NORTHERN AUTHORITIES 



additions. In Ireland, he is still held fast by the superstition 

 of the period, and especially by the priests' fables about them- 

 selves and their holy men, and by the English author Giraldus 

 Cambrensis.^ In Iceland, as a rule, he is free of this troublesome 

 ballast, and gives valuable information about the glaciers of 

 Iceland, glacier falls, boiling springs, etc. In his opinion, the 

 cold climate of Iceland is due to the vicinity of Greenland, 

 which sends out great cold owing to its being above all other 

 lands covered with ice; for this reason Iceland has so much 

 ice on its mountains. Although he thinks it possible that 

 its volcanoes are due to the fires of Hell, and that it is thus 

 the actual place of torment, and that Hell is therefore not 

 in Sicily, as his Holiness, Pope Gregory, had supposed, he never- 

 theless has another and more reasonable explanation of the 

 origin of earthquakes and volcanoes. They may be due to 

 hollow passages and cavities in the foundations of the land, 

 which by the force either of the wind or of the roaring sea may 

 become so full of wind that they cannot stand the pressure, 

 and thus violent earthquakes may arise. From the violent 

 conflict which the air produces underground, the great fire 

 may be kindled which breaks out in different parts of the 

 country. It must not be thought certain that this is exactly 

 how it takes place, but one ought rather to lay such things 

 together to form the explanation that seems more conceivable, 

 for 



"We see that from force [afli] all fire comes. When hard stone and hard 

 iron are brought together with a blow, fire comes from the iron and from the 

 force with which they are struck together. You may also rub pieces of wood 

 together until fire comes from the labor that they have. It is also constantly 

 happening that two winds arise from different quarters, one against the other, 

 and if they meet in the air there is a hard shock, and this shock gives off a 

 great fire, which spreads far in the air." 



1 If Professor Moltke Moe's view is correct, that the " King's Mirror," in 

 the form which we know, is a later adaptation (cf. p, 242, note 2), it may be 

 supposed that the section on Ireland was inserted by the adapter. Presum- 

 ably a thorough examination of the linguistic forms would determine whether 

 this is probable. 



245 



