[From the Bayeux tapestry, eleventh century] 



VIEWS OF THE NORTH AMONG THE NORTHERN 

 PEOPLES 



It has been already pointed out that, while the oldest 

 Northern authority, Adam of Bremen, regarded the countries 

 of the North, outside Scandinavia, as islands in the ocean 

 surrounding the earth's disc (in agreement with the learned 

 view and with the wheel-maps), the Scandinavians, unfettered 

 by learned ideas, assumed that Greenland was connected with 

 the continent, for the reason, among others, that, as the 

 author of the " King's Mirror " expresses it, continental animals 

 such as the hare, wolf, and reindeer could not otherwise have 

 got there. But, as we have seen, this land communication 

 could only be supposed to exist on the far side of Gandvik (the 

 White Sea) and the Bjarmeland (northern Russia) that they 

 knew, and to go round the north of the sea that lay to the north 

 of Norway. Thus, the sea came to be called " Hafsbotn " (i.e., 

 the "bay," or "gulf," of the ocean). We find the clearest ex- 

 pression of this view in the Icelandic geography already referred 

 to, which may in part be attributed to Abbot Nikulas Bergsson 

 of Thvera ^ (cf. Vol. I, p. 313; Vol. II, pp. i, 172), and where we 

 read : 



"Nearest Denmark is lesser Sweden [so called to distinguish it from 

 'Svil^joS it Mikla,' Russia], there is Oland, then Gotland, then Helsingeland, 

 then Vermeland, then two Kvasnlands, and they are north of Bjarmeland. 

 From Bjarmeland uninhabited country extends northward as far as Green- 

 land. South of Greenland is Helluland," etc. (cf. the continuation, above, p. 

 i). In a variant of this geography in an older MS. we read: " North of Sax- 

 land is Denmark. Through Denmark the sea goes into Austrveg [the coun- 

 tries on the Baltic]. Sweden lies east of Denmark, but Norway on the north. 

 To the north of Norway is Finmark. From thence the land turns towards the 

 north-east, and then to the east before one comes to Bjarmeland. This is 

 tributary to the Garda-king [the king of Gardarike]. From Bjarmeland the 

 land stretches to the uninhabited parts of the north, until Greenland begins. 

 To the south of Greenland lies Helluland," etc. 



1 Cf. Finnur Jonsson [1901, ii. p. 948], who thinks that the part dealing with 



