VOYAGES IN THE POLAR SEA 



latter.* It may also be supposed that the Norsemen in the be- 

 ginning, far back in gray antiquity, took their harpoon fishing 

 from the south, just as they obtained the form of their craft to 

 some extent from the Mediterranean. 



Thus, although we cannot regard it as certain that the 

 Norwegians introduced the knowledge of whaling with the 

 harpoon and line in Normandy, it is in any case probable that 

 they were particularly active in practising and developing this 

 method, and we may conclude that they must have been 

 acquainted with whaling before they came there, since we see 

 that the whalers of Normandy bore the Scandinavian name of 

 " walmanni." ^ If they had learnt their whaling in the foreign 

 land, it goes without saying that they would also have taken 

 the name from thence, and it is extremely improbable that 

 they should have acquired a Scandinavian designation for an 



1 Cf. M. P. Fischer, 1872, pp. 3, S. In 1202 the merchants of Bayonne bound 

 themselves to pay King John Lackland ten pounds sterling a year for permis- 

 sion to catch whales between St. Michael's Mount (in Normandy) and a place 

 called Dortemue [cf. Delisle, 1849, P- i3i]« This may point to a connection 

 in the whale fishery between the south of France and Normandy. 



2 Cf. Johannes Steenstrup, 1876, vol. i, p. 188. Prof. Steenstrup puts forward 

 the view that it was the Danes who developed this whaling in Normandy. This 

 is scarcely possible. There cannot be much doubt that it was the compara- 

 tively valuable Biscay whale, or Nord-caper, that was the chief object of the 

 active whaling on the coast of Normandy, and that was specially called " cras- 

 sus piscis"; for it was precisely this species of whale which, then, at certain 

 times of the year appeared in great numbers along the whole French coast, 

 and which the Basques also pursued so actively along the shores of the Bay 

 of Biscay, Brittany, and Normandy. The name " crassus piscis " (i.e., the 

 thick or fat fish) would also exactly describe this species, which is remarkable 

 beyond all other whales that occur on the coasts of France for its striking 

 breadth and bulk in proportion to its length, which is about fifty feet. This 

 whale was more valuable than the other great whales that occurred along these 

 coasts, and was in addition much easier to catch. But this species certainly 

 never regularly frequented the shallow Danish waters, any more than other 

 great whales that might be an object of hunting. There is, therefore, scarcely 

 a possibility that Danish vikings should have brought with them from their 

 native land any experience in hunting great whales. If we may assume that 

 the Normans were already acquainted with the hunting of great whales before 

 they came to Normandy, then it may have been Norwegians who possessed 

 this experience, which, in fact, agrees with the statement of Qaswini (see above). 



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