Norfish 22 Shetland Cod Fishery 1520–1796

Shetland is an archipelago situated off the north east coast of Scotland and comprises of several islands, formerly known in Old Norse as Hjaltland, later Hitland. It was referred to as Shetland by English fishers and the name endured. The Danish Sound Toll Tables of the 17th and 18th centuries record that cod and herring catches were exported to the Baltic. While little statistical information is known about the early Shetland fishery, from the 1740s customs records provide figures for exports of cod to Ireland, Scotland and England, and in the latter half of the 18th century increasingly to the Mediterranean