Chapter 18

FOOTNOTES:[1]“Mirum de Tyle, quæ inter occidentales ultima fertur insulas, quod apud orientales tam nomine quam naturâ sit famosissima; cum occidentalibus sit prorsus incognita,” says Giraldus Cambrensis, chap. xvii., p. 98, ed. T. F. Dimock, M.A., Lond. 1867.[2]The Iernis of Onomacritus (who is supposed to have written about B.C. 535, in the days of Pisistratus). Its authenticity is defended by Ruhnkenius (Epist. Crit. 2), and by Archbishop Usher (Ecclesiar. Antiq., chap. 16), while Camden (Britan.) has claimed the island to be England. Adrian Junius, a Dutch poet of the sixteenth century, quoted by Moore (History, chap. 1), thus alluded to Ireland having been known to the Argonauts:“Illa ego sum Graiis olim glacialis IerneDicta, et Jasoni puppis bene cognita navis.”We shall afterwards find Sibbald identifying Ierne with Strathearn.[3]Consult the paper “On the Stade as a Linear Measure” by W. Martin Leake, Esq., Journal of the R.G.S., vol. ix. of 1839, pp. 1-25. The word Stadium or Stade does not appear in the index of the first twenty volumes; and this is only one instance of the carelessness with which an essential addition to the Journal has been drawn up.[4]We may ask in our turn what prevented him travelling with traders?[5]Hipparchus ad Arat. (i. 5; confer Plut., iii. 17), also attests the scientific worth of Pytheas, and mentions how he explained the tides by lunar phases.[6]See Rerum Script. Hiberniæ (Prolog., i., xii.), quoted at the end of this section. Of Pytheas we know little, except that he was a Phocæan or Massilian Greek, who is supposed to have made two voyages betweenB.C.350 andB.C.300. In the first, he sailed round Albion and reached Thule. In the second, he set out from Gadira (Cadiz) to the Tanais, which is popularly supposed to have been the Elbe. Both his works, “On the Ocean,” and the “Periplus,” are lost. Even Strabo, who seems to have had “that charlatan Pytheas on the brain,” does not deny his knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, and navigation. G. G. Bredow (Untersuchungen, etc., ii. 122-129, Altona, 1800), C. H. Tzschuckius (P. Melæ, lib. tres, Lipsiæ, 1806, vol. iii., pp. 223-230), and J. I. Pontanus (Chorographica Daniæ Descriptio, Amstelodami, 1631, folio, p. 741), give many references to Pytheas. See also Histoire Littéraire de France, i. 71, et seq.; Bougainville (Mémoires de Paris, xix. 146); D’Anville (Mém. de Paris, xxxii. 436, and his objections to the traveller having visited Iceland, 50, 441); Murray (Nov. Comm. Soc. Goetting, vi. 59-63, 82-86); Fournier (Hydrographie, 322, et seq.); and Wagner (Ad Guthrie Allgem. Welt. Gesch., xvi. 4). Forbiger (Handbuch der Alt. Geog., iii., Leip. 1848) also quotes a multitude of authors, including Mannert, Humboldt, and Lelewel (Pytheas u. die Geo. Sein. Zeit., s. 30).[7]These are the Acmodæ of Pliny (iv. 30), which can only be the Shetlands. Salmasius identifies the Acmodæ, Hæmodæ, and Hebrides. Camden makes them different, and refers the Acmodæ to the Baltic. Parisot informs us that off the West Cape of Skye and the isle of North Uist (the nearest of the Hebrides to the Shetlands) there is a great gulf, which, being full of islands, is still called Mamaddy or Maddy—hence, possibly, the Greek Άι Μαδδάι, and the Latin Memodæ. According to Dr Charnock, the name in Keltic may be translated the “black head or hill,” or the “hill of God.”[8]Mela’s “Scandinovia” is one of six islands which are described rather as parts of a great peninsula than as regular “insulæ.” Amongst their Sarmatian population are the Oænæ (egg-eaters), the Hippopodæ (horse-feet), and the Panoti (all-ears), whose existence is attested by credible travellers (Cf.p. 165, Geografia di Pomponio Mela, by Giovanni Francesco Muratori, Torino, Stamperia Reale, 1855).[9]Camden suggests that “Belcarum” was a clerical error for “Bergarum.” But Mela places Bergæ on the confines of Scythia and Asia, and he joins the Caspian with the Northern Ocean (iii. 5).[10]To understand the full significance of this sentence, we must consult the context. The first “additional parallel,” whose longest day was sixteen hours, ran through “the Daci and part of Germany, and the Gallic provinces, as far as the shores of the ocean.” The second traversed “the country of the Hyperborei and the island of Britannia, the longest day being seventeen hours in length.” The third is far more applicable to Iceland than to the Shetland or Færoe groups.[11]C. Ptolemæi Geographia, edidit Carolus Fredericus Augustus Nobbe, Lipsiæ, 1843. A correct text.[12]C. Ptolemæi, etc., libri octo, ex Bilibaldi Pirckeymheri translatione, Lugduni, 1535. When may geographical students hope to see a portable English translation of Ptolemy, and be saved the mortification of carrying about this uncomfortable folio? The work was proposed many years ago to the Royal Geographical Society, and was rejected, I believe, on the grounds of Ptolemy being a mathematical writer. The paragraphs in the text refer to the Greek, the pages to the Latin translation.[13]Ptolemy assumes the southernmost part of the old world to be in S. lat. 16° 20´ instead of S. lat. 34° 51´ 12´´ (Cape Agulhas). Already in 1800, G. G. Bredow (loc. cit.), recognising the imperfect graduation, had reduced Ptolemy’s N. lat. 57° to N. lat. 51° 15´, and N. lat. 62° to N. lat. 55° 15´.[14]Lemprière and other popular books, contain the following curious assertion: “Ptolemy places the middle of his Thule in 63° of latitude, and says that at the time of the equinoxes, the days weretwenty-four hours, which could not have been true at the equinoxes, but must have referred to the solstices, and therefore this island is supposed to have been in 66° latitude, that is, under the Polar circle.” La Martinière, of whom more presently (sub voce Thule), makes no such blunder. Ptolemy gives N. lat. 63° andtwenty hours, in which he is followed by Agathemerus.[15]It is suggested (Notes on Richard of Cirencester) that beginning with the Novantum Chersonesis (Mull of Galloway?), in E. long. (Ferro?) 21°, the latitudes were mistaken for the longitudes, hence Cape Orcas (Duncansby Head?) was thrown to the east, E. long. (Ferro?) 31° 20´.[16]“On some old maps of Africa, etc.,” a valuable paper read before the British Association, August 1863: Herr Kiepert is greatly indebted to it.[17]The error “S. Antonio,” for “Sâo Antâo,” is not the learned Mr Hogg’s; it is common to Norie and other books on navigation.[18]It is regretable that geographers lost the excellent opportunity offered by the Vienna Weltausstellung of 1873, to determine in congress a singlepoint de départof longitude for the civilised world. Now each nation has the pretension of making a first meridian of its own, consequently whilst geographical readers have a fair conception of latitude, that of longitude is especially hazy. I only hope we shall not lose sight of the desideratum in the Geographical Congress of Paris (1875).[19]“A Discourse concerning the Thule of the Ancients,” by Sir Robert Sibbald, vol. iii., Gough’s Camden (Britannia, etc.) of 1787. See also Gibson’s edition of Camden, Lond. 1695, and Frankfort edition, 1602.[20]The full passage of Tacitus is, “Hanc oram novissimi maris (the Deucaledonian Sea) tunc primum Romana classis circumvecta, insulam esse Britanniam affirmavit, ac simul incognitas ad id tempus insulas, quas Orcades vocant, invenit domuitque. Dispecta est et Thule” (alii “Thyle” and “Tyle”) “quadam trans: nix et hiems appetebat; sed mare pigrum et grave remigantibus: perhibent, ne ventis quidem perinde attolli; credo quod rariores terræ montesque, causa ac materia tempestatum et profunda moles continui maris tardius impellitur.” Plutarch, tells us (Life of Cæsar) that the very existence of such a place as Britain had been doubted. When Diodorus Siculus wrote (temp. J. Cæsar and Augustus), the British Isles were amongst the regions least known to the world: “Ἤκιστα πέπτωκεν ὑρὸ τὴν κοινὴν ἀνθρώπων ἐπίγνωσιν” (lib. iii.). Eusebius (nat. circ.A.D.264) tells us in his Chronicon, “Claudius de Britannis triumphavit, et Orcades insulas Romano adjecit imperio.” Orosius (circ.A.D.415) adds (vii. 6, Hist. Adver. Pag., libri vii.), “Cognitæ insulæ erant forte et ante Claudium et sub Claudio, non quidem armis Romanis, sed mercatoribus, aut etiam eruditis, Mela teste.” And Mela, who wrote in the days of Claudius, assures us (iii. 6), “Triginta sunt Orcades angustis inter se diductæ spatiis.”[21]The mention of fruits in this passage banishes the idea of Iceland.[22]Diogenes of Apollonia flourished in the fifth centuryB.C., and also wrote περί φύσεως—concerning nature—a treatise on physical science. In the days when Hanno the Carthaginian, passing the Mediterranean Straits, explored the western coast of Africa, an event usually placed in the fifth centuryB.C., although Gosselin (Recherches sur la Géographie des Anciens) goes back as far as the tenth, Himilco (Pliny, N. H., ii. 67) was also sent to explore the remote parts of Europe. Sailing along the shores of Gadir, Tartessus (Tarshish), and Gallicia, he reached the Tin Isles. His Periplus, originally deposited in a temple at Carthage, was used by Dionysius, and was versified by Rufus Festus Avienus in the fourth century, in his iambic poem “De Oris Maritimis.” He himself says:“Hæc nos ab imis Punicorum annalibus,Prolata longo tempore edidimus tibi.”And Dodwell justly observes (Dissert. de Peripli Hannonis Ætati): “Ea causa satis verisimilis esse potuit, cur tamdiu Græcos latuerit Himilco, etiam cos qui collegæ meminerint Hannonis.”[23]Τά ὑπερ θούλης ἀπιστα. An abridgment is preserved by the learned Patriarch Photius in his Myriobiblion seu Bibliotheca.[24]Juvenal here ironically describes the progress of Greek and Roman letters towards the barbarous north. The Britons are learning eloquence from the Gauls, and even Thule thinks of hiring a rhetorician.[25]For “glacialis,” see Adrian Junius before quoted. The high-sounding and convenient epithet seems to have been applied to Ierne, as “ultima” to Thule. If the Romans did not hold Ireland, at any rate they knew it well: “Melius aditus portusque, per commercia et negotiatores cognita” (Tacit. Agricol., xxiv.).[26]In Icelandic “Orkn” and “Orkn-selr” are applied to a seal. (Compare Lat.orca, supposed to be the grampus: Cleasby.) Pliny makesorcaa kind of dolphin (D. orca), andorecororcis the Gaelic form; hence Cape Orcas, which is popularly identified with Dunnet Head, the extreme northern point of Scotland. We have no need to derive “Orkneys” from εἴρκω (coercio), these isles breaking and restraining the force of the raging waves; or from “Erick” or “Orkenwald,” or any other “Pictish prince famous there at its first plantation.”[27]The Crymogæa (Sive De Reb. Isl., Hamb. 1593) of this learned Icelander will be found analysed in Purchas, vol. iii., and Hakluyt, vol. i. His principal argument is very unsatisfactory: “If Iceland is taken to have been the classical Thule, it must have been inhabited in the days of Augustus, which is contrary to the chronicles of the island.” This author’s chief objection is thus stated by himself: “Si etenim Islandia idem esset cum Thule, rueret totum hujus narrationis fundamentum de Islandia A.C. 874 habitari primum cæpta;” an objection which will be considered elsewhere. Meanwhile I prefer the opinion of the equally learned Pentanus, who says of Iceland: “Non heri aut hodie quod dicitur fuit frequentata, sed habuit indigenas suos multa ante sæcula.”