"Testatur Franciscus Diepanus peritissimus nauarchus volubiles libellas, magnetis virtute infectas recta mundi polum respicere in insulis C. Viridis, Solis, Bonauista, et Maio, cui proxime astipulantur qui in Tercera, aut S. Maria (insulæ sunt inter Açores) id fieri dicunt, pauci in earundem occidentalissima Corvi nomine id contingere opinantur. Quia vero locorum longitudinis a communi magnetis et mundi meridiano iustis de causis initium sumere oportet, plurium testimonium sequutus primum meridianum per dictas C. Viridis insulas protraxi, et quum alibi plus minusque a polo deuiante {15} magnete polum aliquum peculiarem esse oporteat quo magnetes ex omni mundi parte despiciant, euum hoc quo assignaui loco existere adhibita declinatione magnetis Ratisbonæ obseruata didici. Supputaui autem eius poli situm etiam respectu insulæ Corui, ut iuxta extremo primi meridiani positus extremi etiam termini, intra quos polum hunc inueniri necesse est, conspicui fierent, donec certius aliquod nauclerorum obseruatio attulerit." Not all the map-makers were as frank as Paulus Merula, the author of a _Cosmographia Generalis_, printed by Plantin in 1605, at Leyden. For in the description of his _tabula universalis_ (_op. citat._ lib. iii., cap. 9) he says that he does not believe in the magnetic islands; but that he has put them into his chart lest unskilful folk should think that he had been so careless as to leave them out! In the well-known myth of Ogier the Dane, immortalized by William Morris in the _Earthly Paradise_ (London, 1869, vol. i., p. 625), the loadstone rock is an island in the far North. But this story is not one of the Scandinavian sagas, and belongs to the Carlovingian cycle of heroic poems, of which the chief is the _Chanson de Roland_; and Ogier le Danois is really not a Dane but an _Ardennois_. In the Middle-High German epic of Kudrun, the adventures of the fleet of Queen Hilda when attracted by the loadstone mountain at Givers, in the North Sea, are narrated at some length. (See _Kudrun, herausgegeben und erklärt von Ernst Martin_. Halle, 1872.) One stanza will serve as a sample: 1126. Ze Givers vor dem berge | lac daz Hilden her. swie guot ir anker wæren, | an daz vinster mer. magnêten die steine | heten si gezogen. ir guote segelboume | stuonden alle gebogen. which may be rendered: 1126. At Givers before the mountain | lay Hilda's ships by. Though good their anchors were, | upon the murky sea. Magnets the stones were | had drawn them thither. Their good sailing masts | stood all bent together.