In Northern Mists Volume Ii Part 10

Among mediaeval voyages to the North there remain yet to be mentioned Harold Hardrde's expedition[125] and the voyage of the Frisian n.o.bles, related by Adam of Bremen in the descriptions already given (vol. i. pp.

195, f.). That the latter voyage must be an invention, and cannot contain much of historical value, is obvious (cf. vol. i. p. 196). The whole description of the abyss or maelstrom is taken from Paulus Warnefridi (as will be seen by a comparison of the descriptions on pp. 157 and 195, vol.

i.); the Cyclopes of marvellous stature, as well as the treasures of gold that they guard, are originally derived from cla.s.sical literature, although Adam may have taken them from earlier mediaeval authors, and Northern ideas about the giants in the north in Jotunheim may have helped to localise the story.[126] The great darkness, the stiffened sea, chaos and the gulf of the abyss at the uttermost end of the world or of the ocean are all cla.s.sical conceptions, and the description itself of the dangers of the voyage, of the darkness that could scarcely be penetrated by the eyes, etc., is just what we find in cla.s.sical literature, and in many points bears great resemblance to the poem of Albinova.n.u.s Pedo, for example (see vol. i. p. 82). It is possible, of course, that there may be thus much historical truth in the story, that some Frisian n.o.bles made a voyage to the Orkneys or perhaps to Iceland, but even this is doubtful, and the rest is demonstrably invention. In spite of this Master Adam a.s.serts that Archbishop Adalbert in person had told him all this, and that it happened in the days of his predecessor, Archbishop Alebrand, who had the story from the travellers' own lips; for they returned to Bremen and brought thank-offerings to Christ and to their saint "Willehad" for their safety. One might suppose that these n.o.bles themselves had invented the story and told it to the archbishop;[127] but it does not seem likely that they were acquainted with Paulus Warnefridi's description of the maelstrom, and the Cyclopes with their treasures in the north seem also to be learned embroidery; they might have heard oral tales about them, but in any case we may doubtless suppose that the story has been much "improved"

by Adam. There is a mediaeval folk-song about the dangers of sailors at sea which may also be supposed to have contributed to the description.

[Sidenote: King Harold's voyage to the maelstrom]

Be that as it may, this story must weaken our confidence in Adam's credibility, or rather in his critical sense. If his narrative of a voyage which started from his own adopted town of Bremen not long before his time is so untrustworthy, what are we to think of his statement about the experienced Norwegian king Harold's expedition to explore the extent of the ocean? No doubt it may appear as though he had his information about this voyage from the Danish king Svein, who is mentioned as his authority for the statements immediately preceding, and so far this information might have a good source; but it has received precisely the same decoration as the other voyage, with the mist or darkness that shuts out the uttermost end of the world, and the vast gulf of the abyss which was narrowly escaped. This is certainly of older origin, and he has not even given himself the trouble to make a little alteration in the dangers of the two stories. Another thing that weakens our confidence in his statements is his saying that the Danish king had told him that all the sea beyond the island of Winland was filled with intolerable ice and immeasurable darkness. It may doubtless be supposed that cla.s.sical conceptions had even at that time created superst.i.tions of this kind in the North, and thus King Svein may have told him this; but it must be more probable that all these ancient book-learned ideas are due, not to the unlearned and travelled monarch, but to the well-read magister, who moreover himself quotes in the same connection Marcia.n.u.s's words about the congealed sea beyond Thule.

It would be entirely in Adam's vein if some accidental resemblance or a.s.sociation had given him an opportunity of making use in this way of ideas he had from his learned reading, just as the name of Kvaenland gave him the chance of bringing in the myths of the Amazons, Cynocephali, etc.

