Chapter III: Section I: Of Thule

But is Iceland “Ultima Thule?”

The author hopes to make it evident that “Thule” was used according to date in five several senses--a sufficient reason for the confusion which has so long invested the subject. It has been well remarked that no place is more often mentioned by the ancients than the “island hid from us by snow and winter;” and yet, that no position is more controverted.[1] There has been a “King of Thule,” and now there is a “Princess of Thule,”--but where and what is “Thule?”

It will take some time to clear up the darkness which has been heaped by a host of writers upon “Thule,” and we will begin by distributing the debated word.

_Firstly_, It was attributed poetically, rhetorically, and per synecdochen, to the northern “period of cosmographie,” and to its people, real or supposed.

_Secondly_, It was applied to Iceland, and to Iceland only, from the earliest ages of its exploration.

_Thirdly_, In the centuries when imperial Rome extended her sceptre to the north of “the Britains;” it was given to the outlying parts, Ireland, Scotland, the Orkneys, the Shetlands, and features known only to fabulous geography.

_Fourthly_, The later Roman writers prolonged it to the “Scania Island,” modern Norway, Sweden, and Lapland. This Thule should be called “Procopiana.”

_Fifthly_, Between the establishment of Christianity in England, and the official or modern rediscovery, the term Thule was once more, as of old, limited to Iceland.

I.

“THULE,” POETICAL AND RHETORICAL.

The following are popular instances of Thule used in its first sense, the remotest part of the septentrional world, when it was a “fabulosa non minus quam famosa insula.” Virgil has only one allusion to it (Georg., i. 30, 31):

“Tibi serviat ultima Thule,
Teque sibi generum Tethys emat omnibus undis;”

but his epithet has been consecrated by a bevy of succeeding poets.

Servius, commenting upon Virgil, explains:

“Thyle insula est oceani inter septentrionalem et occidentalem
plagam, ultra Britanniam, Hiberniam, Orcadas;”

which is vague enough. He is afterwards more precise:

“At this island, when the sun is in Cancer, the days are said to be
continuous without nights. Various marvels are related of it, both
by Greek and later writers; by Ctesias and Diogenes among the
former, and by Samnonicus among the latter.”

The work of Ctesias here referred to is little known: Thule would hardly enter into Persica and Indica (B.C. 400). Of Diogenes presently. Samnonicus Sorenus was a writer put to death by command of Caracalla (Notes and Queries, t. ii., v. 119, p. 301).

L. Annæus Seneca (ob. A.D. 65) first re-echoes Virgil in the celebrated “prophetic verses,” whose sense has been extended to the New World:

“Venient annis secula seris,
Quibus Oceanus vincula rerum
Laxet, et ingens pateat tellus,
Tethysque novos detegat orbes,
Nec sit terris ultima Thule.”
--Medea, 375, et seq.

Ammianus Marcellinus (ob. circ. A.D. 390) uses (History, lib. xviii., 6, 31) the adage, “Etiamsi apud Thulen moraretur Ursicinus.”

Claudius Claudianus (flor. A.D. 395-408) sings:

“Et nostro procul axe remotam
Insolito belli tremeficit murmure Thulen!”
--De Bell. Getic., 203, _et seq._

And--

“Te vel Hyperboreo damnatam sidere Thulen,
Te vel ad incensas Libyæ comitatur arenas.”
--_In Rufin._, ii. 240.

Finally, we find in Aurelius Prudentius (nat. A.D. 348):

“Ultima littora Thules
Transadigit.”

II.

STRABO, MELA, PLINY, PTOLEMY.

Entering upon the second phase of the subject, it is advisable to consider what has been written concerning Thule, by the four patriarchs of classical geography. With Strabo Thule is Iceland; in Mela it is indefinite; and to Pliny and Ptolemy it is part of Britain, with an _arrière pensée_ of Iceland: of Pytheas and Eratosthenes we must also say a few words.

STRABO.

Strabo (nat. B.C. 54; Introduction, vol. i., p. 99, Hamilton and Falconer’s translation, Bohn, 1854) tells us, § 2:

“Thence (_i.e._, from the Dneiper) to the parallel of Thule, which
Pytheas says is six days’ sail north from Britain and near the
Frozen Sea, other 11,500 stadia” [a measure which we will assume
with Leake to be 700 = 1°].

Again, § 3:

“But that the Dneiper is under the same parallel as Thule, what man
in his senses could ever agree to this? Pytheas, who has given us
the history of Thule, is known to be a man upon whom no reliance
can be placed; and other writers who have seen Britain and
Ierne[2](Ireland?), although they tell us of many small islands
round Britain, make no mention whatever of Thule.”

In § 4:

“Now from Marseille to the centre of Britain is not more than 5000
stadia; and if from the centre of Britain we advance north not more
than 4000 stadia, we arrive at a temperature in which it is
scarcely possible to exist. Such indeed is that of Ierne.
Consequently the far region in which Eratosthenes places Thule must
be totally uninhabitable. By what guess-work he arrived at the
conclusion that between the latitude of Thule and the Dnieper there
was a difference of 11,500 stadia, I am unable to divine.”

In book ii., chap. 4, §§ 1, 2, he thus disposes of Pytheas (“by whom many have been deceived”):

“It is this last writer who states that he travelled all over
Britain on foot, and that the island is above 40,000 stadia in
circumference.[3] It is likewise he who describes Thule and other
neighbouring places, where, according to him, neither earth, water,
nor air exist separately, but a sort of concretion of all these,
resembling marine sponge, in which the earth, the sea, and all
things were suspended, this forming, as it were, a link to unite
the whole together. It can neither be travelled over nor sailed
through. As for the substance, he affirms that he has beheld it
with his own eyes; the rest he reports on the authority of others.
So much for the statements of Pytheas, who tells us besides, that
after he had returned thence, he traversed the whole coasts of
Europe from Gades to the Don. Polybius asks, ‘How is it possible
that a private individual, and one too in narrow circumstances,
could ever have performed such vast expeditions by sea and land?[4]
And how could Eratosthenes, who hesitates whether he may rely on
his statements in general, place such entire confidence in what the
writer relates concerning Britain, Gades, and Iberia?’ Says he,
‘It would have been better had Eratosthenes trusted to the
Messenian (Euhemerus or Evemerus) rather than to this writer. The
former merely pretends to have sailed into one [unknown] country,
viz., Panchæa, but the latter that he has visited the whole of the
north of Europe, as far as the ends of the earth; which statement,
even had it been made by Mercury, we should not have believed.
Nevertheless Eratosthenes, who terms Euhemerus a Bergæan, gives
credit to Pytheas, although even Dicærchus would not believe him.’”

In book ii., chap. 5, § 8, we have a further notice of Thule:

“It is true that Pytheas Massiliensis affirms that the farthest
country north of the British Islands is Thule; for which place, he
says, the summer tropic and the Arctic circle is all one. But he
records no other particulars concerning it; [he does not say]
whether Thule is an island, or whether it continues habitable up to
the point where the summer tropic becomes one with the Arctic
circle. For myself, I fancy that the northern boundaries of the
habitable earth are greatly south of this. Modern writers tell us
of nothing beyond Ierne which lies just north of Britain, where the
people live miserably and like savages, on account of the severity
of the cold. It is here, in my opinion, the bounds of the habitable
earth ought to be fixed.”

