In Northern Mists Volume I Part 28

[81] The text has here "alium liberis (or 'libris') intactum quaerimus...o...b..m," which might be: "towards another world untouched by books," that is, of which no book has said anything. As such an expression is quite at variance with the generally pompous style of the poem, Detlefsen [1897, p.

200, 1904, p. 47] has thought that "libris" here was "libra" == "libella,"

that is, the level used by builders, with two legs and a plumb hanging in the middle, and the meaning would then be that this part of the earth's circ.u.mference was not touched by the plumb of the level, but that the latter was obliquely inclined over the abyss at the end of the world. This explanation seems to make Pedo's poem even more artificial than it is, and Detlefsen appears to think [1897, p. 200] that the builder's level is used to find perpendicular lines, instead of horizontal. It is probable, however, that such an idea of a gulf or abyss at the end of the world was current at that time, as it was much later (cf. Adam of Bremen, and also the Ginnungagap of the Nors.e.m.e.n), even if it does not appear in this poem.

It might be thought that "libris" was here used in the sense of sounding-lead, so that the meaning would be, "untouched by soundings," in other words, a sea where no soundings had been made; but this meaning of "libris" would be unusual, and besides one would then expect some word for sea, and not "orbem."

[82] I cannot, with Detlefsen [1904, p. 48], find anything in this expression to show that Augustus gives the Greeks the credit for having penetrated beyond the Cimbrian Cape earlier.

[83] Cf. Mullenhoff, ii., 1887, p. 285, and iv., 1900, p. 45; Holz, 1894, p. 23; Detlefsen, 1904, p. 47.

[84] K. Miller [vi., 1898, p. 105] proposes to read "Gotorum rex" (the king of the Goths) instead of the "Botorum rex" of the MSS. The last name is otherwise unknown, and has also been read "Boiorum." Pliny, who has the same story almost word for word [Nat. Hist., ii. c. 67, 170] says that the same Celer had the Indians from the king of the Suevi.

[85] This was a common idea among the Greeks about the Amazons [cf.

Hippocrates, ?e?? ae???, etc., c. 17; Strabo, xi. 504; Diodorus, ii. 45]; it has even been sought to derive the name itself from this, since "mazos"

(a???) means breast, and "a" (a) is the negative particle; this would therefore be "without b.r.e.a.s.t.s." But other explanations of the origin of the name have been given, e.g., that they were not suckled at the breast.

It is possible that the name meant something quite different, but that owing to its resemblance to the Greek word for breast it gave rise to the legend, and not vice versa. In Latin the Amazons were sometimes called "Unimammia" (one-breasted), but in Greek art they were always represented with well-developed b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Hippocrates says that the right b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the Scythian women were burned off by the mother with a special bronze instrument, while the girls were quite small, because "then the breast ceased to grow, and all force and development were transmitted to the right shoulder and the arm."

[86] Cf. Herodotus, iv. cc. 116, 117.

[87] Cf. Herodotus, iv. c. 22.

[88] These are Herodotus's "Argippaei" or "Argimpaei" [iv. c. 23], who lived in tents of felt in winter. They were bald, whereas those of Mela go bare-headed.

[89] To understand [like K. Miller, vi., 1898, p. 105] "vectae" as the name of an island ("Vectis" == the Isle of Wight) seems in itself somewhat improbable, and is moreover excluded by Mela's rhetorical style, which demands a clause following Haemodae to balance that attached to Orcades just before.

[90] These "Belgae" are, of course, the same as the "Belcae" already mentioned by Mela as the Scythian people in the northernmost part of Scythia (see above, p. 89). What people is meant is uncertain.

[91] Sophus Bugge [1904, pp. 156 f.] thinks that Coda.n.u.s may come from an Old Norse word "Ko," which meant a shallow fjord or a shallow place in the water (equivalent to old Indian "gadha-m") and which according to him is akin to the root "Ka" in some Norwegian place-names. "Coda.n.u.s sinus"