(cf. vol. i. p. 383). It was pointed out earlier (vol. i. pp. 195, 197) that the statements about the sea "beyond this island" and about Harold's voyage are possibly a later addition by Adam himself, which has been inserted in the wrong place; "this island" might then mean Thyle (Iceland) and not Winland. Whether we regard the latter as a newly discovered country in America or as the Insulae Fortunatae, it is difficult to understand why precisely the sea on the other side of this island should be particularly a.s.sociated with the ancient conceptions of the dark or misty, and the congealed or ice-filled sea; ice and darkness are nowhere connected in this way with Wineland in later authorities. It is true that in Arabian myth there are islands in the west near the Sea of Darkness (cf. chapter xiii.) and that the Promised Land in Irish myth is surrounded by darkness (== fog) like the Norwegian huldrelands and the Icelandic elflands; but if Adam got his ideas in this way, it would only show more conclusively how mythical his narrative is. If Adam confused the names of Vinland and Finland (i.e., Finmark) (cf. vol. i. pp. 198, 382; vol. ii. p.

31), it would also be natural for him to imagine that beyond it were ice and darkness.

[Sidenote: Whirlpool]

The view has been held that the whirlpool in which King Harold and the Frisian n.o.bles were nearly drawn down was of Scandinavian or Germanic origin [cf. S. Lonborg, 1897, pp. 173, f.]. It seems undoubtedly to correspond to the Norse "Ginnungagap" [cf. G. Storm, 1890, pp. 340, ff.]; but it is a question how early this idea arose. I have already (vol. i.

pp. 11, 12, 17) pointed out the probable connection between it and the Greek Tartaros (and Anostos) or Chaos, and have shown (vol. i. pp. 158, f.) that Paulus Warnefridi took his whirlpool from this source, and called it Chaos. But now it is evident, as we have seen, that Adam took his description of the whirlpool from Paulus, and thus we have the full connection. It may also be mentioned as curious that Lucian in his Vera Historia tells of just such an abyss:

"We sailed through a crystal-clear, transparent water until we were obliged to stop before a great cleft in the sea.... Our s.h.i.+p was near being drawn down into this abyss, if we had not taken in the sails in time. As we then put our heads out and looked down, we saw a depth of a thousand stadia, before which our minds and senses stood still...."

Finally with great difficulty they rowed across a bridge of water that stretched over the abyss [Wieland, 1789, iv. p. 222].

With this may be compared that in the Irish legend (Imram Maelduin) Maelduin and his companions came to a sea like green gla.s.s, so clear that the sun and the green sand of the sea were visible through it.

Thence they came to another sea which was like fog (clouds), and it seemed to them that it could hardly support them or their boat; they saw in the sea beneath them people adorned with jewels and a delightful land, etc.; but when they also saw down below a huge monster which devoured a whole ox, they were seized with fear and trembling, for they thought they would not be able to get across this sea without falling through to the bottom, because it was as thin as cloud; but they came over it with great danger [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p.

164].

Although, as already mentioned (vol. i. p. 362), Lucian does not seem to have been read in western Europe before the fourteenth century, I cannot get away from the impression that in some oral way or other (cf. vol. i.

pp. 362, f.) there must be a connection between the Irish tale (written down long before Adam of Bremen's work) and the above-mentioned fable (as well as many others) which Lucian reproduces, whether the connection be with Lucian himself or with the authors he parodies. But then it will not be rash to conclude further that there may also be a connection between the cleft in the sea or profound abyss of Lucian or of Greek fable, from which mariners escaped with difficulty, and Adam's whirlpool, which King Harold avoided by turning back.

[Sidenote: Maelstrom among the Irish]

But it is also conceivable that the various currents in northern waters may have furnished food for these constantly recurring ideas about maelstroms and whirlpools. Such maelstroms appear also in Irish legends.

In the "Imram Brenaind" [cf. Zimmer, 1889, p. 134] it is related that:

One day the voyagers saw on the ocean deep, dark currents [whirlpools]

and their s.h.i.+ps seemed to be drawn into them with the force of the storm. In this great danger all eyes were turned upon Brandan. He spoke to the sea, saying that it should be satisfied with drowning him alone, but spare his comrades. Thereupon the sea became calm, and the rus.h.i.+ng of the whirlpool ceased immediately; from that time until now it has done no harm to others.