Finally, in book iv., chap. 5, § 5, we have the most important notice of all:

“The description of Thule is still more uncertain on account of its
secluded situation; for they consider it the northernmost of all
lands, of which the names are known. The falsity of what Pytheas
has related concerning this and neighbouring places, is proved by
what he has asserted of well-known countries. For if, as we have
shown, his descriptions of these is in the main incorrect, what he
says of far distant countries is still more likely to be false.
_Nevertheless, as far as astronomy and mathematics are
concerned,[5] he appears to have reasoned correctly that people
bordering on the frozen zone would be destitute of cultivated
fruits and almost deprived of the domestic animals_; that their
food would consist of millet, herbs, fruits, and roots; and that
where there was corn and honey they would make drink of these. That
having no bright sun they would thresh their corn and store it in
vast granaries, threshing-floors being useless on account of the
rain and want of sun.”

The whole question evidently hinges upon the credibility of Pytheas Massiliensis, who travelled about the time of Alexander the Great. It has been ably argued, pro and con, by a host of writers, and in our day by the late Sir G. C. Lewis (Astronomy of the Ancients, p. 467, et seq.), and by Sir John Lubbock (Prehistoric Times, p. 59). But the dispute has not been settled. I would remark that the old traveller’s account is consistent enough. He appears to place Thule under N. lat. 66° (assuming, as Strabo does, the tropic at 24°), a parallel which would pass through the north of Iceland. He is quite right about the absence of fruits. His spongy matter may have been ice-brash, Medusæ, the German meer-lungen, or even pumice-stone, which modern travellers have found floating in such quantities upon the sea, within reach of volcanoes, that their movements were arrested. We read that about a month before the eruption of A.D. 1783, a submarine vent burst forth at a distance of nearly seventy miles in a south-westerly direction off Cape Reykjanes, and ejected such immense quantities of pumice that the surface of the ocean was covered with it to the distance of 150 miles, and the spring ships were impeded in their course. Also when Herodotus, a Greek--whose world embraced the Eridanus or Amber River, the Tin Isles, the Arimaspians and the Hyperboreans--could confound snow with feathers, Pytheas, a Marseillais, might be allowed some latitude in describing glaciers. Poverty has not prevented the most audacious journeys; and discovery has been mainly the work of individuals. Geminus (Isagoge, etc., cap. 5) opines that Pytheas was taken to Iceland against his will. The barbarians showed him where the sun set on the shortest day, and rose again after a short interval. Then the sea began to thicken “pulmonis marini (πνεὑμονι θαλαττἱῳ) simile.” He afterwards heard that where the sun does not set, is the uttermost part of the world, and cannot be travelled over. Greek _outrecuidance_ evidently hated to be taught by a kind of Gaul like Pytheas. Strabo, with his captious, bilious, and acrid criticism, is wrong, and Pytheas is right, in a highly important part of the question, the inhabitability of the island. In fact, sundry modern writers have declared that, as far as we have the means of judging, Strabo’s predecessors, Pytheas and Eratosthenes, were more correctly informed than he was concerning the geography of the western parts of Europe.[6] The learned Isaac Casaubon (Commentaries upon Strabo) thus decides the question clean against his author: “Thule--non esse aliam quæ Islandia hodie dicitur, facile doctis viris assentior.” He adds that Eratosthenes held Pytheas to be an oracle, but when Polybius and others found his geography loose in points familiar to the Greeks, they pronounced him a liar, and rejected all he wrote.

I must therefore conclude that Pytheas, with all his fables, by Thule meant Iceland, and Iceland only; moreover, that he had acquired some knowledge of the island. Indeed Gosselin opined that both Pytheas and Eratosthenes had had access to the memoirs of some unknown ancient people to whom Europe and its seas were as well known as to ourselves. He argues that this people could not have been Babylonians, Phœnicians, Carthaginians, nor Egyptians. Bailly (Hist. de l’Astr. An., 1-3), entertaining a similar opinion, supposes them, after the fashion of the day, to be Antediluvians.

MELA.

Pomponius Mela (A.D. 41-54; De Situ Orbis, iii. 6) is our next authority. After mentioning Britannia and Iverna, the thirty islands of the Orcades, the seven Hæmodæ (Shetlands) fronting Germany,[7] and the Scandinavian Isle held by the Teutons,[8] he says:

“Thule fronts the seaboard of the Belcæ (alii Belgæ and Bergæ),[9]
an island celebrated in the Greek poetry and in our own. There, as
the sun rises to set afar off, the nights are indeed short; but
during winter, as in other places, obscure; in summer they are
light, because throughout that season (the sun), already raising
himself higher (above the horizon), despite not being seen, yet
illuminates the nearest parts by his approaching splendour. At the
solstices there is no darkness, because then (the sun), becoming
more manifest, shows not only his rays, but the greater part” (of
his disc).

PLINY.

The next authority is Pliny (nat. A.D. 23, ob. A.D. 79), who makes Thule the northernmost British island. Both he and Cæsar (Bell. Gall., v. 13), placing Mona about N. lat. 66°, declare that the sun does not set in summer, but perpetually disappears during the winter solstice. To the former phase Cæsar assigns thirty days, Pliny six months (_senis mensibus_). The great natural philosopher mentions the Massilian traveller without abusing him:

“Pytheas informs us that this is the case (_i.e._, the day lasting
six months, and the night being of equal length) in the island of
Thule, which is six days’ sail from the north of Britain” (Nat.
Hist., vol. i., book ii., chap. 77, Bostock and Riley, Bohn, 1835).

In book iv., chap. 30, occurs:

“The most remote of all that we find mentioned is Thule, in which,
as we have previously stated, there is no night at the summer
solstice, when the sun is passing through the sign of Cancer;
while, on the other hand, at the winter solstice there is no day.”

Again (loc. cit.):

“There are writers also who make mention of some other islands,
Scandia, namely, Damna, Bergos, and, greater than all, Nerigos (or
Nerigo, Noreg, _i.e._, Norway), from which persons embark for
Thule. At one day’s sail from Thule, is the Frozen Ocean, which by
some is called the Cronian Sea.”

Finally, in book vi., chap. 39, we find:

“The last of all is the Scythian parallel,[10] which runs from the
Riphæan range to Thule, in which, as we have already stated, the
year is divided into days and nights alternately of six months’
duration.”

With these passages before us, it is easy to understand why popular writers generally assume Pliny’s Thule to be the Shetland Isles. But he evidently confirms the account of Pytheas, and adds the significant detail about the Cronian or Frozen Sea. It is well established that the ocean south of Iceland is not icy, whilst the northern and western shores are often frost-bound.

PTOLEMY.

Claudius Ptolemy, the Pelusian (flor. A.D. 159-161) notices θούλη in nine places. After correcting (book i., chap. 20, §§ 7, 8,[11] = p. 17[12]) the errors of Maximus of Tyre, he says (book i., chap. 24, § 4, = p. 19): “Consequently also the parallel passing through Thule shall be laid down as ν β’ (52) sections from η το ζ η, along the lines of latitude ξ, ο, π.” The same chapter (§ 6, = p. 20) tells us, “Also shall be comprehended the interval between ο and κ southwards, that is, between the parallels passing through Thule and through Rhodes κ ζ (27) sections.” Thirdly, the same chapter (§ 17, = p. 22) continues: “κ, through which shall be described the line (of latitude) defining the north, and falling on the island of Thule.” Fourthly, in the same (§ 20, = p. 22), we find: “And as τὸ μῆκος (the longitude) is commensurable with τὸ πλάτος (the latitude), since upon the sphere whose great circle is five, of these the parallel passing through Thule is about β and δ´” (2¼).

