Will you tell of the voyage of Pytheas? Its date? Name the island he called Thule.?

Is it history, folklore, or a bit of both?|||Around 330 B.C.Pytheas set out from the Greek colony of Massalia to explore northern Europe.





He was the first literate man to visit the British Isles and the coasts of France and Denmark, and there is good evidence that he traveled on to Iceland. Pytheas鈥檚 own account of the journey, titled On the Ocean and published in about 320 B.C. is lost, but the story survives in the works of ancient historians. Some, like Strabo, don't give total credence to the story told by Pytheas, while others believe he actually went on two expeditions to northern parts of Europe. Pytheas was a poor man, but an intellectual, and very well could have received funding for his explorations. Some say it was amber, tin and other resources which spurred the voyages into a world unknown. Without a doubt, most have decided Pytheas did indeed visit the areas he claims to have seen, but may have embellished his accounts from other stories he heard.





I believe Thule to be Iceland, but no one is for sure on this point. As to Thule and those distant parts he stated that there was neither earth, sea, nor air, but a sort of mixture of all these, like to the mollusca, in which the earth and the sea and everything else are suspended, and which could not be penetrated either by land or by sea. I find this wording an eerie depiction of Thule, especially when viewed from a lonely ship rocking in a dark ocean of uncertainty.





I consider it to be history and folklore combined, as the original account cannot be consulted to verify the actual events of the voyage, and given that others reviewing his account say he told some tall tales. At any rate, Pytheas must have been very brave, smart and adventurous to have accomplished what he did.|||he wasn't really mythological, he was a "french" in the late 4th century bce. he sailed the atlantic to britain and to thule... possibly ireland, iceland or greenland.





but most likely iceland because it's 6 days sailing from britain.