Language--Armenian
Language--North Sides of Churchyards unconsecrated--"Sir
Hilary charged at Agincourt"--Unicorn--Abbey of St.
Wandrille, Normandy, &c. 186
MISCELLANEOUS:--
Notes on Books, Sales, Catalogues, &c. 191
Books and Odd Volumes Wanted. 191
Notices to Correspondents. 191
Advertisements. 191
* * * * *
NOTES
ALFRED'S OROSIUS.
The two exceedingly valuable elucidations which the geography of King
Alfred relating to Germany (intercalated in the royal author's
translation of Orosius), has received from your learned contributors MR.
R.T. HAMPSON (Vol. i., p. 257.) and MR. S.W. SINGER (Vol. i., p. 313.)
induce me to offer some new views on the same subject. From my having
passed a long series of years in the countries described, and read and
examined all that continental authors, as well as Englishmen, have
written or conjectured on the subject, I trust that my opinions, though
differing from all hitherto received, may not be unworthy the attention
of these gentlemen, and of your other numerous subscribers. I shall,
however, at present, not to exceed the necessary limitation of your
articles, restrict myself to a consideration of the very disputed
_Cwenas_ and the _Cwen-sae_, which both the gentlemen have not alluded
to.
The universal agreement amongst the commentators (with the two solitary
exceptions I shall hereafter mention), by which this sea is taken for
the White Sea, is diverting, and has been the primary source of many of
their errors, and of that most monster one, by which Othere's narrative
has been made the relation of a voyage round the North Cape to
Archangel. It is difficult to say who may have first broached the
brilliant idea. Spelmann's annotators, his alumni Oxonienses of
University College, seem to have left the matter without much
consideration, in which they were pretty servilely followed by Bussaeus,
though not so much so as to justify Professor Ingram's remark, "that his
notes were chiefly extracted thence." (Pref. viii.) Professor Murray of
Goettingen (1765), and Langebeck, in his _Scriptores Rerum Danicarum_
(1773), make no mention of these arctic discoveries; and the latter is
satisfied that the Cwenas are the Amazons of Adam of Bremen:--
"De Quenorum priscis Sedibus et Quenlandiae situ, vide Torfaeus,
_Hist. Norweg._ i. 140. Adamus Bremens, pp. 58, 59. 61., per
Amazones et terram Foeminarum voluit Queuones
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