In Northern Mists Volume Ii Part 9

[Sidenote: Harold Grfeld's expedition to the Dvina]

Eric Blood-Axe marched northward, about 920, into Finmark and as far as Bjarmeland, and there fought a great battle and gained the victory. His son, Harold Grfeld, went northward to Bjarmeland one summer about 965 with his army, and there ravaged the country and had a great fight with the Bjarmas on "Vinu bakka" [i.e., the river bank of the Dvina (Vina)], in which King Harold was victorious and slew many men; and then laid the country waste far and wide, and took a vast amount of plunder. Of this Glumr Geirason speaks:

"Eastward the bold-spoken king intrepidly stained his sword red, north of the burning town; there I saw the Bjarmas run.

For the master of the body-guard good spear-weather was given on this journey, on Vina's bank; the fame of a young n.o.ble travelled far."

[Sidenote: Trollebotten]

At that time, then, the Norwegians must have reached the Dvina and discovered the east side of the White Sea, which was still unknown to Ottar. They had thus proved it to be a gulf of the sea. The Bjarmas probably lived along the whole of its south side as far as the Dvina, and the name of "Bjarmeland" was now extended to the east side also, and thus became the designation of the country round the White Sea. As a people of strange race of whom they knew little, the Norwegians regarded the Lapps as skilled in magic; but it was natural that the still less known and more distant Bjarmas gradually acquired an even greater reputation for magic, and in these regions stories of trolls and giants were located. The Polar Sea was early called "Hafsbotn," later "Trollebotten," and the White Sea was given the name of "Gandvik," to which a similar meaning is attributed, since it is supposed to be connected with "gand" (the magic of the Lapps); but the name evidently originated in a popular-etymological corruption of a Karelian name, Kananlaksi, as already shown (vol. i. pp. 218, f., note).

[Sidenote: Th.o.r.e Hund's expedition to Bjarmeland]

Snorre Sturlason (ob. 1241) included in the Saga of St. Olaf a legend from Nordland about an expedition to Bjarmeland, supposed to have been undertaken in 1026 by Th.o.r.e Hund, in company with Karle and his brother Gunnstein from Halogaland, men of the king's bodyguard. The tale may be an indication that at that time more peaceful relations had been established between the Nordlanders and the Bjarmas. They went in two vessels, Th.o.r.e in a great longs.h.i.+p with eighty men, and the brothers in a smaller longs.h.i.+p with about five-and-twenty. When they came to Bjarmeland, they put in at the market-town;[106] the market began, and all those who had wares to exchange received full value. Th.o.r.e got a great quant.i.ty of skins, squirrel, beaver and sable. Karle also had many wares with him, for which he bought large quant.i.ties of furs. But when the market was concluded there, they came down the river Vina; and then they declared the truce with the people of the country at an end. When they were out of the river, they held a council of war, and Th.o.r.e proposed that they should plunder a sanctuary of the Bjarmas' G.o.d Jomale,[107] with grave mounds, which he knew to be in a wood in that part of the country.[108] They did so by night, found much silver and gold, and when the Bjarmas pursued them, they escaped through Th.o.r.e's magical arts, which made them invisible. Both s.h.i.+ps then sailed back over Gandvik. As the nights were still light they sailed day and night until one evening they lay to off some islands, took their sails down and anch.o.r.ed to wait for the tide to go down, since there was a strong tide-rip (whirlpool) in front of them ("rost mikil var fyrir eir"). This was probably off "Sviatoi Nos" (the sacred promontory), where Russian authorities speak of a strong current and whirlpool. Here there was a dispute between the brothers and Th.o.r.e, who demanded the booty as a recompense for their having escaped without loss of life owing to his magical arts. But when the tide turned, the brothers hoisted sail and went on, and Th.o.r.e followed. When they came to land at "Geirsver" (Gjesvaer, a fis.h.i.+ng station on the north-west side of Magero)--where we are told that there was "the first quay as one sails from the north" (i.e., east from Bjarmeland)--the quarrel began again, and Th.o.r.e suddenly ran his spear through Karle, so that he died on the spot; Gunnstein escaped with difficulty in the smaller and lighter vessel; but was pursued by Th.o.r.e, and finally had to land and take to flight with all his men at Lenvik, near Malangen fjord, leaving his s.h.i.+p and cargo.