[Sidenote: Maelstrom in Norway; the Moskenstrom]

The Historia Norwegiae places "Charybdis, Scylla, and unavoidable whirlpools" in the north in "Hafsbotn" (cf. later). This must have been a general idea in Norway; for about one hundred years later, in 1360, the Englishman, Nicholas of Lynn, who travelled in Norway in the middle of the fourteenth century, wrote his lost work, "Inventio Fortunata," on the northern countries and their whirlpools from 53 to the North Pole; but unfortunately we do not know its contents.[128] The conceptions of these whirlpools may doubtless be connected with reports of dangerous currents in the north. The Moskenstrom by the Lofoten Islands may in particular have given rise to much superst.i.tion at an early time. In winter with a westerly wind it runs at a rate of as much as six miles an hour, and with a rising tide it may be altogether impa.s.sable. It may set up a high topping sea, which breaks over the whole current so that it can be heard three or four miles off.[129] In later times there are terrifying descriptions of this dangerous current. Thus Olaus Magnus (1555) says that between Roest and Lofoten

"is so great an abyss, or rather Charybdis, that it suddenly swamps and swallows up in an instant those mariners who incautiously approach" (see the ill.u.s.tration, vol. i. p. 158).... "Pieces of wreckage are very seldom thrown up again, and if they come to light, the hard material shows such signs of wear and chafing through being dashed against the rocks, that it looks as if it were covered with rough wool." And the natural force here manifested exceeds all that is related of Charybdis in Sicily and other wonders.

The Englishman, Anthony Jenkinson, who made a voyage to the White Sea in 1557, writes of it:[130]

"Note that there is between the said Rost Islands & Lofoot, a whirle poole called Malestrand, which from halfe ebbe untill halfe flood, maketh such a terrible noise, that it shaketh the ringes in the doores of the inhabitants houses of the sayd Islands tenne miles off. Also if there commeth any Whale within the current of the same, they make a pitifull crie. Moreover, if great trees be caried into it by force of streams, and after with the ebbe be cast out againe, the ends and boughs of them have bene so beaten, that they are like the stalkes of hempe that is bruised."

Schonnerbol in 1591 gives a more detailed description of the current, in which the same things are reported

of the iron ring "in the house door ... it is shaken hither and thither by the rus.h.i.+ng of the current"; of the whale, who when "he cannot go forward on account of the strong stream, gives a great cry, as it were a great ox, and then he is gone..."; and, finally, of great trees, spruce or fir, which disappear in this current, and when at last they come up again, "then all the boughs, all the roots and all the bark is torn off, and it is shaped as though it had been cut with a sharp axe." He says that "many people are of the opinion that there is a whirlpool in this current or immediately outside it"; and "when the stream is strongest, one can see the sun and the sky through the waves, since they go as high as other high mountains."[131]

Peder Clausson Friis gives a similarly exaggerated description of the current (circa 1613), sometimes using the same expressions as the authors quoted. The resemblance between these various descriptions is so great that it cannot easily be explained merely by their reporting the same oral tradition; what they have in common must rather be derived from an older written source (Nicholas of Lynn ?), which again has adopted ancient mythical conceptions. It is strange how few more recent ideas have been added even in Schonnebol, who was sheriff of Lofoten and Vesterlen for at least twenty years (from 1570), and must have had plenty of opportunity for gathering information on the spot; but it is the usual experience that everything that could be got from old books was preferred. That stories of the Moskenstrom may have been known in Adam of Bremen's time is highly probable, perhaps even Paulus Warnefridi had heard of it (cf. vol. i. p.

158).

[Sidenote: Possible truth in Harold's ocean voyage]

When we have shorn Adam's tale of all borrowed features, is there enough left to make it possible that the Norwegian king Harold undertook a voyage out into the ocean? It is not easy to form a definite opinion on this, but the probability must be that King Svein or the Danes told some such story, which was then adorned by Master Adam. As the voyage was supposed to have taken place recently, it must be Harold Hardrde who was intended, otherwise one might be led to think of Harold Grfeld's celebrated voyage to Bjarmeland.[132] What the object may have been, and what direction the voyage took, we do not know. As Adam says it was to explore "the breadth of the northern ocean" ("lat.i.tudinem septentrionalis oceani"), one must suppose that in his opinion it set out from Norway northward or north-westward over the ocean towards its uttermost limit, since according to the maps and ideas of that time he imagined the ocean as surrounding the disc of the earth like a ribbon (see vol. i. p. 199), and he may then have sailed across this to find out its extent.[133] But it is quite possible, as P. A. Munch [1852, ii. pp. 269, ff.] suggested, that Master Adam may have heard something about a northward voyage undertaken by Harold, during which he had been exposed to some danger in the Saltstrom or the Moskenstrom;[134] or if it was a voyage to Bjarmeland (Harold Grfeld's ?) that he heard of, then it might be the current at Sviatoi Nos or Straumneskinn, often spoken of in the sagas, that Adam has made into the whirlpool.

