But Clotho the blind couldn't bear such great riches."
C. W. B.
Queries.
ANCIENT DANISH ITINERARY: PROL IN ANGLIAM.
An ancient scholiast on Adam of Bremen, "paululum Adamo ratione ætatis inferior," according to his editor, Joachim Maderus, supplies us with a curious list of the stations in the voyages from Ripa, in Denmark, to Acre, in the Holy Land. Adam of Bremen's Ecclesiastical History dates toward the end of the eleventh century, about 1070. His text is as follows:—
"Alterum (episcopatum) in Ripa; quæ civitas alio tangitur alveo, qui ab oceano influit, et per quem vela torquentur in Fresiam, vel in nostram Saxoniam, vel certe in Angliam."
The scholiast has this note:—
"De Ripa in Flandriam ad Cuicfal velificari potest duobus diebus, et totidem noctibus; de Cuicfal ad Prol in Angliam duobus diebus et una nocte. Illud est ultimum caput Angliæ versus Austrum, et est processus illuc de Ripa angulosus inter Austrum et Occidentem. De Prol in Britanniam ad Sanctum Matthiam, uno die,—inde ad Far, juxta Sanctum Jacobum tribus noctibus. Inde Leskebone duobus diebus inter Austrum et Occidentem. De Leskebone ad Narvese tribus diebus et tribus noctibus, angulariter inter Orientem et Austrum. De Narvese ad Arruguen quatuor diebus et quatuor noctibus, angulariter inter Aquilonem et Orientem. De Arruguen ad Barzalun uno die, similiter inter Aquilonem et Orientem. De Barzalun ad Marsiliam uno die et una nocte, fere versus Orientem, declinando tamen parum ad plagam Australem. De Marsilia ad Mezein in Siciliam quatuor diebus et quatuor noctibus, angulariter inter Orientem et Austrum. De Mezein ad Accharon xiiii diebus et totidem noctibus, inter Orientem et Austrum, magis appropiando ad Austrum."
We may fairly consider that the stations marked in this itinerary are of great antiquity. "Prol in Angliam" is, no doubt, Prawle Point, in Devonshire; a headland which must have been well known to the Veneti long before the days of Adam of Bremen. Its mention here is one among the many proofs of the early importance of this coast, the ancient "Littus Totonesium," the scene of one of Marie's fabliaux, and of some curious passages in Layamon's Brut, which are not to be found in the poem of Wace. I wish to ask,—