We find what is perhaps the oldest known Christian map of the world (cf. vol. i. p. 126) in the “Christian Topography” of Cosmas Indicopleustes.[162] An attempt is made to combine the Roman classical view of the world, as lands grouped round the Mediterranean, with Cosmas’s pious conception of it as formed on the same rectangular plan as the Jews’ tabernacle. A map of the world of somewhat similar form is found in a MS. (by Orosius and Julius Honorius) of the eighth century, preserved in the library at Albi in Languedoc. But these attempts must be regarded as accidental. Typical of that time were the so-called wheel- or T-maps, the shape of which was due especially to Isidore Hispaliensis (cf. vol. i. pp. 151, ff.). The circular Roman maps of the world seem already to have had a tendency to a tripartition of the world: Europe, Asia and Africa. Sallust (in the “Bellum Jugurtinum”) indicates something of the sort, and Orosius’s geographical system seems to be founded upon a map of this kind. In St. Augustine we first find the division of the T-map clearly expressed. This dogmatic-schematic form was fixed by Isidore, according to whom the round disc of the earth surrounded by the outer ocean was to be compared to a wheel (or an O), divided into three by a T.[163] Mechanical map-forms after this prescription (cf. vol. i. pp. 125, 150) were common during the whole of the first part of the Middle Ages until the fourteenth century; indeed they circulated and exercised influence far into the sixteenth; but sometimes, in accordance with the four corners of the earth in the Bible, the maps were given a square form instead of a round. In spite of the fact that most authors, among them Isidore himself, expressly declare that the earth had the form of a globe, this does not seem to have been anything more than a purely theoretical doctrine, for in cartographical representations, through the whole of the Middle Ages to about the close of the fifteenth century, there is never any hint of projection, or of any difficulty in transferring the spherical surface of the earth to a plane, which had been so clearly present to the minds of the Greeks.

Larger Image

Beatus map, from Osma, 1203. The east is at the top

Northern Europe on Heinrich of Mainz’s map, at Cambridge (1110)

The wheel-maps were, as we have said, from the first purely formal; but by degrees an attempt was made to bring into the scheme real geographical information, although the endeavour to approach reality in the representation is scarcely to be traced. To this type of map belongs the so-called Beatus map, which the Spanish monk Beatus (ob. 798) added to his commentary on the Apocalypse, and which was reproduced in very varying forms, ten of which have been preserved. The original map, which is not known, was probably round, but in the reproductions the circle of the earth is sometimes more or less round (as in the illustration, p. 184), sometimes oblong (cf. vol. i. p. 199), and sometimes four-sided with rounded corners [cf. K. Miller, ii., 1895]. Jerusalem was frequently placed in the centre of the wheel-maps, Paradise (often with Adam and Eve at the time of the Fall, or with the four rivers of Paradise) in the extreme east of Asia, which is at the top of the map, and the Mediterranean (Mare magnum), which forms the stem of the T, pointing down (cf. vol. i. p. 150). The cross-stroke of the T was formed by the rivers Tanais (with the Black Sea) and Nile. In the band of ocean surrounding the disc of the earth the oceanic islands were distributed more or less according to taste, and as there happened to be room. Thus in the version of the Beatus map here given, from Osma in Spain (of 1203), Scandinavia appears as an island (“Scada insula”) by the North Pole, as in the Ravenna geographer (cf. the map, vol. i. p. 152), and the “Orcades” (the Orkneys) and “Gorgades” (the fabulous islands of the Greeks to the west of Africa) are placed on the north-east of Asia. The so-called Sallust-maps, drawn up from Sallust’s description of the world in the Bellum Jugurtinum [cf. K. Miller, iii., 1895, pp. 110, ff.], were another type of very formal wheel-maps that were still current in the fourteenth century.

