The History of Lapland: Wherein Are Shewed the Original, Manners, Habits, Marriages, Conjurations, &c. of That PeopleScheffer, Johannes
History
The History of Lapland: Wherein Are Shewed the Original, Manners, Habits, Marriages, Conjurations, &c. of That People
Scheffer, Johannes
Lapland -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Sami (European people)
There are abundance of Beavers in _Lapland_, because the Nation abounds
with plenty of Fish, whence they have store of food: _Olaus_ thinks
that the plenty of them proceeds from the quietness of the Waters,
which are never troubled with Ships, as the _Rhine_ and _Danow_ are. I
add nothing of these because they are not distinguish’d from the vulgar
sort, neither are the Otters. Next to these _Sam. Rheen_ speaks of the
Foxes, as being numerous, and of severall sorts over all _Lapland_.
He reckons up, besides the common ones, those that are black, brown,
ash-colored, white; and those that are marked with a cross. The black
are most valued because they are rare: in _Moscovy_ Men of honor
and preferment have their Caps made of their skins, which are sold,
as _Herberstenius_ observes, for 10, sometimes 15 pieces of gold.
Those that are marked with a cross, _Johnston_ calls _Crucigeræ_, and
describes them thus: they have from their mouth, over their head and
back to their tail a black streak, another crossing their back, and
down to their forefeet, which two lines do resemble a cross. These
are preferred before the common red Foxes, being bigger, and having
thicker hair. The ashen-colored Foxes are those which _Johnston_ calls
_Isatidæ_, their color is mixt of ash and blew, such as is the color
of the woad, tho this color is not spread all over his body, nor is
any single hair wholly of this color, for the longest hairs are black
at the end, the shortest white, from both which this color results.
_Olaus_ calls these _Celestine_, or sky-colored Foxes, where too he
tells us that they are of less worth than the rest, and the white ones
too, because their color is so, without the tincture of any other, such
as Conies use to have. The reason is because their number is great, and
their hair not durable: but that there is such abundance of these skins
happens because the Foxes are more easily taken, not living in the
Woods, but on the naked Mountains between _Norway_ and _Swedland_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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