[165] The name of “Dacia” for Denmark, which frequently occurs on maps of the Middle Ages, arose through a confusion of the name of the Roman province on the Danube with “Dania.”
[166] “Nero,” which appears before this word on the map (see vol. i. p. 183), is crossed out, and was evidently an error.
[167] Cf. Rafn, Antiquités Russes, ii. pp. 390, ff., Pl. IV.; K. Miller, iii., 1895, p. 125.
[168] Cf. M. de Goeje in the “Livre des Merveilles de l’Inde,” ed. by v. d. Lith and Devic, Leiden, 1883-86, p. 295.
[169] Bulgar was the capital of the country of the Mohammedan Bulgarians. These were a Finnish people. From Bulgar or Bolgar comes the name Volga.
[170] For the origin of the name, see [p. 55, note].
[171] Cf. Ibn Khordâdhbeh, 1889, pp. xx., 67, 88, 115; 1865, pp. 214, 235, 264.
[172] “Rûs” was the name of the Scandinavians (mostly Swedes) in Russia who founded the Russian empire (“Gardarike” or “Sviþjoð hit mikla”).
[173] Among the four wonders of the world Ibn Khordâḏbah mentions “a bronze horseman in Spain [cf. the Pillars of Hercules], who with outstretched arm seems to say: Behind me there is no longer any beaten track, he who ventures farther is swallowed up by ants.” So De Goeje translates it. It might seem to be connected with the swarms of ants that came down to the shore and wanted to eat the men and their boat on the first larger island out in the ocean that Maelduin arrived at in the Irish legend (cf. vol. i. p. 336); but Professor Seippel thinks it possible that the original reading was “is swallowed up in sand” (and not by ants).
[174] This comes very near to Hippocrates’ words about the Amazons, that the mothers burn away the right breast of their girl children, “thereby the breast ceases to grow and all the strength and fullness goes over to the right shoulder and arm” (cf. also vol. i. p. 87).