But it is also conceivable that the various currents in northern waters may have furnished food for these constantly recurring ideas about maelstroms and whirlpools. Such maelstroms appear also in Irish legends. In the "Imram Brenaind" [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 134] it is related that:
One day the voyagers saw on the ocean deep, dark currents [whirlpools] and their ships seemed to be drawn into them with the force of the storm. In this great danger all eyes were turned upon Brandan. He spoke to the sea, saying that it should be satisfied with drowning him alone, but spare his comrades. Thereupon the sea became calm, and the rushing of the whirlpool ceased immediately; from that time until now it has done no harm to others.
[Sidenote: Maelstrom in Norway; the Moskenström]
The Historia Norwegiæ places "Charybdis, Scylla, and unavoidable whirlpools" in the north in "Hafsbotn" (cf. later). This must have been a general idea in Norway; for about one hundred years later, in 1360, the Englishman, Nicholas of Lynn, who travelled in Norway in the middle of the fourteenth century, wrote his lost work, "Inventio Fortunata," on the northern countries and their whirlpools from 53° to the North Pole; but unfortunately we do not know its contents.[128] The conceptions of these whirlpools may doubtless be connected with reports of dangerous currents in the north. The Moskenström by the Lofoten Islands may in particular have given rise to much superstition at an early time. In winter with a westerly wind it runs at a rate of as much as six miles an hour, and with a rising tide it may be altogether impassable. It may set up a high topping sea, which breaks over the whole current so that it can be heard three or four miles off.[129] In later times there are terrifying descriptions of this dangerous current. Thus Olaus Magnus (1555) says that between Roest and Lofoten
"is so great an abyss, or rather Charybdis, that it suddenly swamps and swallows up in an instant those mariners who incautiously approach" (see the illustration, vol. i. p. 158).... "Pieces of wreckage are very seldom thrown up again, and if they come to light, the hard material shows such signs of wear and chafing through being dashed against the rocks, that it looks as if it were covered with rough wool." And the natural force here manifested exceeds all that is related of Charybdis in Sicily and other wonders.