("Koda," accus. "Kodan") is then the shallow sea, or Cattegat, especially near the Belts. "Codan-ovia" is the island in "Kodan." Mullenhoff [1887, ii. p. 284] and Much [1893, p. 207] have connected "Coda.n.u.s" with Old High German "quoden" (== femina, interior pars c.o.xae) from the same root as the Anglo-Saxon "codd" (== serpent, sack, bag), Middle Low German "koder" (== belly, abdomen), Old Norse "kori" (== s.c.r.o.t.u.m). It would then mean a sack-inlet or sack-bay, equal to the Frisian "Jade," or else a narrower inlet to an extended bay of the sea (the Baltic ?). The explanation does not seem quite natural. R. Keyser [1868, p. 82] derives the name from "G.o.da.n.u.s," i.e., the Gothic, although the Goths at that time were usually called "Gutones" by the Romans. Ahlenius's suggestion [1900, p. 24] that Coda.n.u.s might be an old copyist's error for "Toutonos" (Teutons), because one MS. reads Thoda.n.u.s, does not sound probable. Detlefsen [1904, p. 31]

thinks that the name Coda.n.u.s is preserved in Katte(n)-gat, which would mean the inlet (gat) to Coda.n.u.s, which would then come to include the whole of the Baltic. If Bugge's explanation given above is correct, it might however mean the shallow gat or inlet.

[92] Professor Alf Torp calls my attention to R. Much's [1895, p. 37]

explanation of "Kobandoi" as a Germanic "*Kowandoz," a derivation from the word cow. This should therefore be divided "Kow-and-," where "and" is a suffix, and the meaning would be a cow-people.

[93] I have proposed this explanation to Professor Alf Torp; he finds that it "might indeed be possible, but not altogether probable."

[94] It has been sought to derive "Daner" from an original Germanic word, equivalent to Anglo-Saxon "denu" (Gothic "*danei") and "dene" for dale, and its meaning has been thought to be "dwellers in dales or lowlands"

[cf. Much, 1895, p. 40; S. Bugge, 1890, p. 236].

[95] That they lived in the sea or bay must, of course, mean that they lived on islands; and the northern part of Jutland, north of the Limfiord, was probably looked upon as an island; but the Cimbrian Promontory is not mentioned; it occurs first in Pliny. The Germanic form of the name, "himbroz," perhaps still survives in the Danish district of Himmerland, the old Himbersyssel, with the town of Aalborg [cf. Much, 1905, p. 100].

[96] There is a resemblance of name which may be more than accidental between Mela's "neae," or Pliny's "onae," and Tacitus's "Aviones"

["Germania," c. 40], who lived on the islands of North Frisia and the neighbouring coast. "Aviones" evidently comes from a Germanic "*awjonez,"

Gothic "*aujans," Old High German "ouwon" (cf. Old Norse "ey," Old High German "ouwa" for island), which means islanders. In the Anglo-Saxon poem "Widsid" they are called "eowe" or "eowan" [cf. Grimm, 1880, p. 330 (472), Much, 1893, p. 195; 1905, p. 101]. It is possible that the Greeks, on hearing the Germanic name, connected it with the Greek word "onae" (== egg-eaters), and thereby the whole idea of egg-eating may have arisen, without anything having been related about it.

[97] To this it might be objected that he ought in that case to have obtained much information also about the interior of Scythia and Sarmatia; but in the first place this is not certain, as the special goal of the merchants was the amber countries, and they would therefore keep to the known routes and travel rapidly through--and in the second, Pliny actually mentions a good many tribes in the interior. He says, it is true [iv. 26, 91], of Agrippa's estimate of the size of Sarmatia and Scythia, that he considers such estimates too uncertain in these parts of the earth; but to conclude from this, as Detlefsen [1904, p. 34] has done, that Pliny's Greek authorities cannot have received their information by the land route, seems to me unreasonable, since Pliny perhaps did not even know how his authorities had obtained their knowledge.

[98] This river is not mentioned elsewhere and must be invented, Hecataeus of Abdera (circa 300 B.C.) having imagined that it rose in mountains of this name in the interior of Asia and fell into the northern ocean.

[99] This is certainly wrong. The name "Amalcium" cannot come from any northern language, but must come from the Greek "malkios" (a?????), which means "stiffening," "freezing"; "a" must here be an emphatic particle.

[100] This Greek is given as an authority in several pa.s.sages of Pliny; he is also mentioned by Ptolemy, but is not otherwise known. He may have lived about 100 B.C. [cf. Detlefsen, 1904, pp. 23-25].

