IN NORTHERN MISTS 



Iceland lay, according to the Bruges itinerary, midway 

 between Norway and Greenland, precisely as on the Nancy 

 map. Between Norway and Iceland, according to the same 

 itinerary, lay " Fareo " (Faero), and the fabulous island 

 ** Femoe," " where only women are born and never men." 



After speaking of the "third headland" in 71° on the east 

 coast of Greenland, the Nancy text goes on: 



" But from this headland an immense country extends eastward as far as 

 Russia. And in its [i.e., the country's] northern parts dwell the infidel Kar- 

 elians [Careli infideles] whose territory [regio] extends to the north pole 

 [sub polo septentrionalis] towards the Seres 1 of the east, wherefore the pole 

 [polus = the Arctic Circle?], which to us is in the north, is to them in the 

 south, in 66°." 



It is probable, as suggested by Bjornbo and Petersen, that 

 these " Careli infideles " are identical with those who are 

 found almost in the same place, in the ocean to the north of 

 Norway, on one of the maps in Marino Sanudo's w^ork (in the 

 Paris MS., see above, p. 225) and who, on other maps belonging 

 to that work, are placed on the mainland to the north-east of 

 Scandinavia. As pointed out by Storm, " Kareli " are also 



etc. But there appear to me to be too many striking agreements between the 

 Medici map and the Nancy map for such an assumption to be probable; and 

 the following may be given as instances: the number of bays between Skane 

 and the south coast of Norway, with the deepest bay on the west; the resem- 

 blance between the south coast of Norway, with its three bays on the Nancy 

 map, and the south coast of the corresponding peninsula to the north of Scot- 

 land on the Medici map; the high latitude of this south coast on both maps; 

 the agreement in latitude between the southern point of Greenland and that 

 of "alogia" in the Medici map; the remarkable similarity in the relation be- 

 tween the longitudes of these two southern points and the west coast of Ire- 

 land on both maps; the mutual relation in latitude between the southern 

 point of Greenland and the south coast of Norway (with Stavanger); the far 

 too northerly latitude of all these places; the east coast of Greenland having 

 the same main direction as the east coast of the corresponding peninsula on 

 the Medici map, etc. To these may be added the similarity in the way the 

 coast-lines are drawn, with round bays. Each of these points of agreement 

 may no doubt be explained, as Bjornbo suggests, as a coincidence and as hav- 

 ing arisen in another way; but when there are so many of them it must be 

 admitted that a connection is more natural. 



1 " Serica " on Ptolemy's map of the world lies in the extreme north-east 

 of Asia, and is most likely China. 

 262 