[28]According to Dr Charnock, he speaks only of the Sacæ, the Persa, and the Britannus.[29]Dr Bosworth (Anglo-Saxon Dict.) quotes Boethius (29, 11): “Oth thæt iland the we hatath Thyle, thæt is on tham northwest ende thisses middaneardes thær ne bith nawther ne on sumera niht, ne on wintra dæg” (To the island which we call Thule, that is on the north-west end of this middle earth, where there is neither night in summer nor day in winter). Cardale (1, 166) also: “Thonne be norðan Ibernia is thæt ylemede land thæt man hæt Thila” (Thence to the north of Ibernia is that island which men call Thila). See also Orosius, 1, 2.[30]The author here settles offhand a point disputedad infinitum. Dr Charnock has shown that Scotland was at one time called Igbernia, Hibernia (the classical name of Ireland, corrupted fromiar-in, the western isle), and from the end of the third to the beginning of the eleventh century,Scotiawas used exclusively to indicate Ireland.[31]برة التنك (Barrat el Tanak), “tanak” being the Arabic for tin.—Dr Charnock in his various writings (Local Etymology, etc.), after referring to the derivation of Britannia from the Punic ברת אנכ,barat-anac, the land of tin or lead; and the Hebrew ברא,bara, in Pihel, to create, produce; quoting Camden, Owen, Clarke, Borlase, Bochart, Boerhave, Shaw, Bosworth, and Armstrong, gives the following suggested derivations of the name from the Keltic, viz.: from its inhabitants, theBrython; frombrit,brith, of divers colours, spotted (ברד,brd, pl. ברדים,brdim, spots, spotted with colours);bràith-tuinn, (the land on) the top of the wave; fromYuys Prydain, the fair island; fromPrydyn, son of Aez the Great; frombri, dignity, honour; fromBrutus, a fabulous king of Britain; frombret, high,tain, a river; but Dr Charnock inclines to derive the name frombret-inn, the high island. It need hardly be said that the Tin Islands (Cassiterides) contained no tin; like Zanzibar, they were probably a mere depôt where the Phœnicians met the savages of the interior.[32]In the following verse of Catullus (Carm. 27):“Hunc Gallæ timent, hunc timent Britanniæ,”we find “Britain” used to denote the whole of the British Isles.[33]Kassiterides is Aryan not Semitic; the metal in Sanskrit beingKastīra, which, like the ArabicKhasdír, may be from the Greek. The Scilly islands were also called Æstrumnides, a name which occurs in R. Festus Avienus (loc. cit.):“Ast hinc duobus in sacram, sic insulamDixere prisci, solibus cursus rati est.Hæc inter undas multum cespitem jacit,Eam que latè gens Hibernorum colit.Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet.Tartesiisque in terminos ÆstrumnidumNegociandi mos erat CarthaginisEtiam colonis, et vulgus inter HerculisAgitans columnas hæc adibant æquora.”All this, be it remembered, is borrowed from Punic sources. Therefore Hibernia is explained by Bochart as “nihil aliud quam ultima habitatio,” and Keltic Ierne is translated the “uttermost point.”[34]The Greeks were in the habit of borrowing their geographical terms from the indigenæ, not from the Phœnicians. Yet Dodwell is hardly justified in rejecting Hanno’s Periplus because Greek names occur instead of Phœnician. I have already derived their Erythræan Sea from the Sea of Edom, and the Sea of Himyar (of which the root is [illustration: symbol], redness); and the “Mountains of the Moon” from Unyamwezi, still shortened on the coast to Mwezi, the general name for the moon in the great south African family of languages. Dr Charnock (Local Etymology) says, “Scotland is the land of the Scoti, who by some have been considered as identical with the Σκύθαι, Scythæ, who may have been named from their great skill in the use of the bow, their principal weapon,” and he gives O. Teut.scutten,scuthen, archers; Gael.sciot, an arrow, dart.[35]Surely there is no reason why Macpherson should derive Hebrides from Ey-brides, islands of St Bride or Brigida, the Vesta of the North.[36]Compare “Fulham” (volucrum habitatio), the home of fowls.[37]Celsius, indeed, arguing from the universal concensus of the classical geographers, believes in the former insularity of Scandinavia; the secular upheaval of the coast, which in parts still continues, may account for its annexation to the continent. Thus Skáni and Skáney (the-eyanswering to the Latinised-avia), the modern term applied to Scania, the Scandinavia of Pliny and subsequent geographers, is still given only to the southernmost point of the great northern peninsula, the first district known to the Romans.[38]M. Bruzen La Martinière (Grand Dictionnaire Géographique et Critique, fol., La Hage, 1738, and Venice, 1741) runs this sentence into the next, and makes the greater part of northern Thule barren. The text is the reading adopted by the splendid edition of Claudius Malvetus (Greek and Latin, Venetiis, 1729), and by the Latin translation, Basiliæ ex officinâ Ioannis Hervagii (anno 1531, pp. 92-94, and not divided into chapters). As regards the Heruli, whom Procopius calls Έρούλοι, we find in Stephanus Byzantinus (fifth century) Έλούροι; in Sidonius Apollinaris (fifth century, Carm. 7):“Cursu Herulus, Hunnus jaculis, Francusque natatu;”and in Zonaras (twelfth century) Άιρούλαι.[39]La Martinière informs us that the Skithifini, Scritifini, or Scrithifinni of Procopius were the Scritofinni of Paulus Diaconus (sixth century), and the Crefennæ or Scretofennæ of Jornandes (sixth century). This Scandinavian tribe, according to Hermanides (Descriptio Norwegiæ, p. 46), held the country afterwards called Scredevinda or Scriticivinda, extending along the coasts of the Boreal Ocean from the confines of Finmark to the beginning of White Sea, and now included in Russian Lapland. The account of Procopius also tallies with those of the ancient Lapps.[40]“Scana,” in Adam Bremensis; generally “Scandia,” and popularly derived from “Schön” and “aue.” According to Cleasby, the Icel. “Skáney” is said to mean “borderland,” and perhaps derived from “skán,” a thin border, surface, etc.[41]The whole account of Solinus is interesting enough for detailed quotation: as regards Thyle being two days distant from Caledonia, and five from the Orkneys; the numerals are supposed to be clerical errors: “Multæ et aliæ Britanniam insulæ, e quibus Thyle ultima, in qua æstivo solstitio sole de Cancri sidere faciente transitum nox pænè nulla: brumali solstitio dies adès conductus, ut ortus junctus sit occasui. A Caledoniæ promontorio Thylen petentibus bidui navagatione perfecta excipiunt Hebridæ insulæ, quinque numero, quarum incolæ nesciunt fruges, piscibus tantum et lacte vivunt. Rex unus est universis: nam quotquot sunt, omnes augusta interluvie dividuntur. Rex nihil suum habet, omnia universorum: ad æquitatem certis legibus stringitur; ac ne avaritia divertat a vero, discit paupertate justitiam, utpote cui nihil sit rei familiaris: verum alitur e publico. Nulla illi datur femina propria, sed per vicissitudines, in quamcunque commotus fuerit, usurarium sumit. Undo ei nec votum, nec spes conceditur liberorum. Secundam a continenti stationem Orcades præbent: sed Orcades ab Hebudibus porro sunt septem dierum, totidemque noctium cursu, numero tres. Vacant homine; non habent silvas, tantum junceis herbis inhorrescunt. Cetera earum undæ arenæ. Ab Orcadibus Thylen usque quinque dierum ac noctium navigatio est. Sed Thyle larga et diutina pomona copiosa est. Qui illic habitant, principio veris inter pecudes, pabulis vivunt, deinde lacte. In hiemem compascunt arborum fructus. Utuntur feminis vulgo; certum matrimonium nulli. Ultra Thylen pigrum et concretum mare.”[42]Both Ausonius (Idyl. 12) and Statius (loc. cit.) make Thule to be “Hesperia,”i.e., west of Britain. On the other hand, the Geographer of Ravenna (Pre Guido? v. 31) places his Thule east of Britain.[43]Another authority was Ari Froði (Ara Multiscius), one of the writers of the Landnámabók, who also tells us (c. 2, p. 10, in Schedis de Islandiâ, Oxoniæ, 1716, 8vo) that these “hermits” chose not to live with the heathen, and for that reason went away, leaving behind their books, bells, and staves.[44]M. Mallet’s Northern Antiquities (Bohn, 1859), p. 189, note by the editor, Mr J. A. Blackwell. Mr G. W. Dasent (The Story of Burnt Njal, Edin., Edmonstone & Douglas, vi., viii.) quotes Dicuili Liber de Mensurâ Orbis Terræ, Ed. Valckenaer, Paris, 1807; and Maurer, Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte des germanischen Nordens, i. 35.[45]Or Columbanus (nat. circ.A.D.559); he was born about forty years later than St Columbkill.[46]The word “Culdee” is used by Dasent. It was reserved for a sub-learned and ultra-disputatious Icelander, Mr Eirikr Magnússon, to assert at the Anthropological Institute (November 19, 1872), that Culdee is a “general term for men of religious and monastic living, and that the epithet is derived from ‘Cultores Dei.’ The singular is simply the Erse ‘Ceile De,’ or ‘servant of God.’”The following exhaustive note upon the Culdees was kindly forwarded to me by Dr Richard S. Charnock:“The Culdees anciently had establishments not only in Scotland and Ireland, but also in England and Wales. They were numerous in Scotland, and continued there from the ninth century to the Reformation. Chalmers (Caledonia) says the Culdees of Scotland are not mentioned in history till about the beginning of the ninth century (circ.A.D.800-815), and their first establishment was at Dunkeld, under the bishop of that see. They were afterwards (circ.A.D.850) placed at St Andrews, where they had their chief establishment for many centuries; and it is stated by Buchanan that Constantine III., king of Scotland, who died inA.D.943, spent the last five years of his life in religious retirement amongst the Culdees of that city. Chalmers states that before the introduction of the canons regular of St Andrews (twelfth century), the Culdees alone acted as secular canons in cathedrals, and as dean and chapter in the election of bishops; and that thenceforth both orders were joined in the right untilA.D.1272, when it was usurped by canons regular. He also says that the Culdees of Brechin continued for many ages to act as dean and chapter of that diocese, and according to Jamieson (History of the Culdees) the Culdees of St Andrews elected the bishop of that see down to the election of William Wishart (1270), when the power was abrogated; but in those early times it appears that the bishops in many sees in Scotland were of the order of Culdees. In G. Cambrensis mention is made of Culdees in the island of Bardsey, off the Welsh coast. The annotator of the Annals of the Four Masters (A.D.1479) says, ‘By the Latin writers they were called Colidæi, Culdei, Kelidei, and sometimes Deicolæ.’ The Colidei or Culdees are mentioned by various other ancient writers, and by several Scotch historians, as monks in Scotland as early as the fourth and fifth centuries. But the statements of John of Fordan, Hector Boethius, and others, are entirely contradicted by the learned Lanigan. Smith (Life of St Columbkill) and Jamieson (History) have maintained that they were Columbian monks, or members of that order instituted by St Columbkill at Iona, in the Hebrides, and also in various parts of Scotland; and they have represented these Culdees as a very strict and religious order in those early times, from the sixth to the twelfth century. But Lanigan shows that these statements are erroneous, and that the Culdees were not mentioned by the Venerable Bede or any other ancient ecclesiastical writer as Columbian monks, nor in the works of Usher or Ware, nor in the five lives of Columbkill published by Colgan. Lanigan considers that the Culdees were first instituted in Ireland in the eighth or ninth century; and Aongus, surnamed Ceile De, a celebrated ecclesiastical writer of the eighth century, author of Lives of Irish Saints, etc., is supposed to have been a Culdee. They are mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters and of Ulster (A.D.920), in which it is recorded that Godfrey, king of the Danes of Dublin, plundered Armagh, but he spared the churches and Colidæi. It appears from Lanigan and other authorities that the Culdees were not, strictly speaking, monks, neither were they members of the parochial clergy, but were a description of secular priests called ‘secular canons,’ and attached to cathedrals or collegiate churches termed prebendaries; and although bound by rules peculiar to themselves, they belonged to the secular clergy, and are to be distinguished from the canons regular, or communities of monks, who sprang up at a much later period, and officiated in the chapters of cathedral churches. The Culdees also sang in the choir, lived in community, and had a superior called ‘Prior of the Culdees,’ who acted as precentor or chief chanter. The principal institution of the Culdees was at Armagh, and, according to Usher and others, there were Culdees in all the chief churches of Ulster; and some of them continued at Armagh down to the middle of the seventeenth century. The Culdees had priories and lands in various parts of Ireland, particularly at Devenish Island, in Fermanagh, and at Clones, in Monaghan, both in the diocese of Clogher; also at Ardbraccan in Meath: and G. Cambrensis gives an account of the Colidæi who lived on an island in a lake in North Munster, which island was called by the IrishInis na mbeo, or the ‘Island of the Living’ (or of cattle?), from a tradition that no person ever died on it; it was afterwards called Mona Incha, and was situated about three miles from Roscrea, in the bog of Monela, in Tipperary. In the time of G. Cambrensis this island was a celebrated place of pilgrimage; and their residence was afterwards removed to Corbally, a place near the lake, where the Culdees became canons regular of St Augustíne. Though the Irish Culdees were generally clergymen, yet some pious unmarried laymen joined their communities. There were also Culdees in Britain, particularly in the North of England, in the city of York, where they had a great establishment called the Hospital of St Leonard, and were secular canons of St Peter’s Cathedral, as mentioned in Dugdale’s Monasticon; and got some grants of lands inA.D.936, during the reign of Athelstan, and continued at York at least down to the time of Pope Adrian IV., who confirmed them in their possessions. We also read in the ‘Annals,’ underA.D.1479, that Pearce, son of Nicholas O’Flanagan, who was a canon of the chapter of Clogher, a parson, and a prior of the Ceile De, a sacristan of Devenish, and an official of Loch Erne (vicar-general of Clogher), a man distinguished for his benevolence, piety, great hospitality, and humanity, died after having gained the victory over the world and the devil. It would appear by the Annals of the Four Masters that Culdees were found in Ireland inA.D.1601: ‘O’Donnell having received intelligence that the English had come to that place (Boyle), was greatly grieved at the profanation of the monastery, and that the English should occupy and inhabit it in the place of the Mic Beathaidh (monks) and Culdees, whose rightful residence it was till then, and it was not becoming him not to go to relieve them if he possibly could.’ At the Reformation, a little later, out of 563 monasteries in Ireland mentioned by Ware, and also in Archdale’s Monasticon, it would appear that there was one belonging to the Culdees, viz., the Priory of Culdees at Armagh. See also Dr Jamieson’s History of the Culdees, 4to, Edin.; Maccatheus’s History of the Culdees, 12mo, Edin. 1855; and Keith’s Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, new edition.”[47]Vol. i., chap. 8. This traveller did not visit the cave, but quotes from Olafsson and Pállsson, p. 927.[48]This interesting letter was brought to the author’s notice by Dr Attilio Hortis, Director of the Bibliotheca Civica, Trieste. This young and ardent scholar has published for the centenary festival of Petrarch (June 1874), certain political documents hitherto unprinted; they prove Petrarch to have been, like almost all the great Italian poets, a far-seeing statesman in theory if not in practice.[49]Bochart (in Chanaan, i. 40), quoting Diogenes and Dercyllides of Tyre, whose tables, according to Photius (loc. cit.), were dug up by order of Alexander the Great, explains Thule to mean in Phœnician “tenebrarum insula.” But this etymology reminds us of the Semitic origin applied to Britain.[50]The Icel. is Thilir, men of Thela-mörk, mark of the Thilir, the Norwegian country now called Thilemarken.[51]Dr Charnock remarks that “Thule” is the name of a river in Glamorganshire, of a place in Silesia, and a town in Westphalia; also that “Southern Thule” was a title given to a part of Sandwich Island, the southernmost region discovered by Captain Cook in January 1775. Lt. Wilford’s Pandit invented a Pushkara Dwipa under the Arctic circle, corresponding with modern Iceland. Camden (Britannia) warns us, not unnecessarily, against confounding the “insula in ultimis et extremis Borealis Oceani secessibus longè sub Arctico Polo,” with the Indian “Tylis” or “Tylos” (Bahrayn?), of which St Augustine (lib. xxi. 5, De Civit. Dei) says, “Tylen Indiæ insulam eo preferri cæteris terris, quod omnis arbor quæ in eâ gignitur nunquam nudatur tegmine foliorum,” doubtless alluding to the palm. Strabo, we believe, does not mention “Tylos;” Pliny refers to it in three places (Nat. Hist., vi. 32, and xii. 21 and 22).[52]To which may be added, neglecting the “Automata” of classical and mediæval times (Pliny, i. 89; Ruspe, de Novis Insulis, etc.), Arons Island (1628); Sorea of the Moluccas (1693); the offsets of Santorin (1707); Stromöe (1783); Graham Island, near Sicily, which, in 1831, was thrown up to a height of 750 feet, and the three outliers of Santorin (1866). These little worlds enable us to study Earth in the art of parturition.[53]From Palagonia in Sicily, where it was first described (1838) by that savant (see pp. 222-483, and 802, Dana’s System of Mineralogy, Trübner, London, 1871). The specific gravity is 2·43, and the fracture mostly conchoidal. The distinguished chemist, Professor Bunsen (Sect. ix., § 1), who, succeeding in producing artificial Palagonite, gives it iron, either magnetic or peroxide, and “some alkali,” a vague term: Dr W. Lauder Lindsay adds minor constituents, felspar, augite (hornblende), jasper, olivine, obsidian, hornstone, chalcedony, and zeolite. Professor Tyndall (Royal Institution, June 3, 1853) offers the following table:Oxide of iron,36·75Alumina,25·50Lime,20·25Magnesia,11·39(not found by Dr Murray Thomson).Soda,3·44Potash,2·67100·00In 1872, only a single and a very poor specimen of this highly interesting rock had found its way to the museum in Jermyn Street.[54]From Stuðill, anything that steadies, a stud, prop, stay. A specific usage makes Stuðlar signify pentagonal basalt columns, and Stuðla-berg is a basaltic dyke (Cleasby). It is popularly opposed to Mó-berg, “a kind of tufa,” properly Palagonite, from Mór, a moor or peat-fuel.[55]About ninety species of mollusk shells and the hard parts of echinoderms and crustaceæ have been found in the Palagonite of Sicilian Aci Castello. Lime, for the use of the shell-builders, enters into the composition of such tuffs generally, and the percentage depends upon the percentage of shells. Silica is extracted from it by carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen; and this mineral again depends upon the included quantity of infusorial skeletons. Professor Quekett, Dr Gulliver, and other authorities, have examined specimens of Icelandic Palagonite, in which they could not detect infusoria nor their skeletons, even after boiling in nitric acid.[56]The word “trap” will be used in these pages to denote the lavas ejected by submarine volcanoes.[57]Until late years the general opinion was that all basalts are of igneous formation. The contrary has been supported by Mr H. P. Malet (Geogr. Mag., August 1874), to mention no others: he finds in that of Rossberg and the “Rowley Rag” vegetable, animal, and earthy particles which, passed through the fire, would have vanished in vapour. The distinction, therefore, between basalt and basaltic lava becomes fundamental. Granite, again, is by the same writer taken from Hutton and returned to Werner. The author could not but observe, when travelling in the basaltic Haurán, in that Bashan which, according to some, gave a name to the mineral, that the dried mud split under the sun into lozenges and pentagonal flakes (Unexplored Syria, i. 215). Upon this subject more will be said in Chapter XIV.[58]Forchhammer considered this trachyte an unknown variety of felspar, and called it Baulite.[59]See Chapter XI.[60]The date “revealed to Moses” has long delayed the progress of science, and the 6000 years or so, still linger in the orthodox brains. The Hindus and the Moslems were far wiser, or rather better informed; the latter provide for the countless Æons of the past by the theory of Pre-Adamite kings and races.[61]The Jökull (plur.Jöklar) is explainedpassim. Suffice it here to say, that it is a mass of eternal ice formed by the enormous pressure of the superincumbent snow; it is not correct, but it is decidedly convenient to render it by “glacier.” The Fell (our “fell,” pronouncedFedlorFetl) is a single block or peak, and in the plural, a range or sierra; it is mostly free from snow during the summer heats. Fjall (Fyadl, andplur. Fjöll) is the generic term “mons” and κατ’ ἐξοχὴν; it is applied in Icelandic literature to the Alps.[62]Here is the culminating point of the island, usually assumed at 6500 English feet, more than one-third higher than Vesuvius (4000 feet).[63]Usually assumed at 6000 English feet.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]“Mirum de Tyle, quæ inter occidentales ultima fertur insulas, quod apud orientales tam nomine quam naturâ sit famosissima; cum occidentalibus sit prorsus incognita,” says Giraldus Cambrensis, chap. xvii., p. 98, ed. T. F. Dimock, M.A., Lond. 1867.

