‘Mit navn er Petter Dass,/ som boer mod Verdens Ende’ (My name is Petter Dass, who lives at the end of the world) – in this way the Norwegian poet and priest Petter Dass (1647–1707) presented himself in a poem letter to Dorothe Engelbretsdatter in 1680, a poet in Bergen.1 Here Petter Dass combines an allusion to classical literature, Ovid’s Tristia, orbis ultimus, with a reference to the remote place his residence, Nordland – “Northland” – in Arctic Norway. The quotation nicely illustrates the paradox inherent in the life and work of the subject of this article, namely his ambition to be perceived as a learned and civilised individual and the dangers and perils that early modern Europe associated with the Northern Waters, such as sea monsters and maelstroms.2
Petter Dass is the first modern literary voice of Arctic Norway. He was priest of the parish Alstahaug in the bailiwick Helgeland, county Nordland – this parish was one of the richest and most populous parishes in Norway at that time.3 Dass was a so-called embetskjøpmann: next to his work as clergyman, he was also a prosperous trader selling stockfish to the Hanseatic merchants in Bergen.4 Dass lived during the Dano-Norwegian Realm, with the Danish king as an absolute ruler of the two countries. Denmark-Norway was one of the most stringent absolute monarchies in Europe. This is visible in the economic and political governance of the Twin Realms. A large number of the civil servants and merchants in Norway, the inferior part of the union, consisted of Danes, Germans and other foreigners. Bergen, Norway’s largest city at that time, dominated the export of dried cod from northern Norway. In this trade, the Hanseatic League had still a leading role, together with merchants of other origins who had taken citizenship in Bergen. This was the case with the father of Petter Dass, who was a Scotsman and had come to Bergen in order to trade in fish from Nordland. The maternal side of the family, the Falch family, had Dutch origins in a certain Adrian Rockertsen Falkener, who had emigrated to Norway in the early 16th century.5
However, in Dass’s poems there are no references to Scotland or the Netherlands. Although there are passages that bear witness to a friction between the Copenhagen-educated priest and the local population, it is evident from his poems that he identifies himself with the local ruling class, which consisted in particular of the Falch family, who had over the years held the most important public offices in the region and taken on a local identity. Dass was thus a representative of a self-conscious merchant and civil servant class in northern Norway. Although he wrote in Danish, he called himself a Norwegian poet and included a number of Norwegian words in his poems.6 The same goes for the information about his Nordland, which he gathers in his poems, especially about fishing, aquatic fauna and nature phenomena. As I will show, Dass mainly bases his writings on first-hand observations of the nature in Nordland.
In this article, I study the natural knowledge that he presents in his book, Nordlands Trompet. I argue that this knowledge is guided by a rational method in which he presents both himself and the fishermen with whom he has contact as reliable observers of the nature of the region. This method is presented in the preface of Nordlands Trompet, where Dass expresses the purpose of his book. I will then show how the vernacular knowledge of Nordlands Trompet collides with the classic concepts and ideas of the humanist culture of the period and how this contributes to the invention of a modern and rational northern Norway. This I will do by first examining Dass’s presentation of northern Atlantic fish species and then his view of more fabulous phenomena attributed to the coast of Norway in the early modern period, the sea serpent and the Moskstraumen, the famous whirlpool of Lofoten. Dass, in a way, demythologises his landscape of trolls and monsters. As we will see, his self-presentation as a learned, rational clerk in the Ultima Thule, and his presentation of his homeland as a magic-free, welcoming and nutritious landscape, is relevant both for his fish trade and his career as an early modern poet and gentleman. At the end of this chapter, I will show how this regional self-image involved a critique of Bergen merchants and their dominance of the export of Norwegian fish. In the course of the article, I will also refer to other early modern topographers and naturalists, such as the famous Olaus Magnus and Erik Pontoppidan, both Scandinavian bishops whose books were translated into other languages. However, I will mention lesser-known naturalists as well, such as the Dutch writer and fishmonger Adriaen Coenen and the Dane Diderik Brinch. Their observations and reflections on natural history give us an international and historical perspective of Nordlands Trompet.
1 Introducing a Scientific Method
Before we study Dass’s project of demythologisation, we need to take look at how Petter Dass has been received in Norwegian literary criticism. Throughout the centuries, Dass has been a popular author, thanks especially to his religiously didactic works. He was also regularly mentioned by critics, but then only as a “minor poet” in Danish-Norwegian literature. It was first in 1854, when the poet and critic Johan Sebastian Welhaven wrote the article “Digteren af Alstahoug” (The Poet of Alstahaug), that Dass’s status changed. At that time, Norway was in the process of breaking away from the union with another Nordic country, Sweden, to become an independent nation. Dass was assigned a position as a “father” of the new Norwegian literature and also a regional symbol of northern Norway. Welhaven’s “rediscovery” concerned Dass as a writer of fiction and Nordlands Trompet as a poetic narrative of rural folklore. The following literary critics described Petter Dass as a harmonious clergyman-poet, fatherly to his parishioners, confident with his Nordic surroundings and critical of the baroque literature on the European continent.7
Only in recent decades has this view begun to be criticised. On the one hand, Dass has been studied in the light of the power relations of the time; on the other, his poetry has been examined with respect to early modern genre theory and rhetoric.8 There have also been studies of Dass carried out in terms of natural history, but no detailed systematic study has been made in this direction.9 My chapter is therefore a contribution to a new understanding of Petter Dass, as it involves a comparative, interdisciplinary approach, where I relate Nordlands Trompet to other fields of research, such as history of knowledge and science. By history of science, I mean not only the history of ideas, but also the knowledge associated with crafts and lower professions. I am particularly interested in the experiences that Dass relates to his profession as a fish merchant.10 Dass did not run a fish shop himself, but his priest’s salary consisted of tithes and land tax, which he mainly received in the form of fish, especially stockfish. He transported this fish to Bergen where it was sold to Hanseatic merchants. As a fish trader, he had therefore training in identifying, selecting and sorting fish and fish products.11
