Der Name der Insel Thule

In the 330s or 320s BC, the Greek explorer Pytheas of Massalia undertook a pioneering voyage to northern Europe. In his report Περὶ τοῦ ὠκεανοῦ (‘On the ocean’), which has come down to us only as a few excerpts quoted by later authors, Pytheas mentions the island Θούλη, which is situated in the far north, six days’ sail from Britain. There is uncertainty as to the location of this island: the Faroe Islands, Iceland, or perhaps somewhere in Norway. Much effort has been spent on explaining Θούλη as a Germanic toponym but none of the proposals is conclusive. It might well be an exonym of Greek origin coined by Pytheas himself. A sound etymology in phonological, morphological and semantic respects can be presented: Θούλη = *t^hū́lē seems to reflect the substantivized feminine form of the adjective PIE *d^huh₂ló- ‘smoky, steamy, misty, foggy’ (: PIE *d^hṷeh₂-, *d^huh₂- ‘produce smoke, steam’) which, following the derivational pattern -o- → -i-, is the base for the noun *d^huh₂li- f. > OI dhūli-, dhūlī ‘dust, powder’, cp. Lith. dū́lis m., dū́lė f. ‘smoke, mist, fog’ etc. The name Θούλη meaning ‘the misty, foggy one’ would have correspondences in, for example, Fog Islands (British Columbia, Canada) and Eilean a' Cheò ‘island of mist’ (cp. OIr. ceó m./f. ‘mist’), the Gaelic name of the Isle of Skye.