Book ii., chap. 3, § 32, = p.28, establishes the position of Thule:

“And above them (the Orkades) is the (island of) Thule, whose--

Western parts are in E. long. (Ferro?) 29° N lat. 63° The Easternmost being in ” ” 31° 40´ ” 63° ” Northernmost ” ” ” 30° 20´ ” 63° 15´ ” Southernmost ” ” ” 30° 20´ ” 62° 40´ And the Mid Isle in, ” ” 30° 20´ ” 63° “

The sixth book (chap. 16, § 1, = p. 113) tells us:

“Serica is bounded west by Scythia beyond the Imaus mountain,
according to the line laid down; on the north by an unknown land on
the parallel passing through Thule; on the east by regions also
unknown, along the meridional line whose limits are:

“E. long. 180´´ N. lat. 63°
” 18° ” 35°”

Again we find (book vii., chap. 5, § 12, = p. 125):

“But the northern part is bounded by the parallel which is north of
the equinoctial line 63 parts (_i.e._, N. lat. 63°), and this is
described through Thule, the Island. So that the breadth of the
known world is 76° 25´, or in round numbers, 80 degrees.”[13]

Lastly (book viii., chap, 3, § 3, = p. 131) we are told:

“But the (Island) Thule has its greatest day of twenty equinoctial
hours, and from Alexandria it is distant two equinoctial hours to
the west.”[14]

Thus Ptolemy’s Thule is a long narrow island, 160 by 35 miles, and his description, despite the times in which he wrote, is applicable rather to North Britain and even to Iceland, than to Scandinavia. He is consistent in his assertions: (1.) That Thule is an island; (2.) That its northernmost point extends to 3° 17´ south of the Polar circle (66° 32´); (3.) That it lies north of the Orcades.[15] Manifestly we cannot rely upon the longitudes, Ptolemy’s first meridian being still _sub judice_. The late Mr Hogg suggested[16] that the zero of longitude was not, as usually assumed, at Ferro in the Fortunate Islands (W. long. (G.) 24° 23´ 40´´ to 24° 34´), but at “S. Antonio, Cape Verd Islands” (read São Antão[17]) in W. long. (G.) 25° 2´ 40´´ to 25° 25´ 45´´--a change which would give in round numbers a difference of fifty miles.[18] Nothing more need be added upon this head. Pytheas and Eratosthenes evidently referred to Iceland; Mela did the same in making it front Bergen; Pliny heard of it when he relates that from Nerigos persons embark for Thule; and neglecting Ptolemy’s latitudes and longitudes, his description tallies best with Iceland.

III.

THULE, PART OF GREAT BRITAIN

Of Thule applied to some part of Great Britain we have a multitude of instances, which are ably and lengthily brought together by Sir Robert Sibbald.[19] Our writer begins by establishing the fact that the ancients connected the idea of darkness with the north.

“These places of Homer πρὸς ζόφον (ad caliginem), and οὐ γὰρ ἴδμεν
ὅπου ζόφου (neque enim scimus ubi sit caligo), are by Strabo (ii. §
6) interpreted of the north, “Nescimus ubi sit Septentrio” (We know
not where the north is).

He quotes Tibullus (nat. circ. B.C. 54; iv. 1, 154):

“Illic et densâ tellus absconditur umbrâ.”

And Pub. Papinius Statius (nat. circ. A.D. 61; Sylv., iii., Ad Claudiam Uxorem, v. 20):

“Vel super Hesperiæ vada caligantia Thiles.”

Again (Sylv., iv. 4, 62):

“----aut nigræ littora Thule.”

And again (Sylv., v. 1, 90, 91):

“----quantum ultimus orbis,
Cesserit et refluo circumsona gurgite Thule.”

Strabo (book ii., chap. 4, § 8) is quoted to show by Pytheas, that Thule is “one of those islands that are called British,” and we have seen Strabo’s own opinion that it lies farther south than where the Massilian placed it. He quotes Catullus (B.C. 87; Ad Furium Carm., xii.):

“Sive trans altas gradietur Alpes,
Cæsaris visens monumenta magni,
Gallicum Rhenum, horribilesque ultimosque Britannos;”

and Horace (i. 35, 30):

“Serves iturum Cæsarem in ultimos
Orbis Britannos;”

to show that the Britons were the northernmost people then known. Due use is made of Silius Italicus (nat. circ. A.D. 25; Punic, lib. xvii., 417, 418):

“Cœrulus hand alitur cum dimicat incola Thule,
Agmina falcifero circumvenit arcta covino,”

for it appears from Cæsar’s Commentaries, that the bluish colour and the fighting out of hooked chariots were in use among the inhabitants of Britain. Pliny also (N. H., iv. 30) treats of Thule in the same chapter where he treats of the British Isles, “ultima omnium quæ memoratum est Thule.” Tacitus says (Agric. Vita, cap. x.) when the Roman navy sailed about Britain, “dispecta est et Thule.”[20]

‘Ireland, properly so called, was the first of the British Isles which got the name Thule, being the first that the Carthaginians met with as they steered their course from Cadiz to the west; and hence it is that Statius (Ad Claud. Uxor., lib. iii., v. 20) calls Thule ‘Hesperia,’ and it seems to be the same that is said by (the pseudo) Aristotle (Liber de Mirab. Auscult) to have been discovered by the Carthaginians when he speaks thus (lxxxv.):

“‘In the sea beyond the Pillars of Hercules, they say, the
Carthaginians found a fertile island uninhabited, abounding in wood
and navigable rivers, and stored with very great plenty of fruits
(_fructibus_) of all sorts,[21] distant several days’ voyage from
the continent.’

And Bochartus (Geog. Sac.) confirms this by what he observes, that an ancient author, Antonius Diogenes,[22] who wrote twenty-four books of the strange things (or Incredibilities) related of Thule,[23] not long after the time of Alexander the Great, had his history from the Ciparis Tables, dug at Tyre out of the tombs of Mantinea and Dercilis (Dercyllides), who had gone from Tyre to Thule, and had stayed some time there. But though this be the first Thule discovered by the Carthaginians, yet it is not that mentioned by the Roman writers, for they speak of the Thule which the Romans were in and made a conquest of, but it is certain they were never in Iceland properly so called.

“That they were in Thule appears from Statius (Sylv., v. 2, 54):

“‘----quantusque nigrantem
Fluctibus occiduis fessoque Hyperione Thulen
Intrârit mandata gerens.’

Now the father of Crispinus, to whom he writes, was Vectius Bolanus, governor of Britain, A.D. 69, under Vitellius (as Tacitus informs us), which is clearly proved by the same poet (Sylv., v. 2, 140-143):

“‘Quod si te magno tellus frenata parenti
Accipiat--
Quanta Caledonios attollet gloria campos!
Cum tibi longævus referet trucis incola terræ;
Hic suetus dare jura parens.’