Dass was not a scientist in the strict sense of the word. When Dass in Nordlands Trompet ponders over the phenomenon of glaciers, he writes about it as something for ‘physici’ (physicists) to figure out; nevertheless, Dass launches a new explanation of the phenomenon. Here he follows a long tradition among early modern Danish-Norwegian priests to act as dandemænd, “gentlemen”, with universal knowledge.12 The view of Petter Dass as a parson-naturalist, however, depends on how we define Nordlands Trompet. The book itself, which was probably written between the 1670s and 1690s and first published posthumously in 1739, is called both a praise poem and a versified topographic description of northern Norway. The book consists of fourteen chapters with different topics. The poem first gives a general description of Nordland, including the weather conditions, birdlife, fisheries, population of the region, trade, and Sámi people. This is followed by descriptions of the five bailiwicks in Nordland, such as Helgeland and Lofoten, where the poet uses a spacious writing style, allowing himself anecdotes and digressions. All in all, Nordlands Trompet consists of some three thousand verse lines. Even though it is not a natural history work in the strict sense of the word, the oldest reception of Nordlands Trompet, is, in fact, in a scientific context. Some of the oldest extant copies of Nordlands Trompet are bound together with works of natural history, such as a description of the sea monster “Kraken”; the title itself, Nordlands Trompet (The Trumpet of Nordland) was not his own but probably a “sale trick” by the publisher. Dass presumably called the book “Description of Nordlands Amt [County]”, a title associated more with natural history than praise poetry.13
It is also worth noting that the earliest mentions of Petter Dass were in scientific-topographic works of the 18th century. A telling example is Det Kongerige Norge, fremstillet efter dets naturlige og borgerlige Tilstand (The Kingdom of Norway, Presented According to its Natural and Civil Status) (1763) published under the name of Erik Johan Jessen-Schardebøll, although the book’s real author is Hans Steenbuch. In the first section of his book, Steenbuch assesses the quality of previous studies of Norwegian nature. Nordlands Trompet, he said, contains ‘Paalidelige Underretninger’ (reliable information), especially about Helgeland, because there the author writes about things he himself has experienced. He continues by saying that even though, ‘Versene og Stilen undertiden [ere] til Hinder i Materien; dog finder man ham ellers forstandig og erfaren i Landets Tilstand’ (the verses and style are sometimes an obstacle to the material; yet one finds him [Dass] otherwise sensible and experienced in the status of the country).14 As a contrast, Steenbuch mentions a work from the same period, written in prose by an author with the ambition of being perceived as a naturalist: Prodromus e Norvegia, Sive Descriptio Loufoudiæ, Omnium Nordlandiæ Præfecturarum longe celeberrimæ, accuratissima (Forerunner from Norway, or Extremely Accurate Description of Lofoten, the Most Famous of All the Nordland’s Bailiwicks). Published in Amsterdam in 1676 and reprinted in 1683 by Diderik Brinch, who called himself a ‘naturæ admiratore’, it impressed readers with its many realistic explanations juxtaposed with stories about the island of ‘Udrøest’ (Utrøst), a ‘huldeland’ (secret land), accessible only at high tide, with flying dragons and dangerous whales.15 It is obvious who his most important source of inspiration was, namely Olaus Magnus, the author of Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (A Description of the Northern Peoples), which was printed in Rome in 1555 and based on his Carta marina (1539) – the first map of the Nordic countries to give details and place names. Brinch partly agrees with and partly opposes Olaus Magnus in his book, while Steenbuch more or less rejects the whole Brinch’s book, on account of its many ‘urigtige Ting’ (wrong things).
In his lexicon article on Diderik Brinch, Jon Haarberg points to a difference between Brinch and Dass, namely that Brinch does not, unlike Dass, stage his own persona in his narrative.16 Dass’s self-fashioning as an inhabitant of the Arctic North forms a thread through Nordlands Trompet. A key to understanding the intention of this book is expressed in the preface, “Til Læseren” (To the reader). I quote below the beginning of Dass’s preface, because here we also learn what method he used when it comes to obtaining information about his region:
Here Dass reveals a source criticism that is unique for his time. Either Dass bases what he writes on his own sensory experiences, on what he himself has seen in Helgeland, or he bases it on what he has heard from others – who also have it from sensory experiences. This is, as we saw earlier, what Steenbuch valued about Dass: his place of residence near the nature he describes makes him a reliable scientific source. Moreover, as we will soon see, the well-known parson-naturalist Erik Pontoppidan had the same vision on Dass. However, just as interesting as what Dass says his sources are, is what he indirectly states are not his sources: The knowledge of Arctic Norway of classical-humanist origin.
2 “Swimming Animals in the Northern Ocean”
The most interesting chapter in Nordlands Trompet, “Svemmende Dyr i det Nordlandske Hav” (Swimming animals in the Northern Ocean), is in this context also the chapter that entails many of the poet’s most famous quotations, according to Norwegian literary criticism. By using the term “swimming animals”, Dass refers to the early modern sense of the term “fish” – as stated by Paul Smith in the introduction of this volume – as aquatilia: all aquatic animals. By fish from “det Nordlandske Hav”, Dass probably means fish from the sea off the coast of Nordland.19 Norwegian literary critics have pointed to the great poetic imagination Dass exercises in his descriptions of fish, hence this chapter is considered a highlight in early modern Scandinavian literature. I quote here his description of the halibut, the flatfish that is still today considered a delicacy:
We are impressed by the ease of narration and the striking metaphors. However, what is equally important is what Dass really conveys through these verses. First, he gives a description of the fish’s behaviour in the water, e.g., that we are dealing with a deep-sea fish. Then he gives an accurate depiction of the fish’s appearance, before instructing the reader on how much space the fish takes up in cargo when it is salted and ready to be shipped. Another recurring theme in his descriptions of fish species is the fishing method to be used. That is demonstrated in his portrait of the following fish, the Greenland shark – which today is still a difficult fish to catch [Fig. 14.1]. Here, too, Dass uses words in an imaginative but striking way. This fish ‘render til Krogen, som Rytter til Storm’ (runs to the bait like the knight to the storm):
In the middle is the Greenland shark, here called ‘the Haac-kæring’. Engraving, taken from Pontoppidan Erik, The Natural History of Norway, vol. 2 (London: A. Linde: 1755) 46
Image © University Library of Oslo
In Nordlands Trompet, other types of information related to fishing are also dealt with: Dass mentions good fishing grounds along the Nordland coast and mountains and landscapes to navigate by, such as the mountain range “The Seven Sisters”, right by the parsonage that he lived in [Fig. 14.2]. As elsewhere in the poem, Dass writes with a great image-creating ability:
The mountain range “The Seven Sisters” with Alstahaug’s parsonage. Engraving, taken from Pontoppidan Erik, The Natural History of Norway, vol. 1 (London, A. Linde: 1755) 102
Image © University Library of Oslo
A closer look at the structure of the whole poem clarifies the inclusion of detailed aquatic information and instructions related to the catching and shipping of fish: It is as much the fish merchant Petter Dass as the poet who is talking. The poem opens with a greeting to all who live in northern Norway, people of low and high birth. This sequence has been interpreted as Dass’s dedication of the poem to all the people of northern Norway, as a fatherly gesture to his parishioners. Nevertheless, this greeting is probably primarily rhetorical, as Skirne Helg Bruland has pointed out, for the poet speaks to different groups during the poem.26 Dass most often addresses one person: a traveller to the region, as demonstrated by such verses as ‘Paa toe-rømmit Færing om Øerne roe, / Kun jeg og du eene selv anden’ (By two-seaters rowboat to islands we row; We two by ourselves and no others.).27 Dass does not specify whom he is inviting on this fictional boat journey, but he reveals that he is a travelling dandemand, “gentleman”. A possible candidate is the so-called uteliggerborger: a trader in Nordland through citizenship of Bergen or Trondheim, just like the poet’s Scottish father.
