[267] The merchant weighs the carcase when cold, melts the tallow, and pays a price varying according to the market, from fourteen skillings to a mark. The people have a strange idea that sheep falling into snow crevasses, and found a year or two afterwards, are naturally salted—a curious appendage to the “freezing upwards” theory.
[268] The other imports not accounted for are alum, drugs, ashes, ink, brushmakers’ work, cocoa, chocolate, ale in bottle and in cask (the latter, 11,776 lbs. in 1865), wine in bottle and cask (the latter, 23,137 lbs.), vinegar, essences, catechu and galls, indigo, dyestuffs and varnish, playing-cards, “galanterie wares,” glass ware, resin and gums, caps, stone china, pork and hams (2,480 lbs.), meat (2,279 lbs.), cork, buckwheat meal (880 lbs.), oatmeal (319 lbs.), spices (1,016 lbs.), coals (157 tons), cotton goods (62,484 lbs.), silk (11 lbs.), woollen goods (686 lbs.), block metal (786 lbs.), bar and hoop iron (63,486 lbs.), nails (23,441 lbs.), iron chain (404 lbs.), iron wares (33,770 lbs.), zinc in plates, hardware sundries (6,981 lbs.), cheese (1,736 lbs.), paper (6,210 lbs.), soap (12,225 lbs.), sago, etc. (811 lbs.), saltpetre (297 lbs.), prepared hides, and skins (4,508 lbs.), acids (309 lbs.), tea (918 lbs.), ropemakers’ work (22,770 lbs.), wood goods (14,294 cubic feet), worked woods (42,993 lbs.), vitriol (4,519 lbs.), and bar steel (1,441 lbs.).
[269] Here and there an eagle skin may be bought; and in country parts the quills of the royal bird are used as pens. The only species is the white-tailed Haliaetus (H. albicilla or F. leucocephalus).
[270] Mr Jón A. Hjaltalín observes: “If by ‘home’ is meant the place where the songs were first made, this is undoubtedly correct, according to accepted theories; but then Norway would not then be their home any more than Iceland. On the other hand, it is indisputable that their last and only home was in Iceland, when they were nowhere else to be found. The allusions in the songs give no clue to their birthplace. You may find an Icelander of the present day singing of lions and elephants. And if they can do so now, why not in former times also?” The author would remark that the Elder Edda has evidently been preserved by memory from earlier ages, and that its origin must have been in Continental Scandinavia. It is rather the spirit of the poetry than the scattered allusions which suggests that much of it was not addressed to islanders. A comparison of the Völuspá with any Icelandic composition will explain what is here meant; and Mr Benjamin Thorpe seems to have been struck by the same idea.
[271] We find an Ulf’s-vatn in Iceland, but probably the name was given in memory of the old home, or as Úlfr was a proper name like Vuk in Slav, the first settler may have so christened it.
[272] Skáldr (Germ. Schalte) means a pole; and inasmuch as the Scald-pole (Skáld-stöng or Níð-stöng) was scored with charms and imprecations—as Martin Capella (fifth century) writes:
“Barbara fraxineis sculpatur runa tabellis;”—
so “pole” came to signify a libel. Hence Skáld may be akin to the Germ. Schelten, and the familiar English “Scold.” Afterwards it took the meaning of poetry in a good sense, and Skáldskapr (Skaldship) was applied to the form of verse, metre, flow, and diction (Cleasby). It is hardly necessary to observe that the word is of disputed origin, the five general derivations being Skalla (depilare), Skiael (wisdom = our “skill”), Skjall (narratic), Skal (sources), and Gala (to sing). “Hirðskáld” corresponds with our poet-laureate.
[273] Von Hammer counts 5744 Arabic terms for a camel.
[274] The total is 3060, but this would include the classics who have treated of Istria.