Which Notwithstanding, I Thinke Might Easily Grow To Composition, If Men Would Vnderstand That This Iland Was First Inhabited About The Yeere Of Our Lord 874.

Vnlesse some man will say that Thule King of Agypt (who, as it is thought, gaue this name thereunto) passed so farre vnto an Iland, which was at that time vntilled, and destitute of inhabitants.

Againe, if any man will denie this, he may for all me, that it may seeme to be but a dreame, while they are distracted into so many contrary opinions. One affirmes that it is Island: another, that it is a certeine Iland, where trees beare fruit twise in a yeere: the third, that it is one of the Orcades, or the last Iland of the Scotish dominion, as Iohannes Myritius and others, calling it by the name of Thylensey, which Virgil also seemeth to haue meant by his vltima Thyle. If beyond the Britans (by which name the English men and Scots onely at this day are called) he imagined none other nation to inhabit. Which is euident out of that verse of Virgil in his first Eclogue:

And Britans whole from all the world diuided.

The fourth writeth, that it is one of the Faar-Ilands: the fift, that it is Telemark in Norway: the sixt, that it is Scrichfinnia.

[Sidenote: The ice of Iseland sets always to the West.] Which continually cleaueth to the North part of the Iland. That clause that ice continually cleaueth &c. or as Munster affirmeth a little after, that it cleaueth for the space of eight whole moneths, are neither of them both true, when as for the most part the ice is thawed in the moneth of April or May, and is driuen towards the West:

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