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[Illustration: “He picked his way, with much circumspection, between
the prostrate forms of the tiny people.”

_T. G. J._ VOL. I., p. 233.]




                              THE OXONIAN
                                  IN
                              THELEMARKEN;

                                  OR,

                NOTES OF TRAVEL IN SOUTH-WESTERN NORWAY
                   IN THE SUMMERS OF 1856 AND 1857.

                  WITH GLANCES AT THE LEGENDARY LORE
                           OF THAT DISTRICT.

                                  BY
                  THE REV. FREDERICK METCALFE, M.A.,
                  FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD,
                               AUTHOR OF
                       “THE OXONIAN IN NORWAY.”

          “Auf den Bergen ist Freiheit; der Hauch der Grüfte,
          Steigt nicht hinauf in die schönen Lüfte,
          Die Welt is volkommen überall,
          Wo der Mensch nicht hinein kömmt mit seiner Qual.”

          “Tu nidum servas: ego laudo ruris amœni
          Rivos, et musco circumlita saxa, nemusque.”

                            IN TWO VOLUMES.
                                VOL. I.

                                LONDON:
                    HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
                     SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
                     13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
                                 1858.

               [_The right of Translation is reserved._]

                                LONDON:
             SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
                             COVENT GARDEN




PREFACE.


In the neighbourhood of Bayeux, in Normandy, it is said that there
still lingers a superstition which most probably came there originally
in the same ship as Rollo the Walker. The country folks believe in
the existence of a sprite (goubelin) who plagues mankind in various
ways. His most favourite method of annoyance is to stand like a horse
saddled and bridled by the roadside, inviting the passers-by to mount
him. But woe to the unlucky wight who yields to the temptation, for
off he sets--“Halloo! halloo! and hark away!” galloping fearfully
over stock and stone, and not unfrequently ends by leaving his rider
in a bog or horse-pond, at the same time vanishing with a loud peal
of mocking laughter. “A heathenish and gross superstition!” exclaims
friend Broadbrim. But what if we try to extract a jewel out of this
ugly monster; knock some commonsense out of his head. Goethe turned the
old fancy of _Der getreue Eckart_ to good account in that way. What
if a moral of various application underlies this grotesque legend.
Suppose, for the nonce, that the rider typify the writer of a book.
Unable to resist a strong temptation to bestride the Pegasus of his
imagination--whether prose or verse--he ventures to mount and go forth
into the world, and not seldom he gets a fall for his pains amid a loud
chorus of scoffs and jeers. Indeed, this is so common a catastrophe,
from the days of Bellerophon downwards (everybody knows that he was the
author of the _Letters_[1] that go by his name), so prone is inkshed to
lead to disaster, that the ancient wish, “Oh that mine adversary had
written a book,” in its usual acceptation (which entirely rests, be it
said, on a faulty interpretation of the original language), was really
exceedingly natural, as the fulfilment of it was as likely as not to
lead to the fullest gratification of human malice.

In defiance, however, of the dangers that threatened him, the writer
of these lines did once gratify his whim, and mount the goblin steed,
and as good luck would have it, without being spilled or dragged
through a horse-pond, or any mischance whatsoever. In other words,
instead of cold water being thrown upon his endeavours, _The Oxonian in
Norway_ met with so indulgent a handling from that amiable abstraction,
the “Benevolus Lector,” that it soon reached a second edition.

So far the author’s lucky star was in the ascendant. But behold his
infatuation, he must again mount and tempt his fate, “Ay! and on the
same steed, too,” cries Mr. Bowbells, to whom the swarming sound of
life with an occasional whiff of the sewers is meat, and drink, and all
things; who is bored to death if he sees more of the quiet country than
Brighton or Ramsgate presents, and is about as locomotive in his tastes
as a London sparrow.

“Norway again, forsooth--_nous revenons à nos moutons_--that horrid
bleak country, where the cold in winter is so intense that when you
sneeze, the shower from your olfactories rattles against the earth like
dust-shot, and in summer you can’t sleep for the brazen-faced sun
staring at you all the twenty-four hours. What rant that is about

    The dark tall pines that plume the craggy ledge,
    High over the blue gorge,

and all that sort of thing. Give me Kensington Gardens and Rotten Row!”

Still--in spite of Bowbells--we shall venture on the expedition, and
probably with less chance of a fiasco than if we travelled by the
express-train through the beaten paths of central Europe. There, all
is a dead level. Civilization has smoothed the gradients actually
and metaphorically--alike in the Brunellesque and social sense.
As people progress in civilization, the more prominent marks of
national character are planed off. Individuality is lost. The members
of civilized society are as like one another as the counters on a
draft-board. “They rub each other’s angles down,” and thus lose “the
picturesque of man and man.” The same type keeps repeating itself with
sickening monotony, like the patterns of paper-hangings, instead of
those delightfully varied arabesques with which the free hand of the
painter used to diversify the walls of the antique dwelling.

But it is not so with the population of a primitive country like
Norway. Much of the simplicity that characterized our forefathers
is still existing there. We are Aladdined to the England of three
centuries ago. Do you mean to say that you, a sensible man or woman,
prefer putting on company manners at every turn, being everlastingly
swaddled in the artificial restraints of society; being always among
grand people, or genteel people, or superior people, or people
of awful respectability? Do you prefer an aviary full of highly
educated song-birds mewed up so closely that they “show off” one
against another, filled with petty rivalries and jealousies, to the
gay, untutored melody of the woods poured forth for a bird’s own
gratification or that of its mate? Do you like to spend your time
for ever in trim gardens, among standards and espaliers, and spruce
flower-beds, so weeded, and raked, and drilled, and shaped, that you
feel positively afraid of looking and walking about for fear of making
a _faux pas_? Oh no! you would like to see a bit of wild rose or native
heather. (Interpret this as you list of the flowers of the field, or
a fairer flower still.) You prefer climbing a real lichened rock _in
situ_, that has not been placed there by Capability Brown or Sir Joseph
Paxton.

Indeed, the avidity with which books of travel in primitive
countries--whether in the tropics or under the pole--are now read,
shows that the more refined a community is, the greater interest it
will take in the occupation, the sentiments, the manners of people
still in a primitive state of existence. Our very over-civilization
begets in us a taste to beguile oneself of its tedium, its frivolities,
its unreality, by mixing in thought, at least, with those who are
nearer the state in which nature first made man.

“The manners of a rude people are always founded on fact,” said Sir
Walter Scott, “and therefore the feelings of a polished generation
immediately sympathize with them.” It is this kind of feeling that
has a good deal to do with urging men, who have been educated in all
the habits and comforts of improved society, to leave the groove, and
carve out for themselves a rough path through dangers and privations in
wilder countries.

“You will have none of this sort of thing,” said Dr. Livingstone, in
the Sheldonian theatre, while addressing Young Oxford on the fine
field for manly, and useful, and Christian enterprise that Africa
opens out,--“You will have none of this sort of thing there,” while he
uneasily shook the heavy sleeve of his scarlet D.C.L. gown, which he
had donned in deference to those who had conferred on him this mark of
honour. Yes, less comforts, perhaps, but at the same time less red tape.

“Brown exercise” is better than the stewy, stuffy adipocere state of
frame in which the man of “indoors mind” ultimately eventuates. Living
on frugal fare, in the sharp, brisk air of the mountain, the lungs
of mind and body expand healthfully, and the fire of humanity burns
brighter, like the fire in the grate when fanned by a draught of fresh
oxygen. Most countries, when we visit them for the first time, turn
out “the dwarfs of presage.” Not so Norway. It grows upon you every
time you see it. You need not fear, gentle reader, of being taken
over beaten ground. “The Oxonian” has never visited Thelemarken and
Sætersdal before. So come along with me, in the absence of a better
guide, if you wish to cultivate a nearer acquaintance with the roughly
forged, “hardware” sort of people of this district, content to forget
for a while the eternal willow-pattern crockery of home. Thelemarken is
the most primitive part of Norway; it is the real _Ultima Thule_ of the
ancients; the very name indicates this, and the Norwegian antiquaries
quote our own King Alfred in support of this idea. It is true, that on
nearer inspection, its physical geography will not be found to partake
of the marvellous peculiarities assigned to Thule by the ancient Greek
navigator, Pytheas, who asserts that it possessed neither earth, air,
or sea, but a chaotic mixture of all three elements. But that may
emphatically be said to be neither here nor there. Inaccessible the
country certainly is, and it is this very inaccessibility which has
kept out the schoolmaster; so that old times are not yet changed, nor
old manners gone, nor the old language unlearned under the auspices
of that orthoepic functionary. The fantastic pillars and arches of
fairy folk-lore may still be descried in the deep secluded glens of
Thelemarken, undefaced with stucco, not propped by unsightly modern
buttress. The harp of popular minstrelsy--though it hangs mouldering
and mildewed with infrequency of use, its strings unbraced for want of
cunning hands that can tune and strike them as the Scalds of Eld--may
still now and then be heard sending forth its simple music. Sometimes
this assumes the shape of a soothing lullaby to the sleeping babe, or
an artless ballad of love-lorn swains, or an arch satire on rustic
doings and foibles. Sometimes it swells into a symphony descriptive
of the descent of Odin; or, in somewhat of less Pindaric, and more
Dibdin strain, it recounts the deeds of the rollicking, death-despising
Vikings; while, anon, its numbers rise and fall with mysterious cadence
as it strives to give a local habitation and a name to the dimly seen
forms and antic pranks of the hollow-backed Huldra crew.

The author thinks that no apology is needed for working in some of the
legendary interludes which the natives repeated to him, so curious and
interesting, most of which he believes never appeared before in an
English dress, and several of them in no print whatever. Legends are
an article much in request just now; neither can they be considered
trifling when viewed in the light thrown upon the origin of this
branch of popular belief and pastime by the foremost men of their time,
_e.g._, Scott, and more especially Jacob Grimm. Frivolous, indeed! not
half so frivolous as the hollow-hearted, false-fronted absurdities
of the “great and small vulgar,” is the hollow-backed elf, with the
grand mythological background reaching into the twilight of the
earth’s history, nor so trifling the simple outspoken peasant, grave,
yet cheery, who speaks as he thinks, and actually sometimes laughs a
good guffaw, as the stuck-up ladies and gentlemen of a section of the
artificial world, with their heartless glitter, crocodile tears, their
solemn pretence, their sham raptures.

I must not omit to say that the admirable troll-drawing, which forms
the frontispiece of the first volume, is one selected from a set of
similar sketches by my friend, T. G. Jackson, Esq., of Wadham College,
Oxford. It evinces such an intimate acquaintance with the looks of
those small gentry that it is lucky for him that he did not live in the
days when warlocks were done to death.

                                                                  F. M.

    LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD,
        _May, 1858_.




CONTENTS TO VOL. I.


                              CHAPTER I.

    The glamour of Norwegian scenery--A gentle angler in a
    passion--The stirring of the blood--A bachelor’s wild scream
    of liberty--What marriage brings a salmon-fisher to--Away,
    for the land of the mountain and the flood--“Little” circle
    sailing--The Arctic shark--Advantages of gold lace--A lesson
    for laughers--Norwegian coast scenery--Nature’s grey friars--In
    the steps of the Vikings--The Norwegian character--How the
    Elves left Jutland--Christiansand harbour                      pp. 1-15

                             CHAPTER II.

    Disappointed fishermen--A formidable diver--Arendal, the
    Norwegian Venice--A vocabulary at fault--Ship-building--The
    Norwegian Seaboard--Sandefjord, the Norwegian Brighton--A
    complicated costume--Flora’s own bonnet--Bruin at large--Skien
    and its saw-mills--Norway cutting its sticks--Wooden
    walls--Christopher Hansen Blum--The Norwegian phase of
    religious dissent--A confession of faith--The Norsk Church the
    offspring of that of Great Britain                            pp. 16-28

                             CHAPTER III.

    A poet in full uniform--The young lady in gauntlet gloves
    again--Church in a cave--Muscular Christianity in the
    sixteenth century--A miracle of light and melody--A romance
    of bigotry--How Lutheranism came in like a lion--The Last
    of the Barons--Author makes him bite the dust--Brief
    burial-service in use in South-western Norway--The
    Sörenskriver--Norwegian substitute for Doctors’ Commons--Grave
    ale--A priestly Samson--Olaf’s ship--A silent woman--Norwegian
    dialects--Artificial salmon-breeding--A piscatorial prevision pp. 29-47

                             CHAPTER IV.

    Mine host at Dal--Bernadotte’s prudent benignity--Taxing the
    bill of costs--Hurrah for the mountains--Whetstones--Antique
    wooden church--A wild country--“Raven depth”--How the
    English like to do fine scenery--Ancient wood-carving--A
    Norwegian peasant’s witticism--A rural rectory--Share and
    chair alike--Ivory knife-handles--Historical pictures--An
    old Runic Calendar--The heathen leaven still exists in
    Norway--Washing-day--Old names of the Norsk months--Peasant
    songs--Rustic reserve--A Norsk ballad                         pp. 48-68

                              CHAPTER V.

    A lone farm-house--A scandal against the God Thor--The
    headquarters of Scandinavian fairy-lore--The legend of Dyrë
    Vo--A deep pool--A hint for alternate ploughboys--Wild
    goose geometry--A memorial of the good old times--Dutch
    falconers--Rough game afoot--Author hits two birds with one
    stone--Crosses the lake Totak--A Slough of Despond--An honest
    guide--A Norwegian militiaman--Rough lodgings--A night with the
    swallows--A trick of authorship--Yea or Nay                   pp. 69-81

                             CHAPTER VI.

    No cream--The valley of the Maan--The Riukan foss--German
    students--A bridge of dread--The course of true love never
    did run smooth--Fine misty weather for trout--Salted
    provisions--Midsummer-night revels--The Tindsö--The priest’s
    hole--Treacherous ice--A case for Professor Holloway--The
    realms of cloud-land--Superannuated--An ornithological
    guess--Field-fares out of reach of “Tom Brown”--The best
    kind of physic--Undemonstrative affection--Everywhere the
    same--Clever little horses                                    pp. 82-96

                             CHAPTER VII.

    An oasis--Unkempt waiters--Improving an opportunity--The church
    in the wilderness--Household words--A sudden squall--The
    pools of the Quenna--Airy lodgings--Weather-bound--A
    Norwegian grandpapa--Unwashed agriculturists--An uncanny
    companion--A fiery ordeal--The idiot’s idiosyncrasy--The
    punctilious parson--A pleasant query--The mystery of making
    flad-brod--National cakes--The exclusively English phase of
    existence--Author makes a vain attempt to be “hyggelig”--Rather
    queer                                                        pp. 97-113

                            CHAPTER VIII.

    Northwards--Social colts--The horse shepherd--The tired
    traveller’s sweet restorer, tea--Troll-work--Snow
    Macadam--Otter hunting in Norway--Normaends Laagen--A vision
    of reindeer--The fisherman’s hut--My lodging is on the cold
    ground--Making a night of it--National songs--Shaking down--A
    slight touch of nightmare                                   pp. 114-128

                             CHAPTER IX.

    The way to cure a cold--Author shoots some dotterel--Pit-fall
    for reindeer--How mountains look in mountain air--A
    natural terrace--The meeting of the waters--A phantom
    of delight--Proves to be a clever dairymaid--A singular
    cavalcade--Terrific descent into Tjelmö-dal--A volley of
    questions--Crossing a cataract--A tale of a tub--Author reaches
    Garatun--Futile attempt to drive a bargain                  pp. 129-141

                              CHAPTER X.

    The young Prince of Orange--A crazy bridge--At the foot of
    the mighty Vöring Foss--A horse coming downstairs--Mountain
    greetings--The smoke-barometer--The Vöring waterfall--National
    characteristics--Paddy’s estimate of the Giant’s
    Causeway--Meteoric water--New illustrations of old
    slanders--How the Prince of Orange did homage to the glories
    of nature--Author crosses the lake Eidsfjord--Falls in
    with an English yacht and Oxonians--An innkeeper’s story
    about the Prince of Orange--Salmonia--General aspect of
    a Norwegian Fjord--Author arrives at Utne--Finds himself
    in pleasant quarters--No charge for wax-lights--Christian
    names in Thelemarken--Female attire--A query for Sir Bulwer
    Lytton--Physiognomy of the Thelemarken peasants--Roving
    Englishmen--Christiania newspapers--The Crown
    Prince--Historical associations of Utne--The obsequies of Sea
    Kings--Norwegian gipsies                                    pp. 142-160

                             CHAPTER XI.

    From Fairy-lore to Nature-lore--Charming idea for stout
    folk--Action and reaction--Election-day at Bergen--A laxstie--A
    careless pilot--Discourse about opera-glasses--Paulsen Vellavik
    and the bears--The natural character of bears--Poor Bruin
    in a dilemma--An intelligent Polar bear--Family plate--What
    is fame?--A simple Simon--Limestone fantasia--The paradise
    of botanists--Strength and beauty knit together--Mountain
    hay-making--A garden in the wilderness--Footprints
    of a celebrated botanist--Crevasses--Dutiful snow
    streams--Swerre’s sok--The Rachels of Eternity--A Cockney’s
    dream of desolation--Curds-and-whey--The setting-in of
    misfortunes--Author’s powder-flask has a cold bath--The shadows
    of the mountains--The blind leading the blind--On into the
    night--The old familiar music--Holloa--Welcome intelligence pp. 161-187

                             CHAPTER XII.

    The lonely châlet--The Spirit of the
    hills--Bauta-stones--Battlefields older than
    history--Sand-falls--Thorsten Fretum’s hospitality--Norwegian
    roads--The good wife--Author executes strict
    justice--Urland--Crown Prince buys a red nightcap--A melancholy
    spectacle--The trick of royalty--Author receives a visit
    from the Lehnsman--Skiff voyage to Leirdalsören--Limestone
    cliffs--Becalmed--A peasant lord of the forest--Inexplicable
    natural phenomena--National education--A real postboy--A
    disciple for Braham--The Hemsedal’s fjeld--The land
    of desolation--A passing belle--The change-house of
    Bjöberg--“With twenty ballads stuck upon the wall”--A story
    about hill folk--Sivardson’s joke--Little trolls--The way to
    cast out wicked fairies--The people in the valley--Pastor
    Engelstrup--Economy of a Norwegian change-house--The Halling
    dance--Tame reindeer--A region of horrors                   pp. 188-214

                             CHAPTER XIII.

    Fairy-lore--A wrestle for a drinking-horn--Merry time is
    Yule time--Head-dresses at Haga--Old church at Naes--Good
    trout-fishing country--A wealthy milkmaid--Horses subject
    to influenza--A change-house library--An historical
    calculation--The great national festival--Author threatens,
    but relents--A field-day among the ducks--Gulsvig--Family
    plate--A nurse of ninety years--The Sölje--The little fat
    grey man--A capital scene for a picture--An amazing story--As
    true as I sit here--The goat mother--Are there no Tusser
    now-a-days?--Uninvited guests--An amicable conversation about
    things in general--Hans saves his shirt--The cosmopolitan
    spirit of fairy-lore--Adam of Bremen                        pp. 215-241

                             CHAPTER XIV.

    A port-wine pilgrimage--The perfection of a landlady--Old
    superstitious customs--Levelling effects of unlevelled roads--A
    blank day--Sketch of an interior after Ostade--A would-be
    resurrectionist foiled--The voices of the woods--Valuable
    timber--A stingy old fellow--Unmistakeable symptoms of
    civilization--Topographical memoranda--Timber-logs on
    their travels--The advantages of a short cut--A rock-gorge
    swallows a river--Ferry talk--Welcome--What four years can
    do for the stay-at-homes--A Thelemarken manse--Spæwives--An
    important day for the millers--How a tailor kept watch--The
    mischievous cats--Similarity in proverbs--“The postman’s
    knock”--Government patronage of humble talent--Superannuated
    clergymen in Norway--Perpetual curates--Christiania
    University examination--Norwegian students--The Bernadotte
    dynasty--Scandinavian unity--Religious parties--Papal
    propagandists at Tromsö--From fanaticism to field-sports--The
    Linnæa Borealis                                             pp. 242-276

                             CHAPTER XV.

    Papa’s birthday--A Fellow’s sigh--To Kongsberg--A word for
    waterproofs--Dram Elv--A relic of the shooting season--How
    precipitous roads are formed in Norway--The author does
    something eccentric--The river Lauven--Pathetic cruelty--The
    silver mine at Kongsberg--A short life and not a merry
    one--The silver mine on fire--A leaf out of Hannibal’s book--A
    vein of pure silver--Commercial history of the Kongsberg
    silver mines--Kongsberg--The silver refining works--Silver
    showers--That horrid English                                pp. 277-296

                             CHAPTER XVI.

    A grumble about roads--Mr. Dahl’s caravansary--“You’ve waked
    me too early”--St. Halvard--Professor Munck--Book-keeping
    by copper kettles--Norwegian society--Fresh milk--Talk
    about the great ship--Horten the chief naval station of
    Norway--The Russian Admiral--Conchology--Tönsberg the
    most ancient town in Norway--Historical reminiscences--A
    search for local literature--An old Norsk Patriot--Nobility
    at a discount--Passport passages--Salmonia--A tale for
    talkers--Agreeable meeting--The Roman Catholics in Finmark--A
    deep design--Ship wrecked against a lighthouse--The courtier
    check-mated                                                 pp. 297-317




THE OXONIAN IN THELEMARKEN.




CHAPTER I.

    The glamour of Norwegian scenery--A gentle angler in a
    passion--The stirring of the blood--A bachelor’s wild scream
    of liberty--What marriage brings a salmon-fisher to--Away,
    for the land of the mountain and the flood--“Little” circle
    sailing--The Arctic shark--Advantages of gold lace--A lesson
    for laughers--Norwegian coast scenery--Nature’s grey friars--In
    the steps of the Vikings--The Norwegian character--How the
    Elves left Jutland--Christiansand harbour.


A strange attraction has Norway for one who has once become acquainted
with it: with its weird rocks and mountains--its dark cavernous
fjords--its transparent skies--its quaint gulf-stream warming
apparatus--its “Borealis race”--its fabulous Maelstrom--its “Leviathan
slumbering on the Norway foam”--its sagas, so graphically portraying
the manners and thoughts of an ancient race--its sturdy population,
descendants of that northern hive which poured from the frozen loins
of the north, and, as Montesquieu says, “left their native climes
to destroy tyrants and slaves, and were, a thousand years ago, the
upholders of European liberty.”

“Very attractive, no doubt,” interrupts Piscator. “In short, the
country beats that loadstone island in the East hollow, which extracted
the bolts out of the ships’ bottoms; drawing the tin out of one’s
pockets, and oneself thither every summer without the possibility of
resistance. But a truce to your dithyrambs on scenery, and sagas, and
liberty. Talk about the salmon-fishing. I suppose you’re coming to
that last--the best at the end, like the postscript of a young lady’s
letter.”

Well, then, the salmon-fishing. A man who has once enjoyed the thrill
of _that_ won’t so easily forget it. Here, for instance, is the month
of June approaching. Observe the antics of that “old Norwegian,” the
Rev. Christian Muscular, who has taken a College living, and become a
sober family man. See how he snorts and tosses up his head, like an
old hunter in a paddock as the chase sweeps by. He keeps writing to
his friends, inquiring what salmon rivers are to be let, and what time
they start, and all that sort of thing, although he knows perfectly
well he can’t possibly go; not even if he might have the priest’s water
on the Namsen. But no wonder Mr. Muscular is growing uneasy. The air
of Tadpole-in-the-Marsh becomes unhealthy at that season, and he feels
quite suffocated in the house, and prostrated by repose; and as he
reads Schiller’s fresh ‘Berglied,’ he sighs for the mountain air and
the music of the gurgling river.

But there are mamma and the pledges; so he must resign all hope of
visiting his old haunts. Instead of going there himself, in body, he
must do it in spirit--by reading, for instance, these pages about the
country, pretty much in the same way as the Irish peasant children,
who couldn’t get a taste of the bacon, pointed their potatoes at it,
and had a taste in imagination. Behold, then, Mr. Muscular, with all
the family party, and the band-boxes and bonnet-boxes, and umbrellas
and parasols numbered up to twenty; and last, not least, the dog “Ole”
(he delights to call the live things about him by Norsk names), bound
for the little watering-place of Lobster-cum-Crab. Behold him at the
“Great Babel junction,” not far from his destination, trying to collect
his scattered thoughts--which are far away--and to do the same by his
luggage, two articles of which--Harold’s rocking-horse and Sigfrid’s
pap-bottle--are lost already. Shall I tell you what Mr. Muscular is
thinking of? Of “the Long,” when he shut up shop without a single care;
feeling satisfied that his rooms and properties would be in the same
place when he came back, without being entrusted to servants who gave
“swarries” above-stairs during his absence.

Leaving him, then, to dredge for the marine monstrosities which abound
at Lobster-cum-Crab, or to catch congers and sea-perch at the sunken
wreck in the Bay--we shall start with our one wooden box, and various
other useful articles, for the land of the mountain and the flood--pick
up its wild legends and wild flowers, scale its mountains, revel in the
desolation of its snowfields, thread its sequestered valleys--catching
fish and shooting fowl as occasion offers; though we give fair notice
that on this occasion we shall bestow less attention on the wild
sports than on other matters.

On board the steamer that bore us away over a sea as smooth as a
mirror, was a stout English lady, provided with a brown wig, and who
used the dredging-box most unsparingly to stop up the gaps in her
complexion.

“A wild country is Norway, isn’t it?” inquired she, with a sentimental
air; “you will, no doubt, have to take a Lazaroni with you to show you
the way?” (? Cicerone).

“The scenery,” continued she, “isn’t equal, I suppose, to that of
Hoban. Do you know, I was a great climber until I became subject to
palpitations. You wouldn’t think it, so robust as I am; but I’m very
delicate. My two families have been too much for me.”

I imagined she had been married twice, or had married a widower.

“You know,” continued she, confidentially, “I had three children, and
then I stopped for some years, and began again, and had two more.
Children are such a plague. I went with them to the sea, and would you
believe it, every one of them took the measles.”

But there was a little countrywoman of ours on board whose vivacity
and freshness made up for the insipidity of the “Hoban lady.” She
can’t bear to think that she is doing no good in the world, and spends
much of her time in district visiting in one of the largest parishes
of the metropolis. Not that she had a particle of the acid said to
belong to some of the so-called sisters of mercy--reckless craft that,
borne along by the gale of triumphant vanity, have in mere wantonness
run down many an unsuspecting vessel--I mean trifled with honest
fellows’ affections, and then suddenly finding themselves beached, in a
matrimonial sense, irretrievably pronounce all men, without exception,
monsters. And, thus, she whose true mission it was to be “the Angel in
the House,” presiding, ministering, soothing, curdles up into a sour,
uneasy devotee.

At sea, a wise traveller will be determined to gather amusement
from trifles; nay, even rather than get put out by any delay or
misadventure, set about performing the difficult task of constructing
a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. For instance, our vessel, being
overburdened, steered excessively ill, as might be seen from her
wake, which, for the most part, assumed the shape of zigzags or arcs
of circles. This disconcerted one grumpy fellow uncommonly. But we
endeavoured to restore his good humour by telling him that we were not
practising the “great” but the “little” circle sailing. His mantling
sulkiness seemed to evaporate at this pleasantry; and, subsequently,
when, on the coal lessening, and lightening our craft astern, she
steered straighter, he facetiously apostrophized the man at the wheel--

“You’re the man to take the kinks out of her course; we must have you
at the wheel all night, and as much grog as you like, at my expense,
afterwards.”

The captain, who was taken prisoner on returning from the Davis’
Straits fishery, during the French wars, and was detained seven years
in France, gives me some information about the Arctic shark (Squalus
Arcticus), which is now beginning to reappear on the coast of Norway.

“We used to call them the blind shark, sir--more by token they would
rush in among the nets and seize our fish, paying no more attention to
us than nothing at all. They used to bite pieces out of our fish just
like a plate, and no mistake, as clean as a whistle, sir. I’ve often
stuck my knife into ’em, but they did not wince in the least--they did
not appear to have no feeling whatsomdever. I don’t think they had any
blood in ’em; I never saw any. I’ve put my hand in their body, and it
was as cold as ice.”

“By-the-bye, captain,” said I, to our commander, who was a fubsy,
little round red-faced man, with a cheery blue eye, “how’s this? Why,
you are in uniform!”

“To be sure I am. Th’ Cumpany said it must be done. Those furriners
think more of you with a bit of gowd lace on your cap and coat. An
order came from our governor to wear this here coat and cap--so I put
’em on. What a guy I did look--just like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”

“Or a daw in borrowed plumes,” suggested I.

“But I put a bould face on’t, and came a-board, and walked about just
as if I had the old brown coat on, and now I’ve got quite used to the
change.”

Now this little fellow is as clever as he is modest--every inch
a seaman. I’ve seen him calm and collected in very difficult
circumstances on this treacherous old North Sea.

Last year, in the autumn, the captain tells me he was approaching the
Norwegian coast in the grey of the morning when he descried what he
took to be a quantity of nets floating on the water, and several boats
hovering about them. He eased the engine for fear of entangling the
screw. Some Cockneys on board, who wore nautical dresses, and sported
gilt buttons on which were engraved R. T. Y. C., laughed at the captain
for his excessive carefulness. Presently it turned out that what had
seemed to be floating nets were the furniture and hencoops of the
ill-fated steamer _Norge_, which had just been run down by another
steamer, and sunk with a loss of some half a hundred lives. A grave
Norwegian on board now lectured the young men for their ignorance and
bravado.

“They just did look queer, I’ll a-warrant ye,” continued our
north-country captain. “They laughed on t’other side of their mouths,
and were mum for the rest of the voyage.”

“What vessel’s that?” asked I.

“Oh! that’s the opposition--the Kangaroo.”

This was the captain’s pronunciation of _Gangr Rolf_ (Anglicè, Rollo,
the Walker), the Norwegian screw, which I hear rolls terribly in a
sea-way.

“Hurrah!” I exclaimed. “Saall for Gamle Norge,” as we sighted the loom
of the land. How different it is from the English coast. The eye will
in vain look for the white perpendicular cliffs, such as hedge so much
of old Albion, their glistening fronts relieved at intervals by streaks
of darker hue, where the retreating angle of the wall-like rock does
not catch the sun’s rays; while behind lie the downs rising gently
inland, with their waving fields of corn or old pastures dotted with
sheep. Quite as vainly will you cast about for the low shores of other
parts of our island--diversified, it may be, by yellow dunes, with the
sprinkling of shaggy flag-like grass, or, elsewhere, the flat fields
terminating imperceptibly in flatter sands, the fattening ground of
oysters.

As far as I can judge at this distance, instead of the coast forming
one sober businesslike line of demarcation, with no nonsense about it,
showing exactly the limits of land and ocean, as in other countries,
here it is quite impossible to say where water ends and land begins. It
is neither fish nor fowl. Those low, bare gneiss-rocks, for instance,
tumbled, as it were, into a lot of billows. One would almost think
they had got a footing among the waves by putting on the shape and
aspect of water. Well, if you scan them accurately you find they are
unmistakeably bits of islands. But as we approach nearer, look further
inland to those low hills covered with pine-trees, which somehow or
other have managed to wax and pick up a livelihood in the clefts and
crannies of the rocks, or sometimes even on the bare scarps. While
ever and anon a bald-topped rock protruding from the dark green masses
stands like a solitary Friar of Orders Grey, with his well shaven
tonsure, amid a crowd of black cowled Dominicans.

“Surely that,” you’ll say, “is the coast line proper?”

“Wrong again, sir. It is a case of wheels within wheels; or, to be
plain, islands within islands. Behind those wooded heights there are
all sorts of labyrinths of salt water, some ending in a _cul-de-sac_,
others coming out, when you least expect it, into the open sea again,
and forming an inland passage for many miles. If that myth about King
Canute bidding the waves not come any further, had been told of this
country, there would have been some sense in it, and he might have
appeared to play the wave-compeller to some purpose. For really, in
some places, it is only by a nice examination one can say how far the
sea’s rule does extend.”

The whole of the coast is like this, except between the Naze and
Stavanger, rising at times, as up the West Coast, into magnificent
precipices, but still beaded with islands from the size of a pipe
of port to that of an English county. Hence there are two ways of
sailing along the coast, “indenskjærs,” _i.e._, within the “skerries,”
and “udenskjærs,” or outside of the “skerries,” _i.e._, in the open
sea. The inner route has been followed by coasters from the days of
the Vikings. Those pilots on the Norwegian Government steam-vessels
whom you see relieving each other alternately on the bridge, spitting
thoughtfully a brown fluid into a wooden box, and gently moving their
hand when we thread the watery Thermopylæ, are men bred up from boyhood
on the coast, and know its intricacies by heart. The captain is, in
fact, a mere cypher, as far as the navigation is concerned.

“You’ve never been in Norway before?” I inquired of the fair Samaritan.

“No; this is my first visit. I hope I shall like it.”

“I can imagine you will. If you are a lover of fashion and formality,
you will not be at ease in Norway. The good folks are simple-minded and
sincere. If they invite you to an entertainment, it is because they are
glad to see you. Not to fill up a place at the table, or because they
are obliged to do the civil, at the same time hoping sincerely you won’t
come. Their forefathers were men of great self-denial, and intensely
fond of liberty. When it was not to be had at home, they did what those
birds were doing that rested on our mast during the voyage, migrated
to a more congenial clime--in their case to Iceland. The present
Norwegians have a good deal of the same sturdy independence about them;
some travellers say, to an unpleasant degree. It’s true they are rather
rough and uncouth; but, like their forefathers, when they came in
contact with old Roman civilization in France and Normandy, they will
progress and improve by intercourse with the other peoples of Europe.

“Their old mythology is grand in the extreme. Look at that rainbow,
yonder. In their eyes, the bow in the cloud was the bridge over which
lay the road to Valhalla. Then their legends. Do you know, I think that
much of our fairy lore came over to us from Norway, just as the seeds
of the mountain-flowers in Scotland are thought by Forbes to have come
over from Scandinavia on the ice-floes during the glacial period. If I
had time, I could tell you a lot of sprite-stories; among others, one
how the elves all left Jutland one night in an old wreck, lying on the
shore, and got safe to Norway. To this country, at all events, those
lines won’t yet apply:--

    “The power, the beauty, and the majesty
    That had her haunts in dale, or fairy fountain,
    Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
    Or chasms, or watery depths; all these have vanished.
    They live no longer in the faith of reason.”

