. THE NORWEGIAN HERRING-FISHERIES. 117 



ui) the courage of the fishermen and merchants. In earlier times, wheu 

 people did not seek the cause of various phenomena in nature, but 

 judged things by their appearances, it was thought that God had 

 blighted the herriug-fishery, because men had become ungrateful and 

 abused his gifts. Sometimes special causes were assigned for the 

 Divine wrath, and Absalon Pedersen Beyer thought that the herring- 

 fishery disappeared because Cristopher Walkendorpk had taken tithes 

 away from the clergy and used them for building purposes. Even in 

 our own days, (1835,) we see something similar to this, in the fact that 

 several members of the British Parliament declared in the House of 

 Commons that the herring had disappeared from a place on the coast 

 of Ireland because a priest had demanded tithes of his parishioners. 

 Casper Seatus tells us, that in the year 1830 the herring left Heligoland, 

 where at that time about two thousand people gained their living from 

 the fisheries, because some young men, in mere wantonness, had cruelly 

 abused a herring. In Stavanger, according to the account of Professor 

 Kroyer, the fishermen, in the year 1830, did not allow a wealthy citizen 

 to hold a masked ball in his own house, for they thought tbat this would 

 vex the Deity, and that as a punishment He would cause the herring 

 to leave the place. 



When this superstitious belief yielded to the better suggestions of 

 the understanding, the decay of the herring-fisheries was sought for 

 in natural causes. In former times it was believed that noise could 

 drive the herring away, and, in 1580, to shoot on board ships was pro- 

 hibited at Bohuslan. This belief was common even in later daj'S. Thus 

 it was thought that the herring left Bohuslan in 1697 in consequence 

 of the discharge of the guns during a naval engagement, (in the war 

 between the Swedes and Danes ;) and the disappearance of the herring 

 from Dynekilur (a gulf on the coast of Sweden) was generally ascribed to 

 the guns of Tordcnskjold's (a Danish admiral) fleet. When the herring 

 returned in 1750 a law of 1756 fixed a penalty of 500 rigsdalers ($250 

 gold) for discharging a gun from any fortress on the coast, on men-of- 

 war, and on merchant-vessels during the period when the herring was 

 approaching; and as late as 1808 the thunder of guns (in the war 

 between Denmark and England) was considered the cause of the herring's 

 disappearance. Even now the herring fishermen do not like the noise 

 of the steamers, and in 1862 they were not permitted to cross the Silde- 

 fjord near Karmo. In Ramsdalen steamers were not considered so obnox- 

 ious, and during the great-herring fisheries no instance is on record of 

 the herring having been driven away by the constant passing and re- 

 passing of steamers. In Scotland careful observations have shown that 

 the herring has disappeared from bays which have never been touched 

 by a steamer, and have remained in some portions of the sea where 

 steamers pass daily. Professor Nilsson considers all noise detrimental 

 to the herring-fisheries, and to show how easily the herring can be 

 frightened, he relates that, in 1756, when the fisheries near Eikfjord 



