Fourthly, The later Roman writers prolonged it to the “Scania Island,” modern Norway, Sweden, and Lapland. This Thule should be called “Procopiana.”
Fifthly, Between the establishment of Christianity in England, and the official or modern rediscovery, the term Thule was once more, as of old, limited to Iceland.
I.
“THULE,” POETICAL AND RHETORICAL.
The following are popular instances of Thule used in its first sense, the remotest part of the septentrional world, when it was a “fabulosa non minus quam famosa insula.” Virgil has only one allusion to it (Georg., i. 30, 31):
“Tibi serviat ultima Thule,
Teque sibi generum Tethys emat omnibus undis;”
but his epithet has been consecrated by a bevy of succeeding poets.
Servius, commenting upon Virgil, explains:
“Thyle insula est oceani inter septentrionalem et occidentalem plagam, ultra Britanniam, Hiberniam, Orcadas;”
which is vague enough. He is afterwards more precise:
“At this island, when the sun is in Cancer, the days are said to be continuous without nights. Various marvels are related of it, both by Greek and later writers; by Ctesias and Diogenes among the former, and by Samnonicus among the latter.”