“But here we are in Christiansand harbour, and yonder is my steamer,
the _Lindesnaes_, which will take me to Porsgrund, whither I am bound;
so farewell, and I hope you will not repent of your visit to Norway!”




CHAPTER II.

    Disappointed fishermen--A formidable diver--Arendal, the
    Norwegian Venice--A vocabulary at fault--Ship-building--The
    Norwegian Seaboard--Sandefjord, the Norwegian Brighton--A
    complicated costume--Flora’s own bonnet--Bruin at large--Skien
    and its saw-mills--Norway cutting its sticks--Wooden
    walls--Christopher Hansen Blum--The Norwegian phase of
    religious dissent--A confession of faith--The Norsk Church the
    offspring of that of Great Britain.


Two Englishmen were on board the _Lindesnaes_, who had been fishing a
week in the Torrisdal Elv, and had had two rises and caught nothing;
so they are moving along the coast to try another river. But it is too
late for this part of Norway. These are early rivers, and the fish have
been too long up to afford sport with the fly.

The proverb, “never too old to learn,” was practically brought to my
mind in an old Norwegian gentleman on board.

“My son, sir, has served in the English navy. I am seventy years old,
and can speak some English. I will talk in that language and you in
Norwegian, and so we shall both learn. You see, sir, we are now going
into Arendal. This is a bad entrance when the wind is south-west, so we
are clearing out that other passage there to the eastward. There is a
diver at work there always. Oh, sir, he’s frightful to behold! First,
he has a great helmet, and lumps of lead on his shoulders, and lead
on his thighs, and lead on his feet. All lead, sir! And then he has a
dagger in his belt.”

“A dagger!” said I; “what’s that for?”

“Oh! to keep off the amphibia and sea-monsters; they swarm upon this
coast.”

As he spoke, the old gentleman contorted his countenance in such a
manner that he, at all events, let alone the diver, was frightful to
behold. Such was the effect of the mere thought of the amphibia and
sea-monsters. Fortunately, his head was covered, or I can’t answer for
it that each particular hair would not have stood on end like to the
quills of the fretful porcupine. It struck me that he must have been
reading of Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon hero, and his friend Breca, and
how they had naked swords in their hands to defend them against the
sea-monsters, and how Beowulf served the creatures out near the bottom
of the sea (sae-grunde néah).

At Arendal, where the vessel stops for some hours, I take a stroll with
a Norwegian schoolboy. Abundance of sycamore and horse-chesnut, arrayed
in foliage of the most vivid hue, grow in the pretty little ravines
about this Norwegian Venice, as it is called.

“What is the name of that tree in Norsk,” I asked of my companion,
pointing to a sycamore.

“Ask, _i.e._ ash.”

“And of that?” inquired I, pointing to a horse-chesnut.

“Ask,” was again the reply.

Close to the church was the dead-house, where corpses are placed in
winter, when the snow prevents the corpse being carried to the distant
cemetery. In the little land-locked harbour I see a quantity of small
skiffs, here called “pram,” which are to be had new for the small price
of three dollars, or thirteen shillings and sixpence English. The
vicinity of this place is the most famous in Norway for mineralogical
specimens. Arendal has, I believe, the most tonnage and largest-sized
vessels of any port in Norway. Ship-building is going forward very
briskly all along the coast since the alteration in the English
navigation laws. At Grimstead, which we passed, I observed eight
vessels on the stocks: at Stavanger there are twenty.

The reader is perhaps not aware that, reckoning the fjords, there
is a sea-board of no less than eight thousand English miles in
Norway--_i.e._, there is to every two and a half square miles of
country a proportion of about one mile of sea-coast. This superfluity
of brine will become more apparent by comparing the state of things in
other countries. According to Humboldt, the proportion in Africa is one
mile of sea-coast to one hundred and forty-two square miles of land.
In Asia, one to one hundred. In North America, one to fifty-seven. In
Europe, one to thirty-one.

With such an abundance of “water, water everywhere”--I mean salt, not
fresh--one would hardly expect to meet with persons travelling from
home for the sake of sea-bathing. And yet such is the case. On board
is a lady going to the sea-baths of Sandefjord. She tells me there is
quite a gathering of fashionables there at times. Last year, the wife
of the Crown Prince, a Dutch woman by birth, was among the company.
She spent most of her time, I understood, in sea-fishing. Besides
salt-water baths, there are also baths of rotten seaweed, which are
considered quite as efficacious for certain complaints as the mud-baths
of Germany. Landing at Langesund, I start for Skien on board the little
steamer _Traffic_.

A bonder of Thelemark is on board, whose costume, in point of ugliness,
reminds one of the dress of some of the peasants of Bavaria. Its chief
characteristics were its short waist and plethora of buttons. The
jacket is of grey flannel, with curious gussets or folds behind. The
Quaker collar and wristbands are braided with purple. Instead of the
coat and waistcoat meeting the knee-breeches halfway, after the usual
fashion, the latter have to ascend nearly up to the arm-pits before
an intimacy between these two articles of dress is effected. Worsted
stockings of blue and white, worked into stars and stripes, are joined
at the foot by low shoes, broad-toed, like those of Bavaria, while
the other end of the man--I mean his head--is surmounted by a hat,
something like an hourglass in shape.

The fondness of these people for silver ornaments is manifest in the
thickly-set buttons of the jacket, on which I see is stamped the
intelligent physiognomy of that king of England whose equestrian statue
adorns Pig-tail-place; his breeches and shoes also are each provided
with a pair of buckles, likewise of silver.

Contrasting with this odd-looking monster is a Norwegian young
lady, with neat modern costume, and pair of English gauntlet kid
gloves. Her bouquet is somewhat peculiar; white lilies, mignionette,
asparagus-flower, dahlias, and roses. Her carpet-bag is in a cover,
like a white pillowcase.

Bears, I see by a newspaper on board, are terribly destructive this
year in Norway. One bruin has done more than his share. He has killed
two cows, and wounded three more; not to mention sheep, which he
appears to take by way of _hors d’œuvres_. Lastly, he has killed two
horses; and the peasants about Vaasen, where all this happened, have
offered eight dollars (thirty-six shillings) for his apprehension, dead
or alive.

At the top of the fjord, fourteen English miles from the sea, lies
Skien. The source of its prosperity and bustle are its saw-mills. Like
Shakspeare’s Justice, it is full of saws. The vast water-power caused
by the descent of the contents of the Nord-Sö is here turned to good
account: setting going a great number of wheels. Two hundred and fifty
dozen logs are sawn into planks per week; and the vessels lie close by,
with square holes in their bows for the admission of the said planks
into their holds. All the population seems to be occupied in the timber
trade. Saws creaking and fizzing, men dashing out in little shallops
after timbers that have just descended the foss, others fastening
them to the endless chain which is to drag them up to the place of
execution; while the wind flaunts saw-dust into your face, and the
water is like the floor of a menagerie. That unfortunate salmon, which
has just sprung into the air at the bottom of the foss, near the old
Roman Catholic monastery, must be rather disgusted at the mouthful he
got as he plunged into the stream again.

But we must return to the modern Skien. This timber-built city was
nearly half burnt down not long ago; but as a matter of course the
place is being rebuilt of the old material. Catch a Norwegian, if he
can help it, building his house of stone. Stone-houses are so cold and
comfortless, he says. Since the fire, cigar-smoking has been forbidden
in the streets under a penalty of four orts, or three shillings and
fourpence sterling, for each offence.

The great man of Skien appears to be one Christopher Hansen Blum.

“Whose rope-walk is that?”

“Christopher Hansen Blum’s.”

“And that great saw-mill?”

“Christopher Hansen Blum’s.”

“And those warehouses?”

“Christopher Hansen Blum’s.”

“And that fine lady?”

“Christopher Hansen Blum’s wife.”

“And the other fine lady, my fair travelling companion with the
gauntlet kid gloves?”

“Christopher Hansen Blum’s niece.”

This modern Marquis of Carabas (_vide Puss in Boots_) is also, I
understand, one of the chief promoters of the canal which is being
quarried out of the solid rock between Skien and the Nord-Sö; the
completion of which will admit of an uninterrupted steam traffic from
this place to Hitterdal, at the northern end of that lake, and deep in
the bowels of Thelemarken.

A great stir has been lately caused at Skien by the secession from the
establishment of Gustav Adolph Lammers, the vicar of the place. The
history of this gentleman is one of the many indications to be met
with of this country having arrived at that period in the history of
its civilization which the other countries of Europe have passed many
years ago;--we mean the phase of the first development of religious
dissent and a spirit of insubordination to the established traditions
of the Church as by law established. We are transported to the days
of Whitfield and Wesley. Lammers, who appears to be a sincere person,
in spite of the variety of tales in circulation about him, commenced
by inculcating greater strictness of conduct. He next declined to
baptize children. This brought him necessarily into conflict with the
church authorities, and the upshot was that he has seceded from the
Church; together with a number of the fair sex, with whom he is a great
favourite. The most remarkable part of the matter, however, is that he
will apply, it is said, for a Government pension, like other retiring
clergy. Whether the Storthing, within whose province all such questions
come, will listen to any such thing remains to be seen.[2]

A tract in my possession professes to be the Confession of Faith of
this “New Apostolic Church.” In the preamble they state that they wish
to make proper use of God’s Word and Sacraments. But as they don’t see
how they can do this in the State Church, in which the Word is not
properly preached, nor the Sacraments duly administered, they have
determined to leave it, and form a separate community, in conformity
with the Norwegian Dissenter Law of July 16, 1845. The baptism of
infants they consider opposed to Holy Writ. All that the Bible teaches
is to bring young children to Christ, with prayer and laying on of
hands, and to baptize them when they can believe that Jesus Christ
is the son of God, and will promise to obey his Gospel. Hence the
elders lay hands upon young children, and at the same time read Mark
x., verses 13-17. At a later period, these children are baptized by
immersion. The Holy Communion is taken once a month, each person
helping himself to the elements; confession or absolution, previously,
are not required.

The community are not bound to days and high-tides, but it is quite
willing to accept the days of rest established by law, on which they
meet and read the Scriptures.

Marriage is a civil contract, performed before a notarius publicus.

The dead are buried in silence, being borne to the grave by some of the
brethren; after the grave is filled up a psalm is sung.

All the members of the community agree to submit, if necessary, to
brotherly correction; and if this is of no avail, to expulsion.
Temporary exclusion from the communion is the correction to be
preferred. These rules were accepted by ten men and twenty-eight
women, on the 4th July, 1856--giving each other their right hand, and
promising, by God’s help,

    In life and death to serve the Lord Jesus,
    To love each other with sincere affection,
    To submit themselves one to another.

We have given the following particulars, because the state of the
Christian religion in Norway must for ever be deeply interesting to
England, if on no other account, for this reason, that in this respect
she is the spiritual offspring of Great Britain. Charlemagne tried to
convert Scandinavia, but he failed to reach Norway. The Benedictine
monk, Ansgar of Picardy, went to Sweden, but never penetrated hither;
in fact, the Norsk Christian Church is entirely a daughter of the
English. The first missionaries came over with Hacon the Good, the
foster son of our King Athelstan; and though this attempt failed,
through the tenacity of the people for heathenesse, yet the second did
not, when Olaf Trygveson brought over missionaries from the north of
England--Norwegian in blood and speech--and christianized the whole
coast, from Sweden to Trondjem, in the course of one year--996-997.[3]




CHAPTER III.

    A poet in full uniform--The young lady in gauntlet gloves
    again--Church in a cave--Muscular Christianity in the
    sixteenth century--A miracle of light and melody--A romance
    of bigotry--How Lutheranism came in like a lion--The last
    of the Barons--Author makes him bite the dust--Brief
    burial service in use in South-Western Norway--The
    Sörenskriver--Norwegian substitute for Doctors’ Commons--Grave
    ale--A priestly Samson--Olaf’s ship--A silent woman--Norwegian
    dialects--Artificial salmon breeding--A piscatorial prevision.


Next day, at five o’clock, A.M., I drove off to the head of the
Nord-Sö, distant half-a-dozen miles off, and got on board the steamer,
which was crowded with passengers. An old gentleman on board attracted
my attention. His dress was just like that of a livery servant in a
quiet family in England--blue coat, with stand-up collar, and two rows
of gold lace round it. This I find is the uniform of a sörenskriver.
Konrad Swach--for that was his name--is a poet of some repute in this
country. His most popular effusion is on the national flag of Norway,
which was granted to them by the present King, Oscar--a theme, be it
remarked, which would have secured popularity for a second-rate poem
among these patriotic Northmen. To judge from the poet’s nose, it
struck me that some of his poetic inspirations is due to drink. The
front part of the vessel is beset by Thelemarken bonders, male and
female, in their grotesque dress.

The young lady in gauntlet gloves is also on board, whom I make bold to
address, on the strength of our having journeyed together yesterday. As
we steam along through the usual Norwegian scenery of pines and grey
rocks, she points out to me the mouth of a curious cave.

“That is Saint Michael’s Church, as it is called. The opening is about
sixteen feet wide, and about as many high, and goes some eighty feet
into the cliff. In the Catholic times, it was used as a church, and
became a regular place of pilgrimage, and was regarded as a spot of
peculiar sanctity. In the sixteenth century, as the story goes, when
the reformed faith had been introduced into the country, the clergyman
of the parish of Solum, in which St. Michael’s was situate, was one
Mr. Tovel. Formerly a soldier, he was a man of strong will, zealous for
the new religion, and a determined uprooter of ‘the Babylonian remnants
of popery,’ as he phrased it. The church in the cave was now sadly
come down in the world, and had been despoiled of all its valuables.
But in the eyes of the bonders, who, with characteristic tenacity of
character, adhered to the old faith, it had risen higher in proportion.
Numerous pilgrims resorted to it, and miracles were said to be wrought
at the spot. At night, it was said, soft singing might be heard, and a
stream of light seen issuing from the orifice, which lies four hundred
feet above the water.

“One autumn evening, the reverend Mr. Tovel was rowing by the place
when the above light suddenly illumined the dark waters. The boatmen
rested on their oars and crossed themselves. Tovel urged them to land,
but in vain. Determined, however, on investigating the matter himself,
he obtained the services of two men from a neighbouring village, who
apparently had less superstitious scruples than his own attendants,
and watched from his abode, on the other side of the lake, for the
reappearance of the light. On the eve of St. Michael he looks out,
and sure enough the light was visible. Off he sets, with his two men,
taking with him his Bible and sword. The night was still, with a few
stars shining overhead. Reaching the foot of the rock, the priest
sprang ashore, and invited the boatmen to accompany him, but not a step
would they go. The superstition bred in the bone was not so easily to
be eradicated, even by the coin and persuasion of Herr Tovel.

“‘Cowards! stay here, then,’ exclaimed his reverence, as he started up
the steep ascent alone. After a hard scramble, he stood a foot or two
below the cavern, when just as his head came on a level with its mouth
the light suddenly vanished. At this trying moment, Tovel bethought him
of the great Reformer, how he fought with and overcame the Evil One.
This gave him fresh courage, and he entered the cavern, singing lustily
Luther’s psalm--

    “‘En Berg saa fast er os vor Gud,
    So godt et Skiold og Vaerge;
    Fra alt vor Not Han frier os ud
    Han kan og nun os bierge.’

“At the last words the light suddenly reappeared. An aged priest,
dressed up in the full paraphernalia of the Romish church, issues from
a hidden door in the interior of the cave, and greets Tovel with the
words--

“‘Guds Fred,’ (God’s peace); ‘why should I fear those who come in God’s
name?’

“‘What!’ exclaimed the astonished Tovel; ‘is it true, then, that Rome’s
priests are still in the land?’

“‘Yes; and you are come sword in hand to drive out a poor old priest
whose only weapon is a staff.’

“As he spoke, the door of an inner recess rolled back, and Tovel beheld
an altar illuminated with iron lamps, over which hung a picture of St.
Michael, the saint often worshipped in caves and mountains.

“‘It is your pestiferous doctrines against which I wage war, not
against your person,’ rejoined Tovel. ‘Who are you, in God’s name?’

“‘I am Father Sylvester, the last priest of this Church. When the
new religion was forced upon the land, I wandered forth, and am now
returned once more, to die where I have lived. The good people of
Gisholdt Gaard have secretly supported me.’

“Moved with this recital, the Lutheran priest asks--‘And are you trying
to seduce the people back to the old religion?’

“The aged man rejoins, with vehemence--

“‘It were an easy task, did I wish to do so; but I do not. It is only
at night that I say prayers and celebrate mass in the inner sacristy
there.’

“Tovel, thoroughly softened, when he finds that his beloved Reformed
faith was not likely to suffer, finishes the conversation by saying--

“‘Old man, you shall not lack anything that it is in my power to give
you. Send to me for aught that you may have need of.’

“The venerable priest points to the stars, and exclaims, solemnly--

“‘That God, yonder, will receive both of us, Protestant and Catholic.’

“After this they cordially shook hands. Tovel went home an altered man.
Some time afterwards, the light ceased to shine entirely. He knew why.
Old Father Sylvester was no more.

“Mr. Tovel got off much better than many clergymen of the Reformed
faith in those days. Old Peder Clausen, the chronicler, relates that he
knew a man whose father had knocked three clergymen on the head. The
stern old Norwegian bonders could ill brook the violence with which the
Danes introduced Lutheranism; a violence not much short of that used by
King Olaf in rooting out heathenism, and which cost him his life.”

I thanked the young lady for her interesting information.

Presently a curious figure comes out of the cabin. It was a
fine-looking old man, with white hair, and hooked nose, and keen eyes,
shadowed by shaggy eyebrows. His dress consisted of a blue superfine
frock-coat, with much faded gold embroidery on a stand-up collar; dark
breeches, and Hessian boots. On his breast shone the Grand Cross of the
North Star. A decided case of Commissioner Pordage, of the island of
Silver-Store, with his “Diplomatic coat.”

That’s old Baron W----, the last remnant of the Norsk nobility. He
wears the dress of an Amtman, which office he formerly held, and loses
no opportunity of displaying it and the star. He it was who in 1821
protested against the phævelse (abolition) of the nobility. The Baron
was evidently quite aware of the intense impression he was making
upon the Thelemarken bonders. On our both landing, subsequently, at a
station called Ulefoss, I was highly diverted at seeing him take off
his coat and star and deposit the same in a travelling-bag, from which
he drew forth a less pretending frock, first taking care to fold up the
diplomatic coat with all the precision displayed by that little man of
Cruikshank’s in wrapping up Peter Schlemil’s shadow. We both of us are
bound, I find, for the steamer on the Bandagsvand.

“Well, what are we waiting for?” said I, to the man who had brought my
horse and carriole.

“Oh, we must not start before the Baron. People always make way for
him. He won’t like us to start first.”

“Jump up,” said I, putting my nag in motion, and leaving the Baron
in the lurch, who was magniloquizing to the people around. All the
bonders “wo-ho’d” my horse, in perfect astonishment at my presumption,
while the Baron, with a fierce gleam of his eye, whipped his horse into
motion. I soon found the advantage of being first, as the road was
dreadfully dusty; and being narrow, I managed to keep the Baron last,
and swallowing my dust for a considerable distance.

We were soon at Naes, on the Bandagsvand, where lay the little steamer
which was to hurry us forty-two miles further into Thelemarken, to a
spot called Dal. The hither end of the lake, which is properly called
Hvide-sö (white-sea), is separated from the upper, or Bandagsvand,
by a very narrow defile jammed in between tremendous precipices. We
pass the church of Laurvig on the right, which is said to be old and
interesting. The clergyman, Mr. H----, is on board. He tells me that
the odd custom of spooning dust into a small hole (see _Oxonian in
Norway_) is not usual in this part of Norway. The term used for it is
“jords-paakastelse.” The burial-service is very brief; being confined
to the words, “Af Jord er du, Til Jord skal du blive, ud af Jord skal
du opstaae.”

For his fee he receives from one ort = tenpence, to sixteen dollars,
according to circumstances. In the latter case there would be a
long funeral oration. Close by the church is the farm of Tvisæt
(twice-sown), so called, it is said, because it often produced two
crops a year. Although placed in the midst of savage and desolate
scenery, the spot is so sheltered that it will grow figs in the open
air.

The Sörenskriver is also on board, the next Government officer to
the Amtman, or governor of the province. He is going to a “Skifte,”
as it is called. This word is the technical expression for dividing
the property of a deceased person among his heirs, and is as old as
Harald Hârfager, the same expression being used in Snorro’s Chronicle
of his division of his kingdom among his sons. In this simple country
there is no necessity for Doctors’ Commons. The relatives meet, and
if there is no will the property is divided, according to law, among
the legal heirs: if there is one, its provisions are carried out:
the Sörenskriver, by his presence, sanctioning the legality of the
proceeding.

He informs me that there is generally a kind of lyke-wake on the
melancholy occasion, where the “grave öl” and “arve öl,” “grave ale,”
or “heirship ale,” is swallowed in considerable quantities. In a recent
Skifte, at which he presided, the executors charged, among the expenses
to come out of the estate, one tonder malt and sixty-five pots of
brantviin; while for the burial fee to the priest, the modest sum of
one ort was charged. While the Sörenskriver was overhauling these items
with critical eye, the peasant executor, who thought the official was
about to take exception to the last item, or perhaps, which is more
likely, wishing to divert his attention from the unconscionable charge
for drink, observed that he really could not get the funeral service
performed for less. The pastoral office would seem, from this, not to
occupy a very high position among these clod-hoppers. Sixty-five pots,
or pints, of brandy, a huge barrel of malt liquor, and ten-pennyworth
of parson.

Mr. C., who is acquainted with Mr. Gieldrup, the priestly Samson of
Aal, in Hallingdal, gives me some account of his taking the shine
out of Rotner Knut, the cock and bully of the valley. It was on the
occasion of Knut being married, and the parson was invited to the
entertainment, together with his family. During the banquet, Rotner,
evidently with the intention of annoying the priest, amused himself by
pulling the legs of his son. Offended at the insult, Gieldrup seized
the peasant, and hurled him with such force against the wooden door of
the room, that he smashed through it. After which the parson resumed
his place at the board, while Knut put his tail between his legs, as
much abashed as Gunther, in the Nibelungenlied, when, at his wedding,
he was tied up to a peg in the wall by his bride, the warrior virgin
Brunhild.

It is customary in Hallingdal, where this occurred, to accompany the
Hallingdance with the voice. One of the favourite staves in the valley
had been--

    Rotner Knut, Rotner Knut,
    He is the boy to pitch the folks out.

It was now altered, and ran as follows, greatly to Knut’s chagrin,--

    Rotner Knut, Rotner Knut,
    The priest is the man to pitch him out.

On another occasion, Gieldrup was marrying two or three couples, when
one of the bridegrooms, impatient to be off, vaulted over the chancel
rails, and asked what was to pay. In the twinkling of an eye the
muscular parson caught him by the shoulders and hurled him right over
the heads of the bystanders, who stood round the rails.

As we steam along, the Sörenskriver points out to me, on the top of
the lofty rocks on the left, a rude representation in stone of a ship,
which goes by the name of “Olaf’s skib.” Among other idiosyncrasies of
the saint and martyr, one was, that of occasionally sailing over land.
How his vessel came to be stranded here, I cannot learn. Further on, to
the right, you see two figures in stone, one of which appears to have
lost its head, not metaphorically, but in the real guillotine sense.

The bonders will give you a very circumstantial account, part of which
will not bear repetition here, how that this is a Jotul, who had some
domestic unpleasantness with his lady, and treated her at once like the
Defender of the Faith did Anne Boleyn (we beg pardon of Mr. Froude)
casting her head across the water, where it is still lying, under the
pine trees yonder, only that the steamer cannot stop to let us see it.
The lady and gentleman were petrified in consequence.

    And lo! where stood a hag before,
    Now stands a ghastly stone, &c.

“I see you speak Norsk,” said the Sörenskriver, “but you will find
it of very little use yonder, at Dal. The dialect of Thelemarken,
generally, is strange, but at Dal it is almost incomprehensible, even
to us Norwegians. It is generally believed that the language here still
possesses a good deal of the tone and turn of the old Icelandic, which
was once spoken all the country through.”

I did not, however, find it so difficult. The Norwegians look upon
English, I may here remark, as hard to pronounce. On that notable
occasion, say they, when the Devil boiled the languages together,
English was the scum that came to the top. A criticism more rude than
even that of Charles V.

As we approach the landing-place, to my astonishment, I perceive a
gentleman fly-fishing at the outlet of the stream into the lake.

He turned out to be Mr. H----, who is traversing the country, at
the expense of the Government, to teach the people the method of
increasing, by artificial means, the breed of salmon and other fish.
He tells me, that last year he caught, one morning here, thirty-five
trout, weighing from one to six pounds each.

His operations in the artificial breeding-line have been most
successful; not only with salmon, but with various kinds of fish.
He tells me it is a mistake to suppose that the roe will only be
productive if put in water directly. He has preserved it for a long
period, transporting it great distances without its becoming addle, and
gives me a tract which he has published on the subject. As we are just
now at home in England talking of stocking the Antipodal rivers with
salmon, this topic is of no little interest. The method of transporting
the roe in Norway is in a wooden box, provided with shelves, one above
another, and two or three inches apart, and drilled with small holes.
Upon these is laid a thin layer of clean, moist, white, or moor, moss
(not sand), and upon that the roe, which has already been milted.
This is moistened every day. If the cold is very great, the box is
placed within another, and chaff placed in the interstices between
the two boxes. In this way roe has been conveyed from Leirdalsören to
Christiania, a week’s journey. Professor Rasch, who first employed
moss in the transport, has also discovered that it is the best
material for laying on the bottom of the breeding stews, the stalks
placed streamwise. Moss is best for two reasons: first, it counteracts
the tendency of the water to freeze; and secondly, it catches the
particles of dirt which float down the stream, and have an affinity
rather for it than for the roe. The roe is best placed touching the
surface of the stream, but it fructifies very well even when placed
half, or even more, out of the water. Care is taken to remove from the
stews such eggs as become mouldy, this being an indication that they
are addle. If this is not done, the mouldiness soon spreads to the
other good roe, and renders it bad. With regard to the nursery-ground
itself, it is of course necessary to select a spring for this purpose
which will not freeze in winter, and further, to protect the water from
the cold by a roofing or house of wood.

I suppose the next thing we shall hear of will be, that roe that
has been packed up for years will, by electricity or some sort of
hocus-pocus, be turned to good account, just as the ears of corn in
the Pyramids have been metamorphosed into standing crops. Mr. H----’s
avocation, by-the-bye, reminds me of an old Norwegian legend about
“The Fishless Lake” in Valders. Formerly it abounded with fish; but
one night the proprietor set a quantity of nets, all of which had
disappeared by the next morning. Well, the Norwegian, in his strait,
had recourse to his Reverence, who anathematized the net-stealer.
Nothing more came of it till the next spring; when, upon the ice
breaking, all the nets rose to the surface, full of dead fish. Since
then no fish has been found in the lake. Mr. H---- might probably
succeed in dissolving the charm.

“I see you are a fisherman,” said Mr. H----; “you’ll find the parson
at Mö, in Butnedal, a few miles off, an ‘ivrig fisker’ (passionate
fisherman)--ay! and his lady, too. They’ll be delighted to see you.
They have no neighbours, hardly, but peasants, and your visit will
confer a greater favour on them than their hospitality on you. That
is a very curious valley, sir. There are several ‘tomter’ (sites) of
farm-houses, now deserted, where there once were plenty of people: that
is one of the vestiges of the Black Death.”

On second thoughts, however, he informed me that it was just possible
that Parson S---- might be away; as at this period of the summer, when
all the peasants are up with their cattle at the Sæters, the clergy,
having nothing whatever to do, take their holiday.




CHAPTER IV.

    Mine host at Dal--Bernadotte’s prudent benignity--Taxing the
    bill of costs--Hurrah for the mountains--Whetstones--Antique
    wooden church--A wild country--“Raven depth”--How the English
    like to do fine scenery--Ancient wood-carving--A Norwegian
    peasant’s witticism--A rural rectory--Share and chair
    alike--Ivory knife-handles--Historical pictures--An old Runic
    calendar--The heathen leaven still exists in Norway--Washing
    day--Old names of the Norsk months--Peasant songs--Rustic
    reserve--A Norsk ballad.


Mine host at Dal, a venerable-looking personage, with long grey hair
floating on his shoulders, was a member of the Extraordinary Meeting
of Deputies at Eidsvold in 1815, when the Norwegians accepted the
Junction with Sweden. I and the old gentleman exchanged cards. The
superscription on his was--Gaardbruger Norgaard, Deputeret fra Norges
Storthing--_i.e._, Farmer Norgaard, A Deputy from Norway’s Storthing.

Another reminiscence of his early days is a framed and glazed copy of
the Grundlov (Fundamental Law) of Norway, its palladium of national
liberty, which a hundred and twelve Deputies drew up in six weeks, in
1814. Never was Constitution so hastily drawn up, and so generally
practical and sensible as this.

The Crown Prince, the crafty Bernadotte, with his invading army of
Swedes, had Norway quite at his mercy on that occasion; but the idea
seems to have struck him suddenly that it was as well not to deal too
hardly with her, as in case of his not being able to hold his own in
Sweden, he might have a worse place of refuge than among the sturdy
Norwegians. “I am resolved what to do, so that when I am put out of the
stewardship they may receive me into their houses.” So he assented to
Norway’s independence.

For my part, at this moment, I thought more about coffee than Norwegian
liberty and politics; but as it was nine o’clock, P.M., the good people
were quite put out by the request. Coffee in the forenoon, say they,
tea in the evening. As it was, they made me pay pretty smartly for the
accommodation next morning. “What’s to pay?” said I, striding into the
room, where sat the old Deputy’s daughter, the mistress of the house,
at the morning meal. She had not long ago become a widow, and had taken
as her second husband, a few days before, a grisly-looking giant, who
sat by in his shirt-sleeves.

“Ask _him_,” said the fair Quickly, thinking it necessary, perhaps,
just so recently after taking the vow of obedience, by this little
piece of deference to her new lord to express her sense of submission
to his authority. For my part, as an old traveller, I should rather say
she did it for another feeling. English pigeons did not fly that way
every day, and so they must be plucked; and the person to do it, she
thought, was the Berserker, her awful-looking spouse. The charge was
exorbitant; and as the good folks were regaling themselves with fresh
mutton-chops and strawberries and cream, while they had fobbed us off
with eggs and black bread and cheese--the latter so sharp that it went
like a dagger to my very vitals at the first taste--I resolutely taxed
the bill of costs, and carried my point; whereupon we took leave of the
Deputy and his descendants.

In one sense we had come to the world’s end; for there is no road for
wheels beyond this. The footpath up the steep cliff that looks down
upon the lake is only accessible to the nimble horses of the country.
“Hurrah!” exclaimed I, as I looked down on the blue lake, lying
hundreds of feet perpendicularly below us. “Hurrah for the mountains!
Adieu to the ‘boppery bop’ of civilization, with all its forms and
ceremonies, and turnpikes and twaddle. Here you can eat, and drink,
and dress as and when you like, and that is just the fun of the thing,
more than half the relaxation of the trip.” Why, this passion for
mountain-travelling over the hills and far away is not peculiar to
Englishmen. Don’t the ladies of Teheran, even, after their listless
“_vie à la pantoufle_,” delight to hear of the approach of the plague,
as they know they are sure to get off to the hills, and have a little
tent-life in consequence? Didn’t that fat boy Buttons (not in Pickwick,
but Horace), cloyed with the Priest’s luscious cheesecakes, long for a
bit of coarse black bread, and run away from his master to get it?

The precipitous path is studded at intervals with heaps of hones, or
whet-stones. I find that about here is the chief manufacture in all
Norway for this article. One year, a third of a million were turned
out. The next quarry in importance is at Kinservik, on the Hardanger
Fjord. Surmounting the ascent, we traverse swampy ground dotted with
birch-trees, and presently debouch upon one of those quaint edifices
not to be found out of this country--stabskirke (stave church), as
it is called--of which Borgund and Hitterdal Churches are well-known
specimens. It is so called from the lozenge-shaped shingles (staves),
overlapping each other like fish-scales, which case the roof and every
part of the outside. Smaller and less pretending than those edifices,
this secluded place of worship was of the same age--about nine hundred
years. The resinous pine has done its work well, and the carving on the
capitals of the wooden pillars at the doorway is in good preservation,
though parts have lately been churchwardenized.

“That is Eidsborg church,” said a young student, who had volunteered to
accompany me, as he was bound to a lone parsonage up the country, in
this direction. “This is the church the young lady on board the steamer
told you was so remarkable.”

After making a rough sketch of the exterior, we proceeded on our
journey. The few huts around were tenantless, the inhabitants all
gone up to the châlets. The blanching bear-skulls on the door of one
of these showed the wildness of the country we are traversing; while
a black-throated diver, which was busy ducking after the fish in the
sedge-margined pool close by, almost tempted me to load, and have a
long shot at him. As we proceed, I observe fieldfares, ring-ouzel, and
chaff-finches, while many English wild flowers enliven the scene, and
delicious strawberries assuage our thirst. Pursuing our path through
the forest, we come to a post on which is written “Ravne jüv,” Anglicè,
Raven depth.

“Det maa De see,” (you must see that,) said my companion, turning off
up a narrow path, and frightening a squirrel and a capercailzie, which
were apparently having a confab about things in general. I followed him
through the pine-wood, getting over the swampy ground by the aid of
some fallen trunks, and, in two or three minutes, came to the “Ravne
jüv.” It is made by the Sandok Elv, which here pierces through the
mountains, and may be seen fighting its way thousands of feet below us.
Where I stood, the cliff was perpendicular, or rather sloped inwards;
and, by a singular freak of nature, a regular embrasured battlement had
been projected forward, so as to permit of our approaching the giddy
verge with perfect impunity.

    Es schwebt eine _Brustwehre_ über den Rand
      Der furchtbaren Tiefe gebogen
    Sie ward nicht erbauet von Menschen-hand
      Es hätte sich’s Keiner verwogen.