The words ‘Caledonios’ and’ trucis incola terræ’ clearly show that by Thule is meant the north part of Britain, which was then possessed by the Picts, designed by the name ‘Caledonios,’ and by the Scots, designed as ‘trucis incola terræ,’ the same epithet that Claudian (De Bell. Get., 416) gives to the Scots in these verses:

“‘Venit et extremis legio prætenta Britannis,
Quæ Scoto dat fræna truci, ferroque notatas
Perlegit exsangues Picto moriente figuras.’

And of this north part of Britain that verse of Juvenal (Sat., xv. 112):

“‘De conducendo loquitur jam rhetore Thule,’[24]

is also to be understood. Of this the best exposition is taken from Tacitus (Agric., xxi.):

“‘Jam verò principum filios, liberalibus artibus erudire, et
ingenia Britannorum studiis Gallorum anteferre, ut qui modò linguam
Romanum abnuebant, eloquentiam concupiscerent.’

“Claudian (De III. Consul. Honor., 52-56) yet more particularly gives the name of Thule to the north part of Britain:

“‘Facta tui numerabat avi, quem littus adustæ
Horrescit Libyæ, ratibusque impervia Thule.
Ille leves Mauros, nec falso nomine Pictos
Edomuit, Scotumque vago mucrone secutus,
Fregit Hyperboreas remis audacibus undas.’

And in these lines (De IV. Consul. Honor., 26-33):

“‘Ille, Caledoniis posuit qui castra pruinis,
Qui medios Libyæ sub casside pertulit æstus,
Terribilis Mauro, debellatorque Britanni
Littoris, ac pariter Boreæ vastator et Austri.
Quid rigor æternus cœli, quid sidera prosunt?
Ignotumque fretum? Maduerunt Saxoue fuso,
Orcades: incaluit Pictorum sanguine Thule:
Scotorum cumulos flevit glacialis Ierne,’

where, by placing the Moors and Britons as the remotest people then known, and mentioning the Scots and Picts as the inhabitants of Thule and Ierne, he demonstrates clearly that Thule is the north part of the isle of Britain, inhabited by the Scots and Picts. For this Ierne, or, as some read it, ‘Hyberne,’ can no way be understood of Ireland properly so called; first, because Ireland can never deserve the epithet ‘glacialis,’[25] since, by the testimony of the Irish writers, the snow and ice continue not any time there; secondly, the Romans were never in Ireland, whereas, according to the above-mentioned verses, Theodosius passed over the Friths of Forth and Clyde, called by him ‘Hyperboreæ undæ,’ and entered Strathearn, which to this day bears the name Ierne; in which Roman medals are found, and the Roman camps and military ways are to be seen--the undoubted testimonies of their being there; and therefore is so to be understood in the same poet’s lines upon Stilicho (see De Laud. Stilich., lib. ii., 250-254), who was employed in the British war:

“‘Me quoque vicinis pereuntem gentibus, inquit,
Me juvit Stilicho, totam cum Scotus Iernen
Movit, et infesto spumavit remige Tethys.
Illius effectum curis, ne tela timerem
Scotica, ne Pictum tremerem.’

Now, Tethys in these verses, and the ‘undæ Hyperboreæ’ in the verses before mentioned, cannot be understood of the sea between Scotland and Ireland, for Ireland lies to the south of the Roman province, and the situation of the Scots’ and Picts’ country is to the north of it; for it was separated by the two Friths of Forth and Clyde from the Roman province, which clearly shows it was to be understood of them: the same thing that is also imported by the words ‘Hyperboreas undas’ and ‘remis;’ for these cannot be understood of the Irish Sea, which is to the south of the Roman province, and is very tempestuous, and cannot so well be passed by oars as the Friths of Forth and Clyde. And the same poet has put this beyond all doubt (in the verses before quoted, De Bell. Get., 416).

“For were it to be understood of the Irish Sea, then the wall and the ‘prætenturæ’ (_legio prætenta_) should have been placed upon the Scottish shore that was over against that country, which is called Strathearn now, and is the true Ierne not only mentioned by Claudian, but also by Juvenal in these verses (I. Sat., ii. 160):

“‘Arma quidem ultra
Litora Juvenæ promovimus, et modò captas
Oreadas, ac minimâ contentos nocte Britannos.’

“That this Thule was a part of Britain, the Roman writers seem to be very clear, especially Silius Italicus in the verses before quoted.

“But to make it appear which part of Britain the Thule was which is mentioned by the Romans, it will be fit to see to which part of Britain the epithets attributed by writers to Thule do best agree. First, then, it was a remote part, ‘ultima Thule,’ as if this were the remotest part of Britain; so Tacitus (Agric., xxx.) brings in Galgacus expressing it, ‘We, the uttermost bounds of land and liberty,’ etc. Then Thule was towards the north, and so was this country with respect to the Roman province; and, thirdly, it might deserve the name Thule (darkness), because of its obscure and dark aspect, it being in those days all overgrown with woods. Fourthly, the length of the day annexed to Thule: and, upon this account, it must be the country to the north and to the east of Ierne, by the verses of Juvenal before mentioned (V. Sat., xv. 112).

“Another property of Thule given by Tacitus (loc. cit.) is that about it is ‘mare pigram et grave remigantibus,’ which agrees indeed to the sea upon the north-east part of Scotland, but not for the reason that Tacitus gives, _i.e._, for want of winds, but because of the contrary tides which drive several ways, and stop not only boats with oars, but ships under sail.

“But Thule is most expressly described to be this very same country that we treat of by Conradus Celtes:

“‘Orcadibus quâ cincta suis Tyle et glacialis
Insula.’

“This same epithet Claudian (see p. 15) gives to Ierne, when he calls it ‘Glacialis Ierne;’ and this Thule he makes to be encompassed ‘suis Orcadibus,’ which isles lie over-against it; and a little after he gives it the like epithet with ‘mare pigrum.’

“‘Et jam sub septem spectant vaga rostra Trionos
Quà Tyle est rigidis insula cincta vadis.’

And afterwards he makes the Orcades to lie over-against this Thule, and seems to have in his eye the skerries and weels in Pictland (Pentland?) Frith in these lines:

“‘Est locus Arctoo quà se Germania tractu
Claudit, et in rigidis Tyle ubi surgit aquis,
Quam juxta infamos scopuli et petrosa vorago
Asperat undisonis saxa pudenta vadis
Orcadas has memorant dictas a nomine Græco.”[26]

“But the clearest testimony of all we owe to Arngrimus Jonas (Specimen Islandicum, A.D. 1593),[27] when he brings in the verses of Fortunatus (lib. viii., cap. 1), who sings of St Hilarion (ob. A.D. 372):

“‘Eloquii currente rotâ penetravit ad Indos,
Ingeniumque potens ultima Thule colit.’

“And then reckoning up the several nations enlightened by him, he mentions Britain amongst the rest:

“‘Thrax, Italus, Scytha, Persa, Indus,
Geta, Daca, Britannus.’[28]

“To which he adds, ‘From whence it may fairly enough be inferred that either Britain or (as Pliny will have it) some island of Britain was the _ultima Thule_.’ And afterwards, ‘To confirm the opinion of Pliny and his followers, who will have some of the British Isles, or particularly, that farthest in the Scottish dominions to be Thule, I must acknowledge that the history of the kings of Norway says the same thing, in the life of King Magnus, who, in an expedition to the Orcades and Hebrides and into Scotland and Britain, touched also at the Island of Thule and subdued it.’