We already have a candidate for such a reader. In Dass’s occasional poetry handed down to us there is an exchange of poem letters between Dass and the uteliggerborger Ole Nysted. In his letter to Dass, signed 1678, Nysted actually writes that he has part of Nordlands Trompet in his possession – which he received from the county prefect of Nordland.28 Already in the 1670s there were thus unfinished versions of the poem in circulation – both among traders and higher officials. We can assume that Nysted used this copy actively in his merchant business. In his letter he wrote to Dass, he explained that he had lived in northern Norway for many years but learned several things from reading the poem. However, Nysted’s letter is primarily about something else: he is in financial difficulties and is willing to provide Dass with a report on the area where he is a merchant, Ofoten, to the east of Lofoten, in exchange for a loan. As we know, Dass was a member of the powerful Falch-dynasty and therefore possibly able to help Nysted. Moreover, we also know that Dass was also interested in information on the bailiwicks to the north of his Helgeland. Thus Nysted had undoubtedly chosen the right man for his request. Unfortunately, we do not know how this contact ended. In his reply, Dass expresses reservations about lending money. With or without help from Dass, Nysted died some years later and his estate was then insolvent.29
There is no doubt that Nordlands Trompet is an expression of Petter Dass’s literary ambitions – that fact is also evident from the reflections on poetry in the correspondence between Dass and Nysted. However, as we have seen, Petter Dass’s descriptions of fish are also closely related to fish trade. From that point of view, it is interesting to investigate whether there exist parallels to Petter Dass in early modern European literature. One name in particular stands out in this regard: the Dutch writer Adriaen Coenen, who lived in Scheveningen, a hundred years earlier, from 1514 to 1587. Like Dass he was trader of fish and a collector of all kinds of aquatic animals and knowledge, which he shared with visitors from outside Scheveningen, even the Prince of Orange. This information was gathered in two large manuscripts handed down to us: Walvisboeck (Whale Book) and Visboeck (Fish Book). The text in Coenen’s books is mainly prose, but there is some verse in between. In their presentation on Coenen, Florike Egmond and Peter Mason state that these books are among ‘the oldest manuscripts in the world to be entirely devoted to whales and other marine mammals, fish and other creatures that in lived in the waters of north-west Europe’.30
Although there has not been a thorough study of literary representation in early modern times regarding fish from the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean, I dare say that the Dass’s fish descriptions deserve the same label.31 Coenen and Dass describe many of the same fish species, but it comes as no surprise that where Coenen emphasises herring fishing, for which Scheveningen was famous, cod gets the most attention from Dass. Coenen calls the herring ‘den coninck boven alle vischen onsen groten gouden berch in Hollant doer Godts grasij almachtich oock Zeelant ende Vlaenderen’ (the king above all fishes, our great golden mountain in Holland by God’s grace almighty, also for Zeeland and Flanders).32 Dass portrays the cod with the same royal metaphors:
The close relationship these two ichthyologists had with the local population is visible in their texts. Firstly, their social commitment is expressed in their descriptions of poverty among fishers and the dangers of fishing at sea. Secondly, local fishermen served as their main source of information. Coenen was probably out on fishing boats in the North Sea at a young age, but most of the information about fish and fishing he acquired mainly on land, in conversation with fishermen, claim Florike Egmond and Peter Mason. The same goes for Petter Dass; as the leader of a large parish with many employees under him, he was hardly responsible for practical tasks such as fishing. His knowledge must have been largely based on the exchange of information with local farmers and fishermen. This access to first-hand experiences made both Dass and Coenen critical sources for many of the wonderful tales of sea monsters that circulated during this period. Nevertheless, there are also differences between them. Unlike Dass, Coenen provided his books with many illustrations. The drawings are mostly realistic, but in a couple of places in his books we also encounter the Renaissance concept of attributing symbolic character to natural phenomena. Nature as a carrier of hidden meaning was in this period particularly expressed through the notion of comets as a supernatural warning of impending danger, but fish could also be equipped with warnings on their skin. Coenen mentions a so-called “Geuzenvis”, a fish that foreshadows an incident in the conflict between the “Geuzen”, the Dutch rebels in the Eighty Years’ War, and the Spanish king. The sober Coenen does not fully accept the idea, but he does not reject it either. Coenen also sometimes follows the humanist practice of interpreting animals and natural phenomena as allegorical exempla – as moral narratives with a universal message. For example, he tells of how the hands of a fisherman were paralysed when he tried to catch a poisonous torpedo fish. Coenen interprets it as an image of God’s providence. None of this is to be found in Dass’s representation on ‘swimming animals’ in Nordlands Trompet.35
What is most striking about Coenen is his great interest in marine wonders, sea monsters and serpents, where references to Norway are frequent. Olaus Magnus has apparently made a great impression on the Dutch author. Although he expresses scepticism about some of Magnus’s sea monsters – ‘Olaus scryft ons zeer vonderlycken van deze vischen dat niet wel te loeven en is’ (Olaus writes very extraordinary things about these fishes, but they are not credible) – there are plenty of illustrations and texts about them in his books.36
At first glance, marvels do not seem to be a subject that interested Dass, but on closer inspection it turns out that it actually forms a common thread throughout Nordlands Trompet. A reader would probably expect descriptions of churches in a book written by a parson-poet, but there is little of that. Nor does Nordlands Trompet contain any discussion of major theological issues – apart from a reflection of the ethical dilemma associated with burial at sea. Throughout the chapters we find interest in various marvels, ranging from Arctic wind conditions, menhir’s from Old Norse times at Tjøtta, a ghost in Steigen, and various natural wonders such as Svartisen, two glaciers located at Rana and Rødøy, and the two maelstroms in Nordland, the Saltstraumen at Bodø, and the Moskstraumen in Lofoten. The existence of sea serpents is also discussed. What characterises all these wonder phenomena is that Dass tries to explain them rationally.37
We could argue that this difference is due to the large time gap between these authors, but that is still not a good explanation. The 1676 description of northern Norway by the aforementioned Diderik Brinch is also full of sea monsters from Olaus Magnus’s book; Brinck mentions monsters like the ‘Tro[l]dqualle’ (Troll whale) or ‘Kaars-Trold’ (Cross-Troll), which is so powerful that it can pull ships down into the sea. Brinch, like Coenen and Dass, was not an outsider. He worked as an inspector of the fish trade in northern Norway. Brinch also relied on testimonies from locals in his representation of magical phenomena, such as the secret huldeland. I think the explanation here lies in Petter Dass’s programme for Nordlands Trompet, which he must have adhered to more strictly than Brinch. Dass’s family, moreover, had long roots on Helgeland, unlike the Dane Brinch. This probably explains why he did not accept everything he heard from fishermen. He demanded high standards of perception and experience, and this is also reflected in Dass’s description of Arctic wonder phenomena. I will below study two of them in more detail, namely the sea serpent and the Moskstraumen in Lofoten, as they illustrate Dass’s demands for rationality in knowledge acquisition.