Lying flat, I put my head through an embrasure, and looked down into
the Raven’s depth.

“Ah! it’s deeper than you think,” said my companion. “Watch this piece
of wood.”

I counted forty before it reached a landing-place, and that was not
above half the way.

Annoyed at our intrusion, two buff- hawks and a large falcon
kept flying backwards and forwards within shot, having evidently chosen
this frightful precipice as the safest place they could find for
their young. Luckily for them, the horse and guide had gone on with
my fowling-piece, or they might have descended double-quick into the
sable depths below, and become a repast for the ravens; who, as in duty
bound, of course frequent the recesses of their namesake, although none
were now visible.

What a pity a bit of scenery like this cannot be transported to
England. The Norwegians look upon rocks as a perfect nuisance, while
we sigh for them. Fancy the Ravne jüv in Derbyshire. Why, we should
have Marcus’ excursion-trains every week in the summer, and motley
crowds of tourists thronging to have a peep into the dark profound, and
some throwing themselves from the top of it, as they used to do from
the Monument, and John Stubbs incising his name on the battlements,
cutting boldly as the Roman king did at the behests of that humbugging
augur; and another true Briton breaking off bits of the parapet,
just like those immortal excursionists who rent the Blarney Stone in
two. Then there would be a grand hotel close by, and greasy waiters
with white chokers, and the nape of their neck shaven as smooth as a
vulture’s head (faugh!) and their front and back hair parted in one
continuous straight line, just like the wool of my lady’s poodle. How
strongly they would recommend to your notice some most trustworthy
guide, to show you what you can’t help seeing if you follow your nose,
and are not blind--the said trustworthy guide paying him a percentage
on all grist thus sent to his mill. Eventually, there would be a high
wall erected, and a locked gate, as at the Turk Fall at Killarney, and
a shilling to pay for seeing “private property,” &c. &c. No, no! let
well alone. Give me the “Raven deep” when it is in the silent solitudes
of a Norwegian forest, and let me muse wonderingly, and filled with
awe, at the stupendous engineering of Nature, and derive such
edification as I may from the sight.

At Sandok we get a fresh horse from the worthy Oiesteen, and some
capital beer, which he brings in a wooden quaigh, containing about half
a gallon.

On the face of the “loft,” loft or out-house, I see an excellent
specimen of wood carving. “That,” said Oiesteen, “has often been
pictured by the town people.” All the farm-houses in this part of the
country used to be carved in this fashion. One has only to read the
Sagas to know why all these old houses no longer exist. It is not that
the wood has perished in the natural way; experience, in fact, seems
to show that the Norwegian pine is almost as lasting, in ordinary
circumstances, as stone, growing harder by age. The truth is, in those
fighting days of the Vikings, when one party was at feud with another,
he would often march all night when his enemy least expected him, and
surrounding the house where he lay, so as to let none escape, set it on
fire.

The lad who took charge of the horse next stage was called Björn
(Bear), a not uncommon name all over Norway. It was now evening, and
chilly.

“Are you cold, Björn?” said the student.

“No; the Björn is never chilly,” was the facetious reply. The nearest
approach to a witticism I had ever heard escape the mouth of a
Norwegian peasant.

Two or three miles to the right we descry the river descending by a
huge cataract from its birthplace among the rocky mountains of Upper
Thelemarken. Presently we join what professes to be the high road from
Christiania, which is carried some twenty miles further westward, and
then suddenly ceases.

Long after midnight, we arrived at the Rectory House at ----, where
I was to sleep. Mr. ---- was an intelligent sort of person, very
quiet and affable, and dressed in homespun from head to foot. After
breakfast, the staple of which was trout from the large lake close by,
I offered him a weed, which he declined, with the remark, “Ieg tygge,”
I chew. The ladies, as usual, are kind and unassuming, with none of
the female arts to be found in cities. A friend of mine, proud of his
fancied skill in talking Norsk, was once stopping at a clergyman’s
in Norway, when he apologised to the ladies for his deficiencies in
their language. He was evidently fishing for compliments, and was
considerably taken aback when one of them, in the most unsophisticated
manner, observed, taking him quite at his word, “Oh yes, strangers, you
know, often confound the words, and say one for another, which makes it
very difficult to comprehend them.”

Ludicrous mistakes are sometimes made by the Norwegians also. An
English gentleman arrived at a change-house in Österdal late one
evening, and was lucky in obtaining the only spare bed. Presently, when
he was on the point of retiring to rest, a Norwegian lady also arrived,
intending to spend the night there. What was to be done? Like a gallant
Englishman as he was, with that true, unselfish courtesy which is not,
as in France, confined to mere speeches, he immediately offered to give
up his bed to the “unprotected female,” who was mistress of a little
English. “Many thanks; but what will you do, sir?” “Oh! I will take
a chair for the night.” At this answer the lady blushed, and darted
out of the room, and in a few minutes her carriole was driving off
in the darkness. What could be the meaning of it? The peasant’s wife
soon after looked into the room, with a knowing sort of look at the
Englishman. He subsequently discovered the key to the enigma. The lady
thought he said “he would take a _share_,” and was, of course, mightily
offended. So much for a smattering of a foreign language. Doubtless,
from that day forward, she would quote this incident to her female
friends as an instance of the natural depravity of Englishmen; and this
scapegrace would be looked upon as a type of his nation.

The priest has some knives, the handles of which are of ivory, and
exquisitely carved in a flowing pattern. They cost as much as three
dollars apiece, a great sum. But the artificer, who lives near, is the
best in Thelemarken, the part of Norway most celebrated for this art.
The patterns used are, I hear, of very ancient date; being, in some
instances, identical with those on various metal articles discovered
from time to time in the barrows and cromlechs.

The walls of the sitting-room are hung with some engravings on national
subjects, _e.g._, “Anna Kolbjörnsdatter og de Svenske,” “Olaf, killed
at Sticklestad,” and “Konrad Adeler, at Tenedos.” Kort Adeler, whose
name lives in a popular song by Ingemann, was born at Brevik, in 1622,
but took service under the Venetians, and on one occasion fought and
slew Ibrahim, the Turkish admiral. Ibrahim’s sword and banner are still
to be seen at Copenhagen. Adeler’s successor, as Norwegian Admiral, was
the renowned Niels Juel, the Nelson of the North.

I saw tossing about the Manse an old Runic Calendar, which nobody
seemed to care anything about. It was found in the house when the
parson came there, and appeared occasionally to have been used
for stirring the fire, as one end was quite charred. Without much
difficulty I succeeded in rescuing it from impending destruction, and
possess it at this moment. Some of these calendars are shaped like a
circle, others like an ellipse. They were of two kinds. Messedag’s
stav (mass-day stave) and Primstav. But the latter term properly
applies to a much more complex sort of calendar than the other. It
contained not only runes for festivals and other days, but also the
Sunday letter or quarters of the moon for every golden number. Its
name is derived from prima luna, _i.e._, the first full moon after
the vernal equinox. The primstav proper was generally four feet long.
The almanack I here obtained is flat, and figured on two sides, not
as some of the old Anglo-Saxon calendars were, square, and figured on
four sides. It is shaped like a flat sword, an inch and a half broad
and half an inch thick, and is provided with a handle. The owner of it
appears to have been born on the 6th June, as his monogram which is on
the handle occurs again on that day. On the broad sides the days of the
week are notched, and on the narrow sides there is a notch for every
seventh day; _i.e._, the narrow sides mark the weeks, the broad sides
the days.

The day-marks or signs do not go from January to July, and from July
to December. On the one side, which was called the Vetr-leid, winter
side, they begin with the 14th of October, or “winter night,” and
reach to the 13th of April. On the other side, which was called the
summer side, they begin with the 14th of April “summer night,” and
go to the 13th of October. The runes, or marks distinguishing the
days, are derived from a variety of circumstances: sometimes from the
weather, or farming operations, or from legends of saints. But it
must be observed that hardly two calendars can be found corresponding
to each other. Some are simpler, others more complex. In some, one
saint’s day is distinguished, in others another. Winter then began with
the old Norwegians on the 14th of October; Midwinter was ninety days
after--_i.e._, on the 11th January, and Midsummer ninety-four days from
the 14th of April.

The great winter festival in honour of Thor, on 20th January, was
called Höggenät, _i.e._--slaughter-night.[4] This word is derived from
högge (to cut or hew), on account of the number of animals slaughtered
in honour of Thor. The word still survives in Scotland, in Hogmanáy
(the last night of the old year).

Snorro Sturlesen informs us that it was Hacon the Good, foster-son
of our King Athelstan, who made a law that the great Asa, or heathen
festival, which used to be held for three successive days in January,
should be transferred to the end of December, and kept so many days as
it was usual to keep Christmas in the English Church. His missionaries
being Northmen who had resided in England, like St. Augustine, the
Apostle of England, accommodated themselves to the superstitions and
habits in vogue among the people they came to convert. The great
banquets, where people feasted on the flesh of horses and other
victims, were turned into eating and drinking bouts of a more godly
sort; and the Skaal to Odin assumed the shape of a brimming bowl to the
honour of the Redeemer, the Virgin, and the saints. In their cups, no
doubt, their ideas would become at times confused, and many a baptized
heathen would hiccup a health to Odin and Thor. Even now, as we have
seen, after the lapse of so many centuries, much of the old heathen
leaven infects their Christianity.

We may here observe that the Norwegian word for Saturday is Löverdag,
_i.e._, washing-day, as a preparation for the Sunday festival, so that
the division of time into weeks of seven days must have originated in
Norway within the period of its conversion to Christianity. Herein,
then, they differed from the Anglo-Saxons, who called it Sæterndæg
(Saturns-day); while the South Germans called it after the Jewish
Sabbath, Sambaztag, now Samstag. The Scandinavians had exhausted their
great gods upon the other days. Sun and Moon, Tyr, Odin, Thor, and
Freya, had been used up, so they took the appropriate name Löverdag,
above-mentioned.

The following are the old names of the Norsk months:

    Gormánaðr      from Oct. 21   to Nov. 19.
    Ýlir            ”   Nov. 20   ”  Dec. 19.
    Mörsúgr         ”   Dec. 20   ”  Jan. 18.
    Þorri           ”   Jan. 19   ”  Feb. 17.
    Goe, or Gœ      ”   Feb. 18   ”  March 19.
    Ein mánaðr      ”   March 20  ”  April 18.
    Gauk            ”   April 19  ”  May 18.
    Skerpla         ”   May 19    ”  June 17.
    Sólmánaðr       ”   June 18   ”  July 22.
    Heyannir        ”   July 23   ”  Aug. 21.
    Tvimánaðr       ”   Aug. 22   ”  Sep. 20.
    Haustmánaðr     ”   Sep. 21   ”  Oct. 20.

Some of these names are very appropriate, _e.g._, Gormánaðr is
gore-month, when so many victims were slaughtered. Ýlir, or Jýlir, is
the month that prepares for Yule. Mörsúgr refers to the good cheer
which people sucked up at that period. Þorri is said to come from
Þverra, to get short, because the good things are then nearly run out.
Gaukmánaðr is Gauk’s (cuckoo’s) month. Sólmánaðr is the sun’s month.
Heyannir is hay-time. Tvimánaðr (from tvi, two) is the second month
after midsummer, while Haustmánaðr is harvest (scotticè) “har’st” month.

But our readers will think us becoming prosy, so we will mount the
cart, and discarding the society of the fat peasant woman who proposes
inflicting herself upon us, accept the kind offer of our intelligent
student to accompany us on our journey to Kos-thveit (Kos-thwaite, as
we should say in East Anglia), on the Lake of Totak.

“Are there any songs current in the mouths of the peasants here?”
I inquired, as we drove very slowly along a narrow road, through
morasses, studded with birch. “This is pre-eminently the old fashioned
part of Norway, so I suppose if they are anywhere they are here.”

“Oh, yes. There has been a student from Christiania wandering about
these parts lately, collecting songs for the purpose of publication.
Many of them are dying out fast. Some years ago, the girls used to
improvise over the loom. At weddings, lad and lass used to stevne (sing
staves) in amœbean fashion, on the spur of the moment.”

Some of these pieces are highly witty and satirical. But the bonders
are very averse to repeating them. One of them, on being asked by the
student to repeat a stave, replied, “Ieg vil ikke være en Narr for
Byen-folk:” (I won’t play the fool to amuse the city folks.)

Here is a specimen of one native to this part done into English.

STAVE.

    _A._ Oh! fair is the sight to see,
           When the lads and the lasses are dancin’;
         The cuckoo, he calls from the tree,
           And the birds through the green wood are glancin’!

    _B._ Oh! ’tis fair in Vining-town,
           When to kirk the lovers repair:
         Of other light need they have none,
           So light is the bride’s yellow hair.

    _A._ Oh! fair is the sight I trow,
           When the bride the kirk goes in,
         No need of the torch’s glow,
           So bright is her cherry chin.[5]

    _B._ Her neck’s like the driven snow,
           Her hair’s like the daffodil,
         Her eyes in their sockets glow,
           Like the sun rising over the hill.

The whole winds up with a description of the married life of the pair.

    _A._ The cock he struts into the house,
           The bonder gives him corn,
         The flocks on the northern lea browse,
           And the shepherd he blows his horn.

    _B._ The shepherd the mountain ascends,
           And the setting sun doth bide,
         As blithe, when night descends,
           As the bairns at merry Yule-tide.




CHAPTER V.

    A lone farm-house--A scandal against the God Thor--The
    headquarters of Scandinavian fairy lore--The legend of Dyrë
    Vo--A deep pool--A hint for alternate ploughboys--Wild
    goose geometry--A memorial of the good old times--Dutch
    falconers--Rough game afoot--Author hits two birds with one
    stone--Crosses the lake Totak--A slough of despond--An honest
    guide--A Norwegian militiaman--Rough lodgings--A night with the
    swallows--A trick of authorship--Yea or Nay.


At Kos-thveit, on the lake Totak, stands a lone farm-house, the
proprietor of which procured me a man and a maid to row me over the
dreary waters, now rendered drearier by a passing squall which overcast
the sky. Pointing to the westward, where the lake narrowed, and
receded under the shadows of the approaching mountains, the ferryman
told me that yonder lay the famous Urebro Urden,[6] where the god
Thor, when disguised by beer, lost his hammer, and cleared a road
through the loose rocks while engaged in searching for it. Indeed,
with the exception of Nissedal, in another part of Thelemarken, which
is reputed as the head quarters of trolls and glamour, this gloomy
lake and its vicinity abound, perhaps more than any part of Norway, in
tales of Scandinavia’s ancient gods and supernatural beings. The man
also mentioned the legend of Dyrë Vo, which has been put into verse by
Welhaven.

The following version will give some idea of the legend--

    The bonniest lad all Vinje thro’
      Was Dyrë of Vo by name,
    Firm as a rock the strength, I trow,
      Of twelve men he could claim.
    “Well Dyrë,” quoth a neighbour bold,
    “With trolls and sprites, like Thor of old,
      To have a bout now fear ye?”
      “Not a bit, were it mirk,” said Dyrë.

    Full soon, they tell, it did befal
      That in the merry Yule-tide,
    When cups went round, and beards wagg’d all,
      And the ale was briskly plied:
    All in a trice the mirth grew still:
    Hark! what a sound came from the hill,
      As a hundred steers lowed near ye.
      “Well, now its right mirk,” quoth Dyrë.

    Then straightway he hied to Totak-vand,
      And loosened his boat so snell;
    But as he drew near to the other strand
      He heard an eldritch yell.
    “Who’s fumbling in the churn? What ho!”
    “But who art thou?--I’m Dyrë Vo,--
      All in the moor, so weary;
      And so dark as it is?” asked Dyrë.

    “I’m from Ashowe, and must away
      To Glomshowe to my lady;
    Bring the boat alongside, and do not stay,
      And put out your strength: so; steady.”
    “You must shrink a bit first,” was Vo’s reply,
    “My boat is so little, and you so high;
      Your body’s as long as a tall fir-tree,
      And, remember, its dark,” said Dyrë.

    The Troll he shrunk up, quite funny to see,
      Ere the boat could be made to fit him,
    Then Dyrë--the devil a pin cared he
      For Trolls--began to twit him.
    “Now tell me, good sir, what giant you are.”
    “No nonsense--you’ll rue it--of joking beware,”
      Growled the Troll, so dark and dreary.
      “Besides, it is mirk,” laughed Dyrë.

    But the Troll by degrees more friendly grew,
      And said, when he over was ferried,
    “In your _trough_ I’ll leave a token, to shew
      The measure of him you’ve wherried.
    Look under the thwarts when darkness wanes,
    And something you’ll find in return for your pains;
      A trifle wherewith to make merry.”
      “For now it is mirk,” said Dyrë.

    When daylight appeared, a glove-finger of wool
      He found in the boat--such a treasure--
    Four skeps it did take to fill it full,
      Dyrë uses it for a meal-measure.
    Then straight it became a proverb or saw,
    Dyrë Vo is the lad to go like Thor
      ’Gainst Trolls, and such like Feerie.
      “Best of all when it’s mirk,” thought Dyrë.

“Very deep, sir,” said the boatman, as I let out my spinning tackle, in
the faint hopes of a trout for supper.

“Was the depth ever plumbed?” inquired I.

“To be sure, sir. That’s a long, long time ago--leastways, I have heard
so. There was an old woman at Kos-thveit yonder, whose husband had the
ill-luck to be drowned in the lake. She set people to work to drag for
his body, but nowhere on this side of the country could she get a rope
sufficiently long for the work. So she had to send to the city for one.
At last they reached the bottom, and found the lake as deep as it was
broad, with a little to spare, for the rope reached from Kos-thveit to
Rauland, just across the water, and then went twice round the church,
which you see standing alone, yonder on the shore, three miles off.”

“Who serves that church?” inquired I.

“Vinje’s Priest,” he answered. “That was his boat-house we passed.”

We landed on the eastern shore of the lake, at a spot called Hadeland,
where a cluster of farm-houses were to be seen upon a green <DW72>,
showing some symptoms of cultivation. Richard Aslackson Berge, the
farmer at whose house I put up, a grimy, ill-clad fellow, quite
astounded me by the extent of his information. Catching sight of
my wooden calendar, he immediately fetched an old almanack, which
contained some explanation of the various signs upon the staff. Fancy
one of your “alternate ploughboys”--as the Dean of Hereford and other
would-be improvers of the clod-hopping mind, if I remember rightly,
call them--fancy one of these fellows studying with interest an
ancient Anglo-Saxon wooden calendar; and yet this man Berge, besides
this, talked of the older and younger Edda, the poem of Gudrun, and,
if my memory serves me, of the Nibelungenlied. He had also read the
Heimskringla Saga. The promoters of book-hawking and village lending
libraries will be interested to hear that this superior enlightenment
was due to a small lending library, which had been established by a
former clergyman of the district. There was a pithiness and simplicity
about this man’s talk which surprised me.

“The wild geese,” says he, “come over here in the spring, and after
tarrying a few days make over to the north, in the shape of a
snow-plough.” Milton would have said, “Ranged in figure, wedge their
way.”

Several old swords and other weapons have been dug up in the vicinity,
indicative of rugged manners and deeds quite in keeping with the rugged
features of the surrounding nature. On an old beam in the hay-loft
is carved, in antique Norsk--“Knut So-and-so was murdered here in
1685”--the simple memorial of a very common incident in those days.

For the moderate sum of four orts (three and fourpence) I hire a horse
and a man to the shores of the Miösvand. To the left of our route--path
there is none--is a place called Falke Riese (Falcon’s Nest), where
Richard tells me that his grandfather told him he remembered a party
of Dutchmen being located in a log-hut, for the purpose of catching
falcons, and that they used duen (tame doves) to attract them. This is
interesting, as showing the method pursued by the grandees of Europe,
in the days of hawking, to procure the best, or Norwegian breed. At
one time, this sport was also practised by the great people of this
country. Thus, from Snorro, it appears that Eywind used to keep falcons.

My guide, Ole, has been a soldier, but much prefers the mountain air to
that of the town.

“In the town,” says he, “it is so traengt,” (in Lincolnshire, throng,)
_i.e._, no room to stir or breathe.

In the course of conversation he tells me he verily believes I have
travelled over the whole earth.

While the horse is stopping to rest and browse on a spot which afforded
a scanty pasturage, a likely-looking lake attracted my observation, and
I was speedily on its rocky banks, throwing for a trout--but the trout
were too wary and the water too still. While thus engaged, a distant
horn sounds from a mountain on the right, sufficiently startling
in such a desolate region. Was game afoot this morning, and was I
presently to hear--

    The deep-mouthed blood-hound’s heavy bay,
    Resounding up the hollow way.

Game was afoot, but not of the kind usually the object of the chase.
The Alpine horn was blown by a sæter-lad to keep off the wolves, as I
was informed. As nothing was to be done with the rod, I tried the gun,
and as we <DW72> down through the stunted willows and birch copses that
patch the banks of the Miösvand, I fall in with plenty of golden plover
and brown ptarmigan, and manage to kill two birds with one stone. In
other words, the shots that serve to replenish the provision-bag arouse
a peasant on the further side, who puts over to us in his boat, and
thus saves us a detour of some miles round the southern arm of the
lake. As we cross over, I perceive far to the westward the snow-covered
mountains of the Hardanger Fjeld, which I hope to cross. The
westernmost end of the lake is, I understand, twenty-four English miles
from this. To the eastward, towering above its brother mountains, is
the cockscombed Gausta, which lies close by the Riukan Foss, while all
around the scenery is as gaunt and savage as possible. At Schinderland,
where we land, after some palaver I procure a horse to Erlands-gaard, a
cabin which lies on the hither side of the northern fork of the Miösen,
said to be seven miles distant. But the many detours we had to make
to avoid the dangerous bogs, made the transit a long affair. In one
place, when the poor nag, encumbered with my effects, sank up to his
belly, I expected every moment to see the hungry bog swallow him up
entirely. With admirable presence of mind he kept quite still, instead
of exhausting himself in struggling, and then by an agile fling and
peculiar sleight of foot, got well out of the mess.

The delay caused by these difficulties enabled me to bring down some
more ptarmigan, and have a bang at an eagle, who swept off with a sound
which to my ears seemed very like “don’t you wish you may get it.” But
perhaps it was only the wind driving down the rocks and over the savage
moorland.

The modest charge of one ort (tenpence), made by my guide for horse and
man, not a little surprised me. I did not permit him to lose by his
honesty.

Unfortunately, the boat at Erlands-gaard is away; so meanwhile I cook
some plover and chat with the occupants of the cabin. Sigur Ketilson,
one of the sons, is a Konge-man, (one of “the king’s men,” or
soldiers, mentioned in the ballad of “Humpty-dumpty.”) He has been out
exercising this year at Tönsberg, one hundred and forty English miles
off. The mere getting thither to join his corps is quite a campaign in
itself. On his road to headquarters he receives fourteen skillings per
diem as _viaticum_, and one skilling and a half for “_logiment_.” A
bed for three farthings! He is not forced to march more than two Norsk
(fourteen English) miles a day. The time of serving is now cut down
one-half, being five instead of ten years, and by the same law every
able-bodied person must present himself for service, though instead of
the final selection being made by lot, it is left to the discretion of
one officer--a regulation liable to abuse.

At last the boat returns, and embarking in it by ten o’clock P.M., when
it is quite dark, I arrive at the lone farm-house at Holvig. Mrs. Anna
Holvig is reposing with her three children, her husband being from
home. There being only one bed on the premises, I find that the hay
this night must be my couch. The neighbouring loft where I slept was
a building with its four ends resting, as usual, on huge stones. At
intervals during the night I am awoke by noises close to my ear, which
I thought must be from infantine rats, whose organs of speech were not
fully developed. In the morning I discover that my nocturnal disturbers
were not rats, but swallows, who had constructed their mud habitations
just under the flooring where I slept. “The swallow twittering from its
straw-built nest” may gratify persons of an elegiac turn; but under the
circumstances the noise was anything but agreeable.

“The breezy call of incense breathing morn,” in which the same poet
revels, was much more to my liking; indeed, one sniff of it made me as
fresh as a lark, and I picked my way to the house by the lake side,
and enjoyed my coffee. The little boy, Oiesteen Torkilson, though only
eight years of age, has not been idle, and has procured a man and horse
from a distant sæter. The price asked is out of all reason, as I don’t
hesitate to tell the owner. Before the bargain is struck, I jot down a
few remarks in my journal. With the inquisitiveness of her nation, the
woman asks what I am writing. “Notices of what I see and think of the
people; who is good, and who not.” Out bolts the lady, to apprise the
man of her discovery that “there’s a chield amang ye taking notes, and
faith he’ll print it.” My device succeeded. Presently she finished her
confab with the peasant, and returned to say that he would take a more
moderate payment.

I observed here, for the first time, the difference between the two
words “ja” and “jo.”

Have you seen a bear?--“Ja.” Haven’t you seen a bear?--“Jo.” I have
met educated Norwegians who had failed to observe the distinction. A
perfectly similar distinction was formerly made in England between
“yes” and “yea.”[7]




CHAPTER VI.

    No cream--The valley of the Maan--The Riukan foss--German
    students--A bridge of dread--The course of true love never
    did run smooth--Fine misty weather for trout--Salted
    provisions--Midsummer night revels--The Tindsö--The priest’s
    hole--Treacherous ice--A case for Professor Holloway--The
    realms of cloud-land--Superannuated--An ornithological
    guess--Field-fares out of reach of “Tom Brown”--The best
    kind of physic--Undemonstrative affection--Everywhere the
    same--Clever little horses.


The path, I find, is at a higher level than I imagined, for, on
reaching a sæter, no bunker (sour milk, with a thick coating of cream)
is to be had, as the temperature is too low, the girl tells me, for the
process of mantling to take place.

The horse being exceedingly lazy, I administered a rebuke to him, when
he was not slow in returning the compliment, striking me with his heels
in the thigh. Luckily I was close behind him, or the thread of my
story might have been abruptly snapped.

Pine now begins to take the place of birch, and we descend very rapidly
into the valley of the Maan, pronounced Moan. To our right, among
the trees, is heard the roar of the famous Riukan foss, which at one
perpendicular shoot of nine hundred feet, discharges the waters of the
great Miösvand and other lakes into the valley.

Leaving my guide to rest for a space, I plunged into the forest, and,
after a precipitous descent, espy a cottage close to the falls. Here
sat two strangers, regaling themselves on wild strawberries and milk,
while the master of the hut was carving a wooden shoe, and the mistress
suckling a baby. The travellers both wore spectacles and longish hair,
and a pocket-compass depending from their necks. Each carried a _beau
ideal_ of a knapsack, and I knew them at once to be German students.
After eating their meal, they observed that they had “yut yespeist,”
which stamped them at once to be from the Rhine; the pronunciation of
_g_ as _y_ being the shibboleth of detection. “Eine _y_ute _y_ebratene
_y_ans ist eine _y_ute _y_abe _Y_oddes” (a yood yoast yoose is a yood
yift of Yod), is a saying fastened on the Rhinelander by the more
orthoepic Hanoverian. But it is more than doubtful whether these good
people will have any opportunity in this country of tasting any such
delicacy.

A few yards brought us to the magnificent amphitheatre of the Riukan,
on the further side of which we have the fall full in view. On the face
of the smooth, nearly perpendicular wall which shuts in the vast arena
to the right of us, is an exceedingly narrow ledge--

    A bridge of dread,
    Not wider than a thread--

along which foolhardy people have occasionally risked their
necks, either out of mere bravado or in order to make a short cut
to the Miösvand, which I left this morning. This is the famous
Mari-stien--everybody knows the legend about it--sadly exemplifying
the fact that the course of true love never did run smooth: how young
Oiesteen fell from it on his way to a stolen interview with Mary of
Vestfjordalen, and she lost her senses in consequence, and daily
haunted the spot for years afterwards, pale and wan, and silent as a
ghost, and is even now seen when the shades of evening fall, hovering
over the giddy verge of “The remorseless deep which closed o’er the
head of her loved Lycidas.”

But as neither I nor the Teutons could see any possible good in risking
our necks for nought, and valued a whole skin and unbroken bones,
after assaying to take in and digest the wonderful sight, we presently
retraced our steps without setting foot on ledge.

Five miles below this is Dœl, where some accommodation, at a dear rate,
is to be obtained of Ole Tarjeison.

Next morning, the summit of Gausta, which rises just over the Maan
to the height of 5688 feet, and commands a magnificent view of the
district of Ringerike, is covered with cloud. But what is bad weather
to others, is good in the eyes of the fisherman. So, instead of
lamenting “the wretched weather,” I get out my trout-rod and secure
some capital trouts (at times they are taken here seven pounds in
weight), part of which I have sprinkled with salt, and put into the
provision-bag, with a view to the journey I purpose taking from hence
across the Fjeld to Norway’s greatest waterfall, the Vöringfoss, in the
Hardanger.

While sauntering about, a printed notice, suspended in the passage of
the house, attracts my attention, which afforded a considerable insight
into the morals of the Norwegian peasant. It was dated April 18, 1853,
and was to this effect: The king has heard with much displeasure that
the old custom of young unmarried men running about at night, sometimes
in flocks (flokkeviis), especially on Sundays and saints’-days, after
the girls, while asleep in the cow-houses, has been renewed. His
Majesty, therefore, summons all Christian and sober-minded parents,
and house-fathers, to protect their children and servants from this
nocturnal rioting. He also calls upon them to keep the two sexes
apart, for the sake of order and good morals; and if the same shall
be detected conniving at these irregularities, they shall, for the
first offence, be mulcted one dollar seventy-two skillings; for the
second offence, double that amount, &c. The young men shall have the
same punishment; and, for the third offence, be confined from three
to six months with hard labour in a fortress. Girls who receive such
clandestine visits, shall be punished in like manner. Informers shall
be entitled to receive the fine. All Government officers are required
to make known these presents. This notice must be read at churches,
posted in conspicuous places, and sent about by messengers.

Here, then, I obtained the certain knowledge of a custom--similar
to one which still lingers in Wales--which I had suspected to be
prevalent, but the existence of which the inhabitants of the country,
for some reason or other, I found slow to admit. The above ordinance
is a renewal of a similar one made 4th March, 1778, from which it
appears that the immorality of “Nattefrieri” (night-courting) has long
prevailed in Norway.

Eight English miles below this the Maan finds ample room and verge
enough to expatiate in the deep Tindsö, which is, perhaps, one of the
most dangerous lakes in Norway, being subject to frightfully sudden
storms; while the precipitous cliffs that bound it, for the most part
only afford foothold to a fly, or such like climbers. There is an old
tale about this lake, illustrative of the dangers to which a clergyman
is subject in the discharge of his duties. Many years ago, the parson
of the parish had to cross over the lake to do duty in the “annex
church” at Hovind. The weather was threatening; but his flock awaited
him, and so he started, commending himself to God and his good angels.
Long before he approached his destination, the wind had so increased
in violence that the boatmen were overpowered, and the boat was dashed
to pieces against the adamantine walls of the Haukanes Fjeld. All on
board were lost but the priest, who was carried by the billows into
a small cleft in the rock, far above the usual high-water mark. For
three days he sat wedged in this hole, from whence there was no exit.
On the fourth day, the winds and waves abated; and some boatmen, who
were rowing by, as good fortune would have it, heard the faint cry
for assistance which the captive gave, as he saw them from his “coin
of vantage.” And so he was rescued from his terrible predicament;
and the notch in the wall still goes by the name of the Prestehul,
“Priest’s-hole.”

Bishop Selwyn, with his well-found yacht, sailing among the deep bays
of New Zealand, confirming and stablishing the Maoris in the Christian
faith, will have to wait a long time before he can meet with such an
adventure as the Tindsö priest. But then you’ll say, in winter time it
is all right, and the parson can dash along over the ice, defying the
dangers of the deep and the bristling rocks. Not so, however; there
are not unfrequently weak places in the ice, which look as strong as
the rest, but which let in the unfortunate traveller. Not long ago,
five men and a horse were thus engulphed. So in the Heimskringla Saga,
King Harold and his retinue perish by falling through the ice on the
Randsfjord, at a place where cattle-dung had caused it to thaw.

Giving up all thoughts of ascending the Gausta,--as I understand the
chance of a view from it in this misty weather is very precarious,--I
hire a horse from one Hans Ostensen Ingulfsland, to convey my luggage
to Waage, on the Miösvand. Hans was ill, apparently of a deranged
stomach and liver, and, with rueful aspect, consulted me on his case.
All the medicine he had was what he called a _probatum_, in a small
bottle. The probatum turned out to be a specific for the gravel, as I
saw from a label on the flask; so I gave him what was more likely to
suit his case, some blue pill and rhubarb.

Hans’ father used to entertain travellers, but his charges became so
high that all his customers forsook him; and M. Doel, who appears to be
in a fair way to imitate his predecessor, set up in “the public line.”

Hitherto the valley has been clear of cloud; and on arriving at Vaa,
I stop to rest, and sketch the distant smoke of the Riukan ascending
from its rocky cauldron towards heaven. Presently the mist, which had
all the morning hidden the “comb” of Gausta, threw off a few flakes;
these gradually extend and unite, and pour along the mountain-tops to
my left, and in a few minutes reach to and absorb the smoke of Riukan,
and hide it from view. Up boil the fogs, as if by magic, from all
sides; and, like the image of Fame, in _Virgil_, the vapour rises from
the depths of the valley, and reaches up to the sky. Doubtless it was
the spirit of the place, wroth at my profane endeavour to represent
her shrine on paper; and the sullen “moan” of the stream might, by
an imaginative person, have been supposed to be the utterance of her
complaint.

In the foreground, intently watching my operations as he sits upon a
rock, is old Peer Peerson Vaa, who being over eighty, is past work,
and having no children, has sold his Gaard to one Ole Knutzen, on the
condition of having his liv-brod (life-bread)--_i.e._, being supported
till his death. This is not an uncommon custom in Norway. He is
“farbro” (uncle) to the man at Dœl.

Observe the simplicity of the language. So the Norsk for “aunt” is
“moerbro,”--mother’s brother.

