href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@38433@[email protected]#fn1" class="fnanchor pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">[1] are still exposed in the operations of agriculture, and any informant has in his possession several Byzantine and Wendish coins which he at that time picked up. He has likewise seen a Persian coin, which was found in the same neighbourhood by a friend. Having been led by circumstances to examine the evidence pro and con. in this question, he has come to the conclusion that Wollin and Julin or Jumne are identical. He treats the story of Vineta as a nursery tale and a myth.

[1] Particularly the Salmarks (Wendish for Fishmarkets), as they were called.

From the recently-published work on Wollin (Die Insel Wollin und das Seebad Misdroy. Historische Skizze von Georg Wilhelm von Raumer: Berlin, 1851) I extract the following account of Wollin in 1070, as I think it important to have all the best evidence attainable:[2] —

"Adam of Bremen, a contemporaneous historian, has left us a curious description of Wollin as it appeared at the time of its merchant greatness; yet he was himself, most probably, never there, but compiled his account from the narratives of sailors, from whose mouth he, as he says, heard almost incredibilities about the splendour of the town. He describes the famous city as the chief staple place of the trade of the surrounding Slavonians and Russians: also as the largest of all towns at this end of Europe, and inhabited by Slavonians, Russians, and various pagan nations. Also many Germans from Lower Saxony had come to the town, yet it was not permitted them to appear openly as Christians; though the political interests of a trading place, then as now, caused all nations to be allowed the liberty of incolation (Niederlassungsrecht) and toleration. The peculiar inhabitants of the place, particularly those who held the government, were mostly pagans, but of great hospitality, of liberal and humane customs, and great justice. The town had become very rich, by means of the trade of Northern Europe, of which they had almost the monopoly: every comfort and rarity of distant regions was to be found there. The most remarkable thing in Wollin was a pot of Vulcan, which the inhabitants called Greek fire.[3] Probably we should understand by this, a great beacon fire, which the Wolliners sustained by night on account of navigation, and of which a report was among the sailors that it was Greek fire; but it is also possible that in the trade with the Orient, which the discovered Arabic coins prove, real Greek fire was brought to Wollin in pots. A tricaputed idol of a sea-god, or Neptune, stood in Wollin, to denote that the island Wollin was surrounded by three different seas: that is to say, a green one, the Ostsee; a white one, under which we should probably understand the Dievenow; and one which was retained in raging motion by continual storms, the Haff. The navigation from Wollin to Demmin, a trading place of the Peene, is short; also from Wollin to Samland, in Prussia, eight days only were necessary to go by land from Hamburgh to Wollin, or by sea, across Schleswig; and forty-three days was the time of sailing from Wollin to Ostragard in Russia. These notices point to the chief trade of Wollin by sea, that is, with Demmin, Hamburgh, Schleswig, and Holstein, Prussia, and Russia.

"So magnificent was ancient Wollin, according to the narrative of the seamen; yet it must not be considered exactly a northern Venice, but a wide-circuited place, chiefly, however, of wooden houses, and surrounded by walls and palisades, in which (in comparison with the then rudeness and poverty of the countries on the Ostsee) riches and merchandise were heaped up.

"And now it is time to mention the fable of the drowned city Vineta. While an old chronicler, Helmold, follows Adam of Bremen in the description of the city Wollin, he puts, through an error of transcription,[4] in place of Julinum or Jumne, which name Adam of Bremen has, Vineta; such a place could not be found, and it was concluded, therefore, that the sea had engulfed it. The celebrated Buggenhagen[5] first discovered, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, a great rock formation in the sea, at the foot of the Streckelberg, on the island of Usedom,[6] and then the city Vineta was soon transplanted thither; and it was absurdly considered that a rock reef (which has lately been used for the harbour of Swinemünde, and has disappeared) was the ruins of a city destroyed by the waves a thousand years ago: indeed, people are not wanting at the present day, who hold fast to this fable, caused by the error of a transcriber. In the mean time it has become a folk tale, and as such retains its value. A Wolliner booth-keeper recounted me the interesting story, which may be read in Barthold's History of Pomerania (vol. i. p. 419.),—a rough sterling Pomeranian (ächt-pommerschis) fantastical picture of the overbearing of the trade-enriched inhabitants of Vineta, which God had so punished by sending the waves of the ocean over the city. The town of Wollin, to which alone this legend was applicable, is certainly not destroyed by the sea, nor wholly desert: but if they deserved punishment for their pride in their greatness, they had received it in that they had quite fallen from their former glory."—Pp. 22-25.

[2] Likewise, repetition must be excused, as it is here scarcely avoidable.

[3] "Olla Vulcani quæ incolæ Græcam vocant ignem de quo etiam meminit Solinus," adds Adam of Bremen. Solinus speaks of oil, or rather naphtha, from Mœsia; and it is not improbable that the Wolliners imported it for their beacons in pots.

[4] The oldest MSS. are said not to have this error.

[5] A native of Wollin, by the bye.