In Northern Mists Volume I Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: Europe on the reconstructed map of the world of the Ravenna geographer (after K. Miller)]

[Sidenote: The Ravenna geographer, seventh century]

A few new facts about the North are to be found in the anonymous author who wrote a cosmography at the close of the seventh century. As, according to his own statement, he was born at Ravenna, he is usually known as the Ravenna geographer, but otherwise nothing is known of him, except that he was probably a priest. He bases his work on older authors; the Bible, some Latin, some Greek, and some later writers; but he certainly had a Roman itinerary map like the Tabula Peutingeriana. His statements about the North are in part taken from Jordanes, but he also quotes three other "Gothic scholars," who are otherwise entirely unknown. One of them, Aithanarit (or Athanaric ?), is mentioned particularly in connection with the Skridfinns. The other two, Eldevaldus (or Eldebald ?) and Marcomirus (or Marcomeres ?), have also described western Europe; the latter is specially used in the description of the countries of the Danes, Saxons and Frisians.

The Ravenna geographer regarded the earth's disc as approximately round, and surrounded by ocean, but the latter was not entirely continuous, for it did not extend behind India. It was true that some cosmographers had described it so, but no Christian ought to believe this, for Paradise was in the extreme East, near to India; and as the pollen is wafted by the breath of the wind from the male palm to the female near it, so does a beneficent perfume from Paradise blow upon the aromatic flowers of India. Some thought that the sun in its course returned to the east under the depths of ocean; but the Ravenna geographer agreed with those who said that the sun moved all night along paths which cannot be traced, behind lofty mountains, in the north beyond the ocean, and in the morning it came forth again from behind them.

[iv. 12.] "In a line with Scythia and the coast of the ocean is the country which is said to be that of the 'Rerefeni' and 'Sirdifeni'

('Scirdifrini'). The people of this country, according to what the Gothic scholar Aithanarit says, dwell among the rocks of the mountains, and both men and women are said to live by hunting, and to be entirely unacquainted both with meat and wine. This land is said to be colder than all others. Farther on by the side of the Serdifenni on the coast of the ocean is the land which is called Dania; this land, as the above-mentioned Aithanaridus and Eldevaldus and Marcomirus, the Gothic scholars, say, produces people who are swifter than all others." [These must be the Eruli.] "This Dania is now called the land of the Nordomanni." This is the first time the name Norman is used, so far as is known.

[v. 30.] "In the northern ocean itself, after the land of the Roxolani, is an island which is called Scanza, which is also called Old Scythia by most cosmographers. But in what manner the island of Scanza itself lies, we will with G.o.d's help relate."

He says, following Jordanes (see above, p. 130), that from this island other nations, amongst them the Goths and the Danes, besides the Gepidae, migrated.

It will be seen that the Ravenna geographer's statements about the Skridfinns, whose name is varied and corrupted even more than in Jordanes, bear a striking resemblance to those of Procopius, although he says he derived them from the Goth Aithanarit; if this is correct, then the latter must either have borrowed from Procopius, which is very probable, or he is older and was the common authority both of Procopius and the Ravenna geographer, and, if so, perhaps also of Ca.s.siodorus (?).

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cynocephali on a peninsula north-east of Norway (from the Hereford map)]

[Sidenote: aethicus Istricus, seventh century (?)]

An enigmatical work, probably dating from about the seventh century, which was much read in the Middle Ages, professes to be a Latin translation, by a certain Hieronymus, from a Christian book of travel by a Greek commonly called aethicus Istricus.[148] He is said to have travelled before the fourth century. The translator a.s.serts that aethicus had related many fabulous things, which he has not repeated, as he wished to keep to the sure facts; but among them we find many remarkable pieces of information, as that aethicus had seen with his own eyes on the north of the Caspian Sea the Amazons give the breast to Centaurs and Minotaurs, and when he was living in the town of Choolisma, built by j.a.phet's son Magog, he saw the sea of bitumen which forms the mouth of h.e.l.l and from which the cement for Alexander's wall of iron came. In Armenia he looked in vain for Noah's ark; but he saw dragons, ostriches, griffins, and ants as large and ferocious as dogs. He also mentioned griffins and treasures of gold in the north between the Tanais and the northern ocean. "The Scythians, Griffins, Tracontians and Saxons built ships of wattles smeared over with pitch" (perhaps it is meant that they were also covered with hides). These ships were extraordinarily swift. Among the Scythians there was said to be an able craftsman and great teacher, Grifo, who built ships with prows in the northern ocean. He was like the griffins or the flying fabulous birds. aethicus visited an island called Munitia north of Germania. There he found "Cenocephali" (dog-headed men). They were a hideous race. The Germanic peoples came to the island as merchants and called the people "Cananei." They go with bare calves, smear their hair with oil or fat and smell foully. They lead a dirty life and feed on unclean animals, mice, moles, etc. They live in felt tents in the woods far away by fens and swampy places. They have a number of cattle, fowls and eggs.[149] They know no G.o.d and have no king. They use more tin than silver. One might be tempted to think that this fable of dog-headed people in the north had arisen from the word "Kvaen" (Finn), which to a Greek like aethicus would sound like "cyon" (dog). The name "Cenocephali" may have been introduced in this way, while that of "Cananei" may have arisen by a sort of corrupt similarity of sound between Kvaen and the Old Testament people of Canaan. It might thus be Kvaenland or Finland that is here spoken of.