3 Oceanic Marvels
Olaus Magnus intentionally made his comprehensive map and detailed report to disseminate knowledge about the Nordic region in Europe. Ironically, his works led in part to the opposite, at least with respect to northern Norway. His book contributed like no other work to associating the Norwegian coast with monsters, as we saw in Coenen’s books.38 The previously mentioned Hans Steenbuch writes that Magnus’s map was in his time ‘det beste og rigtigste’ (the best and truest); however, the map is ‘langt fra ikke uden Feil både i henseende til navn og situation’ (far from without error both in terms of names and situations). He also states that, although Olaus Magnus filled his book with fables, there are ‘en og anden ubekiendt Sandhed’ (some unknown truths) in his works.39 The line between fable and truth is blurred in this period. A scientific work from the 18th century may actually contain more fabulous material than a book from the 17th century. We must therefore go to the individual author in this period to discover what their actual view of sea monsters was. This brings us to Erik Pontoppidan, the bishop of Bergen and the most well-known parson-naturalist in Norwegian history, the author of Forsøk til Norges naturlige historie (1752 and 1753), translated into English with the title The Natural History of Norway in 1755.40
Pontoppidan refers to Dass in several places in his book, regarding him to be a reliable source. In his discussions on sea serpents, he quotes the whole passage, in which Dass discusses observations of the sea monster as a ‘kind of testimony to the existence and properties of this extraordinary creature’. I render some lines here, in the English translation from 1755:
The last lines are not included in Pontoppidan’s book. I quote them here: ‘Men hvorfore skal jeg bemøye mig saa, / At grunde de Ting, som jeg ey kand forstaae?’ (But why should I put forth an effort to see / The things that forever a mystery must be?).42 Pontoppidan uses Dass as a starting point for a long discussion on similarities between the whale and the Biblical Leviathan and Behemoth, what he calls the ‘pole-serpent’ and ‘crooked serpent’, before he finally comes to a conclusion concerning its existence [Fig. 14.3]. He ends up with the same assessment as his predecessor in Nordland Trompet: ‘The reason of his [the serpent’s] proceedings cannot; nor ought to be comprehended by us’.43 In my judgment, the passage on the sea serpent forms an exception in Nordlands Trompet; this is the only place where Dass still lingers in the world of fables. I think it is possible to detect a greater reservation in Dass than in Pontoppidan on the prospect of the sea serpent, even though they both conclude that it is hubris to brood further on the monster’s existence. Dass wrote in his preface that the most reliable information is related to what he himself has seen. As we saw in the quote, ‘my eyes have never yet beheld him’.
The sea serpent. Engraving, taken from Pontoppidan Erik, The Natural History of Norway, vol. 2 (London, A. Linde: 1755) 196
Image © University Library of Oslo
Another aspect that illustrates the difference between Dass and Pontoppidan is the space they devote to this subject. Unlike Dass, Pontoppidan wrote a whole chapter on “Sea-monsters or strange and un-common Sea-animals”. He lists several witnesses to the existence of marvellous sea creatures, both oral sources and written authorities, such as Olaus Magnus. After the “sea serpent” he discusses several testimonies of the “Kraken”, the legendary monster of enormous size said to appear off the coasts of Norway. Pontoppidan identified the kraken both as a gigantic crab – based on the word’s similarity with Norwegian “krabbe” – and a large octopus, and discusses its dangerous character; it has a reputation of pulling down ships. A testimony from northern Norway is interesting in this context:
In the year 1680 a Krake (perhaps a young and careless one) came into the water that runs between the rocks and cliffs in the parish of Alstahoug. […] It happened that is extended long arms, or antennæ, which this creature seems to use like the Snail, in turning about, caught hold of some trees standing near the water, which might easily have been torn up by the roots; but beside this, as it was found afterwards, he entangled himself in some openings or clefts in the rock, and therein stuck so fast, and hung so unfortunately, that he could not work himself out.44
There the kraken died: ‘The carcase, which was a long while decaying, and filled great part of that narrow channel, made it almost impassable by its intolerable stench’. Alstahaug was, as mentioned, the parish of Petter Dass. We must assume that Dass knew of the story of this fantastic sea creature but chose not to include it in the Nordlands Trompet. It was contrary to the principle of his book: to rely on first-hand sources.45 In that respect, Dass differs from both his predecessors and successors. Another parson-naturalist, Peder Claussøn Friis (1545–1614) – who was influenced by Olaus Magnus and whom Dass refers to in his book – wrote Om Diur, Fiske, Fugle oc Trær udi Norrig (About Animals, Fish, Birds and Trees in Norway), wherein he states that northern Norway is famous for all ‘Throld-huale’ (the troll whales) that ‘ere gierrig paa Mennischens Kiød at æde’ (are eager to eat human flesh). They live in that part of the country, because they are attracted to the large fish deposits there. The whales of southern Norway are, on the other hand, small and harmless.46 Lucky for him, because Friis himself was from that part of the country!
One of the dangers assigned to the Kraken was the strong whirlpool it could create when submerging. This brings us to the second marine marvel I will discuss here. In the early modern period, the Moskstraumen was one of the most famous natural phenomena of the Nordic countries. The Moskstraumen is a maelstrom, a system of tidal eddies and whirlpools, and is one of the strongest maelstroms in the world. It is located in Lofoten, between the island of Moskenesøya and the island of Mosken. The maelstrom is clearly marked on early modern maps of northern Norway, and again, it is Olaus Magnus who is the originator of its fame. In his book, he attributes to it monstrous forces and compares it with the Greek sea monster Charybdis, known from Homer’s Odyssey. The epic tells how Charybdis was turned into a maelstrom and tried to get rid of Odysseus by pushing him against the rock demon Scylla. The view of the Moskstraumen as a malicious maelstrom spread to other works of the time, as Magnus was published in new editions throughout the 17th century. Other early modern writers attributed the whirlpool to other fantastic properties. Athanasius Kircher based his version on the idea, which was widespread among the humanists of the Renaissance, that the earth had an underground network of water passages. He argued that the Moskstraumen was connected to a subterranean channel that led to the Gulf of Bothnia. Hence if you were sucked into the whirlpool, the wreckage of your ship could be found 700 kilometres away. Peder Claussøn Friis also included the Moskstraumen in his book on Norwegian natural history. Friis points to high cliffs and caves on the seabed as the source of the Moskstraumen. The water is drawn through these caves at certain times and then cascaded out of the earth through other holes at other times, explained Friis, who spiced his explanation with stories about whales that made the ground shake and tremble as they got caught in the current.
All these ideas about the Moskstraumen are discussed in an influential work from this period, Dissertationes De admirandis mundi cataractis supra & subterraneis (1678) (Dissertations on the wonderful waterfalls of the world above and underground) by the German Naturalist Johannes Herbinius, who among other places lived in Scandinavia.47 In his book we find illustrations of the ideas of the stream in Northern Norway [Figs. 14.4 and 14.5]. The top image shows the waves that are created, which are dangerous for ships. The bottom picture shows how the sea flows between the islands of Lofoten, forming a large maelstrom.