I here obtain a dollar or two of small change, with which I am ill
provided. It is curious, by-the-bye, to see how one of these bonders
looks at half-a-dozen small coins before he is able to reckon the
amount. This is in consequence of the infrequency of money up the
country.

As we ascend the Pass, I observe some dusky-looking birds, which
turn out to be ringouzels. According to a Norwegian whom I consulted
on the subject, they are the substitute, in a great measure, if not
altogether, in this part of the country, for the

    Ouzel cock, so black of hue,
    With orange-tawny bill,

whose plaintive song so delights us in Great Britain.

Several fieldfares, also, chattered in a startled and angry manner
as they rose from the low birch bushes, impatient, no doubt, for the
period, now fast approaching, when their young ones will be ready to
fly and start for Germany, one of their chief winter _habitats_, where,
under the appellation of “Krammets-vogel,” they will appear in the bill
of fare at the hotels. What an odd notion, to be sure, of all these
birds going so far to lie-in! What an infinity of trouble they would
save themselves if they stopped, for instance, during the breeding
period, in Germany or England! Aye; but then they would be exposed to
the depredations of “Tom Brown” and others of the genus schoolboy,
whose destructive and adventurous qualities generally first develop
themselves in the bird-nesting line.

One of the straps which fastened my luggage to the horse having broken,
my guide very soon constructs, of birch twig, a strap and buckle
which holds as fast as any leathern one I ever saw. This fertility
of invention is due to the non-division of labour. What could an
Englishman have done under similar circumstances?

Halvor Halvorsen, my guide, is a poor weakly fellow, and having seen
me prescribe for Ingulfsland, he asks me if I can do anything for him.
Good living and less hard work are all he wants; but, unfortunately,
while he has plenty of the latter, he gets but little of the former. On
his back is a great load of milk-pails, and some provisions (potatoes
and flad-brod) for his spouse, who is taking care of a sæter, which we
shall pass.

At length we arrive there: it is a cot of unhewn stone-slabs, and
before the door a lot of dried juniper-bushes, the only firing
which the desolate plateau affords. Gro Johannsdatter, a really
pretty-looking young woman, with delicate features, smiles in a
subdued manner as we enter, and thanks her husband quietly and
monosyllabically for bringing up the food. This, together with her
little boy, she proceeds to examine with inquisitive, eager eye. The
larder was doubtless nearly empty. She then gives her husband, whom she
had not seen for some time, a furtive look of affection, but nothing
more--no embrace, no kiss. How undemonstrative these people are! It
is a remarkable characteristic of the lower orders of Norway, that,
unlike their betters, they never think of kissing or embracing before
strangers. Compare this with those demonstrations in Germany and
France, where not the opposite sexes, but great bearded men, will kiss
each other on either cheek with the report of popguns, regardless of
bystanders.

Presently they go into the inner compartment of the hut, and then at
length I believe I heard the sound of a kiss. While she makes up the
fire, and boils some milk for her husband, who has many hours of
mountain still before him, I endeavour to take a slight sketch of her
and the abode.

No sooner does she become aware of my intentions, than, with true
feminine instinct, she begs me to wait a moment, while she divests
herself of an ugly clout of a kerchief which hides a very pretty neck.
The sketch concluded, she asks for a sight of it, and, with a pleased
smile, exclaims, “No, no; I’m not so smuk (pretty, smug) as that.”

These châlets, by-the-bye, are not called sæter in this part of Norway,
but stol, or stöl. They are very inferior in accommodation to those in
the Hardanger district and elsewhere.

Beyond crossing a river, Humle-elv, when, by my guide’s recommendation,
I spring on the horse’s back, I find nothing noted in my diary
concerning the rest of the day’s journey.

These little horses will carry up and down steep mountains from
fifteen Norwegian Bismark lbs. (nearly two hundred weight English) up
to twenty-two. How the little nag, with my luggage and myself on his
back, managed to win his way over the stream, which was at least two
feet deep, and among the large slippery stones on its bottom, it was
difficult to divine. They are very cats for climbing, though they do
not share that animal’s aversion to water, which they take to as if it
was their natural element.




CHAPTER VII.

    An oasis--Unkempt waiters--Improving an opportunity--The church
    in the wilderness--Household words--A sudden squall--The
    pools of the Quenna--Airy lodgings--Weather-bound--A
    Norwegian grandpapa--Unwashed agriculturists--An uncanny
    companion--A fiery ordeal--The idiot’s idiosyncrasy--The
    punctilious parson--A pleasant query--The mystery of making
    flad-brod--National cakes--The exclusively English phase of
    existence--Author makes a vain attempt to be “hyggelig”--Rather
    queer.


It was already dark when we emerged from the morasses and loose rocks,
and lighted by good luck on the little patch of green sward on the
northern shores of the Misövand, adjoining the farm-house of Waagen. On
referring to the map, reader, and finding this spot set down upon it,
your imagination, of course, pictures a regular village, or something
of that sort; but this is not the case. A couple of gaards, with a belt
of swampy grass land, are all the symptoms of man to enliven this
intensely solitary waste of grey rocks, bog, birch, and water.

The proprietors are Gunnuf Sweynsen and his brother Torkil, together
with one Ole Johnson, a cousin. Gunnuf is absent, guiding the Germans
across the Fjeld.

The best method to proceed is, I find, to take boat from here to
Lien, which is about twenty-four miles distant, at the very top or
north-eastern end of the lake; a horse must then be procured to carry
my effects for the other seventy English miles across the mountains. A
bargain is soon struck with Johnson, who has once before traversed most
of the route; and for the sum of eight dollars (thirty-six shillings
English) he undertakes to horse and guide me the whole way to the
Hardanger.

The stabur, or hay-loft, affords me a tolerable night’s resting-place.
There were no women-folk about to make things comfortable; so I managed
with the three unkempt _valets de chambre_ instead, who boiled me some
coffee, greased my boots, and did the needful quite as well as one
of those short-jacketed, napkin-carrying, shilling-seeking German
kellners who supersede the spruce chamber-maid of the English inn.

By early day we walk across the dew-dank meadow down to the shore of
the lake, while a few black ducks, which scuttle off at our approach,
warn me to get my fowling-piece ready. The water is so shallow near
the land, that the boat gets aground; and the men are in the water in
a moment and pushing her off, and into the boat again in a twinkling
as she shot into the deeps, the water streaming from their legs in
cascades, about which they seemed to care as little as the black ducks
aforesaid.

As we glide out into the offing, my spinning-tackle is got out, as I
determine to improve the opportunity, and see what the lake can boast
of in the way of fish. A banging trout is soon fixed on the deadly
triangles which garnishes the sides of the bright metal minnow, to the
great delight of the boatmen, to whom the operation is entirely novel.

Take warning, piscatorial reader, from me, and mind you use a plaited
line with spinning-tackle. In my hurry I had used a fine twisted one,
which kinked up into a Gordian knot the moment it was slack, and I lost
some time in getting out another line.

Yonder, on the western shore of the lake, standing in the midst of the
silent wilderness, rises the solitary house of God where the people of
these parts worship, its humble spire of wood reflected on the surface
of the lake. With the exception of Hovden Church and our boat, the
waters and shores exhibit nothing else indicative of the proximity of
man.

The congregation must be a very scattered one, for if ever people dwelt
few and far between, it is in these solitudes. Not one of the three
clergymen of the parishes of Vinje, Sillejord, and Tind, who share in
the Sunday duty which is performed here a dozen times a year, can live
under fifty miles off. A Diocesan Spiritual Aid Society is certainly
wanted in these regions.

Such words as “hyre,” to hire; “ede,” to eat; “beite,” to bite;
“aarli,” early, let drop by the boatmen in the course of conversation,
remind me that I am in a part of the country where a portion of the
old tongue still keeps its ground, such as it was when brought over
to England, and engrafted on its congener, the Anglo-Saxon, nearly a
thousand years ago.

Quite a tempest of wind now suddenly springs up, sending us along at a
great pace, and rendering it difficult, when I now and then caught a
trout by the tackle trailing astern, to lay-to and secure the fish. The
twenty-four miles were soon behind us, and we found ourselves in the
Quenna river. “Ducks ahead!” was the cry of the lively Torkil, and my
fowling-piece soon added fowl to the fish. No fear of starvation now,
even though the larder at Lien prove to be empty.

As it is some hours to nightfall, I rig my fly-rod, and try the pools
of the Quenna. Some fat, cinnamon- flies, which I found
reposing under the stones, being hardly yet strong enough on the wing
to disport themselves aloft, gave me a hint as to the sort of fly that
would go down, and, my book containing some very similar insects, I
had no lack of sport, securing several nice fish. They do run as large
as five pounds, I hear.

On returning to the small farm-house where I was to spend the night,
a horse, I found, had been procured; and as a beautiful evening gave
promise of a fine day on the morrow, we prepared to start by earliest
dawn. My bed of skins was, as usual, laid in the hay-shed; and I
retired in the highest possible spirits at the prospect of crossing the
desolate and grand mountain-plateau that separates us from the western
shores of Norway.

As this spot stands at an elevation of some three thousand feet above
the sea, there were no pine-trees growing near; so the shed was
constructed of undressed birch poles, and was about as weather-tight
as a blackbird’s wicker cage. The chinks near my pillow I stopped up
with loose hay. Vain precaution! Before dawn I awoke, cold and stiff.
The weather had changed; my sleeping-chamber was become a very temple
of the winds, and the storm made a clean breach through the tenement,
having swept out the quasi-oakum which I had stuffed into the crevices.

On issuing from my dormitory, I found the weather was frightful. A
deluge of rain, and wind, and thick mist filled the space between earth
and sky. To attempt the passage of the Fjeld was not to be thought
of, as there is no road whatever. Departure, therefore, being out
of the question, I made up my mind to another day’s sojourn at the
cottage, which was the most comfortless, dirty spot I ever met with in
Thelemarken; and that is saying a good deal. During the day, most of
the natives--Ole, my guide, among the rest--were away at the châlet.
Besides myself, there were only two other persons left at home; and
these, as my journey is at a stand-still, I may as well describe.

A tall, old man, his height bowed by the weight of more than eighty
years, sat in a kubbe-stol--a high backed chair, made out of a solid
trunk of tree, peculiar to Thelemarken--warming his knees at the fire
in the corner, and mumbling to himself. Presently he lay down on a
bench, and snored. Before long up he got, and spooned up a quantity
of cold porridge; and then, turning his bleared eyes at me, as I sat
finishing a sketch of the interior of the dwelling, including himself,
croaked out,--

“Er du Embedsman?” (Art thou a Government servant?)

“No.”

“Well, that’s odd.”

And then he commenced warming his knees and mumbling, and then snored
as before, extended on the bench; and before long, rose and spooned
up porridge. These were his daily and hourly avocations. His name was
a grand one--Herrbjörn Hermanson--but the owner of it was disgusting.
No wonder; he never washes at all, so that the appearance of his
countenance may be conceived. When he departs this life he will undergo
ablution.

_Apropos_ of this, in the absence of a better occupation, I gave a
classic turn to the affair, and in my thoughts altered a line of
Juvenal:--

    Pars bona _Norwegiæ_ est, si verum admittimus, in qua
    Nemo sumit _aquam_ nisi mortuus.

That I don’t think is a libel. Indeed, with “the wretchlessness of
most unclean living”--this application of the words of the Seventeenth
Article is not mine, but a late geological Dean of Westminster’s, in
his sermon on the cholera--the inhabitants of this country generally
have a very practical acquaintance.

The other person who kept at home all day, was a young fellow of
thirty, with swarthy face and gleaming eyes. His dark, shaggy head of
hair was surmounted by a cap like that worn by the Finns, with a bunch
of wild flowers stuck in a red band that encircled it. His dress was a
short jacket, skin knee-breeches, and jack-boots. His time was occupied
between smearing the boots with reindeer fat, sharpening a knife of
formidable dimensions, and casting small bullets; while ever and anon
he would repair to a small looking-glass of three inches square, hung
against the wall, and contemplate a very forbidding, peculiar set of
features therein. There was something uncanny about the look of the
fellow which I did not much relish. Presently he takes my pipe from the
table, and coolly commences smoking it. Subsequently I find that Joh
is not as other men are, and only half in possession of his senses.

Some twenty years ago tame reindeer were introduced upon these
mountains from Finmark, and great things were expected from the
importation; but the enterprize did not answer; and a couple of years
ago the proprietors slaughtered all the deer, and there was a great
merry-making at a farm called Norregaard on the occasion. Deep drinking
was the order of the day; raw potato brandy was gulped down in profuse
quantities. For forty-eight hours without intermission did the bout
continue. Like Paddy’s noddle in respect to the shillelagh, most of
these mountaineers’ heads are proof against the knock-me-down power of
strong alcohol. Not so Joh’s, who was one of the party; in the midst
of the festivities he lost his reason, and went stark staring mad.
It was long before he quieted down; since then he has never done any
work, or shared in the labours of the rest of the family; nothing will
persuade him, however, to touch brantviin now. The burnt child dreads
the fire--the brandy must formerly have had a fearful fascination for
him. I drew a cork from a small flask with me; the moment the sound
caught his ear, his face whirled round to where I sat with the rapidity
of an automaton, and he glared a look of peculiar meaning at me from
underneath his heavy eyebrows, which at the time I could not comprehend.

But though he is averse to all regular work, there is one thing I find
on which he spares no pains,--reindeer stalking. This is the occupation
on which he starts day after day, without speaking a word to the rest
of the household; in season and out of it, he is continually alone on
the mountains around. Outside the door are a dozen pairs of antlers,
the trophies of his skill. Only last week he shot a female deer, the
fifth or sixth this summer, although the season fixed by law has not
yet arrived. But he is out of the ken of informers.

Drying on the wall outside is a rein-skin, and in the house are two or
three hides which his ingenuity has converted into leather. His boots
are of that material--so are his knee-breeches. He is often absent
for days on the mountain, not unfrequently sleeping under a rock. If
he discovers a flock of deer in a spot where the nature of the ground
will not permit of his getting within shot, he bides till they move,
dodging about unperceived. Not long since, he killed two specimens
of the Fjeld-frass, or glutton, whose scent is said to be incredibly
keen, nosing wounded game miles off. One of these wretches he saw track
and catch and kill a wounded (skamskudt) deer; and while it was thus
occupied he stole upon it unawares, and became possessed of deer and
glutton both.

At all events, he showed more gumption on this occasion than an
English parson with whom I am acquainted. One day he saw that
diminutive British equivalent to the glutton--a weazel--pursuing
similar tactics--overtake an unfortunate hare. As usual, poor puss was
fascinated, and her legs refused their office in the way of flight;
but each time the ferocious little creature tried to fasten upon her,
she knocked it over with her paws, jumping at it and pushing it over.
Off set the parson, not to smash the brute with his cane, but to tell
his Grace’s keeper. It is needless to add, that when he returned with
that functionary the vampire quadruped had got on the hare’s neck, and
sucked all the blood out of its veins, managing to get clean off to
boot.

But to return to Joh. Observing me engaged in frying trout, he suddenly
exclaims--the first word he had spoken--“Kann De spise reen?” (can you
eat reindeer?) “To be sure.” Upon which he bolted out of the hut, and
soon returned with a lump of venison weighing perhaps four pounds,
which he silently placed on the board. It was evident to me that Joh
was a person of capabilities; and I soon got him to work, repairing my
knapsack and gun-case. A few artificial flies, of which he was not slow
in comprehending the meaning, rewarded his endeavours in the saddler’s
art.

Towards evening the family returned from the sæter,--two strapping
maidens, Kari and Gunhild, among the number. The occupation in which
some of the party forthwith engaged--the mystery or craft of making
flad-brod, the national esculent--soon drove me into the fresh air.
At a table sits one of the girls, roller in hand, busily engaged in
rolling out huge flat cakes of dough, sprinkling them with water by
means of a little brush. The Alfred of the occasion was the father of
Joh, who, with a sort of trowel, whips up the cakes, and flaps them
down on the girdle-iron, a flat disk, about three-quarters of a yard in
diameter. At the proper moment he gives them a turn, and in a minute
they are done, and whisked into the hands of the other girl, who piles
them on a table. The girdle-iron being large, the smoke is prevented
ascending the chimney in its natural way, and becomes dissipated all
over the one sitting-room of the house, and this it is that drives me
out of it.

This favourite food is sometimes prepared in sufficient quantities for
a whole winter’s consumption. I have seen, in a large gaard, nearly a
dozen Abigails hard at work kneading, sprinkling, rolling, and baking
the cakes. The only time when they are endurable to the palate, in my
opinion, is when they are just warm off the fire. When warm, they are
flexible, and are then folded up compactly, if wanted for travelling.

Another national cake, something like a pikelet in taste and
consistency, is the waffel-kage, which is about half an inch thick,
oblong, and moulded into squares; this is by no means to be despised.

I was early down among the hay for the purpose of recruiting my
vital energies for the morrow, when our work was cut out for us,
and plenty of it. The interstices between the bars of the cage were
weather-tightened afresh, and I was resolved to be as cosy and
comfortable as circumstances would permit. Neither the French nor
the Germans have any word to represent that very pleasant accident
of our being, which we call comfort; so they borrow the word and its
derivatives out and out from our English vocabulary when they desire
to express a thing, which, after all, they cannot possibly have
experienced practically. Only fancy, then, the Norwegians presuming
to think of such a phase of existence. And yet they have a word said
to answer exactly to our word “comfortable,”--viz., “hyggelig,” from
hygge; which is, no doubt, identical with our word “to hug,” or
embrace.

Anyhow, my efforts to be “hyggelig” were not successful that night.
Like the Grecian hero under different circumstances, I could not rest;
no wonder, therefore, I was up and stirring early; indeed, I had been
stirring all night. The sun shone out brightly, every leaf and blade
of grass and rock reflecting his rays from their moist surfaces. The
rain had ceased falling from the clouds, but not from the mountains.
The river was brimful and roaring fiercely, the toying cascades of
twenty-four hours ago now swollen into blustering cataracts, while
fresh ones were improvised for the occasion. But, alas! I was ill
fitted for enjoying the glorious scene. Ague-fits shot through my limbs
and frame; and even before we started, I felt as if I had already
travelled many miles.

It was clear I had caught cold, if nothing worse; but there was no
help for it. The very idea of stopping another day in this den, with
Joh and Herrbjörn for my companions, was intolerable. Seventy miles,
it is true, lay before me, and not a house on the route. Behind me it
was a good fifty miles back to civilized life, and double or treble
that distance to a doctor. “Nulla retrorsum,” too, is my motto, unless
things come to such a pass as they did with Havelock’s men on the road
to Lucknow. The upshot was that I trusted in Providence, and set my
breast manfully to the mountain, supported by that inward consciousness
of endurance so dear to a Briton, which every now and then tried to
express itself, comically enough, by feebly humming “There’s life in
the old dog yet.”




CHAPTER VIII.

    Northwards--Social colts--The horse shepherd--The tired
    traveller’s sweet restorer, tea--Troll-work--Snow
    Macadam--Otter hunting in Norway--Normaends Laagen--A vision
    of reindeer--The fisherman’s hut--My lodging is on the cold
    ground--Making a night of it--National songs--Shaking down--A
    slight touch of nightmare.


Leaving the angry Quenna, we struck northward up a gradual ascent of
rock, polished apparently by former rains, its surface fissured at
intervals by deep cracks, and dabbed with patches of yellow moss,
dwarf birch, and glaucous willow, but, for the most part, fortunately
affording capital walking ground. A covey of grey ptarmigan, a snipe
or two, and some golden plover, rose before us; but I felt so weak and
ill that I had not the heart to load my fowling-piece, which the little
horse bore, along with my other effects, attached to the straddle.

As we journey along, a distant neigh (in Thelemarken speech “neija,”
in Norwegian, “vrinske,”) reaches my ear, and I descry three colts
bounding down the rocks to us. On joining our party, seemingly tired
of the loneliness of the mountain, and delighted at the idea of a new
equine companion, they dance round our little nag in most frolicksome
mood. In spite of all we can do to prevent them, they stick to us, now
in front, now alongside, now at our rear. At this moment a man’s voice
is heard, and a wild figure in frieze jacket, of the true Thelemarken
cut, knee-breeches, and bare calves, rushes up breathless. “Well,
Ambrose,” said my guide, “I thought they were yours, but they would
follow us. We couldn’t stop them.” Indeed, Ambrose found the task
equally difficult. He had never taken lessons from Mr. Rarey. It was
only by seizing the ringleader by his forelock, and hanging heavily
with the other arm on his neck, he managed to turn him from the error
of his way, which would most likely have only terminated with our day’s
journey’s end.

“And who is Ambrose?” inquired I. “Where is his Stöl? I see no symptoms
of one.”

“Stöl! bless you, langt ifra (far from it). He is a flytte-maend. He
comes up on the mountain with a lot of horses and Nöd (Scoticè nowt,
horned cattle), for about six weeks in the summer. He has a bag of
meal, and he lives upon that and the milk of one milking cow, which
he has with him. At night, he sleeps under a rock or stone, flitting
about from place to place, wherever he can find grass for the cattle.
He receives a small sum a head for his trouble, when he has taken them
back safe and sound.”

Hard life of it, thought I. Bad food and worse lodging; not to mention
that the beasts of prey occasionally diminish the number of his charge,
and with it the amount of his earnings.

After toiling along for twenty English miles of treeless wilderness,
skirting several lakes, floundering through many bogs, and sitting on
the horse as he forded one or two rivers, we reached a knoll, which
the guide called Grodhalse. It was a curious spot: itself green and
smiling with grassy herbage; behind it, higher up the <DW72>, patches of
unmelted snow; while at our feet ran a rill of snow-water.

“We must qvile (_i.e._, while = rest) here a bit,” said Ole. “There is
no other grass to be found for many miles.”

“Well, then, light a fire in a moment,” said I, a cold shudder running
through me the very moment I stood still, and I at once enveloped
myself in my pea-coat, buttoning the collar over my ears. “Fill that
kettle with water, and have it boiling as soon as ever you can. Here
are some matches.” The green prickly juniper scrub, which he forthwith
dragged up by the roots, soon blazed up with the proverbially transient
crackling of fire among the thorns; and the little copper kettle which
I had prudently caused to be brought soon succeeded in first simmering
and then boiling. Dickens’s kettle on the hob never uttered such
delightful music.

If I had been philosophically inclined, and had possessed a
thermometer, which I did not, I might have availed myself of the
opportunity of ascertaining the exact height we had reached, by seeing
at what number of degrees the fluid boiled. But what was much more
to the purpose, I had some tea at hand, and two quarts of the hot
infusion, with a thimblefull of brandy, were soon under my belt. Never
did opium, or bang, or haschish-eater experience such a sweet feeling
stealing over the sense. Talk of a giant refreshed with wine: give me
tea when I am knocked up. The chemistry-of-common-life people will talk
to you about Theïne and its nutritious qualities, but until that moment
I did not know what tea would do for you. My eyes, which just before
were half blind, saw again. My blood, which seemed to be curdled into
thick, heavy lumps, in my veins, was liquified afresh. That of St.
Januarius never underwent such a quick metamorphosis. Mr. Waterton will
excuse the allusion.

The knoll was at a very high level; the snow behind us, and the icy
runnel issuing from its bowels at our feet, gave a keenness to the
air, but the tea[8] put me in a genial perspiration, the pea-coat
aiding and abetting by keeping in the caloric. And when the little
horse, refreshed by his nibble, was caught and reloaded, I loaded my
fowling-piece, and felt quite strong enough to carry it. Before long we
were among some grey ptarmigan, and I brought one or two down.[9]

“Curious spot, this,” said I, to the guide, as we came to an
amphitheatrical ridge of abraded rock, on the very edge of which rested
huge blocks[10] of stone, some pivoted on their smallest face. The
cause of the phenomenon was evident. The glacier power, which formerly
moved these stones onward, day by day, had been arrested--_opera
imperfecta manebant_--and so the blocks came to a stand still where
they now are. “They must have been placed there by the Trolls,” I
observed, giving a peep at Ole’s countenance. “Kanskee” (perhaps), was
his slow and thoughtful reply.

“You ought to see this in winter time,” he continued. “No stones to
be seen then--no impediments. We go straight ahead. I travelled last
winter, on snow-shoes, sixty miles in the day.”

Winter is, emphatically, the time for locomotion here; the crooked ways
are made straight, and the mountains smooth.

“What’s that?” said I, pointing to a snail, browsing on the irregularly
round leaf of a species of dwarf sorrel, which grows high on the
mountains. A “sneel,” said he. “Snecke” is the modern Norwegian
appellation.

Ole is a bit of a sportsman, and has committed havoc among the
reindeer. Last winter he killed a couple of otters, and got two dollars
and a half for their skins.

“And where did you find the otters?” inquired I, curious to know
whether these animals imitate the seal and walrus, and make breathing
holes in the solid ice. “Oh, they keep in the foss-pools of the
rivers, which are the only places not frozen over. Now and then they
cut across the land from one pool to another. I followed them on
snow-shoes, and killed them with a stave. A man paa ski (on snow-shoes)
can overtake an otter.”

“It is strange,” he went on, “we have seen no ‘reen.’ I never came over
these mountains without seeing them.”

But in fact the day had now become overcast, and, fearful of a relapse,
I had abstained from stopping to examine the surrounding objects more
narrowly. We had now arrived on the left of a lake, about fourteen
miles long, the name of which is Normaends Laagen. Between us and the
lake intervened a stony plain, grassed over at intervals, perhaps half
a mile in breadth; while close to our left, some little still valleys
ran up towards the higher plateau.

“There they are,” exclaimed Ole, pointing to ten reindeer, feeding
about two hundred yards off, between us and the lake. The discovery was
mutual and simultaneous; for, with an oblique squint at us, their white
scuts flew up, and they trotted leisurely to the southward.

“Shall I put a bullet into the gun?” asked I.

“No use whatever,” said Ole. “They’ll be miles off in a few minutes.”

And, sure enough, I could see them clearing the ground at a lazy
canter, and presently disappear behind some rising ground.

Our lodging for the night was to be at a place called Bessebue. This
was a stone hut erected by some fishermen, who repair hither in the
autumn with a horse or two and some barrels of salt, and catch the
trout which abound in the lake. At that period, the fish approach
the shore from out of the deeps to spawn, and are taken in a garn,
_i.e._, standing net of very fine thread. At other times the hut
is uninhabited. But to my guide’s surprise we find that there are
occupants. These are two brothers from Urland, on the Sogne Fjord,
about sixty miles from this. They are fine young fellows, named
Nicholas and Andreas Flom, who have come up here with 110 head of
cattle to feed on the shores of the lake. None but a Norwegian farmer
would think of making such an excursion as this. In September they will
drive them direct across the mountains to Kongsberg for sale. A drove
of this sort, I find, is called drift,[11] and the drovers driftefolk.

With much good nature these young fellows offered to share with us all
the accommodation that Bessebue afforded. “But,” said they, “we have
already got three travellers arrived, who are going to stop the night.”

Now Bessebue, or Bessy’s bower, as I mentally nicknamed it, albeit
there was not a ghost of a Bessy about the premises, though it might
in an ordinary way lodge a couple of wayfarers did not seem to offer
anything like ample room and verge enough for “the seven sleepers” who
proposed lodging there that night. Its accommodation consisted of one
room, built of dry stones, with a hole in one corner of the roof for
a chimney, the floor being divided into two unequal parts by a ledge
or slab of stone, which served for table, and chair, and shelf. The
room might be seven or eight feet square, (not so big as the bed of
Ware,) part of which, however, was taken up by certain butter and milk
pails and horse furniture. So, how we were all to sleep I did not know.
Nevertheless, the shivering demon was again clapperclawing me--“Poor
Tom’s acold.”--The good effects of the tea had evaporated, and aches
of all sorts throbbed within my frame. So I settled down passively on
the stone ledge, and warmed my wet toes against the reeking, sputtering
brands of juniper twig that blazed at intervals, and served to show, in
the advancing night, the black, slimy, damp-looking sides of the hut.
Above my head was the smoke hole; behind me, on the floor, were the
skins which formed the drovers’ couch.

After swallowing a fresh jorum of tea, I sank into this, my pea-coat
all around me, and my sou’-wester, with its flannel lining and
ear-covers tied under my chin; the younger drover, with all the
consideration of a tender nurse, tucking me in under the clothes. In
spite of my superfluity of clothing, and the smoke with which the
apartment was filled, I had great difficulty in getting warm. After
eating their simple suppers by the light of the fire, a song was
proposed, and one of the three strangers proceeded to sing, in a clear
manly voice, the national song on Tordenskiold.[12]

The glow of the juniper wood, which had now burnt down into a heap of
red embers, lit up the features, grave but cheery, of the singer and
the hearers; and all sick as I was, I enjoyed the whole immensely,
after a dreamy fashion, and longed for the brush of a Schalken to
represent the strange scene. Here we were, on a wild, trackless,
treeless, savage mountain, with creature comforts none, and yet these
simple fellows, without any effort, were enjoying themselves a vast
deal more than many with all the conventional appliances and means to
secure mirth.

The song of “Gamle Norge,” the “Rule Britannia” of the North, of
course succeeded. After this a song-book was produced from a crevice
under the eaves, and, as the fire was nearly out, and no more fuel
was inside the hut, a candle-end, which I had brought with me to
grease my boots, being lit, enabled the minstrel to sing a ditty by
inch of candle. It was one in honour of the Norsk kings, from Harald
Haarfager[13] downwards, by Wergeland, said to be Norway’s best poet.
This closed the entertainment.

“We must get to bed, I think, now,” said Nicholas; “it is waxing
latish, and I must be up by dawn, after the kreäturen (cattle). I say,
holloa, you Englishman, Metcal; can you make room for me and Andreas?”

“You can try, but I really don’t see how it is to be managed, we are
such big fellows; I’ll sit on the ledge, if you like.”

“Oh, no; you’re ill. It’ll be all right. If we can only just manage to
fit in, it will be square strax (immediately). You won’t be too warm,”
continued he, pulling a slate over the smoke-hole; “the night is very
cold.”

So, in the brothers got, merely divesting themselves of their coats
and waistcoats, while I had on all the coats in my wardrobe, like some
harlequin in his first _début_ at a country fair. At first, the squeeze
was very like the operation one has so often witnessed in the old
coaching days, of wedging any amount of passengers into a seat made to
hold four--“Higgledy piggledy, here we lie.” Truly, necessity makes us
acquainted with strange bedfellows. But by degrees we shook down. When
a tea-cup is full to overflowing, there is room for the sugar. However,
it was necessary, whenever one of us changed his position, for the
others to do the same, like the poor <DW65>s on board the slaver in the
Middle passage. The coverlets were of the scantiest; but there did not
seem to be any unfair attempt made to steal a skin from one’s neighbour
when he had gone to sleep, as the Kansas men are said to be in the
habit of doing when bivouacking out.

The others had, if possible, less elbow-room than we three. The two
elder were allowed to take the middle places, while the younger ones
were pressed against the damp, hard wall. The hut was soon quiet;
outside it was frosty, with no wind, and the only noise within was
the occasional snoring of one of the party, which was so sonorous,
that it made me think of “the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe” (see
Shakspeare)--though I can’t say I ever heard one. At last I fell off.
How soundly I slept that night, with the exception of a slight touch of
nightmare, in which, by an inverted order of things, I rode the mare
instead of the mare riding me; scudding along at one time after the
reindeer, over stock and stone with wonderful celerity; at another,
dashing in snow-shoes after the otters, or whirling among the moors, in
the midst of an odd set of elfin coursers and riders.




CHAPTER IX.

    The way to cure a cold--Author shoots some dotterel--Pit-fall
    for reindeer--How mountains look in mountain air--A
    natural terrace--The meeting of the waters--A phantom
    of delight--Proves to be a clever dairymaid--A singular
    cavalcade--Terrific descent into Tjelmö-dal--A volley of
    questions--Crossing a cataract--A tale of a tub--Author reaches
    Garatun--Futile attempt to drive a bargain.


The grey light of the morning was peeping through the hole in the
roof, when I was awoke by Nicholas bestirring himself, and kicking
his way through the conglomerate of prostrate forms. Thank goodness,
my feverish chill had left me. “Richard was himself again!” The
superfluity of vestments, together with the animal heat generated by
seven human beings, packed as we had been, had done the business. The
black wall I found trickling with moisture, like the sides of a Russian
bath, from the hot smoke and steam, condensed by the colder stones. I
felt no return of the complaint, and doubtless the sovereign nostrum
for me, under the circumstances, was the one I accidentally took.

After a cup of coffee, some cold trout and biscuit, I was ready to
start; before doing which I put a trifle in Nicholas’ hand, which he
pronounced a great deal too much. As we trudged along, a solitary raven
or two were not wanting to the landscape; while, contrasting with
their funereal plumage and dismal croak, was the cheerful twittering
white-rumped stone-chat (steen-ducker), bobbing about from stone to
stone, seemingly determined to enjoy himself in spite of the Robinson
Crusoe nature of his haunts. Presently I let fly at a large flock of
dotterel--“Rundfugel,” as the guide called them--and made a handsome
addition to the proviant.

In one spot, where the available space for walking was narrowed by the
head of a lake on one side, and an abrupt hill on the other, we came
upon what looked like a saw-pit, four feet long and two feet broad,
but which had been filled up with large stones. This, I was informed,
was once a pit-fall for the reindeer, but now discontinued. It was
judiciously placed in a defile which the deer were known to make for
when disturbed.

Not far beyond, as I passed what looked like a grey stone, the guide
said--“That is Viensla Bue.” In fact, it was a small den, four feet
high, constructed by some reindeer-hunter. I peeped in, and saw an iron
pot and bed of moss, which show that it is still at times visited by
man.

“Yonder is Harteigen,” exclaimed Ole, pointing to a singular
square-shaped mountain, to the left, with precipitous sides, which
looked two or three miles off, but which was in reality a dozen; such
is the clearness of this atmosphere. Indeed, at home, every object
appears to me to have a fuzzy, indistinct outline, when compared with
the intensely sharp, definite outline of everything here.

“That mountain to our right, is Granatknuten,” continued my guide, “and
this is Soveringsrindan.”

At least such was the name, as far as I could decipher his strange
pronunciation, of the curious terraced elevation on which our path now
lay.