Northern Europe on the Hereford map (circa 1280)

Northern part of the Psalter map (thirteenth century)

But by degrees many changes were introduced into the strict scheme. The outer coast-line of the continents was in parts indented by bays and prolonged into peninsulas, and the islands were given a less formal shape. Such attempts appear, for instance, in Heinrich of Mainz’s map, which is taken to have been drawn in 1110 [cf. K. Miller, iii., 1895, p. 22], and the closely related “Hereford map” of about 1280 by Richard de Holdingham [cf. K. Miller, iv., 1896; Jomard, 1855]. Some resemblance to these maps is shown by the “Psalter” map in London, of the second half of the thirteenth century, and the closely related “Ebstorf” map of 1284 [cf. K. Miller, iii. pp. 37, ff.; iv. p. 3; v.]; and it is quite possible that they may all be derived from the same original source; there is in particular a great resemblance in their representation of Britain and Ireland. On the first three of these maps Scandinavia or Norway (“Noreya” or “Norwegia”) forms a peninsula with gulfs on the north and south sides. On Heinrich’s map there is beyond this an island or peninsula, called “Ganzmir,” a name which occurs again on the Hereford map (cf. vol. i. p. 157); Miller explains it as a corruption of Canzia, Scanzia (Scandinavia). On the “Lambert” map in the Ghent codex of before 1125 [cf. K. Miller, iii., 1895, p. 45], “Scanzia,” also with the name “Norwegia,” is represented as a peninsula with narrow gulfs running up into the continent on each side. “Island” (or “Ysland”) appears on Heinrich’s and the Hereford maps as an island near Norway. On the Ebstorf map “Scandinavia insula” and “Norwegia” are also shown as islands. Many fabulous countries, such as “Iperboria” (the land of the Hyperboreans), “Arumphei” (on the Psalter map, i.e., the land of the Aremphæans, cf. vol. i. p. 88), etc., appear as peninsulas or islands in the northern regions on several of these maps; on the other hand, neither Greenland nor Wineland occurs on any of them.

Northern Europe on the Lambert map at Ghent (before 1125)

Ranulph Higden’s map of the world, in London (fourteenth century)

Ranulph Higden’s map of the world, which accompanied his already mentioned work, “Polychronicon” (of the first part of the fourteenth century), is more fettered by the scheme of the wheel-maps in the form of the outer coast-line and of the islands. He took his vows in 1299, was a monk of St. Werburg’s Abbey at Chester, and died at a great age in 1363. Various reproductions of his map are known, but they display little sense of realistic representation. “Scandinavia” is placed in Asia on the Black Sea, together with the Amazons and Massagetæ, and to the north of it “Gothia” (Sweden ?). Islands in the ocean off the coast of northern Europe are called “Norwegia,” “Islandia,” “Witland” (or “Wineland,” etc.), with “gens ydolatra,” “Tile” (Thule) and “Dacia” (Denmark) with “gens bellicosa” somewhere near the North Pole. In spite of this representation on the map, the Polychronicon (cf. above, p. 31) contains various statements about the North, which may point to a certain communication with it, or may be echoes of Northern writers. Higden to a large extent copied an earlier work, the “Geographia Universalis,” a sort of geographical lexicon by an unknown author of the thirteenth century,[164] which is for the most part based on earlier writers, especially Isidore. Both works are practically untouched by the knowledge of the North that had already appeared in King Alfred and in Adam of Bremen, and show how much ignorance could still prevail in learned quarters on many points connected with these regions. The “Geographia” speaks of “Gothia,” or lower Scythia, as a province of Europe, but obviously confuses Sweden (the land of the Götar) and Eastern Germania (the land of the Goths). Norway (“Norwegia”) was very large, far in the north, almost surrounded by the ocean; it bordered on the land of the Goths (Götar), and was separated from Gothia (Sweden) on the south and east by the river Albia (the Göta river). The inhabitants live by fishing and hunting more than by bread; crops are few on account of the severity of the cold. There are many wild beasts, such as white bears, etc. There are springs that turn hides, wood, etc., into stone; there is midnight sun and corresponding winter darkness. Corn, wine and oil are wanting, unless imported. The inhabitants are tall, powerful and handsome, and are great pirates. “Dacia”[165] was divided into many islands and provinces bordering on Germania. Its inhabitants were descended from the Goths (Götar ? cf. Jordanes, vol. i. p. 135), were numerous and finely grown, wild and warlike, etc. “Svecia” (the land of the Svear) is also mentioned. That part of it which lay between the kingdoms of the Danes and of the Norwegians was called Gothia. Svecia had the Baltic Sea on the east and the British Ocean on the west, the mountains and people of Norway on the north, and the Danes on the south. They had rich pastures, metals and silver mines. The people were very strong and warlike, they once ruled over the greater part of Asia and Europe.