[Sidenote: Expedition to Bjarmeland, 1217]

Even if this expedition is not historical, the description of the voyage and the mention of place-names along the route nevertheless show that these regions were well known to Snorre's informants; and journeys between Norway and Bjarmeland cannot have been uncommon in Snorre's time or before it. Many things show that the communication with Gandvik and Bjarmeland continued through the whole of the Middle Ages, and was sometimes of a peaceful, sometimes of a warlike character; but of the later voyages only three are, in fact, mentioned in Norwegian authorities: one of them was undertaken by the king's son Hkon Magnusson about 1090; of this expedition little is known. In Hkon Hkonsson's time we have an account[109] of another expedition to Bjarmeland in the year 1217, in which took part Ogmund of Spnheim from Hardanger, Svein Sigurdsson from Sogn, Andres of Sjomaeling from Nordmor, all on one s.h.i.+p, and Helge Bograngsson and his men from Halogaland, on another. Svein and Andres went home with their s.h.i.+p the same autumn; but Ogmund proceeded southward through Russia to the Suzdal kingdom in East Russia, on a tributary of the Volga. Helge Bograngsson and his Nordlanders stayed the winter in Bjarmeland; but he came in conflict with the Bjarmas and was killed. After this Ogmund did not venture to return that way, but went on through Russia to the sea (i.e., the Black Sea) and thence to the Holy Land. He came safely home to Norway after many years.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bjarmas and Skridfinns fighting on ski and riding reindeer (after Olaus Magnus, 1555)]

[Sidenote: Expedition to Bjarmeland, 1222]

When the rumour of what had happened to Helge and his men reached home, a punitive expedition was decided on. The king's officers in Nordland, Andres Skjaldarbrand and Ivar Utvik, placed themselves at the head of it; and they came to Bjarmeland with four s.h.i.+ps in the year 1222, and accomplished their purpose; "they wrought great havoc in plunder and slaughter and obtained much booty in furs and burnt silver." But on the homeward voyage Ivar's s.h.i.+p was lost in the whirlpool at "Straumneskinn,"

and only Ivar and one other escaped. "Straumneskinn" is probably Sviatoi Nos (see p. 138).

[Sidenote: Warlike and peaceful relations with the White Sea in the twelfth century and later]

This is the last Norwegian expedition to Bjarmeland of which Norwegian accounts are known; but that the White Sea traffic continued, though it was never very active, may be concluded from other sources. The name of the Bjarmas themselves disappears after the middle of the thirteenth century, when it is related that a number of Bjarmas fled before the "Mongols" and received permission from King Hkon to live in Malangen fjord. After that time in the districts near the Dvina we only hear of Karelians and their masters the Russians of Novgorod.

That there was considerable navigation, probably combined with piratical incursions, between the north of Norway and the countries to the east, may also appear from a provision of the older Gulathings Law, where in cap.

315, in a codex of 1200-1250, we find:

"The inhabitants of Halogaland are to fit out thirteen twenty-seated and one thirty-seated s.h.i.+p in the southern half, but six in the northern half; since they [i.e., the inhabitants of the northern half]

have to keep guard on the east."

This keeping guard might, it is true, refer to Kvaens in Finmark, but it seems rather to point to s.h.i.+ps coming from the east. In the negotiations of 1251, between the Grand Duke of Novgorod (Alexander Nevsky) and Hkon Hkonsson, there is express mention of disturbances from the east in Finmark, and after that time we hear more frequently of hostile incursions of Karelians and Russians in Finmark; they may have come by land, but occasionally also by sea.

[Ill.u.s.tration: On snow-shoes through the border-lands of Norway (Olaus Magnus, 1555)]

A treaty of 1326 between Norway and Novgorod shows that Norwegian merchants traded with the people of Novgorod on the White Sea. The erection of the fortress of Vardohus, as early as 1307, also shows the importance attached to these eastern communications, and the fortress certainly afforded them a fixed point of support. Thus about 1550 we see that "Vardohus weight" (mark and pound) had penetrated into northern Russia and was generally used in the North Russian fish and oil trade. The Norwegians chiefly bought furs in Bjarmeland, but what they exported thither is not mentioned in the Norwegian notices; it may even at that time have been to some extent fish, which in later times was the most important article of export to North Russia from the north of Norway.

As G. Storm [1894, p. 100] has pointed out, the Russian chronicles tell of many hostile expeditions by sea between Norway and the White Sea in the fifteenth century. In 1412 the inhabitants of "Savolotchie" (the countries on the Dvina) made a campaign against the Norwegians. A complaint from Norway of 1420 shows that the attack was directed against northern Halogaland, without informing us whether it was made by land or by sea.

Some years later, in 1419, the Norwegians made a campaign of reprisal and came

"with an army of 500 men in trading-vessels and sloops and ravaged the Karelian district about the Varzuga [on the Kola peninsula on the north side of the White Sea] and many parishes in Savolotchie [on the Dvina], amongst others St. Nikolai [at the mouth of the Dvina], Kigo and Kiaro [in the Gulf of Onega], and others. They burned three churches and cut down Christians and monks, but the Savolotchians sank two Norwegian sloops, and the rest fled across the sea."[110] "In 1444 the Karelians went with an army against the Norwegians, and fought with them, and in 1445 the Norwegians came with an army to the Dvina, ravaged Nenoksa [in the gulf off the mouth of the Dvina] with fire and sword, killed some and carried off others as prisoners; but the inhabitants on the Dvina hastened after them, cut down their 'voivods'

[leaders, chiefs] Ivar and Peter, and captured forty men who were sent to Novgorod."[110]

This will be sufficient to show that the White Sea voyage remained familiar in Norway. This communication increased about the beginning of the sixteenth century, and this had a decisive influence on the so-called rediscovery of the White Sea by the English.