It looked like a regular embankment, which it was difficult to imagine
was not the work of men’s hands. In height, this terrace varied from
thirty to eighty feet; its crown, which was perfectly even, and
composed of shingle, mossed over in places, was about twenty feet
broad, and afforded excellent walking; while in length it was about
two English miles, and formed a gentle curve, cut in two about midway
by a stream flowing from the Granatknuten to our right. On either
side of the terrace were narrow moat-like lakes; while, to complete
the illusion of its being a work of defence, at the distance of a few
hundred yards to the right below the mountain, stood a mass of what
seemed the irregular fortifications of an old castle.

Leaving the terrace, we presently walked along the bed of an ancient
torrent, the peculiarity of which was that the stones which formed it
fitted so exactly that they looked as if they had been laid by the
hand of a mason. Before long we joined company with a stream going
the same way as ourselves, so that we have now passed the water-shed.
Hitherto the waters we have seen find their outlet in the River
Lougen, which flows down past Kongsberg to Laurvig, at the mouth of the
Christiania-Fjord. Henceforward all the converging streams descend into
the Hardanger-Fjord.

After a rough descent, we reach the first sæter, where Ole stops to
talk with a damsel, Gunvor by name. Her dark hair, being drawn tightly
back, so as to leave a thorough view of her well-cut face, eventuated
in two tails, neatly braided with red tape.

A sleeveless jacket of red cloth fitted tightly to her figure,
reminding me of the Tyrolese bodice, while her arms were covered with
voluminous coarse linen shirt-sleeves, of spotless white, and buttoned
at the wrist, while the collar was fastened at the throat to large
silver studs. Across her bosom, in the fork of the bodice, was an inner
patch of black cloth, garnished with beads. Gunvor smiled with an air
of conscious pride as she bid us enter into her sæter, which, like
herself, was extremely neat, contrasting favourably with the slovenly
appearance of things in Thelemarken, which I had left behind me.

Around were ranged well-scoured vessels, full of all the mysterious
products of the mountain dairy; were I to recount the names of which,
the reader, who knows practically of nothing beyond milk and cream, and
cheese and butter, would be astonished that so many things, of which
he never heard, could be prepared out of simple cow’s and goat’s milk.
The only thing that did not quite square with my notions of the idyllic
modesty and simplicity of the scene was the sight of a youth, who had
come up from the Hardanger, and was a servant of the farmer to whom the
sæter belonged, stretched out asleep on Gunvor’s bed.

Refreshed with a lump of reindeer flesh out of my wallet, together
with thick milk and brandy, we followed the path in its circuit round
some more _rochers montonnées_, where the action of former glaciers is
visible to perfection in the smoothed inclines and erratic blocks now
standing stockstill. After many a toilsome up and down, we at length
get the first bird’s-eye view of a darksome piece of water, lying
thousands of feet below us in a deep trough of gigantic precipices. My
destination is the farm-house of Garatun (tun = town, the original
meaning of which was enclosure); but to my utter astonishment I find
that we have still fourteen miles of toil between us and the haven of
rest.

Before long we overtake a singular cavalcade, which afforded an insight
into Norwegian peasant life. There were four light little horses, each
loaded with what looked like a pair of enormous milk pails. These are
called strumpe, and are full of whey or thick milk, or some product of
the mountain dairy. Two men followed the horses, each with a sort of
Alpen-stock, only that at the end, grasped by the hand, there stuck
out a stump of a branch. This I found is not only used as a walking
staff, but is also most useful in another way. Each of the pails has
of course to be hung on the straddle separately, and unless there is a
second man to hold up the pail, already slung, till the other is also
adjusted, the straddle would turn round under the horse’s belly, and
the pail upset. This crutched stick, therefore, is used to prop up one
side until the counterpoising pail is suspended on the other side the
horse. Besides the men, there was a young girl, with her fair hair
braided with red tape, her bodice of green cloth, while the stomacher
or “bringeklut” was of red cloth, studded as usual with strings of
 beads. A little boy was also of the party, dressed in the
costume of the men, the only characteristic feature of which was a
pair of red garters, tied _over_ the trousers below the knee, for the
purpose I heard of keeping them out of the dirt.

The descent into Tjelmö-dal was terrific. My horse was lightly loaded;
but the others were weighted, as I thought, beyond their powers, and
the liquid within was alive, and swayed about, and was therefore more
burdensome than dead weight proper. But, as usual, the horses were left
to pick their own way, which was in places steeper than the ascent of
St. Paul’s, the only assistance given them being a drag on the crupper
from behind. The crupper, be it said, was not such as one generally
sees, but a pole, about two feet long, curved in the middle for the
tail to fit into, with either end fastened by wicker straps to the
corresponding pail. This pristine contrivance, which has no doubt been
in use for centuries, keeps the weight comparatively steady, and eases
the horse.

“Who are you? Where do you come from? Are you an Englishman? Are you
a landscape painter?” was a part of the volley of questions which
they forthwith discharged at the writer of these lines, as he joined
the party at the side of a thundering torrent of some breadth and
depth--too deep to ford--where the little boy and girl, I observed,
were jumping upon the nags.

“May I mount on that horse?” was the short interrogatory with which I
answered them, having an eye to the main chance, and thinking that my
tired horse, who was moreover far behind, had little chance of getting
safely over with me on his back.

“Be so good! be so good! (vær so godt!)” was the good-natured reply,
and I was in a moment astride of the animal, after the fashion for
riding donkeys bareback in England, _i.e._, more aft than forward; and,
after a few plunges among the stones, we were safe over the cataract.
The two men, by the aid of their poles, crossed just above, leaping
from one slippery stone to another, at the risk of flopping into the
deep gurgling rapids that rushed between them.

We had scarcely got through when a terrible commotion was raised in
front, and a simultaneous burst of “burra burraing” (wohoa-ing) ensued
from all the party. In turning an angle of the corkscrew descent one
of the pails had caught a projecting rock, and become unhooked, and
was rolling away, the horse very nearly doing the same thing, right
over the precipice. To stop its course, lift it up, and hook it on the
straddle, was a task speedily accomplished by these agile mountaineers.

The fright having subsided, off we started again, and the queries
recommenced. A Norwegian is a stubborn fellow, and sticks to his point.
Little was to be got out of me but parrying answers, and the peasants
guessed me of all the countries of Europe, ultimately fixing on Denmark
as my probable native country.

After twisting and turning and passing one or two waterfalls of
considerable height, we at length reached the bottom of the chasm,
in which the river, which I had left some hours before, had forced
its almost subterranean passage from the Fjeld. The gigantic wall of
limestone on the opposite side rose, I should say at a rough guess,
five times as high as the cliff impending over the Giant’s Causeway,
and in more than one spot a force tumbled over the battlements.

By nine o’clock, P.M., to my great relief, as I was miserably
foot-sore, my boots not having been properly greased, we arrived at
Garatun, one of half a dozen small farmsteads that lay on the small
grassy <DW72>s by the side of the dark Eidsfjord. An old crone showed
me upstairs into a room, round which were ranged eight chests or boxes
with arching tops, painted in gaudy colours, with the name of Niels
Garatun and his wife inscribed thereon. Round the wooden walls I
counted twenty cloth dresses of red, green, and blue, suspended from
wooden pegs. No beer being procurable, I slaked my raging thirst, while
coffee was preparing, with copious draughts of prim, a sort of whey.

Before long, two or three peasants stalked in, hands in pockets, and
forthwith, according to custom, commenced squirting tobacco-juice from
their mouths with all the assiduity of Yankees.

“Who are you? Are you going up to the Foss to-morrow? Will you have a
horse and a man? Many gentlemen give one dollar for the horse and one
for the man. It’s meget brat (very steep); Slem Vei (bad road).”

To all which observations I replied that I was very tired, and could
answer no questions at all that night. Upon which the spitters retired
with an air of misgiving about me, as they had evidently calculated on
nailing the foreigner to a bargain at the first blush of the thing;
and, when the news of my arrival got wind, their market was sure to be
lowered by competition. One of them, after closing the door, popped his
head in again, and said--

“He thought he could do it cheaper; but I had better say at once, else
he should be up to the sæter in the morning before I got up.”

“I would say nothing till nine o’clock the next morning,” was my reply,
and I was left to rest undisturbed; the men apparently thinking me an
odd individual.

Long before nine o’clock my slumbers were disturbed by the entrance
of a sharp-looking individual, who asked if I would have coffee? He
did not belong to the house even; but by this _ruse_ it was evident he
intended to steal a march on the others.

“For four orts” (three shillings and fourpence), said he, “I’ll
guide you up to the Foss, and then row you across the lake to Vik on
the Hardanger.” The bargain was concluded at once; not a little to
the consternation of the two dollar men, who, when they presented
themselves at 9 o’clock, found that they were forestalled.




CHAPTER X.

    The young Prince of Orange--A crazy bridge--At the foot of
    the mighty Vöring Foss--A horse coming downstairs--Mountain
    greetings--The smoke-barometer--The Vöring waterfall--National
    characteristics--Paddy’s estimate of the Giant’s
    Causeway--Meteoric water--New illustrations of old
    slanders--How the Prince of Orange did homage to the glories
    of nature--Author crosses the lake Eidsfjord--Falls in
    with an English yacht and Oxonians--An innkeeper’s story
    about the Prince of Orange--Salmonia--General aspect of
    a Norwegian Fjord--Author arrives at Utne--Finds himself
    in pleasant quarters--No charge for wax-lights--Christian
    names in Thelemarken--Female attire--A query for Sir Bulwer
    Lytton--Physiognomy of the Thelemarken peasants--Roving
    Englishmen--Christiania newspapers--The Crown
    Prince--Historical associations of Utne--The obsequies of Sea
    Kings--Norwegian gipsies.


From my guide I learn that this land’s-end nook has been lately in a
tremendous ferment, in consequence of the young Prince of Orange, who
is making a tour in company with the Crown Prince of Norway, having
visited the Vöring Foss. The Prince, whom report destines for England’s
second Princess, appears to have been very plucky (meget flink) at the
outset of the excursion, and outwalked all the rest of the party--at
all events they suffered him to think so. Half way up, however, he was
dead beat, and compelled to get on pony back.

At first the narrow valley is tolerably level, blocked up, however,
with monstrous rocks and stones. Soon we arrive at a crazy bridge
spanning the torrent. Striding on to this, Herjus turns round to see
what I am doing. Finding me close behind, he goes on. The traveller in
Norway must learn at a pinch

    To cross a torrent foaming loud
    On the uncertain footing of a spear.

“Many people get frightened at this bridge,” says he, “and we are
forced to lead them over.”

At this I was not surprised. Three fir trees, of immense length, thrown
across the thundering waters from two projecting cliffs, and supported
midway by a rock in the stream, formed the permanent way. This, I
understood, was very rotten; there was no sort of hand-railing, and
at every step we took the frail timbers swayed unpleasantly with our
weight. Passing Möbu, up to which salmon force their way, we recross
the stream by a newly constructed, safe bridge, and leave it to thread
its passage through cliffs, where no man can follow, to the foot of the
mighty Vöring Foss.

We now begin to ascend a precipitous path right in front of us, which
here and there assumes the shape of a regular staircase, by means of
rough slabs of rock, placed one above another. If I had encountered
a laden horse coming down the steps of the Monument, I should not
have been more astonished than I was, on meeting upon this staircase
a horse, loaded with two great pails. Close behind him was one Knut
Tveitö. Grasping tightly at the wooden crupper described in the last
chapter (hale-stock = tail-stick), he acted as a powerful drag to break
the animal’s descent. With reins hanging loosely on his extended neck,
ears pricked up, and fore-foot put forward as a feeler into mid-air,
the sagacious little beast, with nothing more than his own good sense
to guide him, is groping his way down the loose and steep steps, now
and then giving a sort of expostulatory grunt, as the great iron nails
in his shoes slip along a rock, or he receives a jolt more shaking than
ordinary.[14]

“Wilkommen fra Stölen” (welcome from the châlet), was the expressive
greeting of Herjus to the stranger, whose reply was, “Gesegned arbeid!”
(blessed labour). My guide’s words first awoke me to the fact that this
is the path by which Knut had to toil to the summer pasture of his
flocks and herds.

Bidding farewell to Knut, who waited a few minutes while I made a rough
sketch of himself and his horse, we went on climbing. Hitherto the
height of the mountains around had served to keep out the sun’s rays;
but now our altitude was such, that they no longer served as a parasol,
and as we emerged from the shadow into the broiling glare, the labour
became proportionately greater. But we soon reach the top of the
ascent, and open upon a bleak moor, flagged at intervals with flattish
stones.

To the north rose a roundish mountain, clad with snow. This is Iökeln,
5700 feet high, called by the natives Yuklin. Between us and it, at the
distance of about a mile across the moor, rose a thin, perpendicular
spire of smoke, which might have been taken for the reek of a gipsy
campfire.

“That’s Vöring,” said the guide, stuffing a quantity of blue and cloud
berries into his mouth. “We shall have good weather; you should see
Vöring when the weather is going to be bad--doesn’t he smoke then?”

I observed that all the people here talked thus of the Fall, assigning
a sort of personality to the monster, as if it was something more than
a mere body of water.

“And here we are at Vöring,” said the guide, after we had
steeple-chased straight across the swamp to the shadowy spire. As
he said this, he pointed down into an abyss, from which proceeded
dull-sounding thunderings.

I found we were standing on the verge of a portentous crater, nine
hundred feet deep, into which springs, at one desperate bound, the
frantic water-spirit. The guide’s phlegmatic appearance at this moment
was a striking contrast to the excitement of Paddy this summer, when he
was showing me the organ-pipes of the Giant’s Causeway, sounding with
the winds of the Atlantic.

“This, yer honner, is allowed by all thravellers to be the most
wonderfullest scane in the whole world. There’s nothing to be found
like it at all at all. Many professors have told me so.”

Straight opposite to us the cliff rose two or three hundred feet
higher, and shot down another stream of no mean volume. But it was the
contact of the Vöring with the black pit-bottom that I desired to see.
This, however, is no easy matter. At length I fixed on what appeared
to be the best spot, and requesting the man to gripe my hand tight, I
craned over as far as I could, and got a view of the whole monster at
once. Did not he writhe, and dart, and foam, and roar like some hideous
projectile blazing across the dark sky at night. Such a sight I shall
never behold again. It was truly terrific. It was well that the guide
held me fast, for a strange feeling, such as Byron describes, as if of
wishing to jump overboard, came over me in spite of myself.

But, after all, the Vöring Foss is a disappointment. You can’t see it
properly. A capital defect. One adventurous Englishman, I understand,
did manage by making a detour, to descend the cliff, and actually
launched an India-rubber boat--what odd fellows Englishmen are--on
the infernal surge below. A man who was with him told me he held the
boat tight by a rope, while the Briton paddled over the pool. Arrived
there, without looking at the stupendous column which rose from where
he was to the clouds, or rather did _vice versá_, he pulled out of his
pocket a small pot of white paint, and forthwith commenced painting his
initials on the rock, to prove, as he said, that he had been there.

This reminds me of one of our countrymen who arrived in his carriage at
dead of night at some Italian city of great interest. “Antonio, what is
the name of this place?” On hearing it, he puts the name down in his
pocket-book, and orders the horses, exclaiming--“Thank goodness; done
another place.”

The next thing will be that we shall hear of some Beckford blasting the
rock, and erecting a summer-house like that at the Falls of the Rhine,
for the tourists to peep out of.

Fancy a Dutchman in such a place! The elation of the Prince of Orange,
when he got to this spot, was such, that he and the botanist who
accompanied him, are recorded to have drunk more wine than was good
for them. “Pull off your hat, sir,” he hiccuped to the chief guide, in
reverence, the reader will suppose, to the spirit of the spot. “Pull
off your hat, I say; it is not every day that you guide a Prince to the
Vöring!”

It was not till six o’clock that we were down at Garatun; so that the
excursion is a good stiff day’s work. But to this sort of thing I had
become accustomed, having walked on the two preceding days a distance
of more than sixty English miles.

Crossing the gloomy little lake Eidsfjord, in a small boat rowed by
my guide, and then over the little isthmus which separates it from
the sea, I arrived at the “Merchant’s” at Vik. An English yacht, with
Oxford men on board, lay at anchor close by. This I boarded forthwith,
and was entertained by the hospitable owner with tea and news from
England.

Magnus, the innkeeper, is evidently a man making haste to be rich. He
has cows in plenty on the mountains; but he takes care to keep them
there, and there is, consequently, not a vestige of cream or milk in
his establishment, let alone meat, or anything but flad-brod and salted
trout. He exultingly tells me that he was the guide-in-chief to the
Dutch Prince, and what a lot of dollars he got for it. I don’t know
whether these people belie his Royal Highness, but here is another
anecdote at his expense.

“Magnus,” said the Prince, after paying him, “are you content? Have
I paid as much as any Englishman ever did? For if any Englishman ever
paid more, tell me, and I’ll not be beaten.”

As far as I could gather, Magnus, in reply, hummed and hawed in a
somewhat dubious manner, and thus managed to extract a dollar or two
more from his Highness.

Princes, by-the-bye, seem the order of the day. During the few hours I
stopped here, a Prussian Prince and his suite, travelling _incognito_,
also arrived, and passed on to the Waterfall.

The stream between this and the fresh-water lake above holds salmon and
grilse, but there are no good pools.

On a lovely morning I took boat for Utne, further out in the
Hardanger-Fjord. The English yacht had left some hours before, but was
lying becalmed, the white sail hanging against the mast, under some
tall cliffs flanking the entrance to the small Ulvik-Fjord. One or
two stray clouds, moving lazily overhead, throw a dark shadow on the
mountains, which are bathed in warm sunshine. Among the dark-green
foliage and grey rocks which skirt the rocky sides of the Fjord for
miles in front of us, may at times be descried a bright yellow patch,
denoting a few square yards of ripening corn, which some peasant has
contrived to conjure out of the wilderness. Near the little patch may
be descried a speck betokening the cabin of the said Selkirk.

As you approach nearer, you descry, concealed in a little nook cut
out by nature in the solid rock, the skiff in which the lonely
wight escapes at times from his isolation. In fact, he ekes out his
subsistence by catching herring or mackerel, or any of the numerous
finny tribes which frequent these fjords; in some measure making up to
the settlers the barrenness of the soil. Presently I hear a distant
sound in the tree-tops. Look! the clouds, hitherto so lazy, are on the
move; the placid water, which reflected the yacht and its sails so
distinctly just now, becomes ruffled and darkens; and anon a strong
wind springs forth from its craggy hiding-place. See! it has already
reached the craft, and she is dancing out into the offing, lying
down to the water in a manner that shows she will soon lessen her
eight miles distance from us, and beat out to sea with very little
difficulty. As for poor luckless me, the boatmen had, of course,
forgotten to take a sail; so that the wind, which is partly contrary,
and soon gets up a good deal of sea, greatly <DW44>s our progress.

At length we arrive at Utne, a charming spot lying at the north-western
entrance to the Sör-Fjord. What excellent quarters I found here. The
mistress, the wife of the merchant, a most tidy-looking lady, wearing
the odd-looking cap of the country, crimped and starched with great
care, bustled about to make me comfortable. Wine and beer, pancakes and
cherries, fresh lamb and whiting--O noctes cœnæque Deum!--such were the
delicacies that fell to my share, and which were, of course, all the
more appreciated by me after a fortnight’s semi-starvation among the
mountains, crowned by the stingy fare of the dollar-loving Magnus.[15]

I think I have not mentioned that in Thelemarken and the Hardanger
district one meets with quite a different class of Christian names from
elsewhere in Norway, where the common-place Danish names, often taken
from Scripture, are usual. Ole, it is true, being the name of the great
national saint, is rife all over, especially in Hallingdal; so much so
that if you meet with three men from that district, you are sure, they
say, to find one of the three rejoicing in that appellation. The female
part of the family here rejoice in the names of Torbior, Guro, and
Ingiliv.

“I wish, Guro, you would teach me the names of the various articles
of female attire you wear,” said I to the said damsel, a rosy-cheeked
lass, her mouth and eyes, like most of the girls in the country,
brimfull of good nature, though, perhaps, not smacking of much
refinement. Her hair-tails were, as usual, braided with red tape: and,
it being Sunday, these were bound round her head in the most approved
modern French fashion.

“Oh! that is called Troie,” said she, as I pointed to a close-fitting
jacket of blue cloth, which, the weather being chilly, she wore over
all; and this is called Overliv--_i.e._, the vest of green fitting
tight to her shape, with the waist in the right place.

What can so good a judge as Sir Bulwer Lytton, by-the-bye, be about
when he talks somewhere of a “short waist not being unbecoming, as
giving greater sweep to a majestic length of limb.”

“And this is the Bringe-klud” (the little bit of cloth placed across
the middle of the bosom); “and this is called Stak,” continued she,
with a whole giggle, and half a blush.

“And who was that reading aloud below this morning?”

“Oh, that was Torbior” (the mistress of the house).

“And what was she reading?”

“The Bible; she always does that every morning. We all assemble
together in that room.”

Guro was fair; not so many of the inhabitants of the Hardanger
district. The dark physiognomies and black eyes of some of the peasants
contrast as forcibly with the blond aspect of the mass, as the Spanish
faces in Galway do with the fair complexions of the generality of the
daughters of Erin. One wonders how they got them. I never heard any
satisfactory solution offered of the phenomenon.

Two Englishmen, who have also found their way hither, are gone to have
a sight of the neighbouring Folge Fond. One of them is a Winchester
lad, who has been working himself nearly blind and quite ill. His
companion is of a literary turn, and indulges in fits of abstraction.
Emerging from one of these, he asks me whether there is ever a full
moon in Carnival-time at Rome. Eventually, I discover the reason of
his query. He is writing a novel, and his “Pyramus and Thisbe” meet
within the Colosseum walls, at that period of rejoicing, by moonlight.
But more circumspect than Wilkie, who makes one of the figures in his
Waterloo picture eating oysters in June, he is guarding against the
possibility of an anachronism.

Among the luxuries of this most tidy establishment are some Christiania
papers. The prominent news is the progress of the Crown Prince, who is
travelling in these parts. He landed here, and sketched the magnificent
mountains that form the portals of the enchanting Sör (South) Fjord. At
Ullenswang, on the west shore of that Fjord, he invited all the good
ladies and gentlemen, from far and near, to a ball on board his yacht
_Vidar_, dancing with the prettiest of them. What particularly pleases
the natives is the Prince’s free and easy way of going on. He chews
tobacco strenuously, and to one public functionary he offered a quid
(skrue), with the observation, “Er de en saadaan karl (Is this in your
line)?” At a station in Romsdal, where he slept, he was up long before
the aides-de-camp. After smoking a cigar with the Lehnsman in the keen
morning air, finding that his attendants were still asleep, he went to
their apartment, and, like an Eton lad, pulled all the clothes from
their beds.

The great advantage which will ensue from the personal acquaintance
thus formed between the Prince and this sturdy section of his subjects,
is thoroughly understood, and the Norskmen appreciate the good of it,
after their own independent fashion. One or two speakers, however, have
greeted him with rather inflated and fulsome speeches, going so far as
to liken him to St. Olaf, of pious memory. The only resemblance appears
to be, that he is the first royal personage, since the days of that
monarch, who has visited these mountains.

Utne has some curious historical recollections. In a hillock near the
house several klinkers, such as those used for fastening the planking
of vessels, have been discovered. Here then is a confirmation of the
accounts given by Snorr. The ship, which was the Viking’s most valuable
possession, which had borne him to foreign lands, to booty and to fame,
was, at his death, drawn upon land; his body was then placed in it, and
both were consumed by fire. Earth was then heaped over the ashes, and
the grave encircled by a ship-shaped enclosure of upright stones, a
taller stone being placed in the centre to represent the mast.

Sometimes, too, the dying Sea King’s obsequies were celebrated in a
fashion, around which the halo of romance has been thrown. “King Hake
of Sweden cuts and slashes in battle as long as he can stand, then
orders his war-ship, loaded with his dead men and their weapons, to
be taken out to sea, the tiller shipped, and the sails spread; being
left alone, he sets fire to some tar-wood, and lies down contented on
the deck. The wind blew off the land, the ship flew, burning in clear
flame, out between the islets and into the ocean, and there was the
right end of King Hake.”[16]

Considering that this place is so near such an enormous tract of snow
and ice as the Folgefond, it is rather astonishing to find that it will
grow cherries, apples, and corn, better than most places around.

I make a point in all these spots of examining any printed notice that
I may come across, as being likely to throw light on the country and
its institutions. Here, for instance, is a Government ordinance of
1855, about the Fante-folk, otherwise Tatere, or gipsies. From this I
learn that some fifteen hundred of these Bedouins are moving about the
kingdom, with children, who, like themselves, have never had Christian
baptism or Christian instruction. They are herewith invited to settle
down, and the Government promises to afford them help for this purpose;
otherwise they shall still be called “gipsies,” and persecuted in
various ways.




CHAPTER XI.

    From Fairy lore to Nature lore--Charming idea for stout
    folk--Action and reaction--Election day at Bergen--A laxstie--A
    careless pilot--Discourse about opera-glasses--Paulsen Vellavik
    and the bears--The natural character of bears--Poor Bruin
    in a dilemma--An intelligent Polar bear--Family plate--What
    is fame?--A simple Simon--Limestone fantasia--The paradise
    of botanists--Strength and beauty knit together--Mountain
    hay-making--A garden in the wilderness--Footprints
    of a celebrated botanist--Crevasses--Dutiful snow
    streams--Swerre’s sok--The Rachels of Eternity--A Cockney’s
    dream of desolation--Curds and whey--The setting in of
    misfortunes--Author’s powder-flask has a cold bath--The shadows
    of the mountains--The blind leading the blind--On into the
    night--The old familiar music--Holloa--Welcome intelligence.


From Utne I take boat for a spot called Ose, in a secluded arm of the
Fjord. My boatman, an intelligent fellow, tells me that Asbjörnsen,
the author of a book of Fairy Tales, is now, like Mr. Kingsley, turned
naturalist, and has been dredging with a skrabe (scraper) about here.
He has discovered one small mussel, and a new kind of star-fish,
with twelve rays about twelve inches long, body about the size of a
crown-piece, and the whole of a bright red. The rays are remarkably
brittle. This I afterwards saw in the Museum at Bergen. Asbjörnsen is
an exceedingly stout man, and very fat, and the simple country-people
have the idea, therefore, that he must be very rich. Wealth and fatness
they believe must go together.

The wind, which had all the morning been blowing from the land, as the
afternoon advances veers round, like the Bise of the Mediterranean, and
thus becomes in our favour. I now see the reason why the men would not
start till the afternoon. In fine weather, the wind almost invariably
blows from the sea after mid-day, and from the mountain in the morning;
and, in illustration of the law that action and reaction are always
equal and contrary, the stronger it blows out, the stronger it blows
in. Tit for tat.

Erik, who is very communicative, says, “This is our election day at
Bergen for South Bergen-Stift. We don’t choose directly; every hundred
men elect one; and this College of Voters elects the Storthing’s-man.
Mr. H----, the clergyman, is one of the sitting members.”

“Has every male adult a vote?”

“No. In the country they must have a land-qualification, and pay so
much tax to Government; besides which, before they can exercise their
franchise, they must swear to the Constitution. People think much more
of the privilege than they did formerly. Several have qualified lately.
The more voters, the more Storthing’s-men, so that the Storthing is
increasing in number.”

As we scud along, we pass a stage projecting from a rock. This is a
Laxstie, or place where salmon are caught, as they swim by, by means
of a capstan-net, which is hoisted up suddenly as they pass over it.
But I shall have occasion to describe one of these curious contrivances
hereafter.

“Very curious fish, those salmon,” continued my informant. “They are
very fond of light--like moths for that; always like to take up the
Fjord where the cliffs are lowest--at least, so I hear.”

The breeze being fresh, we went gaily along; “So hurtig som sex”
(as quick as six), said the man, using a saying of the country.
Presently, he fastened the sheet, drew a lump of tobacco out of his
waistcoat-pocket, and began to chew.

“You must not fasten the sheet,” interposed I.

“Why, you are not ‘sö-raed’ (frightened of the sea)?”

“No; but you Norskmen are very careless. Supposing a Kaste-wind comes
from that mountain plump upon us, where are you?”

“Oh, that is never the case in summer.”

“Can you swim?” said I.

“No.”

“Well, I can; so that in case of accident you have more reason to be
alarmed than I. But I have property in the boat, and I shan’t run the
risk of losing it.”

“Ah! you English are very particular. Not long ago I rowed four
Englishmen. Directly we got in the bay, although it was beautiful
weather, one and all they pulled out a cloth bag with a screw to it,
and blew it up, and put it round their waists.”

I could not help smiling at my countrymen’s peculiarities. As we swept
along under the cliffs, I inquired whether there were any bears about
here.

“Bears! forstaae sig (to be sure)! You see that speck yonder? That’s
Vellavik.”

I took out my double glass to discern it--they are infinitely superior
to the single ones.

“Bless me! why you have got a skue-spil kikkert[17] (theatre-glass)!”

“Skue-spil! what do you know about skue-spil?”

“Why, I once was at Bergen, and went to see a play.”

“Indeed! And how did you like it?”

“Not much. I also saw a juggler and a rope-dancer: that I liked a vast
deal better.”

“But about that bear at Vellavik?”

“Oh, yes. Well, Paulsen Vellavik, who lives yonder, was up under the
mountain early in the spring. The bears get up there then to eat the
young grass, for it springs there first. He was coming down a narrow
scaur--you know what I mean? Such a place as that yonder”--pointing
to a deep scaur in the side of the mountain. “Suddenly he meets four
bears coming towards him, two old, two young. The bears did not wish to
meet him, for when they were some distance off, they turned out of the
road, and tried to climb up out of the scaur; but it was too steep. So
down they came towards him, growling horribly. He immediately stuffed
his body, head foremost, into a hole which he saw in the cliff. It
was not deep enough to get himself hidden in. His legs stuck out. In
another second two of the bears were upon him, biting at his legs. To
scream was death. His only chance of preservation was to sham dead.
After biting him, and putting him to great pain, which he endured
without a sound, the bears paused, and listened attentively. Paulsen
could distinctly feel their hot breath, and, indeed, see them from
his hiding-place. After thus listening some time, and not hearing him
breathe or move, they came to the conclusion that he was dead, and then
they left him. Faint with loss of blood, his legs frightfully bitten,
he managed, nevertheless, to crawl home, and is slowly recovering.”

“That is a very good bear-story,” said I; “have you another?”

“Ah, sir, the bear is a curious creature; he does not become so savage
all at once. When they are young, they eat berries and grass; presently
they take to killing small cattle--I mean sheep and goats. Later in
life they begin killing horses and cows, and when the bear is very old,
he attacks men. But they are great cowards sometimes. Ivar Aslaacson
met a she-bear and three young ones this summer. She bit his leg; but
he drove her off with nothing but a bidsel”--_i.e._, iron bit and
bridle.

The biter bit, as you may say. This seems rather a favourite weapon of
attack. Snorro relates how those two ruffians, Arek and Erek, rode off
together into the forest, and were found dead, their heads punched in
“med hesten-hoved-band”--_i.e._, with their horses’ bits.

“Once,” continued my informant, “I and a party of young fellows went
up to a sæter on the mainland, just opposite Utne. It was Sunday, and
we were going to have a lark with the sæter girls. They were in great
alarm, for they had seen a bear snuffing about. Off we set in pursuit.
At last we found him, skulking about, and drove him with our cries down
towards the cliffs that look over the Fjord. We saw him just below us,
and shouted with all our might, and the dogs barked. This alarmed him,
and he seemed to lose his head, for he jumped to a place where there
was no getting away from. Down we thundered rocks and stones at him. He
looked in doubt what to do. Then he tried to jump upon another rock;
but the stone slipped from under him, and rolled down, and he after it,
and broke his neck. A famous fat fellow he was.

“A year or two ago, some men were fishing along shore at Skudenaes,
when, lo and behold, they saw something white swimming along straight
for the land. It was a white bear. One of them landed, and ran for a
gun, and shot at the beast as it touched the shore. It put up its paws
in a supplicating manner, as if to beg them to be merciful, but a shot
or two more killed the animal without it offering any resistance. It
is thought that the creature had escaped from some ship coming from
Spitzbergen.”

After a favourable run, we enter a deep Fjord, and landing at its
extremity, march up to a cluster of houses. Here I agree with one
Simon, for the sum of three dollars, to convey my effects over the
Fjeld to the Sogne Fjord. His daughter Sunniva prepares me some coffee.
To ladle out the cream, she places on the board a stumpy silver spoon,
the gilding of which is nearly worn off. It was shaped like an Apostle
spoon, except that the shaft was very short, and ended in something
like the capital of a pillar.

“That’s a curious spoon,” I observed to Madam, who now appeared on
household cares intent.

“Ah! that belonged to my grandfather, Christopher Gaeldnaes. Did you
never hear of him?”

“I can’t say I ever did.”

“Indeed! Why he was a man renowned for wisdom and wealth all over
Norway in the Danish days. Our clergyman tells me that this sort of
spoon used to be hung round the child’s neck at baptism.” (Döbe =
dipping.)

In the Museum of Northern Antiquities at Copenhagen, a similar one may
be seen.

The extent of the household accommodations was not great. There were no
sheets; as a make-shift, I suggested a table-cloth, of the existence
of which I was aware; and, in place of a towel, the _pis-aller_ was
a shirt. I rose at three o’clock, A.M., as we had a long journey
before us; but Simon was not ready till much later. He was evidently a
fumbling sort of fellow; and even when we had started, he had to run
back and get something he had forgotten. From my experience in guides,
I augured ill of his capabilities. To judge from the map, I thought we
ought to accomplish the passage of the Fjeld before dark; but all that
could be got out of him on this subject was, he could not say. If we
couldn’t get over, there was a châlet where we might sleep.

