Atl. I, 251–52. The skeletons unearthed are noted in Atl. I, 400, and the legends of the giants were all over the Norse manuscripts. The story of Thor’s journey comes from Gylf. 46. The measuring of students occurs in Atl. I, 400. Drawing upon his experiences as a physician, Rudbeck confirms that the Swedes rarely succumbed to the plague, typhus, leprosy, or the worst contagious diseases, which everywhere seemed to claim many victims (Atl. I, 58). Swedish longevity and health are also discussed in Atl. I, 212–13, 263–65; diet, exercise, and climate were other factors that contributed to the phenomenal health of the Hyperboreans (I, 58). Foreigners unaccustomed to this quality were, according to Rudbeck, quite impressed (Atl. I, 263). Evidence sent by his brother Nicholas Rudbeckius about the ages of people in Swedish villages is cited in Atl. I, 263. Some notes about various ages in the kingdom also survive at the National Library, Olof Rudbeck den aldre collectanea F.e.16.
Discussion of the difficulties of understanding the word Hyperborean comes from Atl. I, 229–33. Rudbeck’s Bore or Bori is most often spelled today Buri, though the spelling of his son’s name, Bor, is often still used. Buri is described as “beautiful in appearance, big and powerful” in Snorri Sturluson’s Gylf. 6. Rudbeck’s discussion of the rune outside Ekholm, the tavern song, and his comment on “strange animals,” Atl. I, 231–33. Odin as “the greatest and most glorious that we know,” Gylf. 7, with Bor’s sons making the world, 8–9, and Voluspa 4. Bore place-names being found in Sweden, Atl. I, 231–32, with an additional comment on Bor’s sons, 246. Bor, the Bor-barn, and the golden age are elaborated on 432–42.
Rudbeck’s meeting with a “very wise peasant in Roklunda named Anders” is related in Atl. I, 68, and his lesson in the use of runic staffs, Atl. II, 650. True to form, Rudbeck inserts a formula for any curious reader who wants to make predictions on his own, Atl. II, 649–62 (and another one to be clipped out, 552). The survival of the wisdom in the countryside is discussed in Atl. I, 212.
Rudbeck was very much interested in folk customs and peasant culture, venturing into villages away from seacoasts, royal courts, markets, universities, and other cosmopolitan entrepots where customs and languages often mix, Atl. III, 171–72. Oral traditions, folk customs, and popular culture help Rudbeck, again and again, interpret classical culture. No nation, Rudbeck believed, could boast of such a profound understanding of the course of the heavenly bodies as could Swedish peasants with runic staffs.
In a similar way, Rudbeck also sought out information from the Saami of the north. Rudbeck gets much of his knowledge about the indigenous peoples from Schefferus’s Lapponia and Olaus Magnus’s Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus. He also investigated matters for himself, including consulting Swedish officials who had personal acquaintance with the Saami. Rudbeck’s discourse on beards appears in Atl. III, 516ff., and the peasant mentioned, III, 522.
CHAPTER 7: THE QUEST FOR THE GOLDEN FLEECE
John Adams’s words come from Malcolm Forbes’s What Happened to Their Kids? (1990), 13. Lorenzo Magalotti’s descriptions are in his own account, Sverige under Ar 1674 (1986): the purpose of his visit is on page 1; his opinions of Uppsala are on 65–68, and Rudbeck 67–68.
Information about the College of Antiquities comes from a number of sources, especially Schuck’s KVHAA; Schuck’s Johan Hadorph (1933), 64–81; and Lindroth’s Stormaktstiden, 321–27. Runes, burial mounds, old Icelandic sagas, coins, seals, and many other antiquarian matters were part of their domain. Stiernhielm’s only known meeting was the first, 25 January 1668, though the first real meeting was arguably 28 May that year (Schuck, Hadorph, 74–75). The college’s rooms are described in Magalotti, Sverige, 66, though they were not as appealing to members of the college. Virtually from the beginning, the institution was hoping to move into its own building. Rudbeck had been selected by De la Gardie to be its architect.
