He himself, he says, wished to go there from Bulgar, but gave it up, as little benefit was to be expected of it. “That land lies 40 days’ journey from Bulgar, and the journey is only made in small cars[122] drawn by dogs. For this desert has a frozen surface, upon which neither men nor horses can get foothold, but dogs can, as they have claws. This journey is only undertaken by rich merchants, each taking with him about a hundred carriages [sledges ?], provided with sufficient food, drink and wood; for in that country there is found neither trees, nor stones nor soil. As a guide through this land they have a dog which has already made the journey several times, and it is so highly prized that they pay as much as a thousand dinars [gold pieces] for one. This dog is harnessed with three others by the neck to a car [sledge ?], so that it goes as the leader and the others follow it. When it stops, the others do the same.... When the travellers have accomplished forty days’ journey through the desert, they stop in the Land of Darkness, leave their wares there, and withdraw to their quarters. Next morning they go back to the same spot ...” and then follows a description of the dumb barter, like that in Qazwînî. They receive sable, squirrel and ermine in exchange for their goods. “Those who go thither do not know with whom they trade, whether they be spirits or men; they see no one.”[123]
Of special interest for our subject is the following statement in Abû Hâmid (1080-1169 or 1170) which may point to the peoples on the shores of the Polar Sea having obtained steel for their harpoons and sealing weapons from Persia:
“The traders travel from Bulgâr to one of the lands of the infidels which is called Îsû [Wîsu], from which the beaver comes. They take swords thither which they buy in Âdherbeiǵân [Persia], unpolished blades. They pour water often over these, so that when the blades are hung up by a cord and struck, they ring.... And that is as they ought to be. They buy beavers’ skins with these blades. The inhabitants of Îsû go with these swords to a land near the darkness and lying on the Dark Sea [the northern Atlantic or the Polar Sea] and sell these swords for sables’ skins. They [i.e., the inhabitants of that country] again take some of these blades and cast them into the Dark Sea. Then Allâh lets a fish as big as a mountain come up to them, etc. They cut up its flesh for days and months, and sometimes fill 100,000 houses with it,” etc. [Cf. Jacob, 1891, p. 76; 1891a, p. 29; Mehren, 1857, pp. 169, f.]
It is not credible that the swords which rang in this way were harpoons, as Jacob thinks. We must rather suppose that they were rough (“unpolished”) steel blades, which were used for making harpoons and lances (for walrus-hunting and whaling). The blades having water poured over them must doubtless mean the tempering of the steel, through which, when it was afterwards hung up by a cord, it came to give the true ring. Although Abû Hâmid is no trustworthy writer, it seems that there must be some reality at the base of this statement; and we here have information about some of the wares that the traders carried to Wîsu, and that were derived from their commercial intercourse with Arabs and Jews. The people to whom the inhabitants of Wîsu or Vesses took the steel blades must have been fishermen on the shore of the Polar Sea, who carried on seal- and walrus-hunting, and perhaps also whaling, and this is what is referred to by the fish that Allâh sends up. They may have been Samoyeds (on the Pechora), Karelians, Tver-Finns, and even Norwegians. It might be objected that sables cannot be supposed to have been obtained from the last-named; but this is doubtless not to be taken too literally. Ibn Ruste (circa 912 A.D.) thus says that the Rûs (Scandinavians, usually Swedes) had no other occupation but trading in sables, squirrel and other furs, which they sold to any one who would buy them.
It seems to result from what may be trustworthy in these statements that there was fairly active commercial intercourse from Bulgar with the Vesses and with the peoples on the White Sea, and perhaps in districts near the Polar Sea. A shortest night of one hour would take us to a little north of the mouth of the Dvina. In the land of the Vesses by Lake Byelo-ozero there was an easy way across from the Volga’s tributary Syexna to Lake Kubenskoye, which has a connection with the Dvina; and there was also transit to the river Onega. There was thus easy communication along the great rivers; but besides this the traders seem also to have travelled overland with dogs; this was probably when going north to Yugria and the country of the Pechora, in the same way as traders in our time generally go there with reindeer. The trade in furs was then, as in antiquity, the powerful incentive; it was that too which chiefly attracted the Norwegians to Bjarmeland.
It is not likely that the Arabs themselves reached North Russia; one would suppose rather that travelling Jews assisted as middlemen in the trade with these regions. But the finding of Arab coins on the Pechora would point to Arab trade having penetrated through intermediaries to the shores of the Polar Sea.[124]
THE POLAR EXPEDITION OF THE FRISIAN NOBLES AND KING HAROLD’S VOYAGE TO THE WHIRLPOOL
The Frisian nobles’ Polar expedition
Among mediæval voyages to the North there remain yet to be mentioned Harold Hardråde’s expedition[125] and the voyage of the Frisian nobles, related by Adam of Bremen in the descriptions already given (vol. i. pp. 195, f.). That the latter voyage must be an invention, and cannot contain much of historical value, is obvious (cf. vol. i. p. 196). The whole description of the abyss or maelstrom is taken from Paulus Warnefridi (as will be seen by a comparison of the descriptions on pp. 157 and 195, vol. i.); the Cyclopes of marvellous stature, as well as the treasures of gold that they guard, are originally derived from classical literature, although Adam may have taken them from earlier mediæval authors, and Northern ideas about the giants in the north in Jotunheim may have helped to localise the story.[126] The great darkness, the stiffened sea, chaos and the gulf of the abyss at the uttermost end of the world or of the ocean are all classical conceptions, and the description itself of the dangers of the voyage, of the darkness that could scarcely be penetrated by the eyes, etc., is just what we find in classical literature, and in many points bears great resemblance to the poem of Albinovanus Pedo, for example (see vol. i. p. 82). It is possible, of course, that there may be thus much historical truth in the story, that some Frisian nobles made a voyage to the Orkneys or perhaps to Iceland, but even this is doubtful, and the rest is demonstrably invention. In spite of this Master Adam asserts that Archbishop Adalbert in person had told him all this, and that it happened in the days of his predecessor, Archbishop Alebrand, who had the story from the travellers’ own lips; for they returned to Bremen and brought thank-offerings to Christ and to their saint “Willehad” for their safety. One might suppose that these nobles themselves had invented the story and told it to the archbishop;[127] but it does not seem likely that they were acquainted with Paulus Warnefridi’s description of the maelstrom, and the Cyclopes with their treasures in the north seem also to be learned embroidery; they might have heard oral tales about them, but in any case we may doubtless suppose that the story has been much “improved” by Adam. There is a mediæval folk-song about the dangers of sailors at sea which may also be supposed to have contributed to the description.
King Harold’s voyage to the maelstrom