As we trudged up the very narrow valley behind the houses, following
the brawling stream, I had leisure to survey the surrounding objects.
Right and left were impending mountains of enormous height, while in
front of us stood, forbidding our approach, a wall of rock. Behind
lay the placid Fjord, with a view of Folgefond in the distance, just
catching the blush of the sunrise. The summits of some of the cliffs
were cut into all sorts of fantastic shapes. The stupendous ruins which
choked the path and stream, and were of limestone, at once explained
the reason of the horrid forms above. The rock, from its nature, is
evidently given to breaking away, and when it does so, does not study
appearances. My guide, however, has something to say on the subject.

“Yonder, sir, is the priest. Don’t you see him? His nose
(Probst-snabel) came away some months ago, so that now his face is not
so easy to make out. That other rock goes by the name of Störk’s stool.
Did you ever hear the story? Störk was a strong man, and a daring
withal. One day he was up at a Thing (assize) at Kinservik, where the
Bishop presided. Enraged at some decision made by his right reverence,
Störk struck at him with his axe, but luckily missed him, making a
fearful gash in the door-post. Störk immediately fled to Ose, below
there. Not long after, the Bishop’s boat was descried rowing into the
Fjord, to take vengeance for the act of violence. Störk at once fled
up to that rock there, to watch the proceedings. Close by it there is
a hole, and he had ready a vast flat stone, for the purpose of drawing
it over the mouth, in case the Bishop came in pursuit. Meantime, he had
left instructions with his son Tholf (which also means twelve) how to
act. Tholf, who was a huge fellow, and nearly as strong as his father,
set out in his boat to meet the Bishop, having on board a barrel of
beer. As the other boat drew near he rested on his oars, and asked the
Bishop’s permission to drink his health; and this being given, he took
up the barrel and began drinking out of the bung-hole. The size of this
fellow rather appalled the Bishop, who discreetly inquired whether
Störk had any other such sons. ‘He has _Tholf_,’ was the crafty answer.
When the Bishop, not relishing an encounter with twelve such fellows,
turned his boat round, and retreated with all speed.”

In spite of my anticipations, I find the path gradually unfolds itself
as we advance, worming in and out of the rocks. More luxuriant
shrub-vegetation I never beheld; a perfect Paradise of Sub-alpine
plants. There were raspberries, and strawberries, and haeggebaer
(bird-cherry), the wood of which is the toughest in Norway; besides
many kinds of wild flowers, peeping among the fallen rocks. And then
the ferns: there was the delicate oak-leaved fern, and the magnificent
“polysticum logkitis,” with several others. Growing among these was a
plant which appeared to be parsley-fern, specimens of which I stuffed
into my book.

“Ay, that’s a nasty plant, sir,” said my guide. “En hel Maengde (a
great lot) of it grows hereabouts. We call it Torboll” (I suppose from
the destroying god Thor), “or Heste-spraeng (horse-burster). It stops
them up at once, and they begin to swell, and the only chance then is a
clyster.”

The cause of all this luxuriance of vegetation is to be found in the
sheltered position of the valley, and the moisture caused by the

    Thousand pretty rills
    That tumble down the rocky hills.

One wonders where so much water comes from; till, lifting up the eye
beyond the tall cliffs that lie still in the shadow, the vision lights
on a field of glistening snow, which the morning sun has just caught
and illumined.

Each step that we ascend the flowers grow perceptibly smaller and
smaller, but their tints brighter, while the scenery grows more rugged
and sombre, and its proportions vaster--an apt representation of savage
strength pillowing beauty on its bosom.

As we climb higher and higher, we pass a waterfall, over which hovers
an iris, one of those frequent decorations of Norwegian landscape which
a British islander but seldom sees in his be-fogged home. Looking back,
and following the stream below with my eye, I perceive two figures
approaching the water’s edge.

“That’s my son and daughter,” exclaimed Simon. “They are going to make
hay on that <DW72> on the other side,” said he, pointing to a little
green spot high up the mountain.

If a crop was to be got there it would be one, methought, such as the
Scripture describes, “with which the mower filleth not his hand, nor he
that bindeth up the sheaves his bosom.” Such little matters indicate
the wrestle that mankind here has to make both ends meet; in other
words, to get a supply of forage enough to last from September to May.

“But there’s no bridge,” exclaimed I. “They can’t get over.”

“Oh, they’ll manage.”

And sure enough I saw the boy first, and then the girl, take off their
shoes, and with a hop, spring, and a jump, light on a stone standing
out in the torrent, and then on another; and so over with the agility
of mountain goats. One false step--an easy matter when the rocks were
so slippery--and they would have endangered limb at any rate, for the
lin was deep, and worked up to a dangerous pitch of exasperation by the
knock-me-down blows that its own gravity was giving it.

Before we emerge from the vast labyrinth of mountain ruin, one
overhanging fragment particularly arrests my attention, for, under its
eaves, a quantity of martens had constructed their mud habitations,
and were darting out and athwart the stream and back again with their
muscipular booty, with intense industry. The trout abound in the brook
that placidly flows through the little green plain beyond; but, with
such a host of winged fly-catchers about, I doubt whether they ever
get into season. Here, taking advantage of this little oasis of sweet
grass, two or three sæters had been constructed, with the cows and
sheep around them. The bald rock, up which our path now lay, was of
mica-slate, striped with bands of white felspar; cold and grey, it
was void of grass. The beautiful ferns we had left nestling among the
clefts far behind, but a bit of stone-crop held its own here and there,
and the claret-stalked London Pride asserted its dignity with much
pertinacity. There was also abundance of a red flower.

               On the bare waterless brow
    Of granite ruin, I found a purple flower,
    A delicate flower, as fair as aught I trow,
    That toys with zephyrs in my lady’s bower.

“Ah!” said Simon, as I picked up some specimens, “it must be nigh
thirty years ago that I guided a Thelemarken priest over this Fjeld. He
told me the name of that ‘grass’ you’ve got there (a Norwegian calls
all flowers ‘grass’) but I don’t mind it now. He had a large box with
him, and filled it full of grass and mosses. He was very particular
about that black moss under the snow. His name was--let me see--”

“Sommerfeldt,” suggested I, the well-known author of the _Supplementum
Floræ Laponicæ_.

“That’s it!” exclaimed Simon; “quite right.”

The inclined plane, up which we strode, was clearly the work of
a glacier. But though there was no ice now, there were crevasses
notwithstanding. The mountain was traversed with deep parallel
fissures, from a few inches to two or three feet in width. There might
have been a score of them--the widest spanned by little bridges of
stone, thrown across by the peasants for precaution’s sake.

“Dangerous paths these on a dark night,” observed I.

“Yes, and in broad daylight too,” was the response.

“Mind how you go--it’s very slape. Do you see that mark?” continued he,
pointing to a long scrawl on the slippery surface, which terminated on
the edge of one of these yawning chasms. “The best horse in the valley
made that. He slipped in there, and was lost. Nabo (neighbour) Ole’s ox
did the same thing in another place. Forfaerdelig Spraekke (frightful
crack)! Pray take care; let me go first. It will be very bad going, I
see, to-day. The snow is so much melted this summer,” said he, as we
scrambled down into a deep basin, the bottom of which was occupied by
grim Stygian pools of snow-slush and spungy ice. We were no sooner out
of this slough of despond, than we were on a quasi glacier, with its
regularly-marked dirt bands. The snow on which we trod was honeycombed
and treacherous. Underneath it might be heard rumbling rills busily
engaged in excavating crevasses. Now and then one of them came to the
light of day, with that peculiar milky tint of freshly-melted snow,
as if the fluid was loth to give up all at once its parent colour,
dutiful child. To add to the strangeness of the scene, the sun, which
was now high in heaven, catching the face of the mica-slate, bronzed it
into the colour of the armour we have seen worn by the knights at the
Christmas pantomime.

“We call that Swerre’s Sok,” said my guide, pointing to an eminence
on my left, reminding me that the brave Norsk king of that name, when
pursued by his foes, escaped with the remnants of his army by this
appalling route. “He took his sleeping quarters at the sæter we are
coming to,” continued Simon.

“That’s Yuklin,” said my cicerone, pointing to a rounded mountain to
the right, muffled in “a saintly veil of maiden white,” and looking
so calm and peaceful amid the storm-tost stone-sea that howled around
us. To the left were two lesser snow mountains, Ose Skaveln and Vosse
Skaveln, looking down on the scene of confusion at their feet with
no less dignity than their sister. Striking images these of tranquil
repose and rending passion! It was a magnificent, still, autumn day;
if it had been otherwise, it would be difficult to imagine what
features the scene would have assumed. I have seen a good deal of the
Fjeld; but, until now, I had no notion how it can look in some places.
“Vegetation has ceased now,” said the old man, with a kind of shiver,
which was quite contagious, as we stumbled among

    Crags, rocks, and mounds, confusedly hurled,
    The fragments of an earlier world.

But a common-place comparison may perhaps bring what I saw home to my
readers. Suppose a sudden earthquake, or a succession of them, were
to rend, and prostrate, and jumble and tumble all London, choking up
the Thames with debris of all imaginable shapes, and converting its
bed into deep standing pools, with now and then the toppling tower of
a temple or a palace reflecting itself in the waters. And, to crown
all, not a single living mortal to be seen about the ruins. If this
will not suffice to illustrate the scene, the blame must be laid on my
barrenness of invention.

Well, after some miles of this amusement, we came upon a broad, hollow
way. To the right of this path was the dark, soft, slaty micaceous
schist, but it came no further; and to the left of the line was nothing
but white granitic gneiss. A little further on the rock was scorched.

“That’s the Torden,” said Simon; “a man was struck by lightning here
not so long ago.”

At last we emerged on a sort of stony moor, and after eight hours’ walk
suddenly got upon a small plot of grass, and stopped at a châlet. I was
not sorry to preface an attack on my own stores by a slight foray among
the milky produce of the Fjeld dairy. The curds (“Dravle” or “gum”)
proved excellent.

This spot was called Hallingskie, and was forty-two English miles from
the first farm in Hallingdal. Hitherto, on the whole, we had got on
pretty successfully, though at a rather tortoise pace. It was now that
our misfortunes began. In the first place, it was too late to think of
achieving the passage of the Fjeld by daylight. So we were to sleep
at a certain distant châlet; notwithstanding which Simon seemed in
no hurry to move; and it was only when I started off alone that he
bestirred himself, jabbering as fast as possible to the old man and
woman who lived on this lonely spot. Presently we missed our way, or
rather direction--for there was no way whatsoever--and lost much time
in hitting off the scent again. If we kept to the right, we got among
snow; if too much to the left, the valley was effectually stopped up by
inky lakes, laving the bases of perpendicular cliffs. A shot or two at
ptarmigan somewhat enlivened the horrors of the scene.

At last, after many ups and downs and round-abouts, we descend into
a valley, and cross over a deepish stream, both of us sitting on the
horse. Once on the further bank, I, of course, relieved the horse of my
weight. Not so my precious Norskman. The unfortunate nag, pressed down
by his bulk, sunk at once almost to his hocks in the morass, and only
by a prodigious effort extricated himself, to flounder back into the
stream. Before I was aware of it, to my consternation, I saw the poor
creature was getting into deep water, and then swimming, only his mouth
out of water, with all my baggage, coat, gun, &c., submerged. The
wretched Simon, who had never had the adroitness to throw himself from
the poor beast’s back, sat firmly upon him, just like the Old Man of
the sea on the back of Sinbad the sailor--a proper incubus. Of course
they’ll both be drowned, thought I; but no! the poor beast has secured
a footing on the further side of the water, and gradually emerges, all
my traps dripping gallons of water. My maps, and powder, and gun, too,
terrible thought! So much for the pleasures of travelling in Norway.

Presently, the quadruped recrossed at the ford above. After scolding
the man most resolutely for his carelessness, and adjusting the pack,
which had got under the horse’s belly, I proceeded. On we trudged, I
sulky beyond measure, and weary to boot, but consoling myself with the
thought of being speedily at the châlet, where I might rest for the
night, and dry my effects. The shadows of the mountains beginning to
lengthen apace over the dreary lake which we were now skirting, warned
me that the day was far spent. But still no symptoms of a habitation.
The way seemed interminable. At last, halting, I Old-Baileyed the
guide.

“How far have we to go?”

“Not so very far.”

“But night is coming on.”

“Oh, we shall get there in a liden Stund (a little while.)”

“Hvor er Stölen (where is the châlet)?”

“It ought to be near.”

“Ought to be! what do you mean? Haven’t you been this road before?”

“No. But the stöl is near the second great lake, and the second lake
can’t be far. We’ve passed the first.”

After this agreeable revelation I was wound up into a towering state of
ire, which made it prudent not to say more.

Picking my way with difficulty through brooks, and holes, and rocks, on
I stumped. Twilight at last became no-light, as we emerged on the side
of what seemed to be a lake. Here the châlet ought to be. But whether
or no, it was too dark to see. Halting, the guide exclaimed--

“What are we to do?”

“Do? why sleep under a rock, to be sure. Take the load off the horse,
and turn him loose. But stop. Is not that the stöl?” exclaimed I,
advancing to a dark object, a few yards from us, when I plunged up to
my knees in a peat-hag, from which I with difficulty extricated myself.
Hitherto my feet had been dry, but they were so no longer.

“Hold your tongue!” I thundered out to the guide, who kept chattering
most vociferously, and assuring me that the stöl ought to be here.

“Listen! is not that a bell, on the side of the hill?” We listened
accordingly. Sure enough it was the sound of a bell on the side of
the mountain, mingling with the never-ceasing hum of the distant
waterfalls. It must be some cattle grazing, and the sæter could not be
far off. “Try if you can’t make your way up in the direction of the
sound. The building must be there.”

During the half-hour that my Sancho was absent, I tramped
disconsolately, like “the knight of the sorrowful figure,” up and down
a little square of ground by the horse, to keep myself warm, as,
besides being wet, I sensibly felt the cold of the perpetual snow which
lay not far off. In due time Simon returned. The solitary bell was that
of a horse, who was feeding on the <DW72>, but no sæter could he find.

“Can you holloa?” I exclaimed; “let’s holloa both together.”

“I can’t, sir,” croaked he; “I have no voice.” And now I perceived what
I had before scarcely noticed, that his voice did not rise above the
compass of a cracked tea-kettle. So, as a last resource, I commenced
a stentorian solo--“Wi har tabt Veien; hvor er Stölen,”--(We have
lost our way. Where is the stöl?)--till the rocks rebellowed to the
sound. Suddenly I hear in the distance a sound as of many cattle-bells
violently rung, and then, as suddenly, all the noise ceased.

“Strange that. Did you not hear it?” I asked.

“Surely they were cattle.”

My guide’s superstitions, I fancy, began to be worked on, and he said
nothing. Neither did any response come to my louder inquiries, except
that of the echoes. There was nothing for it, then, but to unload the
horse, and take up a position under the lee of some stone. The night
was frosty, and my pea-coat was wet through, with immersion in the
river. Nevertheless, I put it on, and over all, the horse-rug, regular
cold water-cure fashion. Then, munching some of the contents of my
wallet, and drinking my last glass of brandy, I lit a pipe. Before
long, a bright star rose above the mountain, and out twinkled, by
degrees, several other stars.

“The moon,” my man said, “must soon follow;” but before her cold
light was shed across the valley, I had dozed off. At four o’clock
I was awoke by Simon, begging me to rise, which I felt very loth to
do. Awakened by the cold, he had got up, and by the grey dawn had
discovered the sæter, not many hundred yards distant.

“My good Englishman, do get up, and dry yourself,” he added, “they’ve
lit a fire.”




CHAPTER XII.

    The lonely châlet--The spirit of the hills--Bauta
    stones--Battlefields older than history--Sand falls--Thorsten
    Fretum’s hospitality--Norwegian roads--The good wife--Author
    executes strict justice--Urland--Crown Prince buys a red
    nightcap--A melancholy spectacle--The trick of royalty--Author
    receives a visit from the Lehnsman--Skiff voyage to
    Leirdalsören--Limestone cliffs--Becalmed--A peasant lord of the
    forest--Inexplicable natural phenomena--National education--A
    real postboy--A disciple for Braham--The Hemsedal’s fjeld--The
    land of desolation--A passing belle--The change house of
    Bjöberg--“With twenty ballads stuck upon the wall”--A story
    about hill folk--Sivardson’s joke--Little trolls--The way to
    cast out wicked fairies--The people in the valley--Pastor
    Engelstrup--Economy of a Norwegian change-house--The Halling
    dance--Tame reindeer--A region of horrors.


Bobbing my head low, I entered the châlet. One side of the small
interior was occupied by a bed, on which lay a woman with an infant
in her arms, while at the other end of the couch--heads and tails
fashion--were a little boy and girl. The other side of the den was
occupied by shelves covered with cheeses and vessels of milk, while
near the door was the hearth, on which some dried juniper and willow
bushes were crackling, under the superintendence of the stalwart Hans,
who had left his helpmate’s side. Of course the good folks bid me
welcome, and bewailed my mischance; and I felt as secure here, though
quite alone, and not a soul in England knew where I was, as if I had
been in my native country.

Taking a seat on the end of a box, which I turned up for the
purpose--the only seat in the place--I commenced warming my outer man
with the blaze and smoke of the cabin, and my inner with a kettle of
hot tea. How fortunate it was that I thought of taking a stock of it
with me.

“Did not you hear me cry out, last night?” asked I, when I had thawed a
little.

“We heard a noise outside, and peeped out. All the cattle sprang to
their feet in great alarm; so we thought it might be some wild animal.
Afterwards, we heard the sound repeated, and did not know what to make
of it. I didn’t like to venture out.”

“You thought it was a troll, no doubt,” suggested I, but did not press
him on this point.

Reader, if you lived the life of these people, I’ll venture to say
that, were you as matter-of-fact a body as ever lived, you would become
infected with a tinge of superstition in spite of yourself.

Presently Hans and his wife got up to milk the cows, and we resumed
our journey. There were trout of three pound weight, I learned, in the
dark lake close by, but I had had quite enough of mountain sojourn for
the present. The next two or three hours’ travel presented the same
scenes as before, savage in the extreme. Now snow, now ice, now rocks
splintered, riven asunder, cast upon heaps, and ranged in fantastic
groups, with now and then a delicate anemone, red or white, and other
Alpine plants peeping modestly out of the ruins.

At last, emerging on a grassy <DW72>, we saw, five or six miles below
us, the arm of the Sogne Fjord, whither we were journeying. What a
pleasure it was to tread once more on a piece of flat road, which
we did at a place called Flom. More than one Bauta stone erected to
commemorate some event, about which nobody knows anything at all, is
to be found here. Not long ago they were very numerous; but these
relics of a heathen race have been gradually destroyed by the bonders.
Offensive and defensive armour is not unfrequently picked up in the
neighbourhood, so that this secluded valley must have been at one time
the scene of great events.

Over the stream to the left, I see one of those sand-falls so frequent
in this country, and more destructive to property than the snow
avalanche.[18] In an unlucky hour some sudden rain-storm washes off
the outer skin--_i.e._, grass, or herbage, of a steep hill of loam or
sand. From that hour the sides of the hill keep perishing--nothing will
grow upon them, and every rain the earthy particles keep crumbling off
from the <DW72>: thus, not only curtailing the available land above, but
damaging the crops below. Woe to the farmer who has a mud or sand-fall
of this description on his property.

Not sorry was I to darken the doors of Thorsten Fretum, whose house
stood on an eminence, commanding a view up the valley and the Fjord.
Bayersk Oel and Finkel--old and good--raw ham, eggs, and gammel Ost--a
banquet fit for the gods--were set before me. Thorsten Fretum is a man
of substance, and of intelligence to boot. He has twice been member
of parliament--one of the twenty peasant representatives out of the
aggregate one hundred and four which compose the Storthing. A person of
enlightened views, he is especially solicitous about the improvement
of the means of road-communication. At present, between the capital,
Christiania, and Bergen there are no less than sixty miles of boating;
fancy there being sixty miles of sea voyage, and no other means of
transit between London and Aberdeen.

Mr. Fretum is well acquainted with the mountains, and from him I learn
that my guide has brought me some twenty miles out of the right way.
Mrs. Fretum, a nice-looking woman, wears the regular peasant cap of
white linen stiffly starched, but of lighter make than those used in
the Hardanger, while round the forehead is fastened a dark silk riband.
She is the mother of fourteen sons, some of whose small white heads I
could see now and then protruded through a distant door to get a sight
of the stranger.

Mr. Fretum catches large salmon in the river, and exhibits flies of his
own construction. A few of mine will serve him as improved patterns,
and at the same time be an acknowledgment of his hospitality.

The lyster, I find, is used, but as the river is not of a nature to
admit of boats, the weapon is secured by a string to the wrist of the
caster. I must not omit to say that I deliberately fined my guide one
dollar for the injury I had sustained by his carelessness, which he
submitted to with a tolerably good grace, evidently thinking I had let
him off very cheaply.

An old man and a young girl row me in the evening to that most pretty
spot, Urland. Here I find shelter at the merchant’s, just close to the
whitewashed church, which, according to tradition, was originally a
depôt for merchandize, and belonged to the Hanse League. As I landed,
a crowd of peasants stood on the beach taking farewell of a lot of
drovers bound for the south. They wore, instead of the national red
cap, one of blue worsted, adorned with two parallel white lines.
This is peculiar to parts of the Sogne district. The Crown Prince,
by-the-bye, enchanted the peasants by purchasing one of the aforesaid
red nightcaps to take to Stockholm.

Didn’t I get up a good fire in the iron stove which garnished one
corner of the comfortable room upstairs. With a palpitating heart I
then opened my box to investigate the amount of damage done by the
immersion. What a sight! Those carefully starched white shirts and
collars which I had expressly reserved for the period when I should
get back to towns and cities, limper than the flexible binding of the
guide-book. The books, too, and maps humid throughout; the ammunition
nearly in the same plight; while those captain-biscuits, on which
I counted, were converted into what I should imagine was very like
baby-food, though I am not skilled in those matters.

There was no need of the cup of cold water, which travelling Englishmen
so often insist on placing near the red-hot thirty-six pounders
(_i.e._, iron German stoves) for the purpose of neutralising the
dryness of the atmosphere in the apartment, for I was soon in a cloud
of steam rising from the drying effects.

The _Morgen-Bladt_, I see, still continues to give accounts of the
Crown Prince’s progress. He has been examining some extensive draining
operations near Molde, much to the wonderment of the peasants.

“I trow the king’s son knows as much about these things as the best
farmer among us,” said a red-capped bonder to another in the crowd.

“Ay, and a vast deal more, let me tell thee, neighbour Ole.” And then a
strapping youth exclaims,

“How sorry I am that I’ve served out my time under the king (_i.e._,
as a soldier); I finished last year. It must be sheer holiday work to
serve under such a bonny lad as that.”

The Viceroy continually indulges in harmless pleasantries with the good
folks, without any loss of dignity by thus unbending. Can any one tell
me why things are so different in England? When Shakspeare said “that
a sort of divinity hedges a king,” he did not mean to say that royalty
should be iced. I remember many years ago being at a public masked
ball at a continental capital when the King, who was good humouredly
sauntering all among the maskers, came up and asked me what character
my dress represented, and then made some witty _apropos_ as he passed
on through the crowd.

The usual explanation given for the sharper distinction of ranks in
Great Britain is the vulgarity and want of _savoir faire_ of the less
elevated classes, who, if they get an inch, will take an ell. If this
is true, it is a great blot on the Anglo-Saxon, or whatever you call
it, character, that an Englishman cannot take some middle place between
flunkeyism and forwardness, sycophancy and rudeness.

During the evening I am favoured with a visit from the Lehnsman, who
informs me that the stream close by is rented by an Englishman, who
never comes, although it holds good salmon. I also learn, that by a
very wise regulation, which might be imitated with good effect in
England, he has to report annually to the chief government officer of
the district (1), upon the amount of grain sown; (2), the prospects
of the harvest; (3), on the result of the harvest. This enables the
authorities and merchants to regulate their measures accordingly, and
neither more nor less grain is imported than is necessary.

Mons and Illing were the names of the two clever boatmen who manned
our skiff the next day to Leirdalsören, distant nearly forty miles.
Rounding a vast cliff, whose sides were so steep as not to afford a
particle of foothold in case of need, the bark bounds merrily along
before a regular gale, and we lose sight very soon of the peaceful
Urland, and descry another little green spot, Underdal, with its black
chapel of ease to the mother church. Lower down on the same side we
open the entrance to Neri Fjord, guarded by stupendous limestone
bluffs; one of these is black with the exposure of many thousand
years, and nearly perpendicular. But the most picturesque is the
western portal, where in parts the white rock has become turned into
a beautiful purple, diversified here and there by patches of green
foliage.

I should not have liked to be here on a sun-shiny day, just after dame
Nature had completed the operation of opening the white limestone. A
pair of green spectacles would have been much needed to take off the
edge of the glare. That street in Marseilles (see _Little Dorrit_), the
minute description of the glare and heat of which reminds one of the
tautological pie-man, “all hot, hot--hot again!” must have been nothing
to it.

Many eagles have made these fastnesses their dwelling-places, and I
hear from the boatmen they commit frequent ravages among the sheep and
goats.

Of aquatic birds, red-throated divers are the only ones we see. Indeed,
in this part of Norway, the traveller misses the feathered multitudes
that are to be seen within the Arctic circle.

But the wind has suddenly failed us, and the five hours, in which we
were to accomplish the distance, will infallibly expand into ten;
for to our left lies Simla Naze, which is only half way; and the sun
resting on its arid peak tells us it is already five o’clock, P.M.,
although we started before mid-day. Hence we see far down the Fjord
to seaward. Yonder is Fresvik, the snow lying on the mountain above
illuminated in a wonderful manner by the shooting rays of the sun,
which is itself hidden behind a mist-robe. Further seaward, at least a
dozen miles from here, may be plainly seen the yellow corn-fields about
Systrand, near which is Sognedal, famous for its large Bauta stones.

We now veer round sharp to the eastward, and enter another arm of the
immense Fjord. To our right lies the farm-house of Froningen, and
behind it a large pine-forest--a rare sight about here--where the
timber has been ruthlessly exterminated by the improvident peasants.
This forest, consequently, which is seven English miles square, and the
property of a single peasant, is of great value. Our mast, which has
hitherto been kept standing, in the vain hope of the breeze revisiting
us at this point, is now unshipped; and I unship that most astonishing
contrivance, the rudder, with its tiller a yard and a-half long. It was
with such an instrument that King Olaf split open the skull of the son
of Hacon Jarl.

As we approach Leirdal, the boat takes the ground a good distance from
the landing-place. The detritus brought down from the Fille-Fjeld by
the rapid Leirdal river, is gradually usurping the place of what was,
some years ago, deep water. And yet, notwithstanding the shallowness
and the great mass of fresh water coming in, there is less ice here
in winter than at Urland, where the water is immensely deep, and much
more salt. Indeed, the natural phenomena of this country are frequently
inexplicable.

The throng of great, ill-fed looking peasants, who crowded the humble
pier of piles, eager for a job, told tales of a numerous population
with little to do. Although it was already night in this dark defile,
jammed in between overshadowing mountains, I forthwith order a
carriole, and drive up the road.

“Do you go to school?” I asked of my boy-attendant.

“Yes,” replied Lars Anders. “We must all go for six years, from eight
to fourteen; that is to say, for the six winter months, from Martinmas
to Sanct Johann’s Tid (Midsummer.) After that, we go to the clergyman’s
for six months, to receive religious instruction.”

At Midlysne, where I spent the night, some hermetically sealed
provision boxes indicate a visit from Englishmen, who have been
catching salmon here. But the increased rate of charges would of itself
have suggested something of the kind.

A boy met us on the road next morning with three fine salmon on his
back. He had caught them in a deep hole, near Seltum Bridge, and offers
them for sale at twopence a pound. The salmon go up as far as Sterne
Bridge, and are then stopped by a defile, where the torrent is choked
up by masses of fallen rock.

From Husum station my attendant is a very small boy, who with
difficulty manages to clamber up on his seat behind. As we commence
the ascent of the remarkable road which surmounts the tremendous pass
beyond, a deep bass voice sounds close to my ear, startling me not a
little. I’ll tell you what, reader, you would have started too, if a
voice like that had sounded in your ears on such a spot, with no person
apparently near, or in sight, that could be the owner of it. Could it
come from that tiny urchin? Yet such was the case. Halvor Halvorsen
was sixteen years of age, although no bigger than a boy of eight. The
cause of his emitting those hollow tones was, that he wished to descend
from his perch and walk up the pass, which he cannot do unless the
vehicle is stopped; as if such a shrimp as that would make any possible
difference to the horse. I suppose he has heard that the last ounce
will break the camel’s back. His nickname is Wetle, the sobriquet of
all misbegotten imps in this country. He cannot spell, and is nearly
daft, poor child; but for voice, commend me to him. The whip he
carries is nearly as long as himself; while his dress is exactly of the
fashion worn by adults.

Further on the road branches in two directions; that to the left
goes over the Fille-Fjeld. We take that to the right, and mount the
Hemsedal’s Fjeld, and are soon on the summit. Some miserable-looking
châlets dot the waste. One of these, Breitestöl, professes to give
refreshment; but I did not venture within its forbidding precincts. The
juniper scrub has in many places been caught by the frost, studding the
wilderness of grey rock, and yellow reindeer moss, with odd-looking
patches of russet. A series of sleet showers, which the wind is driving
in the same direction as I am going, ever and anon spit spitefully at
me. High posts at intervals indicate the presence here, for many months
in the year, of deep, deep snow, when everything is under one uniform
white, wedding-cake covering; funeral crust, I should rather say, to
the unfortunate traveller, who chances to wander from the road, and
gets submerged. Everything looks dreary in the extreme; the very brooks
seem no longer to laugh joyously as they come tumbling down from the
heights. There is a dull hoarse murmur about them to-day, whether it is
the state of the atmosphere, or the state of the wind, or the state of
my own spirit at the moment, I know not; perhaps they are loth to leave
the parental tarns for the lowlands. The bosom of mamma yonder is also
ruffled, I see, into uneasy motion. The writer of _Undine_ ought to
have been here to embody the imaginings suggested by the scene.

I was all alone, my attendant having gone back with another traveller.
Presently, I meet a solitary peasant girl, sitting in masculine fashion
on a white pony. The stirrups are too long, so she has inserted her
toes in the leathers. It struck me that the lines in the nursery rhyme--

    This is the way the ladies ride,
    This is the way the gentlemen ride,

will have to be inverted for the benefit of Norsk babies. The damsel
stares at me with much astonishment, and I stare at her, and, as we
pass each other, a “good morning” is exchanged. And now the water-shed
is passed, as I reach an old barrow, which appears to have been opened;
and I dart down hill in company with a swiftly coursing stream, the
beginning of the Hemsedal River.

Yonder to the left, auspicious sight, stands the change house of
Bjöberg. I am soon in the Stuê, eating mountain trout, and regaling
myself with Bayersk Öl, and then coffee. The biting cold, although
August was not yet over, sharpened my appetite. The waiters, who
alternately bustled in and out of the room, were a thickset burly man,
wearing a portentously large knife, with a weather-beaten, “old red
sandstone” sort of countenance; and a female, dressed in the hideous
fashion of the country, her waist under her armholes; a fashion none
the less hideous from her being in an interesting condition. These two
were the landlord, Knut Erickson Bjöberg, and his spouse, Bergita.

Warmed by the repast, I have leisure to survey the apartment. There
were the usual amount of carved wooden spoons, painted bowls and
boxes, but the prints upon the log-walls were what chiefly engaged
my attention. One of these was “The Bible map of the way to Life and
Death.” A youth, in blue coat and red stockings, is beheld on the one
side, bearing a cross. After a series of most grotesque adventures,
he arrives at heaven’s gate, and is admitted by angels, who crown him
with a chaplet. On the other side of the picture is a sort of “Rake’s
Progress.” A man is seen dancing with a lady in a flame- dress.
Garlands, drinking, and fighting, are the order of the day. At last
a person in black, with red toes and red horns, appears. There is a
door into a lion’s mouth, and, amid flames burning, evil spirits are
descried. In another picture the “Marriage of Cana,” is described
not less graphically, and with equal attention to costume. The
_bizarre_--an educated person would pronounce it profane--treatment,
one would think, must sadly mar the good moral of the story. Knut was a
most intelligent fellow, as I detected at a glance, and so I prevailed
upon him to schuss me to the next station, Tuf, instead of sending a
stupid lad.

“This is a strange wild country you live in, Knut,” said I, when we
had driven a little distance.

“Well, sir, it is rather. What countryman are you, if I may be so bold?”

“Guess.”

“To judge from the fishing-rod and the gun, you must be an Englishman.
I once guided an Englishman--let me see--one Capitan Biddul (Biddulph?)
over the mountains to the Sogne Fjord. Capitan Finne, too, the
Norwegian Engineer, when he was surveying, I was a good deal with him.”

“Do the people hereabouts believe in the hill-folk?” (Haugefolk =
fairies).

“To be sure. There used to be a strange man living at Bjöberg before my
father took to the place; one Knut Sivardson Sivard. His head was full
of those hill-people. He used to tell an odd tale of a circumstance
that happened to him years ago. One Yule, when he was just going to
rest, came a tap at the door. ‘Who is there?’ he asked. ‘Neighbours,’
was the reply. Opening the door, he let in three queer-looking people,
with pointed white caps and dark clothes. ‘I’m Torn Hougesind,’ said
one, with a swarthy face and a hideous great tooth in the middle of
his upper jaw. ‘I’m your nearest neighbour.’ ‘I’m Harald Blaasind,’
said another. ‘I’m’--I forget what the other called himself, but it was
like the other two names, the name of some of those mountains near by.
‘Strange that I never saw you before,’ said Sivard, doubtfully. ‘But
we don’t live so far off; we’ve called in to see how you do this Yule
time.’ Sivard did not like the appearance of matters, but said nothing,
and set before them some Yule ale in a large birch bowl, such as we
use for the purpose in these parts. How they did drink, those three
fellows! But Hougesind beat the rest hollow. Every now and then, as the
ale mounted to his brain, the creature laughed, and showed his monster
tooth.”

“A modern _Curius Dentatus_,” mused I.

