while three times that sum was frequently given, at these northern fairs, for female slaves who were "fair in form and beautiful in countenance." Helmold relates that he saw seven thousand Danish slaves at one time exposed for sale in the market at Mecklenburg.[1]
Mode of navigating. Long before the compass was known, the seamen of Norway, like the ancient mariners of the Island of Ceylon, regulated their track through the ocean by the flight of birds set free from on board their vessels; a proof that, in regions of the world far removed from each other, the same primitive practices prevailed. It is related of Flok,[2] a famous Norwegian navigator, that when about to set out from Shetland[3] to Iceland, he took with him some crows on board of his ship. Under the impression that he had made considerable progress in his voyage, he liberated one of these birds, which, seeing land astern, flew for it; whereby Flok, considering that he was nearer Shetland or Faroe "than any other land, kept on his course for some time, and then sent out another crow, which, seeing no land at all," returned to the vessel. At last, as he conceived, having accomplished the greatest part of his voyage, a third crow was set at liberty, which seeing land ahead immediately flew for it, and Flok, following his guide, fell in with the east end of the island of Iceland.
Happily, the accession of Canute to the throne of
- ↑ Thorkelin's "Essay on the Slave Trade," pp. 4-9.
- ↑ Arngrim Jonas. For the story of the Singhalese sailors, see Plin. H. N. vi. 83.
- ↑ The Shetland as well as the Orkney Islands were then in the possession of the Norwegians, and Sutherland, the most northern portion of Great Britain, obtained this title as the land to the south of the Orkneys.
