (‘rotunditas orbis terrarum’) the sun must in one place approach and bring the day, and in another depart and leave the night. Thus when it ascends towards the summer solstice, it prolongs the days and shortens the nights for those in the north, but when it descends towards the winter solstice, it does the same for those in the southern hemisphere (‘australibus’).[194] Therefore Winland [iv. 38.] “Moreover he mentioned yet another island, which had been discovered by many in that ocean, and which is called ‘Winland,’ because vines grow there of themselves and give the noblest wine. And that there is abundance of unsown corn we have obtained certain knowledge, not by fabulous supposition, but from trustworthy information of the Danes. (Beyond (‘post’) this island, he said, no habitable land is found in this ocean, but all that is more distant is full of intolerable ice and immense mist [‘caligine,’ possibly darkness caused by mist]. Of these things Marcianus has told us: ‘Beyond Thyle,’ says he, ‘one day’s sail, the sea is stiffened.’ This was recently proved by Harold, prince of the Nordmanni, most desirous of knowledge, who explored the breadth of the northern ocean with his ships, and when the boundaries of the vanishing earth were darkened before his face, he scarcely escaped the immense gulf of the abyss by turning back.)[195] Frisian expedition to the North Pole [iv. 39.] “Archbishop Adalbert, of blessed memory, likewise told us that in his predecessor’s days certain noblemen from Friesland, intending to plough the sea, set sail northwards, because people say there that due north of the mouth of the river Wirraha [Weser] no land is to be met with, but only an infinite ocean. They joined together to investigate this curious thing, and left the Frisian coast with cheerful song. Then they left Dania on one side, Britain on the other, and reached the Orkneys. When they had left these behind on the left, and had Nordmannia on the right, they reached after a long voyage the frozen Iceland. Ploughing the seas from this land towards the extreme axis of the north, after seeing behind them all the islands already mentioned, and confiding their lives and their boldness to Almighty God and the holy preacher Willehad, they suddenly glided into the misty darkness of the stiffened ocean, which can scarcely be penetrated by the eye. And behold! the stream of the unstable sea there ran back into one of its secret sources, drawing at a fearful speed the unhappy seamen, who had already given up hope and only thought of death, into that profound chaos (this is said to be the gulf of the abyss) in which it is said that all the back-currents of the sea, which seem to abate, are sucked up and vomited forth again, which latter is usually called flood-tide. While they were then calling upon God’s mercy, that He might receive their souls, this backward-running stream of the sea caught some of their fellows’ ships, but the rest were shot [iv. 40.] “And being now past the danger of darkness and the region of cold they landed unexpectedly upon an island, which was fortified like a town, with cliffs all about it. They landed there to see the place, and found people who at midday hid themselves in underground caves; before the doors of these lay an immense quantity of golden vessels and metal of the sort which is regarded by mortals as rare and precious; when therefore they had taken as much of the treasures as they could lift, the rowers hastened gladly back to their ships. Then suddenly they saw people of marvellous height coming behind them, whom we call Cyclopes, and before them ran dogs which surpassed the usual size of these animals. One of the men was caught, as these rushed forward, and in an instant he was torn to pieces before their eyes; but the rest were taken up into the ships and escaped the danger, although, as they related, the giants followed them with cries nearly into deep sea. With such a fate pursuing them, the Frisians came to Bremen, where they told the most reverend Alebrand everything in order as it happened, and made offerings to the gentle Christ and his preacher Willehad for their safe return.” As will be seen, Adam obtained from the people of Scandinavia much new information and fresh ideas about the geography of the North, which add considerably to the knowledge of former times; but unfortunately he confuses this information with the legends and ancient classical notions he has acquired from reading the learned authors of late Roman and early mediÆval times; and this confusion reaches its climax in the last tale, which is chiefly of interest to the folk-lorist. The first part of it (section 39) is made up from Paulus Warnefridi’s description of the earth’s navel, to some extent with the same expressions (see above, p. 157); the second part (section 40) is based upon legends on the model of the Odyssey, of which there were many in the Middle Ages. While his description gives a fairly clear picture of his views regarding the countries on the Baltic, it is difficult to get any definite idea of the relative position of the more distant islands; but it is probable, as proposed by Gustav Storm, that he imagined them as lying far in the north. Wineland As Wineland is mentioned last, and as it is added that beyond this island there is no habitable land in this ocean, but that all As will be further shown in the later chapter on Wineland, Adam’s ideas of that country, of the wine and the corn there, The so-called St. Severus version, of about 1050, of the Beatus map (eighth century) Conception of the earth and the ocean It is not clear from Adam’s description whether he altogether held the conception of the earth, or rather the “oecumene,” as a circular island or disc divided into three, surrounded by the outer ocean (the Oceanus of the Greeks, see p. 8), as represented on the wheel-maps of earlier times (cf. p. 151, and the Beatus map); but his expression that the We are told that Magister Adam obtained information about the countries and peoples of the North from Svein Estridsson and his men; but as regards Iceland he might also have had trustworthy information from the Archbishop of Bremen, Adalbert, who had educated an Icelander, Isleif Gissursson, to be bishop. The latter (who is also mentioned by Are Frode) might also have told him about Greenland and Wineland; but Adam says distinctly that he had been informed about the latter country and the wine and corn there, which must have seemed very remarkable to him, if he imagined the country to be in the north, by the Danish king, and that the information had been confirmed by Danes. We shall return later to these countries, to Adam’s ideas of Wineland, and to the alleged polar expeditions of King Harold and of the Frisian noblemen. Just as these pages are going to press I have received from Dr. Axel Anthon BjÖrnbo his excellent essay on “Adam of Bremen’s view of the North” [1909]. By Dr. BjÖrnbo’s exhaustive researches the correctness of the views just set forth seems to be confirmed on many points; but he gives a far more complete picture of Adam’s geographical ideas. The reasons advanced by Dr. BjÖrnbo for supposing that Adam imagined the ocean as surrounding the earth’s disc, with Iceland, Greenland, etc., in the north, are of much interest. His map of the North according to Adam’s description is of great value, and gives a clear presentation of the main lines of Adam’s conceptions. With his kind permission it is reproduced here (p. 186). But, as will appear from my remarks above (pp. 197 f.), I am not sure that one is justified in placing Winland so far north, in the neighbourhood of the North Pole, as Dr. BjÖrnbo has done in his map. Possibly he has also put the other islands rather far north, and has curved Through Dr. BjÖrnbo’s book I have become acquainted with another recently published work on Adam of Bremen by Hermann Krabbo [1909], of which I have also been unable to make use; it also has a map, but not so complete a one as BjÖrnbo’s as regards the northern regions. |
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