“By all this, I think, it appears sufficiently that the north-east part of Scotland, which Severus the emperor and Theodosius the Great infested with their armies, and in which, as Boethius[29] shows us, Roman medals were found, is undoubtedly the Thule mentioned by the Roman writers; and this also, if we believe the learned Arngrimus Jonas, was meant by Ptolemy, where he saith, that, to the twenty-first parallel drawn through Thule by Ptolemy, the latitude answers to 55° 36´, so that our country in those ancient times passed under the name of Thule and Hibernia, and the ‘Hiberni et Picti, incolæ Thules’ are the same people who were afterwards called Scots.[30]

“I shall only add one remark more, and that is, that we need not have recourse for the rise of the name Scot, to the fabulous account of the monks who bring it from Scota, Pharaoh’s daughter, married to Gathelus; since without that strain, if it be granted that the country was once called Thule, which in the Phœnician language signifies ‘darkness,’ we have a very fair reason for the name Scotia, which signifies the same in the Greek tongue. And it is very well known that it was usual with the Greeks (who next to the Phœnicians were the best navigators) not only to retain the Phœnician name of the place, but likewise to give one in their own language of the same import; and since the learned Bochartus has very ingeniously deduced the Greek name of the whole island, Βρετανικὴ, from Bratanack and Barat anac,[31] in the Phœnician tongue signifying ‘a land of tin’ (which the Greeks not only reduced to their own termination, but likewise called the British isles[32] Κασσιτερίδες, that is, ‘lands of tin,’[33] which is the signification of the Phœnician and Greek names); we may take the same liberty to derive the Greek name Scotia from Phœnician Thule;[34] but this is so fully treated of in the ‘Scotia Antiqua,’ that I need say no more.”

To these authorities may be added Silius Italicus (lib. iii., 597), who manifestly places “unknown Thule” about Scotland:

“Hine pater ignotam donabit vincere Thulen
Inque Caledonios primus trahit agmina lucos.”

R. Festus Avienus (Descr. Orb. Ter.), metaphrasing Dionysius, treats of Thule when speaking of Britain, and yet gives “the unknown island” an Arctic day:

“Longa dehinc celeri si quis rate marmora currat,
Inveniet vasto surgentem gurgite Thulen;
Hinc cùm plaustra poli tangit Phœbeïus ignis
Nocte sub inlustri rota solis fomite flagrat
Continuò clarumque diem nox œucula ducit.”

We have also the testimony of Richard of Cirencester (Ricardus Coronensis, ob. circ. A.D. 1401), who tells us (De Situ Britanniæ) that in the time of the later emperors, “Thule” was applied to Valentia or Valentiana, the district between the wall of Severus and the rampart of Antoninus, including the south part of Scotland, Northumberland, and a portion of Cumberland.

It might have been supposed that the distinct mention of the Orcades and Hebrides[35] by Pliny (N. H., lib. iv., cap. 30), and by Ptolemy (lib. ii., cap. 3, § 32, = p. 28), would have barred their claim to the classic title. This is far from being the case. John Brand (A Brief Description of Orkney, etc., Edin. 1701, Pinkerton, iii., p. 782), after quoting Claudian and Conradus Celtes, with others who call Thule “Britannicarum insularum septentrionissimam,” thus disposes of Iceland:

“I greatly doubt if ever the Romans had the knowledge of Iceland,
their eagles never having come and been displayed to the north of
Scotland or Orkney. ‘Imperii fuerat Romani Scotia limes,’ saith the
great Scaliger. Ptolemy will have it to be among the Isles of
Zetland; and Boethius, our historian (Boethius, in p. 740, also in
p. 755, which quotes from his life of Mainus, king of Scots),
distinguisheth between a first and a second Thule, calling Ila the
first, and Louisa the second, which are reckoned among the isles
called Hebrides. ‘Ptolemæus inter Schethlandicas insulas, quæ ultra
Orchades sunt, ant proxime Norwegiam sitam vult, haud quaquam
propter immensam intercapedinem intelligi potest, nos autem Ilam
(Islay?) primam Leuisam (Lewis) Hebridum præstantissimam secundam
Thulen vocamus.’ But I am inclined to think that although some
might design a particular place by the Thule, yet generally by a
synecdoche, usual with the Roman authors, they might denote all
those places remote from them to the north, and especially Britain
and the northern parts thereof, whither their arms did come.”

The Shetland claimants take another line of argument. Eutropius (A.D. 330-375, lib. vii.) makes the emperor Claudius, during his invasion of Britain (A.D. 43) annex the Orkneys: “Quasdam insulas etiam ultra Britanniam, in oceano positas, Romano imperio addidit, quæ appellantur Orcades.” Pliny, they say, endorses Pytheas Massiliensis, who writes that Thule is six days’ sail north of Britain. Tacitus (loc. cit.) declares that Agricola sailed round Britain, conquered the Orcades, and saw Thule. The latter cannot be the Orcades or Hebrides, because both are mentioned by Pliny, and as their northerly point is not so far north as Cape Wrath, they could hardly be described as “ultra Britanniam.” Caithness and other parts of Scotland are put out of court, since they are all to the south of Orkney, and therefore not beyond it. The Færoes and Iceland are excluded, because they were both too distant to be visited by the frail galleys of the Romans, unaided as they were, either by the compass or the science of navigation, and they could not possibly have been seen from Orkney. The same arguments apply to the Norwegian coast, which also is not an island, and is not situated north of Britain.

By this “process of elimination,” we are compelled to conclude that Shetland, and only Shetland, justifies the descriptions and allusions to the “Ultima Thule” contained in the Latin classics. It consists of islands which, viewed from afar, might be mistaken for one. It lies north of the Orkneys, from some parts of which Foula the Fair Isle, or the bluff of Fitfulhead, can be seen in clear weather. A passage of six days would be a fair average in the primitive barks of the Romans, who were never much distinguished for seamanship. The more positive proofs are the Roman coins found in the country, according to Dr Hibbert (Description of the Shetland Islands, Edin. 1822), and the ruins of a fortification in the island of Fetlar, which the same authority declares to be a Roman camp.

