[Sidenote: Warlike and peaceful relations with the White Sea in the twelfth century and later]
This is the last Norwegian expedition to Bjarmeland of which Norwegian accounts are known; but that the White Sea traffic continued, though it was never very active, may be concluded from other sources. The name of the Bjarmas themselves disappears after the middle of the thirteenth century, when it is related that a number of Bjarmas fled before the "Mongols" and received permission from King Håkon to live in Malangen fjord. After that time in the districts near the Dvina we only hear of Karelians and their masters the Russians of Novgorod.
That there was considerable navigation, probably combined with piratical incursions, between the north of Norway and the countries to the east, may also appear from a provision of the older Gulathings Law, where in cap. 315, in a codex of 1200-1250, we find:
"The inhabitants of Hálogaland are to fit out thirteen twenty-seated and one thirty-seated ship in the southern half, but six in the northern half; since they [i.e., the inhabitants of the northern half] have to keep guard on the east."
This keeping guard might, it is true, refer to Kvæns in Finmark, but it seems rather to point to ships coming from the east. In the negotiations of 1251, between the Grand Duke of Novgorod (Alexander Nevsky) and Håkon Håkonsson, there is express mention of disturbances from the east in Finmark, and after that time we hear more frequently of hostile incursions of Karelians and Russians in Finmark; they may have come by land, but occasionally also by sea.
[Illustration: On snow-shoes through the border-lands of Norway (Olaus Magnus, 1555)]
A treaty of 1326 between Norway and Novgorod shows that Norwegian merchants traded with the people of Novgorod on the White Sea. The erection of the fortress of Vardöhus, as early as 1307, also shows the importance attached to these eastern communications, and the fortress certainly afforded them a fixed point of support. Thus about 1550 we see that "Vardöhus weight" (mark and pound) had penetrated into northern Russia and was generally used in the North Russian fish and oil trade. The Norwegians chiefly bought furs in Bjarmeland, but what they exported thither is not mentioned in the Norwegian notices; it may even at that time have been to some extent fish, which in later times was the most important article of export to North Russia from the north of Norway.