IN NORTHERN MISTS 



What the object may have been, and what direction the voyage 

 took, we do not know. As Adam says it was to explore " the 

 breadth of the northern ocean " ( " latitudinem septen- 

 trionalisoceani"), one must suppose that in his opinion it 

 set out from Norway northward or north-westward over the 

 ocean towards its uttermost limit, since according to the maps 

 and ideas of that time he imagined the ocean as surrounding 

 the disk of the earth like a ribbon (see Vol. I, p. 199), and he 

 may then have sailed across this to find out its extent.^ But 

 it is quite possible, as P. A. Munch [1852, ii. pp. 269 f.] 

 suggested, that Magister Adam may have heard something 

 about a northward voyage undertaken by Harold, during 

 which he had been exposed to some danger in the Saltstrom or 

 the Moskenstrom ; - or if it was a voyage to Bjarmeland 

 (Harold Graf eld's?) that he heard of, then it might be the 



and reports of his expedition to Bjarmeland may well have lived there, as in 

 Iceland. If it is this to which Adam's words refer, this would also explain 

 the curious silence of the Icelandic authorities about Harold Hardrade's al- 

 leged voyage in the Arctic Ocean. 



1 Professor Yngvar Nielsen [1904, 1905] thinks that Adam's description 

 cannot be explained otherwise than as referring to a voyage to the west, and 

 probably a Wineland voyage. The Icelandic historian, Tormodus Torfaeus, re- 

 garded it in the same way two hundred years ago. Prof. Nielsen even thinks 

 he can point to the Newfoundland Banks with their " surf caused by the cur- 

 rent" (?) as a probable place where King Harold turned back to avoid the gulf 

 of the abyss. I will not here dwell on the improbability of so daring a man 

 as Harold, whom we are to suppose to have sailed across the Atlantic in search 

 of Wineland, being frightened by a tide-race (of which he knew worse at 

 home) on the Newfoundland Banks, so as to believe that he was near the 

 abyss (" Ginnungagap"), and therefore making the long voyage home again 

 without having accomplished his purpose, without having reached land, and 

 without having renewed his supplies — of fresh water, for instance. I can only 

 see that all this is pure guess-work without any solid foundation and far be- 

 yond the limits of all reasonable possibility. But in addition, as Dr. A. A. 

 Bjombo [1909, pp. 121, 234 f.] has clearly shown, the whole of this view be- 

 comes untenable if we pay attention to the universal cartographical represen- 

 tation of that time, by which Adam of Bremen was obviously also bound, and 

 in particular it is impossible to conclude from his words that Harold's voyage 

 should have been made to the west. 



2 Suhm [Historie af Danmark, 1790] was the first to think that the gull of 

 the abyss was the maelstrom by Mosken. 