It is possible that the name “Winlandia” itself is a confusion of Finland (i.e., the land of the Finns [Lapps], Finmark) with Vinland (cf. above, p. 31); although the description of the country must refer to the former. It may be supposed that a misunderstanding of the name was the origin of the myth of selling wind being connected with it. The idea persisted, and the same myth is given so late as by Knud Leem [1767, p. 3] from an anonymous book of travels in northern Norway.

Of Iceland the “Geographia” says:

In Higden’s Polychronicon Gothia is also spoken of as lower Scythia, but among the provinces of Asia, although it is said that it lies in Europe; it has on the north Dacia and the Northern Ocean. But the geographical confusion in this work is greater; as already mentioned (p. 31), the countries of the Scandinavians are described together with the Insulæ Fortunatæ, Wyntlandia, etc., as islands in the outer ocean. The disagreement between Higden’s text and his map gives us an insight into how little weight was attached at that time to the relation between maps and reality; they are for the most part merely graphic schemes. Probably Higden’s map was partly copied from an older one, and the desirability of bringing it into better agreement with his text did not occur to him.

The so-called “Anglo-Saxon mappamundi” or “Cottoniana” (reproduced vol. i. pp. 180, 183), which is in the British Museum, occupies a position of its own among early mediæval maps. Its age is uncertain; it may at the earliest date from the close of the tenth century, but possibly it is as late as the twelfth [cf. K. Miller, iii., 1895, p. 31]. It exhibits no agreement with the text of Priscian (Latin translation of Dionysius Periegetes, see vol. i. p. 114), to which it is appended. Many of the names might rather be derived from Orosius, there is also great resemblance to Mela (cf. vol. i. pp. 85, ff.), and in some ways to the mediæval maps already mentioned, although the representation of the North is different. Probably an older, perhaps Roman (?) map formed the basis of it. Name-forms like Island, Norweci[166] (Norwegia), Sleswic, Sclavi, may remind us of Adam of Bremen, but they may also be older. This map is doubtless less formal than the pronounced wheel-map type, but it does not bear a much greater resemblance to reality, although the form of Britain, for instance, may show an effort in that direction. The peninsula which has been given the name of Norweci (Norway) has most resemblance to Jutland, and the name seems to have been misplaced. No doubt it ought rather to have been attached to the long island lying to the north, which has been given the names Scridefinnas and Island. The representation has great resemblance to Edrisi’s map (cf. p. 203), where Denmark forms a similar peninsula, and Norway a similar long island, with two smaller islands to the east of Denmark, which is also alike. The “Orcades Insule” are given a wide extension on the Cottoniana map, and Tyle (Thule) lies to the north-west of Britain, as it should do according to Orosius. This map does not therefore indicate, any more than the others, any particular increase of knowledge of the North, and compared with King Alfred’s work it is still far behind in the dark ages.