[101] On account of the syllable "rus," which is found in Phnician names (e.g., Rusazus, Ruscino, Ruspino) and which means headland, cape, it has been sought to derive it from the Semitic; but Detlefsen [1904, p. 24]

thinks it more reasonable to suppose it Germanic. Not the smallest trace of Phnician names has been found in the north. R. Keyser [1868, p. 165]

thinks the name, which he reads "Rubeas," "is without doubt the Welsh 'rhybyz'" (rhybudd == sign, warning); but the word cannot have had this form in Pliny's time.

[102] The name may be either Celtic or Old Germanic. In Celtic "mori,"

Irish "muir," Cymric "mor," is sea; but R. Much [1893, p. 220] thinks that Germanic "mari" and Gothic "marei" (German "Meer," Latin "mare") may also have been p.r.o.nounced formerly with "o." "Marusa" is related to Irish "marb," Cymric "marw" for dead; but according to Much it may be of Germanic origin and have had the form "*marusaz" (cf. "*marwaz") with the meaning of motionless, lifeless. "Morimarusa" would thus be the "motionless sea," which reminds one of Pytheas's kindred ideas of the sluggish, congealed sea ("mare pigrum, prope immotum mare"). If the name is of Germanic origin, this does not debar its being derived from Pytheas (and taken from him by Philemon); he may have got it from Norway. If Rusbeas is southern Norway, this would point in the same direction. But it is doubtless more reasonable to suppose that the name is derived from the Cimbri, who are mentioned in connection with it, while Pliny does not mention any people in Norway.

[103] Hergt [1893, p. 40] thinks that "Morimarusa" would be the Baltic (and the Cattegat), which was called dead because it had no tides and was frozen in winter. "Rusbeas" would thus be the point of the Skaw. In this way he has two names for the Baltic, and two, if not three, for the Skaw.

This interpretation seems to be even less consistent than that given above. Pliny in another pa.s.sage mentions (see pp. 65, 106) that the sea called "Cronium" was a day's sail beyond Thule, which lay to the north of Britain and within the Arctic Circle. This in itself makes it difficult for Cronium to begin at Lindesnes, but if it has to begin at Skagen, and thus be the Skagerak, it becomes still worse.

[104] This must come from an Old Germanic word "*glez," Anglo-Saxon "glaer," for amber. It is the same word as the Norwegian "glas" or Danish "glar," which has come to mean gla.s.s.

[105] The origin of the name "Saevo" cannot be determined with certainty.

Forbiger [1848, iii. p. 237] thinks it is Kjolen, and a.s.serts that it is a Norwegian name which is still found in the form of "Seve," ridge; but no such name is known in Norway. It seems possible that the name may be connected with the Gothic "saivs" for sea (cf. Old Norse "saer"); but it may also be supposed to have arisen from a corruption of "svevus"; in any case it was so regarded in the Middle Ages. Solinus says [c. 20, 1], following Pliny, that "Mons Saevo ... forms the commencement of Germany,"

but Isidore Hispalensis says that "Suevus Mons" forms the north-east boundary of Germany, and on the Hereford Map (about 1280) a mountain chain, "Mons Sueuus," runs in north-east Germany to a bay of the sea called "Sinus Germanicus," which may be the Baltic. On the Ebstorf map (1284) "Mons Suevus" has followed the Suevi southwards to Swabia. It is also possible that Ptolemy's mountain chain "Syeba" (S??a, vi. c. 14) in northernmost Asia (62 N. lat.) has something to do with Pliny's "Saevo."

There has been much guessing as to where the latter is to be sought: some [cf. Detlefsen, 1904, p. 28] think it was Kjolen, although it is quite incomprehensible how this far northern range could be connected with Coda.n.u.s; others [cf. Lonborg, 1897, p. 20] that it was in Mecklenburg or Pomerania or even in Jutland [Geijer, 1825, p. 77], where no mountain is to be found, least of all an immense one ("inmensus"). Pliny's words could be most simply connected with the Norwegian mountains [cf. Holz, 1894, p.

25]. It may indeed be supposed, as Mullenhoff [iv., 1900, p. 600] thinks, that the men of Augustus's fleet, in 5 A.D., may have seen in the Cattegat or heard of the "Sea-mountains" of the Scandinavian (or rather, Swedish) coast, "*Saivabergo" or "*Saivagabergia," which rose up over the sea, and the same of which became in Latin "Mons Saevo"; but perhaps it is just as reasonable to suppose that the information may be derived from the Germans of Jutland, who had communication with Norway and knew its high mountainous country, and that therefore it did not originate with the low west coast of Sweden.

