Fairs
Exchange
Of the older trade the book gives two accounts. Paulus Jovius says the seller left the goods and the buyer left white skins in their place, because the people feared a stranger. Others say they used no words because the language was not their neighbours’ language. There was no money. The Birkarlar paid in goods. In the book’s own time the patacoon and the half patacoon were known, each by weight, two ounces of silver. Other coins were little valued. Money was wanted chiefly for the tax. The neighbours the book names are the Swedes, the Norwegians, the Finlanders, and the Russians. (Schefferus 1674)
The goods
Samuel Rheen lists what was sold: reindeer and their skins, fox skins black, yellow, blue, and white, otter, glutton or badger, marten, beaver, squirrel, wolf, and bear, garments, boots, shoes, gloves, dried pike, and reindeer cheese. With these they bought silver, patacoons, wool and linen, copper, a metal the book calls alchymy, salt, corn, bull hides, sulphur, needles, knives, brandy, and tobacco. An ordinary reindeer stood for two patacoons. The skin of a tame buck for one, of a castrated buck for a quarter, of a doe for a half. A fox for one, forty grey squirrels for one, a marten for one, three white foxes for one. A bear and a wolf for two. A garment the book calls a Mudd for three. An ell of cloth stood for one patacoon, three pounds of copper for one, a tun of corn for two and a half. To Norway they carried hides, reindeer, cheese, and birds’ feathers, and brought back copper and alchymy vessels, cloth, and bulls and cows. Rheen calls the dealers cheats. That is his word. (Schefferus 1674)
The places
In 1602 Charles IX forbade the Birkarlar to go about the country for skins. The skins were to be sold to the governor at a set rate. In 1610 the elk skins were taken for the crown without payment. In that same edict of 1602 he ordered two fairs a year in every province, one in winter and one in summer, each to last two or three weeks. He left the places to the governors. An edict of Queen Christina in 1640 names two: Arfwisjerf in January, and Arieplog in February. The tax was taken at the same meeting. (Schefferus 1674)