Note 1004 — Chapter IX · THE LANDS
Reading edition
Peter Comestor speaks of certain philosophers who made the ascent of Mount Olympus (see above, p. 168). We have already mentioned St. Francis’ visit to the mountain of La Verna (see above, p. 217).
Though not falling strictly within our period, several other medieval mountaineering exploits deserve notice. The anonymous Chronicon novaliciense, 5, written in the eleventh century, describes unsuccessful attempts at the ascent of the Rochemelon, near Susa in the Dora Riparia valley, in search of the treasure of a mythical King Romulus (from whom the mountain takes its name) supposed to be hidden there. In the fourteenth century the Rochemelon (11,605 feet high) was a place of pilgrimage (Gribble, op. cit., pp. 5–13).
The Heimskringla (under Snorri Sturluson in the Bibliography) describes King Olaf Trygvasson’s ascent of the Smalserhorn, now probably the Hornelen, in the year 1000. The feat was accomplished in a sporting, athletic spirit, and Olaf is said to have left his shield at the summit (H. Raeburn, Mountaineering Art, London, 1920, p. 6). Of this mountain, which overlooks the Fröj Fiord, Karl Baedeker’s Norway and Sweden, Leipzig, 1909, p. 160, says: “Soon ... to the left is seen the huge Hornelen (3002 feet) towering almost sheer, ascended on the E. side by K. Bing in 1897.”
The Chronicle of Fra Salimbene of Parma (Salimbene parmensis chronica, Parma, 1857, p. 354, cited in: Geographisches Jahrbuch, vol. xviii, Gotha, 4491895, p. 12) describes the ascent of Mount Canigou (9135 feet) in the latter half of the thirteenth century by Peter III of Aragon. This mountain lies “on the borders of the province of Spain,” and the king found upon the summit a lake into which he threw a stone, whereupon “a horrible dragon of enormous size came out of it, and began to fly about in the air, and to darken the air with its breath” (Gribble, op. cit., pp. 14–17, 262–263). Canigou is probably the Mount “Cavagum” described by Gervase of Tilbury as an abode of devils (see above, pp. 209 and 214). Curiosity as to what was on the top seems to have impelled Peter to make the climb.
S. Günther, in writing of scientific mountaineering before 1600 (Wiss. Bergbesteigungen, 1896), gives no details on mountaineering in the period between the ascent by Philip III of Macedon (181 B. C.) of a peak in the Rhodope Range and Petrarch’s famous ascent of Mont Ventoux in 1336.