]
259 (return)
[ Many vestiges of this superstition remain to this day in Sweden.
259 (return)
[ Many vestiges of this superstition remain to this day in Sweden.
Tacitus
]
250 (return)
[ It is uncertain whether what is now called the Frozen Ocean is here meant, or the northern extremities of the Baltic Sea, the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, which are so frozen every winter as to be unnavigable. ]
251 (return)
[ The true principles of astronomy have now taught us the reason why, at a certain latitude, the sun, at the summer solstice, appears never to set: and at a lower latitude, the evening twilight continues till morning. ]
252 (return)
[ The true reading here is, probably, "immerging;" since it was a common notion at that period, that the descent of the sun into the ocean was attended with a kind of hissing noise, like red hot iron dipped into water. Thus Juvenal, Sat. xiv, 280:—]
Audiet Herculeo stridentem gurgite solem.
"Hear the sun hiss in the Herculean gulf. "]
253 (return)
[ Instead of formas deorum, "forms of deities," some, with more probability, read equorum, "of the horses," which are feigned to draw the chariot of the sun. ]
254 (return)
[ Thus Quintus Curtius, speaking of the Indian Ocean, says, "Nature itself can proceed no further. "]
255 (return)
[ The Baltic Sea. ]
256 (return)
[ Now, the kingdom of Prussia, the duchies of Samogitia and Courland, the palatinates of Livonia and Esthonia, in the name of which last the ancient appellation of these people is preserved. ]
257 (return)
[ Because the inhabitants of this extreme part of Germany retained the Scythico-Celtic language, which long prevailed in Britain. ]
258 (return)
[ A deity of Scythian origin, called Frea or Fricca. See Mallet's Introduct. to Hist. of Denmark.
]
259 (return)
[ Many vestiges of this superstition remain to this day in Sweden. The peasants, in the month of February, the season formerly sacred to Frea, make little images of boars in paste, which they apply to various superstitious uses. (See Eccard. ) A figure of a Mater Deum, with the boar, is given by Mr. Pennant, in his Tour in Scotland, 1769, p. 268, engraven from a stone found at the great station at Netherby in Cumberland. ]
260 (return)
[ The cause of this was, probably, their confined situation, which did not permit them to wander in hunting and plundering parties, like the rest of the Germans. ]
261 (return)
[ This name was transferred to glass when it came into use. Pliny speaks of the production of amber in this country as follows:—"It is certain that amber is produced in the islands of the Northern Ocean, and is called by the Germans gless. One of these islands, by the natives named Austravia, was on this account called Glessaria by our sailors in the fleet of Germanicus. "—Lib. xxxvii. 3. ]
262 (return)
[ Much of the Prussian amber is even at present collected on the shores of the Baltic. Much also is found washed out of the clayey cliffs of Holderness. See Tour in Scotland, 1769, p.
250 (return)
[ It is uncertain whether what is now called the Frozen Ocean is here meant, or the northern extremities of the Baltic Sea, the Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland, which are so frozen every winter as to be unnavigable. ]
251 (return)
[ The true principles of astronomy have now taught us the reason why, at a certain latitude, the sun, at the summer solstice, appears never to set: and at a lower latitude, the evening twilight continues till morning. ]
252 (return)
[ The true reading here is, probably, "immerging;" since it was a common notion at that period, that the descent of the sun into the ocean was attended with a kind of hissing noise, like red hot iron dipped into water. Thus Juvenal, Sat. xiv, 280:—]
Audiet Herculeo stridentem gurgite solem.
"Hear the sun hiss in the Herculean gulf. "]
253 (return)
[ Instead of formas deorum, "forms of deities," some, with more probability, read equorum, "of the horses," which are feigned to draw the chariot of the sun. ]
254 (return)
[ Thus Quintus Curtius, speaking of the Indian Ocean, says, "Nature itself can proceed no further. "]
255 (return)
[ The Baltic Sea. ]
256 (return)
[ Now, the kingdom of Prussia, the duchies of Samogitia and Courland, the palatinates of Livonia and Esthonia, in the name of which last the ancient appellation of these people is preserved. ]
257 (return)
[ Because the inhabitants of this extreme part of Germany retained the Scythico-Celtic language, which long prevailed in Britain. ]
258 (return)
[ A deity of Scythian origin, called Frea or Fricca. See Mallet's Introduct. to Hist. of Denmark.
]
259 (return)
[ Many vestiges of this superstition remain to this day in Sweden. The peasants, in the month of February, the season formerly sacred to Frea, make little images of boars in paste, which they apply to various superstitious uses. (See Eccard. ) A figure of a Mater Deum, with the boar, is given by Mr. Pennant, in his Tour in Scotland, 1769, p. 268, engraven from a stone found at the great station at Netherby in Cumberland. ]
260 (return)
[ The cause of this was, probably, their confined situation, which did not permit them to wander in hunting and plundering parties, like the rest of the Germans. ]
261 (return)
[ This name was transferred to glass when it came into use. Pliny speaks of the production of amber in this country as follows:—"It is certain that amber is produced in the islands of the Northern Ocean, and is called by the Germans gless. One of these islands, by the natives named Austravia, was on this account called Glessaria by our sailors in the fleet of Germanicus. "—Lib. xxxvii. 3. ]
262 (return)
[ Much of the Prussian amber is even at present collected on the shores of the Baltic. Much also is found washed out of the clayey cliffs of Holderness. See Tour in Scotland, 1769, p.
