of Edinburgh, Session 1871 - 72 . 
641 
to a whale captured or driven ashore later than the Scandinavian - 
Pagan period in Orkney, or say the ninth or tenth century.” 
As bearing on the early history of the sperm-whale in the Bri¬ 
tish islands, I may next refer to a passage in a memoir by the 
eminent Norwegian archaeologist, Professor P. A. Munch, to 
which my attention has been directed by Mr Joseph Anderson, 
the curator of the Antiquarian Museum. The memoir is en¬ 
titled “ Geographical Elucidations of the Scottish and Irish Local 
Names occurring in the Sagas,’ 5 * and on pp. 128, 129, Professor 
Munch, in his account of the Shetland Isles, says:—“ The island 
of Yell is nearly divided into two halves by the deep fiords which 
penetrate on each side, Whalefirth (HvalfjorSr) on the west, and 
Beafirth (Bey'Sarfjorftr) on the east. In a deed dated May 19, 
1307, which speaks of the pledging of the estate Kollavagr, now 
Cullavoe, one of the witnesses is a Ilogni i BeySarfirSi. This 
BeySarfjorSr is clearly the above Beafirth, early contracted, or 
rather corrupted, even by Norse speakers, to Bafjord.” Further, 
Professor Munch states, it is very suitable that the two opposite 
fiords should be called, the one HvalfjorSr and the other Bey¬ 
SarfjorSr, for BeySr (now called BoSr or Bor, in Norway), is also a 
kind of whale, the Physeter macrocephalus , black-headed sperma¬ 
ceti whale. 
If we are to accept this interpretation by Professor Munch, that 
the old Norse term BeySar was equivalent to our sperm-whale, then 
we should have to assume that this cetacean was so well known to 
the ancient Norsemen that they had coined a word to designate it. 
And it is indeed not improbable that, considering their roving 
habits, they may have sailed in the seas which it most usually 
frequents, and perhaps have chased it for the sake of its valuable 
oil. 
But from the association of this name with a particular firth in 
the Shetland group of islands, it would, granting the accuracy of 
Munch’s interpretation, seem as if, in the early years of the Norse 
settlement, the sperm-whale had not unfrequently entered this firth, 
and perhaps been captured there—a circumstance which would 
show that this animal was then a much more frequent visitor of 
* Memoires de la Soc. Royale des Antiquaries du Nord, 1850-1800, 
Copenhague. 
