IN NORTHERN MISTS 



misunderstanding, made continuous with Africa/ it is clear that 

 the outer ocean must be supposed to go completely round both 

 Greenland and Wineland (cf. the illustration, p. 2). Thus, it 

 was also natural to suppose that there was an opening some- 

 where between these two countries, through which the outer 

 ocean was connected with the inner, known ocean between Nor- 

 way, Greenland, etc.^ 



At least as old as the Norsemen's conceptions of countries 

 beyond the ocean in the North was probably the idea of the 

 great abyss, Ginnungagap, which there forms the boundary of 

 the ocean and of the world, and which must be derived from 

 the Tartarus and Chaos of the Greeks (cf. p. 150). When the 

 Polar Sea (Hafsbotn) was closed by the land connection 

 between Bjarmeland and Greenland, it was natural that those 

 who tried to form a consistent view of the world could no 

 longer find a place for the abyss in that direction; and 

 G. Storm (1890) is certainly right in thinking that it was for 

 this reason that Ginnungagap was located in the passage 

 between Greenland and Wineland; since, no doubt, the idea 

 was that this " gap " in some way or other was connected 



1 The reason for this might be supposed to be the very name of Wineland, 

 formed in a similar way to Greenland and Iceland, instead of Vin-ey (Wine 

 island). A " land," if one knew no better, would be more likely to be con- 

 nected with the continent; whereas, if it had been called " ey," it would have 

 continued to be an island, as indeed it is in the " Historia Norvegiae," (cf. p. i). 



2 Storm [1890; 1892, pp. 78 f.] and Bjornbo [1909, pp. 229 f,; 1910, pp. 82 

 f.] have put forward views about these ideas of the Scandinavians which dif- 

 fer somewhat from those here given (cf. above, p. 2), but, in the main, we are 

 in agreement. I do not think Dr. Bjornbo can be altogether right in suppos- 

 ing that the Icelanders and Norwegians connected Greenland with Bjarme- 

 land, and Wineland with Africa, because the learned views of the Middle Ages 

 made this necessary; for this view of the world also acknowledged islands in 

 the ocean [cf. Adam of Bremen], perhaps indeed more readily than it acknowl- 

 edged peninsulas [cf. the wheel-maps]. But perhaps, after Greenland and 

 Wineland had been connected v^ith the continents on other grounds, the pre- 

 vailing learned view of the world demanded that the outer ocean should be 

 placed outside these countries, so that they became peninsulas. But we have 

 seen that side by side with this, other views were also held (cf., for instance, 

 the " Rymbegla " and the Medicean mappamundi, pp. 239, 236). 



240 



