VOYAGES IN THE POLAR SEA 



Although, as already mentioned (Vol. I, p. 362), Lucian does 

 not seem to have been read in western Europe before the 

 fourteenth century, I cannot get away from the impression 

 that in some oral way or other (cf. Vol. I, pp. 362 f.) there must 

 be a connection between the Irish tale (written down long be- 

 fore Adam of Bremen's work) and the above-mentioned fable 

 (as well as many others) which Lucian reproduces, whether the 

 connection be with Lucian himself or with the authors he paro- 

 dies. But then it will not be rash to conclude further that there 

 may also be a connection between the cleft in the sea or pro- 

 found abyss of Lucian or of Greek fable, from which mariners 

 escaped with difficulty, and Adam's whirlpool, which King Har- 

 old avoided by turning back. 



But it is also conceivable that the various currents in north- 

 em waters may have furnished food for these constantly recur- 

 ring ideas about maelstroms and whirlpools. Such maelstroms 

 appear also in Irish legends. In the " Imram Brenaind " [cf. 

 Zimmer, 1889, p. 134] it is related that: 



" One day the voyagers saw on the ocean deep, dark currents [whirlpools] 

 and their ships seemed to be drawn into them with the force of the storm. In 

 this great danger all eyes were turned upon Brandan. He spoke to the sea, 

 saying that it should be satisfied with drawing him alone, but spare his com- 

 rades. Thereupon the sea became calm, and the rushing of the whirlpool 

 ceased immediately; from that time until now it has done no harm to others." 



The " Historia Norvegiae " places " Charybdis, Scylla, and 

 unavoidable whirlpools " in the north in " Hafsbotn " 

 (cf. later). This must have been a general idea in Norway; 

 for about one hundred years later, in 1360, the Englishman, 

 Nicholas of Lynn, who traveled in Norway in the middle 

 of the fourteenth century, wrote his lost work, " Inventio 

 Fortunata," on the northern countries and their whirlpools 

 from 53° to the North Pole; but unfortunately we do not 

 know its contents.^ The conceptions of these whirlpools 

 may doubtless be connected with reports of dangerous currents 



1 Giraldus Cambrensis also mentions the dangerous whirlpool north of the 

 Hebrides. 



