The description of conditions in the various shipping areas around the British Isles through a crackly medium wave radio signal may not sound like much, but the Shipping Forecast has become a British cultural icon.

For several generations, the calm recitation of the forecast every day on BBC Radio 4 has been a kind of daily poetry. The names alone suggest the romance and mystery of far-flung places.

Here’s the list:
Viking, North Utsire, South Utsire, Forties, Cromarty, Forth, Tyne, Dogger, Fisher, German Bight, Humber, Thames, Dover, Wight, Portland, Plymouth, Biscay, Fitzroy, Sole, Lundy, Fastnet, Irish Sea, Shannon, Rockall, Malin, Hebridies, Bailey, Fair Isle, Faeroes, and Southeast Iceland.

Most of them wouldn’t seem out of place in a fantasy or historical adventure novel, now would they?

Around 325 BC, the Greek explorer Pytheas is reputed to have made a voyage of exploration around north west Europe. Starting off from the Greek colony of Massilia (Marseille in southern France), he probably visited northern Germany and a considerable amount of Great Britain before sailing north into the Atlantic ocean.

We have to say ‘reputed’, as all his original writings are now lost and only mentions of him in later works remain.
But even these snippets are still fascinating. For instance, Pytheas was (allegedly) the first Greek to record
encounters with Germanic tribes, Stonehenge, the Northern Lights, and Polar Ice.

However, the concept that he is most well known for is ‘Thule‘.
Pytheas reported finding an island far to the north of Great Britain, which he named Thule. Now there are many theories and arguments as to which modern day islands he actually discovered. Most of the smart money is on the Shetland Islands, though the Faeroes or even Iceland are possibilities.

What is not disputed is that the Greek phrase he inspired, ‘Ultima Thule‘, was used for right up to medieval times to denote lands “beyond the known world”. Basically, this is any land that exists even after the ‘Here Be Dragons‘ bit on medieval maps. Usually an island of all the most incredible and unbelievable beasts that the cartographer could make up and get away with.

These days, an Ultima Thule may not exist in the geographical sense. But the world of the internet, with it’s ever-expanding horizons probably contains infinite Thules just waiting to be discovered.