In Northern Mists Volume I Part 7

The name "Scatinavia" or "Scadinavia" (both spellings occur in the MSS. of Pliny) is found here certainly for the first time; but, curiously enough, we also find the name "Scandia" in Pliny; it is used of an island which is mentioned as near Britain (see below, p. 106). "Scandia" has often been taken for a shortened form of "Scadinavia"; but if we consider the occurrence of both names in Pliny in conjunction with the fact that Mela has not yet heard either, but has, on the other hand, a large island, "Codanovia," in the bay of Coda.n.u.s, then it may seem possible that originally there were two entirely different names: "Codanovia," for Sealand (and perhaps for south Sweden), and "*Skanovia" ("Skaney,"

latinised into "Scandia") for Skne. By a confusion of these two the form "Scadinavia" for south Sweden may have resulted in Pliny, instead of Mela's "Codanovia," while at the same time he got the name "Scandia" from another source. The latter is the only one used by Ptolemy both for south Sweden and the Danish islands; he has four "Scandiae," three smaller ones and one very large one farther east, "Scandia" proper (see below, p. 119).

By further confusion of the two names, "Scadinavia" has become "Scandinavia" in later copyists and authors.[106]

In conflict with this is the hitherto accepted opinion among philologists that the name "Skne" must be derived from "Scadinavia,"

which would regularly become by contraction "*Skadney," and this by losing the "d" would become "Skaney." But this similarity may after all be accidental, and it is difficult to reconcile the hypothesis with the fact that the form "Scandia" (and not "*Skadnia") already appears in Pliny and later in Ptolemy. To this must be added that the form "*Skadney," or a similar one, is not known; the first time we find the word Skne in literature is in the story of Wulfstan the Dane to King Alfred (about 890, see later), where it takes the form "Scon eg," which is the same as "Skaney." "Skania," which is a latinised form of "Skaney," is found in a Papal letter of 950, and a Swedish runic inscription of about 1020 reads "a Skanu," which also is the same as "Skaney." It therefore appears probable that this is the original form, the same as the Norwegian name "Skaney," and that it has not resulted from a contraction of "Skadinavia." Professor Torp agrees that a form "*Skanovia" might possibly be the original.

What may be the meaning of the name "Hilleviones" in Scadinavia is difficult to make out; it does not occur in any other writer, but is in all likelihood a common term for all Scandinavians. One is reminded of the "Hermiones" who occur in Mela in the same connection, but a little later Pliny mentions these also. "aeningia," which is said to be no smaller than Scadinavia, is a riddle. Could it be a corruption of a Halsingia or Alsingia (the land of the Helsingers), a name for northern Sweden, which thus lay farther off and was less known than Scadinavia?[107] When we read that these regions were supposed to extend as far as the Vistula, this might indicate a vague idea that Scadinavia and aeningia were connected with the mainland, whereby a bay of the sea was formed, called "Cylipenus,"[108] which will thus be yet another name for the Baltic, taken from a new source; but the whole may be nothing more than an obscure statement.

"Latris," which lay at the mouth of Cylipenus, may be one of the Danish islands, and one may perhaps be reminded of Sealand with the ancient royal stronghold of "Lethra" or Leire, Old Norse "Hleidrar." The bay of "Lagnus,"[109] which borders on the Cimbri, must then be taken as a new name for the Cattegat, while "Tastris" may be Skagen. According to the sources Pliny has borrowed from, we thus get the following names for the same parts: for the Baltic or parts thereof, "Amalcium" and "Cylipenus,"

and perhaps in part "Coda.n.u.s"; for the Cattegat, "Lagnus" and "Coda.n.u.s"; for the Skagerak, "Morimarusa," in part also "Coda.n.u.s"; for south Sweden, "Scadinavia" and "Balcia"; for Jutland or Skagen, "Promunturium Cimbrorum"

and "Tastris." At any rate, this superfluity of names discloses increased communication, through many channels, with the North. Communication with the North is also to be deduced from Pliny's mention [viii. c. 15, 39] of an animal called "achlis," as a native of those countries.

