IN NORTHERN MISTS 



to such an extent in more recent times that we hear nothing 

 about the Norwegians' hunting in the Polar Sea, while in the 

 sixteenth century fleets from the northern coasts of Russia 

 were engaged in fishing and walrus hunting; and Peder 

 Clausson Friis is able to say of whaling in Norway (about 

 1613): 



"In old time many expedients or methods were used in these lands [i.e., 

 Norway] for catching whales . . . but on account of men's unskilfulness 

 they have fallen out of use, so that they now have no means of hunting the 

 whale unless he drifts ashore to them." 



This seems to show that the Norwegians' whaling in open 

 sea had really gone out of practice, for otherwise this author 

 must have known of it; on the other hand, whale hunting 

 in the fjords, which were closed by nets, has continued to 

 our time. Walrus hunting (as well as sealing) appears to 

 have been still carried on in Finmark in Peder Clausson Friis's 

 time. 



His description of the animal and its hunting is in part accompanied by 

 stories similar to those in Olaus Magnus and Albertus Magnus (see p. 163), 

 and he mentions the great strength of walrus-hide ropes, and their use " for 

 clappers in hanging bells, item for shore-ropes and other ropes, and for the 

 screws on the quay at Bergen, with which the dried fish is screwed into bar- 

 rels, and for such other uses as no hawser or cable can so well serve for." 

 This shows that these ropes must have been widely employed and that there 

 must have been considerable hunting of walrus. According to an order of 

 Christiern IV., dated from Bergenhus Castle, July 6, 1622, fifteen walrus hides 

 were to be bought yearly for the king's service,^ and from K. Leem's descrip- 

 tion it seems that walrus was still hunted in Finmark in his time (1767). He 

 says too [1767, p. 302] that "even the Sea Lapps of the Varangerfiord for- 

 merly practised whaling, using for that purpose appliances invented and made 

 by themselves." To this is added in a note by Gunnerus: "The same thing 

 may also be said in our time of the Lapps in Schjerv Island and of a few 

 peasants in Nordland, especially in Ofoten." 



But in none of these accounts is there any hint that the 

 Norwegians carried on their hunting beyond the limits of the 

 country, as Ottar did in the ninth century. 



The decline of this productive hunting may have come 

 about through the concurrence of many circumstances. Hostile 



1 Cf. K. Leem, 1767, p. 216. 

 178 