It need hardly be observed that all these arguments are insufficient, and that the utmost they prove is the determination by Agricola and his men, that the venerable Thule was part of the Shetlands. Probably they saw only the loom of land to the north, and identified it with the “period of earth.” Possibly they might have been swayed by the verbal resemblance of Foula, which may be seen from the Orkneys: it is evidently Fogla or Fugla-ey, and the same desire to clear up a foggy point of geography, which made Abyssinian Bruce discover the sources of the Nile in the fountains of the Blue River, found Thule in “Fowl-isle.”[36] The opinion, however, has found supporters. Gaspar Peucerus (De Terræ Dimensione) declares that the Ptolemeian Thule is to be recognised in the Shetlands, which he heard “the sailors call Thilensel” (Fugl-insel?). Cellarius (Geog. Ant., ii. 4) discovers Thule in the island of Hjaltland (Shetland), or in the Færoe group, “quæ in eâdem fere latitudinem sunt.” He is followed by Probus (Com. on Virgil, ii. 358), who makes Thule the farthest of the Orcades; by the philosopher Petrus Ramus (de la Ramée); by Johannes Myritius, who rather cleaves to the end of Britain; by the learned Vossius, who prefers the Hebrides or Orcades; by Buchner (Ad Tacit. Agric., cap. 10); by Camden, by Gosselin, and others. Stephanus Byzantinus says: “Thule insula magna in oceano sub Hyperboreas partes, ubi æstivus dies ex viginti horis æqualibus constat, nox verò ex quatuor. Hyberna verò dies à contrario.” This calculation would place Thule three degrees south of the Polar circle, and would better suit the Færoe archipelago (N. lat. 61° 23´ to 62° 26´ 40´´). Forcellini understands Cellarius also to refer to the Færoes; De Kerguelen Tremarec (Voyages) opines for Iceland.

IV.

THULE = SCANDIA.

It has been seen that Pliny (Nat. Hist., iv. 16) apparently separates Norway from Thule; moreover, that Ptolemy (ii. 3) confirmed by Agatharcides and Stephanus Byzantinus (lib. i., in extremis), whilst pointing to North Britain and to Scandia, or Scandinavia, in his time held to be an island,[37] and little known to the civilised world, adds details which rather belong to Iceland. On the other hand, it is evident that during the later Roman empire, Thule was applied to Scandinavia.

Procopius, the Byzantine historian (nat. circ. A.D. 500), leaves no doubt upon this point. He devotes to it a considerable space (lib. ii., De Bello Gothico, c. 15), and his account will be little abridged. After relating how a party of Heruli, when conquered by the Longobardi, passed through the lands of the Slavini, the Varni (Οὐάρνοι, al. Harmi), and the Dani (Δάνοι, al. Dacæ), till they reached the ocean, he makes them take ship and settle at Thule:

“The island is ten times larger than Britain, and far to the
north.[38] The greater part of it is desert. The inhabited region
contains thirteen great peoples, each governed by its own king. A
curious phenomenon is reported from that place: every year, about
the summer solstice, the sun remains forty days above the horizon.
Six months after this there is a night of forty days, a time of
sorrow, when all intercourse and business are at an end. I (says
Procopius) was greatly desirous of seeing this marvel for myself,
but the opportunity was ever wanting. I therefore asked those who
had been there how the sun rises and sets. They told me that for
forty consecutive days, the sun lights the island; sometimes from
the east, at other times from the west; but that when he returns to
the same point where he appeared, a single day is counted. During
the season of forty nights, time is measured by the moon. When
thirty-five of these long and lasting nights have passed, some of
the people ascend the highest mountains, and give warning to those
below that after five days more they will see the sun. The Thulitæ
rejoice over the good news, and celebrate in the dark a festival
which in ceremony exceeds all their others. Although this happens
every year, still it would appear the inhabitants apprehend a total
desertion of the sun.

“Amongst the barbarian peoples of Thule, none are so savage as the
Skithifini (Σκιθίφινοι, al. Scritifini). Like beasts,[39] they
ignore clothes and shoes; they drink no wine, and they eat nothing
which the earth grows. Both men and women, who will not take the
trouble of cultivation, occupy themselves exclusively with hunting,
and the forests and mountains supply them abundantly with game.
They eat the flesh, and, being without flax and wool, they wear the
skins, which they fasten with sinews, having no knowledge of
sewing. Also, they do not bring up their offspring like other
people. The children of the Thulitæ are fed upon the marrow of
beasts, instead of being suckled by their mothers. When the woman
has been delivered, she wraps her babe in a skin, secures it in
another, places some brains in its mouth, and sets out with her man
for the chase, in which both sexes equally excel. The Thulitæ adore
several gods and demons, some of whom they believe to inhabit the
sky, others the air; some are on the earth and in the sea, whilst
others of the smaller kind, affect the rivers and springs. They
often offer sacrifices and immolate all manner of victims, the most
acceptable being the first man captured in war; he is sacrificed to
Mars (Thor?), the most powerful of all their gods. On these
occasions they do not simply slay the victim, they either hang him
to a tree, or roll him over thorns, or put him to death in some
other way, choosing the most cruel.

“Such are the customs of the _Thulitæ_, amongst whom are the Goths
(Γαυτοί), a fecund people that gave land to the Herulian
immigrants. The remnants of this race who lived amongst the Romans,
after slaying their king, sent their chief worthies to the island
of Thule, for the purpose of finding if any of the royal blood
there remained. The deputies were successful, and chose out of many
one who pleased them the most. But as he died on the way, they
returned (to Thule) and brought with them one Todasius (Τοδάσιος,
al. Datis); this man was accompanied by his brother named Aordus
(Ἄορδς) and by two hundred youths of the island.”

This description of Thule is evidently great Scandinavia, not little Iceland. Hence Ortilius (Thesaurus sub voc.) D’Anville, who rejects Iceland; Farnaby, Schœnning (Von Nordich. Land in Neue Allg. Welt-Gesch, vol. xiii., p. 14, et seq.); Rudbeck, who understands Sweden; Murray (loc. cit.); Wedel (Alhandlung über die “Alt-Scandinavische Gesch.,” p. 32, et seq.); Schlözer (Allg. Nordisch. Gesch, pp. 14, 16), Parisot, and other geographers, have referred the descriptions of Procopius especially to the Norwegian canton still called “Tyle-mark,” or “Tile-mark.” Maltebrun (iii. 6) prefers Jutland, on the continent of Denmark, part of which, he hears, is still termed “Thy” or “Thy-land.” Calstron believed that all Scandinavia was meant. Celtes (Schardius, Basil ed., p. 59) makes Iceland “one of the isles of the ocean,” together with Scandia, Dania, Suecia, etc. Adelung (Mithridates) supports the claims of Norway. Others go as far as Lapland, and even Greenland has not been without claimants to the honour. Yet in the sixth century, Jornandes (De Origine Actuque Getarum Liber, p. 393, Basle edition of 1531), after mentioning the thirty-four Orcades, says, “Habet et in ultimo plagæ occidentalis aliam insulam nomine Thyle, de quâ Mantuanus, Italia, ‘tibi serviat ultima Thyle,’” and he carefully distinguishes it from the “ampla insula nomine Scanzia.”[40]

V.

THULE=ICELAND.

It has been shown that the accounts of Pytheas, supported by details from Pliny and Ptolemy, refer only to Iceland. They are confirmed by the following authorities. In Caius Julius Solinus (A.D. 230; 2 vols. fol., Traj. ad Rhenum, 1689), we find Thule five days’ sail from Orkney, and we cannot allow less than 100 knots for the δρόμος νυχθήμερος, or a total of 500 direct geographical miles; the run from northern Orkney to the south coast of Iceland being about this distance. The Polyhistor, held an oracle in the Middle Ages, adds (chap, xx., lll):

“Inter multas quæ circa Britanniam sunt insulas, Thylen ultimam
esse commemorat. In quâ æstivo solstitio dicit esse noctem nullam.
Brumali verò perinde diem nullum.”[41]

Orosius, whose history (London, 8vo, 1773) extends to A.D. 417, says:

“Tylen per infinitum à cæteris separatam undique terris in medio
sitam oceano vix paucis notam haberi.”