WHALING AND SEALING VOYAGES OF THE NORWEGIANS IN THE POLAR SEA

[Sidenote: The Norwegians as whalers.]

The skill of the Norwegians as fishermen, whalers and sealers had, of course, a great deal to do with the development of their seamans.h.i.+p and ability to travel and support themselves along unknown and uninhabited sh.o.r.es. The accurate knowledge of the many species of seals and whales shown in the "King's Mirror," to which no parallel is met with earlier in the literature of the world, proves how important the hunting of these animals must have been; for otherwise so much attention would not have been paid to them.[135] When in speaking of the greater whales a distinction is made between those that are shy and keep away from the hunters, and those that are tamer and easier to approach, and when the longest of all ("reyr") is mentioned as being specially tame and easily caught, we can only regard this as showing that whaling was also carried on in the open sea; that is, not in a merely accidental fas.h.i.+on, as when the whales entered narrow fjords where they could be intercepted, or when they ran aground.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cutting up a whale (from an Icelandic MS. of the fourteenth century of Magnus Lanaboter's Icelandic Land Law)]

From Ottar's statement to King Alfred (cf. vol. i. p. 172)--that "in his own land [i.e., Norway] there is the best whaling. They are forty-eight cubits long, and the largest are fifty cubits long"--we may conclude that the Norwegians, and perhaps the Lapps also, hunted the great whales as early as the ninth century, and doubtless long before that time, while King Alfred does not seem to have known of any such whaling being practised in England.[136] We are not told in what way the whale was caught in those days, but from statements elsewhere it is probable that the Norwegians had several methods of taking whales, as is the case even to the present day in Norway: one way was with the harpoon and harpoon-line in open waters, that is, without cutting off the whale's escape with nets.

The Arab cosmographer, Qazwini (of the thirteenth century), quoting the Spanish-Arabic writer Omar al-'Udhri[137] (of the eleventh century), says that the Nors.e.m.e.n in Irlanda (Ireland).

"hunt young whales, and they are very great fish. They hunt their young and eat them.... Of the method of catching them al-'Udhri relates that the hunters collect in their s.h.i.+ps. They have a great iron hook [i.e., harpoon] with sharp teeth, and on the hook a strong ring, and in the ring a stout rope. When they come to a young one, they clap their hands and make a noise. The young one is amused by the clapping of hands and approaches the s.h.i.+p, delighting therein.

Thereupon one of the seamen approaches and scratches its forehead, which the young one likes. Then he lays the hook to the middle of its head, takes a heavy iron hammer and gives three blows with all his force upon the hook. It does not heed the first blow, but with the second and third it makes a great commotion, and sometimes it catches some part of the s.h.i.+p with its tail, and knocks it to pieces, and it continues in violent agitation until it is overcome by exhaustion.

Then the crew of the s.h.i.+p draw it to sh.o.r.e with their combined force.

Sometimes the mother notices the movements of the young one, and pursues them. Then they have a great quant.i.ty of crushed onions in readiness, and throw it into the water. When the whale perceives the smell of the onions it finds it detestable, turns round and retreats.

Then they cut the flesh of the young one in pieces and salt it.[138]

And its flesh is white as snow, and its skin black as ink."[139]

This is, clearly enough, a layman's naive description of whaling with harpoon and harpoon-line in open waters, a method which had therefore already been introduced into Ireland by the Norwegians at that time. It may consequently be regarded as certain that the Norwegians were acquainted with harpooning. That this was very usual appears also from the "King's Mirror" and the ancient Norwegian laws, where whaling and whale-harpoons ("skutill") are often mentioned.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cutting up a whale (from an Icelandic MS.)]

