“In the bay which we have called Codanus is amongst the islands Codanovia, which is still inhabited by the Teutons, and it surpasses the others both in size and in fertility. The part which lies towards the Sarmatians seems sometimes to be islands and sometimes connected land, on account of the backward and forward flow of the sea, and because the interval which separates them is now covered by the waves, now bare. Upon these it is asserted that the Œneans dwell, who live entirely on the eggs of fen-fowl and on oats, the Hippopods with horses’ feet, and the Sanalians, who have such long ears that they cover the whole body with them instead of clothes, since they otherwise go naked. For these things, besides what is told in fables, I find also authorities whom I think I may follow. Towards the coast of the Belgæ[90] lies Thule, famous in Greek poems and in our own; there the nights in any case are short, since the sun, when it has long been about to set, rises up; but in the winter the nights are dark as elsewhere.... But at the summer solstice there is no night at all, because the sun then is already clearer, and not only shows its reflection, but also the greater part of itself.”
Thus we see here, as in so many of the classical authors, and later in Pliny, old legends and more trustworthy information hopelessly mixed together. The legends, whose Greek origin is disclosed by the form of the names, may be old skippers’ tales, or the romances of merchants who went northward from the Black Sea, but they may also in part be derived from Pytheas. A fable like that of the long-eared Sanali (otherwise called Panoti) originally came from India and is later than his time. The statement about the Œneæ, or, doubtless more correctly, Œonæ (i.e., egg-eaters), who live on eggs and oats, may, on the other hand, have reached him from the north, where the eggs both of fen-fowl (plovers’ eggs, for example) and of sea-birds were eaten from time immemorial. Cæsar had heard or read of people who lived on birds’ eggs and fish on the islands at the mouth of the Rhine, but he may indeed have derived his knowledge from Greek sources [cf. Müllenhoff, i., 1870, p. 492].
Island with long-eared man
(from the Hereford map)
What Mela says about Thule probably comes from Pytheas, as already mentioned ([p. 90]), and it is very possible that the remarkable statements about the immense bay of Codanus are likewise derived from him, although they may also be ascribed to the circumnavigation of the Skaw under Augustus, or to other voyages in these waters of which we have no knowledge.
Codanovia
Whether Codanovia (which is not found in any other known author) is the same name as the later Scadinavia in Pliny, must be regarded as uncertain. It is the first time that such an island or that the bay of Codanus is mentioned in literature. This “immense bay” must certainly be the Cattegat with the southern part of the Baltic; and the numerous islands which close it in to a curved strait or sound must be for the most part the Danish islands and perhaps southern Sweden. Whence the name is derived we do not know for certain.[91]
Ptolemy mentions three peoples in southern Jutland, and calls the easternmost of them “Kobandoi.” It is not likely that three peoples can have lived side by side in this narrowest part of the peninsula, and we must believe that some of them lived among the Danish islands, where Ptolemy does not give the name of any people. The “Kobandoi” would then be on the easternmost island, Sealand [cf. Much, 1893, pp. 198 f.]. Now it will easily be supposed that “Codanus” and “Kobandoi” have some connection or other; the latter might be a corruption of the name of a people, “Kodanoi” or “Kodanioi.” But as precisely these islands and the south of Sweden were inhabited by tribes of the Danes—of whom several are mentioned in literature: South Danes, North Danes, Sea Danes, Island Danes, etc.—it may be further supposed that “Kodanioi” is composed of “ko” or cow[92] and “Daner” (that is, Cow-Danes), and means a tribe of the latter who were remarkable for the number of their cows, which would be probable enough for a people in fertile Sealand (or in Skåne).[93] In this case “Codanus” must be derived from the name of this people, just as most of the names of seas and bays in these regions were taken from the names of peoples (e.g., “Oceanus Germanicus,” “Mare Suebicum,” “Sinus Venedicum,” “Quænsæ”). The name “Daner” is one of those names of peoples that are so ancient that their derivation must be obscure.[94] Procopius uses it as a common name for many nations (“ethne”), in the same way as he names the “ethne” of the Slavs (see later, [p. 146]). It is also used in the early Middle Ages as a common name for the people of the North, like Eruli, and later Normans. It is therefore natural that there should have been special names for the tribes, like Sea-Danes, Cow-Danes, etc. “Kodan-ovia” (“ovia,” equivalent to Old High German “ouwa” or “ouwia”) for island, Gothic “avi,” Old Norse “ey” [cf. Grimm, 1888, p. 505], must be the island on which this tribe lived, and this might then be Sealand (though Skåne is also possible).
That the Cimbri lived in Codanus suits very well, as their home was Jutland;[95] on the other hand, we know less about the country inhabited by the Teutons. They must have been called in Germanic “*þeodonez” (Gothic “*þiudans” means properly kings), and the name has been connected with Old Norse “þiód,” now Thy (Old Danish “Thythesyssel”) with its capital Thisted, and the island Thyholm, in north-western Jutland [cf. Much, 1893, pp. 7 ff.; 1905, p. 100].
Whether the Vistula had its outlet into Codanus or farther east Mela does not say, nor does he tell us whether Sarmatia was bounded by this gulf; but this is not impossible, although Codanus is described at the end of the chapter on Germania. Strangely enough, he says, according to the MSS. [iii. c. 4], that “Sarmatia is separated from the following [i.e., Scythia] by the Vistula”; it would thus lie on the western side of the river, which seems curious. It might be possible that the islands off the coast of Sarmatia are among the many which lay in Codanus (?). As Sarmatia lay to the east of Germania, these islands would in any case be as far east as the Baltic, if not farther; but there is no ebb and flood there by which the connecting land between them might be alternately covered and left dry; on the other hand, the description suits the German North Sea coast. Either Mela’s authority has heard of the low-lying lands—the Frische Nehrung and the Kurische Nehrung, for instance—off the coast of the amber country, and has added the tidal phenomena from the North Sea coast, or, what is more probable, the Frisian islands, for example, may by a misunderstanding have been moved eastwards into Sarmatia, since older writers, who as yet made no distinction between Germania, Sarmatia and Scythia, described them as lying far east, off the Scythian coast (perhaps taken from the voyage of Pytheas).[96]