[122] Cf. Lönborg, 1897, p. 136; Ahlenius, 1900, p. 37.
[123] Cf. Baumstark, 1880, p. 329; Müllenhoff, iv., 1900, p. 516.
[124] Many of his place-names in Ireland especially point to frequent communication, probably due to trade, between this island and the continent, perhaps with Gaul.
[125] Much [1895, a, p. 34] thinks that the “Alociæ” may have been some small rocky islands which have now disappeared. Upon them he supposes there may have been colonies of auks, which have given them their name, as in Gothic, for instance, they may have been called “*alakô.” The hypothesis is improbable; even if any such rocky islets had been washed away by the sea they must have left behind submerged rocks, and none such are known in the sea off Jutland.
[126] Macrobius’s division of the earth into zones after Parmenides with an equatorial ocean like Mela, in graphic representation, had great influence during the Middle Ages.
[127] Similar conceptions are to be found in Avienus (“Ora Maritima,” vv., 644-663), and are derived from ancient Greek geographers (Anaximenes, cf. Müllenhoff, i., 1870, p. 77).
[128] This description would best suit the Baltic (and the Belts) as forming the eastern side of Scandza; but the term inland sea (“lacus”) does not agree well with Scandza being an island and lying just opposite the Vistula, which “with its three mouths discharged itself into the Ocean”; and in the rear of the Vidivarii at the mouths of the Vistula “dwelt likewise on the Ocean the Æstii, that very peace-loving people” [v. 36, cf. Tacitus]. Besides which Jordanes’ Germanic Ocean may be the Baltic, although his very obscure description may equally well suit the North Sea, or both together. The supposition that the great inland sea and the River Vagi might be Lake Ladoga and the Neva [cf. Geijer, 1825, p. 100] or Lake Vener and the Göta River [cf. Lönborg, 1897, p. 25, and Ahlenius, 1900, p. 44] does not agree with the description of Jordanes, which distinctly asserts that it lay on the east side of Scandza in contradistinction to the immense ocean on the west and north. The fact must be that Jordanes had very obscure ideas on this point, and this has made his description confusing.
[129] These small islands have been taken to be the Danish islands [cf. Ahlenius, 1900, p. 43]; but as we hear in immediate connection with them of severe cold and of the wolves losing their eyes on crossing the frozen sea (“congelato mari”), our thoughts are led farther north and we would be inclined to take them for the Åland islands.
[130] This reminds us of Mela’s statement respecting the Œneans, who lived on fen-fowl’s eggs (see above, [pp. 91], [95]).
[131] And or Amd was used formerly not only for the island of And (Andö), but for a great part of Vesterålen and Hinnö.