In Northern Mists Volume Ii Part 17

We have yet a third, later and more detailed variant in the so-called "Gripla," given in vol. i. p. 288.

The belief in this land connection with Greenland may have originated in, or at any rate have been considerably strengthened by, the discovery of countries such as Novaya Zemlya, Svalbard (Spitzbergen ?), and the northern uninhabited parts of the east coast of Greenland[237] (cf. above, pp. 165, ff.). In addition to this, those sailing the Polar Sea came across pack-ice wherever they went in a northerly direction, closing in the sea and making it like a gulf, and it must therefore have been natural to believe in a continuous coast which connected the countries behind the ice, and which held this fast. The belief in a land connection seems to have been so ingrained that it can scarcely have rested on nothing but theoretical speculations, but must rather have been supported by tangible proofs of this kind.

[Sidenote: Saxo on the far North]

It was to be expected that the countries on the north of Hafsbotn should become fairylands in popular belief, Jotunheimr and Risaland, inhabited by giants. Even Saxo (beginning of the thirteenth century) says that to the north of Norway

"lies a land, the name and position of which are unknown, without human civilisation, but rich in people of monstrous strangeness. It is separated from Norway, which lies opposite, by a mighty arm of the sea. As the navigation there is very unsafe, few of those who have ventured thither have had a fortunate return."

As it can hardly be the Christian settlements in Greenland that Saxo refers to as a land without human civilisation, we must doubtless suppose that his land in the north is a confusion of the eastern uninhabited tracts of Greenland with Jotunheimr, as in Icelandic ideas. For Adam of Bremen already had giants (Cyclopes) on an island in the north, and we have seen that there were similar conceptions in the Historia Norwegiae (cf. p. 167).

[Sidenote: The tale of Halli Geit]

A mediaeval Icelandic tale [inserted in Bjorn Jonsson's Greenland Annals]

says of Halli Geit that

"he alone succeeded in coming by land on foot over mountains and glaciers and all the wastes, and past all the gulfs of the sea to Gandvik and then to Norway. He led with him a goat, and lived on its milk; he often found valleys and narrow openings between the glaciers, so that the goat could feed either on gra.s.s or in the woods."

[Ill.u.s.tration: From the Bayeux tapestry, eleventh century]

[Sidenote: Land at the North Pole]

Ideas of this kind led to the view held by some that there was land as far as the North Pole, which appears in an Icelandic tract, included in the "Rymbegla" [1780, p. 466]. Of a bad Latin verse, there reproduced, it is said:

"Some will understand this to mean that he [i.e., the poet] says that land lies under 'leidarstjarna' [the pole star], and that the sh.o.r.es there prevent the ring of the ocean from joining [i.e., around the disc of the earth]; with this certain ancient legends agree, which show that one can go, or that men have gone, on foot from Greenland to Norway."

[Sidenote: The Outer Ocean]

But the mediaeval learned idea of the Outer Ocean surrounding the whole disc of earth also a.s.serts itself in the North, and appears in Snorre's Heimskringla and in the "King's Mirror," amongst other works. This ocean went outside Greenland, which was connected with Europe, and made the former into a peninsula. In the work already referred to, "Gripla" (only known in a late MS. in Bjorn Jonsson of Skardsa, first half of the seventeenth century), we read, in continuation of the pa.s.sage already quoted (p. 35): "Between Wineland and Greenland is Ginnungagap, it proceeds from the sea that is called 'Mare oceanum,' which surrounds the whole world." Since Wineland [i.e., the Insulae Fortunatae], as already stated (pp. 1, ff.), was by some, evidently through a misunderstanding, made continuous with Africa,[238] it is clear that the Outer Ocean must be supposed to go completely round both Greenland and Wineland (cf. the ill.u.s.tration, p. 2). Thus it was also natural to suppose that there was an opening somewhere between these two countries, through which the Outer Ocean was connected with the inner, known ocean between Norway, Greenland, etc.[239]

[Sidenote: Ginnungagap]

At least as old as the Nors.e.m.e.n's conceptions of countries beyond the ocean in the North was probably the idea of the great abyss, Ginnungagap, which there forms the boundary of the ocean and of the world, and which must be derived from the Tartarus and Chaos of the Greeks (cf. p. 150).