The zone-maps, already alluded to, which are derived from Macrobius (cf. vol. i. p. 123), gave a formal representation of the earth of a peculiar kind, which was common throughout the whole of the Middle Ages; they may be regarded as mathematical geography more than anything else. The earth is divided in purely formal fashion into five zones, two of which are habitable: our temperate zone and the unknown temperate zone of the antipodes (in the southern hemisphere); and three uninhabitable: the torrid zone with the equatorial ocean, and the two frigid zones, north and south. These conceptions also reached the North at an early time, and are mentioned in the “King’s Mirror,” amongst other works, although its author thought that the inhabited part of Greenland really lay in the frigid zone. A zone-map from Iceland is also known of the thirteenth century. Another of the fourteenth century and a kind of wheel-map of the twelfth century, but with geographical names only without coast-lines, are also found in Icelandic MSS., besides a small wheel- and T-map.[167] Otherwise it is not known that maps were drawn in the North during the Middle Ages. A purely formal wheel- and T-map is known from Lund before 1159 [see Björnbo, 1909, p. 189]. Another Danish wheel-map of the sixteenth century is known [see Björnbo, 1909, p. 192], and Björnbo reproduces [1909, pp. 193, ff.] two wheel-maps of 1486 from Lübeck, belonging to Professor Wieser, where the lands and islands of the North are drawn as round discs (with names) in the outer universal ocean.

THE ARAB GEOGRAPHERS OF THE MIDDLE AGES

If we turn now from the intellectual darkness of Christian Western Europe in the early Middle Ages to contemporary Arabic literature, it is as though we entered a new world; not least is this shown in geographical science, where the authors follow quite different methods. Through their contact with the intellectual world of Greece in the Orient, the Arabs kept alive the Greek tradition; they had translations in their own language of Euclid, Archimedes, Aristotle, the now lost work of Marinus of Tyre, and others, and of special importance to their geographical knowledge was their acquaintance with Ptolemy’s astronomy and geography, which had been forgotten in Europe, and which first became known there through the Arabs (cf. vol. i. p. 116). They were also acquainted with Greek cartography. To this education in Greek views and interests was added the fact that they had better opportunities than any other nation of collecting geographical knowledge; through their extensive conquests and through their trade they reached China on the east—where for a considerable time their merchants had fixed colonies, first in Canton (in the eighth century), and later, in the ninth century, even in Khânfu (near Shanghai)[168]—and the western coasts of Europe and Africa on the west, the Sudan and Somaliland (and even Madagascar) on the south, and North Russia on the north. In spite of the religious fanaticism which in the seventh century made them an irresistible nation of conquerors, they had civilisation enough to remember that “the ink of science is worth more than the blood of martyrs,” and there flourished among them a remarkably copious literature, with an endless variety of works, from the ninth century through the whole of the Middle Ages.

Although the Arabs never attained the Greeks’ capacity for scientific thinking, their literature nevertheless reveals an intellectual refinement which, with the dark Middle Ages of Europe as a background, has an almost dazzling effect. The Arab geographers have a special gift for collecting concrete information about countries and conditions, about peoples’ habits and customs, and in this they may serve as models; on the other hand sober criticism is not their strong side, and they had a pronounced taste for the marvellous; if classical writers, and still more the learned men of the European Middle Ages, had blended together trustworthy information and fabulous myth more or less uncritically, the Arabs did so to an even greater degree, and we often find in them a truly oriental splendour in the mythical; thus it must not surprise us to hear of whales two hundred fathoms long and snakes that swallow elephants in the same author (Ibn Khordâḏbah) who says that the earth is round like a sphere, and that all bodies are stable on its surface because the air attracts their lighter parts [thus we have the buoyancy of the air], while the earth attracts towards its centre their heavy parts in the same way as the magnet influences iron [a perfectly clear description of gravitation].

Chiefly on account of the language the new fund of geographical knowledge, which, together with much that is mythical, is contained in the rich literature of the Arabs, did not attain any great importance in mediæval Europe; on the other hand the Arabs exercised more influence through the geographical myths and tales which they brought orally from the East to Europe, and, as we have seen, the world of Irish myth, amongst others, was influenced thereby.

The ideas of the Arabs about the North are, in most cases, very hazy. Putting aside the partly mythical conceptions that they had derived from the Greeks (especially Ptolemy), they obtained their information about it chiefly in two ways: (1) by their commercial intercourse in the east with Russia—chiefly over the Caspian Sea with the towns of Itil and Bulgar[169] on the Volga—they received information about the districts in the north of Russia, and also about the Scandinavians, commonly called Rûs, sometimes also Warank. (2) Through their possessions in the western Mediterranean, especially in Spain, they came in contact with the northern peoples of Western Europe, the Scandinavian Vikings (“Maǵûs”) in particular, and in that way acquired information.