[2]The Iernis of Onomacritus (who is supposed to have written about B.C. 535, in the days of Pisistratus). Its authenticity is defended by Ruhnkenius (Epist. Crit. 2), and by Archbishop Usher (Ecclesiar. Antiq., chap. 16), while Camden (Britan.) has claimed the island to be England. Adrian Junius, a Dutch poet of the sixteenth century, quoted by Moore (History, chap. 1), thus alluded to Ireland having been known to the Argonauts:“Illa ego sum Graiis olim glacialis IerneDicta, et Jasoni puppis bene cognita navis.”We shall afterwards find Sibbald identifying Ierne with Strathearn.

“Illa ego sum Graiis olim glacialis IerneDicta, et Jasoni puppis bene cognita navis.”

We shall afterwards find Sibbald identifying Ierne with Strathearn.

[3]Consult the paper “On the Stade as a Linear Measure” by W. Martin Leake, Esq., Journal of the R.G.S., vol. ix. of 1839, pp. 1-25. The word Stadium or Stade does not appear in the index of the first twenty volumes; and this is only one instance of the carelessness with which an essential addition to the Journal has been drawn up.

[4]We may ask in our turn what prevented him travelling with traders?

[5]Hipparchus ad Arat. (i. 5; confer Plut., iii. 17), also attests the scientific worth of Pytheas, and mentions how he explained the tides by lunar phases.

[6]See Rerum Script. Hiberniæ (Prolog., i., xii.), quoted at the end of this section. Of Pytheas we know little, except that he was a Phocæan or Massilian Greek, who is supposed to have made two voyages betweenB.C.350 andB.C.300. In the first, he sailed round Albion and reached Thule. In the second, he set out from Gadira (Cadiz) to the Tanais, which is popularly supposed to have been the Elbe. Both his works, “On the Ocean,” and the “Periplus,” are lost. Even Strabo, who seems to have had “that charlatan Pytheas on the brain,” does not deny his knowledge of astronomy, mathematics, and navigation. G. G. Bredow (Untersuchungen, etc., ii. 122-129, Altona, 1800), C. H. Tzschuckius (P. Melæ, lib. tres, Lipsiæ, 1806, vol. iii., pp. 223-230), and J. I. Pontanus (Chorographica Daniæ Descriptio, Amstelodami, 1631, folio, p. 741), give many references to Pytheas. See also Histoire Littéraire de France, i. 71, et seq.; Bougainville (Mémoires de Paris, xix. 146); D’Anville (Mém. de Paris, xxxii. 436, and his objections to the traveller having visited Iceland, 50, 441); Murray (Nov. Comm. Soc. Goetting, vi. 59-63, 82-86); Fournier (Hydrographie, 322, et seq.); and Wagner (Ad Guthrie Allgem. Welt. Gesch., xvi. 4). Forbiger (Handbuch der Alt. Geog., iii., Leip. 1848) also quotes a multitude of authors, including Mannert, Humboldt, and Lelewel (Pytheas u. die Geo. Sein. Zeit., s. 30).

[7]These are the Acmodæ of Pliny (iv. 30), which can only be the Shetlands. Salmasius identifies the Acmodæ, Hæmodæ, and Hebrides. Camden makes them different, and refers the Acmodæ to the Baltic. Parisot informs us that off the West Cape of Skye and the isle of North Uist (the nearest of the Hebrides to the Shetlands) there is a great gulf, which, being full of islands, is still called Mamaddy or Maddy—hence, possibly, the Greek Άι Μαδδάι, and the Latin Memodæ. According to Dr Charnock, the name in Keltic may be translated the “black head or hill,” or the “hill of God.”