It had "never been seen among us in Rome, though it had been described by many." It resembles the elk [alcis], "but has no knee-joint, for which reason also it does not sleep lying down, but leaned against a tree, and if the tree be partly cut through as a trap, the animal, which otherwise is remarkably fleet, is caught. Its upper lip is very large, for which reason it goes backwards when grazing, so as not to get caught in it if it went forward." It might be thought that this elk-like animal was a reindeer; but the mention of the long upper lip and the trees suits the elk better, and it may have been related of this animal that it was caught by means of traps in the forest. The fable that it slept leaning against a tree may be due to the similarity between the name "achlis" (which may be some corruption or other, perhaps of "alces") and "acclinis" (== leaning on).

Finally, Pliny had a third source of knowledge about the North through Britain, which to him was a common name for all the islands in that ocean. Some of the statements from this quarter originated with Pytheas; but later information was added; Pliny himself mentions Agrippa as an authority. Among the British Isles he mentions [iv. 16, 103]: "40 'Orcades' separated from each other by moderate distances, 7 'Acmodae,' and 30 'Hebudes.'" His 7 "Acmodae" (which in some MSS. are also called "Haecmodae") are, clearly enough, Mela's 7 Haemodae, and probably the Shetland Islands, while the 30 "Hebudes" are the Hebrides, which are thus mentioned here for the first time in any known author.

After referring to a number of other British islands "and the 'Glaesiae,'

scattered in the Germanic Ocean, which the later Greeks call the 'Electrides,' because amber (electrum) is found in them,"[110] Pliny continues [iv. 16, 104]: "The most distant of all known islands is 'Tyle'

(Thule), where at the summer solstice there is no night, and correspondingly no day at the winter solstice."[111]... "Some authors mention yet more islands, 'Scandia,' 'Dumna,' 'Bergos,' and the largest of all, 'Berricen,' from which the voyage is made to Tyle. From Tyle it is one day's sail to the curdled sea which some call 'Cronium.'" We do not know from what authors Pliny can have taken these names, nor where the islands are to be looked for; but as Thule is mentioned, we must suppose that in any case some of them come originally from Pytheas. As Scandia comes first among these islands, one is led to think that Dumna and the two other enigmatical names are of Germanic origin. "Dumna" might then remind us of Scandinavian names such as Duney, Donna (in Nordland), or the like; but it is more probable that it comes from the Celtic "dubno" or "dumno" (== deep), and may be the name of an island off Scotland. "Bergos"

may remind us of the Old Norse word "bjarg" or "berg."[112] It is not so easy with the strange name "Berricen," which in some MSS. has the form "Verigon" or "Nerigon" (cf. above, p. 58). If the first reading is the correct one, it suggests an origin in an Old Norse "ber-ig" ("ber" == bear; the meaning would therefore be "bear-y," full of bears), not an unsuitable name for southern Norway, whence the journey was made to Thule or northern Norway; but this is doubtful. If "Nerigon" is the correct reading, it will not be impossible, in the opinion of Professor Torp, that this, as Keyser supposed, may be the name Norway, which in Old Norse was called, by Danes for example, "*NorravegaR" (like "AustravegaR" and "VestravegaR"). If any of the names of these islands are really Germanic, like Scandia, then they cannot, as some have thought, refer to islands off Scotland or to the Shetlands, as these were not yet inhabited by Nors.e.m.e.n.

The islands in question must therefore be looked for in Norway. It is important that Scandia is mentioned first among them in connection with Britain, and that at the same time another is described as the largest of them all, and as lying on the way to Thule. This again points to communication by sea between the British Isles and Scandinavia, of which we found indications four hundred years earlier.

[Sidenote: Agricola, 84 A.D.]

In 84 A.D. Agricola, after his campaign against the Caledonians, sent his fleet round the northern point of Scotland, "whereby," Tacitus[113] tells us, "it was proved that Britain is an island. At the same time the hitherto unknown islands which are called 'Orcadas' (the Orkneys) were discovered and subdued. Thule also could be descried in the distance; but the fleet had orders not to go farther, and winter was coming on. Moreover the water is thick and heavy to row in; it is said that even wind cannot stir it to much motion. The reason for this may be the absence of land and mountains, which otherwise would give the storms increased power, and that the enormous ma.s.s of continuous ocean is not easy to set in motion." This Thule must have been Fair Island or the Shetland Isles, and this is the most northern point reached by the Romans, so far as is known. The idea of the heavy sea, which is not moved by the winds, is the same that we met with in early antiquity (see pp. 40, 69).