Their going with bare calves and living in felt tents may remind us of the Argippaei of Herodotus, who were bald (while in Mela they went bare-headed) and had felt tents in winter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Seven Sleepers in the Cave by the North Sea (from Olaus Magnus)]

[Sidenote: Paulus Warnefridi, 720-790]

The Langobard author Paulus Warnefridi, also called Diaconus (about 720-790), gives for the most part more or less confused extracts from earlier authors, but he seems besides to have obtained some new information about the North. Just as the Goth Jordanes (or Ca.s.siodorus, or Ablabius) makes the Goths emigrate from Ptolemy's Scandza, so Paulus, following earlier authors,[150] makes the Langobards proceed from Pliny's island Scatinavia, far in the north. It looks as though at that time a northern origin was held in high esteem. But Paulus describes the country, from the statements of those who have seen it, as not "really lying in the sea, but the waves wash the low sh.o.r.es." This points to a confusion here with a district called Scatenauge by the Elbe, which in a somewhat later MS. (about 807) of the Langobardic Law is mentioned as the home of the Langobards [cf. Lonborg, 1897, p. 27]. Paulus further relates that on the coast "north-west towards the uttermost boundaries of Germany" there lie seven men asleep in a cave, for how long is uncertain. They resemble the Romans in appearance, and both they and their clothes are unharmed, and they are regarded by the inhabitants as holy. The legend of the Seven Sleepers is already found in Gregory of Tours, who has it from Asia Minor, where it arose in the third century and was located at Ephesus [cf. J.

Koch, 1883]. The legend was very common in Germania, and we find it again later in tales of shipwreck on the coast of Greenland.[151]

"Near to this place [i.e., the cave with the seven men] dwell the 'Scritobini';[152] thus is this people called; they have snow even in summer time, and they eat nothing but the raw flesh of wild beasts, as they do not differ from the beasts themselves in intelligence, and they also make themselves clothes of their skins with the hair on.

Their name is explained from the word 'to leap' in the foreign tongue [i.e., Germanic], for by leaping with a certain art they overtake the wild beasts with a piece of wood bent like a bow. Among them is an animal which is not much unlike a stag, and I have seen a dress made of the hide of this animal, just as if it was bristling with hairs, and it was made like a tunic and reached to the knees, as the above-mentioned Scritobini wear it, as I have told. In these parts, at the summer solstice, there is seen for several days, even at night, the clearest light, and they have there much more daylight than elsewhere, as on the other hand, about the winter solstice, even if there is daylight, the sun itself is not seen there, and the day is shorter than in any other place, the nights also are longer; for the farther one goes away from the sun, the nearer the sun appears to the earth [the horizon], and the shadows become longer."...

[Ill.u.s.tration: The oldest known picture of a ski-runner (from the Hereford map's representation of Norway, thirteenth century)]

"And not far from the sh.o.r.e which we before spoke of [by the cave] on the west, where the ocean extends without bounds, is that very deep abyss of the waters which we commonly call the ocean's navel. It is said twice a day to suck the waves into itself, and to spew them out again; as is proved to happen along all these coasts, where the waves rush in and go back again with fearful rapidity. Such a gulf or whirlpool is called by the poet Virgil Caribdis, and in his poem he says it is in the strait by Sicily, as he says:

'Scilla lies on the right hand and the implacable Caribdis on the left.