“Maǵûs”[170] means in the west the same northern people, the Scandinavians, whom in the east the Arabs called Rûs or Warangs, which word they may have got from the Greek “Varangoi” (Βάραγγοι) and the Russian “Varyag.”

All that the Arab authors of the oldest period have about the North, and that is not taken from the Greeks, they got through their commercial connections with Russia; but it is not until the ninth century and later that anything worth mentioning appears, and even in the tenth and eleventh centuries their ideas on the subject are very much tinged with myth. Professor Alexander Seippel in his work “Rerum Normannicarum fontes Arabici” [1896], printed in Arabic, has collected the most important statements about the North in mediæval Arabic literature, and has been good enough to translate parts of these, which I give in the following pages. I have also made some additions from other sources. In an earlier chapter (pp. 143, ff.) several Arabic authors have already been quoted on the connection with Northern Russia.

The imperfection of Arabic script and its common omission of vowels easily give rise to all kinds of corruptions and misunderstandings; this is especially fatal to the reproduction of foreign words and geographical names, which explains the great uncertainty that prevails in their interpretation.

In the oldest Arab writers, of the ninth century and later, there is little or no knowledge of the North. We are only told in some of their works that furs come from there, and that the ocean in the north is entirely unknown. Abu’l-Qâsim Ibn Khordâḏbah (ob. 912), a Persian by descent and the Caliph’s postmaster in Media, thus relates in his “book of routes and provinces” (completed about 885):[171]

The Russian merchants also descended the Volga to the Caspian Sea, and their goods were sometimes carried on camels to Bagdad.[173]

There was no great change in knowledge of the North in the succeeding centuries. Ibn al-Faqîh, about 900 A.D., has nothing to say about the North. He mentions in the seventh climate women who “cut off one of their breasts and burn it at an early age so that it may not grow big,”[174] and he says that Tulia (Thule) is an island in the seventh sea between Rumia (Rome) and Kharizm (Khwarizm in Turkestan), “and there no ship ever puts in.” Ibn al-Bahlûl, about 910 A.D., gives information after Ptolemy about the latitudes of the northern regions and mentions two islands of Amazons, one with men and one with women, in the extreme northern ocean [Seippel, 1896]. Qodâma Ibn Ǵafar (ob. 948 or 949 A.D.) says of the encircling ocean (the Oceanus of the Greeks) in which the British Isles lie that

Abû ‘Alî Ahmad Ibn Ruste, about 912 A.D., says of the Russians (“Rûs,” that is, Scandinavians, usually Swedes) that they live on an island, which is surrounded by a sea, is three days’ journey (about seventy-five miles) long, and is covered with forest and bogs; it is unhealthy and saturated to such a degree that the soil quakes where one sets foot on it. They come in ships to the land of the Slavs and attack them, etc. They have neither fixed property, nor towns, nor agriculture; their only means of support is the trade in sable, squirrel and other skins, which they sell to any one who will buy them. They are tall, of handsome appearance, and courageous, etc.[175] Probably there is here a confusion of various statements; the ideas about the unhealthy bog-lands are doubtless connected with northern Russia, and the trade in sables can scarcely be referred to the Swedes on the Baltic.[176]

The well-known historian, traveller and geographer, Abu’l Hasan ‘Alî al-Mas‘ûdî (ob. 956), in his book (allegorically entitled “Gold-washings and Diamond-mines”) repeats certain Arab astronomers who say

He also states that the black fox’s skin, which is the most valuable of all, comes from the country of the Burtâsians (a Finnish people in Russia, Mordvins ?), and is only found there and in the neighbouring districts. Skins of red and white foxes are mentioned from the same locality, and he gives an account of the extensive trade in furs, whereby these skins are brought to the land of the Franks and Andalusia [i.e., Spain], and also to North Africa, “so that many think they come from Andalusia and the parts of the land of the Franks and of the Slavs that border upon it.”[177] He also has a statement to the effect that before the year 300 of the Hegira [i.e., 912 A.D.] ships with thousands of men had landed in Spain and ravaged the country.