[8]Mela’s “Scandinovia” is one of six islands which are described rather as parts of a great peninsula than as regular “insulæ.” Amongst their Sarmatian population are the Oænæ (egg-eaters), the Hippopodæ (horse-feet), and the Panoti (all-ears), whose existence is attested by credible travellers (Cf.p. 165, Geografia di Pomponio Mela, by Giovanni Francesco Muratori, Torino, Stamperia Reale, 1855).

[9]Camden suggests that “Belcarum” was a clerical error for “Bergarum.” But Mela places Bergæ on the confines of Scythia and Asia, and he joins the Caspian with the Northern Ocean (iii. 5).

[10]To understand the full significance of this sentence, we must consult the context. The first “additional parallel,” whose longest day was sixteen hours, ran through “the Daci and part of Germany, and the Gallic provinces, as far as the shores of the ocean.” The second traversed “the country of the Hyperborei and the island of Britannia, the longest day being seventeen hours in length.” The third is far more applicable to Iceland than to the Shetland or Færoe groups.

[11]C. Ptolemæi Geographia, edidit Carolus Fredericus Augustus Nobbe, Lipsiæ, 1843. A correct text.

[12]C. Ptolemæi, etc., libri octo, ex Bilibaldi Pirckeymheri translatione, Lugduni, 1535. When may geographical students hope to see a portable English translation of Ptolemy, and be saved the mortification of carrying about this uncomfortable folio? The work was proposed many years ago to the Royal Geographical Society, and was rejected, I believe, on the grounds of Ptolemy being a mathematical writer. The paragraphs in the text refer to the Greek, the pages to the Latin translation.

[13]Ptolemy assumes the southernmost part of the old world to be in S. lat. 16° 20´ instead of S. lat. 34° 51´ 12´´ (Cape Agulhas). Already in 1800, G. G. Bredow (loc. cit.), recognising the imperfect graduation, had reduced Ptolemy’s N. lat. 57° to N. lat. 51° 15´, and N. lat. 62° to N. lat. 55° 15´.

[14]Lemprière and other popular books, contain the following curious assertion: “Ptolemy places the middle of his Thule in 63° of latitude, and says that at the time of the equinoxes, the days weretwenty-four hours, which could not have been true at the equinoxes, but must have referred to the solstices, and therefore this island is supposed to have been in 66° latitude, that is, under the Polar circle.” La Martinière, of whom more presently (sub voce Thule), makes no such blunder. Ptolemy gives N. lat. 63° andtwenty hours, in which he is followed by Agathemerus.

[15]It is suggested (Notes on Richard of Cirencester) that beginning with the Novantum Chersonesis (Mull of Galloway?), in E. long. (Ferro?) 21°, the latitudes were mistaken for the longitudes, hence Cape Orcas (Duncansby Head?) was thrown to the east, E. long. (Ferro?) 31° 20´.

[16]“On some old maps of Africa, etc.,” a valuable paper read before the British Association, August 1863: Herr Kiepert is greatly indebted to it.

[17]The error “S. Antonio,” for “Sâo Antâo,” is not the learned Mr Hogg’s; it is common to Norie and other books on navigation.

[18]It is regretable that geographers lost the excellent opportunity offered by the Vienna Weltausstellung of 1873, to determine in congress a singlepoint de départof longitude for the civilised world. Now each nation has the pretension of making a first meridian of its own, consequently whilst geographical readers have a fair conception of latitude, that of longitude is especially hazy. I only hope we shall not lose sight of the desideratum in the Geographical Congress of Paris (1875).

[19]“A Discourse concerning the Thule of the Ancients,” by Sir Robert Sibbald, vol. iii., Gough’s Camden (Britannia, etc.) of 1787. See also Gibson’s edition of Camden, Lond. 1695, and Frankfort edition, 1602.

[20]The full passage of Tacitus is, “Hanc oram novissimi maris (the Deucaledonian Sea) tunc primum Romana classis circumvecta, insulam esse Britanniam affirmavit, ac simul incognitas ad id tempus insulas, quas Orcades vocant, invenit domuitque. Dispecta est et Thule” (alii “Thyle” and “Tyle”) “quadam trans: nix et hiems appetebat; sed mare pigrum et grave remigantibus: perhibent, ne ventis quidem perinde attolli; credo quod rariores terræ montesque, causa ac materia tempestatum et profunda moles continui maris tardius impellitur.” Plutarch, tells us (Life of Cæsar) that the very existence of such a place as Britain had been doubted. When Diodorus Siculus wrote (temp. J. Cæsar and Augustus), the British Isles were amongst the regions least known to the world: “Ἤκιστα πέπτωκεν ὑρὸ τὴν κοινὴν ἀνθρώπων ἐπίγνωσιν” (lib. iii.). Eusebius (nat. circ.A.D.264) tells us in his Chronicon, “Claudius de Britannis triumphavit, et Orcades insulas Romano adjecit imperio.” Orosius (circ.A.D.415) adds (vii. 6, Hist. Adver. Pag., libri vii.), “Cognitæ insulæ erant forte et ante Claudium et sub Claudio, non quidem armis Romanis, sed mercatoribus, aut etiam eruditis, Mela teste.” And Mela, who wrote in the days of Claudius, assures us (iii. 6), “Triginta sunt Orcades angustis inter se diductæ spatiis.”

[21]The mention of fruits in this passage banishes the idea of Iceland.

[22]Diogenes of Apollonia flourished in the fifth centuryB.C., and also wrote περί φύσεως—concerning nature—a treatise on physical science. In the days when Hanno the Carthaginian, passing the Mediterranean Straits, explored the western coast of Africa, an event usually placed in the fifth centuryB.C., although Gosselin (Recherches sur la Géographie des Anciens) goes back as far as the tenth, Himilco (Pliny, N. H., ii. 67) was also sent to explore the remote parts of Europe. Sailing along the shores of Gadir, Tartessus (Tarshish), and Gallicia, he reached the Tin Isles. His Periplus, originally deposited in a temple at Carthage, was used by Dionysius, and was versified by Rufus Festus Avienus in the fourth century, in his iambic poem “De Oris Maritimis.” He himself says:“Hæc nos ab imis Punicorum annalibus,Prolata longo tempore edidimus tibi.”And Dodwell justly observes (Dissert. de Peripli Hannonis Ætati): “Ea causa satis verisimilis esse potuit, cur tamdiu Græcos latuerit Himilco, etiam cos qui collegæ meminerint Hannonis.”

“Hæc nos ab imis Punicorum annalibus,Prolata longo tempore edidimus tibi.”

And Dodwell justly observes (Dissert. de Peripli Hannonis Ætati): “Ea causa satis verisimilis esse potuit, cur tamdiu Græcos latuerit Himilco, etiam cos qui collegæ meminerint Hannonis.”

[23]Τά ὑπερ θούλης ἀπιστα. An abridgment is preserved by the learned Patriarch Photius in his Myriobiblion seu Bibliotheca.

[24]Juvenal here ironically describes the progress of Greek and Roman letters towards the barbarous north. The Britons are learning eloquence from the Gauls, and even Thule thinks of hiring a rhetorician.

[25]For “glacialis,” see Adrian Junius before quoted. The high-sounding and convenient epithet seems to have been applied to Ierne, as “ultima” to Thule. If the Romans did not hold Ireland, at any rate they knew it well: “Melius aditus portusque, per commercia et negotiatores cognita” (Tacit. Agricol., xxiv.).

[26]In Icelandic “Orkn” and “Orkn-selr” are applied to a seal. (Compare Lat.orca, supposed to be the grampus: Cleasby.) Pliny makesorcaa kind of dolphin (D. orca), andorecororcis the Gaelic form; hence Cape Orcas, which is popularly identified with Dunnet Head, the extreme northern point of Scotland. We have no need to derive “Orkneys” from εἴρκω (coercio), these isles breaking and restraining the force of the raging waves; or from “Erick” or “Orkenwald,” or any other “Pictish prince famous there at its first plantation.”

[27]The Crymogæa (Sive De Reb. Isl., Hamb. 1593) of this learned Icelander will be found analysed in Purchas, vol. iii., and Hakluyt, vol. i. His principal argument is very unsatisfactory: “If Iceland is taken to have been the classical Thule, it must have been inhabited in the days of Augustus, which is contrary to the chronicles of the island.” This author’s chief objection is thus stated by himself: “Si etenim Islandia idem esset cum Thule, rueret totum hujus narrationis fundamentum de Islandia A.C. 874 habitari primum cæpta;” an objection which will be considered elsewhere. Meanwhile I prefer the opinion of the equally learned Pentanus, who says of Iceland: “Non heri aut hodie quod dicitur fuit frequentata, sed habuit indigenas suos multa ante sæcula.”

[28]According to Dr Charnock, he speaks only of the Sacæ, the Persa, and the Britannus.

