ABSTRACT
I have related in the chapter immediately preceding this how dangerous seafaring is in the Norwegian Ocean, especially where for some impenetrable reason mariners, unless they have immense foresight, run the danger of a huge whirlpool; and I think, now, that, when some have escaped a peril of this sort, it should be assigned hardly at all to human courage but to the protection of God. This principally occurs in the case of those who, impelled by raging storms to stray far and wide over the sea, are driven to such a region, like stranger guests ignorant of the places they have reached; such I believe the Spaniards or the French to be, 1 who with hostile intentions, or a burning desire for plunder, land on an unknown shore. True, it must be admitted that they are very skilful in handling the mariner’s gnomon, or compass, and in taking soundings with the lead, but the appearance of the coast in this land of ours is different from that of the Africans or Moors. Here the nights are very long, the cold keenly bitter, rocks like towers may lie anywhere hidden from view, and there exist ferocious, terrifying sea-monsters, which I shall describe below where I write about monstrous beasts. 2 Moreover there are icebergs like the walls of huge houses demolished by storms, which from their close proximity look as though they will bring about unavoidable shipwreck. Yet whichever of these dangers you may encounter, all this is more bearable than to experience the compassion of the people of Ireland, whose custom it is (as might be proved by many instances which I here omit) with tears in their eyes to invite distressed sailors to take shelter with them, only to send them back to their shattered ships half dead and stripped of their goods. 3
Seafaring perilous on the northern sea
Strangers ignorant of places
Requisites of mariners
Terrors of mariners
Custom of the Irish
