B.Boyd Ada Online:
3.18: "Russian"
Estoty: Estotiland was a name given by early explorers to the northeastern
part of North America, now northeast Labrador. Old mapmakers let it stretch as
far north as their conjectured coastline ventured. Cf. John Milton, Paradise
Lost, X.686: "From cold Estotiland." "Estotiland" is listed, along with Eden and
Arcadia, under the heading "utopia, paradise, heaven, heaven on earth" in
Roget's International Thesaurus (New York: Crowell, 1962). "'Russian' Estoty"
may contain an echo of "Russian" Estonia. Or "Estoty," as Dmitry Kirsanov
suggests (private communication), could be the plural of an imagined Russian
word estota, "estate, state."
Jansy Mello: Zeno map, from Wikipedia:
The Zeno map is a map of the North Atlantic first published in 1558 in
Venice by Nicolo Zeno, a descendant of Nicolo Zeno, of the Zeno brothers.The
younger Zeno published the map, along with a series of letters, claiming he had
discovered them in a storeroom in his family's home in Venice. According to
Zeno, the map and letters date from around the year 1400 and purportedly
describe a long voyage made by the Zeno brothers in the 1390s under the
direction of a prince named Zichmni.... Supporters of the Henry Sinclair legend
suggest that Zichmini is a mistranscription of d'Orkney. The voyage supposedly
traversed the North Atlantic and, according to some interpretations, reached
North America.
Most historians regard the map and accompanying narrative as a
hoax, perpetrated by the younger Zeno to make a retroactive claim for Venice as
having discovered the New World before Christopher Columbus.The evidence against
the authenticity of the map is based largely on the appearance of many phantom
islands in the North Atlantic and off the coast of Iceland.One of these
non-existent islands was Frisland, where the Zeno brothers allegedly spent some
time.Current scholarship regards the map as being based on existing maps of the
16th century [ ]
Phantom islands
Estotiland appears on the Zeno map, ostensibly on the western side
of the Atlantic Ocean in the location of Labrador. "'Estotiland' is listed,
along with Eden and Arcadia, under the heading 'utopia, paradise, heaven, heaven
on earth' in Roget's International Thesaurus (New York: Crowell, 1962)"; it is
one of the sources for "'Russian' Estoty" in Vladimir Nabokov's Ada.
Frisland appeared on virtually all of the maps of the North Atlantic from
the 1560s through the 1660s. It is not to be confused with the similarly named
Friesland in the Netherlands. It originally referred to Iceland ("Freezeland"),
but after the Zeno Map placed it as an entirely separate island south (or
occasionally south-west) of Iceland, it appeared that way on maps for the next
100 years. Other islands Islanda is clearly Iceland. Estland is presumed to be
Shetland, with various place names recognisable as belonging to that island
group.[6] It has been tentatively suggested that Podalida is a corruption of
Pomona, a historical name for Mainland, Orkney.Icaria, or Caria if the initial
"I" means "Island", has been very tentatively suggested as a misplaced Kerry or
Kilda, but may simply be an invention of the mapmaker.Neome has been identified
with Fair Isle or Foula.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeno_map