“Presently, in mere wantonness, he bit the board, saying, he would
leave a mark of his visit. Sivard’s son, Knut, who was a determined
young fellow, lay in bed all this while, and rightly judged that if
the ale flowed at this pace, there would be very little left for the
remainder of the Christmas festivities. So he slily reached his gun,
which hung on the wall, and taking good aim, fired right at Hougesind,
him with the tooth, when the whole three vanished in a twinkling!
Sivard used to show the mark of the tooth in the board, but I have
heard that it looked just as if it had been made by a horse tooth
hammered into it. However, the tale got all over the country, and folks
used to come up from Christiania to see Sivardson Sivard, and hear the
description of what he had seen.

“Fond of a joke was Sivard. There is a patch of grass you passed up
the road--a very scarce article hereabouts. Drovers used to stop there
unbeknown to him, and give their cattle a bellyful, and then came and
took a glass at the house, and said nothing about it. He was determined
to be even with them; so he dressed up a guy with an old helmet on,
and a sword in his hand, and placed the figure close by a hovel there.
Not many nights after, a drover came rushing into the house almost
senseless with fright. ‘He is coming, he is coming! the Lord deliver
me!’ ‘What now?’ exclaimed Sivard. The drover explained that he was
coming along, when he spied a man in armour, with dreadful glaring
eyes and sword, rushing after him. He ran for his life. It was one of
the Hill folk. ‘Are you certain he moved?’ inquired Sivard, ready to
burst with laughter. ‘Quite certain.’ ‘But where were you?’ ‘Oh! I
had just turned out of the road a bit, to give the horses a bite of
grass’--‘that did not belong to you,’ continued the other. ‘Serve you
right for trespassing.’

“But we all believe in these people up here,” continued my companion.
“Not so very long ago, Margit and Sunniva--two sæter girls--just when
they were leaving with the cattle for home, at the end of the summer,
saw two little trolls steal into the deserted hut. They observed them
accurately. They were dressed in red, with blue caps, and each had a
pipe and a neat little cane.”

“And do these people ever do harm?”

“Oh, yes! Sometimes they injure the cattle, and make people ill. There
are some women who are skilled in breaking the charm. They are called
‘Signe-kone’ (from signe, to exorcise, and kone, woman). One or two
such live in the valley. They are considered better than any doctor for
a sore.”

“And what is their method of cure?”

“Why, they smear something over the place, and say a few words, and
blow (blaese). Blowing is an important part of the ceremony. They
measure children, too, from head to foot; that is a good thing.”

“And what sort of people,” asked I, “are there in the valley?”

“Oh! I can’t say much for them. I’m the vorstand (a kind of
churchwarden or parish trustee), so I know something about it. The
priest, not long ago, told them from the pulpit that there were more
bastards born, than children in lawful wedlock. But they don’t care.
It’s all Brantvun that does it. I’ve seen lads come to church with a
bottle of brandy, and, directly it’s over, give the girls a drink. Hard
work for the clergyman, I believe you. But Pastor Engelstrup--you’ve
heard of him no doubt;--he was the man to manage them. Prodigiously
strong he was. When he was building his gaard at Gool, there was a beam
three of them were trying to lift on the roof, but couldn’t. ‘Let me
try,’ said he, and raised the timber without more ado. He is gone up to
Aal, in Hallingdal now. We missed him very much. He was as good as he
was strong.”

“Is he a big man?”

“No, not so very; but he is very thickset, with curly black hair, now
got grey.”

I find that Knut gets pretty well paid for maintaining a change-house
in such a solitary spot as Bjöberg. The Government allows him three
hundred dollars per annum for keeping the house open for travellers
through the year, besides thirty dollars for every horse. He and
others, he tells me, are endeavouring to get the Storthing to advance
money for the purpose of rendering the river navigable to Naes, which
might be done at an inconsiderable expense.

After a continued descent, we arrive at Tuff. Here a pale-faced
little tatterdemalion offers to dance the Halling dance for the sum
of two skillings. They have a marvellous way in this national dance
of flinging their legs high up into the air (the Hallingkast), and
twisting the body a couple of times round, horizontally, in the air.
Some peasant girls in green skirts, with no cincture, fastened over
their shoulders with braces,--their yellow hair surmounted by a red
‘buy-a-broom-girl’-shaped cap, are among the bystanders. The first
course over, the lad tells me he is very poor, and begs me for some
pig-tail tobacco to chew, which I was unable to give him.

I find that the peasants hereabouts keep two thousand tame reindeer,
but they are not found to answer.

As we coursed down the road from Tuff to Ekre, a new station, my
schuss, Ingval Olsen, points out by the waning light, to some large
stones that strewed the Fjeld to the left.

“There was a gaard there, Gytogaard, under the mountain fifty years
ago,” said he; “but one night, when all were a-bed, the mountain came
down and buried them all. Some human voices were heard for a day or
two, and the cock kept crowing for eight days long, and then all was
still. No human labour could have extricated them.”

Further in the wood a spot was shown me where a man was found murdered
some time back, and nobody ever found out who did it, or who the
murdered man was--a region of horrors.




CHAPTER XIII.

    Fairy lore--A wrestle for a drinking horn--Merry time is
    Yule time--Head-dresses at Haga--Old church at Naes--Good
    trout-fishing country--A wealthy milkmaid--Horses subject
    to influenza--A change-house library--An historical
    calculation--The great national festival--Author threatens,
    but relents--A field-day among the ducks--Gulsvig--Family
    plate--A nurse of ninety years--The Sölje--The little fat
    grey man--A capital scene for a picture--An amazing story--As
    true as I sit here--The goat mother--Are there no Tusser
    now-a-days--Uninvited guests--An amicable conversation about
    things in general--Hans saves his shirt--The cosmopolitan
    spirit of fairy lore--Adam of Bremen.


Next morning I found my schuss-karl was brimful of tales, which he
firmly believed, about the trolls.

“You see that Fjeld,” said he, pointing to a magnificent abrupt
mountain behind us. “A friend of mine was taken in there on Yule night,
and feasted with the hill people.”

I hummed to myself, as I thought of _Young Tamlane_--

    The queen of fairies keppit him
    In yon green hill to dwell.

“They wanted,” continued he, “to keep him altogether, but he got away
notwithstanding. Cari Olsdatter, my sister, was changed in the cradle
too when my mother had gone out one evening; but she came back just in
time to see an old woman carrying off the baby, and made her give it
up. There was a bag of stones left in the cradle instead.

“Torkil Hermandson, too, who lived among the hills, they say he was
married to a troll-qvind (‘elf-quean,’ as a Lowlander would say),
called Turi Hougedatter. She was to have for her dowry his fold, as
full as it would hold, of fat troll-cattle. So he set to work the
night before, and wattled in twice as much ground as his fold usually
covered. Sly fellow was Hermandson.”

“Yes, indeed,” thought I, “it seemed almost as if he was taking a leaf
out of dame Dido’s book, when she over-reached the simple aborigines of
Africa with her ox-hide _double entendre_.”

My attendant has got in his harvest, so he has comparatively little for
the horse to do, and offers to schuss me all the way to Naes, which
offer I accept. Presently we descend the hill at Gool, the former
residence of the Samsonian Gielstrup.

“You see that hillock yonder, covered with firs,” said my guide,
pointing to a spot lying at the confluence of the Hemsedals Elv and
that of Hallingdal. “There it was where Arne Hafthorn wrestled with
a troll one Christmas Eve, and got from him the great drinking horn,
which has been in the family ever since. But it brought him no good.
There has always been one of the family stumm (dumb) or halv-vittig
(half-witted); and it is not so many years ago that Arne was found dead
close by the hill there. This horn is still to be seen at a farm-house
a little way up Hallingdal. It is made of ox-horn, and mounted with
some unknown metal, and rests on a stand. Ah! you smile, but it is all
virkelig sant (actually true).”[19]

“And what do you do for the fairies at Yule?” said I.

“Oh! we always place some cake and ale on the board when we go to bed
at night.”

“Well, and what then? Do they partake of it?”

“To be sure! It’s always gone in the morning. No doubt it is taken by
the ‘hill people.’ Merry time is Yule. We brew ale for the occasion,
and bake a large cake, which we keep till Twelfth Night. Everybody
stops at home on Christmas Day; but on the day after everybody goes out
to visit everybody, and if you meet a person you always say, ‘Glaedelig
Jule’ (a happy Yule to you).”

At Haga a different sort of head-dress begins to prevail among the male
peasants, being a skull-cap of red cloth, like that worn by the Kirghis
chiefs, as sketched by Atkinson, with stripes of black velvet radiating
from the crown to the edge. Instead of the usual jacket, a green frock
is worn, with stand-up collar, and an epaulet of the same 
cloth on the shoulders.

A grove of beautiful birches here overhangs the two streams, now
joined in one fine river, which abounds with trout, some of which
reach the weight of six pounds and upwards. The fly and bait are both
used, I understand. At Naes there is very good accommodation at the
“Merchant’s,” including excellent wine and fresh meat. Part of the
church here is seven hundred years old, and there are one or two old
pillars and a trefoil arch at the east end worth observing. The altar
piece, representing the crucifixion, is by no means contemptible.

From here boats may be procured right down the stream to Green, on the
Krören Fjord, some fifty miles. Every now and then the stream widens
into a lake, and at times narrows into a cataract, so that a skilful
boatman is required. This is by far the best way of proceeding; but
the peasants are not bound by law to forward you otherwise than on the
high road; so, finding there was some difficulty, I took horse and
gig, thereby missing some excellent shooting and fishing. Trout of ten
pounds are taken here, and there are numbers of ducks. Oats begin now
to be cultivated instead of the hardier barley.

The plump, red-faced damsel who routed me out of bed in the morning,
at the wretched station of Sevre, had actually a row of five silver
brooches confining the shirt over her exuberant bust. But this is
nothing to the jacket with fifty silver clasps, which one of the
ancient Scalds is narrated to have worn.

As I journeyed along, on a most lovely quiet autumn morning, the road
would every now and then pierce into a thick pine wood, and then emerge
upon the banks of the stream. More tempting spots for trout-fishing I
never saw. All the horses about here, I find, come from the north of
the Fjeld, few being bred in the valley. They almost invariably get a
kind of influenza on coming south. The horse I am driving, which was
bought at Leirdalsören for fifty dollars in the spring, is only just
recovering from an attack of this kind.

At Trostem I find a bear has been seen five or six times, but there is
no shooter about.

While I wait for the horse, I eat breakfast, and look about me.
Wonderful to relate, I find on a shelf--what do you suppose, reader?--a
Bible! yes, that was there, but there was another volume, a cookery
book, printed at Copenhagen, 1799. One might as well expect to meet
with a book of Paris fashions among the squaws of the Ojibbeways.
Eating, it is true, forms the main part of a Norwegian’s daily
thoughts. The word mad (meat, food) is everlastingly in their mouths,
and the thing itself almost as frequently, six meals a day not being
uncommon. But then, what food! No cookery book surely required for
that. So that no doubt this book got here by mistake.

The little almanac, edited by Professor Handsteen, of Christiania, who
is known in England as the author of “Travels in Siberia,” also lay
on the table. A little note I found in it is very significant of the
simple-minded superstition that still lingers among the peasantry, of
which I have been giving indications above. It is to this effect:--

“The orbit of the moon (maane-bane), has the same position with regard
to the equator every nineteenth year, and it possibly may influence
the atmosphere. It has been supposed, in consequence, that there is
some similarity in the weather on any day to that of the corresponding
day nineteen years ago. For this reason, in one column under the
heading ‘veirliget,’ the weather is given as observed at Christiania,
nineteen years ago. This, however, must not be looked on as divination
(ingen spædom), but only as an historical calculation.” This veirliget
(weather) column having, notwithstanding the above caution, been
turned by the peasants to superstitious uses, was, I hear, omitted
for a time, but it had to be restored, as the bonders would not buy
the almanac without it. I may here mention that the old dispute about
the exact day on which St. Olaf fell at Stikklestad has been recently
revived with great vigour. This great national festival has hitherto
been kept on the 29th of July, “Olsok.” Hakon Hakonson was crowned king
on that day in 1247, and ever since it has been the coronation day of
Norway. But the national mind was some time ago disagreeably disturbed
by the discovery that the 29th could not after all have been the day
of St. Olaf’s death; for although tradition and Snorro assert that
there was an eclipse of the sun on that day, it has been ascertained
by astronomical calculation, that this eclipse did not take place on
the 29th July, but on the 31st of August. One party, therefore, is
contending for the observance of the festival on the actual day (31st
of August), while another insists upon adhering to the former date.
Upon the whole, it would seem preferable to observe the day hallowed
by the traditional recollections of the people. If we may be permitted
such a comparison, who would like to see the festival of the Nativity
altered from December 25th to some other day in the calendar?

Meantime, after an unusual delay, the fresh relay arrives; a fine black
stallion, dripping wet.

“I must write a complaint in the book for this,” said I. “You are long
after your time. I shall never get to the end of my journey at this
rate. You’ll be fined a dollar, and serve you right.”

“Oh! pray don’t, sir; it’s not my fault; the landlord’s son is to
blame; he never comes straight to tell us. And then the horse was over
the river. I’ve had to swim him across, and the water is bad just now
for swimming. He shall go fast, and make up for lost time.”

Somewhat mollified, I did not put my threat in execution, much to the
satisfaction of Svend.

Svend was a simple-minded individual in shooting matters, as I
presently had occasion to see. On the sedgy shallows of a lake, just
before the river began again to contract into rapids, a score of ducks
were assembled; some motionless, others busily employed in standing
on their heads in the water. Leaving the carriole, I stole with much
circumspection towards them, managing to keep some bushes between me
and the birds, until I got within shot. Bang went one barrel, and
then another, and four ducks were _hors de combat_. When I returned
to the vehicle with my prize, Svend expressed great astonishment that
I had fired the barrels separately, as he thought they both went off
at once.[20] He had never seen a double-barrelled gun before. Another
peasant who was by, speedily cut some birch twigs with his toll-knife,
and packed up the birds, taking care to stick the bills inside, that
the flies might not get into the gape (Gapë).

At length we descend upon Gulsvig, at the head of the Krören Fjord. I
at once perceived, from a glance at the interior of the house, that the
station-keeper was a man of some importance. In fact, he turned out to
be the Lehnsman of the district. In the inner room there were a large
quantity of silver spoons, and a huge tankard of solid silver, pegged
inside, and of great weight, which at once bespoke the owners to be
people of substance.

“Ah! that was left me by my grandfather,” said the landlord. “It has
been a very long time in the family.”

“Have you got any curious remains about here?” inquired I; “any
bauta-stones, for instance, or do you know any legends?”

“There is a bauta-stone up yonder in the field; but as for legends, old
Moer can tell you a lot of stories about the hill-folk, but she is not
always in the humour.”

Gamle Moer (old mother), as he called her, Anna Olsdatter Gulsvig, just
then entered the room with a pipe in her mouth. An excellent portrait
of her, by a Norwegian artist, hung against the wall. Her tall figure
was still erect, her eye undimmed, while her face, the complexion
of which years had failed to sear, preserved traces of much former
beauty. A neat white cap, bound tight round with a red silk kerchief,
confined her grey locks. On her bosom were two or three pairs of
silver studs, and the national ornament, the sölje. The one which she
wore was of the size and shape of a small saucer. It was of silver
filigree-work, with a quantity of silver saucers (or bracteates), each
about half an inch in diameter, hung to it. Similar ornaments have been
found, I believe, in barrows; the pattern of them having probably been
imported hither by the Varangian guard from Byzantium and the East; in
the same way that these Northern mercenaries probably gave the first
idea of the Scandinavian-looking trinkets which have been recently
discovered in the tombs at Kertch.

“How do you do, Mrs. Anna?” so I accosted the old lady, propitiating
her by the offer of some tobacco. “I hear you have some old stories;
will you tell me one?”

“I can’t awhile now; besides, I’ve forgotten them.”

“Oh! but now do, Moer,” supplicated a little boy, her grandson. But
the old lady left the room. Presently, however, she came in again.
There was a look of inspiration in her clear grey eye, which seemed to
betoken that my desire would be granted.

“It’s some Huldra stories ye were wanting to hear?” said she in an
odd dialect; “well, I’ll just tell you one before I go and cook your
dinner; you must be hungry. Let me see; yes, I once did see one of the
Houge-folk.”

“Indeed! how was that?”

“Well, you see, it’s many years ago. I am an old woman now, over
seventy. Then I was a lass of eighteen. It was one Thursday evening
in September, and I was up at the sæter. Two other girls had come in,
and we thought we would have a dance--and so we danced up and down the
floor. The door was open, when suddenly I saw outside, staring fixedly
at us, a little man, with brown breeches, grey coat, and a red cap on
his head. He was very fat, and his face, it looked so dark, so dark.
What a fright I was in to be sure, and the other girls too. As soon as
we saw him, we left off dancing, you may depend upon it, directly. The
next moment he was gone, but the other girls durst not go to their
sæters, though they were only a few yards off. We all sat crouching
over the fire for the rest of the night.” Rapt into days of old, the
intelligent eye of the old lady gleamed like a Sibyl’s, as she told
her story, with much animation. At the same time, she placed her hand,
half unconsciously, as it seemed, on mine, the little boy all the while
drinking in the tale with suspended breath and timid looks; reminding
me of the awful eagerness with which Béranger, I think, describes the
grandchildren listening to some old world story of grandmamma’s. A
capital scene it was for a picture--the group is still before me.

“You must have been mistaken,” said I.

“Not at all. That’s not the only time I’ve seen a Tuss.”

“Indeed! How was that?”

“One time I was up at the sæter with Turi, another girl. We were just
going to bed, when a stave was put through the little window-pane
(gluggen), and moved gently backwards and forwards. We were frightened
at first, but we heard a titter outside, and then we knew directly what
it meant. It was two Friers (lovers) come, so we got up and let them
in, and we were soon all four in bed together.”

“What!” exclaimed I, in amazement.

“Oh, that’s the way we have here. Of course, you know we were dressed.”

“And were you married to the man afterwards?”

“No; I married quite another person.”

“I did just the same,” put in her son, the Lehnsman, who had just
entered. “We see no harm in that. A young farmer’s son often sleeps
with a companion in this way, but she must be of the same rank of life
as he is. If it was with a servant girl, it would be considered a
disgrace.”

“Well, but go on with your story,” said I to the narrator.

“Where was I? Let me see. Yes, we were in bed all snug, chatting
away, when suddenly I heard a noise at the window. ‘Hush!’ whispered
I--‘what’s that? Listen.’

“We saw at this moment a pole put through the window, just like before.
What a fright we were in. But we lay quite still. Presently the pole
was drawn back, and a minute after there was a terrible noise in the
fiös among the cattle--a loud lowing and bellowing, just as if one
of them was being killed. Up we all got in a trice, and rushed out,
and I saw a tuss stroking a black cow. It was in a muck sweat; this is
as true as I sit here. It was at Nor-sæter, a mile from the farm in
Signedal, where I lived before I was gift (married) up here.”

“What is that tale about the goat, mother?”

“Oh, ah! At Fagerlid, in Eggedal, a woman came one evening with a
white female goat, and begged the master to change it for a buck. He
declined. She came again three Thursday evenings running, till at last
he consented. They knew pretty well who she must be, for they saw
something like the end of a tail behind her. So, when she went away,
they cast a toll-knife after her, to prevent any evil consequences.
They never repented the change; the female goat she left gave such an
astonishing quantity of milk. As for the person who brought her, they
never saw her again.”

“But there are no tusser now-a-days?” inquired I.

With a mysterious look the old lady took a pinch of snuff, and started
off talking again, to the great delight of the small urchin; and so
fast did she talk, that it was only by extraordinary attention, and
stopping her now and then for an explanation of her antique dialect,
that I succeeded in mastering the story.

“To be sure there are; people are seeing them constantly. It is only
ten years ago, that on the evening after Christmas, Hans Östenson, of
Melbraten-gaard, three-quarters of a mile above Trostem, which you
passed, heard a terrible noise in the fiös (byre). He thought that the
cows and sheep must have got together. So he lit a torch, and went
out to see; but directly he came into the byre all was quiet in a
moment, and the cattle were in their right places. The man, suspecting
glamour, took effectual means to put a stop to it, by immediately
striking his axe into the beam over the door of the cattle-shed.[21]
Meantime Hans’ wife, who was sick in bed, observed a crowd of little
people hustle into the house as soon as her husband was out of it,
and lay dunen (bedding of eider-down) for themselves on the floor,
and betake themselves to repose. She kept quite still. Presently the
master returned with the news that ‘It’s all right; no harm done;’ at
the same moment he claps his eyes on the little people stretched on
the floor. ‘Holloa, my masters! What now?’ said he, in a jovial tone,
having drunk a tolerable quantity of Yule ale that evening. ‘Who are
you, and whither bound?’ ‘We’ve had a long journey of it,’ replied one
of the little people, rousing up, in somewhat shrill tones. ‘We’ve
come all the way from Kongsberg town. We’ve been to the doctor there.’
‘Why so?’ ‘Why, Mars Hulte (the servant of the gaard), when he was
pouring the ale from the vat into the barrel, the other evening, let
the cullender drop on the leg of one of our people, who happened to
be near, though Hulte did not see him, and hurt it sorely. We want to
stop here to-night; besides which, we wish to have a talk with you.’
‘Very good,’ said Hans, not a whit disconcerted; ‘make yourselves at
home; you seem to be acquainted with the house already. Just look out
there, while I step into bed!’ And forthwith he picked his way, with
much circumspection, between the prostrate forms of the tiny people.
This was no easy matter, as they lay so close together upon the floor.
But he gained the bed, fortunately without doing any more damage than
treading on the tip of one oldish fellow’s toe, who set up a sharp
scream.

“‘Well, and where do you live?’ said Hans, resuming his place under
the skin (fell) by the side of his better half, who was perfectly
astonished at her good man’s boldness. ‘We live just below here, under
Melbraten Hatte; but we are a good deal annoyed by one of your horses,
that stables near there. The sewage leaks through, and drops on our
table. The request we have to make is, that you’ll be so good as to
move his quarters.’ ‘Besides which,’ said a Huldre, larger than the
rest, who, at this moment, came from a corner, and stood bolt-upright
by the bed-side, ‘one good turn deserves another. You were making
a coat for the lad, just before Yule--you remember?’ At this Hans
started. ‘And you thought you should not have enough cloth, but you
had. Do you know why? It was I who stretched out the cloth, so that you
had enough, and to spare. There was a bit left for me too. Look here,
this coat I have on was made of it!’

“On this, Hans said he should have no objection to comply with their
request. The conversation then dropped, and from odd noises, a sort
of miniature snore, which Hans heard about, he perceived that the
little men in grey were dropping off to sleep again. It would never do,
however, for the master of the house to follow their example, with such
outlandish guests in the house. So he took care to keep his eyes well
open. Before long, by the flickering embers of the fire, he saw the
tallest gentleman take his (Hans’s) shirt, which his wife had put out
for the morrow, and begin tearing it into shreds. ‘Hold hard there!’
exclaimed Hans, whose wife, overcoming her fears, had jogged him, when
she saw the produce of her industry thus impudently destroyed. ‘Hold
hard! I say.’ ‘We’re short of linen,’ answered the Huldra, soothingly,
‘and this shirt of yours will make up into a great many shirts for us.’
‘Hold hard!’ again screamed Hans, whose mettle was thoroughly roused,
his spouse also being in a great state of pucker, ‘or I’ll cock the
rifle, by the rood!’

“Whether it was his gesture to reach down the rifle, or whether the
name of Cors (Rood or Cross) did it, Hans could not say; but they were
all off in a moment. It was quite a treat to see them bundling out,
helter-skelter, as hard as ever they could get out,” added the ancient
dame, whose upraised eyebrows, and a twitch at the corner of her mouth,
showed that she was no foe to mirth, and enjoyed the rapid exit of the
Trolls extremely.

“Such lots of them,” continued she, excitedly, as if she saw them
there and then, “he could not count them. He hurried after them to the
doorway, and got a sight of them, by the light of the snow and the
stars, mounting on their horses, and riding away as fast as they could
lay legs to ground. On examining his shirt, he found it was quite whole
again. So no damage was done after all. He took care, however, to move
the horse, in order to abate the nuisance complained of, and the animal
throve remarkably well in his new quarters. But I must get your dinner
ready.”

And so out the old lady went, in due time returning with some pancakes
and fried siek, a sort of fresh-water herring, which, with perch and
trout, abounds in the lake close by.

While the repast was digesting, I began to ruminate on these stories,
and the remarkable likeness, nay, even identity, some of them exhibit
to the superstitions of that part of Great Britain where the Northern
invaders mostly frequented. Fairy lore is traced by some authors to
the Pagan superstitions of Greece and Rome, and to the superstitions
of the East. But we prefer to regard these supernatural beings in
Scandinavia rather as in the main of home-growth than as exotics; the
creations of a primitive people, who, living among wonderful natural
phenomena, and being ignorant of their cause, with the proverbial
boldness and curiosity of ignorance, were fond of deriving an origin
for them of their own manufacture, and one stamped with the impress of
their own untutored imaginations. And what a country they live in for
the purpose![22] None fitter could have been devised for the residence
and operations of mysterious and frightful beings. Plod along the
calm, friendly landscape of England, dotted thickly with houses and
steeples, with the church bells ringing merrily, or the station bell
clanging imperatively (bells are the _bête noire_ of Trolls), and the
scene alive with people,--a chaw-bacon, with no speculation in his
eye, driving along the heavy wain, or a matter-of-fact “commercial”
labouring along with his loaded four-wheel over the dusty _strata
viarum_,--and I’ll defy you to be otherwise than common-place and
unimaginative. But let even a highly-educated man wander alone through
the tingling silentness of the mighty pine-woods of the North, broken
at one time by the rumble of an earthslip, at another by the roar of
a waterfall, seething in some weird chasm. Let him roam over the grey
fjeld, and see through the morning mist a vast head bent threateningly
over him, and, unless he be a very Quaker, his imagination will turn
artist or conjuror, and people the landscape with the half-hidden forms
of beings more or less than human. And so it was with the old heathen
Norskman, living all alone in the wilderness. When he heard the tempest
howl through the ravine, and saw the whirlwind crumple up the trees, it
must be the spirits of Asgaard sweeping by with irresistible force. If
in autumn evenings strange gabblings were heard aloft, caused by the
birds of passage moving southward, it must be troll-wives on their airy
ride. If lights were seen on the stream at night, they were “corpse
lights,” though in reality only caused by some fellow burning the water
for salmon. If the ice split with sudden and fearful sound, engulphing
the hopeless wayfarer, it was an evil spirit, requiring a human
sacrifice. Those pot-looking holes and finger-marks in the rocks--those
mysterious foot-marks, whence were they? Those strange, grotesque
figures, as like as they can be to human forms and faces--they must
once have been evil beings or demons, now turned to stone by some
superior power--a power that at one time revealed itself in the hissing
race aloft of the Borealis; at another time blasted and shivered the
rocks in thunder and lightning. The sea naturally would be a special
locality for these sprites. Did not they often see phantom-ships, which
a modern would explain by the natural phenomenon of the mirage? Did not
sea-monsters from time to time show themselves to the lone fisherman?
Did not they often see strange sights at the bottom of the transparent
deep? Did not the calm surface suddenly rise into ruffian, crested
billows, while dismal shrieks would echo at the same time from the
rock-piercing caverns?

But other causes were at work. The more ancient inhabitants of
Scandinavia, some of them of giant size and prodigious strength, others
small of stature but very agile, like the Fins or Laps, were driven
into the mountains by Odin and his Asiatics. From these hiding-places
they would at times emerge--the former to do deeds of ferocity and
violence, the latter to practise some of their well-known tricks, such
as thieving, changing children, kidnapping people away with them. And
this would, in process of time, give rise to the fancy of the existence
of supernatural beings, gigantic Jotuls and tiny Trolls (in the Edda
Finnr is the name for dwarfs), endued with peculiar powers. In the same
way the vulgar Scotch ascribed superhuman attributes to the Picts, or
Pechts.

Adam of Bremen, in the eleventh century, says that Sweyne Estridson,
King of Denmark, told him that in Sweden people used to come from the
hills and do great damage, and then disappear. The same author relates
that in Norway there were wild women and men, who lived in the woods,
and were something between men and beasts. The existence of these
creatures, by whatever name called, being once assumed, all sorts of
explanations were given of their origin. Thus, there is an odd Swedish
superstition, that when God hurled down Lucifer and his host from
heaven, they did not all fall into the burning lake, but that some fell
into the sea, others upon the earth, and became the various spirits
proper to those places. Another not less quaint Danish legend is to
this effect:--When Eve was washing her bairns one day in a spring,
the Almighty suddenly called to her. Alarmed, she threw those of her
bairns that she had not washed aside, when God asked her whether all
her children were there. She replied, “Yes.” Whereupon he said, “What
thou hast tried to hide from God shall be hidden from men.” In a moment
the unwashed children were separated from the others, and disappeared.
Before the flood, God put them all into a hole, the entrance of which
he fastened. From them all the underground people spring. Others
again, say that they descend from Adam, by his first wife, Lileth,
while others pronounce them to be a mixed race of the sons of God and
daughters of men. Even Hermann Ruge, the pastor of Slidre, in Norway,
in 1754, gravely talked of underground people who were something
between men and beasts. While that strange compound of superstition and
enthusiasm, Luther himself, speaks of changelings as a matter of course.

But it is time to think of another sort of changeling, I mean the fresh
horse, which, after a long delay, has arrived at the door. “Good bye,
Mrs. Anna, many thanks.”

“Farvel, farvel! if you meet with Tidemann on your travels, say Anna
Gulsvig sends him her greeting. Bless you, sir, we knew him well; he
was at my son’s wedding, and pictured us all.”

She was alluding to the celebrated painter of that name, who resides
in Düsseldorf, but visits his native country, Norway, every summer,
returning home rich with pictorial spoils, gained in scenes like these.
Professor Gude, the eminent painter, also of Düsseldorf, is the son of
a gentleman who held a government office in this neighbourhood.




CHAPTER XIV.

    A port-wine pilgrimage--The perfection of a landlady--Old
    superstitious customs--Levelling effects of unlevelled roads--A
    blank day--Sketch of an interior after Ostade--A would-be
    resurrectionist foiled--The voices of the woods--Valuable
    timber--A stingy old fellow--Unmistakable symptoms of
    civilisation--Topographical memoranda--Timber logs on
    their travels--The advantages of a short cut--A rock-gorge
    swallows a river--Ferry talk--Welcome--What four years can
    do for the stay-at-homes--A Thelemarken manse--Spæwives--An
    important day for the millers--How a tailor kept watch--The
    mischievous cats--Similarity in proverbs--“The postman’s
    knock”--Government patronage of humble talent--Superannuated
    clergymen in Norway--Perpetual curates--Christiania
    University examination--Norwegian students--The Bernadotte
    dynasty--Scandinavian unity--Religious parties--Papal
    propagandists at Tromsö--From fanaticism to field-sports--The
    Linnæa Borealis.


Driving through the woods on the shores of the lake, after a good deal
of up and down hill, I at length arrived at the ferry, twenty miles
from Gulsvig, where the Krorenfjord contracts into a river. Green, the
station for the night, affords excellent accommodation; so much so,
that the notorious Danish Count (See _Oxonian in Norway_), so addicted
to bear-hunting, has been up as far as here on purpose to taste the
port-wine. By-the-bye, I encountered a Norsk proverb to-day, which if
it were not ancient, would almost seem to have been made for the Count:
“Han har skut Björn,” literally, “he has shot a bear,” is said of a man
who is drunk. People in that state not only see double, but shoot with
the longbow.

Gunild Green was the perfection of a landlady, putting meat and good
bread before the wayfarer, and beer of the best. Her blue jacket, with
its odd gussets behind, and broad edging of red and yellow braid, did
not, it is true, reach nearly down to the place where a woman’s waist
ought to be. But that was no matter, for the skirt made up for the
omission by advancing to the jacket. Her Quaker-like, quiet face was
framed in a neat cap, and the forehead bound in with a silk kerchief.
All about the house betokened considerable wealth.

But notwithstanding that these people are of the Upper Ten Thousand
of Norway, I hear that the old superstitious customs still obtain at
the gaard. A cross in chalk, or an axe or a toll-knife is placed over
every cattle-shed at Yule. The old lady gave no reason further than it
was skik (custom). A cake with a cross of juniper berries made on the
top of it is baked at Christmas against Candlemas-day (Kyndel-misse).
In other parts of Norway a small cake is baked for each person, and
not eaten till twenty days after. Again, the sledges are never allowed
at Christmas to lie flat on the ground, but are reared up against the
wall. If anybody goes thrice round the house, then looks in at a window
through a black kerchief and sees anyone at the board without a head,
that person will die before next Yule.

The day after Yule the men go out with the cow-house ordure very early,
before light. They never, if they can help it, bring in water for the
copper on Yule, but get a supply into the house the day before. On
Christmas Eve every person of condition has a mess of rice-porridge,
and the servants in better class houses come into the room and receive
a glass of something comfortable. The cattle are not overlooked on
this great Christian festival. “Come, Dokkero,” says the milkmaid, just
like some girl in Theocritus, to her cow, “you shall have some good
food to-day.”

Finding that I can go some five miles by water, I select that method of
conveyance. Indeed, I should prefer this species of locomotion for the
rest of the journey, for I find, on examination, that in consequence
of the jolting motion of the country carts, my effects are pounded up
as if they had been brayed in a mortar. One or two silk kerchiefs have
turned into tatters, and the sand of the cartridges has oozed out and
become mixed up with the contents of the broken Macassar oil bottle,
which I had destined for my elf-locks on again reaching civilization.
The boat was long and narrow, and easily rowed, but the stalwart rower
was hardly a match in speed for some little black and white ducks
to which we gave chase. At last we got among them. Down they dived,
and, as they reappeared, off went my gun; but in consequence of the
crankness of the boat, it was impossible to take aim quick enough, and,
after a few unavailing shots, I gave up the game, fairly beaten. My
fishing tackle likewise did no execution among the trout, which now
begin to get smaller. The boatman mentioned two other kinds of fish to
be found here, “scad” and “jup.”

In fact we are now getting out of the wild sporting of the upper
valleys, although six rifles suspended in the passage of the next
station-house, Vassenrud, betokened the existence of large fowl, and
probably beasts of prey, in the forests around. Countless logs float
down this river, and I see here a list of the different brands used by
the Drammen merchants to distinguish the several owners.

