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.
[Illustration: Cutting up a whale (from an Icelandic MS.)]
On the west coast of Norway, in the neighbourhood of Bergen, there is still practised to-day another method of catching whales which must be very ancient. When the great whales enter certain fjords which have a narrow inlet, their escape is cut off by nets, and they are shot with poisoned arrows from bows which entirely resemble the crossbows of the Middle Ages. The arrows used are old and rusty, and convey bacteria from one whale to another. When the whale has been hit by these arrows it is rapidly weakened from blood-poisoning, so that it may easily be harpooned and then killed by lances, after which it is cut up and divided among the inhabitants of the fjord, according to ancient, unwritten rules. In spite of the blood-poisoning, the whale's flesh and blubber are eaten, and are regarded as very valuable provisions. I have myself often taken part in this kind of whaling. Possibly Peder Claussön Friis [cf. Storm, 1881, p. 70] refers to a similar method of whaling when he says that
"in ancient times many expedients or methods were used for catching whales, which ... on account of men's unskilfulness have fallen out of use."
They had "a spear with sharp irons, so that it could not be pulled out again." This was hurled into the whale, which died in a short time, or became so weakened that it could be drawn to land;
"which whales were then cut up and divided among those who had shot, and him who owned the land, or him who had first found the whale driven in, according to the provisions of the law."
We must suppose that this iron was poisoned with bacteria from former whales, in a similar way to the arrows mentioned above, whereby the animal's wound was infected. However, Peder Claussön's description of the hunt is evidently taken in great measure from older literary sources, since similar descriptions are found as early as in Albertus Magnus (ob. 1280) [De animalibus, xxiv. 651], and in Vincent of Beauvais [Speculum universalis, i. 1272]. In all three authors the whale dives after being struck, and tosses about on the bottom or rubs itself against it, thereby driving the spear farther in; but in Peder Claussön it does so in order to "get rid of the shot," while in Albertus it is on account of salt water getting into the wound, and in Vincentius the salt water penetrates and kills the wounded whale. As the descriptions of Albertus and Vincentius evidently refer to ordinary harpoon-whaling, it may be doubtful whether Peder Claussön's statement really relates to a method of catching different from the usual one with harpoon and line, although one is disposed to believe that it does. He also mentions in the same place other whales that they could "pursue with boats and drive into bays and small fjords, and kill them there with hand-shot and bow-shot." This may be supposed to refer to a method similar to that mentioned above, with poisoned arrows; but, on the other hand, it may relate to a third method of taking small whales, which was certainly practised from very early times in Norway, and which consists in schools of small whales being driven into bays and inlets, where they are intercepted with nets and driven ashore.