[145] The text has “culmi” (literally, straw), which gives no sense. We must suppose that something has been omitted in the MS. of Albertus that was used in the printed edition; or else he has taken the description from an older source, which had it correctly, and from which later authors have taken the same expression; for otherwise it is difficult to understand their using it in a reasonable way. Erik Walkendorf (circa 1520) says of the walrus in Finmark: “They have a stiff and bristly beard as long as the palm of a hand, as thick as a straw (‘crassitudine magni culmi’), they have rough bristly (‘hirsuta’) skin, two fingers thick, which has an incredible strength and firmness”; but he says nothing about the method of catching them [Walkendorf, 1902, p. 12]. Olaus Magnus [I, xxi. c. 25] says that walruses (“morsi” or “rosmari”) appear on the northern coast of Norway. “They have a head like an ox, have rough (bristly, ‘hirsutam’) skin, and hair as thick as straw (‘culmos’) or the stalks of corn (‘calamos frumenti’) which stands in all directions. They heave themselves up by their tusks to the tops of rocks as with ladders, in order to eat the grass bedewed with fresh water, and roll themselves back into the sea, unless in the meantime they are overcome by very deep sleep and remain hanging.” Then follows the same story of catching them as in Albertus Magnus. This is done, he says, chiefly for the sake of the tusks, “which were highly prized by the Scythians, Rutens and Tartars,” etc. “This is witnessed also by Miechouita.” This description of Olaus is evidently put together from older statements which we find in Albertus Magnus, in Walkendorf, and in Russian sources, of which he himself quotes Mikhow (who is also mentioned in Pistorius; see below).
[146] This was very valuable on account of its strength, and was much used for ships’ cables, mooring-hawsers, and many other purposes.
[147] Saxo, viii. 287, f.; ed. by H. Jantzen, 1900, pp. 447, ff.; ed. by P. Herrmann, 1901, pp. 385, ff.
[148] In the description of Greenland attributed to Ivar Bárdsson we read: “Item from Langanes, which lies uppermost (or northernmost) in Iceland by the aforesaid Hornns it is two days’ and two nights’ sail to Sualberde in haffsbaane (or haffsbotnen).” [F. Jónsson, 1899, p. 323.]
[149] Monumenta hist. Norv., ed. G. Storm, 1880, pp. 74. f., 79.
[150] In the “Rymbegla” [1780, p. 350] is mentioned, together with other fabulous beings in this part of the world, “the people called ‘Hornfinnar,’ they have in their foreheads a horn bent downwards, and they are cannibals.”
[151] Cf. also A. Bugge, 1898, p. 499; G. Isachsen, 1907.
[152] True north of Langanes there is no land: Jan Mayen lies nearest, N.N.E., and Greenland W.N.W. As the “leidar-stein” (compass) was known in Iceland when Hauk’s Landnámabók was written (cf. vol. i. p. 248), magnetic directions might be meant here, and the variation of the compass may at that time have been great enough to make Greenland lie north (magnetic) of Langanes. In that case it is perhaps strange that Langanes should be mentioned as the starting-point, and not some place that lay nearer; but it might be supposed that this was because one had first to sail far to the east to avoid the ice, when making for the northern east coast of Greenland. A large eastern variation would also agree with Jolldulaup in Ireland lying south of Reykjanes, the uninhabited parts of Greenland lying north of Kolbeins-ey (Mevenklint, see vol. i. p. 286), and the statement in the Sturlubók that from Snæfellsnes it was “four ‘dœgr’s’ sea west to Greenland” [i.e., Hvarf]. But it does not agree with this that from Bergen (or Hennö) the course was “due west” to Hvarf in Greenland; and still less does it agree with its being, according to the Sturlubók, “seven ‘dœgr’s’ sail west from Stad in Norway to Horn in East Iceland.” If these are courses by compass, we must then suppose a large eastern variation between Norway and Iceland, which indeed is not impossible, but which will not accord with a large western variation between Reykjanes and Ireland. The probability is, therefore, that magnetic courses are not intended.
[153] As already mentioned, a “dœgr” was half a day of twenty-four hours, and a “dœgr’s” sail is thus the distance sailed in a day or in a night. One might, perhaps, be tempted to think that here, where it is a question of sailing over the open sea, and where it would therefore be impossible to anchor for the night, as on the coast, a “dœgr’s” sail might mean the distance covered in the whole twenty-four hours [cf. G. Isachsen, 1907]; but it appears from a passage in St. Olaf’s Saga (in “Heimskringla”), amongst others, that this was not the usual way of reckoning; for we read there (cap. 125) that Thorarinn Nevjolfsson sailed in eight “dœgr” from Möre in Norway to Eyrar in south-western Iceland. Thorarinn went straight to the Althing and there said that “he had parted from King Olaf four nights before....” The eight “dœgr” mean, therefore, four days’ and four nights’ sailing. Precisely the same thing appears from the sailing directions given above ([p. 166]) from Ivor Bárdsson’s description, where four “dœgr’s” sea is taken as two days’ and two nights’ sail.
[154] Sometimes also called Nordbotn (cf. vol. i, pp. 262, 303), perhaps mostly in fairy-tales. This form of the name is still extant in a fairy-tale from Fyresdal and Eidsborg about “Riketor Kræmar” [H. Ross in “Dölen,” 1869, vii. No. 23].