[29]Dr Bosworth (Anglo-Saxon Dict.) quotes Boethius (29, 11): “Oth thæt iland the we hatath Thyle, thæt is on tham northwest ende thisses middaneardes thær ne bith nawther ne on sumera niht, ne on wintra dæg” (To the island which we call Thule, that is on the north-west end of this middle earth, where there is neither night in summer nor day in winter). Cardale (1, 166) also: “Thonne be norðan Ibernia is thæt ylemede land thæt man hæt Thila” (Thence to the north of Ibernia is that island which men call Thila). See also Orosius, 1, 2.

[30]The author here settles offhand a point disputedad infinitum. Dr Charnock has shown that Scotland was at one time called Igbernia, Hibernia (the classical name of Ireland, corrupted fromiar-in, the western isle), and from the end of the third to the beginning of the eleventh century,Scotiawas used exclusively to indicate Ireland.

[31]برة التنك (Barrat el Tanak), “tanak” being the Arabic for tin.—Dr Charnock in his various writings (Local Etymology, etc.), after referring to the derivation of Britannia from the Punic ברת אנכ,barat-anac, the land of tin or lead; and the Hebrew ברא,bara, in Pihel, to create, produce; quoting Camden, Owen, Clarke, Borlase, Bochart, Boerhave, Shaw, Bosworth, and Armstrong, gives the following suggested derivations of the name from the Keltic, viz.: from its inhabitants, theBrython; frombrit,brith, of divers colours, spotted (ברד,brd, pl. ברדים,brdim, spots, spotted with colours);bràith-tuinn, (the land on) the top of the wave; fromYuys Prydain, the fair island; fromPrydyn, son of Aez the Great; frombri, dignity, honour; fromBrutus, a fabulous king of Britain; frombret, high,tain, a river; but Dr Charnock inclines to derive the name frombret-inn, the high island. It need hardly be said that the Tin Islands (Cassiterides) contained no tin; like Zanzibar, they were probably a mere depôt where the Phœnicians met the savages of the interior.

[32]In the following verse of Catullus (Carm. 27):“Hunc Gallæ timent, hunc timent Britanniæ,”we find “Britain” used to denote the whole of the British Isles.

[32]In the following verse of Catullus (Carm. 27):

“Hunc Gallæ timent, hunc timent Britanniæ,”

we find “Britain” used to denote the whole of the British Isles.

[33]Kassiterides is Aryan not Semitic; the metal in Sanskrit beingKastīra, which, like the ArabicKhasdír, may be from the Greek. The Scilly islands were also called Æstrumnides, a name which occurs in R. Festus Avienus (loc. cit.):“Ast hinc duobus in sacram, sic insulamDixere prisci, solibus cursus rati est.Hæc inter undas multum cespitem jacit,Eam que latè gens Hibernorum colit.Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet.Tartesiisque in terminos ÆstrumnidumNegociandi mos erat CarthaginisEtiam colonis, et vulgus inter HerculisAgitans columnas hæc adibant æquora.”All this, be it remembered, is borrowed from Punic sources. Therefore Hibernia is explained by Bochart as “nihil aliud quam ultima habitatio,” and Keltic Ierne is translated the “uttermost point.”

“Ast hinc duobus in sacram, sic insulamDixere prisci, solibus cursus rati est.Hæc inter undas multum cespitem jacit,Eam que latè gens Hibernorum colit.Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet.Tartesiisque in terminos ÆstrumnidumNegociandi mos erat CarthaginisEtiam colonis, et vulgus inter HerculisAgitans columnas hæc adibant æquora.”

All this, be it remembered, is borrowed from Punic sources. Therefore Hibernia is explained by Bochart as “nihil aliud quam ultima habitatio,” and Keltic Ierne is translated the “uttermost point.”

[34]The Greeks were in the habit of borrowing their geographical terms from the indigenæ, not from the Phœnicians. Yet Dodwell is hardly justified in rejecting Hanno’s Periplus because Greek names occur instead of Phœnician. I have already derived their Erythræan Sea from the Sea of Edom, and the Sea of Himyar (of which the root is [illustration: symbol], redness); and the “Mountains of the Moon” from Unyamwezi, still shortened on the coast to Mwezi, the general name for the moon in the great south African family of languages. Dr Charnock (Local Etymology) says, “Scotland is the land of the Scoti, who by some have been considered as identical with the Σκύθαι, Scythæ, who may have been named from their great skill in the use of the bow, their principal weapon,” and he gives O. Teut.scutten,scuthen, archers; Gael.sciot, an arrow, dart.

[35]Surely there is no reason why Macpherson should derive Hebrides from Ey-brides, islands of St Bride or Brigida, the Vesta of the North.

[36]Compare “Fulham” (volucrum habitatio), the home of fowls.

[37]Celsius, indeed, arguing from the universal concensus of the classical geographers, believes in the former insularity of Scandinavia; the secular upheaval of the coast, which in parts still continues, may account for its annexation to the continent. Thus Skáni and Skáney (the-eyanswering to the Latinised-avia), the modern term applied to Scania, the Scandinavia of Pliny and subsequent geographers, is still given only to the southernmost point of the great northern peninsula, the first district known to the Romans.

[38]M. Bruzen La Martinière (Grand Dictionnaire Géographique et Critique, fol., La Hage, 1738, and Venice, 1741) runs this sentence into the next, and makes the greater part of northern Thule barren. The text is the reading adopted by the splendid edition of Claudius Malvetus (Greek and Latin, Venetiis, 1729), and by the Latin translation, Basiliæ ex officinâ Ioannis Hervagii (anno 1531, pp. 92-94, and not divided into chapters). As regards the Heruli, whom Procopius calls Έρούλοι, we find in Stephanus Byzantinus (fifth century) Έλούροι; in Sidonius Apollinaris (fifth century, Carm. 7):“Cursu Herulus, Hunnus jaculis, Francusque natatu;”and in Zonaras (twelfth century) Άιρούλαι.

“Cursu Herulus, Hunnus jaculis, Francusque natatu;”

and in Zonaras (twelfth century) Άιρούλαι.

[39]La Martinière informs us that the Skithifini, Scritifini, or Scrithifinni of Procopius were the Scritofinni of Paulus Diaconus (sixth century), and the Crefennæ or Scretofennæ of Jornandes (sixth century). This Scandinavian tribe, according to Hermanides (Descriptio Norwegiæ, p. 46), held the country afterwards called Scredevinda or Scriticivinda, extending along the coasts of the Boreal Ocean from the confines of Finmark to the beginning of White Sea, and now included in Russian Lapland. The account of Procopius also tallies with those of the ancient Lapps.

[40]“Scana,” in Adam Bremensis; generally “Scandia,” and popularly derived from “Schön” and “aue.” According to Cleasby, the Icel. “Skáney” is said to mean “borderland,” and perhaps derived from “skán,” a thin border, surface, etc.

[41]The whole account of Solinus is interesting enough for detailed quotation: as regards Thyle being two days distant from Caledonia, and five from the Orkneys; the numerals are supposed to be clerical errors: “Multæ et aliæ Britanniam insulæ, e quibus Thyle ultima, in qua æstivo solstitio sole de Cancri sidere faciente transitum nox pænè nulla: brumali solstitio dies adès conductus, ut ortus junctus sit occasui. A Caledoniæ promontorio Thylen petentibus bidui navagatione perfecta excipiunt Hebridæ insulæ, quinque numero, quarum incolæ nesciunt fruges, piscibus tantum et lacte vivunt. Rex unus est universis: nam quotquot sunt, omnes augusta interluvie dividuntur. Rex nihil suum habet, omnia universorum: ad æquitatem certis legibus stringitur; ac ne avaritia divertat a vero, discit paupertate justitiam, utpote cui nihil sit rei familiaris: verum alitur e publico. Nulla illi datur femina propria, sed per vicissitudines, in quamcunque commotus fuerit, usurarium sumit. Undo ei nec votum, nec spes conceditur liberorum. Secundam a continenti stationem Orcades præbent: sed Orcades ab Hebudibus porro sunt septem dierum, totidemque noctium cursu, numero tres. Vacant homine; non habent silvas, tantum junceis herbis inhorrescunt. Cetera earum undæ arenæ. Ab Orcadibus Thylen usque quinque dierum ac noctium navigatio est. Sed Thyle larga et diutina pomona copiosa est. Qui illic habitant, principio veris inter pecudes, pabulis vivunt, deinde lacte. In hiemem compascunt arborum fructus. Utuntur feminis vulgo; certum matrimonium nulli. Ultra Thylen pigrum et concretum mare.”

[42]Both Ausonius (Idyl. 12) and Statius (loc. cit.) make Thule to be “Hesperia,”i.e., west of Britain. On the other hand, the Geographer of Ravenna (Pre Guido? v. 31) places his Thule east of Britain.

[43]Another authority was Ari Froði (Ara Multiscius), one of the writers of the Landnámabók, who also tells us (c. 2, p. 10, in Schedis de Islandiâ, Oxoniæ, 1716, 8vo) that these “hermits” chose not to live with the heathen, and for that reason went away, leaving behind their books, bells, and staves.

[44]M. Mallet’s Northern Antiquities (Bohn, 1859), p. 189, note by the editor, Mr J. A. Blackwell. Mr G. W. Dasent (The Story of Burnt Njal, Edin., Edmonstone & Douglas, vi., viii.) quotes Dicuili Liber de Mensurâ Orbis Terræ, Ed. Valckenaer, Paris, 1807; and Maurer, Beiträge zur Rechtsgeschichte des germanischen Nordens, i. 35.

