82 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



the largest whale afloat until other lines could be attached, or to tow 

 a small boat when a whale was struck. This ballista is a strange an- 

 ticipation of the modem harpoon gun which was invented a thou- 

 sand years later by a descendant of these Norsemen named Svend 

 Foyn, of whom we shall hear more later. 



As we have noted, the history of whaling is concerned with the 

 activities of a number of maritime peoples. The reasons for this 

 specificity are often obscure and sometimes quite inexplicable: one 

 people will make whaling their major industry and a basic part 

 of their economy, while others, living on the same coast, will not 

 attempt to do so. It is therefore not only of intrinsic interest, but 

 also of paramount importance to a proper understanding of whaling 

 history, to know just who the people were who went whaling, 

 where they came from, and what they did. Enough is known of the 

 history of the English, Dutch, and New Englanders, for instance, to 

 warrant only brief allusion to their pasts, but when we come to other 

 peoples or races, such as the Phoenicians, Japanese, Norse, and par- 

 ticularly the Basques, we must digress more widely. 



The origins of these peoples were until fairly recently shrouded 

 in the profoundest mystery and much mythological nonsense. Mod- 

 ern archaeological studies and other researches have now, however, 

 placed at our disposal many facts concerning their origins which 

 go far toward explaining their subsequent behavior. From these we 

 now find that much of what we formerly believed about these 

 peoples is either untrue or unimportant, while certain other aspects 

 of their culture is of the greatest significance. Most outstanding 

 among such characteristics — especially of the Norse and Basques — 

 are their comparative lack of imagination, on the one hand, and their 

 intense realism and practicality, on the other. These characteristics 

 manifested themselves in behavior that has nearly always been mis- 

 interpreted. Thus neither of these people seems ever to have been 

 in any way interested in exploring for its own sake. 



The great voyages that opened up vast new areas of the seas, 

 oceans, and distant lands by the Norse were never considered by 

 them to be contributions to geographical knowledge, nor were they 

 designed as such. Like Biarni Heriulfson, who, as we shall see later, 

 first reached the mainland of North America, and that by mistake, 

 they were so disinterested they often did not even land, let alone 



