IN NORTHERN MISTS 



or by the river Umba (see map, Vol. I, p. lyo).^ After Ottar's 

 time the Norwegians more frequently undertook expeditions, 

 doubtless for the most part of a military character, to the 

 White Sea and Bjarmeland. We hear about several of them in 

 the sagas. 



Eric Blood-Axe marched northward, about 920, into Fin- 

 mark and as far as Bjarmeland, and there fought a great 

 battle and gained the victory. His soon, Harold Grafeld, 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 Vina Dvina), 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 noble traveled far." 



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 " Bjarme- 

 land " 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 



1 G. Storm [Mon. hist. Norv., 1880, p. 78] thought that " Vegistafr " might 

 be " Sviatoi Nos " at the entrance to Gandvik (the White Sea). 

 136 



