SPORTING SKETCHES. 



A BEAR HUNT IN NORDLAND. 



WITH A DESCRIPTION OF BEAR HUNTING. 



The following description of a bear hunt in Nordland, in the 

 winter of 1864, extracted from the Hernosand Post, will show that 

 the chase of the Swedish bear is not altogether unattended with 

 danger. The writer says : Time after time has the Hernosaiid Post 

 alluded to the damage which has been suffered by the cattle in the 

 Shelleftea and the neighbouring parishes through the attacks of 

 bears, and of the various bear hunts which have taken place in this 

 district ; and the following little history will prove what adventures 

 the bear-hunter will occasionally suffer, especially when he goes 

 out to attack the bear single-handed, or accompanied only by one 

 or two comrades. The narrator, a good old bear-hunter himself, 

 was wont to call this " a bear-dance," and a lively dance it must 

 have been. 



On the 17th Dec, 1863, six hunters, peasants in the neighbour- 

 hood (more daring than prudent, although tolerably well armed 

 with guns and spears, and accompanied by two hounds coupled up), 

 set off to attack a she-bear, which, after having been hunted from 

 one fell to another, had eight days previously been "ringed in"'^ on 

 Graininge Fell, not far from Shelleftea. 



They seemed to have apprehended little danger, and having 



* "Ringing" a bear is making a large circle round the place where the animal 

 was last seen, and proving that it must be somewhere within theciicle. — Ed. 



B 



