In Northern Mists Volume I Part 12

[Ill.u.s.tration: Anglo-Saxon Map of the World, "Cottoniana," perhaps of the eleventh century (from K. Miller)]

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 Skne ("Sconeg"), 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," oland and Gotland, and these countries belonged to Sweden ("Sweom"). To starboard he had the whole way Wendland ("Weonodland" == Mecklenburg and Pomerania) as far as the mouths of the Vistula ("Wislemuan"). Then follows a description of "Estmere" (Frisches Haff), Esthonia, which was approximately East Prussia, and the Esthonians. Henceforward we can count these parts of Europe as belonging to the known world.

[Sidenote: "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 [Mullenhoff 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.

When the strong wind drives ships upon that course, Then the skilled seamen have no defence against it, But they must go into the very bosom of the sea.

Alas! Alas!

They never come out again.

If G.o.d will not deliver them, they must rot there.

I was in Utrecht as a fugitive.

For we had two bishops, who did us much harm.

Since I could not remain at home, I lived my life in exile.

When I came to Utrecht, I found a good man, The very good Reginpreht, he delighted in doing all that was good.

He was a wise man, so that he pleased G.o.d, A pious priest, of perfect goodness.

He told me truly, as many more there [also said], He had sailed to Iceland--there he found much wealth-- With meal and with wine and with alder-wood.

This they buy for fires, for wood is dear with them.

There is abundance of all that belongs to provisions and to sport [pleasure]

Except that there the sun does not shine--they lack that delight-- Thereby the ice there becomes so hard a crystal, That they make a fire above it, till the crystal glows.

Therewith they cook their food, and warm their rooms.

There a bundle of alder-wood is given [sold] for a penny."

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 Carthaginians and Phnicians (see pp. 40, 66 f.).[178] It is possible that it may have found its way into this poem by purely literary channels from cla.s.sical authors; but the description seems to bear traces of more life, and it rather points to a legend which lived in popular tradition.

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 would be valuable in Iceland, with its lack of corn and poverty in trees, it points to knowledge of the facts, and does not seem improbable. That there should be great wealth there does not agree with Adam's description, which tends in the contrary direction; but as immediately afterwards abundance of provisions is spoken of, it is probable that the rich fisheries were meant, and perhaps the breeding of sheep, which was already developed at that time.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 of statements that the Icelanders heated stones for their baths? In some parts of Norway red-hot stones are also used for heating water for brewing and cooking [cf. A. h.e.l.land: Hedemarkens Amt].

Perhaps tales of their sometimes using melted ice for drinking water may also have contributed to the legend (?). In any case, as Adam's account shows still better, diverse statements about ice, fire (volcanoes), and steam (boiling springs ?), etc., may have been confused to form these legends about the ice in Iceland.

[Sidenote: 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 Sall.u.s.t, he has used Orosius, Martia.n.u.s Capella, Solinus, Macrobius and Bede; he was also acquainted with Paulus Warnefridi's history of the Langobards, and probably Hraba.n.u.s Maurus, possibly also with some of Isidore. In the archiepiscopal archives he was able to collect valuable materials from the missions to heathens in the North, and to these was added the verbal information he had obtained at the Danish court.

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 (satrapae) of the Danes, and Harald [Hardrde], 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 a.s.sert 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 Graecia [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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Adam of Bremen's geographical idea of the countries and islands of the North, as represented by A. A. Bjornbo (1910)]

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."

[Sidenote: 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 sh.o.r.es 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 "Kvaenland," which was thought to be formed of the Old Norse word for woman: "kvaen" or "kvan"

(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 Finnish "Kainulaiset." We have seen that Alfred called it in Anglo-Saxon "Cwen-Land" or "Cwena-Land," which also means woman-land. Here it is probably Southern Finland. Adam probably took the idea from earlier authors.[181] To him this name is a realisation of the Greeks' Amazons, who have been moved northward to the Gulf of Bothnia, just as the Scandinavians become Hyperboreans. In this way ancient geographical myths come to life again and acquire new local colour. Of these Amazons, he says:

[Sidenote: Cynocephali]

"some a.s.sert 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 s.e.x, 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 aethicus had already placed the Cynocephali on an island north of Germania. The revival of the Greek-Indian fable of dog-headed men seems, on the one hand, to be due to Greeks who had understood the word "Kvaen" as Greek ????

(dog), and either through aethicus or some other channel the idea thus formed must have reached Adam. On the other hand, the notion of them as prisoners in Russia may be due to Germanic-speaking peoples, who misinterpreted the national name "Huns," which was used both for Magyars and Slavs, and have taken it to mean Hund (dog).[183] But Adam himself did not understand the Greek name's meaning of dog-heads, and confuses it with another fable of men with heads in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s [cf. Rymbegla, 1780, p.

350; Hauksbok, 1892, p. 167]. Of the Scandinavians Adam says [iv. 12]:

[Sidenote: 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 Martia.n.u.s 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 pa.s.sed 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 surpa.s.sing 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 at the same time; the rich and the chiefs have them without number. For they count also as legitimate the sons which are born of such a connection. But it is punished with death, if any one has had intercourse with another man's wife, or violated a virgin, or robbed another of his goods or done him wrong.

Even if all the Hyperboreans are remarkable for hospitality, our Sueones are pre-eminent; with them it is worse than any disgrace to deny a wayfarer shelter," etc.

[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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Uniped (from the Hereford map)]

Adam relates much about these people, their customs, religion, and so forth:

[Sidenote: Finns and Skridfinns]

[iv. 24.] "Between Nordmannia and Sueonia dwell the Wermelani and Finnedi (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 Riphaean 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 activity, and it is uncertain from whence they come. They come suddenly, he said, sometimes once a year or every third year, and if they are not resisted with all force they devastate the whole district, and go back again. Many other things are usually related, which I, since I study brevity, have omitted, so that they may tell them who a.s.sert that they have seen them."