[45]Or Columbanus (nat. circ.A.D.559); he was born about forty years later than St Columbkill.

[46]The word “Culdee” is used by Dasent. It was reserved for a sub-learned and ultra-disputatious Icelander, Mr Eirikr Magnússon, to assert at the Anthropological Institute (November 19, 1872), that Culdee is a “general term for men of religious and monastic living, and that the epithet is derived from ‘Cultores Dei.’ The singular is simply the Erse ‘Ceile De,’ or ‘servant of God.’”The following exhaustive note upon the Culdees was kindly forwarded to me by Dr Richard S. Charnock:“The Culdees anciently had establishments not only in Scotland and Ireland, but also in England and Wales. They were numerous in Scotland, and continued there from the ninth century to the Reformation. Chalmers (Caledonia) says the Culdees of Scotland are not mentioned in history till about the beginning of the ninth century (circ.A.D.800-815), and their first establishment was at Dunkeld, under the bishop of that see. They were afterwards (circ.A.D.850) placed at St Andrews, where they had their chief establishment for many centuries; and it is stated by Buchanan that Constantine III., king of Scotland, who died inA.D.943, spent the last five years of his life in religious retirement amongst the Culdees of that city. Chalmers states that before the introduction of the canons regular of St Andrews (twelfth century), the Culdees alone acted as secular canons in cathedrals, and as dean and chapter in the election of bishops; and that thenceforth both orders were joined in the right untilA.D.1272, when it was usurped by canons regular. He also says that the Culdees of Brechin continued for many ages to act as dean and chapter of that diocese, and according to Jamieson (History of the Culdees) the Culdees of St Andrews elected the bishop of that see down to the election of William Wishart (1270), when the power was abrogated; but in those early times it appears that the bishops in many sees in Scotland were of the order of Culdees. In G. Cambrensis mention is made of Culdees in the island of Bardsey, off the Welsh coast. The annotator of the Annals of the Four Masters (A.D.1479) says, ‘By the Latin writers they were called Colidæi, Culdei, Kelidei, and sometimes Deicolæ.’ The Colidei or Culdees are mentioned by various other ancient writers, and by several Scotch historians, as monks in Scotland as early as the fourth and fifth centuries. But the statements of John of Fordan, Hector Boethius, and others, are entirely contradicted by the learned Lanigan. Smith (Life of St Columbkill) and Jamieson (History) have maintained that they were Columbian monks, or members of that order instituted by St Columbkill at Iona, in the Hebrides, and also in various parts of Scotland; and they have represented these Culdees as a very strict and religious order in those early times, from the sixth to the twelfth century. But Lanigan shows that these statements are erroneous, and that the Culdees were not mentioned by the Venerable Bede or any other ancient ecclesiastical writer as Columbian monks, nor in the works of Usher or Ware, nor in the five lives of Columbkill published by Colgan. Lanigan considers that the Culdees were first instituted in Ireland in the eighth or ninth century; and Aongus, surnamed Ceile De, a celebrated ecclesiastical writer of the eighth century, author of Lives of Irish Saints, etc., is supposed to have been a Culdee. They are mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters and of Ulster (A.D.920), in which it is recorded that Godfrey, king of the Danes of Dublin, plundered Armagh, but he spared the churches and Colidæi. It appears from Lanigan and other authorities that the Culdees were not, strictly speaking, monks, neither were they members of the parochial clergy, but were a description of secular priests called ‘secular canons,’ and attached to cathedrals or collegiate churches termed prebendaries; and although bound by rules peculiar to themselves, they belonged to the secular clergy, and are to be distinguished from the canons regular, or communities of monks, who sprang up at a much later period, and officiated in the chapters of cathedral churches. The Culdees also sang in the choir, lived in community, and had a superior called ‘Prior of the Culdees,’ who acted as precentor or chief chanter. The principal institution of the Culdees was at Armagh, and, according to Usher and others, there were Culdees in all the chief churches of Ulster; and some of them continued at Armagh down to the middle of the seventeenth century. The Culdees had priories and lands in various parts of Ireland, particularly at Devenish Island, in Fermanagh, and at Clones, in Monaghan, both in the diocese of Clogher; also at Ardbraccan in Meath: and G. Cambrensis gives an account of the Colidæi who lived on an island in a lake in North Munster, which island was called by the IrishInis na mbeo, or the ‘Island of the Living’ (or of cattle?), from a tradition that no person ever died on it; it was afterwards called Mona Incha, and was situated about three miles from Roscrea, in the bog of Monela, in Tipperary. In the time of G. Cambrensis this island was a celebrated place of pilgrimage; and their residence was afterwards removed to Corbally, a place near the lake, where the Culdees became canons regular of St Augustíne. Though the Irish Culdees were generally clergymen, yet some pious unmarried laymen joined their communities. There were also Culdees in Britain, particularly in the North of England, in the city of York, where they had a great establishment called the Hospital of St Leonard, and were secular canons of St Peter’s Cathedral, as mentioned in Dugdale’s Monasticon; and got some grants of lands inA.D.936, during the reign of Athelstan, and continued at York at least down to the time of Pope Adrian IV., who confirmed them in their possessions. We also read in the ‘Annals,’ underA.D.1479, that Pearce, son of Nicholas O’Flanagan, who was a canon of the chapter of Clogher, a parson, and a prior of the Ceile De, a sacristan of Devenish, and an official of Loch Erne (vicar-general of Clogher), a man distinguished for his benevolence, piety, great hospitality, and humanity, died after having gained the victory over the world and the devil. It would appear by the Annals of the Four Masters that Culdees were found in Ireland inA.D.1601: ‘O’Donnell having received intelligence that the English had come to that place (Boyle), was greatly grieved at the profanation of the monastery, and that the English should occupy and inhabit it in the place of the Mic Beathaidh (monks) and Culdees, whose rightful residence it was till then, and it was not becoming him not to go to relieve them if he possibly could.’ At the Reformation, a little later, out of 563 monasteries in Ireland mentioned by Ware, and also in Archdale’s Monasticon, it would appear that there was one belonging to the Culdees, viz., the Priory of Culdees at Armagh. See also Dr Jamieson’s History of the Culdees, 4to, Edin.; Maccatheus’s History of the Culdees, 12mo, Edin. 1855; and Keith’s Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, new edition.”

The following exhaustive note upon the Culdees was kindly forwarded to me by Dr Richard S. Charnock:

