[225] Buache read the inscription on the northernmost isle of Brazil on the Pizigano map as “ysola de Mayotas seu de Bracir,” while Jomard makes it “n̊ cotus sur de Bracir.” Kretschmer [1892, p. 219] has examined the map, but can read neither one nor the other, as the text is indistinct. On the other hand, he points out that on Graciosus Benincasa’s map of 1482 the same island has a clearly legible “montorio” (on a map of 1574 “mons orius” is found), which he is equally unable to explain. It may be added that on an anonymous compass-chart of 1384 [Nordenskiöld, 1897, Pl. XV.] a corresponding island is marked “monte orius,” on Benincasa’s map of 1457 “montorius,” and on Calapoda’s map of 1552 “montoriu” [Nordenskiöld, 1897, Pl. XXXIII., XXVI.]. This is evidently our “montonis” on Dalorto’s map of 1325 appearing again.
[226] The number with the preceding words is also evidently given in the line below.
[227] Cf. Th. Fischer, 1886, pp. 42; Hamy, 1889, p. 366; Magnaghi, 1899, p. 2. I have not been able to find this legend on Dalorto’s map of 1339 (in the reproduction in Nordenskiöld’s Periplus, Pl. VIII.), where Magnaghi asserts that it is to be found.
[228] Cf. Hamy, 1888, 1903; Nordenskiöld, 1897, Pl. VIII.; Kretschmer, 1909, p. 188.
[229] This is the same form as on the later maps, [pp. 231, 232, 233].
[230] For a description and reproduction of the Modena chart, see Kretschmer, 1897; Pullè and Longhena, 1907.
[231] In the reproduction, [pp. 232-233], “gronlandia” is given in the inscription in the Baltic, taken from the reading of Björnbo and Petersen [1908, p. 16]. Mr. O. Vangensten has examined the original at Florence and found that this is a misreading, the correct one being “gotlandia.”
[232] On this chart there is a picture in the Northern Ocean to the west of Norway of a ship with her anchor out by the side of a whale, with the following explanation [cf. Björnbo, 1910, p. 121]: “This sea is called ‘mar bocceano,’ and therein are found great fish, which sailors take to be small islands and take up their quarters on these fish, and the sailors land on these islands and make fires, and cause such heat that the fish feels it and sets itself in motion, and they have no time to get on board and are lost; and those who know this, land on the said fish, and there make thongs of its back and make fast the head of the ship’s anchor, and in this way they flay the skin off it, whereof they make saraianes [ropes ?] for their ships, and of this skin are made good coverings for haystacks.”
We have here a combination of two mythical features. One is the great fish of the Navigatio Brandani, on which they land and make a fire to cook lamb’s flesh, when the fish begins to move, and the brethren rush to the ship, into which they are taken by Brandan, while the island disappears and they can still see the fire they have made two leagues away. Brandan told them that this was the largest of all the fish in the sea; it always tries to reach its tail with its head [like the Midgards-worm, cf. vol. i. p. 364] and its name is Iasconicus. The same myth is referred to in an Anglo-Saxon poem [Codex Exoniensis, ed. Benj. Thorpe, London, 1842, pp. 360, ff.] on the great whale Fastitocalon, where ships cast anchor and the sailors go ashore and make fires, upon which the whale dives down with ship and crew. The idea of such a fish resembling an island is also found in the northern myth of the havguva (cf. the “King’s Mirror”), or krake, and is doubtless derived from the East. Tales of landing on an apparent island which suddenly turns out to be a fish are found in Sindbad’s first voyage, in Qazwînî (where the fish is an enormous turtle), and even in Pseudo-Callisthenes in the second century [iii. 17, cf. E. Rohde, 1900, p. 192].
The second feature of flaying the skin is evidently the same as already found in Albertus Magnus (ob. 1280), and must be referred to fabulous ideas about the hunting of walrus, which was also called whale (see above, [p. 163]). That walrus-hide was used for ships’ ropes is, of course, well known, but that it should be also used for coverings of haystacks is not likely, as it was certainly far too valuable for that.