[233] Cf. also the anonymous Catalan chart in the Biblioteca Nazionale at Naples, reproduced in Björnbo and Petersen, 1908, Pl. I.
[234] Cf. Nordenskiöld, 1897, pp. 21, 58, Pl. X.; Hamy, 1889, pp. 414, f.; Fischer-Ongania, Pl. V.
[235] Cf. Mon. Hist. Norv., ed. Storm, 1880, p. 77. The circumstance that on one of the Sanudo maps ([p. 224]) Norway is divided into four peninsulas may be connected with a similar conception.
[236] Cf. Finnur Jónsson [1901, ii. p. 948], who thinks that the part dealing with the northern regions is not due to Nikulás. The hypothesis put forward by Storm, in Grönl. hist. Mind., iii. 219, that it was Abbot Nikolas of Thingeyre, appears less probable.
[237] If the old fishermen of the Polar Sea landed on any of these countries (Novaya Zemlya, Spitzbergen), they would there have found reindeer, which would again have strengthened their belief in the connection by land.
[238] The reason for this might be supposed to be the very name of Wineland, formed in a similar way to Greenland and Iceland, instead of Vin-ey (Wine island). A “land,” if one knew no better, would be more likely to be connected with the continent; whereas, if it had been called “ey,” it would have continued to be an island, as indeed it is in the Historia Norwegiæ (cf. [p. 1]).
[239] Storm [1890; 1892, pp. 78, ff.] and Björnbo [1909, pp. 229, ff.; 1910, pp. 82, ff.] have put forward views about these ideas of the Scandinavians which differ somewhat from those here given (cf. above, [p. 2]), but in the main we are in agreement. I do not think Dr. Björnbo can be altogether right in supposing that the Icelanders and Norwegians connected Greenland with Bjarmeland, and Wineland with Africa, because the learned views of the Middle Ages made this necessary; for this view of the world also acknowledged islands in the ocean (cf. Adam of Bremen), perhaps indeed more readily than it acknowledged peninsulas (cf. the wheel-maps). But perhaps, after Greenland and Wineland had been connected with the continents on other grounds, the prevailing learned view of the world demanded that the Outer Ocean should be placed outside these countries, so that they became peninsulas. But we have seen that side by side with this, other views were also held (cf., for instance, the Rymbegla and the Medicean mappamundi, pp. [236], [239]).
[240] The name of the work (“Konungs-Skuggsjá” or “Speculum Regale”) had its prototype in the names of those books which were written in India for the education of princes, and which were called Princes’ Mirrors. In imitation of these, “mirror” (speculum) was used as the title of works of various kinds in mediæval Europe.
[241] Various guesses have been made as to who the author may have been and when the work was written. It appears to me that there is much to be said for the opinion put forward by A. V. Heffermehl [1904], that the author may have been the priest Ivor Bodde, Håkon Håkonsson’s foster-father. In that case the work must have been written somewhat earlier than commonly supposed [Storm put it between 1250 and 1260], and it appears that Heffermehl has given good reasons for assuming that it may have been written several years before 1250. Considerable weight as regards the determination of its date must be attached to the circumstance that, in the opinion of Professor Marius Hægstad, a vellum sheet preserved at Copenhagen (new royal collection, No. 235g) has linguistic forms which must place it certainly before 1250, and the vellum must have belonged to a copy of an older MS. On the other hand, Professor Moltke Moe has pointed out in his lectures that the quotations in the “King’s Mirror” from the book of the Marvels of India, from Prester John’s letter, are derived from a version of the latter which, as shown by Zarncke, is not known before about 1300. Moltke Moe therefore supposes that the “King’s Mirror,” in the form we know it, may be a later and incomplete adaptation of the original work. The latter may have been written by Ivar Bodde in his old age between 1230 and 1240.
[242] If Professor Moltke Moe’s view is correct, that the “King’s Mirror,” in the form which we know, is a later adaptation (cf. [p. 242, note 2]), it may be supposed that the section on Ireland was inserted by the adapter. Presumably a thorough examination of the linguistic forms would determine whether this is probable.