Depictions of the Moskstraumen. Engraving, taken from Herbinius Johannes, Dissertationes De admirandis mundi cataractis supra et subterraneis (Amsterdam, Johannes Janssonius van Waesberge: 1678) 129 and 131
Image © University Library of Oslo
Before we look at Nordlands Trompet, I would also like discuss what the Danish poet Anders Arrebo and the aforementioned Diderik Brinch wrote about the Moskstraumen. Anders Arrebo, who in his young years was bishop of Trondheim, also included the maelstrom his Hexaëmeron (from 1631–1637, published posthumously in 1661). He also refers to cliffs and caves on the seabed, where the water swirls between the gates of the cliffs, before being sent up to the surface, where it creates waves so big that they obscure the view of the sun. Brinch is more rational in his description. He emphasises the importance of tides for the maelstrom, as others have done before him, but without a proper understanding of the effects of the tides, and also the depth of the sea. We can recognise, as we will see, these factors in Nordlands Trompet, but the destructive forces of the phenomenon are still at the centre of Brinch’s book. He tells of boats that perish, even in calm weather, and of houses collapsing due to the maelstrom’s bouldering.48
In his version, Petter Dass polemicises against Anders Arrebo. In fact, Moskstraumen is the natural phenomenon that occupies the largest place in Nordlands Trompet, four pages. There we find an explanation in accordance with our modern view of currents. Dass relates the whirlpool with tides by noting that it was the strongest at the full and new Moon and the weakest at half-Moon. The strong currents, Dass writes, must therefore be understood through the interplay between the tides and the topographical conditions of Lofoten. Instead of Arrebo’s idea of underwater cliffs and caves, the whirlpools are created by narrow and shallow openings between the islands in Lofoten, through which the water of the Vestfjord must pass on its way out to the Atlantic:
Sigri Skjegstad Lockert, who has studied the different views on the maelstrom through the centuries, calls Nordlands Trompet the most descriptive and explanatory of the works on the Moskstraum during this period.51 Bjørn Gjevik, professor of hydrodynamics, is even more laudatory in his praise: ‘Tatt i betraktning av at Nordlands Trompet ble skrevet omtrent samtidig med at Isaac Newton ga den første banebrytende forklaring av tidevannets årsak, et arbeid Petter Dass neppe kjente til, er hans beskrivelse fremtidsrettet’ (Considering that Nordlands Trompet was written around the same time that Isaac Newton gave the first groundbreaking explanation of the cause of the tide, a work Petter Dass hardly knew, his description is forward-looking). Gjevik elaborates the parallels of Dass and Newton as follows: ‘Han gav ingen dypere vitenskapelig forklaring av fenomenene som Newton gjorde. Men med sine detaljerte og nøkterne beskrivelser, i blomstrende poesi, tydeligvis basert på faktiske observasjoner, utmerket han seg likevel på en fordelaktig måte i samtiden’ (He gave no deeper scientific explanation of the phenomena that Newton did. But with his detailed and sober descriptions, in florid poetry, clearly based on factual observations, he nevertheless distinguished himself in a beneficial way in his time).52
Of course, Dass was not a natural philosopher as was Newton, but he still had a scientific method that he followed. We become better acquainted with it in the passage where Dass mentions Arrebo:
Here we acquire direct evidence of how the programme Dass laid out in his preface guides his way of obtaining empirical information. Dass emphasises what he calls ‘Forfarenhed’ (experience), ‘Eenfoldighed’ (simplicity) and ‘Naturen’. These concepts deserve greater clarification. As we remember from Steenbuch’s discussion on the writing of Dass, he is reliable thanks to his residence close to the Artic nature he is presenting. Pontoppidan also discusses different explanations of the Moskstraumen. Here Nordlands Trompet is also mentioned, and here Dass’s explanation comes out as the best one for exactly the same reason: ‘Mr. Peder Dass, who lives on the very spot […]’.55 Dass may not have lived on the very spot, in Lofoten, but lived close to informants who could enlighten him about the maelstrom based on their direct sensory experiences – their ‘Forfarenhed’.
By “simplicity”, we also must understand a distancing from the authorities of renaissance humanism. Dass’s informants have offered knowledge that is more “simple” and therefore more reasonable than those complicated explanations Dass found in the writings of contemporaries, such as Arrebo. Besides Arrebo and Friis, Dass does not actually refer to any authorities in Nordlands Trompet but occasionally rejects explanations of which he is sceptical by calling them “lies”. It is likely that he then alludes to authorities such as Olaus Magnus.
Dass was not unique for his time. His emphasis on rational method is part of a larger European discovery of the indigenous nature and topography.56 We have already seen how Adriaen Coenen made demands for empirical observation in his description of different fish species. Although the belief in Olaus Magnus’s sea monsters did not disappear in the 17th century, there is no doubt that the demand for rationality and source criticism became increasingly strong towards the 18th century. It is worth looking at two men who lived at the same time as Petter Dass: Francis Willughby (1635–1672) and John Ray (1627–1705), who are regarded as the two earliest English parson-naturalists. Both these men were Fellows of the Royal Society, and they are known for their work on Historia piscium (1686) (Description on fishes). Didi van Trijp has studied the method these researchers used to acquire knowledge. What she writes here reminds us of Petter Dass:
Indications of direct observation are present in the fish book in various ways. Willughby and Ray, for example, added ‘I have seen’ (vidi) or ‘we have seen’ (vidimus) to certain species descriptions. In other cases, they punctuated statements with appeals to ‘experience’ (experientia), as in the case of the salmon.57
As we have noticed, Dass also points to first-hand, sensory observation when explaining the nature and fauna of his region. Next to his programme in his preface, we find sentences like ‘Jeg selv det med største Forundring har seet’ (I have myself seen, in amazement, this thing), ‘Der siges, at Gaasen dra’r Væir som en hund, / Jeg haver den Sagn udaf Skytternes Mund’ (For wild geese have noses as keen as a hound’s; / I learned that from hunters who much are around) and ‘Og mange med det mig kand sande’ (Yes, many can prove what I’m saying).58 The observations he describes apply thus to his own visual experiences, to those of others, or to a visual observation that many share. Didi van Trijp has also examined the kinds of informants the English naturalists have used. Although Ray and Willughby do not name their informants, it appears that they are mostly fishermen and fishmongers, having provided them with both information and specimen of fishes. As earlier discussed, the same was probably the case with Dass. In addition to personal experiences as fish merchant, he refers to others, as in the example above, where he relates the knowledge of a goose hunter. Moreover, we have also seen that Dass was in contact with travelling merchants, such as Ole Nysted, who offered him information in return for a money loan. It is possible Dass paid fishermen and farmers who offered him their knowledge. However, as we have also seen, he did not accept everything that he was presented; some information he perceived as fabulous and unreliable. Here he also uses the same method as Willugby and Ray, but Dass is in his turn not as strict as they are, in that Nordlands Trompet is ultimately not a scientific work in the strict meaning of the term. Thorough descriptions of fish and natural phenomena are accompanied by anecdotes, episodes, folk life from Nordland.
