[Sidenote: Possible truth in Harold's ocean voyage]
When we have shorn Adam's tale of all borrowed features, is there enough left to make it possible that the Norwegian king Harold undertook a voyage out into the ocean? It is not easy to form a definite opinion on this, but the probability must be that King Svein or the Danes told some such story, which was then adorned by Master Adam. As the voyage was supposed to have taken place recently, it must be Harold Hardråde who was intended, otherwise one might be led to think of Harold Gråfeld's celebrated voyage to Bjarmeland.[132] What the object may have been, and what direction the voyage took, we do not know. As Adam says it was to explore "the breadth of the northern ocean" ("latitudinem septentrionalis oceani"), one must suppose that in his opinion it set out from Norway northward or north-westward over the ocean towards its uttermost limit, since according to the maps and ideas of that time he imagined the ocean as surrounding the disc of the earth like a ribbon (see vol. i. p. 199), and he may then have sailed across this to find out its extent.[133] But it is quite possible, as P. A. Munch [1852, ii. pp. 269, ff.] suggested, that Master Adam may have heard something about a northward voyage undertaken by Harold, during which he had been exposed to some danger in the Saltström or the Moskenström;[134] or if it was a voyage to Bjarmeland (Harold Gråfeld's ?) that he heard of, then it might be the current at Sviatoi Nos or Straumneskinn, often spoken of in the sagas, that Adam has made into the whirlpool.
WHALING AND SEALING VOYAGES OF THE NORWEGIANS IN THE POLAR SEA
The skill of the Norwegians as fishermen, whalers and sealers had, of course, a great deal to do with the development of their seamanship and ability to travel and support themselves along unknown and uninhabited shores. The accurate knowledge of the many species of seals and whales shown in the "King's Mirror," to which no parallel is met with earlier in the literature of the world, proves how important the hunting of these animals must have been; for otherwise so much attention would not have been paid to them.[135] When in speaking of the greater whales a distinction is made between those that are shy and keep away from the hunters, and those that are tamer and easier to approach, and when the longest of all ("reyðr") is mentioned as being specially tame and easily caught, we can only regard this as showing that whaling was also carried on in the open sea; that is, not in a merely accidental fashion, as when the whales entered narrow fjords where they could be intercepted, or when they ran aground.