The Whalers : 201 



Norse sea captain. The story was originally told to King Alfred of 

 England and was later reported by Hakluyt in Queen Elizabeth's 

 time. In English the name of the voyager is given as "Othere" — in 

 Norse, probably "Ottar." While describing the voyage, Othere said 

 that in his own country, Helgeland, in northern Norway, the taking of 

 walrus and whales was an important industry. The purpose of taking 

 the walrus was to secure ivory, which had a very high price, and also 

 the hides of the animals which were valued because they could be 

 made into cables for ships. The walrus he refers to as "whale horse" 

 — its length being no greater than seven ells — that is to say, with a 

 length of about ten or twelve feet. The walrus, he says, is scarce. 



He refers then to a common kind of whale, forty or fifty ells in 

 length. This would be about seventy-iive feet in length. He says that 

 he was "one of six" who, in the space of three days, killed three score 

 whales. Unfortunately, the record does not make it clear how they 

 operated or by what method the whales were killed. Six men, in later 

 ages, formed a normal crew for a whaleboat; but it is hard to believe 

 that a single whaleboat could capture sixty whales in three days' time. 

 It seems more likely that he meant that he was one of six captains, 

 or leaders of boats, each with a crew. The meaning would then be 

 that in the three-day period each averaged a take of ten whales. 



How long before Othere's day some form of whaling may have 

 commenced we do not know. Both the Eskimo and the natives of the 

 northwest Pacific coast were known to have chased and captured 

 some of the smaller species of whale, but when they began we do not 

 know. 



As far as Europe is concerned, other nations were not far behind 

 the Norse. On the coast of Flanders ships were hunting whales about 

 the same time as Othere was catching them off northern Norway. The 

 EngUsh had ships out in the time of Alfric in the eleventh century. 

 A type of moderate-sized whale has the name Biscayensis, because it 

 was formerly caught in the Bay of Biscay. Basque fishermen began 

 hunting it there in the thirteenth century. As whales of this type 

 became exhausted, the Basque vessels moved farther and farther into 

 the Atlantic and, by the end of the fourteenth century, they were 

 hunting the same kind of whales off Newfoundland. Somewhat later 

 they were whaling in Greenland. 



In the sixteenth century there seems to have been a steady market 

 in Europe for oil and other products derived from the whale. Every 

 time an explorer discovered such waters or coastlines as attracted the 

 whale, it also attracted European whalers. William Barents, sailing 