When the Polar Sea (Hafsbotn) was closed by the land connection between Bjarmeland and Greenland, it was natural that those who tried to form a consistent view of the world could no longer find a place for the abyss in that direction; and G. Storm [1890] is certainly right in thinking that it was for this reason that Ginnungagap was located in the pa.s.sage between Greenland and Wineland; since, no doubt, the idea was that this "gap" in some way or other was connected with the void Outer Ocean. But this view is first found in the very late copy (seventeenth century) of "Gripla,"

and of the somewhat older map of Gudbrand Torlaksson [Torlacius] of 1606 [Torfaeus, 1706; Pl. I., p. 21], where "Ginnunga Gap" is marked as the name of the strait between Greenland and America. What Ginnungagap really was seems never to have been quite clear, different people having no doubt had different ideas about it; but when, as here, it is used as the name of a strait through which the Outer Ocean enters, it cannot any longer be an abyss; at the most it may have been a maelstrom or whirlpool, which, indeed, is suggested by the whirlpool on Jon Gudmundsson's map (cf. p.

34). But even this interpretation of the name became effaced, and in another MS. of the seventeenth century (see p. 35) it is simply used as a name for the great ocean to the west of Spain (that is, the Atlantic).

[Ill.u.s.tration: From an Icelandic MS. of 1363]

On the other hand we have seen (pp. 150, ff.) that ideas of whirlpools in the northern seas appear to have been widely spread in the Middle Ages.

There is a possibility, as already hinted (vol. i. p. 303), that when in Ivar Bardsson's description of the northern west coast of Greenland "the many whirlpools that there lie all over the sea" are spoken of, it was thought that here was the boundary of the ocean and of the world, and that it was formed by the many whirlpools, or abysses in the sea. In that case these cannot be regarded merely as maelstroms like the Moskenstrom, but more like the true Ginnungagap. But this is extremely uncertain; it may again have been one of those embellishments which were often used in speaking of the most distant regions.

[Sidenote: Saxo]

Saxo Grammaticus (first part of the thirteenth century) in the preface to his Danish history gives geographical information about Scandinavia and Iceland, to which we have already referred several times. He does not mention Greenland. He says himself that he has made use of Icelandic literature to a large extent; but he has also mingled with it a good deal of mythical material from elsewhere.

[Sidenote: The King's Mirror, circa 1240 ?]

Beyond comparison the most important geographical writer of the mediaeval North, and at the same time one of the first in the whole of mediaeval Europe, was the unknown author who wrote the "King's Mirror,"[240]