[Sidenote: Early connection of the Bjarmas with southern civilisation]

In reading Otter's narrative and the earliest Norse accounts of voyages to Bjarmeland it must strike us that the Bjarmas we hear about seem to have possessed a surprisingly high degree of culture. As Professor Olaf Broch has also pointed out to me, this may be an indication that a comparatively active communication had existed long before that time along the Dvina and the Volga between the people of the White Sea and those on the Caspian and the Black Sea (by transport from the Volga to the Don). In those early times, before the Russians had yet established themselves in the territory of the upper Volga, this communication may have pa.s.sed to the east of the Slavs through Finnish-speaking peoples the whole way from the lower Volga and the Finnish Bulgarians (cf. the Mordvin tribes of to-day).

It appears to me that various statements in Arabic literature may indicate such a connection.[111] The Arabs received information about northern regions through their commercial communications with the Mohammedan Finnish nation of the Bulgarians, whose capital Bulgar lay on the Volga[112] (near to the present town of Kazan), and was a meeting-place for traders coming up the river from the south and coming down the river from the north. Special interest attaches to the mention of the mysterious people "Wisu," far in the north. This is evidently the same name as the Russian Ves[113] for the Finnish people who, according to Nestor[114]

(beginning of the twelfth century), lived by Lake Byelo-ozero (the white lake) in 859 A.D. They are mentioned together with Tchuds, Slavs, Merians and Krivitches, and were doubtless the most northerly of them, possibly spreading northwards towards the White Sea. They are probably the same people that Adam of Bremen [iv., c. 14, 19] calls "Wizzi" (see vol. i. p.

383; vol. ii. p. 64), and possibly those Jordanes calls "Vasinabroncae,"[115] who together with "Merens" (Merians ?) and "Mordens"

(Mordvins ?) were subdued by Ermanrik, king of the Goths. But the Arabic Wisu seems sometimes to have been a common name for all Finnish (and even Samoyed) tribes in North Russia and on the coast of the Polar Sea.

According to Jaqut,[116] Ahmad Ibn Fadhlan (about 922 A.D.)[117] stated in his work that

"the King of the Bulgarians had told him that behind his country, at a distance of three months' journey, there lived a people called Wisu, among whom the nights [in summer] were not even one hour long." Once the king is said to have written to this people, and in their answer it was stated that the people "Ya?u? and Ma?u? [on the Ob ?] lived over three months' journey distant from them [i.e., the Wisu] and that they were separated from them by the sea" (?). The Ya?u? and Ma?u?

lived on the great fish that were cast ash.o.r.e. The same is told by Dimashqi (ob. 1327) about the Ya?u? and Ma?u?, and by Qazwini (thirteenth century) about the people "Yura" on the Pechora.

Jaqut (ob. 1229) in his geographical lexicon[118] has an article on

"'Wisu' situated beyond Bulgar. Between it and Bulgar is three months'

journey. The night is there so short that one is not aware of any darkness, and at another time of year, again, it is so long that one sees no daylight." In his article on "Itil" Jaqut says: "Upon it [the river Itil or Volga] traders travel as far as 'Visu'[119] and bring [thence] great quant.i.ties of furs, such as beaver, sable and squirrel."

Al-Qazwini (ob. 1283) says:[120]

"The beaver is a land- and water-animal, which dwells in the great rivers in the land of 'Isu' [i.e., Wisu, cf. al-Biruni], and builds a home on the bank of a river." He further relates that "the inhabitants of 'Wisu' never visit the land of the Bulgarians, since when they come thither the air changes and cold sets in--even if it be in the middle of summer--so that all their crops are ruined. The Bulgarians know this, and therefore do not permit them to come to their country."

Qazwini also gives the information that "Wisu" is three months'

journey beyond Bulgar, and continues: "The Bulgarians take their wares thither for trade. Each one lays his wares, which he furnishes with a mark, in a certain spot and leaves them there. Then he comes back and finds a commodity, of which he can make use in his own country, laid by the side of them. If he is satisfied with this, he takes what is offered in exchange, and leaves his wares behind; if he is not, he takes his own away again. In this way buyer and seller never see one another. This is also the proceeding, as we have related, in the southern lands, in the land of the blacks." The same story of dumb trading with a people in the north is met with again in Abu'lfeda (ob.

1321) and Ibn Batuta (cf. also Michel Beheim, later, p. 270).