On the west coast of Norway, in the neighbourhood of Bergen, there is still practised to-day another method of catching whales which must be very ancient. When the great whales enter certain fjords which have a narrow inlet, their escape is cut off by nets, and they are shot with poisoned arrows from bows which entirely resemble the crossbows of the Middle Ages. The arrows used are old and rusty, and convey bacteria from one whale to another. When the whale has been hit by these arrows it is rapidly weakened from blood-poisoning, so that it may easily be harpooned and then killed by lances, after which it is cut up and divided among the inhabitants of the fjord, according to ancient, unwritten rules. In spite of the blood-poisoning, the whale's flesh and blubber are eaten, and are regarded as very valuable provisions. I have myself often taken part in this kind of whaling. Possibly Peder Clausson Friis [cf. Storm, 1881, p.

70] refers to a similar method of whaling when he says that

"in ancient times many expedients or methods were used for catching whales, which ... on account of men's unskilfulness have fallen out of use."

They had "a spear with sharp irons, so that it could not be pulled out again." This was hurled into the whale, which died in a short time, or became so weakened that it could be drawn to land;

"which whales were then cut up and divided among those who had shot, and him who owned the land, or him who had first found the whale driven in, according to the provisions of the law."

We must suppose that this iron was poisoned with bacteria from former whales, in a similar way to the arrows mentioned above, whereby the animal's wound was infected. However, Peder Clausson's description of the hunt is evidently taken in great measure from older literary sources, since similar descriptions are found as early as in Albertus Magnus (ob.

1280) [De animalibus, xxiv. 651], and in Vincent of Beauvais [Speculum universalis, i. 1272]. In all three authors the whale dives after being struck, and tosses about on the bottom or rubs itself against it, thereby driving the spear farther in; but in Peder Clausson it does so in order to "get rid of the shot," while in Albertus it is on account of salt water getting into the wound, and in Vincentius the salt water penetrates and kills the wounded whale. As the descriptions of Albertus and Vincentius evidently refer to ordinary harpoon-whaling, it may be doubtful whether Peder Clausson's statement really relates to a method of catching different from the usual one with harpoon and line, although one is disposed to believe that it does. He also mentions in the same place other whales that they could "pursue with boats and drive into bays and small fjords, and kill them there with hand-shot and bow-shot." This may be supposed to refer to a method similar to that mentioned above, with poisoned arrows; but, on the other hand, it may relate to a third method of taking small whales, which was certainly practised from very early times in Norway, and which consists in schools of small whales being driven into bays and inlets, where they are intercepted with nets and driven ash.o.r.e.

The method of whaling with poisoned arrows or throwing-spears must, as has been said, be very ancient. Whether it was invented by the Norwegians themselves, or whether they did not rather learn it from the older hunter-people of Norway, the "Finns," is difficult to determine. Nor do we know how ancient whaling in general may be in the North; it may date from early times, though Ottar's mention of it is the earliest known in literature.

[Sidenote: Harpoon-fis.h.i.+ng in the Mediterranean in antiquity]

It is evident that a high development of seamans.h.i.+p, skill in hunting, and resourcefulness were required before men could venture to encounter the great whales of the ocean in open fight with free sea-room, where the whale was not crippled by having run aground or into narrow fjords with no outlet. This whaling in the open sea demanded the invention of special appliances, of which the harpoon with its line was of special importance.

It may be possible, though it is not certain, that the Norwegians were the first Europeans to practise this kind of whaling, and as, from numerous doc.u.ments, we may conclude that whaling was actively carried on by the Normans in Normandy as early as the tenth and eleventh centuries, one is inclined to suppose that it was the Normans who first introduced the method of harpoon and line there,[140] and then pa.s.sed it on to the Basques. But we ought not to lose sight of the fact that there are other possibilities, since the harpoon was probably known to and used on smaller marine animals by the neolithic people of Europe, and the taking of larger fish with harpoon and line was known in the Mediterranean in antiquity,[141] as appears, for instance, from Polybius's description of the catching of swordfish at Scyllaeum (on the Straits of Messina), which is reproduced in Strabo, i. 24: