COMPASS-CHARTS 



islandes" ("these islands are called Icelands"). The southern- 

 most island is called " islanda," the others have incompre- 

 hensible names (" donbert," " tranes," " tales," " brons," " bres," 



North-western Europe on the wheel-shaped compass-chart at 



Modena (circa 1350). The network of compass-lines, names 



and legends omitted. Mountains indicated by shading 



"mmau . . . ," "bilanj" (?)); but the name of Greenland 

 is not found. In the ocean to the north of Norway there 

 is "Mare putritum congelatum " (the putrid, frozen sea). This 

 is evidently the idea of the stinking Liver Sea (as in Arab 

 myths, cf. p. 51), combined with that of the frozen sea. 

 On the approximately contemporary Catalan compass-chart 

 (see the reproduction, pp. 232-3), preserved in the National 

 Library at Florence (called No. 16), we find the same 

 group of islands called " Island," with a long inscription 

 (see p. 232) ; [cf. also Bjornbo and Petersen, 1908, p. 16], which 

 is partly illegible, but wherein it is stated that "the islands 

 are very large," that "the people are handsome, tall and 



231 