Ibn Batuta (1302-1377) has no name for this people, any more than Abu'lfeda; but he calls their country "the Land of Darkness," and has an interesting description of the journey thither.[121]

He himself, he says, wished to go there from Bulgar, but gave it up, as little benefit was to be expected of it. "That land lies 40 days'

journey from Bulgar, and the journey is only made in small cars[122]

drawn by dogs. For this desert has a frozen surface, upon which neither men nor horses can get foothold, but dogs can, as they have claws. This journey is only undertaken by rich merchants, each taking with him about a hundred carriages [sledges ?], provided with sufficient food, drink and wood; for in that country there is found neither trees, nor stones nor soil. As a guide through this land they have a dog which has already made the journey several times, and it is so highly prized that they pay as much as a thousand dinars [gold pieces] for one. This dog is harnessed with three others by the neck to a car [sledge ?], so that it goes as the leader and the others follow it. When it stops, the others do the same.... When the travellers have accomplished forty days' journey through the desert, they stop in the Land of Darkness, leave their wares there, and withdraw to their quarters. Next morning they go back to the same spot ..." and then follows a description of the dumb barter, like that in Qazwini. They receive sable, squirrel and ermine in exchange for their goods. "Those who go thither do not know with whom they trade, whether they be spirits or men; they see no one."[123]

Of special interest for our subject is the following statement in Abu Hamid (1080-1169 or 1170) which may point to the peoples on the sh.o.r.es of the Polar Sea having obtained steel for their harpoons and sealing weapons from Persia:

"The traders travel from Bulgar to one of the lands of the infidels which is called isu [Wisu], from which the beaver comes. They take swords thither which they buy in adherbei?an [Persia], unpolished blades. They pour water often over these, so that when the blades are hung up by a cord and struck, they ring.... And that is as they ought to be. They buy beavers' skins with these blades. The inhabitants of isu go with these swords to a land near the darkness and lying on the Dark Sea [the northern Atlantic or the Polar Sea] and sell these swords for sables' skins. They [i.e., the inhabitants of that country]

again take some of these blades and cast them into the Dark Sea. Then Allah lets a fish as big as a mountain come up to them, etc. They cut up its flesh for days and months, and sometimes fill 100,000 houses with it," etc. [Cf. Jacob, 1891, p. 76; 1891a, p. 29; Mehren, 1857, pp. 169, f.]

It is not credible that the swords which rang in this way were harpoons, as Jacob thinks. We must rather suppose that they were rough ("unpolished") steel blades, which were used for making harpoons and lances (for walrus-hunting and whaling). The blades having water poured over them must doubtless mean the tempering of the steel, through which, when it was afterwards hung up by a cord, it came to give the true ring.

Although Abu Hamid is no trustworthy writer, it seems that there must be some reality at the base of this statement; and we here have information about some of the wares that the traders carried to Wisu, and that were derived from their commercial intercourse with Arabs and Jews. The people to whom the inhabitants of Wisu or Vesses took the steel blades must have been fishermen on the sh.o.r.e of the Polar Sea, who carried on seal- and walrus-hunting, and perhaps also whaling, and this is what is referred to by the fish that Allah sends up. They may have been Samoyeds (on the Pechora), Karelians, Tver-Finns, and even Norwegians. It might be objected that sables cannot be supposed to have been obtained from the last-named; but this is doubtless not to be taken too literally. Ibn Ruste (circa 912 A.D.) thus says that the Rus (Scandinavians, usually Swedes) had no other occupation but trading in sables, squirrel and other furs, which they sold to any one who would buy them.

It seems to result from what may be trustworthy in these statements that there was fairly active commercial intercourse from Bulgar with the Vesses and with the peoples on the White Sea, and perhaps in districts near the Polar Sea. A shortest night of one hour would take us to a little north of the mouth of the Dvina. In the land of the Vesses by Lake Byelo-ozero there was an easy way across from the Volga's tributary Syexna to Lake Kubenskoye, which has a connection with the Dvina; and there was also transit to the river Onega. There was thus easy communication along the great rivers; but besides this the traders seem also to have travelled overland with dogs; this was probably when going north to Yugria and the country of the Pechora, in the same way as traders in our time generally go there with reindeer. The trade in furs was then, as in antiquity, the powerful incentive; it was that too which chiefly attracted the Norwegians to Bjarmeland.

It is not likely that the Arabs themselves reached North Russia; one would suppose rather that travelling Jews a.s.sisted as middlemen in the trade with these regions. But the finding of Arab coins on the Pechora would point to Arab trade having penetrated through intermediaries to the sh.o.r.es of the Polar Sea.[124]

THE POLAR EXPEDITION OF THE FRISIAN n.o.bLES AND KING HAROLD'S VOYAGE TO THE WHIRLPOOL

[Sidenote: The Frisian n.o.bles' Polar expedition]