And three times it sucks the vast billows down into the abyss with the deep whirlpool of the gulf, and it sends them up again into the air, and the wave lashes the stars.'

"By the whirlpool of which we have spoken it is a.s.serted that ships are often drawn in with such rapidity that they seem to resemble the flight of arrows through the air; and sometimes they are lost in this gulf with a very frightful destruction. Often just as they are about to go under, they are brought back again by a sudden shock of the waves, and they are sent out again thence with the same rapidity with which they were drawn in. It is a.s.serted that there is also another gulf of the same kind between Britain and the Gallician province"

[i.e., northern Spain], whereupon there follows a description of the tides on the south coast of France and at the mouths of the rivers, after which there is a highly coloured account of the horrors of the Ebudes, where they can hear the noise of the waters rushing towards a similar Caribdis.

Paulus Warnefridi evidently had a very erroneous idea of ski-running, which he made into a leaping instead of a gliding motion. He may have imagined that they jumped about on pieces of wood bent like bows. That the abyss of waters or navel of the sea is thought to be in the North may be due to reports either of the current in the Pentland Firth or of the Mosken-strom or the Salt-strom, which thus make their appearance here in literature, and which were afterwards developed into the widespread ideas of the Middle Ages about maelstroms and abysses in the sea, perhaps by being connected with the ancient Greek conception of the uttermost abyss (Tartarus, Anostus, Ginnungagap; see pp. 11, 12, 17), and as here with the description of the current in the Straits of Messina.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Maelstrom near the Lofoten Islands (from Olaus Magnus)]

Viktor Rydberg [1886, pp. 318, 425, ff.] supposed Paulus's description of the whirlpool to be derived from the Norse legends of the world's well, "Hvergelmer"--which causes the tides by the water flowing up and down through its subterranean channels--and of the quern "Grotte" at the bottom of the sea, which forms whirlpools when the waters run down into the hole in the mill-stone.[153] But it is perhaps just as probable that it is the southern, originally cla.s.sical ideas which have been localised in the Norse legends. As we have seen, we find in Virgil the same conception of a gulf in the sea which sucks the water into itself and sends it up again. Isidore says of the abyss (also repeated in Hraba.n.u.s Maurus):

"Abyssus is the impenetrable deep of the waters, or the caves of the hidden waters, from whence springs and rivers issue forth, but also those which run concealed beneath the ground. Therefore it is called Abyssus, for all streams return by hidden veins to their mother Abyssus."

It is credible that ideas such as this may have originated, or at any rate coloured, the myth of "Hvergelmer" (i.e., the noisy or bubbling kettle).

Isidore was early known in England, Ireland and Scandinavia. The whirlpool is also found among Orientals; thus Sindbad is drawn into it. Paulus's mention of whirlpools not only in the North, and off the Hebrides, but also between Britain and Spain and in the Straits of Messina, does not show that he derived the legend solely from the North. Later, on the other hand, in Adam of Bremen, the whirlpool becomes more exclusively northern, and later still we shall get it even at the North Pole itself.

Paulus Warnefridi also mentions Greek fabulous people such as the Dog-heads (Cynocephali) and the Amazons in North Germania. He says that the Langobards fought with a people called "a.s.sipitti," who lived in "Mauringa," and that they frightened them by saying that they had Cynocephali in their army, who drank human blood, their own if they could not get that of others. The Langobards were said to have been stopped by the Amazons at a river in Germany. The Langobard king, Lamissio, fought with the bravest of them, while he was swimming in the river, and slew her; and according to a prearranged agreement he thereby obtained for his people the right of crossing unhindered. Paulus regards the story as untrue, as the Amazons were supposed to have been destroyed long before; but he had nevertheless heard that there was a tribe of such women in the interior of Germany. The same idea of a female nation in Germany occurs again later in literature (cf. King Alfred's "Maega-land").

[Sidenote: Interpolation in Solinus, circa eighth century]

It has already been mentioned (p. 123) that in the MSS. of Solinus of the ninth century and later there is found a mention of the Ebudes, the Orcades and Thule which in the opinion of Mommsen is a later addition; and as it is not found in Isidore Hispalensis, who made extensive use of Solinus, it must have been introduced after his time (seventh century), but before the ninth century, when it occurs in a MS. As the addition about Thule, so far as I can judge, must show that this country is regarded as Norway, and as there are many indications that it was made by an Irish monk, it is further probable that it belongs to the period before the Irish discovery of Iceland, which then, according to Dicuil's book, became regarded as Thule. I think, therefore, we can place the addition at the beginning of the eighth century, and it will then be evidence of the knowledge of Norway which prevailed in the British Isles at that time.

