The voyage of Nicholas de Lynna a Franciscan Frier, and an excellent Mathematician of Oxford, to all the Regions situate vnder the North pole, in the yeere 1360. and in the raigne of Edward the 3. king of England.

[The words of Gerardus Mercator in the foote of his general Map vpon the description of the North partes.] Quod ad descriptionem partium Septentrionalium attinet, eam nos accipimus ex Itinerario Iacobi Cnoyen Buscoducensis qui quædam ex rebus gestis Arthuri Britanni citat, maiorem autem partem & potiora, a Sacerdote quodam apud Regem Noruegiæ, An. Dom. 1364. didicit. Descenderat is ex illis quos Arthurus ad has habitandas insulas miserat, & referebat, An. 1360. Minoritam quendam Anglum Oxonieasem Mathematicum in eas insulas venisse, ipsisque relictis ad vlteriora arte Magica profectu descripsisse omnia, & Astrolabio dimensum esse in hanc subiectam formam ferè, vti ex Iacobo collegimus, Euripos illos quatuor dicebat tanto impetu ad interiorem voraginem rapi, vt naues semel ingressæ nullo vento retroagi possent, neque verò vnquam tantam ibi ventum esse, vt molæ frumentariæ circumagendæ sufficiat. Simillima his habet Giraldus Cambrensis (qui floruit, An. 1210.) in libro de mirabilibus Hyberniæ, sic enim scribit. Non procul ab insulis Hebridibus, Islandia, &c. ex parte Boreali, est maris quædam miranda vorago, in quam à remotis partibus omnes vndique fluctus marini tanquam ex condicto fluunt, & recurrunt, qui in secreta naturæ penetralia se ibi transfundentes, quasi in Abyssum vorantur. Si verò nauem hac fortè transire contigerit, tanta rapitur, & attrahitur fluctuum violentia, vt eam statim irreuocabiliter vis voracitatis absorbeat.

Quatuor voragines huius Oceani, a quatuor oppositis mundi partibus Philosophi describunt, vnde & tam marinos fluctus, quàm & Æolicos flatus causaliter peruenire nonnulli coniectant.

The same in English.

Touching the description of the North partes, I haue taken the same out of the voyage of Iames Cnoyen of Hartzeuan Buske, which alleageth certaine conquests of Arthur king of Britaine: and the most part, and chiefest things among the rest, he learned of a certaine priest in the king of Norwayes court, in the yeere 1364. This priest was descended from them which king Arthur had sent to inhabite these Islands, and he reported that in the yeere 1360, a certaine English Frier, a Franciscan, and a Mathematician of Oxford, came into those Islands, who leauing them, and passing further by his Magicall Arte, described all those places that he sawe, and tooke the height of them with his Astrolabe, according to the forme that I (Gerard Mercator) haue set downe in my mappe, and as I haue taken it out of the aforesaid Iames Cnoyen. Hee sayd that those foure Indraughts were drawne into an inward gulfe or whirlepoole, with so great a force, that the ships which once entred therein, could by no meanes be driuen backe againe, and that there is neuer in those parts so much winde blowing, as might be sufficient to driue a Corne mill.

Giraldus Cambrensis (who florished in the yeere 1210, vnder king Iohn) in his booke of the miracles of Ireland, hath certaine words altogether alike with these videlicet:

[There is a notable whirlepoole on the coast of Norway, caled Malestrando (Mælstrom), about the latitude of 68.] Not farre from these Islands (namely the Hebrides, Island &c.) towards the North there is a certaine woonderful whirlpoole of the sea, whereinto all the waues of the sea from farre haue their course and recourse, as it were without stoppe: which, there conueying themselues into the secret receptacles of nature, are swallowed vp, as it were, into a bottomlesse pit, and if it chance that any shippe doe passe this way, it is pulled, and drawen with such a violence of the waues, that eftsoones without remedy, the force of the whirlepoole deuoureth the same.

The Philosophers describe foure indranghts of this Ocean sea, in the foure opposite quarters of the world, from whence many doe coniecture that as well the flowing of the sea, as the blasts of the winde, haue their first originall.