VOYAGES IN THE POLAR SEA 



later, the English and the Dutch learned it. As in those days 

 there was abundance of whales to be caught on the Norwegian 

 coast (the Nord-caper was then numerous there), this kind of 

 whaling would not tempt the Norwegians to seek better hunting- 

 grounds along other coasts in northern waters. On the other 

 hand, it is evident that practice in whaling must have been of 

 great importance to them, wherever they settled in these 

 regions. 



Albertus Magnus (ob. 1280), who gives a detailed descrip- 

 tion of the harpoon and of whaling (cf. above, p. 158), has also 

 the following description of walrus hunting : 



" Those whales which have bristles, and others, have very long tusks,i and 

 by them they hang themselves up on stones and rocks when they sleep. Then 

 the fisherman approaches, and tears away as much as he can of the skin from 

 the blubber by the tail, and makes fast a strong rope to the skin he has 

 loosened, and he binds the ropes fast to rings fixed in the rocks or to very 

 strong posts or trees. Then he throws large stones at the fish and wakes it. 



1 The text has " culmi " (literally, straw), which gives no sense. We must 

 suppose that something has been omitted in the MS. of Albertus that was used 

 in the printed edition; or else he has taken the description from an older 

 source, which had it correctly, and from which later authors have taken the 

 same expression; for otherwise it is difficult to understand their using it in a 

 reasonable way. Erik Walkendorf (circa 1520) says of the walrus in Fin- 

 mark: " They have a stiff and bristly beard as long as the palm of a hand, as 

 thick as a straw [' crassitudine magni culmi'], they have rough bristly 

 [* hirsuta '] skin, two fingers thick, which has an incredible strength and firm- 

 ness"; but he says nothing about the method of catching them [Walkendorf, 

 1902, p. 12]. Olaus Magnus [i, xxi. c. 25] says that walruses ("morsi" or 

 " rosmari ") appear on the northern coast of Norway. " They have a head like 

 an ox, have rough [bristly, ' hirsutam '] skin, and hair as thick as straw [' cul- 

 mos '] or the stalks of corn [' calamos f rumenti '] which stands in all directions. 

 They heave themselves up by their tusks to the tops of rocks as with ladders, 

 in order to eat the grass bedewed with fresh water, and roll themselves back 

 into the sea, unless in the meantime they are overcome by very deep sleep and 

 remain hanging." Then follows the same story of catching them as in Alber- 

 tus Magnus. This is done, he says, chiefly for the sake of the tusks, " which 

 were highly prized by the Scythians, Rutens, and Tartars," etc. " This is wit- 

 nessed also by Miechouita." This description of Olaus is evidently put to- 

 gether from older statements which we find in Albertus Magnus, in Walken- 

 dorf, and in Russian sources, of which he himself quotes Mikhow (who is also 

 mentioned in Pistorius; see p. 173). 



163 



