WHALING AND SEALING VOYAGES OF THE NORWEGIANS IN THE POLAR SEA
The Norwegians as whalers.
The skill of the Norwegians as fishermen, whalers and sealers had, of course, a great deal to do with the development of their seamanship and ability to travel and support themselves along unknown and uninhabited shores. The accurate knowledge of the many species of seals and whales shown in the “King’s Mirror,” to which no parallel is met with earlier in the literature of the world, proves how important the hunting of these animals must have been; for otherwise so much attention would not have been paid to them.[135] When in speaking of the greater whales a distinction is made between those that are shy and keep away from the hunters, and those that are tamer and easier to approach, and when the longest of all (“reyðr”) is mentioned as being specially tame and easily caught, we can only regard this as showing that whaling was also carried on in the open sea; that is, not in a merely accidental fashion, as when the whales entered narrow fjords where they could be intercepted, or when they ran aground.
Cutting up a whale
(from an Icelandic MS. of the fourteenth century
of Magnus Lanabóter’s Icelandic Land Law)
From Ottar’s statement to King Alfred (cf. vol. i. p. 172)—that “in his own land [i.e., Norway] there is the best whaling. They are forty-eight cubits long, and the largest are fifty cubits long”—we may conclude that the Norwegians, and perhaps the Lapps also, hunted the great whales as early as the ninth century, and doubtless long before that time, while King Alfred does not seem to have known of any such whaling being practised in England.[136] We are not told in what way the whale was caught in those days, but from statements elsewhere it is probable that the Norwegians had several methods of taking whales, as is the case even to the present day in Norway: one way was with the harpoon and harpoon-line in open waters, that is, without cutting off the whale’s escape with nets.
The Arab cosmographer, Qazwînî (of the thirteenth century), quoting the Spanish-Arabic writer Omar al-’Udhrî[137] (of the eleventh century), says that the Norsemen in Irlânda (Ireland).
“hunt young whales, and they are very great fish. They hunt their young and eat them.... Of the method of catching them al-’Udhrî relates that the hunters collect in their ships. They have a great iron hook [i.e., harpoon] with sharp teeth, and on the hook a strong ring, and in the ring a stout rope. When they come to a young one, they clap their hands and make a noise. The young one is amused by the clapping of hands and approaches the ship, delighting therein. Thereupon one of the seamen approaches and scratches its forehead, which the young one likes. Then he lays the hook to the middle of its head, takes a heavy iron hammer and gives three blows with all his force upon the hook. It does not heed the first blow, but with the second and third it makes a great commotion, and sometimes it catches some part of the ship with its tail, and knocks it to pieces, and it continues in violent agitation until it is overcome by exhaustion. Then the crew of the ship draw it to shore with their combined force. Sometimes the mother notices the movements of the young one, and pursues them. Then they have a great quantity of crushed onions in readiness, and throw it into the water. When the whale perceives the smell of the onions it finds it detestable, turns round and retreats. Then they cut the flesh of the young one in pieces and salt it.[138] And its flesh is white as snow, and its skin black as ink.”[139]
This is, clearly enough, a layman’s naive description of whaling with harpoon and harpoon-line in open waters, a method which had therefore already been introduced into Ireland by the Norwegians at that time. It may consequently be regarded as certain that the Norwegians were acquainted with harpooning. That this was very usual appears also from the “King’s Mirror” and the ancient Norwegian laws, where whaling and whale-harpoons (“skutill”) are often mentioned.