probably about the middle of the thirteenth century.[241] If one turns from contemporary or earlier European geographical literature, with all its superst.i.tion and obscurity, to this masterly work, the difference is very striking. Even at the first appearance of the Scandinavians in literature, in Ottar's straightforward and natural narrative of his voyage to King Alfred, the numerous trustworthy statements about previously unknown regions are a prominent feature, and give proof of a sober faculty of observation, altogether different from what one usually meets with in mediaeval literature. This is the case to an even greater degree in the "King's Mirror," and the difference between what is there stated about the North and what we find less than two hundred years earlier in Adam of Bremen is obvious. Apart from the fact that the whole method of presentation is inspired by superior intelligence, it shows an insight and a faculty of observation which are uncommon, especially at that period; and in many points this remarkable man was evidently centuries before his time. Although well acquainted with much of the earlier mediaeval literature, he has liberated himself to a surprising extent from its fabulous conceptions. We hear nothing of the many fabulous peoples, who were still common amongst much later authors, nor about whirlpools, nor the curdled and dark sea, but instead we have fresh and copious information about the northern regions, and it comes with a clearness like that which already struck us in Ottar. We have a remarkably good description of the sea-ice, its drift, etc. (cf. vol. i. pp. 279, f.); we have also a description of the animal world of the northern seas to which there is no parallel in the earlier literature of the world (cf. pp. 155, ff.). No less than twenty-one different whales are referred to fully. If we make allowance for three of them being probably sharks, and for two being perhaps alternative names for the same whale, the total corresponds to the number of species that are known in northern waters. Six seals are described, which corresponds to the number of species living on the coasts of Norway and Greenland. Besides these the walrus ["rostung"] is very well described. But even the author of the "King's Mirror" could not altogether avoid the supernatural in treating of the sea. He describes in the seas of Iceland the enormous monster "hafgufa," which seems more like a piece of land than a fish, and he does not think there are more than two of them in the sea. This is the same that the Norwegian fishermen now call the krake, and certainly also the same that appears in ancient oriental myths, and that is met with again in the Brandan legend as the great whale that they take for an island and land on (cf. p. 234). In the Greenland seas the "King's Mirror" has two kinds of trolls, "hafstrambr" [a kind of merman], with a body that was like a glacier to look at, and "margygr" [a mermaid], both of which are fully described. There is also mention in the Greenland seas of the strange and dangerous "sea-fences," which are often spoken of in the sagas [and about which there is a lay, the "hafgeringa-drapa"].

The author does not quite know what to make of this marvel, for "it looks as if all the storms and waves that there are in that sea gather themselves together in three places, and become three waves. They fence in the whole sea, so that men cannot find a way out, and they are higher than great mountains and like steep summits," etc. It is probable that the belief in these sea-fences is derived from something that really took place, perhaps most likely earthquake-waves, or submarine earthquakes, which may sometimes have occurred near volcanic Iceland. But it is curious that in the "King's Mirror" these waves are connected with Greenland. They might also be supposed to be connected with the waves that are formed when icebergs capsize.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Marginal drawing in the Flateyjarbok (1387-1394)]

The princ.i.p.al countries described are Ireland, Iceland and Greenland; but it is characteristic of the author that the farther north he goes, away from regions commonly known, the freer his account becomes from all kinds of fabulous additions. In Ireland he is still held fast by the superst.i.tion of the period, and especially by the priests' fables about themselves and their holy men, and by the English author Giraldus Cambrensis.[242] In Iceland, as a rule, he is free of this troublesome ballast, and gives valuable information about the glaciers of Iceland, glacier-falls, boiling springs, etc. In his opinion the cold climate of Iceland is due to the vicinity of Greenland, which sends out great cold owing to its being above all other lands covered with ice; for this reason Iceland has so much ice on its mountains. Although he thinks it possible that its volcanoes are due to the fires of h.e.l.l, and that it is thus the actual place of torment, and that h.e.l.l is therefore not in Sicily, as his holiness Pope Gregory had supposed, he nevertheless has another and more reasonable explanation of the origin of earthquakes and volcanoes. They may be due to hollow pa.s.sages and cavities in the foundations of the land, which by the force either of the wind or of the roaring sea may become so full of wind that they cannot stand the pressure, and thus violent earthquakes may arise. From the violent conflict which the air produces underground, the great fire may be kindled which breaks out in different parts of the country. It must not be thought certain that this is exactly how it takes place, but one ought rather to lay such things together to form the explanation that seems more conceivable, for

[Sidenote: Fire derived from force (labour)]

"we see that from force ['afli'] all fire comes. When hard stone and hard iron are brought together with a blow, fire comes from the iron and from the force with which they are struck together. You may also rub pieces of wood together until fire comes from the labour that they have. It is also constantly happening that two winds arise from different quarters, one against the other, and if they meet in the air there is a hard shock, and this shock gives off a great fire, which spreads far in the air," etc.

This idea of a connection between labour (friction) and force (motion), and this explanation of the possible origin of volcanoes are surprising in the thirteenth century, and seem to bring the author centuries in advance of his time; we here have germs of the theory of the conservation of energy.

