[758] Cap. 5, p. 616.
[759] Langebek Scriptores Rerum Danicarum, fol. ii. p. 111.
[760] Torfæi Hist. Norveg. P. 2, p. 34. Compare Schlözer’s Nordische Geschichte in Algem. Welthistor. vol. xxxi. pp. 445, 458.—Having heard from M. Schlözer that the first certain traces of the Russian fur trade were to be found in the Russian Chronicles, works never yet used, I requested him, as the only person in Germany who could draw from these sources, to transmit to me what he had remarked on that subject. I am indebted to him, therefore, for the following valuable information, the result of a laborious comparison of various manuscript chronicles, for which he will no doubt receive the reader’s thanks.
“The following passages are taken from the ten Russian Chronicles, the greater part of them still in manuscript, as a proof that from the ninth century tribute in furs was demanded from the people in Russia by their conquerors.
I. “In the year 859, the Waringians, who came by sea, had tribute from the Tschudi, the Slavi, the Meri, and the Kriwitsches, a squirrel per man. The Chazares (in the Crimea) had tribute from the Poles (the inhabitants of the Ukrain), the Severians and the Wæitsches, a squirrel for each fireplace or hearth.
“The squirrel Sciurus vulgaris had in the old and new Russian language the five following names:—1st. ‘Bēla.’ This primitive word has been lost in the new Russian language, but is still preserved in the Chronicles, and in the adjectives ‘bēlij’ and ‘bēliczij mēch, Grauwerk’ (squirrel-skins). ‘Bēl’ in all the Sclavonic dialects signifies white. Can any connexion be discovered between the squirrel and a white colour? 2nd. ‘Bēlka,’ the diminutive of the former, is at present generally current. 3rd. ‘Wēkscha,’ from which is derived, 4th. ‘Wēkschitza,’ the diminutive. 5th. ‘Weweritza’ is old, but still exists in the Polish.
“The variations of these words which occur in manuscripts are abundant, and some of them exceedingly laughable. One transcriber has ‘bēla;’ most of the rest add ‘wēkscha,’ ‘wēkschitza’ or ‘weweritza,’ as if ‘bēla’ were the adjective white. Two manuscripts say expressly, ‘bēla,’ that is ‘wēkscha.’ In one, however, from ‘bēla weweritza’ has been made ‘bēla ‘dewitza,’ a fair or beautiful maid.
II. “In the year 883 Oleg went against the Drewians and Severians, whom he obliged to pay tribute, each a black marten.
“‘Po czernē kunē’ stands in all the manuscripts; one only has the diminutive ‘kunitzē.’ Another bad manuscript, which has ‘konē,’ a black horse, is not worthy of any remark.
III. “In 969 Svātoslav spoke to his mother and boyars: ‘I am not fond of Kief; I will reside in Pereyaslawetz on the Danube. There I shall be in the middle of my lands, to which every thing good in my territories flows: from the Greeks gold and pavoloki (silk-stuffs?), and wine and fruit of every kind; from the Tscheches (Bohemians) and Hungarians silver and horses; from Russia skora, wax, honey, and servants.’ Skora, skura, furs (according to the Great Lexicon of the Russian Academy), from which is derived skornak, similar furs prepared. That coarse skins or furs (in Russian schurka), such as the terga boum, imposed by the Romans on the Frieslanders, are not here meant, is proved by a passage in the Chronicle of Nicon, vol. ii. p. 15, where it is related of a savage people, who lived far to the north on the Ural, that they gave skora for a knife and a hatchet.