“The Culdees anciently had establishments not only in Scotland and Ireland, but also in England and Wales. They were numerous in Scotland, and continued there from the ninth century to the Reformation. Chalmers (Caledonia) says the Culdees of Scotland are not mentioned in history till about the beginning of the ninth century (circ.A.D.800-815), and their first establishment was at Dunkeld, under the bishop of that see. They were afterwards (circ.A.D.850) placed at St Andrews, where they had their chief establishment for many centuries; and it is stated by Buchanan that Constantine III., king of Scotland, who died inA.D.943, spent the last five years of his life in religious retirement amongst the Culdees of that city. Chalmers states that before the introduction of the canons regular of St Andrews (twelfth century), the Culdees alone acted as secular canons in cathedrals, and as dean and chapter in the election of bishops; and that thenceforth both orders were joined in the right untilA.D.1272, when it was usurped by canons regular. He also says that the Culdees of Brechin continued for many ages to act as dean and chapter of that diocese, and according to Jamieson (History of the Culdees) the Culdees of St Andrews elected the bishop of that see down to the election of William Wishart (1270), when the power was abrogated; but in those early times it appears that the bishops in many sees in Scotland were of the order of Culdees. In G. Cambrensis mention is made of Culdees in the island of Bardsey, off the Welsh coast. The annotator of the Annals of the Four Masters (A.D.1479) says, ‘By the Latin writers they were called Colidæi, Culdei, Kelidei, and sometimes Deicolæ.’ The Colidei or Culdees are mentioned by various other ancient writers, and by several Scotch historians, as monks in Scotland as early as the fourth and fifth centuries. But the statements of John of Fordan, Hector Boethius, and others, are entirely contradicted by the learned Lanigan. Smith (Life of St Columbkill) and Jamieson (History) have maintained that they were Columbian monks, or members of that order instituted by St Columbkill at Iona, in the Hebrides, and also in various parts of Scotland; and they have represented these Culdees as a very strict and religious order in those early times, from the sixth to the twelfth century. But Lanigan shows that these statements are erroneous, and that the Culdees were not mentioned by the Venerable Bede or any other ancient ecclesiastical writer as Columbian monks, nor in the works of Usher or Ware, nor in the five lives of Columbkill published by Colgan. Lanigan considers that the Culdees were first instituted in Ireland in the eighth or ninth century; and Aongus, surnamed Ceile De, a celebrated ecclesiastical writer of the eighth century, author of Lives of Irish Saints, etc., is supposed to have been a Culdee. They are mentioned in the Annals of the Four Masters and of Ulster (A.D.920), in which it is recorded that Godfrey, king of the Danes of Dublin, plundered Armagh, but he spared the churches and Colidæi. It appears from Lanigan and other authorities that the Culdees were not, strictly speaking, monks, neither were they members of the parochial clergy, but were a description of secular priests called ‘secular canons,’ and attached to cathedrals or collegiate churches termed prebendaries; and although bound by rules peculiar to themselves, they belonged to the secular clergy, and are to be distinguished from the canons regular, or communities of monks, who sprang up at a much later period, and officiated in the chapters of cathedral churches. The Culdees also sang in the choir, lived in community, and had a superior called ‘Prior of the Culdees,’ who acted as precentor or chief chanter. The principal institution of the Culdees was at Armagh, and, according to Usher and others, there were Culdees in all the chief churches of Ulster; and some of them continued at Armagh down to the middle of the seventeenth century. The Culdees had priories and lands in various parts of Ireland, particularly at Devenish Island, in Fermanagh, and at Clones, in Monaghan, both in the diocese of Clogher; also at Ardbraccan in Meath: and G. Cambrensis gives an account of the Colidæi who lived on an island in a lake in North Munster, which island was called by the IrishInis na mbeo, or the ‘Island of the Living’ (or of cattle?), from a tradition that no person ever died on it; it was afterwards called Mona Incha, and was situated about three miles from Roscrea, in the bog of Monela, in Tipperary. In the time of G. Cambrensis this island was a celebrated place of pilgrimage; and their residence was afterwards removed to Corbally, a place near the lake, where the Culdees became canons regular of St Augustíne. Though the Irish Culdees were generally clergymen, yet some pious unmarried laymen joined their communities. There were also Culdees in Britain, particularly in the North of England, in the city of York, where they had a great establishment called the Hospital of St Leonard, and were secular canons of St Peter’s Cathedral, as mentioned in Dugdale’s Monasticon; and got some grants of lands inA.D.936, during the reign of Athelstan, and continued at York at least down to the time of Pope Adrian IV., who confirmed them in their possessions. We also read in the ‘Annals,’ underA.D.1479, that Pearce, son of Nicholas O’Flanagan, who was a canon of the chapter of Clogher, a parson, and a prior of the Ceile De, a sacristan of Devenish, and an official of Loch Erne (vicar-general of Clogher), a man distinguished for his benevolence, piety, great hospitality, and humanity, died after having gained the victory over the world and the devil. It would appear by the Annals of the Four Masters that Culdees were found in Ireland inA.D.1601: ‘O’Donnell having received intelligence that the English had come to that place (Boyle), was greatly grieved at the profanation of the monastery, and that the English should occupy and inhabit it in the place of the Mic Beathaidh (monks) and Culdees, whose rightful residence it was till then, and it was not becoming him not to go to relieve them if he possibly could.’ At the Reformation, a little later, out of 563 monasteries in Ireland mentioned by Ware, and also in Archdale’s Monasticon, it would appear that there was one belonging to the Culdees, viz., the Priory of Culdees at Armagh. See also Dr Jamieson’s History of the Culdees, 4to, Edin.; Maccatheus’s History of the Culdees, 12mo, Edin. 1855; and Keith’s Catalogue of Scottish Bishops, new edition.”

[47]Vol. i., chap. 8. This traveller did not visit the cave, but quotes from Olafsson and Pállsson, p. 927.

[48]This interesting letter was brought to the author’s notice by Dr Attilio Hortis, Director of the Bibliotheca Civica, Trieste. This young and ardent scholar has published for the centenary festival of Petrarch (June 1874), certain political documents hitherto unprinted; they prove Petrarch to have been, like almost all the great Italian poets, a far-seeing statesman in theory if not in practice.

[49]Bochart (in Chanaan, i. 40), quoting Diogenes and Dercyllides of Tyre, whose tables, according to Photius (loc. cit.), were dug up by order of Alexander the Great, explains Thule to mean in Phœnician “tenebrarum insula.” But this etymology reminds us of the Semitic origin applied to Britain.

[50]The Icel. is Thilir, men of Thela-mörk, mark of the Thilir, the Norwegian country now called Thilemarken.

[51]Dr Charnock remarks that “Thule” is the name of a river in Glamorganshire, of a place in Silesia, and a town in Westphalia; also that “Southern Thule” was a title given to a part of Sandwich Island, the southernmost region discovered by Captain Cook in January 1775. Lt. Wilford’s Pandit invented a Pushkara Dwipa under the Arctic circle, corresponding with modern Iceland. Camden (Britannia) warns us, not unnecessarily, against confounding the “insula in ultimis et extremis Borealis Oceani secessibus longè sub Arctico Polo,” with the Indian “Tylis” or “Tylos” (Bahrayn?), of which St Augustine (lib. xxi. 5, De Civit. Dei) says, “Tylen Indiæ insulam eo preferri cæteris terris, quod omnis arbor quæ in eâ gignitur nunquam nudatur tegmine foliorum,” doubtless alluding to the palm. Strabo, we believe, does not mention “Tylos;” Pliny refers to it in three places (Nat. Hist., vi. 32, and xii. 21 and 22).

[52]To which may be added, neglecting the “Automata” of classical and mediæval times (Pliny, i. 89; Ruspe, de Novis Insulis, etc.), Arons Island (1628); Sorea of the Moluccas (1693); the offsets of Santorin (1707); Stromöe (1783); Graham Island, near Sicily, which, in 1831, was thrown up to a height of 750 feet, and the three outliers of Santorin (1866). These little worlds enable us to study Earth in the art of parturition.

[53]From Palagonia in Sicily, where it was first described (1838) by that savant (see pp. 222-483, and 802, Dana’s System of Mineralogy, Trübner, London, 1871). The specific gravity is 2·43, and the fracture mostly conchoidal. The distinguished chemist, Professor Bunsen (Sect. ix., § 1), who, succeeding in producing artificial Palagonite, gives it iron, either magnetic or peroxide, and “some alkali,” a vague term: Dr W. Lauder Lindsay adds minor constituents, felspar, augite (hornblende), jasper, olivine, obsidian, hornstone, chalcedony, and zeolite. Professor Tyndall (Royal Institution, June 3, 1853) offers the following table:Oxide of iron,36·75Alumina,25·50Lime,20·25Magnesia,11·39(not found by Dr Murray Thomson).Soda,3·44Potash,2·67100·00In 1872, only a single and a very poor specimen of this highly interesting rock had found its way to the museum in Jermyn Street.

In 1872, only a single and a very poor specimen of this highly interesting rock had found its way to the museum in Jermyn Street.

[54]From Stuðill, anything that steadies, a stud, prop, stay. A specific usage makes Stuðlar signify pentagonal basalt columns, and Stuðla-berg is a basaltic dyke (Cleasby). It is popularly opposed to Mó-berg, “a kind of tufa,” properly Palagonite, from Mór, a moor or peat-fuel.

[55]About ninety species of mollusk shells and the hard parts of echinoderms and crustaceæ have been found in the Palagonite of Sicilian Aci Castello. Lime, for the use of the shell-builders, enters into the composition of such tuffs generally, and the percentage depends upon the percentage of shells. Silica is extracted from it by carbonic acid and sulphuretted hydrogen; and this mineral again depends upon the included quantity of infusorial skeletons. Professor Quekett, Dr Gulliver, and other authorities, have examined specimens of Icelandic Palagonite, in which they could not detect infusoria nor their skeletons, even after boiling in nitric acid.

[56]The word “trap” will be used in these pages to denote the lavas ejected by submarine volcanoes.

[57]Until late years the general opinion was that all basalts are of igneous formation. The contrary has been supported by Mr H. P. Malet (Geogr. Mag., August 1874), to mention no others: he finds in that of Rossberg and the “Rowley Rag” vegetable, animal, and earthy particles which, passed through the fire, would have vanished in vapour. The distinction, therefore, between basalt and basaltic lava becomes fundamental. Granite, again, is by the same writer taken from Hutton and returned to Werner. The author could not but observe, when travelling in the basaltic Haurán, in that Bashan which, according to some, gave a name to the mineral, that the dried mud split under the sun into lozenges and pentagonal flakes (Unexplored Syria, i. 215). Upon this subject more will be said in Chapter XIV.

[58]Forchhammer considered this trachyte an unknown variety of felspar, and called it Baulite.

[59]See Chapter XI.

[60]The date “revealed to Moses” has long delayed the progress of science, and the 6000 years or so, still linger in the orthodox brains. The Hindus and the Moslems were far wiser, or rather better informed; the latter provide for the countless Æons of the past by the theory of Pre-Adamite kings and races.

[61]The Jökull (plur.Jöklar) is explainedpassim. Suffice it here to say, that it is a mass of eternal ice formed by the enormous pressure of the superincumbent snow; it is not correct, but it is decidedly convenient to render it by “glacier.” The Fell (our “fell,” pronouncedFedlorFetl) is a single block or peak, and in the plural, a range or sierra; it is mostly free from snow during the summer heats. Fjall (Fyadl, andplur. Fjöll) is the generic term “mons” and κατ’ ἐξοχὴν; it is applied in Icelandic literature to the Alps.

[62]Here is the culminating point of the island, usually assumed at 6500 English feet, more than one-third higher than Vesuvius (4000 feet).

[63]Usually assumed at 6000 English feet.

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