This is evidently the ancient belief that the Black Sea was connected through Mæotis with the Baltic.

The celebrated astronomer and mathematician, Abu-r-Raihân Muhammad al-Bîrûnî (973-1038, wrote in 1030),[179] a Persian by birth, is of interest to us as the first Arabic author who uses the name “Warank”[180] for Scandinavian, and mentions the Varangians’ Sea or Baltic.

Al-Bîrûnî also has a very primitive map of the world as a round disc in the ocean, indented by five bays, of which the Varangians’ Sea is one [cf. Seippel, 1896, Pl. I]. The peoples who are beyond the seventh climate, that is, in the northernmost regions, are few, says he, “such as the Îsû [i.e., Wîsû], and the Warank, and the Yura [Yugrians] and the like.”

The Arabs of the West came in contact with the North through the Norman Vikings, whom they called Maǵûs (cf. p. 55), and who in the ninth century and later made several predatory expeditions to the Spanish Peninsula. Their first attack on the Moorish kingdom in Spain seems to have taken place in 844, when, amongst other things, they took and sacked Seville. After that expedition, an Arab writer tells us, friendly relations were established between the sultan of Spain, ‘Abd ar-Raḥmân II., and “the king of the Maǵûs,” and, according to an account in Abu’l-Khaṭṭâb ‘Omar Ibn Diḥya[183] (ob. circa 1235), the former is even said to have sent an ambassador, al-Ġazâl, to the latter’s country. Ibn Diḥya says that he took the account from an author named Tammâm Ibn ‘Alqama (ob. 896), who again is said to have had it from al-Ġazâl’s own mouth. It is obviously untrustworthy, but may possibly have a historical kernel. The king of the Maǵûs had first sent an ambassador to ‘Abd ar-Raḥmân to sue for peace (?); and al-Ġazâl accompanied him home again, in a well-appointed ship of his own, to bring the answer and a present. They arrived first at an island on the borders of the land of the Maǵûs people.[184] From thence they went to the king, who lived on a great island in the ocean, where there were streams of water and gardens. It was three days’ journey or 300 [Arab] miles from the continent.

This mention of many islands with the same people as those established on the continent may suit the island kingdom of Denmark; but Ireland, with the Isle of Man, the Scottish islands, etc., lies nearer, and moreover agrees better with the 300 miles from the continent.

We are next told of their reception at the court of the king and of their stay there, and especially how the handsome and wily Moorish ambassador paid court in prose and verse to the queen,[186] who was very compliant. When Ibn ‘Alqama asked al-Ġazâl whether she was really so beautiful as he had given her to understand, that prudent diplomatist answered: “Certainly, she was not so bad; but to tell the truth, I had use for her....” When he was afraid his daily visits might attract attention, she laughed and said:

After an absence of twenty months, al-Ġazâl returned to the capital of the sultan ‘Abd ar-Raḥmân. In the excellence of its realistic description and the introduction of direct speeches this tale bears a remarkable resemblance to the peculiar method of narration of the Icelandic sagas.

The best known of the western Arab geographers is Abû ‘Abdallâh Muḥammad al-Idrîsî (commonly called Edrisi), who gives beyond comparison the most information about the North. He is said to have been born in Sebta (Ceuta) about 1099 A.D., to have studied in Cordova, and to have made extensive voyages in Spain, to the shores of France, and even of England, to Morocco and Asia Minor. It is certain that in the latter part of his life he resided for a considerable time at the court of the Norman king of Sicily, Roger II., which during the Crusades was a meeting-place of Normans, Greeks and Franks. According to Edrisi’s account, Roger collected through interpreters geographical information from all travellers, caused a map to be drawn on which every place was marked, and had a silver planisphere made, weighing 450 Roman pounds, upon which were engraved the seven climates of the earth, with their countries, rivers, bays, etc.[187] Edrisi wrote for him his description of the earth in Arabic, which was completed in 1154, and was accompanied by seventy maps and a map of the world. Following the Greek model, the inhabited world, which was situated in the northern hemisphere, was divided into seven climates, extending to 64° N. lat.; farther north all was uninhabited on account of the cold and snow. Edrisi describes in his great work the countries of the earth in these climates, which again are divided each into ten sections, so that the book contains in all seventy sections.[188]

