Thule is the name given to a legendary island believed to be located at the northernmost point that explorers ventured to in the 4th century BC. What drove ancient explorers to venture into the darkness, into the unknown and dangerous?
Was the lure of Ultima Thule, places beyond the borders of the known world, too much for them to resist? Without the courage and conviction of pioneers like Pytheas, we would never know of the existence of places like the mythical island of Thule, like the River Lethe in Hades.
Where is Thule?
In ancient European cartography and descriptions, it is said to be located in the northern regions, near Great Britain and Scandinavia, or in the northwest, perhaps in Iceland. Some sources cite Saaremaa (located in the Baltic Sea) or possibly Greenland. The Greek explorer Pytheas was the first to write about Thule during his travels between 330 and 20 BC. He was also one of the first to describe the effects of the moon on the tides and to estimate the length of the British coastline, and he was a specialist in longitude and latitude.
Due to his skill as a sailor, he was chosen for the expedition. Pytheas left his home in Massalia (now known as Marseille) to travel north in search of tin from the mines he had heard about in southern Cornwall. He sailed to Great Britain and found the tin mines, then headed further north. He passed Scotland and visited the Hebrides, Orkneys, and Shetlands. From there, he sailed north for six days before finding the island called Thule.
Pytheas described the people of this island as barbaric; in other words, Germanic tribes. The people were simple farmers who lived on grain, roots, and honey. They showed him where the sun set on the shortest day of the year and explained that in winter the sun did not rise at all. In summer, there was no night.
Pytheas – Explorer or Tail Spinner?
As Pytheas’ work, On the Ocean, was lost, it was subsequently quoted by other authors, but many of them became skeptical of his claims when no other accounts of Thule were available to corroborate his findings.
In 140 BC, Polybius, a Greek historian, quoted Pytheas’ description of the region of Thule as one in which “there was no longer any land, sea, or air, but a kind of mixture of the three, with the consistency of jelly, in which one cannot walk or sail, holding everything together, so to speak.” However, in another passage he also describes Pytheas as someone “who has led many people into error.”
In 30 AD, Strabo, a Greek geographer, philosopher, and historian, wrote about Pytheas’ account that Thule was “six days’ sail north of Britain, and was near the frozen sea.” He later casts doubt on his accounts and claims that Pytheas may have been lying and that “it was discovered, upon scrutiny, that he was a bow-maker…” He adds that “…from other writers I learn nothing about the subject, nor that there is an island called Thule, nor whether the northern regions are habitable to the point where the summer tropic becomes the Arctic Circle.”
Later classical writers describe the location of the island as northwest of Ireland and Great Britain, or possibly Iceland or Scandinavia. In the Middle Ages, Thule was the name given to Iceland. Although medieval authors continued to cite ancient sources on the subject, they knew that other islands existed in the northern regions of Great Britain. These conflicting accounts of Thule’s whereabouts and existence perpetuated the mythological and fantastical nature of the island.
In 2010, scientists at the Institute of Geodesy and Geoinformation Science in Berlin made a breakthrough with 2nd-century maps of the area by the scholar Claudius Ptolemy. The team of cartography and surveying experts discovered scale and calibration errors in Ptolemy’s map, but were able to correct his mistakes. With their new calculations, they believed that Thule was located on the Norwegian island of Smøla.
Hyperborea
Like the legend of Thule, another legend tells of a mythical place to the north. Boreas referred to the god of the north wind, and hyper means “finished.” Hyperborea was said to be a paradise where the sun never set. The people who inhabited both Thule and Hyperborea, according to ancient authors and philosophers, were believed to live to be 1,000 years old and live lives of pure happiness.
In modern esoteric beliefs, Hyperborea was considered the center of civilization and spirituality or the origin of civilization. Some theories see Hyperborea as the original Garden of Eden. Other arguments from the same school of thought claim that humanity has not evolved, but has strayed from its higher state. This premise extends to the possibility that the Hyperboreans were ancient astronauts from another planet!
Nazi Links
Ancient explorers and mythologists were not the only ones who believed in the notion of Thule. Nazi occultists also believed in the existence of Thule or Hyperborea. They considered it to be the birthplace of the Aryan race. The Gesellschaft, or society, of the legendary island believed in Pytheas’ accounts of the island and described it as a land of giant “superhumans.” The inhabitants supposedly had magical and psychic abilities and possessed technology far beyond what exists today. These occultists planned to save Germany by creating a race of Nordic Aryan Atlanteans!
Modern Use
Today, the word Thule is used in connection with the Greenlandic Inuit. The name has also been used for three islands that are part of the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. In the United States, a cave system has also been named Ultima Thule.
The term was coined by Virgil, a Roman poet who died in 19 BC. The term means any place far away “beyond the borders of the known world” and has come to mean “distant region” in modern definitions or “highest degree that can be attained.”
The Ultima Thule of the mind was a subject that John Henry Wilbrandt Stuckenberg considered to be of “transcendent importance” in 1885. He contemplated the eternal question of what or who created the universe, and wavered between spirit and matter as the creator. He concludes, however, that the overall explanation of the universe is science or matter.
Whether ancient myth, esoteric beliefs, or science, Thule has attracted intrigue and curiosity for millennia. Man will always think beyond limits, contemplate his origins and abilities, and reach into the unknown, the Ultima Thule.
Without these intrepid explorers who take us beyond the known world, we would never have any hope of reaching places like Mars or even beyond the unknown, beyond the Solar System!
