Sept. 27. 1851.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



229 



to Viiieta : these holp him into his kingdom again, 

 and when he was shot in the skirmish, they brought 

 him back to their town, where he died* and was buried. 

 And that I myself believe; for though Wollyn was a 

 mighty state at that time, still Vineta was much 

 mightier ; and it is therefore to be concluded that he 

 fled to Vineta, rather than to Wollyn, and that Vineta 

 was on that account afterwards destroyed ; and as we 

 are come to Vineta, we will say what Helmold writes 

 thereof, which is this: — 



" Vineta has been a powerful city, with a good har- 

 bour for the surrounding nations; and after so much has 

 been told of the city which is totally («c/iyr = sheerly) 

 incredible, I will relate this much. It is said to have 

 been as great a city as any which Europe contained at 

 that time, and it was promiscuously inhabited by Greeks, 

 Slavonians, Wends, and other nations. The Saxons, 

 also, upon condition of not openly practising Chris- 

 tianity, were permitted to inhabit with them ; for all 

 the citizens were idolaters down to the final destruction 

 and fall of the city. Yet in customs, manners, and 

 hospitality there is not a more worthy nation, or so 

 worthy a one, to be found. The city was full of all sorts 

 of merchandize (^au/tt'a^r) from all countries, and had 

 everything which was curious, luxurious {histiff^lust- 

 ful), and necessary ; and a king of Denmark destroyed 

 them a great fleet of war. The ruins and recollection 

 of the town remain even to this day, and the island on 

 which it lay is flowed round by three streams, of which 

 one is of a green colour, the other greyish, and the 

 third dashes and rushes by reason of storm and wind. 

 And so far Helmold, who wrote about 400 years ago. 



" And it is true that the remains exist at the present 

 day : for when one desires to go from Wolgast over 

 the Pene, in the country of Usedom, and comes by a 

 village called Damerow, which is by [about] two 

 miles f from Wolgast, so sees one about a long quarter 

 way into the sea (for the ocean has encroached upon the 

 land so much since then), great stones and foundations. 

 So have I with others rowed thither, and have care- 

 fully looked at it. But no brickwork is there now ; 

 for it is so many hundred years since the destruction of 

 the city, that it is impossible that it can have remained 

 so long in the stormy sea. Yet the great foundation- 

 stones are there still, and lie in a row, as they are 

 usually disposed under a house, one by the other ; and 

 in some places others upon them. Among these stones 

 are some so great, in three or four places, that tliey 

 reach ell higli above the water ; so that it is conjectured 

 that their churches or assembly-houses stood there. 

 But the other stones, as they still lie in the order in 

 which they lay under the buildings {gehen), show also 

 manifestly how the streets went through the length and 

 breadth (in die knge und iibers (juer) of the city. And 

 the fishermen of the place told us that still whole 

 paving-stones of the streets lay there, and were covered 

 with moss I {Ubermoset), so that they could not be seen; 



• This shows that the MSS. of Helmold were cor- 

 rupted at a very early period. I have seen one uncor- 

 rupted. A list of them would be a thing desirable. 



t (Jerman, answering to about eight English. 



} I have translated iibeimoset as above, though nothing 

 at the bottom could be covered with moss. I suspect 



yet if one pricked therein with a sharp-pointed pole or 

 lance, they were easily to be felt. And the stones lay 

 somehow after that manner : and as we rowed back- 

 ward and forward over the foundations, and remarked 

 the fashion of the streets, saw we that the town was 

 built lengthways from east to west. But the sea 

 deepens the farther we go, so that we could not per- 

 ceive the greatness of the city fully ; but what we 

 could see, made us think that it was very probably of 

 about the size of Liibeck : for it was about a short 

 quarter* long, and the breadth broader than the city 

 Liibeck. By this one may guess what was the size of 

 the part we could not see. And according to my way 

 of thinking, when this town was destroyed, Wisbu in 

 Gottland was restored." 



Wisby, en passant, may be described as a mer- 

 chant town of great importance in the medifeval 

 period, and whence we have derived our naviga- 

 tion laws. It has now about 4000 inhabitants, 

 and l)as many ruined buildings and sculptured 

 marble about it. 



So far Kantzow in the High German Chron- 

 icle : in the Low German Chronicle (ed. Bohmer, 

 Greifswald, 1832), I find nothing bearing on the 

 subject. 



indistinct and wavering is Kantzow in his 

 account, but thus much is to be gathered from it. 



1. That the soi-disantNinaia. lay east and west ; 

 Julin or WoUiu lies north and south. 



2. That the destruction of Wollin ensued on its 

 aiding an enemy against Denmark. 



3. That in the mind of Kantzow the two towns 

 were not confounded, and that he had heard both 

 legends, but had not sufficient critical sagacity to 

 disentangle the mess. 



The oldest MSS. of Helmold have not this 

 errc. I have myself, as previously stated, seen 

 one uncorrupted. The closing words of Kantzow 

 seem to make it necessary to search for the date 

 of the rebuUding of Wisby, which I have not at 

 present the means of doin-,', though I will take an 

 early opportunity of settling this, oddly enough, 

 contested point. 



Von Raumer emphatically brands the legend 

 of Vineta as a fable ; as also my friend JM. de 

 Kaiserling. And I myself am forcibly reminded 

 of an oldlrish legend I read long ago somewhere 

 or other, of the disappearance of a city in the Lake 

 of Killarney, of which, my authority stated, the 

 towers were occasionally to be perceived. Another 

 legend, of which the scene was laid in Mexico, I 

 recollect, was to the same ellect ; and in this I am 

 confirmed by a friend, who has traveled much in 

 that country. I must myself totally deny the 



the true lection to be iibcrmodert, as modci- exists in the 

 present German, answering to our word " mother." 



* This expression, as well as a previous one, alludes 

 to the distance. "Of a mile" is, in both cases, 

 to be understood. 