[Sidenote: The inland ice of Greenland]

His statements about Greenland are remarkable for their sober trustworthiness. He gives the first description of its inland ice:

"But since you asked whether the land is thawed or not, or whether it is covered with ice like the sea, you must know that there are small portions of the land which are thawed, but all the rest is covered with ice, and the people do not know whether the country is large or small, since all the mountains and valleys are covered with ice, so that no one can find his way in. But in reality it must be that there is a way, either in those valleys that lie between the mountains, or along the sh.o.r.es, so that animals can find a way, for otherwise animals cannot come there from other countries, unless they find a way through the ice and find the land thawed. But men have often tried to go up the country, upon the highest mountains in various places, to look around them, to see whether they could find any part that was thawed and habitable, but they have not found any such, except where people are now living, and that is but little along the sh.o.r.e itself."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Norwegian MS. of the Gulathings law. Fourteenth century]

This, as we see, is an extremely happy description of the mighty ice-sheet. He also describes the climate of the country, both the fine weather that often occurs in summer, and its usually inclement character, which causes so small a proportion of the country to be habitable.

[Sidenote: The glaciers of Greenland a pole of maximum cold]

"The land is cold, and the glacier [i.e., the great ice or inland ice]

has this nature, that he sends out cold gusts which drive away the showers from his face, and he usually keeps his head bare. But often his near neighbours have to suffer for it, in that all other lands which lie in his neighbourhood get much bad weather from him, and all the cold blasts that he throws off fall upon them."

Though in simple and everyday words, this really expresses the idea that Greenland and the neighbouring regions are disproportionately cold, and that, in part at any rate, this is due to the glaciers of Greenland, which have a refrigerating effect (as an anticyclonic pole of maximum cold).

This is to a certain degree correct. In crossing Greenland in 1888 we found that a pole of cold [anticyclone] lies over the inland ice, which gives off cold air. Scientific greatness does not always depend on erudition or acute learned combinations; it is just as often the result of a sound common-sense.

The allusion in the "King's Mirror" to the Norse inhabitants of Greenland and their life has already been quoted in part (vol. i. p. 277); curiously enough the Skraelings are not mentioned. The author gives a graphic description of the aurora borealis, and attempts to explain its cause. As already noted (p. 155), it is curious that he should speak of it as something peculiar to Greenland, when he must of course have known it well enough in Norway.

The cosmography of the "King's Mirror" is based on older mediaeval writers, especially Isidore. The spherical form of the earth and the course of the sun are mentioned, as is Macrobius's doctrine of zones. In the frigid zones the cold has attracted to itself such power that the waters throw off their nature and are changed to ice, and all the land and sea is covered with ice. They are usually uninhabitable, but nevertheless the author considers that Greenland lies in the north frigid zone. He thinks that "it is mainland, and connected with other mainland," as already mentioned, because it has a number of terrestrial animals that are not often found on islands. It

"lies on the extreme side of the world on the north, and he does not think there is land outside 'Heimskringla' [the circle of the world, 'orbis terrarum'] beyond Greenland, only the great ocean which runs round the world; and it is said by men who are wise that the strait through which the empty ocean flows comes in by Greenland, and into the gap between the lands ('landa-klofi'), and thereafter with fjords and gulfs it divides all countries, where it runs into Heimskringla."

This is, as we see, the same idea as already (p. 240) referred to, that the Outer Ocean runs in through a sound between Greenland and another continent to the south, evidently Wineland, which is thus here again regarded as part of Africa (cf. p. 1).

It is moreover striking that neither Wineland, Markland, nor h.e.l.luland is mentioned in the "King's Mirror," and Bjarmeland, Svalbard, etc., are also omitted. Thus it does not give any complete description of the northern lands, but it must be remembered that what we know of the work is only a fragment, and perhaps it was never completed.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Nancy map. A copy, of 1427, of Claudius Clavus's first map of the North. The lines of lat.i.tude and longitude are omitted for the sake of clearness]

CLAUDIUS CLAVUS

[Sidenote: Claudius Clausson Swart, born 1388]

[Sidenote: Clavus's maps]