THE TRUE STATE OF ICELAND a.d. 



1592. 

 Virgil also seemeth to have meant by his ultima Thyle. 

 If beyond the Britans (by which name the English men 

 and Scots onely at this day are called) he imagined none 

 other nation to inhabit. Which is evident out of that 

 verse of Virgil in his first Eclogue : 



And Britans whole from all the world divided. 



The fourth writeth, that it is one of the Faar-Ilands : 

 the fift, that it is Telemark in Norway : the sixt, that 

 it is Schrichfinnia. 



Which continually cleaveth to the North part of the 



Hand. That clause that ice continually cleaveth &c. or 



as Munster affirmeth a little after, that it cleaveth for 



the space of eight whole moneths, are neither of them 



both true, when as for the most part the ice is thawed 



in the moneth of April or May, and is driven towards . , ^^5 . 

 1 TTT -1 11- ^ r T • iseland set 



the West : neither doth it returne before Januarie or always to the 



Februarie, nay often times it commeth later. What West. 



if a man should recken up many yeeres, wherein ice (the iVo ke at all 



sharpe scourge of this our nation) hath not at all ^^'^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ 



bene seene about Island } which was found to be true ' 



this present yeere 1592. Heereupon it is manifest how 



truely Frisius hath written that navigation to this Hand 



lieth open onely for foure moneths in a yeere, and no 



longer, by reason of the ice and colde, whereby the 



passage is shut up, when as English ships every yere, 



sometimes in March, sometimes in April, and some of 



them in May; the Germans and Danes, in May and 



June, doe usually returne unto us, and some of them 



depart not againe from hence till August. But the last ^^^^S^^^^^ 



yere, being 1591, there lay a certeine shippe of Germanie ^^^ ^^f^^rT 



laden with Copper within the haven of Vopnafiord in the 'till the midst 



coast of Island about fourteene dayes in the moneth of of November, 



November, which time being expired, she fortunately 



set saile. Wherefore, seeing that ice, neither continually, 



nor yet eight moneths cleaveth unto Island, Munster 



and Frisius are much deceived. 



[The fourth 

 103 



