Finitur autem ipsa britania.
A facie orientis habet insulam thile ultra insulas dorcadas; a facie occidentis ex parte prouincie galliam et promunturium pyrenei; a facie septentrionali insulam scotiam; a facie meridiana germaniam antiquam.
Iterum in eodem oceano occidentali post ipsam magnam britaniam simulque et amplius longius ut diximus quam omnes insule altre magna finita parte septentrionali magis ex ipsa occidentali est insula maxima que dicitur ibernia; que ut dictum est et scotia appellatur. cuius post terga ut iam premisimus nullo modo apud homines terra inuenitur.
Per quam scotiam transeunt plurima flumina. Inter cetera que dicuntur. Id est:
|
et Sodisinam |
River Ribble? |
1094 |
|
Cled |
River Clyde |
1094 |
|
Terdec |
? |
1095 |
Having finished with the British mainland, the Cosmographer now turns his attention to the seas surrounding it. Something appears to have been either drastically wrong with the orientation of his map, or it had no cardinal points. It is worth noting that he appears to identify the elusive Thule with the Orcades, the Orkneys.
However, he eventually repositions Ireland in the Western Ocean, beyond Britain, and lists three names which he evidently believed to be of Irish rivers. Holder (quoted in Richmond and Crawford 1949, 46) ingeniously linked et sodisinam with Ptolemy’s Αυσοβα ποταμου εκβολαι and Σινα ποταμου εκβολαι (Geography II.2, 3), the Rivers Galway and Shannon. However, Rivet and Smith (1979, 362) have convincingly argued that the first name is an error for *Fl Belisama, the Βελισαμα εισχυσις of Ptolemy (II.3, 2), the River Ribble, and that the second name is for Clota, the Clyde. This latter error compares interestingly with the insula Clota in <Hiuerione> of the Maritime Itinerary which follows the text of the Antonine Itinerary, although they are unlikely to derive from the same source. The third name is obscure, but is unlikely to have been an Irish river-name, as there is no indication that the Cosmographer had any genuine information relating to Ireland.
The explanation of this error seems to be that the names of three rivers in north-western mainland Britain were written out into the Irish Sea on the map source, perhaps almost touching the Irish coastline. The Cosmographer then read off each of these names as if they referred to rivers in Ireland.