In Northern Mists Volume I Part 13

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cannibals in Eastern Europe (from the Hereford map)]

[Sidenote: 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 sh.o.r.e 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 gnas.h.i.+ng 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 different and unusual to our people, I will leave these and other things to be related at greater length by the inhabitants of that country."

Then follows a reference to Trondhjem and the ecclesiastical history of the country, etc.

[Sidenote: 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 sh.o.r.es of the Frisians on the south ... towards the rising of the sun it has the Danes, the entrance to the Baltic Sea, and the Nors.e.m.e.n, 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:

[Sidenote: 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 encompa.s.ses the whole world. Immediately opposite to Nortmannia it has many islands which are not unknown and are now nearly all subject to the Nors.e.m.e.n, and which therefore cannot be pa.s.sed by by us, since consequently they belong to the see of Hamburg. The first of them are the Orchades insulae [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 Nors.e.m.e.n'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 ?]."...

[Sidenote: Thule or Iceland]

[iv. 35.] "The island of Thyle, which is separated from the others by an infinite distance, lies far out in the middle of the ocean and, as is said, is scarcely known. Both the Roman authors and the barbarians have much to say of it which is worth mentioning. They say that Thyle is the extreme island of all, where at the summer solstice, when the sun is pa.s.sing through the sign of Cancer, there is no night, and correspondingly at the winter solstice no day. Some think that this is the case for six months at a time. Bede also says that the light summer nights in Britain indicate without doubt that, just as at the summer solstice they have there continuous day for six months, so it is nights at the winter solstice, when the sun is hidden. Pytheas of Ma.s.salia writes that this occurs in the island of Thyle, which lies six days' sail north of Britain, and it is this Thyle which is now called Iceland from the ice which there binds the sea. They report this remarkable thing about it, that this ice appears to be so black and dry that, on account of its age, it burns when it is kindled.[190]

This island is immensely large, so that it contains many people who live solely upon the produce of their flocks and cover themselves with their wool. No corn grows there, and there is only very little timber,[191] for which reason the inhabitants are obliged to live in underground holes, and share their dwellings with their cattle. They thus lead a holy life in simplicity, as they do not strive after more than what nature gives; they can cheerfully say with the Apostle: 'if we have clothing and food, let us be content therewith!' for their mountains are to them in the stead of cities, and their springs serve them for pleasure. I regard this people as happy, whose poverty none covets, but happiest in that they have now all adopted Christianity.

There is much that is excellent in their customs, especially their good disposition, whereby everything is shared, not only with the natives, but with strangers." After referring to their good treatment of their bishop, etc., he concludes: "Thus much I have been credibly informed of Iceland and extreme Thyle, but I pa.s.s over what is fabulous."

[Sidenote: 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 sh.o.r.e 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 fas.h.i.+on 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.

[Sidenote: Halogaland]

"A third island is Halagland [Halogaland], 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...o...b..s 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 the ignorant heathens call that land holy and blessed, which has such a marvel to exhibit to mortals. But the king of the Danes and many others have stated that this takes place there as well as in Suedia and Norvegia and the other islands which are there."

[Sidenote: 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 n.o.blest 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 Marcia.n.u.s 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 s.h.i.+ps, and when the boundaries of the vanis.h.i.+ng earth were darkened before his face, he scarcely escaped the immense gulf of the abyss by turning back.)[195]

[Sidenote: Frisian expedition to the North Pole]

[iv. 39.] "Archbishop Adalbert, of blessed memory, likewise told us that in his predecessor's days certain n.o.blemen 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d's mercy, that He might receive their souls, this backward-running stream of the sea caught some of their fellows'

s.h.i.+ps, but the rest were shot out by the issuing current far beyond the others. When they had thus by G.o.d's help been delivered from the imminent danger, which had been before their very eyes, they saved themselves upon the waves by rowing with all their strength.

[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 quant.i.ty 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 s.h.i.+ps. Then suddenly they saw people of marvellous height coming behind them, whom we call Cyclopes, and before them ran dogs which surpa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 cla.s.sical notions he has acquired from reading the learned authors of late Roman and early mediaeval 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.

[Sidenote: 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 is full of ice and mist, it might be thought that this is regarded as lying farthest out in a northern direction. But this would not agree with Adam's earlier statement [iv. 10], where Iceland and Greenland are given as the most distant islands, and "there this ocean, which is called the dark one, forms the boundary." The explanation must be that, as already remarked (p. 195), his statement about the ocean beyond Wineland is probably a later addition, though possibly by Adam himself. It is obviously inserted somewhat disconnectedly, and perhaps has been put in the wrong place, and this is also made probable by the quotation from Marcia.n.u.s about Thyle, which has nothing to do with Wineland, but refers on the contrary to Iceland (cf. p.

193).[196] Omitting this interpolation, the text says of the geographical position merely that the King of the Danes also mentioned the island of Wineland, as discovered by many in that ocean, i.e., the outer ocean, and so far as this goes it might be imagined as lying anywhere. That no importance is attached to the order in which the islands are named appears also from the fact that Halagland is put after Iceland and Greenland, although it is expressly stated that it lay nearer Norway. That Adam, after having described the last-named country a long while before, here gratuitously mentions Halagland (Halogaland) as an island by itself[197]

together with Iceland and Greenland, shows how deficient his information about the northernmost regions really was.

