IN NORTHERN MISTS 



the south side of the south-western promontory of the country 

 is extraordinary. If he had come there asleep he could not 

 have got any such idea; and for a man who had sailed in 

 through the long channel of the Trondhjem fjord up to the 

 town, it is incredible. It is equally incredible that a man 

 who had sailed along the coast from Stavanger and Bergen 

 to Trondhjem could place the latter town in a latitude lo' 

 to the south of Bergen, and only lo' to the north of Stavanger. 

 We are not justified in attributing to Clavus such an entire 

 lack of power of observation, especially if we are to suppose 

 him capable of determining with remarkable accuracy the 

 length .of the longest day at Trondhjem. That Trondhjem is 

 placed to the west of Bergen and Stavanger, that the Dovre- 

 fjeld is called a high promontory, while on the Nancy map it 

 was inland, that Hamar (Amerensis) is put on the sea- 

 coast, etc., all shows the same want of knowledge of the country 

 and its configuration. The names he may have taken from an 

 itinerary or other sources, and, as already suggested, it is not 

 unlikely that he may have found in the papal archives a fairly 

 correct statement of the latitude (or length of the longest day) 

 of Trondhjem, which was an archbishop's see. That the towns 

 he gives are just those that are the heads of dioceses is perhaps 

 an indication of a connection with the Vatican. 

 Clavus tells us further that 



* Norway has eighteen islands, which in winter are always connected with 

 the mainland, and are seldom separated from it, unless the summer is very 

 warm," and that " Tyle [Thule] is a part of Norway and is not reckoned as an 

 island, although it is separated from the land by a channel or strait, for the 

 ice connects it with the land for eight or nine months, and therefore it is 

 reckoned as mainland. The same applies to the sea, Nordhinbodnen [Nord- 

 botn], which separates Wildlappenland from Vermenlandh i and Findland by 

 a long strait, since the countries are united by almost eternal ice." 



This discloses an extraordinary lack of knowledge of 

 Northern conditions. Such a connection of the islands with the 



1 It seems possible, as Mr. O. Vangensten has suggested to me, that this 

 name may here be due to a confusion of Vermeland with Bjarmeland. Peder 

 Clausson Friis [Storm, 1881, p. 219] says that Greenland extends round the 

 north of the " Norwegian Sea " " eastward to Biarmeland, or Bermeland." 

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