In the preceding summer some of Agricola's soldiers--a cohort of Usippii, enlisted in Germania and brought to Britain--had mutinied, killed their centurion and seized three s.h.i.+ps, whose captains they forced into obedience. "Two of them aroused their suspicions and were therefore killed; the third undertook the navigation," and they circ.u.mnavigated Britain. "They were soon obliged to land to provide themselves with water and to plunder what they required; thereby they came into frequent conflict with the Britons, who defended their possessions; they were often victorious, but sometimes were worsted, and finally their need became so great that they took to eating the weakest; then they drew lots as to which should serve the others as food. Thus they came round Britain [i.e. round the north], were driven out of their course through incompetent navigation, and were made prisoners, some by the Frisians and some by the Suevi, who took them for pirates. Some of them came to the slave-markets and pa.s.sed through various hands until they reached Roman Germania, becoming quite remarkable persons by being able to relate such marvellous adventures."[114] It is possible that certain inaccurate statements may have found their way to Rome as the result of this voyage.

[Sidenote: Tacitus, 98 A.D.]

Cornelius Tacitus, who wrote his "Germania" in the year 98 A.D., was a historian and ethnographer, not a geographer. His celebrated work has not, therefore, much to say of the northern lands; he has not even a single name for them. On the other hand, he has some remarkable statements about the peoples, especially in Sweden, which show that since the time of Pliny fresh information about that part of the world must have reached Rome.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The nations of Tacitus (after K. Miller)]

Tacitus makes the "Suebi," or "Suevi," inhabit the greater part of Germany as far as the frontier of the Slavs (Sarmatians) and Finns on the east (and north ?). The name, which possibly means the "hovering" people and is due to their roving existence, is perhaps rather to be regarded as a common designation for various Germanic tribes. After them he called the sea on the eastern coast of Germany, i.e., the Baltic, the Suebian Sea ("Suebic.u.m mare"). On its right-hand (eastern) sh.o.r.e dwelt the "aestii"

(i.e., Esthonians; perhaps from "aistan" == to honour, that is, the honourable people [?]). "Their customs and dress are like those of the Suevi, but their language more nearly resembles the British" (!). "The use of iron is rare there, that of sticks [i.e., clubs, fustium] common. They also explore the sea and collect amber in shallow places and on the sh.o.r.e itself. But they do not understand its nature and origin, and it long lay disregarded among things cast up by the sea, "until our luxury made it esteemed." "They have no use for it,[115] they gather it in the rough, bring it unwrought, and are surprised at the price they receive" [c. 45].

From this it may be concluded that there was constant trading communication between the Mediterranean and the Baltic, and that Roman merchants had probably penetrated thither.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Boat found at Nydam, near Flensburg. Third century A.D. 70 feet long (after C. Engelhardt)]

"In the Ocean itself (ipso in Oceano) lie the communities of the Suiones, a mighty people not only in men and arms, but also in s.h.i.+ps." The Suiones, who are first mentioned by Tacitus, are evidently of the same name as the Svear (Old Norse "sviar," Anglo-Saxon "sveon") or Swedes.[116] Their s.h.i.+ps were remarkable for having a prow, "prora," at each end (i.e., they were the same fore and aft); they had no sail, and the oars were not made fast in a row, but were loose, so that they could row with them now on one side, now on the other, "as on some rivers."[117] In other words, they had open rowlocks, as in some of the river boats of that time, and as is common in modern boats; the oars were not put out through holes as in the Roman s.h.i.+ps, and as in the Viking s.h.i.+ps (the Gokstad and Oseberg s.h.i.+ps).

The boat of the Iron Age which was dug up at Nydam had just such open rowlocks.

The Suiones (unlike the other Germanic peoples) esteemed wealth, and therefore they had only one lord; this lord governed with unlimited power, so much so that arms were not distributed among the people, but were kept locked up, and moreover in charge of a thrall,[118] because the sea prevented sudden attacks of enemies, and armed idle hands (i.e., armed men unemployed) are apt to commit rash deeds [c. 44].