Another question is whether Dass’s source criticism stemmed from a philosophical programme that Dass had adopted, for example, during his studies in Copenhagen. A scientific method based on experience (experientia) immediately makes us think of Francis Bacon, his principle of sober science and the Scientific Revolution. Van Trijp asks the same question in relation to the two English naturalists. Bacon was obviously important to the Royal Society, but as highlighted by Van Trijp and other scholars, we should not underestimate an older tradition of vernacular science that existed among artisans, farmers, fishers, etc. The ideals formulated by Bacon thus have methods of observation and knowledge acquisition in common with the fishing population with which Dass was in contact.59 It is also possible that Dass was inspired to follow a method while collecting local information. Peder Hansen Resen, a legal scholar and professor at the University of Copenhagen, encouraged priests in Denmark-Norway to collect and submit information from their parishes (in 1666, 1682 and 1686). A closer investigation should determine whether Resen gave the priests concrete advice for the method of gathering information.60
4 Opposition to Merchants in Bergen
It is important to understand Dass’s identity as a rational parson-naturalist in light of the political situation wherein Dass was living. As mentioned above, the merchants of Bergen had since the Middle Ages secured privileges concerning the lucrative trade of stockfish. This trade had been mainly in the hands of Hanseatic merchants. However, since the 15th century, they had faced competition from not only the Norwegians but also the Dutch and later merchants from other countries who took citizenship in Bergen. Nevertheless, the Hanseatic League was still an important power in Bergen – after they had lost a foothold in other European towns – and it was to Hanseatic merchants that Petter Dass sold his fish. In the early modern period, there did not exist a market town in northern Norway. The northerners had two options: Sell their fish to the so-called uteliggerborgere or transport the fish themselves down to Bergen. This meant sailing across dangerous stretches of sea. More and more uteliggerborgere were from Trondheim, a city that had begun to compete with Bergen, but the economic centre for stockfish was still in Bergen. Dass himself owned ships, which transported stockfish to Bergen.61 When one of his boats sank in 1692 at Stadhavet and a valuable cargo was lost, he felt he had to speak out. In the last chapter of Nordlands Trompet, on the bailiwick of Troms, Dass is far away from his Helgeland, and the lack of material about Troms gives him the opportunity to make some personal statements. He writes about his loses and expresses his wishes for the future:
The last conciliatory statement we must understand as more than mere politeness, for Dass was not alone in these thoughts. A backdrop for the struggle was the memory of an economic centre in northern Norway in Old Norse time: Vågan in Lofoten. In addition, in that period, the situation was reversed: Then it was the merchants of Bergen themselves who had to travel up to northern Norway and buy the fish. In 1664, Tage Lobitz sent a note about the history of the old Vågan to the Danish Chancellery and asked for the establishment of a new northern Norwegian market town, so that one can put an end to ‘all the danger and cost that the northerners have to endure’. The county prefect of Nordland, Preben von Ahnen, also suggested that a northern Norwegian market town should be founded. As an argument, the officials referred to the poverty of the fishing population. Many fishermen had debts to the merchants of Bergen, which were passed down from generation to generation. However, we should not underestimate the fact that the officials also had a self-interest. They wanted to build their own economic and political elite in northern Norway.
This was not about plans of secession from Denmark – there are no such thoughts in Dass’s poetry – rather it is about a desire to keep the economic benefits of the fish trade for themselves. During the 16th and 17th centuries, a number of merchants from Denmark and the Dutch Republic were given a so-called “pass”, or license, to trade in northern Norway, much to the frustration of the Bergen merchants. The king also granted selected individuals royal privileges to trade in certain goods. In 1661, for example, the famous Dutch admiral Michiel de Ruyter was granted a monopoly on the trade in northern Norwegian cod roe. In addition, both foreign and domestic merchants traded illegally in Nordland. Local officials like Petter Dass benefited economically from all these breaches of the Bergen dominance. Nevertheless, the Bergen merchants were always on their guard and usually prevailed when they complained to the governmental authorities about violations of their privileges.64
Petter Dass not only expresses frustration about the ship loss in the last part of Nordlands Trompet; in the same chapter he mentions an illegal trade that the Dutch had run in Malangen in Troms, in positive terms. From other sources we also know that Dass had a conflict with the Hanseatic merchant in Bergen with whom he traded, and that the Falch-dynasty, Dass included, collaborated with the uteliggerborger Bendix Nebel, who was known for his smuggling activities in northern Norway. Bendix Nebel, like the above-mentioned Ole Nysted, was a person who would probably have been just as anxious to get hold of a copy of the Nordlands Trompet.65
5 Conclusion
It is in this context that we must read Nordlands Trompet and Dass’s self- fashioning as a sober and reliable priest and fish merchant. When he presents himself as ‘en Nordlands Mand’ (a Nordland’s son of toil), and ‘en Klerk / Iført en Nordlands Messe-Serk, / Og boer blant kolde Tuer’ (a clerk / dressed in a Nordland’s surplice / and who lives in [a landscape of] cold tussocks), it is not only in accordance with the modesty topos in early modern poetry.66 By presenting himself as an integral part of Nordland, he builds up a credibility – both as a disseminator of reliable knowledge and as a potential partner for fish trade. Readers of Nordlands Trompet would understand that northern Norway is not an area of dangerous monsters and maelstroms, but a welcoming and nutritious landscape. As I have shown, the merchant Ole Nysted had a part of the manuscript in his possession, and was able to acquaint himself better with northern Norway through it. It is likely that other traders have used it as a “guidebook” while traveling to Nordland during Dass’s lifetime.
Considering the diverse and rich content of Nordlands Trompet, it would, however, be reductive to understand the book from only an economic perspective. Dass as an ambitious “gentleman” and poet has had a further aim with the poem. Since Nordlands Trompet was written in the vernacular, it has not had a major impact on the European mapping of the Northern Atlantic, as today’s readers may have wished. Moreover, we do not know to what extent contemporary poets and scholars have consulted with the work. However, as I have shown, Dass was read and appreciated by scientists in the 18th century – he was in some respects even more accurate than Erik Pontoppidan. Moreover, as I also have demonstrated, his knowledge of Lofoten was more correct than his contemporary Diderik Brinch’s, who actually lived in Lofoten for a period and who even called himself a naturæ admiratore, a naturalist. Unfortunately, Brinch’s book likely had greater impact than Nordlands Trompet. The book was written in Latin, the international language of scholarship, and was published in two editions in Amsterdam, right at the centre of the knowledge production in contemporary Europe.
According to the historian Rasmus Brandt, the Baltic and North Seas had been terra incognita for the enlightened European, due to the Hanseatic trade privileges. In maps from the 16th century, the new world’s coastlines were therefore far better mapped than the Nordic countries. It was undoubtedly better off at the end of the 17th century, but it is still noticeable that the coast of Nordland in many maps – especially Dutch maps, because it was the Dutch who first drew the coast of Norway – were still filled with inaccuracies. Helgeland was marked as an island off the Norwegian coast well into the 17th century.67 An example is Claes Jansz. Vooght’s map of the Norwegian Sea from 1692, where the Moskstraumen is also marked as a large spiral in Lofoten [Fig. 14.6]. We must assume that it is not only due to the Hanseatic merchants, but also old fabulous narratives that were passed on through writings such as Brinch’s book.
