90 REPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. [2] 
fering in Norway during the reign of the sons of @unhild (961-970), 
owing, among other things, to the failure of the fisheries, it is reasonable 
to suppose that by these fisheries we are to understand those which at 
the time were the most important for Norway—the so-called spring- 
herring fisheries; and also that the Bohus-lin herring period began 
soon after, and continued till the end of the reign of Olof the Saint. 
During the first decade of the twelfth century, and especially during 
the reign of Sigurd Jorsalafar (1100-1130), we find that in Southern 
Viken there was an unusual development of all the material interests, 
and more especially at Konungahella, because it was the most impor. 
tant commercial place of the entire north. As, shortly before the de- 
struction of Konungahella by the Vinds, in August, 1135, a number of 
merchants emigrated from there to Bergen, it would not seem out of 
the way to suppose that the herring fisheries contributed their share to 
the flourishing condition of Konuwngahella, and that the cessation of 
the herring fisheries on the coast of Bohus-lin and their beginning on the 
western coast of Norway formed the real cause—not mentioned in the 
chronicles—of the emigration above referred to. Unless this was really 
the cause, it would seem difficult to understand why this emigration 
took place to Bergen and not to Tonsberg, Oslo, or Sarpsborg, whose 
trade resembled that of Aonungahella much more than that of Bergen. 
Supposing this to be correct, this herring period would have begun 
during the last decade of the eleventh century. 
Southern Viken shows us a still more striking revival of the herring 
fisheries during the first half of the thirteenth century, after a most de- 
vastating civil war of nearly a hundred years’ duration. From Hakan 
' Hakonsson’s Saga (chapter 333) we know that during the long reign of 
this famous king, Marstrand and other desert islands near the coast were 
cultivated; that the Ocker Islands were colonized and received a church 
of their own; that the convent of Tonsberg was moved to Dragsmark, and 
that Gullholnm was colonized. Although the last-mentioned measures 
may have been taken to furnish a convenient commercial highway from 
Norway to Lake Venern, which might take the place of the insufficiently 
protected former highway by Konungahella; the rapid increase of popu- 
lation in the Ocker Islands, necessitating a special church, certainly in- 
dicates rich herring fisheries, principally carried on near the central and 
southern coasts, as no place on the northern coast is mentioned. Dur- 
ing the latter part of King Hakan “the Olds” reign (from 1250) no more 
herring came to the coast of Bohus-lin, so that during the second half — 
of summer the Bohus-liin people were in the habit of going down the 
sound to participate in the Skane herring fisheries. This herring period 
of the first half of the thirteenth century has, by Axel Boeck, and others 
following in his footsteps, been incorrectly considered the same as the 
great Bohus-lin herring fisheries of the fourteenth century. 
From well-authenticated documents we know that the herring which 
during the first half of the fourteenth century had ceased to come to 