After having mentioned Britain and the neighbouring islands the account proceeds [Solinus, c. 22]:

"From the Caledonian Promontory it is two days' sail for those who voyage to Tyle [Thule]. From thence begin the Ebudes islands [Hebrides], five in number [the five princ.i.p.al islands]. Their inhabitants live on fruits, fish and milk. Though there are many islands, they are all separated by narrow arms of the sea. They all together have but one king. The king owns nothing for himself alone, all is common property. Justice is imposed upon him by fixed laws, and lest he should be led away from the truth by covetousness, he learns righteousness by poverty, since he has no possessions; he is therefore supported by the people. No woman is given him in marriage, but he takes in turn her who pleases him at the moment. Thus he has neither the desire nor the hope of children. The second station for the voyager [to Thule] is provided by the Orcades. But the Orcades lie seven days' and the same number of nights' sail from the Ebudes, they are three in number [i.e., the three princ.i.p.al isles of the Shetlands]. They are uninhabited ('vacant homines'). They have no woods, but are rough with reeds and gra.s.s, the rest is bare sandy beach and rocks. From the Orcades direct to Thule is five days' and nights' sail. But Thule is fertile and rich in late-ripening fruits.

The inhabitants there live from the beginning of spring with their cattle, and feed on herbs and milk; the fruits of the trees they keep for winter. They have women in common, regular marriage is not known among them."

This description cannot well be pure invention, and unless it may be thought to be transferred from another place, we must believe it to be derived from a distant knowledge of Norway. Their living with the cattle in spring is in accordance with this, but not their subsistence on the fruits of the trees. Here one would rather be led to think of the Hesperides and their golden apples, unless we are to suppose that they collected nuts and berries. That the inhabitants of Thule had women in common might be connected with the predilection of the Scandinavians for polygamy, of which we also hear from other sources; but this is uncertain.

Even the Greeks and Romans saw in the absence of regular marriage a sign of barbarism, which brought man near to the beasts, and which they therefore attributed to people at the extreme limits of the earth; cf.

Herodotus, and Strabo's description of the Irish (p. 81). If the Caledonian Promontory means Scotland, it is surprising that it should be two days' sail to the Hebrides, and that these were the first and the Orcades the second station on the way to Thule. We must then suppose that there has been a jumbling together of several authorities, which is not very probable if this is a later interpolation, since we must doubtless believe the interpolating copyist to have thought himself possessed of knowledge of these matters. If, however, we suppose him to have been an Irishman, and to have looked upon the voyage to Thule with Ireland as a starting-point, then it becomes more consistent. It is then two days' sail from Ireland to the Hebrides, seven days thence to the Shetlands, and then five to Thule; that is, the whole voyage will last fourteen days; and this may be about right. It is undeniably somewhat surprising that there should be no inhabitants on the Orcades, or Shetland, at that time.

THE DISCOVERY OF THE FAROES AND ICELAND BY THE IRISH IN THE EIGHTH CENTURY

[Sidenote: Dicuil, circa 825]

The earliest voyages northward to the Arctic Circle, of which there is certain literary mention in the early Middle Ages, are the Irish monks'

expeditions across the sea in their small boats, whereby they discovered the Faroes and Iceland, and, at all events for a time, lived there. Of these the Irish monk Dicuil gave an account, as early as about the year 825, in his description of the earth, "De Mensura Orbis Terrae" [cf.

Letronne, 1814, pp. 38 f., 131 f.]. It is characteristic of the spiritual tendency of that period of the Middle Ages that these remarkable voyages were not, like other voyages of discovery, undertaken from love of gain, thirst for adventure, or desire of knowledge, but chiefly from the wish to find lonely places, where these anchorites might dwell in peace, undisturbed by the turmoil and temptations of the world.[154] In this way the unknown islands near the Arctic Ocean must have seemed to satisfy all their requirements; but their joy was short-lived; the disturbers of the North, the Vikings from Norway, soon came there also and drove them out or oppressed them.