The neighbours of the Suiones, probably on the north, are the "Sitones"

[c. 45], whom Tacitus also regards as Germanic. "They are like the Suiones with one exception, that a woman reigns over them; so far have they degenerated not only from liberty, but also from slavery. Here Suebia ends (Hic Suebiae finis)." Suebia was that part of Germany inhabited by the Suevi. It looks as though Tacitus considered that courage and manliness decreased the farther north one went. The Suiones allow themselves to be bullied by an absolute king, who sets a thrall to guard their weapons, and the Sitones are in a still worse plight, in allowing themselves to be governed by a woman. The Sitones are not mentioned before or after this in literature, and it seems as though the name must be due to some misunderstanding.[119] It has been supposed that they were Finns ("Kvaens")[120] in northern Sweden, and their name may then have been taken as the word for woman ("kvaen," or "kvan," mostly in the sense of wife [cf.

English queen]), and from this the legend of womanly government may have been formed[121] in the same way as Adam of Bremen later translates the name Cvenland (Kvaenland) by "Terra feminarum," and thus forms the myth of the country of the Amazons. But this explanation of the statement of Tacitus may be doubtful.[122] We have already seen that Mela mentions a people in Scythia, the "Maeotides," who were governed by women, and, as we have said, it would not have seemed unreasonable to him that the government of women increased farther north.

Of the regions on the north Tacitus says: "North of the Suiones lies another sluggish and almost motionless sea (mare pigrum ac prope immotum); that this encircles and confines the earth's disc is rendered probable by the fact that the last light of the setting sun continues until the sun rises again, so clearly that the stars are paled thereby.

Popular belief also supposes that the sound of the sun emerging from the ocean can be heard, and that the forms of the G.o.ds are seen and the rays beaming from his head. There report rightly places the boundaries of nature." As mentioned above (see p. 108), he thought that even to the north of the Orkneys the sea was thick and sluggish.

Tacitus is the first author who mentions the Finns (Fenni), but whether they are Lapps, Kvaens or another race cannot be determined. He says himself: "I am in doubt whether to reckon the Peucini, Venedi and Fenni among the Germans or Sarmatians (Slavs)." He speaks of the Fenni apparently as dwelling far to the north-east, beyond the Peucini, or Bastarnae, from whom they are separated by forests and mountains, which the latter overrun as robbers.

"Among the Fenni amazing savagery and revolting poverty prevail. They have no weapons, no horses, no houses ['non penates,' perhaps rather, no homes];[123] their food is herbs, their clothing skins, their bed the ground. Their only hope is in their arrows, which from lack of iron they provide with heads of bone. Hunting supports both men and women; for the women usually accompany the men everywhere and take their share of the spoils. Their infants have no other protection from wild beasts and from the rain than a hiding-place of branches twisted together; thither the men return, it is the habitation of the aged.

Nevertheless this seems to them a happier life than groaning over tilled fields, toiling in houses and being subject to hope and fear for their own and others' possessions. Without a care for men or G.o.ds they have attained the most difficult end, that of not even feeling the need of a wish. Beyond them all is fabulous, as that the 'h.e.l.lusii' and 'Oxionae' have human heads and faces, but the bodies and limbs of wild beasts, which I leave on one side as undecided."

These Fenni of Tacitus consequently live near the outer limits of the world, where all begins to be fable. The name itself carries us to northern Europe, or rather Scandinavia, for it was certainly only the North Germans, especially the Scandinavians, who used the word as a name for their non-Aryan neighbours. No doubt it appears from the description that they lived in northern Russia, and were only separated from the Peucini by forests and mountains; but, as was said above, Tacitus had neither sense for nor interest in geography. If he heard of a savage and barbarous Finn-people far in the North, and if it suited him on other grounds to bring them in beyond the Peucini or Bastarnae, but before the h.e.l.lusii and Oxiones, who not only led the life of beasts, but even had their bodies and limbs, then certainly no geographical difficulties would stop him. It is of interest that these Fenni are described as a typical race of hunters, using the bow as their special weapon. As Tacitus only states that they had no horses, he had doubtless heard of no other domestic animals amongst them. Consequently it is not likely that they were reindeer-nomads. The interweaving of branches that the children were hidden in, to which the men returned, and which was the dwelling of the old men, must be the tent of the Finns, which was raised upon branches or stakes. As early as Herodotus [iv. 23] we read of the Argippaeans, who were also Mongols, that "every man lived under a tree, over which in winter he spread a white, thick covering of felt." It is clearly a tent that is intended here also [cf. Mullenhoff, ii., 1887, pp. 40, 352]. The idea that among the barbarians men and women frequently did the same work does not seem to have been uncommon in antiquity, and it can scarcely have been regarded as something peculiar to the Finns; in this connection it is no doubt derived from the legends of the Amazons. Herodotus, and after him Mela (see above, pp. 87 f.), describes such a similarity between men and women among the Scythian people and the Sauromatians; and Diodorus [iv.

