As we nowhere find mention of these sealing expeditions of the Norwegians in the Polar Sea, except in Ottar’s narrative, it may be difficult to show certain evidence of their having taken place; but the Russians’ seal-hunting in the Polar Sea, of which we hear as early as the sixteenth century, can in my opinion scarcely be explained in any other way than as a continuation in the main of the Norwegians’ sealing. When the English, and later the Dutch, came to the Murman coast and the coasts eastwards as far as the Pechora, Vaigach and Novaya Zemlya, they found fleets of Russian smacks engaged in fishing and walrus-hunting; most of them were from the Murman coast, some from the White Sea, and a few from the Pechora. Stephen Burrough thus found in June 1556 no less than thirty smacks in the Kola fjord, which had come sailing down the river, on their way to fishing- and sealing-grounds to the east. These smacks sailed well with the wind free, could also be rowed with twenty oars, and had each a crew of twenty-four men.
Pistorius[155] refers to Andrei Mikhow as saying that the “Juctri” (Yugrians in the Pechora district) and “Coreli” (Karelian) on the coast of the Polar Sea hunted seals and whales, of whose skins they made ropes, purses, and ...? (“redas, bursas et coletas”), and used the blubber (for lighting ?) and sold it. They also hunted walrus (called by Mikhow by its Norwegian name “rosmar”),[156] the tusks of which they sold to the Russians. The latter kept a certain quantity for their own use, and sent the rest to Tartary and Turkey. The hunting was said to proceed in a curious fashion; the walruses, which were very numerous, clambering up on to the mountain-ridges and there perishing in great numbers.[157] The Yugrians and Karelians then collected the tusks on the shore. Is there here some confusion with stories of the collection of mammoth tusks?
What was said earlier ([p. 145]) from an Arabian source about steel blades being sold to the peoples on the coast of the Polar Sea in North Russia seems to point to sea-hunting having been well developed in these regions as early as the twelfth century; for otherwise steel for hunting appliances could not have been a common article of commerce.
That Norwegians and Russians often met in northern waters may apparently be concluded from the words already quoted from Erik Walkendorf, about 1520 (cf. [p. 86]), that fifteen of the Skrælings did not venture to approach a Christian or Ruten (i.e., Russian). As he places the land of the Skrælings north-north-west of Finmark, this seems to be a legend that is brought into connection with the Polar Sea. Of walrus-tusks he says that “these are costly and greatly prized among the Russians.” Unless this is taken from older literary sources (?), one might suppose that it was information he himself had obtained in Finmark, and it might then point to the Norwegians having sold walrus-tusks to the Russians.
Russians and Lapps learned walrus-hunting from the Norwegians
The fact that, as mentioned above, a Russian author of the sixteenth century (Mikhow) uses the Norwegian name “rosmar” seems also to point to Russian connection with the Norwegians in the arctic fisheries. In addition to this, the Russian word “morsh” for walrus is evidently the same as the Lappish “moršša” (Finnish “mursu”), and may originally be the same word as “rosmar” (“rosmhvalr”). For it is striking that the same letters are present in “morsh” or “moršša” as in “rosm(hvalr),” or in “rosmar”; there is only a transference of consonants, which is often met with in borrowed words in different languages.
I asked Professor Konrad Nielsen what he thought about this, and whether he could imagine any Finnish-Ugrian origin of the word, or whether any similar word was known, for instance, in Samoyed. He considers that my assumption may “be quite well founded.”[158] He has consulted Professor Setälä of Helsingfors about it, and the latter thinks that if the word was borrowed from Finnish into Russian, there is nothing to prevent its being connected with the Norse rosm(hvalr)—the latter would then, of course, be the primary form. Similar metatheses are found in other Norse loan-words in Finnish. Konrad Nielsen thinks that “the Lappish word is pretty certainly borrowed from Finnish, so that the idea of its Norse origin meets with no difficulty from that quarter.” And as to the possible Russian origin of the word, he has spoken to the Slavic authority, Professor Mikkola, who informs him that in popular language the Russian word is only found in the most northern dialects, and there is no point of connection in other Slavic languages, so that he regards it as probable that it is not originally a Slavic word. No Finnish-Ugrian etymology for the word can, according to Konrad Nielsen, be put forward. “In Samoyed,” he says, “the name for walrus is only known as far as Jura-Samoyed (the most western dialect of Samoyed) is concerned: ‘t’ewot’e,’ ‘tiut’ei.’ I have compared this with the Lappish name for seal, ‘dævok’—‘davak’—‘dævkka.’ In this I see evidence that the Lapps (contrary to Wiklund’s view) were acquainted with the Polar Sea and its animals before they came to Scandinavia.” He also draws my attention to the fact that “the Finnish ‘norsu’ (in the older language also ‘nursa’), ‘elephant,’ seems to be connected with ‘mursu,’ which is easily explained by the analogous use of walrus-tusks and elephant-tusks.”
Professor Olaf Broch also considers my assumption probable, and has submitted the question of the etymology of the Russian “morsh” to Professor Berneker, who may doubtless be regarded as the first authority in questions of this kind. He replies that a “wild” etymologist might connect the word with a series of words in Slavic languages which express various movements; but the Russian word, being so definitely localised, must doubtless be derived from the North-Finnish linguistic region. Whether the Finnish “mursu,” Lappish “moršša,” “morša,” can be referred to a metathesis of Old Norse rosmhvalr, Danish rosmer, etc., Professor Berneker is unable to determine. “But with loan-words all sorts of anomalies take place, and no rules can be laid down.”
If we compare these various utterances of such eminent authorities, it appears to me that there are paramount reasons for regarding the Russian-Finnish name for walrus as of Norse origin. But in that case it also becomes probable that the Norwegians were the pioneers in walrus-hunting along the coasts of the Polar Sea, and that both the Finnish peoples and the Russians learned from them.
It will doubtless be difficult to find a natural explanation of the peoples on the northern coasts of Russia having from the first developed their arctic sea-hunting with large craft, unless we suppose that they learned it from the Norwegians, and that it is thus a continuation of the methods of the latter. It should also be remembered that the Kola peninsula as far as the White Sea itself was reckoned a tributary country of Norway (cf. [p. 135]), and that the name of the Murman coast means simply the Norwegians’ coast. None of the peoples on the north coast of Russia can have been a seafaring people very far back, as is shown by their boats and appliances; and it is difficult to believe that they should have been able to develop independently a system of navigation on a coast presenting such unfavourable conditions; no doubt they could have done so with small boats, originally river-boats,[159] but not with larger craft; this they must most probably have learned from their nearest seafaring neighbours, the Norwegians, who were masters at sea.