What Dicuil tells us of the Scandinavian North is chiefly derived from Pliny, and contains nothing new. But of the unknown islands in the northern ocean he writes [7, 3]:

[Sidenote: Discovery of the Faroes by the Irish]

"There are many more islands in the ocean north of Britain, which can be reached from the northern British Isles in two days' and two nights' direct sailing with full sail and a favourable wind. A trustworthy priest ('presbyter religiosus') told me that he had sailed for two summer-days and an intervening night in a little boat with two thwarts [i.e., two pairs of oars],[155] and landed on one of these islands. These islands are for the most part small; nearly all are divided from one another by narrow sounds, and upon them anchorites, who proceeded from our Scotia [i.e., Ireland], have lived for about a hundred years ('in centum ferme annis'). But as since the beginning of the world they had always been deserted, so are they now by reason of the Northman pirates emptied of anchorites, but full of innumerable sheep and a great number of different kinds of sea-birds. We have never found these islands spoken of in the books of authors."

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Faroes]

This description best suits the Faroes,[156] where, therefore, Irish monks had previously lived, and from whence they had been driven out by Norwegian seafarers, probably at the close of the eighth century. As, however, Dicuil is so well aware of the islands being full of sheep, the Irish may have continued to visit them occasionally, like the trustworthy priest referred to, who sailed there in a boat with two thwarts. Dicuil's statement that they were then "emptied of anchorites" must doubtless be interpreted to mean that they were uninhabited; but this does not sound very probable. Rather, there are many indications that the islands had an original Celtic population, which continued to live there after the settlement of the Nors.e.m.e.n.

There are some Celtic place-names, such as "Dimon" (the islands "Stora Dimon" and "Litla Dimon," or "Dimun meiri" and "Dimun minni") from the Celtic "dimun" (== double neck, thus like Norwegian "Tviberg").[157]

As such Celtic place-names cannot have been introduced later, the Norwegians must have got them from the Celts who were there before, and with whom they had intercourse. The language of the Faroes has also many loan-words from Celtic, mostly for agriculture and cattle-farming, and for the flora and fauna of the islands. These might be explained by many of the Norwegian settlers having previously lived in the Scottish islands or in Ireland, or having had frequent communication with those countries [cf. A. Bugge, 1905, p. 358]; but it seems more natural to suppose that the loan-words are derived from a primitive Celtic population. To this must be added that the people of the Southern Faroes are still dark, with dark eyes and black hair, and differ from the more Germanic type of the northern islands [cf. D.

Bruun, 1902, p. 5]. The name "Faeroene" (sheep-islands) shows that there probably were sheep before the Nors.e.m.e.n came, which so far agrees with Dicuil; these sheep must then have been introduced by the earlier Celts.

According to this it seems possible that the Irish monks came to the islands not merely as anchorites, but also to spread Christianity among a Celtic population. The Norwegians arrived later, took possession of the islands, and oppressed the Celts.

[Sidenote: Irish Discovery of Iceland]

But the bold Irish monks extended their voyages farther north. Dicuil has also to tell us how they found Iceland, which he calls Thule, and lived there. After having mentioned what Pliny, Solinus, Isidore (Hispalensis) and Priscia.n.u.s say about Thule (Thyle), he continues [7, 2, 6]:

"It is now thirty years since certain priests, who had been on that island from the 1st of February to the 1st of August, told that not only at the time of the summer solstice, but also during the days before and after, the setting sun at evening conceals itself as it were behind a little mound, so that it does not grow dark even for the shortest s.p.a.ce of time, but whatsoever work a man will do, even picking the lice out of his shirt (pediculos de camisia extrahere), he may do it just as though the sun were there, and if they had been upon the high mountains of the island perhaps the sun would never be concealed by them [i.e., the mountains]. In the middle of this very short time it is midnight in the middle of the earth, and on the other hand I suppose in the same way that at the winter solstice and for a few days on either side of it the dawn is seen for a very short time in Thule, when it is midday in the middle of the earth. Consequently I believe that they lie and are in error who wrote that there was a stiffened (concretum) sea around it [i.e., Thyle], and likewise those who said that there was continuous day without night from the vernal equinox till the autumnal equinox, and conversely continuous night from the autumnal equinox till the vernal, since those who sailed thither reached it in the natural time for great cold, and while they were there always had day and night alternately except at the time of the summer solstice; but a day's sail northward from it they found the frozen (congelatum) sea."