Isidorus Hispalensis (A.D. 600-636; Orig. Seu Etym., xiv. 6; Opera Omnia, fol., Parisiis, 1601) appears to repeat Pliny:

“Thyle verò ultimam oceani insulam inter Septentrionem et
occidentalem plagam,[42] ultra Britanniam sitam esse describit, à
sole nomen habentem, quia in eâ æstivum solstitium sol faciat, et
nullus ultra eam dies sit. Ultra Thylen vèro pigrum et concretum
mare.”

The last sentence of the bishop being emphatically true in winter. Other authorities who identify Thule with Iceland, are Cluverius (Germ. Ant., ii. 39), Harduin and Dalechamp (Ad Plin.), Bougainville (c. 1, p. 152), Hill (Ad Dionys.), Penzel (Ad Strab.), Pontanus (Chorog. Dan. Descrip., p. 74), Isaac Thilo (Dissert., Lips., A.D. 1660), Gerhard Mercator, and Mannert (Geog., i., p. 78), to mention no others. Martin (Histoire des Gaules, i. 159) takes the Gauls to Iceland.

In the ninth century we have positive evidence that Thule had returned to its oldest signification, Iceland. The monk Dicuilus, who wrote in the year 825,[43] relates that thirty years before that date (A.D. 795) he had seen and spoken with several religious who had inhabited the island of Thule between February and August. He asserts that Iceland and the Færoes had been discovered by his countrymen; and his calculation of the seasons and the days at different times of the year, together with the assertion that a day’s sail thence towards the north would bring them to the Frozen Sea, shows that “Iceland, and Iceland alone, could have been the island visited by the anchorites.”

The Domesday Book of the north, the “Landnámabók,” whose lists of 1400 places and 3000 persons were drawn up by various authors in the twelfth century, supported, according to Mr Blackwell (note, p. 189), “by other ancient Icelandic documents,” simply states (Prologus, p. 2), “Before Iceland was settled by the Northmen there were men there called by the Northmen Papæ. These men were Christians, and are thought to have come from the west, for there were found Irish books, bells (biöllur), staves (baglar), and various other things, whence it is thought that they were Westmen,” Irishmen--a name still preserved in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago. Moreover, we learn that these relics were found in Papey (the Isle of the Papæ), a rock off the eastern coast, which still bears the same name, and at Papyli, in the interior; and finally, that “the Christians left the country when the Northmen settled there”[44]--the latter being pragmatical pagans.

Mr Blackwell concludes that these people were probably fishermen from the north of Ireland and the Western Isles of Scotland, who may annually have frequented the northern seas, and made Papey one of their winter stations. Mr Dasent (i., vii.) more justly identifies them with the Papar or Culdees (?), a class of churchmen who have left their traces in almost every one of the outlying islands of the west. Under the name of “Papar” we find them in the Orkneys and Shetlands, the Færoes and Iceland; “and to this day the term ‘Papey’ in all these localities denotes the fact that the same pious monks who had followed St Columba[45] to Iona, and who had filled the cells at Enhallow and Egilsha and Papa, in the Orkneys, were those who, according to the account of Dicuil, had sought Thule or Iceland that they might pray to God in peace.”[46] These Culdees were not likely to spread, as they carried no women, but they left traces of their occupation in their cells and church furniture.

The simple story told by Dicuil is eminently suggestive. Thus Thule became, probably for a second time, one of the “Britanniæ,” the Isles of Britain; and we may consider the discovery a rediscovery, like the central African lakes, whence Ptolemy derived the Nile. When the rude barks of the eighth century could habitually ply between Ireland and Iceland, we cannot reject as unfit the Roman galleys, or even the Phœnico-Carthaginian fleets. The Periplus of Himilco was not more perilous than the Periplus of Hanno, and the Portuguese frequented the northern seas long before they had doubled Cape Horn. Bergmann had evidently no right to determine that Iceland was not “Ultima Thule,” _because_--(1.) The Romans were bad sailors; (2.) They were in the habit of writing “Rome--her mark” wherever they went, whereas no signs of their occupation are visible in Iceland; and (3.) Because Iceland was probably raised from the sea at the time when the Vesuvian eruption buried Herculaneum and Pompeii.

It is true that Roman remains have not yet been discovered in Iceland, but this is a negative proof which time may demolish; moreover, the same absence of traces characterises the Papar occupation which we know to have been a fact. On the other hand, Uno Von Troil speaks of a ruined castle near “Videdal” (Viðidalr), some 200 perches in circumference, and smaller features of the same kind on the glebe of Skeggestað, near Langanes. Mr Henderson[47] declares of Hrutur’s cave, or rather caves--a vast apartment 72 feet long by 24 broad and 12 high, within which is a small recess 15 feet by 9, apparently a sleeping place--that both “are said to have been cut by people in former times.”

We are, then, justified in concluding that we need no longer question with Synesius, if such a place as Thule exists, or doubt with Giraldus Cambrensis, whether it has yet been discovered. We may follow A. W. Wilhelm (Germanien, etc., 1823), and believe with the Teatro Grande Orteliano, “Islandia insula, veteribus Thyle dicta, miraculis si quæ alia clarissima.” We may agree with Mannert that Iceland might have been discovered by Pytheas the Phocæan, and even by the Carthaginians. We may even support what appears to be rather an extreme opinion:

“Pytheam præterà increpat Strabo ut mendacem, qui Hiberniam et
Uxisamam (Ushant) ad occidentem ponit à Galliâ, cum hæc omnia, ait,
ad Septentrionem vergant. Itaque veteres geographi Hiberniæ situm
definiunt meliùs quam scriptoris seculi aurei Augusti, Himilco et
Phœnices meliùs quam Græci vel Romani” (Rer. Script. Hib., prol.
i., xii.).

Moreover, it appears certain that the old tradition of Thule, though different ages applied the word differently, was never completely lost; and that the Irish rediscovered the island before the eighth century, if not much earlier, when the official rediscovery dates from the ninth, and the earliest documents from the eleventh and twelfth.

The Venerable Bede (eighth century) speaks of Iceland under the name of Thyle, more than a hundred years before its official discovery by the Scandinavians; and Alfred (ninth century), in his translation of Orosius (p. 31), assures us that the utmost land to the north-west of Ireland was called Thila, and that it was known to few on account of its great distance. Yet even after the occupation of Iceland by the Northmen, we find in the literary world the same vagueness which prevailed in earlier ages. For instance, Isaac Tzetzes (twelfth century), in his notes on Lycophron, calls the fabled Fortunate Islands of the Greeks “the Isle of Souls, a British island between the west of Britain and Thule towards the east,” which is impossible. But in the fifteenth century Petrarch has left us a valuable notice of the knowledge then familiar to men of letters (De Situ Insulæ Thules, epist. i., lib. iii., De Rebus Fam., vol. i., pp. 136-141, ed. 1869, J. Fracassetti, Le Monnier. Florentia). In reply to his own “Quæro quiânam mundi parte Thule sit insula?” he quotes Virgil, Seneca, Boethius, Solinus, Isidore, Orosius, Claudian, Pliny, and Mela. He could obtain no information from “Riccardo, quondam Anglorum regis cancellario”--Richard de Bury was probably too busy for such trifles. He learned something, however, from the “Libellus de Mirabilibus Hiberniæ, à Giraldo (Cambrensi) quodam aulico Henrici secundi, regis Anglorum.” And after quoting this “scriptorum cohors,” he thus ends with “pointing a moral”--“Lateat ad aquilonem Thyle, lateat ad austrum Nili caput, modò non lateat in medio consistens virtus,” etc.[48]