Claes Jansz. Vooght’s map of the Norwegian Sea from 1692. Coloured engraving: “Wassende Graade Kaart van ‘t Noordelykste Deel der Noord Zee tussen Schotland, Ysland, Noorwegen en Finmarken tot Booven de Noord Caap”, from Keulen Johannes van, De groote nieuwe vermeerderde Zee-Atlas ofte Water-Werelt. Nr. 8B.9a, in Ginsberg William B., Sea Charts of Norway, 1585–1812 (2012)
© National Library of Oslo
According to another researcher on this period, Jørn Sandnes, we do not find a similar source critique in the writings of many of those who come after Petter Dass and who call themselves historians, such as Jonas Ramus. This is evident when we compare these authors with scholars from the latter half of the 18th century, as here we again find articulation of a strict scientific method similar to that of Dass.68
Now at the end it is worth dwelling a little on the mentioned author, namely the priest and historian Jonas Ramus (1649–1718). It was his and not Dass’s version of the Moskstraumen that gained fame in hindsight. Five years before Petter Dass died, in 1702, Ramus published Ulysses et Otinus Unus et idem (Odysseus and Odin are one and the same). Here he presents the idea that Odysseus and the Norse god Odin were the same person, and that many ancient stories should actually be set in Norway. The idea of Moskstraumen as Odysseus’s Charybdis and Scylla is revitalised, and Ramus discusses whether Utrøst in Lofoten – the secret huldeland – is actually Odysseus’s ‘Island of the Sirens’, while Træna, not far from Dass’s residence, is given the honour of being ‘Thrinacia – the Island of the Sun’. His project recalls similar attempts in Renaissance Scandinavia to recapture the splendour of antiquity, notably Olaus Rudbeck’s idea of Sweden as Atlantis, the cradle of civilisation. Ramus refers to Peder Claussøn Friis and Diderik Brinch throughout his whole work. The work was republished in 1713 and 1716. Ramus’s fantasies formed the basis of some of the most well-known and quoted literary works of modern times: Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “A Descent into the Maelström” (1841), Jules Verne’s Vingt mille lieues sous les mers (1869–1870) (Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), and Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick (1851), where the Moskstraumen is mentioned by Captain Ahab. There, the famous captain swears that he will pursue the white whale around every corner of the world: ‘Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up’.
At this point, however, we have moved far from the history of early modern literature and knowledge and firmly placed ourselves in the world of modern fiction.69
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Many thanks to Paul Smith, Florike Egmond, the editors of this book, Ivar Roger Hansen, Benedicte Briså, Edda Frankot, Øystein Rian and Rune Spaans for tips and help while writing this article.
Although Petter Dass lived and worked in Alstahaug (65° North) in the most southern part of the county (amt) “Nordland” of 17th-century Northern Norway, Alstahaug is located just beneath the south of the Arctic Circle. The other geographic regions that Dass describes in Nordlands Trompet, include however for the most part territories to the North of the Circle (the northernmost area depicted is Troms bailiwick (fogderi) at 69° North). I therefore mean to have reason to call Dass a writer from an Arctic region.
Rian Ø., ‘Det store samrøret – Embetskjøpmennene på 1600-tallet mellom fyrstestat og undersåtter’, Heimen 44 (Oslo: 2007) 293–310.
Evju H., Ancient Constitutions and Modern Monarchy: Historical Writing and Enlightened Reform in Denmark-Norway 1730–1814 (Leiden – Boston: 2019). For the Dutch origin of the Falch-family, see Volqvartz Marcus C., Aandelige Sørge-Sange / De Afdøde til Ære (Copenhagen, Hartvig Godiche: 1750) 66–67.
Midbøe H., Petter Dass (Oslo: 1947). This does not, of course, mean that Dass did not have an international orientation in his writings. We find quotations in both German and Dutch in the poems – two languages in which he could probably make himself understood.
For Welhaven’s article and other research on Dass, see Hansen I.R., Petter Dass: Bibliografi og resepsjonshistorie 1678–2022 (Trondheim: 2023). For an English presentation of Dass, see Stokker K., “Oral Tradition, Humanism and the Baroque”, in Naes H.S. (ed.), A History of Norwegian Literature (Lincoln – London: 1993) 39–52.
Bruland S.H., “Petter Dass og den klassiske litteraturen” in Alenius M. – Bergh B. – Boserup I. – Friis-Jensen K. – Skafte Jensen M. (eds.), Latin og nationalsprog i Norden 1500–1800 (Copenhagen: 1991) 195–204; Hansen K., Petter Dass: Guds øyesteen 2 vols. (Sandnessjøen: 2018); Spaans R., “Hekser, Kopernikus og nordnorske fiskeslag. Eit kritisk blikk på den seinaste forskinga på Petter Dass”, Edda 108.2 (2021) 84–97; Lauvstad H., Helicons Bierge og Helgelands Schiær. Nordlands Trompets tekst, repertoar og retorikk (Oslo: 2006); Dass Petter, Katekismesanger, ed. J. Haarberg (1715/2012): https://www.bokselskap.no/boker/katekismesanger/tittelside.
Sandnes J., “Lokalhistorisk litteratur til omkring 1900”, Bjørkvik H. – Fladby R. – Reinton L. – Sandnes J. (eds.), Lokal historie i forskning og kulturarbeid gjennom 200 år (Oslo: 1970) 13–32; Foss G., “Skou-Essen. Om skrift og mat i Nordlands Trompet”, in Andersen B. – Elisassen K.O. (eds.), Maskepi og maskerade (Trondheim: 2005) 63–78.
My approach to Dass relies on a shift in the historiography of science that has become established in recent decades. Today the history of science is not simply a history of ideas; science is also studied as the sum total of specific practices out of which science emerges. As a result, the assumption that astronomy, mechanics and optics constituted the core of the Scientific Revolution in the seventeenth century has been replaced by a more ecumenical approach that accords at least equal status to natural history, geography, medicine, etc. See, for example, Cook H., Matters of Exchange: Commerce, Medicine, and Science in the Dutch Golden Age (New Haven – London: 2007).
He also sold fish products that were not his own, such as the income from the churches he leased, see Midbøe, Petter Dass 149; Hansen, Petter Dass: Guds øyesteen, vol. 1, 121–124.
In the Protestant Scandinavian states, the state-church seems to have played a great role in the exercise of scientific work: ‘Particularly in the case of Norway, which had few other institutions, it can be seen in this period as the single most important institution for promoting natural history’, Brenna B., “Clergymen Abiding in the Fields: The Making of the Naturalist Observer in Eighteenth-Century Norwegian Natural History”, Science in Context 2 (2011) 143–166, here 145.
Haarberg J., “Hvorfor trompet? – Om tittelen på Petter Dass’ nordlandsbeskrivelse”, Edda 99.1 (2012) 3–13. But it is also possible that the original title was Buccina Polaris.
Jessen-Schardebøll Erik Johan [Steenbuch Hans], Det Kongerige Norge (Copenhagen, Gottmann Friedrich Kisel: 1763) 120–121.
Brinch Diderik, Prodromus e Norvegia (Amsterdam, Christophori Cunradi: 1676) 10–11, 17–19.
Haarberg J., “Diderik Brinch”, Norsk biografisk leksikon (2009): https://nbl.snl.no/Diderik_Brinch.
I quote the edition of Nordlands Trompet published by Dass’s grandson, Albert Christian Dass: Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt (Copenhagen, Hartvig Godiche: 1763) 21.
Dass Petter, The Trumpet of Nordland, trans. by Theodore Jorgensen (Minnesota: 1954) 4. In this quote, I have taken the liberty to change the graphic layout in Jorgensen’s translation in accordance with Albert Dass’s edition.