[106] One might be tempted to connect the name "Scadinavia" with the old Norse G.o.ddess Skade or Skai, who was of Finnish race; she was black-haired, lived in the mountains in the interior of the country, and was amongst other things the G.o.ddess of ski-running. The name Scadinavia would then be of Finnish origin. This derivation has also been put forward [cf. Mullenhoff, ii., 1887, pp. 55 f., 357 f.]. The termination "avi,"

"avia," must then be the same as "ovia" (see p. 94). This explanation would take for granted an original non-Germanic, so-called "Finnish"

population in south Sweden (which does not appear impossible; see below); but it will then be difficult to explain why the name should have survived only in the most southern part, Skne. Sophus Bugge [1896, p. 424] thought that "Scadinavia" (later "Scadanavia") is related to the common Norwegian place-name "Skovin" or Skoien ("vin" == pasture) and may come from a lost Old Norse word "*skaa" (old Slavonic "skotu") for cattle. "Skovin" would then be cattle-pasture. From "*skaa" the word "*skaanaz" may be regularly derived, with the meaning of herdsman; and "Skadan-avia" or "Skadinavia" will be herdsman's pastures, since the termination "avia" may have the same meaning as the German "Au" or "Aue" (good pasture, meadow).

The Old Norse "Skaney" ("Skani," now "Skne") would then come from Skaney, where the "" has been dropped as in many similar instances.

Bugge himself afterwards [1904, p. 156] rejected this explanation and derived "Scadinavia" from the same word as "Coda.n.u.s" (see p. 93), taking it to mean the island or coast-land by "Kodan," which has had a prefixed "s," while the long "o" has been changed into short "a." This explanation may be very doubtful. In many parts of Norway a name "Skney" is known, which comes from "skan" (meaning crust), and it may therefore not be improbable that the Swedish "Skaney" or Skne is the same name.

[107] Ahlenius [1900, p. 31] has tried to explain the name as a copyist's error for "aestingia," which he connects with the "aestii" (Esthonians) of Tacitus; but the people would then have been called aestingii rather than aestii. One might then be more inclined to think of Jordanes' "Astingi" or "Hazdingi," the same as the Old Norse Haddingjar (Hallinger).

[108] R. Keyser [1868, p. 89] explains the name as the same as in the Old Norse name for a people, "Kylpingar," in northern Russia, neighbours of the Finns. He thinks that there may have been an Old Norse name "Kylpinga-botn" for the Baltic; but it is not likely that this word Kylpingar existed at that time.

[109] Keyser [1868, p. 80] derives the word from Gothic "lagus"

(corresponding to Old Norse "logr") for sea.

[110] The same islands which are here spoken of as British, have been previously referred to (see above, p. 101) by Pliny as Germanic, or rather as a single island with the name "Glaesaria." This is another proof of how he draws directly from various sources without even taking the trouble to harmonise the statements. In this case he has probably found the islands mentioned in connection with facts about Britain, or a journey to that country. And it may be supposed that the original source is Pytheas.

[111] In his ignorance of astronomy Pliny adds that "this is said to continue alternately for six months."

[112] Some MSS. read "Vergos."

[113] Tacitus, "Agricola," c. 10; see also c. 38. Cf. also Bunbury, 1883, ii. p. 342.

[114] Tacitus, "Agricola," c. 28.

[115] Here Tacitus is mistaken, as amber was extensively employed for amulets and ornaments even in the Stone Age (see above, p. 32).

[116] Much [1905, p. 133] connects the name with "ge-swio" == "related by marriage." It may be just as reasonable to suppose that the name means "burners" ("svier"), since they cleared the land by setting fire to the forests [cf. Mullenhoff, iv., 1900, p. 499].

[117] Cf. Mullenhoff, iv., 1900, p. 502.

[118] This might be thought to show that arms of metal, especially of iron, were still rarities in Scandinavia, which only rich and powerful chiefs could obtain, and this might agree with the statement about the esteem in which wealth was held among this particular people. But perhaps the more probable explanation is that the idea may have arisen through foreign merchants (South Germans or Romans) having been present at the great annual "things" and fairs at some well-known temple, e.g., Upsala [cf. Mullenhoff, 1900, p. 503], where for the sake of peace and on account of the sacredness of the spot it was forbidden to carry arms, and where arms were therefore left in a special "weapon-house," like those which were later attached to churches in Norway, and there guarded by a thrall.