386 HISTORY or 



Mr Peter Clansoa, in his description of Norway, 

 writeth, that there was anciently a law in that 

 country, that whosoever climbed so on the cliffs 

 that he fell down and died, if the body was found, 

 before burial his next kinsman should go the same 

 way ; but if he durst not, or could not do it, the 

 dead body was not then to be buried in sanctified 

 earth, as the person was too full of temerity, and 

 his own destroyer. 



" When the fowlers are come, in the mannejr 

 aforesaid, to the birds within the cliffs, where 

 people seldom come, the birds are so tame that 

 they take them with their hands ; for they will 

 not readily leave their young. But when they 

 are wild, they cast a net, with which they are pro- 

 vided, over them, and entangle them therein. In 

 the mean time, there lieth a boat beneath in the 

 sea, wherein they cast the birds killed ; and in 

 this manner they can, in a short time, fill a boat 

 with fowl. When it is pretty fair weather, and 

 there is good fowling, the fowlers stay in the cliffs 

 seven or eight days together ; for there are here 

 and there holes in the rocks, where they can 

 safely rest, and they have meat lei; down to them 

 with a line from the top of the mountain. In the 

 mean time some go every day to them, to fetch 

 home what they have taken. 



" Some rocks are so difficult that they can in 

 no manner get unto them from below; where- 

 fore they seek to come down thereunto from 

 above. For this purpose they have a rope, eighty 

 or a hundred fathoms long, made of hemp, and 

 three fingers thick. The fowler maketh the end 



