Half -Light over Cold Seas 79 



came to seek King Alfred, six hundred deer all tamed by him- 

 self, and not purchased. They call them Reindeer. Of these six 

 were stall-reins or decoy deer, which are very valuable amongst 

 the Finlanders, because they catch the wild deer with them. 



The Biarmians were the inhabitants of the district of Perm in 

 northern Russia, bordering the White Sea. There has been much sup- 

 posedly erudite discussion among scholars as to the correct interpre- 

 tation of this passage. The Scandinavian ell is divided into twenty- 

 four inches, and the lengths given, of seven ells, or fourteen feet, for 

 the walrus and fifty ells, or a hundred feet, for the larger whales, 

 are quite accurate, the latter being well within the compass of the 

 larger rorquals. The historians, not being acquainted with the his- 

 tory of whaling in Norway, have found it impossible to believe that 

 one man in the company of either six other persons or even six other 

 ships, as some read the passage, could have killed sixty of the larger 

 whales in two days. It is not generally known, however, that a very 

 special type of whaling has been practiced since time immemorial 

 in the fjords of Norway, whereby whole schools of whales are al- 

 lowed to enter narrow channels and are driven far into deep inlets 

 where they become crowded together and cannot turn. They are 

 then panicked and often dash right up into the shallows at the head 

 of the fjords and are stranded. 



This practice is still followed in various places and there is even 

 a special industry based on the capture of the lesser fin whale, or 

 seigval, in two bays near Bergen. Wide-meshed nets are used to cut 

 off the animals' retreat, though more to frighten them than in any 

 attempt actually to hold the whales, which are far too strong to 

 be restrained by any net. In olden days when the whales were thus 

 corralled, they were shot with heavy arrows from huge crossbows, 

 and when weak from loss of blood, were harpooned and hauled to 

 the beaches. The hunt sometimes lasted for eight or nine days and 

 nights before the whole school was landed. This species, also known 

 as the Little Piked Whale (Balaenoptera acutorostrata) , is the small- 

 est of the rorquals and not very much larger than the extremely 

 rare pigmy right whale, the smallest of all the whalebone whales. 

 It has a world-wide range but prefers to stay near coasts. The Scots 



