[55] According to existing MSS. of Solinus [c. 22] it was five days’ sail to Thule from the Orcades, which must here be Shetland, and which are mentioned as the second station on the way to Thule; the Ebudes (Hebrides) were the first station. Mommsen [1895, p. 219] regards the passage as corrupt, and considers it a later interpolation of between the 7th and 9th centuries.
[56] Cf. Brenner, 1877, pp. 32, 98.
[57] Cf. Keyser (1839), 1868, p. 92.
[58] If we were able to make out the etymological origin of the name Thule, it would perhaps give us some indication of where we ought to look for the country. But the various attempts that have been made to solve this riddle have been without success. It has been asserted by several authors that it comes from an old Gothic word “tiele,” or “tiule,” which is said to mean limit [cf. Forbiger, 1842, iii. p. 312], or an Old Saxon word “thyle,” “thul,” “tell” (or “tell,” “till,” “tiul”), said to mean the same [cf. Markham, 1893, p. 519; and Callegari, 1904, p. 47]; but Professor Alf Torp, whom I have consulted, says that no such word can be found in either of these languages. The word has been further erroneously connected with the name Telemarken, which accordingly would mean borderland, but which in reality must be derived from the Norwegian word “tele,” Old Norse “þeli,” frozen earth, and it is by no means impossible that Thule should be a Greek corruption of such a word. E. Benedikson has supposed that Thule might come from a Gallic word “houl,” for sun [cf. Callegari, 1904, p. 47], which with a preposition “de” (or other prefix) might have been thus corrupted in Greek; but Professor Torp informs me in a letter that no such Gallic word exists, though there is a Cymric “haul,” “which in Gallic of that time must have sounded approximately ‘hâvel,’” and it “is quite impossible that a preposition or prefix ‘de’ could have coalesced with initial ‘h’ so as to result in anything like Thule.” The Irish “temel” (Cymric “tywyll”) for dark, which has also been tried [Keyser, 1839, p. 397; 1868, p. 166], or “tawel” for silent, still [Müllenhoff, 1870, i, p. 408], are of no more use, according to Torp, since both words at that time had “m,” which has later become “w.” The only Celtic root which in his opinion might be thought of is “‘tel’ (== raise, raise oneself), to which the Irish ‘telach’ and ‘tulach’ (== a height, mound); but this does not seem very appropriate. The Germanic form of this root is ‘thel’ (modification ‘thul’); but in Germanic this is not applied to soil or land which rises. I cannot find anything else, either in Celtic or Germanic; it is thus impossible for me to decide to which of the languages the word may belong; I can only say that the Greek θ (th) rather points to Germanic. For no Celtic word begins with an aspirate, whereas Germanic, as you know, has transmutation of consonants (Indo-germanic ‘t’ to ‘th,’ etc.), and it is not impossible that this sound-change goes as far back as the time of Pytheas.” Professor Torp has further drawn my attention to the fact that from the above-mentioned “thel,” raise oneself, is formed the Old Norse “þollr,” tree (cf. “þǫll” == fir-tree), which in early times was “þull” as radical form. There might be a bare possibility of Thule being connected with this word.
If it should appear, as hinted here, that the word Thule is of Germanic origin, then the probability of the country lying outside the British Isles would be greatly strengthened; for Britain and the Scottish Islands were at that time not yet inhabited by a Germanic race, and the native Celts can only have known a Germanic name for a country from its own Germanic inhabitants. This land farther north must then be Norway.
It has been pointed out [cf. Cuno, 1871, i. p. 102; Mair, 1899, p. 15] that the name Thule reminds one of “Tyle,” the capital of the Celtic colony which was established in Thrace in the 3rd century B.C. But we know nothing of the origin of this latter name, and here again there is the difficulty that it begins with “t” and not “th.”
It may be further mentioned that C. Hofmann [1865, p. 17] has suggested that Thule may come from such a name as “Thumla,” which in the Upsala Edda [ii. 492] is the name of an unknown island, but which was also the name of an island at the mouth of the Göta river (cf. Thumlaheide in Hising). He thinks that a Greek could not pronounce such a combination of sounds as “ml” (μλ), but would pronounce it as “l” (λ). The word would therefore become “Thula,” or according to the usual form of the declension “Thule.” Meanwhile we know of no name resembling Thumla for any district which Pytheas could have reached from Britain.
[59] That Thule was Norway or Scandinavia was assumed as early as Procopius. In the last century this view was supported by Geijer, 1825; Sven Nilsson, 1837; R. Keyser, 1839; Petersen; H. J. Thue, 1843, and others. In recent years it has been especially maintained by Hergt, 1893.
[60] Müllenhoff’s reasons for supposing that Thule cannot have been Norway are of little weight, and in part disclose an imperfect knowledge of the conditions. That Pytheas, if he came to Norway, must have found new species of animals and new races of men, especially the Lapps with their reindeer, which, according to Müllenhoff, he evidently did not find, is, for instance, an untenable assertion; for in the first place it is very uncertain whether the reindeer-Lapps had reached Norway so early as that time, since they appear to be a comparatively late immigration. In the second place, if they were really already living in Finmarken and the northern part of Helgeland (Hálogaland), it is unreasonable to suppose that a seafarer who went along the coast as far as to the neighbourhood of the Arctic Circle should have met with these Lapps. Finally, it is impossible to take it for granted that Pytheas did not mention all the things that are not to be found in the chance quotations of later writers.
[61] The Arctic Circle at that time lay in 66° 15′ 20″. If we put the horizontal refraction plus the sun’s semi-diameter at 50′ in round figures, then the upper edge of the sun would be visible at midnight at the summer solstice a little north of 65° 25′.