reproved the skipper for his foolish superstition, on
which the reprimanded skipper said nothing more. They
waited thus the fourth day at the place on account of the
stormy state of the sea, but after that the storm ceased,
and the anchor was weighed. When the voyage was now
continued with a favourable wind, the skipper said: 'You
laughed at my advice to propitiate the Semes rock, and
considered it a foolish superstition, but it certainly
would have been impossible for us to get past it, if I had
not secretly by night ascended the rock and sacrificed.'
To the inquiry what he had offered, the skipper replied:
'I scattered oatmeal mixed with butter on the projecting
rock which we saw.' As they sailed further they came to
another great promontory, called Motka, resembling a
peninsula. At the end of this there was a castle, Barthus,
which means _vakthus_, watch-house, for there the King of
Norway keeps a guard to protect his frontiers. The
interpreter said that this promontory was so long that it
could scarcely be sailed round in eight days, on which
account, in order not to be delayed in this way, they
carried their boats and baggage with great labour on their
shoulders over land for the distance of about half a mile.
They then sailed on along the land of the Dikilopps or
wild Lapps to a place which is called Dront (Trondhjem)
and lies 200 miles north of[37] the Dwina. And they said
that the prince of Moscow used to receive tribute as far
as to this place."

The narrative is of interest, because it gives us an idea of the way
in which men travelled along the north coast of Norway, four hundred
years ago. It may possibly have had an indirect influence on the
sending of Sir Hugh Willoughby's expedition, as the edition of
Herbertstein's work printed at Venice in 1550 probably soon became
known to the Venetian, Cabot, who, at that time, as Grand Pilot of
England, superintended with great care the fitting out of the first
English expedition to the north-east.

There is still greater probability that the map of Scandinavia by
Olaus Magnus, already mentioned, was known in England before 1553.
This map is an expression of a view which before that time had taken
root in the north, which, in opposition to the maps of the
South-European cosmographers, assumed the existence of an open
sea-communication in the north, betwe