ARAB GEOGRAPHERS 



(a Finnish people in Russia, Mordvins?), and is only found 

 there and in the neighboring districts. Skins of red and white 

 foxes are mentioned from the same locality, and he gives an 

 account of the extensive trade in furs, whereby these skins are 

 brought to the land of the Franks and Andalusia (i.e., Spain), 

 and also to North Africa, " so that many think they come from 

 Andalusia and the parts of the land of the Franks and of the 

 Slavs that border upon it." ^ He also has a statement to the 

 effect that before the year 300 of the Hegira (i.e., 912 A.D.) 

 ships with thousands of men had landed in Spain and ravaged 

 the country. 



" The inhabitants asserted that these enemies were heathens, who made an 

 inroad every two hundred years, and penetrated into the Mediterranean by an- 

 other strait than that whereon the copper lighthouse stands [i.e., the Straits of 

 Gibraltar]. But I believe [though Allah alone knows the truth] that they come 

 by a strait [canal] which is connected with Masotis [the Sea of Azov] and 

 Pontus [the Black Sea], and that they are Russians [i.e., Scandinavians] . . . 

 for these are the only people who sail on these seas which are connected with 

 the ocean." - 



This is evidently the ancient belief that the Black Sea was 

 connected through Masotis with the Baltic. 



The celebrated astronomer and mathematician, Abu-r- 

 Raihan Muhammad al-Biruni (973-1038, wrote in 1030),^ a 

 Persian by birth, is of interest to us as the first Arabic author 

 who uses the name " Warank " ^ for Scandinavian, and mentions 

 the Varangians' Sea, or Baltic. 



1 Seippel, 1896; cf. Magoudi, 1861, p. 275; i8g6, pp. 92 f.; 1861, p. 213. 



2 Magoudi, 1861, pp. 364 f. 



3 Seippel, 1896, pp. 42, 43. 



4 In the Russian chronicles the word is "Varyag" (plur. "Varyazi"), and 

 the Baltic is called " Varyaz'skoye More " (the Varasgian Sea). It is the same 

 word as Varaeger, Varanger, or Vaeringer (in Greek Varangoi) for the origi- 

 nally Scandinavian life-guards in Constantinople. The Greek princess Anna 

 Comnena (circa iioo), celebrated for her learning, speaks of the "Varangians 

 from Thule " as the " ax-bearing barbarians." In a Greek word of the eleventh 

 century, by an unknown author, it is said of Harold Hardrade that " he was the 

 son of the king of * Varangia ' ( BapaUia )." The word is evidently from a 

 Scandinavian root; but its etymology can hardly be regarded as certain. It 

 was probably used originally by the Russians in Gardarike of their kindred 

 Scandinavians, especially the Swedes on the Baltic [cf. Vilhelm Thomsen, 

 1882, pp. 93 f.]. 



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