This sea is a part of the sea area that is both called the Norwegian Sea, the North Sea and Mare Septentrionale on early modern maps.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 70–71.
Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland 41–42.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 71.
Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland 42.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 116.
Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland 79.
Bruland, “Petter Dass og den klassiske litteraturen” 203.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 49; Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland 26.
Dass, Viser og rim 280–281.
Hansen, Petter Dass: Guds øyesteen, vol. 1 99.
Coenen Adriaen, The Whale Book, ed. F. Egmond – P. Mason (London: 2003) VIII.
A possible exception is Peder Claussøn Friis (1545–1614), from whom Dass obtained some information. He also wrote descriptions of fish and fishing, both in his manuscript Om Diur, Fiske, Fugle oc Trær udi Norrig (About Animals, Fish, Birds and Trees in Norway), and in Norrigis Beskriffuelse (The Description of Norway), published in 1632. But he himself was from southern Norway, and his descriptions of northern Norwegian fish is not as detailed as in Dass’s book, and the chapter on fish is also filled with warnings about deadly whales: Friis Peder Claussøn, Samlede Skrifter, ed. G. Storm (Kristiania: 1881) 60–120. I will come back to him soon.
https://www.kb.nl/visboek, fol. 26.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 57–58.
Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland 32–33.
Coenen, Het walvisboek 172; Egmond F., Visboek: de wereld volgens Adriaen Coenen (1514–1587) (Zutphen: 2005) 121–123. In Peder Claussøn Friis’s writings, we find mentions of fish with such semiotic patterns. We know, however, that Dass wrote a poem on a comet that appeared in 1680, but unfortunately, the text did not survive.
Coenen, Het walvisboek 86; Coenen, The Whale Book 86.
Spaans, “Hekser, Kopernikus og nordnorske fiskeslag”. In Nordlands Trompet there are also references elsewhere to the early modern interest in wonder and rarities. For early modern marvels, see Daston L. – Park K., Wonders and the Order of Nature, 1150–1750 (New York: 1998).
The monsters of Olaus Magnus had different purposes. Some were there mainly for their symbolic significance, and they also had different origins, see Sandmo E, “Dwellers of the waves: Sea monsters, classical history, and religion in Olaus Magnus’s Carta Marina”, in Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift – Norwegian Journal of Geography, 74.4 (2020) 237–249. Many were taken from classical works, but some actually had their origins in an older travel account of the most northern part of Norway, Finnmark, from 1520, written by Erik Walkendorf, archbishop of Nidaros (the old name for Trondheim). In Walkendorf’s travelogue we encounter for the first time the concept of the ‘trolhwal’ (troll whale), which we recognise from topographical works discussed in this article. Walkendorf writes that it is the name the inhabitants use for sea monsters. For the Latin original and a Norwegian translation of the text, see Walkendorf E, Finmarkens Beskrivelse: brev til Pave Leo den 10de fra erkebiskop Erik Walkendorf, ed. K.H. Karlsson – G. Storm (Kristiania: 1901), here 8.
Jessen-Schardebøll [Steenbuch], Det Kongerige Norge 19.
Pontoppidan Erik, The Natural History of Norway, 2 vols. (London, A. Linde: 1755). Pontoppidan’s book was also translated into German and Dutch.
Pontoppidan, The Natural History of Norway, vol. 2, 204–206.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 75; Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland 45.
Pontoppidan, The Natural History of Norway, vol. 2, 208.
Pontoppidan, The Natural History of Norway, vol. 2, 183–218, here 213.
Such finds were clearly not isolated cases in Alstahaug. Pontoppidan also refers to what one of his informants, Peter Angel, observed in his youth in the parish, in 1719: Angel ‘along with several other inhabitants of Alstahoug in Nordland, saw what is called a Mer-man, lying dead on a point of land near the sea, which had been cast ashore by the waves, along with several Sea-calves, and other dead Fish’ (Pontoppidan, The Natural History of Norway, vol. 2, 190).
Friis, Samlede skrifter 67.
Herbinius Johannes, Dissertationes De admirandis mundi cataractis supra et subterraneis (Amsterdam, Johannes Janssonius van Waesberge: 1678) 126–135.
For the different views on the Moskstraumen through the centuries, see Lockert S.S., Havsvelget i nord. Moskstraumen gjennom årtusener (Stamsund: 2011); Brinch, Prodromus e Norvegia 7–9.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 150–151.
Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland 109.
Lockert, Havsvelget i nord 87.
Gjevik B., Flo og fjære langs kysten av Norge og Svalbard (Jar: 2009) 12–13, 122.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 150.
Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland 108. Jorgensen has a good translation, which takes into account both the content and rhymes, but there are two lines in this quote, which are an inaccurate rendering of Dass’s original. I have taken the liberty of carefully rewriting these lines. Here is Jorgensen’s version of the lines: ‘If I had no other experience to tell’; ‘But I will with all my due humbleness say’.
Pontoppidan, The Natural History of Norway, vol. 2, 79. My italics.
Cf. Cooper A., Inventing the Indigenous. Local Knowledge and Natural History in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge: 2007).
Trijp D. van, “Fresh Fish: Observation Up Close in Late Seventeenth Century England”, Royal Society of London: Notes Rec. 75 (2021) 311–332; here 316.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 127, 49, 137; Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland 87, 26, 97.
See note 10.
Hens H.A., “Peder Hansen Resen”, Dansk biografisk lexicon (2011): https://biografiskleksikon.lex.dk/Peder_Hansen_Resen.
Schreiner J., Hanseatene og Norge i det 16. århundre (Oslo: 1941); Hansen, Petter Dass: Guds øyesteen, vol. 1 163–165.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 182. Dass also wrote a poem on the incident: Dass, Viser og rim 119–123.
Dass, The Trumpet of Nordland 135–136.
Kiil A., Nordlandshandelen i det 17. århundre (Svorkmo: 1940) 120–131; Ytreberg N.A., Malangen bygdebok (Trondheim: 1943) 8–10. This does not mean, however, that Dass’s relationship with Bergen was simply one of opposition. Dass went to the Latin school in the city, and he wrote poems about Bergen after the city fire of 1702, in which he wished for a new economic and cultural revival for the city.
Kiil, Nordlandshandelen i det 17. århundre 126; Hansen, Petter Dass: Guds øyesteen, vol. 1 258–273; Spaans, “Hekser, Kopernikus og nordnorske fiskeslag” 92–93.
Dass, Beskrivelse over Nordlands Amt 16.
Brandt R., “Raritas et curiositas. Amtmann Hans Hansson Lilienskiold, en 1600-talls europeer”, in Johannesson H.E. (ed.), Mimesis förvandlingar: tradition och förnyelse i renässansens och barockens litteratur (Stockholm: 2002) 359–373, here 370.
Sandnes, “Lokalhistorisk litteratur til omkring 1900” 17.
Wellendorf J., “Odin of Many Devices: Jonas Ramus (d. 1718) on the Identity of Odin and Odysseus”, in Tangherlini T. (ed.), Nordic Mythologies: Interpretations, Intersections, and Institutions (Berkeley: 2014) 115–132; Lockert, Havsvelget i nord 145–154.