Icelandic Thule was advocated by Saxo Grammaticus; but his opinion was strongly opposed by his commentator (Johannis Stephanii, Notæ Uberiores in Hist. Dan. Sax. Gram. Soræ, ed. 1644, fol.). The words of the latter’s preface are--“Ex opinione magis vulgari, quam rei veritate _Thylenses_ ubique nominat Saxo, qui Islandi rectius dicerentur;” but he relies chiefly upon the controvertible arguments of “Arngrimus Jonas.” Iceland was opposed by Gaspar Peucerus (De Terræ Dim.), by Crantzius (Præfatio in Norvagiam, borrowed from Nicolaus Synesius, epist. 148); by Abraham Ortelius (Theatrum Orbis and Thesaurum Geographicum), and by Philippus Cluverus (Germania Antiqua). The globe of Martin Behaim (A.D. 1430-1506) shows a certain knowledge of details: “In Iceland fair men are found who are Christians. The custom of its inhabitants is to sell dogs at a very high rate; while they willingly part with some of their children to merchants for nothing, that they may have sufficient to support the remainder. Item.--In Iceland are found men eighty years old who have never tasted bread. In this country no corn grows, and in lieu of bread dried fish is eaten. In Iceland it is the stock fish is taken which is brought to our country.”

THULE (ETYMOLOGY OF).

Perhaps the origin of “Thule” is ground more debatable and debated than even its geographical position.

“Some,” says Sibbald, “derive the name Thule from the Arabic word
Tule (طول = Túl), which signifies ‘afar off,’
and, as it were with allusion to this, the poets usually call it
‘Ultima Thule;’ but I rather prefer the reason of the name given by
the learned Bochartus,[49] who makes it to be Phœnician, and
affirms that it signifies ‘darkness’ in that language. Thule
(צל) in the Tyrian tongue was ‘a shadow,’
whence it is commonly used to signify ‘darkness,’ and the island
Thule is as much as to say, an ‘island of darkness;’ which name how
exactly it agrees to the island so called at the utmost point to
the north is known to everybody.”

Others find Thule in the Carthaginian צל = “obscurity;” the Hebrew has צלל, and the Arabic ظل = obscuravit.”

After using or abusing the Semitic tongues, we come to Greek, which puts forth three principal claimants: θόλος = fuscus color, caligo; τέλος, a goal; and τηλὲ, procul. Meanwhile Isidorus (Orig. Seu Etym., lib. xiv., 6) derives Thyle, as has been shown, from the sun and its solstice. In the twelfth century, Suidas (Lex. sub voc.) makes Thulis (θούλις) a king who reigned over Egypt and the isles of the ocean, one of which was called after his name.

Etymologists presently applied themselves to the Gothic languages and their derivatives; and they did not reject geographical resemblances. Pontanus (loc. cit., i., p. 746) asserts that the islands about the Norwegian coast were generally called Thuyle. Ortelius (Thesaur. and Theatr. Orbis, p. 103), relying upon Ptolemy’s latitudes and longitudes, declares that “Thilir” was the term applied to the people of Norwegian “Tilemark;” the latter word is also written “Thulemarchia” (Johannes Gothus); “Thielemark,” “Thylemark” and “Tellemarck” (Pontanus).[50] Not a few writers refer “Thule,” as has been said, to “Thy” or “Thy-land,” the extreme point of Jutland. The commentator on Saxo Grammaticus, before referred to, records a derivation of “Thule:”

“Quod vel instar _Tholi_, cujusdam orbis terrarum sit imposita, vel
quod eo navigantes ad ploratum (tothülen Belgæ dicunt)
proficiscerentur.”

In p. 175 he becomes still more vague:

“Rectius itaque Velljus nostro, juxtà ac M. Christiernus Petri,
primus Saxonis interpres, reddidere Blend aff Telløe vel Blend aff
Tyløe. Quænam verò iste sint insulæ, juxtà scimus cum
ignarissimis.”[51]

Prætorius (De Orbi Goth., iii. 4, § 3) deduces “Thule” from the Gothic “Tiel,” “Teule,” or “Tuole” (= τέλος, finis), meaning a long distance, and denoting the remotest land; he doubts the existence of the place, with D’Anville (Mem. de Paris, vol. xxxvii., p. 439). Reinerus Reineccius (Reinech, Historiæ tam Sacræ quam Profanæ Cognitio, Frankf. et Lipsiæ, 1685, and Methodus Legendi, etc., Historiam tam Sacram quam Profanam, Frankf. 1670) advocates the Saxon “Tell,” meaning a limit--limes septentrionis atque occidentis. Dr Charnock compares the Saxon “Deel,” a part or portion, and quotes Wachter (Gloss. Germ.), who gives amongst other meanings of “Teil” (hod. Theil), pars, portio, segmentum, and “teilen,” _i.e._, dividere in partes.

Torfæus (Hist. Norwegiæ, i. 5, p. 12) proposes a variety of derivations. Wilhelm Obermüller (Wörterbuch, etc., Williams and Norgate, Lond. 1872) would explain “Thule Procopiana,” by Dal (a dale), or “Tulla,” also written “Tolin” and “Tullin,” a meadow or pasturage; and he remarks that Norwegian “Tellemark” or “Thilemark,” is of the same descent. The Thracian Kelts had a kingdom of Tyle, which here probably signified “Dail,” a fortress. When Pliny makes men sail from Nerigos to “Thule,” the latter might have meant _Du-ile_, “the little island,” or perhaps “the dark (‘dubh,’ cloudy and wintry) isle.”

Even the orthography of “Thule” is disputed, and there are sundry variants--Thula, Thyle, Thile, Thila, Tyle, and Tila. The popular Greek form adopted by Strabo, Ptolemy, Agathemerus, Isidorus, Jornandes (De Reb. Get., cap. 1, 1), Procopius (De Bell. Goth., ii. 15) and Stephanus Byzantinus, is θούλη, which in Romaic would be pronounced “Thúle;” the ethnic being θουλαῖς (Thulæus), and θουλίτης (_plur._ θουλίται). The Latins (Mela, Pliny, Tacitus, Anonymus Ravennæ, Martianus, Solinus, etc.) seem to have preferred “Thule;” and Cluverius (Germ. Ant., iii. 39) rejects all others as barbarous. The learned and humorous Salmasius (in Solin., cap. xxii.) declares that “Thyle” ought never to be written, despite many good codices of Virgil, Pliny, Jornandes, Isidore, the Anon. Ravennæ, and others, which give Thyle and even Tyle, θύλη and θυλίτης; Æthicus (in Cosmog., p. 730), borrowing from Orosius, has “Tilæ;” Boethius (xx. 11), “Tile” and “Ðyle.”

We here conclude the subject of Thule, “celebrata omnium litteris insula.” To do it full justice, and especially to quote from the “cohort” of modern writers, would require a volume.