3. In the Odyssey, Ortygie is introduced in relation to another island in its vicinity called Syrie, swineherd Eumaeus’ homeland: “There is an island called Syrie , you may have heard of it,/ beyond Ortygie where the Sun sets ” (“ hóthi tropaí eelíoio ”). Judging by the text, Ortygie seems to be more familiar than Syrie. However, both of them lie west of Ithaca, more than six days away by ship, even when the winds are favorable. s Neither of them has ever been identi fi ed in the Mediterranean. They are linked with Leto’s two children, Apollo and Artemis; moreover, in a passage where Ortygie is mentioned, the Odyssey refers to Artemis, who killed Orion there with her arrows.
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7. It would also be tempting to associate the name “ Syríe ” to Eire . But, let us note that there is a river in the south of Ireland, called “the Suir;” furthermore, the Irish name of the River Lee, which fl ows through Cork, is the “Laoi,” a typically Greek-sounding name (which is almost homonymous with the River Lao in Southern Italy, the ancient “ Magna Graecia .”) In any case, the extraordinary hospitality that Eumaeus shows a poor beggar who could never have reciprocated, makes him seem the most “Irish” of the Homeric characters. ( Eumaeus’ name itself could recall Emain , the ancient Irish capital.) With regard to his Phoenician abductors, they bring to mind the mythical “Fenians,” i.e., a people of ancient Ireland mentioned in some traditional tales, such as Echtra Fergusa maic Léti ( The Adventures of Fergus, Lete’s son ).
8. Scholars noted the connection between Homer and the civilizations of Northern Europe. In The Druids , Stuart Piggott claims: “ Celtic literature was orally created and handed down by a barbaric society, just like the original version of the Homeric poems and the Sanskrit Rigveda .” Still on the Celts he states: “It was a barbaric civilization (…). From the archaeological evidence we deduce that it was a model of society going back to barbaric Europe of the second half of the second millennium B.C. at least. This was a heroic age, similar in one way to Homer and the Rigveda , in another to the Beowulf and the Norse sagas.”
9. As to the Celtic poets, known as “ fi li ,” they entertained the Court’s noblemen, just as the Homeric bards did. Their favorite themes included “adventure” (“ echtra ”) beyond human bounds and “wanderings” (“ immram ”) from island to island over far-off seas. This, of course, reminds us of Ulysses when he was intent on narrating his fabulous adventures and wanderings in Alcinous’ palace. What is more, one of the favorite destinations in Celtic tales are the paradisal islands situated in the middle of the ocean, towards the far west, where divine women refresh and make love with the heroes coming there. They also offer them immortality and everlasting youth, as we see in Immram curaig Máele Dúin ( The Voyage of Máel Dúin’s Ship ) and Immram Brain maic Febail ( The Voyage of Febal’s Son Bran ).
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11. "Some people believe that Ulysses too, in his long and fabulous wanderings, arrived at this Ocean and visited the lands of Germany" (in hunc Oceanum delatum adisse Germaniae terras) ( Germania 3, 2). We may now read this passage from Tacitus in a new light. Here he uses the common name Germania to indicate all the regions of northern Europe up to the Baltic and Scandinavia. Even if Tacitus belongs to a time halfway between the events Homer narrates and the present day, his reference to a northern Ulysses, which appears to be an ancient recollection rather than merely a literary hypothesis, tallies with what his contemporary Plutarch says regarding the North Atlantic position of the island of Ogygia . In short, it seems that both historians are linked by an uninterrupted tradition that began in the early Bronze Age and spanned millennia. It is likely that these tales reached Rome in the first century A.D., owing to the expeditions the Romans undertook in Great Britain at that time. In fact, Tacitus‚s father-in-law, Iulius Agricola, was governor of Britain for seven years, beginning in 77 A.D. Of course, we can continue to factor in details to support our conclusion of a northern origin for these epics, such as the fact that the Odyssey calls Ulysses fair-haired [ xanthás tríchas ( Odyssey 13.399, 431) and that he is traditionally portrayed with a cone-shaped cap that is identical to the traditional Viking cap.