20, v. 39] says of the Ligurians that men and women shared the same hard labour.

[Sidenote: Dionysius Periegetes, 117-138 A.D.]

The so-called Dionysius Periegetes wrote in the time of the emperor Hadrian (117-138 A.D.) a description of the earth in 1187 verses, which perhaps on account of its simple brevity and metrical form was used in schools and widely circulated [cf. K. Miller, vi., 1898, p. 95]. But unfortunately the author has merely drawn from obsolete Greek sources, such as Homer, Hecataeus, Eratosthenes and others, and has nothing new to tell us. The whole continent was surrounded by ocean like an immense island; it was not quite circular, but somewhat prolonged in the direction of the sun's course (i.e., towards the east and west).

After Greek scientific geography had had its most fruitful life in the period ending with Eratosthenes and Hipparchus it still sent out such powerful shoots as the physical-mathematical geographer Posidonius and the descriptive geographer Strabo; but after them a century and a half elapses until we hear of its final brilliant revival in Marinus of Tyre and Claudius Ptolemy, whose work was to exercise a decisive influence upon geography thirteen centuries later.

[Sidenote: Marinus of Tyre]

Marinus's writings are lost, and we know nothing more of him than is told us by his younger contemporary Ptolemy, who has relied upon him to a considerable extent, and whose great forerunner he was. He must have lived in the first half of the second century A.D. He made an exhaustive attempt to describe every place on the earth according to its lat.i.tude and longitude, and drew a map of the world on this principle. He also adopted Posidonius's insufficient estimate of the earth's circ.u.mference (instead of that of Eratosthenes), and his exaggerated extension of the "c.u.mene"

towards the east; and as this was pa.s.sed on from him to Ptolemy he exercised great influence upon Columbus, amongst others, who thus came to estimate the distance around the globe to India at only half its real length. In this way Marinus and Ptolemy are of importance in the discovery not only of the West Indies, but also of North America by Cabot, and in the earliest attempts to find a north-west pa.s.sage to China. Thus "accidental" mistakes may have far-reaching influence in history.

[Sidenote: Ptolemy, circa 150 A.D.]

Claudius Ptolemaeus marks to a certain extent the highest point of cla.s.sical geographical knowledge. He was perhaps born in Egypt about 100 A.D. He must have lived as an astronomer at Alexandria during the years 126 to 141, and perhaps longer; and he probably outlived the emperor Antoninus Pius, who died in 161 A.D., but we do not know much more of him.

In his celebrated astronomical work, most generally known by its Arabic t.i.tle of "Almagest" (because it first reached mediaeval western Europe in an Arabic translation), he gave his well-known account of the universe and of the movements of the heavenly bodies, which had such great influence in the later Middle Ages, and on Columbus and the great discoveries. His celebrated "Geography" in eight books (written about 150 A.D.) is, as he himself tells us, for the most part founded upon the now lost work of Marinus, and shows a great advance in geographical comprehension upon the practical but unscientific Romans. With the scientific method of the Greeks an attempt is here made to collect and co-ordinate the geographical knowledge of the time into a tabulated survey, for the most part dry, of countries, places and peoples, with a number of lat.i.tudes and longitudes, mostly given by estimate. His information and names are in great part taken from the so-called "Itineraries," which were tabular and consisted chiefly of graphic routes for travellers with stopping-places and distances, and which were due for the most part to military sources (especially the Roman campaigns), and in a less degree to merchants and sailors.

