[25] For “glacialis,” see Adrian Junius before quoted. The high-sounding and convenient epithet seems to have been applied to Ierne, as “ultima” to Thule. If the Romans did not hold Ireland, at any rate they knew it well: “Melius aditus portusque, per commercia et negotiatores cognita” (Tacit. Agricol., xxiv.).
[26] In Icelandic “Orkn” and “Orkn-selr” are applied to a seal. (Compare Lat. orca, supposed to be the grampus: Cleasby.) Pliny makes orca a kind of dolphin (D. orca), and orec or orc is the Gaelic form; hence Cape Orcas, which is popularly identified with Dunnet Head, the extreme northern point of Scotland. We have no need to derive “Orkneys” from εἴρκω (coercio), these isles breaking and restraining the force of the raging waves; or from “Erick” or “Orkenwald,” or any other “Pictish prince famous there at its first plantation.”
[27] The Crymogæa (Sive De Reb. Isl., Hamb. 1593) of this learned Icelander will be found analysed in Purchas, vol. iii., and Hakluyt, vol. i. His principal argument is very unsatisfactory: “If Iceland is taken to have been the classical Thule, it must have been inhabited in the days of Augustus, which is contrary to the chronicles of the island.” This author’s chief objection is thus stated by himself: “Si etenim Islandia idem esset cum Thule, rueret totum hujus narrationis fundamentum de Islandia A.C. 874 habitari primum cæpta;” an objection which will be considered elsewhere. Meanwhile I prefer the opinion of the equally learned Pentanus, who says of Iceland: “Non heri aut hodie quod dicitur fuit frequentata, sed habuit indigenas suos multa ante sæcula.”
[28] According to Dr Charnock, he speaks only of the Sacæ, the Persa, and the Britannus.
[29] Dr Bosworth (Anglo-Saxon Dict.) quotes Boethius (29, 11): “Oth thæt iland the we hatath Thyle, thæt is on tham northwest ende thisses middaneardes thær ne bith nawther ne on sumera niht, ne on wintra dæg” (To the island which we call Thule, that is on the north-west end of this middle earth, where there is neither night in summer nor day in winter). Cardale (1, 166) also: “Thonne be norðan Ibernia is thæt ylemede land thæt man hæt Thila” (Thence to the north of Ibernia is that island which men call Thila). See also Orosius, 1, 2.
[30] The author here settles offhand a point disputed ad infinitum. Dr Charnock has shown that Scotland was at one time called Igbernia, Hibernia (the classical name of Ireland, corrupted from iar-in, the western isle), and from the end of the third to the beginning of the eleventh century, Scotia was used exclusively to indicate Ireland.
[31] برة التنك (Barrat el Tanak), “tanak” being the Arabic for tin.—Dr Charnock in his various writings (Local Etymology, etc.), after referring to the derivation of Britannia from the Punic ברת אנכ, barat-anac, the land of tin or lead; and the Hebrew ברא, bara, in Pihel, to create, produce; quoting Camden, Owen, Clarke, Borlase, Bochart, Boerhave, Shaw, Bosworth, and Armstrong, gives the following suggested derivations of the name from the Keltic, viz.: from its inhabitants, the Brython; from brit, brith, of divers colours, spotted (ברד, brd, pl. ברדים, brdim, spots, spotted with colours); bràith-tuinn, (the land on) the top of the wave; from Yuys Prydain, the fair island; from Prydyn, son of Aez the Great; from bri, dignity, honour; from Brutus, a fabulous king of Britain; from bret, high, tain, a river; but Dr Charnock inclines to derive the name from bret-inn, the high island. It need hardly be said that the Tin Islands (Cassiterides) contained no tin; like Zanzibar, they were probably a mere depôt where the Phœnicians met the savages of the interior.
[32] In the following verse of Catullus (Carm. 27):
“Hunc Gallæ timent, hunc timent Britanniæ,”
we find “Britain” used to denote the whole of the British Isles.