88 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



Faeroe Islands to Norway. He was blown off his course to the 

 north and made a great sweep to the west, ending up at almost 

 the right distance but exactly in the opposite direction to that which 

 he desired. Then, in 900 a.d. one Gunbjorn, while on his way to Ice- 

 land from Norway, got blown off his course, missed his objective 

 entirely, and landed up on the coast of Greenland. These were 

 purely fortuitous discoveries; later voyages were not. 



The Norse had fine ships and they sailed sea-countries that lie 

 between two great oceans — the North Atlantic and the Arctic. It 

 was almost inevitable, therefore, that they should follow the whale. 

 That they did so, we know not only from Ohthere but also from 

 several other contemporary records and from material objects found 

 in their burial howes and other places. There is, for instance, in the 

 Heimskringla, — the "Bible" of the Norse, composed by the great 

 Icelandic literary genius Snorri Sturlasson, in 1 100 a.d., in which the 

 whole history and tradition of the race is recorded — a saga of one 

 Grettir the Strong, containing a delightful passage in which we are 

 told of the stranding of a large rorqual at Rifsker in Iceland and 

 how all the important people who were able went to it. The Ice- 

 landers were noted for their feuding and general irascibility at all 

 times, behavior that finally brought their splendid Uttle democracy 

 to ruin and lost for them their most treasured possession, their 

 freedom. This story in the saga of Grettir is almost a parody of 

 these national shortcomings. 



The story goes, "The first to arrive was Flosi and the men of 

 Vik who at once began to cut up the whale, carrying on shore the 

 flesh as it was cut out. Then there came the men of Kaldbak with 

 four ships." This ominous note being struck, the writer takes a flight 

 of fancy on related subjects and then goes on to say that the leader 

 of this second party, one Thorgrim, laid claim to the whale but 

 was challenged by the men of Vik and was outnumbered. But, 

 "Then there came a ship across the fjords; it was Svan of Hoi from 

 Bjarnfjord with his men and he at once told Thorgrim not to let 

 himself be robbed." Thereupon the inevitable happened and a fight 

 began. Flosi and the men of Vik were getting badly beaten up when 

 one Olaf appeared with the ships of Drangar and saved them. A 

 general melee followed in which all parties participated lustily. 

 From a rather ribald verse composed later about the affair, however, 



