Goes northwards into the sea.
It is certainly possible that this entrance may have been formerly
called Wisle-mund, or the mouth of the Vistula, as well as the western
mouth of that river. - Forst.
This concession is not necessary to the truth of Wulfstan and Alfred.
There is a cross branch from Elbing, which joins the Nogat and Vistula
proper; and which is probably meant in the text, where the Ilfing and
Wisle, united, are said to run to the west of Est-mere, or the haf,
and then north, into the sea at Wisle-mund. - E.
[13] This circumstance is singular; yet may be explained from the custom of
the Tartars. The mares milk, drank by the kings and rich men, was
certainly prepared into cosmos, or kumyss, the favourite beverage of
the great; while mead, a much inferior liquor in their estimation, was
left to the lower orders. - E.
[14] Mead was called Medo in Anglo-Saxon, in Lithuanian Middus, in Polish
Miod, in Russian Med, in German Meth, in old English Metheglin:
perhaps all these are from the Greek verb [Greek: methuo], to
intoxicate. Alfred naturally observes, that these drinking-bouts
produced many frays; and notices the reason of the Estum or Esthonians
brewing no ale, because they had abundance of mead. - Forst.
[15] In a treaty between the Teutonic knights, and the newly converted
Prussians, the latter engaged never to burn their dead, nor to bury
them with their horses, arms, clothes, and valuables. - Forst.
[16] This power of producing cold in summer, so much admired by Wulfstan
and Alfred, was probably the effect of a good ice-cellar, which every
Prussian of condition had in, or near his house. - Forst.
SECTION IV.
Voyage of Sighelm and Athelstan to India, in the reign of Alfred King of
England, in 883[1].
Though containing no important information, it were unpardonable in an
English collection of voyages and travels, to omit the scanty notice which
remains on record, respecting a voyage by two Englishmen to India, at so
early a period. All that is said of this singular incident in the Saxon
Chronicle, is[2], "In the year 883, Alfred sent Sighelm and Athelstan to
Rome, and likewise to the shrine of Saints Thomas and Bartholomew,
in India, with the alms which he had vowed." [Bartholomew was the messenger
of Christ in India, the extremity of the whole earth.] - The words printed
in Italics are added in translating, by the present editor, to
complete the obvious sense. Those within brackets, are contained in one MS.
Codex of the Saxon Chronicle, in addition to what was considered the most
authentic text by Bishop Gibson, and are obviously a note or commentary,
afterwards adopted into the text in transcription.