Edrisi’s representation of Northern Europe, put together, and much reduced, from eight of his maps. (Chiefly after Seippel’s reproduction [1896] and after Lelewel [1851].) Some of the Arabic names are numbered on the map and given below according to Seippel’s reading

(1) “Khâlia” (empty); (2) the first part of the 7th climate; (3) “ǵazîrat Birlânda” (the island of Birlânda, by a common error for Ireland); (4) “kharâb” (desert); (5) the island of “Dans” or “Vans” (Seippel reads Wales); (6) “ǵazîrat Angiltâra” (the island of England); (7) “ǵazîrat Sqôsia” (the island, or peninsula, of Scotland); (8) “al-baḥr al-muslim ash-shamâlî” (the dark northern ocean); (9) “ǵazîrat Islânda” (the island of Iceland); (10) “ǵazîrat Dânâmarkha” (the island, or peninsula, of Denmark); (11) “Hrsns” (Horsens); (12) “Alsia” (Als ?); (13) “Sliaswiq”; (14) “Lundûnia” (Lund); (15) “sâḥil arḍ Polônia” (the coast of Poland); (16) “Derlânem” (Bornholm ?); (17) “Landsu(d)den” (in Finland); (18) “Zwâda” (Sweden); (19) “nahr Qutalw” (the Göta river); (20) “ǵazîrat Norwâga” (the island of Norway); (21) may be read “Trônâ” (Trondheim); (22) “‘Oslô” (Oslo); (23) “Siqtûn”; (24) “bilâd Finmark” (the district of Finmark); (25) “Qalmâr”; (26) “Abûda” (Åbo ?); (27) “mabda’ nahr D(a)n(a)st” (the beginning of the river Dniestr ?); (28) “arḍ Tabast” (the land of Tavast); (29) “Daġwâda” (Dagö ?); (30) “ǵazîrat Amazânûs er-riǵâl al-maǵûs” (the island of the male heathen Amazons); (31) “ǵazîrat Amazânûs an-nisâ” (the island of the female Amazons)

On the outside of all is the Dark Sea [i.e., Oceanus, the uttermost encircling ocean], which thus forms the limit of the world, and no one knows what is beyond it. After describing Angiltâra [England] with its towns, Edrisi continues:

Dânâmarkha is described as an island, round in shape and with a sandy soil; on the map it is connected with the continent by a narrow isthmus. There are “four chief towns, many inhabitants, villages, well protected and well populated ports surrounded by walls.” The following towns are named: “Alsia” [Als ?], “Tordîra” or “Tondîra” [Tönder], “Haun” [Copenhagen], “Horsnes” [Horsens], “Lundûna” [Lund], “Slisbûlî” [Sliaswiq ?]. From “Wendilskâda,” written “Wadî Lesqâda” [Vendelskagen], it is a half-day’s sail to the island of “Norwâġa” [Norway]. An island to the east of Denmark and near Lund is called on the map “Derlânem” [Bornholm ?].

On the continent to the south of Denmark is the coast of “Polônia” [Poland], and to the east of it, also on the continent, is “Zwâda” [Sweden], and a town “Gûta” [Götaland], also “Landsu(d)den” [in Finland]. We have further the river “Qutelw” [the Göta river], on which is the town of “Siqtun.” There is also “Qîmia” [Kemi ?]. Farther east is “bilâd Finmark” [the district of Finmark],[192] where we still find the river Qutelw with the town of “Abûda” [Åbo ?] inland, and “Qalmâr” on the coast near another outlet of the Göta river. These two towns are

Next on the east comes the land of “Tabast” [Tavast] with “‘Daġwâda’ [Dagö ?], a large and populous town on the sea.” In the land of Tabast