The college was called Sweden’s first scientific academy, Schuck, KVHAA II, 30, and it had the most active writers in Sweden, that is, outside of Olof Rudbeck and the legal scholar Stiernhook, Schuck, KVHAA III, 44. Hadorph was seen as the youngest, though already a dominant member, Schuck, KVHAA I, 277.
Hadorph was indeed a significant figure in late-seventeenth-century Swedish cultural and intellectual life. With an assistant and two draftsmen, Hadorph rode throughout the country investigating its antiquities. Coins, medals, and gold rings were found, as well as a great collection of church silver buried in the Linkoping area. His collections would eventually form the basis for Stockholm’s Historical Museum (Schuck, Hadorph, 194). Like Rudbeck, too, Hadorph wrote down old songs, including some gathered from the mother of one of his colleagues. Hadorph’s many achievements are summarized in Schuck, Hadorph, 193–265. His family is discussed in Schuck, Hadorph, 4–7, and his educational training is noted on 7–17, as well as in Lindroth, Stormaktstiden, 321–27.
The law protecting Swedish antiquities is discussed by Schuck in Hadorph, 60–64, and more elaborately in many places in his KVHAA. Lindroth calls the law simply the first of any country, Stormaktstiden, 249. Rudbeck was probably not then captivated by antiquities, Atterbom suggests (1850), 450. Arrhenius’s words on the “cloud castle of hypotheses” come from KB, Ornhielmiana (O.20), and Annerstedt discusses the college well in many places, for instance, UUH I, 271–76, and II, 66. Magalotti’s judgment of Atlantica is found in Sverige, 68.
My discussion of Rudbeck’s theory of Jason and the Argonauts is based primarily on his account in Atl. I, 418–27. Helping me to understand this episode were some influential classical sources describing the quest: Apollonius of Rhodes’s Argonautica, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Pindar’s Pythian IV, as well as shorter accounts in Apollodorus’s Library I, 16–28; Diodorus Siculus’s Library of History IV, 40–56; Herodotus’s Histories IV, 179; and references in Euripides’ Medea. That the Argonauts were the only ones known to have passed the dangerous crashing rocks is mentioned in the Odyssey XII, lines 85–90. Summary reviews of the Argonauts’ adventure were also consulted, including Edith Hamilton’s Mythology, 117–30; Robert Graves’s The Greek Myths II, 215–56; W. H. D. Rouse’s Gods, Heroes and Men of Ancient Greece, 89–108; and Lempiere’s Classical Dictionary, 70–80, 334–35. See also Mauricio Obregon’s Beyond the Edge of the Sea (2002), as well as his earlier From Argonauts to Astronauts: An Unconventional History of Discovery (1977).
Rudbeck’s quest was “the second Argonautick expedition” referred to by Thomas Haak, 29 March 1682, printed in Auctarium Testimoniorum de Cl Rudbeckii Atlantica 1685, Nelson (1950), 36.
“Terror seized him …” appears in Pindar’s Pythian IV, 95, and the centaur galloping down to wave them off is in Apollonius of Rhodes’s Argonautica I, 551–55, with baby Achilles in the arms of Chiron’s wife, Argonautica I, 556–58. The Argo as the “first ship ever built” is in Ovid, Metamorphoses VI, 721; and its an-tiquity in classical mythology is mentioned in Homer, Odyssey XII, lines 85–90. The following lines are in Pindar’s Pythian IV: “locks of glorious hair fell rippling down,” 83; fleece of “gleaming gold,” 231; and “flower of sailing men,” 189. Accounts of the crew often varied. The oldest sources are silent on Atalanta’s participation, and many reviewers, including Lempriere, do not bother to mention her in the context of the Argonauts. But classical mythology seldom has only one version of a story, and it was difficult for later chroniclers to resist including this brave maiden hunter in the expedition. So, while Pindar and Ovid make no mention, she appears in later accounts from Apollodorus (I.ix.16) to Diodorus Siculus (IV.41.2).
Rudbeck’s map of Atlantica is found in KB, Atland tabulae med