As will be further shown in the later chapter on Wineland, Adam's ideas of that country, of the wine and the corn there, must be derived from legends about the Fortunate Isles, which were called by the Nors.e.m.e.n "Vinland hit Goa." This legend must have been current in the North at that time, and possibly it may already have been connected with the discovery of countries in the west. But it is, perhaps, not altogether accidental that Wineland should be mentioned immediately after Halagland.

For as the latter name was regarded as meaning the Holy Land,[198] it may be natural that Wineland or the Fortunate Isles, originally the Land of the Blest, should be placed in its neighbourhood. To this the resemblance in sound between Vinland and Finland (or, more correctly, Finmark, the land of the Finns or Lapps) may, consciously or unconsciously, have contributed; later in the Middle Ages these names were often confused and interchanged.[199] Finns and Finland were sometimes spelt in German with a V; and V and F were transposed in geographical names even outside Germany, as when, in an Icelandic geographical tract attributed to Abbot Nikulas Bergsson of Thvera (ob. 1159), Venice is transformed by popular etymology to "Feneyjar" [cf. F. Jonsson, 1901, p. 948]. It is particularly interesting that the Latin "vinum" (wine) became in Irish legendary poetry "fin," and the vine was called "fine," as in the poem of the Voyage of Bran [Kuno Meyer, 1895, vol. i., pp. xvii., 9, 21].

[Ill.u.s.tration: The so-called St. Severus version, of about 1050, of the Beatus map (eighth century)]

[Sidenote: 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 "c.u.mene," as a circular island or disc divided into three, surrounded by the outer ocean (the Ocea.n.u.s 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 Western Ocean extends northwards from the Orchades "infinitely around the circle of the earth" ("infinites...o...b..m terrae s.p.a.ciis ambit") may point to this. It is true that immediately afterwards he has an obscure statement that at Greenland "ibi terminat ocea.n.u.s qui dicitur caligans," which has usually been translated as "there ends the ocean, which is called the dark one"

(?); but it is difficult to get any sense out of it. One explanation might be that he imagined Greenland as lying out on the extreme edge of the earth's disc, near the abyss, and that thus the ocean (which in that region was called dark ?) ended here in that direction (i.e., in its breadth), while in its length it extended farther continuously around "the circle of the earth." This view would, no doubt, conflict with his statement in another place that the earth was round, which can only be understood as meaning that it had the form of a globe. But this last idea he took from Bede, and he has scarcely a.s.similated it sufficiently for it to permeate his views of the circle of the earth and the universal ocean, as also appears from his mention of the gulf at its outer limit. If we had been able to suppose that Adam really thought the Western Ocean on the north flowed past the Orchades, and thence infinitely towards the west around the globe of the earth (instead of the circle of the earth), this would better suit the statement that Ireland lay to the left, Norway to the right, and Iceland and Greenland farther out (also to the right ?).

This would agree with the statement that Norway was the extreme land on the north, and that beyond it (i.e., farther north ?) there was no human habitation, but only the infinite ocean which surrounds the whole world, and in which opposite ("ex adverso") Norway lie many islands, etc.

According to this, these islands must be imagined as lying to the west, and not to the north of Norway. But besides the fact that such a view of the extent of the ocean towards the west would conflict with the prevailing cartographical representation of that time, it is contradicted by his a.s.sertion that Greenland lies farther out in the ocean (than Iceland) and opposite the mountains of Suedia and the Riphean range, which must be supposed to lie on the continent to the north-east of Norway; this cannot very well be possible unless these islands are to be placed out in the ocean farther north than Norway, and there is thus on this point a difficult contradiction in Adam's work. The circ.u.mstance that Halogaland is spoken of as an island after Iceland and Greenland is also against the probability that the ocean, in which these islands lay, was imagined to extend infinitely towards the west; the direction is, in this manner, given as northerly. The same thing appears from the description of the voyage of the Frisian n.o.blemen: when they steered northward with the Orkneys to port and Norway to starboard they came to the frozen Iceland, and when they proceeded thence towards the North Pole, they saw behind them all the islands previously mentioned. Dr. A. A. Bjornbo has suggested to me that according to Adam's way of expressing himself "terminat" must here mean "forms the boundary," whereby we get the translation given above (p. 192), which seems to give better sense; but in any case Adam's description of these regions is not quite clear.

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 n.o.blemen.

Just as these pages are going to press I have received from Dr. Axel Anthon Bjornbo his excellent essay on "Adam of Bremen's view of the North"

[1909]. By Dr. Bjornbo'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. Bjornbo 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. Bjornbo has done in his map.

Possibly he has also put the other islands rather far north, and has curved the north coast of Scandinavia somewhat too much in a westerly direction.

Through Dr. Bjornbo'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 Bjornbo's as regards the northern regions.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER VI

FINNS, SKRIDFINNS (LAPPS), AND THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF SCANDINAVIA

Before we proceed to the Norwegians' great contributions to the exploration of the northern regions, we shall attempt to collect and survey what is known, and what may possibly be concluded, about the most northern people of Europe, the Finns, and the earliest settlement of Scandinavia.