Cartographical representation was by him radically improved by the introduction of correct projections, with converging meridians, of which a commencement had already been made by Hipparchus. His atlas, which may originally have been drawn by himself, or by another from the detailed statements in his geography, gives us the only maps that have been preserved from antiquity, and thus has a special interest.

As to the North, we find remarkably little that is new in Ptolemy, and on many points he shows a retrogression even, as it seems, from Pytheas; but the northern coast of Europe begins to take definite shape past the Cimbrian Peninsula to the Baltic. His representation of Britain and Ireland (Ivernia), which is based upon much new information,[124] was certainly a great improvement on his predecessors, even though he gives the northern part of Scotland (Caledonia) a strange deflection far to the east, which was retained on later maps (in the fifteenth century). He mentions five Ebudes (Hebrides) above Ivernia, and says further [ii. 3]:

"The following islands lie near Albion off the Orcadian Cape; the island of Ocitis (32 40' E. long., 60 45' N. lat.), the island of Dumna (30 E. long., 61 N. lat.), north of them the Orcades, about thirty in number, of which the most central lies in 30 E. long., 61 40' N. lat. And far to the north of them Thule, the most western part of which lies in 29 E. long., 63 N. lat., the most eastern part in 31 40' E. long., 63 N. lat., the most northern in 30 20' E. long., 63 15' N. lat., the most southern in 30 20' E. long., 62 40' N.

lat., and the central part in 30 20' E. long., 63 N. lat."

Ptolemy calculates his degrees of longitude eastwards from a meridian 0 which he draws west of the Fortunate Isles (the Canaries), the most western part of the earth. It will be seen that he gives Thule no very great extent. His removing it from the Arctic Circle south to 63 is doubtless due to the men of Agricola's fleet having thought they had sighted Thule north of the Orkneys. In his eighth book [c. 3] he says:

Thule has a longest day of twenty hours, and it is distant west from Alexandria two hours. Dumna has a longest day of nineteen hours, and is distant westward two hours.

It is evident that these "hours" are found by calculation, and are merely a way of expressing degrees of lat.i.tude and longitude; they cannot therefore be referred to any local observation of the length of the longest day, etc. It is curious that Ptolemy only mentions Ebudes and Orcades, and not the Shetland Isles; perhaps they are included among his thirty Orcades.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The northern part of Ptolemy's map of the world, Europe and Asia. From the Rome edition of Ptolemy of 1490 (Nordenskiold, 1889)]

He represents the Cimbrian Peninsula (Jutland) with remarkable correctness, though making it lean too much towards the east, like Scotland. Upon it "dwelt on the west the Sigulones, then the Sabalingii, then the Cobandi, above them the Chali, and above these again and farther west the Phundusii, and more to the east the Charudes [Harudes or Horder; cf. p. 85], and to the north of all the Cimbri." It was suggested above (p. 94) that possibly the name Cobandi might be connected with the Coda.n.u.s of Mela and Pliny. The Sabalingii, according to Much [1905, p. 11], may be the same name as Pytheas's Abalos (cf. p. 70), which may have been written Sabalos or Sabalia, and may have been inhabited by Aviones. To the north of the Cimbrian Chersonese Ptolemy places three islands, the "Alociae,"

which may be taken from the Halligen islands, properly "Hallagh" [cf.

Detlefsen, 1904, p. 61], off the coast of Sleswick.[125]

To the east of the peninsula are the four so-called "Scandiae," three small [the Danish islands], of which the central one lies in 41 30'

E. long., 58 N. lat.; but the largest and most eastern lies off the mouths of the Vistula; the westernmost part of this island lies in 43 E. long., 58 N. lat., the easternmost in 46 E. long., 58 N.

lat., the northernmost in 44 30' E. long., 58 30' N. lat., the southernmost in 45 E. long., 57 40' N. lat. But this one [i.e., south Scandinavia] is called in particular Scandia, and the western part of it is inhabited by the Chaedini, the eastern by the Phavonae and Phiresii, the northern by the Phinni, the southern by the Gutae and Dauciones, and the central by the Levoni.