What is "thule"

thujone \thujone\, n. An oil, C10H16O, the chief constituent of cedar leaf oil. A stimulant similar to camphor. Also called thujol, thuyol, absinthol, thuyone, tanacetol, tanacetone. Thule \Thu"le\, n. [L. Thule, Thyle, Gr. ?, ?.] The name given by ancient geographers to the northernmost part of the habitable world. According to some, this land was Norway, according to others, Iceland, or more probably Mainland, the largest of the Shetland islands; hence, the Latin phrase ultima Thule, farthest Thule.

region or island at northernmost part of the world, Old English, from Latin, from Greek Thyle "land six days' sail north of Britain" (Strabo, quoting a lost portion of a work by Polybius, itself based on a lost account of a voyage to the north by 4c. B.C.E. geographer Pytheas). The identity of the place and the source of the name have sparked much speculation; Polybius doubted the whole thing, and since Roman times the name has been used in a transferred sense of "extreme limits of travel" (Ultima Thule).\n\nThe barbarians showed us where the sun set. For it happened in those places that the night was extremely short, lasting only two or three hours; and the sun sunk under the horizon, after a short interval reappeared at his rising."

[Pytheas]

Thule is a semi-mythical place, usually an island.

Thule may also refer to:

• Thule, Greenland
• Thule people, ancestors of the Inuit
• Thule Air Base
  • 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash
  • Thulegate, a political scandal involving nuclear weapons
• Thule Island, in the South Sandwich Islands
• Thule (automobile accessories)
• Thule (Star Wars)
• 279 Thule, an asteroid
• Thule Society, a German occultist group and forerunner of the Nazi Party
• White Order of Thule, an American white supremacist group
• Thule, a fictional version of Greenland in the Kinderen van Moeder Aarde novels by Thea Beckman

1. Redirect Thule

Thule Group is the owner of a collection of brands all related to the outdoors and various types of transportation solutions. It is the market leader in cargo carriers for automobiles and a leading company in the outdoor and bags market, with 4,700 point of sales in 136 countries worldwide. The Thule motto is "Bring your life".

Thule (; ) was a far-northern location in classical European literature and cartography. Though often considered to be an island in antiquity, modern interpretations of what was meant by Thule often identify it as Norway,Bostock & Riley (1893) page 352 (on "Chapter 30 (16) – Britannia") assert: "Opinions as to the identity of ancient Thule have been numerous in the extreme." The notes on Book IV of Pliny in an 1829 translation into French by Ajasson de Grandsagne mention six, which are taken word-for-word in translation by Bostock & Riley (their words in quotes): ―

• "That Thule is the island of Iceland." Burton (1875) pages 1, 25.
• "That it is either the Ferroe Group, or one of those islands." Burton pages 22–23.
• "The notion of Ortelius, Farnaby, and Schœnning, that it is identical with Thylemark in Norway." Burton page 25.
• "The opinion of Malte Brun, that the continental portion of Denmark is meant thereby, a part of which is to the present day called Thy or Thyland." Fotheringham (1862) page 497.
• "The opinion of Rudbeck and of Calstron, borrowed originally from Procopius, that this is a general name for the whole of Scandinavia." Grandsagne (1829) page 338: "L'idée de Rudbeck ... et de Calstron ... due originairement à Procope, qui ... a prononcé nettement que sous ce nom était comprise toute la Scandinavie." The reference is to Procopius Book III No. 4.
• "That of Gosselin, who thinks that under this name Mainland, the principal of the Shetland Islands, is meant. The reference to "Gosselin" or elsewhere "M. Gosselin" and his monumental work dating from the time of the French Revolution is much copied even though miscited. No such geographer existed; the "M." must stand for Monsieur. The Library of Congress catalog cites the work as: This four-volume work is rare and inaccessible today. The opinion is said to come from Volume I page 162 under the title Thulé.

Bostock and Riley continue: "It is by no means impossible that under the name of Thule two or more of these localities may have been meant, by different authors writing at distant periods and under different states of geographical knowledge. It is also pretty generally acknowledged, as Parisot remarks, that the Thule mentioned by Ptolemy is identical with Thylemark in Norway." an identification supported by modern calculations. Other interpretations include Orkney, Shetland, and Scandinavia. In the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, Thule was often identified as Iceland or Greenland. Another suggested location is Saaremaa in the Baltic Sea. The term ultima Thule in medieval geographies denotes any distant place located beyond the "borders of the known world". Sometimes it is used as a proper noun (Ultima Thule) as the Latin name for Greenland when Thule is used for Iceland.