Re: Lofoten Islands as Germanic Homeland.

--- In cybalist@..., markodegard@... wrote:

> We all do need to understand 'stockfish'. This is codfish, as

fished

> off the Lofoten Islands in Norway. We are also to understand how
> *rich* it used to be. Nowadays, the Canadian Navy mostly spends it
> time chasing off fishermen from the Grand Banks -- which are fished
> dry of cod.
>
> Before the cod got fished dry from the sea, the Lofoten Islands

were

> as rich (but more nasty in climate terms) than were the Grand Banks.
>
> The Lofoten Islands give us 'stockfish'. This is freeze-dried cod,
> which keeps (in rather nasty summers) for about two years. It's
> enough to keep you and yours, the king, and the people down south

you

> trade with. Gee. Foodstuffs that keep for two years, even thru a

hot

> humid summer.
>
> To do stockfish, you need to freeze your butt off at the far-

western

> coast of northern Europe. In olden days, the cod just leapt into

your

> hands, much like cod usta leap into your hands on the Grand Banks.
> You really could keep your and yours, the king, and people far to

the

> south in good protein, without working *that* hard.
>
> So. I've seen maps that put the Corded Ware Horizen in the Lofoten
> Islands (and perhaps, depending on how you interpret that dot, as

far

> as the North Cape).
>
> Now. There is a whole 'nother story about stockfish, one the

relates

> to Christian Europe before Marty Luther said you could eat beef on
> Friday or during Lent. It was a VAST industry in stockfish, sent

south

> (remember, freeze dried cod could keep up to two years), all the

way

> down to southern Portugal (Henry the Navigator's territory).
>
> I do remember reading how Portuguese fishermen are recorded as

doing

> the Grand Banks at an obscenely early date after Columbus' 1492 and
> all that. It's as if the Portuguese knew about the Grand Banks

before

> that (and they pro'lly did).
>
> So. As a private theory, I toss out the idea that Germanic

developed

> WAY in the north.

The main problem with living in these parts is: How do stay alive in
the winter? You can keep out the cold by proper housing and clothing
but what would you eat?
Since Nature provides nothing in those months (except for ice
fishing, brrrr) survival hinges on technologies to preserve food.
One method is to keep farm animals and slaughter them in winter.
Another is to keep durable stuff about, like cereals (no, not corn
flakes). But you could also salt or smoke fish.
(Lower) Saxony, the old home of the Saxons has the salt mines at
Lüneburg. Denmark and Scania had the fishing in the Sound. Until the
16th century herring would leave the Baltic at certain seasons, and,
according to some chroniclers, in such numbers that you could place a
spear in the water and it would stand upright. In the late middle
ages this was the basis of Danish wealth: Sound herrings, bought and
salted by the Hanse Merchants on the markets in Skanör and Falsterbo.
Standard history will tell you that the importance of this export was
due to Catholics eating fish during fast; personally I think they
constituted a large part of food produced in Denmark then.

Torsten