[182] Cf. Plutarch, Thes. 26; Strabo, xi. 504; and others.
[183] Adam’s statement (immediately afterwards in the same section) that the land of the Alani or Wizzi was defended by an army of dogs, must be due to a similar misinterpretation of the name “Huns.”
[184] This passage is undoubtedly taken from Solinus, and we see how Magister Adam confuses together what he has heard and what he finds in classical authors.
[185] It seems very probable, as Mr. F. Schiern [1873, s. 13] suggests, that this conception of even the noblest men (nobilissimi homines) being herdsmen may be due to a misunderstanding of the old Norse word “fehirðir,” which might mean herdsman, but was also the usual word for treasurer, especially the king’s treasurer.
[186] This description refers, probably, to the Lapps and their magic arts.
[187] This must be another misunderstanding of tales about Kvæns, whom Adam took for women.
[188] These skin-clad hunters, who spoke a language unintelligible to the Norwegians, were certainly Lapps.
[189] It might be thought that “uri” was here a corruption for “lutræ” (otters); but as “uri” is found in two passages without making sense in its proper meaning, aurochs, it may also be supposed that it is here used as a name for walrus, as proposed by A. M. Hansen; and then the last sentence will be quite simple, that the white bear lives under water like the walrus. The confusion may have arisen through a belief that the tusks of the walrus were aurochs’ horns. The horns in the picture of the “Urus” on the Ebstorf map (1284) are very like walrus tusks. But it is striking that the common land bear is not mentioned, while the white bear is spoken of. As the latter seldom comes to Finmark, its mention points to the Norwegians having hunted it in the Polar Sea; if it be not due to the connection of Norway with Iceland and Greenland, but as these lands are mentioned separately this seems less probable.
[190] This idea may possibly be due on the one hand to the mist, which may have been regarded as brought about by heat; for in a scholium (possibly by Adam himself, or not much later) we read: “By Iceland is the Ice Sea, and it is boiling and shrouded in mist (‘caligans’).” On the other hand it may be due to statements about volcanoes and boiling springs which have been confused with it. The black colour and dryness of the ice may be due to confusion with lava or with floating pumice-stone in the sea, and statements about the lignite of Iceland (“surtarbrand”) may also have given rise to this idea [cf. Baumgartner, 1902, p. 503]. Lönborg’s suggestion [1897, p. 165] that it may be due to driftwood is less probable. Compare also the idea in the “Meregarto” (above, [p. 181]) of the ice as hard as crystal, which is heated. In two MSS. of Solinus, of which the oldest is of the twelfth century [cf. Mommsen’s edition of Solinus, 1895, pp. xxxiv., xxxvii., 236; Lappenberg, 1838, pp. 887 f.], there is an addition about the northern islands in which we read of Iceland: “Yslande. The sea-ice on this island ignites itself on collision, and when it is ignited it burns like wood. These people also are good Christians, but in winter they dare not leave their underground holes on account of the terrible cold. For if they go out they are smitten by such severe cold that they lose their colour like lepers and swell up. If by chance they blow their nose, it comes off and they throw it away with what they have blown out.” This passage cannot be derived from Adam of Bremen (nor has it any resemblance to the Meregarto); it may indicate that similar ideas of the ice of Iceland were current at that time. Saxo’s remarkable allusion to this ice (in the introduction to his work) also shows that it was connected with much superstition.
[191] The woods consisted then as now solely of birch-trees, which were however larger at that time.