The Normans

The gulf stream flows so near to the southern coast of Norway, and to the

Orkneys and Western Islands, that their climate is much less severe than

might be supposed. Yet no one can help wondering why they were formerly

so much more populous than now, and why the people who came westward

even so long ago as the great Aryan migration, did not persist in turning

aside to the more fertile countries that lay farther southward. In spite of all

their disadvantages, the Scandinavian peninsula, and the sterile islands of

the northern seas, were inhabited by men and women whose enterprise and

intelligence ranked them above their neighbors.

Now, with the modern ease of travel and transportation, these poorer

countries can be supplied from other parts of the world. And though the

summers of Norway are misty and dark and short, and it is difficult to raise

even a little hay on the bits of meadow among the rocky mountain slopes,

commerce can make up for all deficiencies. In early times there was no

commerce except that carried on by the pirates¿if we may dignify their

undertakings by such a respectable name,¿and it was hardly possible to

make a living from the soil alone. The sand dunes of Denmark and the cliffs

of Norway alike gave little encouragement to tillers of the ground, yet, in

defiance of all our ideas of successful colonization, when the people of these

countries left them, it was at first only to form new settlements in such

places as Iceland, or the Faroë or Orkney islands and stormiest Hebrides.