A Bear Hunt in Nordland. 3 



whom the hunters thought a great deal, kept at a respectful distance 

 till the bear fell dead. 



The old bear was followed by three young cubs about a year 

 old, which of course shared the fate of the mother, but without 

 giving the hunters so much trouble. The old she-bear was a very 

 large specimen, yielding not less than loolb. of fat, arid a skin 

 about eight feet long. 



It is not, however, that we often hear of an accident happening 

 in a bear hunt, especially unless the bear is wounded. It is a 

 common idea here that in attacking a man the bear never uses his 

 paw to strike with like a lion or tiger, which, however, is always 

 the case when it falls upon horses or cattle. Moreover, it is not 

 always the bear's custom when rushing on a man to raise himself 

 on his hind legs, as is generally supposed ; but he more often comes 

 in end on end like a fierce dog. There is not much danger incurred 

 from the bear itself in the " skalls," as they are carried on in the mid- 

 land districts, when a couple of hundred or more men assemble and 

 drive the forests up to the beaters 5 but much more to be appre- 

 hended from the shooters themselves. In the northern forests and 

 fells, however, where men are scarce, the hunters often attack the 

 bear single-handed, or with, at most, one comrade, and the chase of 

 the bear then becomes a hazardous and exciting sport. It is princi- 

 pally in the autumn when the bears lay up in their "ide," or winter 

 quarters, or in the spring, when they wake up from their winter's 

 sleep, that they are killed. Two of these northern peasants, on 

 skiddor (or snow skates), will sally out in pursuit of a bear, whose 

 footsteps have been tracked in the snow, armed, perhaps, with a 

 small pea rifle of the most primitive make, and which carries a ball 

 of about forty to the pound (and yet a bear has often been known 

 to fall dead from one shot, if hit in the right place), but also with 

 a spear, upon which the hunter places his chief reliance, and which 

 to my idea is a far more formidable weapon. This spear consists of 

 a tough pole about ten feet long, armed at the top with a four- 

 cornered steel spike, nearly a foot long, the point and edges as keen 

 as a razor (which is always, when not in use, kept in a sheath), and 



B 2 



