We are told that Magister Adam obtained information about the countries and peoples of the North from Svein Estridsson and his men; but as regards Iceland he might also have had trustworthy information from the Archbishop of Bremen, Adalbert, who had educated an Icelander, Isleif Gissursson, to be bishop. The latter (who is also mentioned by Are Frode) might also have told him about Greenland and Wineland; but Adam says distinctly that he had been informed about the latter country and the wine and corn there, which must have seemed very remarkable to him, if he imagined the country to be in the north, by the Danish king, and that the information had been confirmed by Danes. We shall return later to these countries, to Adam’s ideas of Wineland, and to the alleged polar expeditions of King Harold and of the Frisian noblemen.
Just as these pages are going to press I have received from Dr. Axel Anthon Björnbo his excellent essay on “Adam of Bremen’s view of the North” [1909]. By Dr. Björnbo’s exhaustive researches the correctness of the views just set forth seems to be confirmed on many points; but he gives a far more complete picture of Adam’s geographical ideas. The reasons advanced by Dr. Björnbo for supposing that Adam imagined the ocean as surrounding the earth’s disc, with Iceland, Greenland, etc., in the north, are of much interest. His map of the North according to Adam’s description is of great value, and gives a clear presentation of the main lines of Adam’s conceptions. With his kind permission it is reproduced here (p. 186). But, as will appear from my remarks above ([pp. 197 f.]), I am not sure that one is justified in placing Winland so far north, in the neighbourhood of the North Pole, as Dr. Björnbo has done in his map. Possibly he has also put the other islands rather far north, and has curved the north coast of Scandinavia somewhat too much in a westerly direction.
Through Dr. Björnbo’s book I have become acquainted with another recently published work on Adam of Bremen by Hermann Krabbo [1909], of which I have also been unable to make use; it also has a map, but not so complete a one as Björnbo’s as regards the northern regions.
CHAPTER VI
FINNS, SKRIDFINNS (LAPPS), AND THE FIRST SETTLEMENT OF SCANDINAVIA
Before we proceed to the Norwegians’ great contributions to the exploration of the northern regions, we shall attempt to collect and survey what is known, and what may possibly be concluded, about the most northern people of Europe, the Finns, and the earliest settlement of Scandinavia.
Earliest mention of the Finns