As the horse I was to have lived across the Sound, I had ample time to
look about me, and observe the peculiarities of the establishment. The
best room floor was painted in figures, around it were ranged a score
of high-backed, old-fashioned leather chairs, stamped with a pattern. I
wish the author of the Sketch-book could have seen them; he would have
made them all tell a history at once. Leaving this room, I followed my
nose, and entered the door facing. A very fat man, with a heavy, sleepy
eye, quite a tun of a fellow, a red skull-cap striped with black on his
head, sat in his shirt sleeves eating a leg of veal, which was flanked
by some nice-looking bread and a bottle of brandy. It was only nine,
A.M., but the opportunity was not to be lost, so I fell to also. Beside
me, on a shelf, was a tankard of massive silver, weighing one hundred
and twenty lod = about sixty-five ounces English. Pretty well to do,
thought I, these peaceful descendants of the Vikings.

In reply to my query whether there were any old memorials about,
the obese Boniface moved his lack-lustre eye slowly, and shook his
head. Old memorials, forsooth! were not the newly-killed calf and its
appetizing adjuncts subjects much more worthy of attention? Presently,
however, after an interval of seemingly profound thought, he observed
that there was something like a coffin or two in the forest a mile off.

“Had they been opened?”

“No. People thought it unlucky to touch them. They were near his
hûsman’s, and the hûsman would show me them if I mentioned his name.”

At the hûsman’s I found nobody but his wife, who was ignorant on the
subject. So, after a fatiguing search, I returned without having
accomplished my purpose, and the horse having arrived, I had to start.
The fat man was now recumbent on the bed within, looking uncommonly
like a barrel of beer. All Norwegians take a siesta at noon. The charge
made for my sumptuous repast was twelve skillings = five-pence English.
As we roll along gaily through the sombre pine-forests, the odour of
which the Norwegians, I think wrongly, compare to that of a “dead
house” (Liighus). I fall, as a matter of course, into conversation with
Knut, my schuss.

“Had he ever seen these trolls which people talked of so much higher up
the valley.”

“No; I never _saw_ one; but I’ve _heard_ one.”

“Indeed, where?”

“When I was hewing wood in the forest.”

“What did he say?”

“He only said ‘Knut’ three times.”

“And did you speak?”

“No--that would have been unlucky. They are not such bad people, folks
say, if you only become well acquainted with them.”

In the forest we passed some splendid trees near Snarum. “Valuable
timber about here,” I observed.

“Yes, very. It’s not long ago that some sold for a hundred dollars
apiece (twenty pound sterling); they were seventy feet long, and more
than four in diameter. Vassenrud (the fat station-master, no wonder,
with all this property, he is fat) has a deal of forest. He sold some
lately. He got sixteen thousand dollars for giving leave to fell the
timber on a square mile (seven English), none to be cut smaller than
nine inches in diameter, eighteen feet from the ground. These trees
just here belong to a stingy old fellow, who lives down there by the
side of the river, Ole Ulen. A man came from the By (town) to see them,
and make a purchase.

“‘I have come to look at the trees,’ said he.

“‘Oh, yes,’ said Ole Ulen; ‘we’ll go and see them.’

“Arrived in the forest, the stranger measured the big trees with his
eye, and thought they would suit exactly.

“‘Fine trees, aren’t they?’ said Ole Ulen, adjusting his spectacles,
and almost breaking his neck to look up at the trees. ‘So tall and so
thick,’ he continued, like a miser gloating over his treasure.

“‘Not bad,’ replied the proposing buyer, in a careless tone, chuckling
inwardly at the thought of the bargain he was going to drive with the
plainly-dressed, simple-looking old bonder, but careful not to betray
his admiration of the magnificent timber, for fear of sending up the
prices.

“‘No, not so bad,’ said Ole Ulen, as they walked homeward.

“‘Well, what’s to be the price?’ asked the merchant, while they were
drinking a glass of brandy.

“‘Price!’ replied the other; ‘I’m not going to sell them--never thought
of it. You asked to look at them, and so you have, and welcome, and
well worth seeing they are.’

“‘Well, no doubt,’ said Knut; ‘he might do what he liked with his own
trees. Sell them or not, as he thought proper.’

“‘But he’s so fond of his money, he won’t help his own kith and kin.
There was his son-in-law, over the river, had just completed a
purchase, and went to him to borrow three hundred dollars.

“‘Very sorry,’ was his reply, ‘but he had got no cash in the house.’

“The young man went and got accommodated at another farm, and then
returned to Ule’s.

“‘Well, how have you fared?’

“‘All right; I got the loan. They were the more willing to lend, for
they had some notes of old date, which are to be called in by the bank
at Trondjem, before the month’s out, and it will save them the trouble
and expense of sending them up there.’

“‘Ay, so,’ replied Ule, meditatively. ‘What is the date of the notes
that are to be called in? Perhaps I may have some.’ And going to an old
cupboard, he produced from a coffee-pot seven hundred dollars.”

We now get into an enclosed and more cultivated country, and see
symptoms of civilization as we approached Vikersund, in the shape of
a drunken man or two staggering homewards; and, at the merchant’s,
where I stop to make some small purchase, there is a crowd of peasants
clustering round the counter, or sitting in corners, imbibing corn
brantviin.

At Vikersund the road forks. That to the left leads to Christiania,
by the shores of the beautiful Tyri Fjord and the pass of Krog-Kleven;
the other crossing the wide sound, the only vent of the Tyri, Hols, and
Rand fjords, by a very long bridge, goes to Drammen and Kongsberg.

In the stream lie thousands of logs that have been cut down in the
mountains and along the feeders of this glorious waterway, to the
very foot of the Fillefjeld. Some of them have, perhaps, left their
native grove two or three years ago, and would never have got here
were it not for certain persons jogging their memories and goading
them into unwilling activity. One of the most characteristic features
of a Norwegian valley are gangs of burly broad-chested men, armed with
huge poles, the ends of which are shod with a hook and spike. Directly
there are symptoms of the water rising after rain, these fellows appear
suddenly, and are seen pushing the stranded timbers from the shore,
dashing through the water in their great jack-boots, to islands or
shoals, for the like purpose, or boating across the river to set afloat
some straggling laggard; and, forthwith, all these, like so many great
cadises, just disengaged from their anchor, and soon to take wing, go
swarming down the stream. The boat, by-the-bye, used by these Norsk
equivalents to the Far West lumber-men, is never destined to return to
its mountain home, but will be sold below for what it will fetch.

In Norway scenes are constantly meeting the traveller’s eye, whether it
be such as that just described, or the rude log-huts, or the countless
tree stumps, the work of the axe, or the unthinned density of forests
which are not near any watercourse, which forcibly bring to one’s mind
Oliphant’s description of Minnesota and the Far West. But there is this
trifling difference, that whereas there you may as likely as not be
bulleted, or your weasand slit by a bowie-knife, you are safer in this
country than in any land in Europe.

As it was my purpose to visit a clergyman in the neighbourhood, I
left the main route, and took a short cut, by which I saved six miles
in distance, though not in time. For the short way was a pleasant
alternation of ledges of rock and mudpits. Fortunately I was provided
with an air-cushion to sit upon, or the jolting must have proved
fatal, at all events to my teeth. If there is no dentist here--such a
thing I never heard of in Norway--there ought to be.

After four or five miles up and down, we descended in good earnest
through a straggling grove of pines, their dark foliage now rendered
darker by the fast approaching night. To our left I could see something
white, and heard fierce roarings. The broad expanse of water at
Vikersund had narrowed into a mere fissure, only a few yards across,
with splintered walls of overhanging rock. What! that small-throated
boa-constrictor going to swallow up such a monstrous lump of water at
a mouthful? Choked it will be, and no mistake. See, what a chattering,
and frothing, and smoking! That lot of trees, too, they must stick
in his gizzard; half-a-dozen have lodged there already, firm and
immovable, as if riveted by the strongest bolts. A few steps more, and
behold! the strife has ceased; the logs, together with the boiling
soapsuds, have shot through the tunnel or funnel, and lie heaving
and panting on the waters of another river of no little breadth and
volume, which, swiftly gliding through the forest, cuts in here, and
joins the narrow outlet of the great Drammen river at right angles.

After their prodigious tussle, it must be quite a relief to those
much battered logs to rock in the comparatively tranquil lap of
the Hallingdal river; for it is my old friend of Hemse-Fjeld
reminiscence--who kept now rollicking and roaring like a schoolboy, now
floating lightly and whispering softly, like a miss in her teens, as we
journeyed along together--that here clubs its fortunes with the lusty
progeny of the Fillefjeld.

At the fork made by the two streams dwelt a ferryman, who speedily
transferred my effects from the carriole to his frail boat. It
required careful navigation to get over; as the surge of the Vikersund
river--which, as the ferryman told me, albeit it had come through
such an eye of a needle, was by far the bigger of the two--was of
such momentum and so sudden in its dash that the crowding waters of
the Halling were struck all of a heap by the concussion, and fairly
turned round and fled. After recovering the first shock, however, it
gradually established a nearer intimacy with the boisterous stranger,
and they presently made a fresh start forward, and vaulted together
over a rugged rapid below, which I could just see gleaming through the
dusky shades of the evening, and the forest. The first struggles with
the world of the new-married couple.

“We have only to get up the hill,” said the ferryman, shouldering my
pack, as we safely reached the opposite shore, “and we shall be soon at
the parson’s house.”

A warm welcome did I get from my friend the pastor. He recognised my
voice directly, as he opened the door in the dark.

“Vilkommen, Vilkommen, Metcalfe! Hvor staae til? (welcome, Metcalfe!
how are you?) Det fornoie mig meget, at de har ikke glemt os (I’m glad
you’ve not forgotten us).”

And I was speedily in the Stuë, shaking hands with the Fruë
(clergymen’s wives have by law this title; merchants’ wives are only
madame). Her fair, good-humoured face fatter, and her figure rounder
than when I saw her four years ago at the mountain parish in the west.
Lisa, too, the hobbledehoy girl, all legs and arms, like a giblet pie,
has now become quite a woman, and more retiring. The baby, Arilda, too,
runs about bigger and bonnier, while Katinka, another and elder sister,
whom I have never seen before, comes forward to greet her father’s
friend. There are also some ladies from the “by” (town), with the
latest news, foreign and domestic.

I spend a day or two with my kind and intelligent host and his family.
Much of his income is derived from land, so that he farms on a large
scale. The house is beautifully situate. Beneath us may be seen the
river playing at hide and seek among umbrageous woods. On the hills
opposite is the mother church of the district, with large farms
clustering about it. The neighbourhood abounds in minerals. Not far off
is a cobalt-work, now under the auspices of a Saxon company, and which
is said to be productive. If the old derivation for cobold be from
cobalt, because that particular sort of sprite’s favourite _habitat_
is a mine of this description, I shall, no doubt, pick up a goblin
story or two at the manse.

Katinka, the eldest girl, is very well read; better certainly than any
I have met with in the country, for they are not a reading people. She
sings a national song or two with much feeling, and explains to me the
meaning of them, which, as they are written in old Norsk, would be
otherwise difficult of comprehension.

“But how do you know the meaning of this outlandish lingo?--it’s not a
bit like the written Norsk of the present time.”

“It was not for nothing,” replied she, “that I lived from a baby in
the mountain parish where we first saw you. The inhabitants of those
sequestered dales still use many of the old words and forms of speech.”

I was soon on my hobby--legends and superstitions.

“Have you any witches or spæ-wives, as they are called in Scotland?”
asked I.

“Signe-kierringe, you mean. Oh, yes. They are still to be found. My
aunt there, when she was a girl, was measured by one.”

“How so?”

“They take a string, which they pretend has been prepared in some
wonderful manner, and measure round the waist, and along the arms,
and so on most accurately, and there is supposed to be some wonderful
virtue in the operation. It is a sure recipe against all harm from the
Nisser. But I have a book here, with a tale of one Mads, a warlock. He
was cutting timber in the forest; it was about mid-day. He had just
got the wedge into a fallen tree, when he saw his old woman come up
with his dinner. It was romme-gröd (a peculiar sort of porridge). She
sat down, when he just spied a tail peeping out behind her, which she
chanced to stick in the cleft that he had made in the tree. Mads bade
her wait a bit, and he would sit down and eat directly. The cunning
fellow meantime managed to get the wedge out. The crack closed, and the
tail was fast. At the same time he uttered Jesus’ name. Up started the
hag, and snapped off the end of her tail. What a scream she gave. On
looking at the dinner, he found it was nothing but some cow-dung in a
bark basket.”

“Have not the peasantry here,” I inquired, “some odd notions about the
fairies stopping the wheel of the water-mill?”

“Oh, yes!” replied Miss Katinka. “September 1st is an important day for
the millers. If it is dry on that day it will be dry, they say, for a
long time. This is owing to the Quernknurre (mill sprite).

“There is a tale in Asbjörnsen of a miller near Sandok Foss, in
Thelemarken (I visited this place afterwards), whose mill-wheel would
not go, although there was plenty of water. He examined the machinery
accurately, but could not discover what was amiss. At last he went to
the small door that opened into the wheel-box. Opening it a very little
he spied a most vicious-looking troll poking about inside. Closing the
door with all speed, before the troll caught sight of him, he went
to his hut and put on the fire a large pot full of tar. When it was
boiling hot he went to the wheel door and opened it wide. The troll
inside, who was busy scotching the wheel, faced round at him in a
moment, and opened his mouth (or rather his head) wider than a warming
pan, indeed so wide that his gape actually reached from the door sill
to the top of the door. ‘Did you ever see such a gape as that in all
your life?’ said he to the miller. Without a moment’s delay the miller
poured the hot pitch right into the monster’s throat (which might
be called pitching it into him), and answered the inquiry by asking
another, ‘Did you ever get such a hot drink before?’ It would appear
that the miller had effectually settled the creature, for he sunk
down into the water with a fearful yell, and never was heard of more.
From that day forward the miller throve, and much grist came to him,
actually and figuratively.”

Miss Katinka was not a classical scholar, so I suppressed certain
illustrations which rose to my tongue, as she told the story, such as
“hians immane,” and the miller having used a most effectual digamma
for stopping the hiatus; and I told her instead, that in the Scottish
highlands there is a kindred being called Urisk, a hairy sprite, who
sets mills at work in the night when there is nothing to grind, and
that he was once sent howling away by a pan full of hot ashes thrown
into his lap when asleep.

“I have read another curious story of a mill,” continued my fair
informant.

“There was a peasant up in the west whose mill (quern) was burned
down two Whitsuntides following. The third year, on Whitsun Eve, a
travelling tailor was staying with him, making some new clothes for the
next day. ‘I wonder whether my new mill will be burnt down to-night
again?’ said the peasant. ‘Oh, I’ll keep watch,’ exclaimed the tailor;
‘no harm shall happen.’ True to his word, when night came on, the
knight of the shears betook himself to the mill. The first thing he
did was to draw a large circle with his chalk on the floor, and write
‘Our Father’ round it, and, that done, he was not afraid, no not even
if the fiend himself were to make his appearance. At midnight the door
was suddenly flung open, and a crowd of black cats came in. The tailor
watched. Before long the new comers lit a fire in the chimney-corner,
and got a pot upon it, which soon began to bubble and squeak, as if it
was full of boiling pitch. Just then, one of the cats slily put its paw
on the side of the pot, and tried to upset it. ‘Mind, nasty cat, you’ll
burn yourself,’ said the tailor, inside his ring. ‘Mind, nasty cat,
you’ll burn yourself, says the tailor to me,’ says the cat to the other
cats. And then all the cats began dancing round the ring. While they
were dancing, the same cat stole slily to the chimney-corner and was on
the point of upsetting the pot, when the tailor exclaimed, ‘Mind, nasty
cat, you’ll burn yourself.’ ‘Mind, nasty cat, you’ll burn yourself,
says the tailor to me,’ says the cat to the other cats. And then the
whiskered crew began to dance again round the tailor. Another attempt
at arson was made with no better success. And all the cats danced round
the tailor, quicker and quicker, their eyes glowing, till his head spun
round again. But still he luckily kept his self-possession and his
sense. At last the cat, which had tried to upset the pot, made a grab
at him over the ring, but missed. The tailor was on the alert, and next
time the cat’s paw came near he snipped it off short with his shears.
What a spitting and miauling they did make, as they all fled out of the
mill, leaving the tailor to sleep quietly in his ring for the rest of
the night. In the morning he opened the mill door and went down to the
peasant’s house. He and his wife were still in bed, for it was Whitsun
morning, and they were having a good sleep of it. How glad the miller
was to see the tailor. ‘Good morrow to you,’ he said, reaching out his
hand, and giving the tailor a hearty greeting. ‘Good morrow, mother,’
said the tailor to the wife, offering her his hand. But she looked so
strange and so pale, he could not make it out. At last she gave him her
left hand, and kept the other under the sheepskin. Ay, ay, thought the
tailor, I see how the ground lies.”

“The miller-wife was one of the subterranean people, then,” I put in.

“No doubt of it,” said Miss Katinka.

“If the tailor had been an Englishman,” observed I, “we should have
said that he ‘knew which way the cat jumped;’” and then I had to
explain, and this elicited the remark, that the Norwegians are by no
means deficient in proverbs.

“Have you a Norwegian equivalent to our commonest of English
proverbs--‘to carry coals to Newcastle?’”

“Yes,” put in the worthy pastor, “but with a difference. We say, ‘to
carry the bucket over the brook to fetch water.’”

“Well, we have another, not less common--‘to reckon upon your chickens
before they are hatched.’”

“That’s our ‘you must not sell the skin till you’ve shot the bear.’
It’s just the same as yours, but with a local colouring.”

“All these proverbs, by the way, are not true,” continued I. “There
is an English proverb that it requires nine tailors to make a man: as
if a tailor was inferior to the rest of mankind in courage. That last
story of Miss Katinka’s is a proof to the contrary. I remember being in
Berlin, just after the revolution of 1848, and visiting the cemetery
of those who had fallen. There was one monument to the memory of one
Johann Schwarz, with an inscription to the effect that he fought like
a hero, and received nine, or maybe nineteen wounds. Indeed, at the
London police-offices, whenever a man is brought before his Worship
for assault and battery of the worst description, or for drubbing the
policemen within an inch of their lives, the odds are that it will be a
tailor with a little body and a great soul.”

But my last observations were quite lost on my fair informant. For at
this moment a letter was put into her hands, and she escaped from the
room, her colour rising, and her thoughtful eye assuming a softer and
more conscious expression.

“It’s Katinka’s weekly letter from her betrothed,” explained her
father, when she had gone; “they always correspond once a week, and
this is the day when the post arrives.”

As I was walking about the house, in company with my clerical friend,
I had a fresh proof of the facilities afforded in this country to
clever artisans to improve themselves. Thus, one Ole, who is driving
the hay-cart up the steep inclined plane to the hay-loft, over
the cow-house, has shown a strong turn for mechanics, and on the
clergyman’s recommendation has obtained from the government three
hundred dollars to defray the expense of a journey to England, that he
may be further initiated and perfected in the mysteries of his trade.
Another man about the farm, who has exhibited much natural talent as an
engraver, is going to be sent to Christiania, to a craftsman in that
line.

Among other things, I hear from my host of a regulation, in respect to
ecclesiastical matters, which is well worth mentioning. In England,
as we all know, no provision is made by the law for pensioning off a
superannuated clergyman, or for the support of a clergyman’s widow;
nay, the very sensible proposal to pension a bishop, the other day, was
decried as simony. Not so in Norway. The widow of a beneficed clergyman
here has a proportion of the income of the benefice (from twenty to
sixty dollars) during her life. Besides this, there is attached to
most parishes what is called an Enkesæde (widow farm). Formerly she
cultivated this herself; but, by a late regulation, these places have
been sold, and she has the profits, which vary, in different cases, in
amount.

Besides the beneficed clergy, there are in Norway another class of
clergy called Residerende Capellan. He holds a chapel of ease in some
large parish, with land and house attached, but is quite independent
of the rector. His appointment, like that of the beneficed clergy
generally, is vested in the king. On a vacancy, the applications are
received by the government, and sent to the king, marked 1, 2, 3, in
order of merit. He generally chooses the first, but not always. The
number of these chaplains is small--not above ten in all Norway. In
some respects, the Residerende Capellan has less work than the Sogne
Prest, or rector. Thus the Fattig-wesen, or arrangement for the relief
of the poor, is chiefly managed by the Sogne Prest.

The Personal Capellan corresponds to an English curate. Whenever
a rector requires a curate, he is bound to take one who is out of
employment; and he cannot get rid of him, but must retain his services
as long as he is rector. His successor in the living, however, is not
similarly bound. It is conceivable that the rector and curate may
have differences, and that this perpetuity of connexion may in some
instances become irksome to both. Generally, however, it is found to
work well--they make the best of it, like a sensible man and wife.
And the curate is not exposed, as he sometimes is in England, to the
caprices of a rector, or a gynæcocratical rectoress. Nor, again,
is the public eye offended in this country with those unpleasant
advertisements of curates holding the views of Venn, with strong lungs,
or of Anglicans skilful in intoning and church decoration.

“What examinations have you at the University of Christiania?” I asked.

“There are three. First, the Philosophisk, _i.e._, a mixed classical
examination; second, one in mathematics, physics, theology, and other
subjects; and, three years later, there is what is called an Embeds
examen (faculty examination), which, for the future clergyman, is in
divinity; for the lawyer, in law; and so on. After this examination,
however, a clergyman is not compelled to be ordained directly--indeed,
he can put this off for some years.”

“And are the Norwegian students such ardent spirits as their brethren
in Germany?”

“Ardent enough, but blessed, I hope, with more common sense. They are
intense lovers of liberty, and their minds are full of the idea of
Scandinavian unity--_i.e._, a junction not only moral, but political,
of the three kingdoms, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. It was only the
other day that a thousand Norwegian students paid a visit to Upsala and
Stockholm, and then went over to Copenhagen. They were received with
open arms by the Danes. The shopkeepers would have no money for the
articles they disposed of to them, begging them to take what they had
asked for as a _souvenir_ of Denmark. They lived in private houses, and
partook of the best during their stay, entirely gratuitously; the King
himself bore his share of the Leitourgia, lodging and boarding them in
the palace. This Scandinavian party is gaining ground. It would be a
great thing for Norway if the Bernadotte dynasty could succeed to the
throne of the three kingdoms. They are of a much better stock than the
descendants of Christian the First. Look at Oscar and his eldest son,
the free-hearted, outspoken soldier; and then look at the throne of
Denmark--a king who first marries a respectable princess and divorces
her for another, and does the same by her for no reason but because he
has set eyes on a sempstress at a fire one night in the capital, and
is determined to be possessed of her--and there she is, the Countess
Danner. But he is blessed with no offspring, and when he dies the Danes
get a Russian for their king, or what’s next to it. No wonder, then,
that the Scandinavian idea finds favour in Denmark. Even the king
favours the idea; his toast, ‘Denmark, Sweden, and Norway--three lands
in peace, one in war,’ shows that, selfish as he is, and careless of
trampling on the feelings of those he has sworn to love and cherish, he
has some little regard for the future of his people, and has not so far
forgotten Waldemar and Knut, as to wish Denmark to be a mere appanage
of Russia--in short, he has always aimed at being a popular monarch.”

“A grand idea,” said I, “no doubt, this of Scandinavian unity. I hear
that Worsaae, and many of the Danish professors, have taken it up. But
I don’t think professors, generally, are practical men--at least, not
in Germany, judging from what they did in Frankfort in 1848. They were
with child for many months, big with an ineffable conception, but they
only brought forth wind after all.”

“Ay! but we Norwegians don’t manage in that way. Look at Eideswold, in
1814, and say whether we are not practical men.”

“Don’t you think Norway has anything to fear from the jealousy of
Sweden?” I went on, changing the subject.

“No. There have been two or three times when we have been in a klem
(hitch); but the good, sturdy common sense, and quiet resolution of us
Norwegians has won the day. And now I think of it, this appointment of
the Crown Prince to be viceroy at Christiania will be of inestimable
benefit to the country. Our future ruler will get to understand the
people, and know their worth. He will see what our freedom is doing for
us. He makes himself quite at home with all, gentle and simple: dances
with the parsons’ wives and daughters, and smokes cigars with the
merchants, but he is observing all the while very narrowly; and he sees
we are all united in our attachment to our liberal institutions, and
thriving under them wonderfully; while, at the same time, all are most
loyal to the kingly house.”

“But don’t you think these religious schisms, Lammers on the one hand
and the Roman Catholics on the other, will be causing a split in your
national unity?”

“Oh! no. It is true the Roman Catholics have a great cathedral at
Christiania; but they don’t number more than a couple of hundred in
all.”

“Ah! but there are some more in the North. It was only the other day
I heard that some <DW7>s are engaged in an active propaganda about
Tromsö.”

“No doubt; the people up there have always been peculiarly inclined
to be carried about by every wind of doctrine. It is there that the
Haugianer made way; and it is there that these <DW7>s have pitched
their tents. They are going to work very systematically. They have
purchased an estate at Alten. Every Sunday they preach to whoever will
come. One of their addresses begins with the following attractive
exordium:--‘Beloved brethren, we have left father and mother, brothers
and sisters, fatherland and friends, from affection to you.’ Again,
they boldly talk of bringing into the country light for semi-darkness.
The poor Laps much want some little book to be distributed gratis to
explain to them the subtilty of these people. I wish you could make
the case known to the excellent English Bible Society. And whereas
the Haugians were always reputed to be cold and indifferent to the
poor, these missionaries are very kind to them, visiting the sick, and
offering food, clothing, and instruction gratis. The whole plan is most
subtly contrived, especially when the fanatic character of the Laps,
and their poverty is considered. If the Government does not take care,
and see after their spiritual and temporal wants, they may fall, I
grant, into the hands of those people. But I don’t think the Norwegians
will ever listen to them. There is an independence in our character
that rebels against all priestly domination.”

“So there is in England. But even there it is astonishing to see how
far matters are going. Why! it is only the other day that a petition to
our Queen, to restore the ‘Greater Excommunication,’ was put into my
hands to sign.”

But our conversation now turned from the vanities and vagaries of man
to another topic.

The woods around are not deficient, I find, in capercailzie and black
cock. Woodcocks, also, from the priest’s description, must be here at
times. It was a brown bird, he said, larger than a snipe, which at dusk
flies backwards and forwards through an alley in the wood.

“That is the Linnæa borealis,” said my host to me, pointing to a
beautiful little white flower. “A strange thing happened to me,” he
said, “when I was at my mountain parsonage in the West. One Baron von
Dübner, a Swedish botanist, drove up one day to my house. I found
that he had journeyed all the way thither to make inquiries about a
peculiar plant which grows, he said, just under the Iisbrae, on a
particular spot of the Dovre Fjeld, and produces berries something like
a strawberry, which ripen at the time when the snow melts in spring. I
made particular inquiries, and at last found a lad who said he knew
what the stranger meant. He had seen and eaten these berries while
tending cattle on that particular part of the Fjeld. I gave him a
bottle, and he promised next spring to get me some; the baron promising
to give a handsome reward. But alas! poor Eric did not survive to
fulfil his promise. He was drowned that winter by falling through the
ice. Now, do ask your botanists at Oxford about it.”[23]




CHAPTER XV.

    Papa’s birthday--A Fellow’s sigh--To Kongsberg--A word for
    waterproofs--Dram Elv--A relic of the shooting season--How
    precipitous roads are formed in Norway--The author does
    something eccentric--The river Lauven--Pathetic cruelty--The
    silver mine at Kongsberg--A short life and not a merry
    one--The silver mine on fire--A leaf out of Hannibal’s book--A
    vein of pure silver--Commercial history of the Kongsberg
    silver mines--Kongsberg--The silver refining works--Silver
    showers--That horrid English.


On the morning of my departure, I find the Norsk flag hoisted on a tall
flagstaff, on the eminence in front of the house.

“What is the meaning of this, Miss Lisa?”

“Oh! that’s for papa’s birthday,” said she, in high glee.

“I wish you many happy returns of the day,” was my greeting to the
pastor, who was evidently not a little pleased at receiving the
compliment in English.

Each of the ladies had something pretty to say to him on the occasion,
and the Fruë produced a very handsome new meerschaum pipe mounted with
silver, which, by some magic process, she had obtained from the distant
By against this auspicious morning.

As we are off the high road, there is no change-house near; but, by my
host’s assistance, I have procured the services of an excellent fellow,
who agrees to take me with his own horse in my friend’s carriole all
the way to Kongsberg, twenty miles off, where I am to visit the silver
mines, and return by the same conveyance to Hougesund, on my way to
Drammen. How very kind these people are.

Seeing I took an interest in legends, the two elder sisters had routed
out some tracts on the subject, and the little Arilda presented me with
some Norwegian views, and a piece of ore from the neighbouring mine.
Miss Lisa blushed and smiled, and did not know what to make of it, when
I wickedly proposed that she should come with me to Oxford.

“No,” said mamma, “if you were twenty years older, perhaps.”

“And I hope, when next you visit us,” said the priest, “you’ll be
married, and bring Mrs. M.”

“Married! you know what I’ve told you about Fellowships. We are
Protestant monks.”

“Well,” retorted his reverence, “I always say England is a great and
enlightened country; but if you wish to see an _effete_ custom clung to
with desperate tenacity, go to England.”

What torrents of rain poured down that day, as we journeyed along
towards Kongsberg.

Poor Sigur was speedily soaked through, his wadmel coat mopping up
the deluge like a sponge. But he took the thing quite as a matter of
course. As for the horse, he went on quite swimmingly. Being encased in
lengthy Cording’s fishing boots, a sou’-wester on my head, and a long
mackintosh on my shoulders, I was quite jubilant, and could not help
defying the storm with certain exclamations, such as,

    Blow winds, and crack your cheeks, &c.

Sigur, astonished at my spouting, asked for an explanation, and on
getting it, looked anything but an assent to my proposition.

Truth be told, I was sorry for Sigur. But, at the same time,
waterproofed as I was, I had a sort of self-reliant and independent
feeling, as the rain pattered off my caoutchouc habiliments, pretty
much the same, I should think, as the water-fowl tribe must have, when
they are having a jolly sousing, but keep perfectly dry withal.

“Well,” said I, “Sigur,” remembering it was September 1, “it will be
fine weather for the millers, at all events. No Quernknurre to be
feared this autumn.” Sigur smiled curiously through the fringe of
rain-drops that bugled his hat-rim. He was evidently astonished that
the Englishman had found out that.

“That elv is called Dram Elv,” said he, pointing to the river tearing
along with its fleet of logs. “Once, that farm-house which you see
yonder, a couple of hundred feet above the river, was close to the
water’s edge, but the water burst through some rocks below, and now
it’s a river instead of a lake. There is some old story about it,”
continued he, scratching his grizzled locks, “but I forget it now. They
say that the river takes its name from that Gaard.”

At Hougesund I remarked what I had never seen before out of the towns
in Norway--an intimation over the merchant’s door that travellers
would find accommodation there. This will give a very good notion of
the amount of hotel competition in this country. I had a bag of shot,
No. 5, and as all shooting was now over, Sigur received directions to
sell the same to the merchant for what he could get. The merchant took
it, loudly protesting the while that he should never be able to sell it
again. “Our shooters,” said he, “use the largest hagel, not such dust
as this.” I can imagine that people accustomed to shoot game sitting,
would do so.

It was pitch dark long before we reached Kongsberg. There was nothing
left for it but to let the horse take his own course; but as he was
unacquainted with the road, this was pretty much that of a vessel
without a compass.

As good luck would have it, we overtook a traveller in a carriole, or
these lines would mayhap never have been written. “Ye gentlemen of
England, who live at home at ease,” are perhaps not aware, that in
Norway, excepting on two or three pieces of newly-constructed road,
there is no such a thing as posts and rails to fence the highway from
danger. Now and then, as in Switzerland, the edge of a sheer precipice
is supposed to be guarded by blocks of granite, placed two or three
yards apart, but ordinarily fences are only used to keep in cattle. It
was not till the next day on returning that I became aware what I had
escaped. It is true that there was no great depth to fall, but quite
enough to break all my bones. But I might console myself with the
thought, that I should have had an opportunity of talking to the doctor
at Kongsberg, and obtaining from him some more information about his
brownie patient, mentioned at page 232 above.

The object of my detour to Kongsberg was to have a sight of the
celebrated silver mine in its neighbourhood. I had brought an
introduction to the Director, Lammers (brother of the Dissenting
Lammers of Skien), whom I found, next morning, deeply engaged in
studying a plan of the workings. Provided by him with a note to the
Superintendent, I put myself on my carriole, and started with Sigur for
the mine. The excellent Larsen, at whose comfortable caravansary I put
up, had indoctrinated Sigur that it was usual for strangers to take a
carriage from the inn; for which, of course, I should have had to pay
pretty smartly. But I was determined to be eccentric for once, and did
the most obvious thing--take my own vehicle and attendant. The Lauven,
the best salmon river in the south of Norway, cuts the town in two with
a stream of great width. The old wooden bridge, being worn out, is
now being superseded by a new one, built exactly over it; so that we
have the novel sight of two bridges one above the other. I could not
learn that the good old Northern custom of burying a child under the
new bridge, to make it durable, has been observed. At all events, the
Kongsbergers, if they did so, kept their own counsel about it.

In Germany, too, this custom prevailed. Nay, within the last twenty
years (see Grimm, “Deutsche Mythologie”), when a new bridge was built
at Halle, the people said that a child ought to be built into it.
Thiele, also, in his “Danmark’s Folkesagn,” relates as follows:--“A
wall had to be built in Copenhagen, but as fast as they built it up, it
sank into the swampy ground. In this dilemma, a small, innocent child
was set upon a stool with a table before it, on which were playthings
and sweetmeats; and while it was amusing itself with these, twelve
masons set to work and built a vault over it, and, at the same time,
set up the wall again to the sound of music. Since that time the wall
has never sunk the least.”

Nothing noticeable caught my eye on the road, except a Thelemarken
peasant-girl, in her quaint costume, dragging a little cow to market;
but as on our return we again encountered both of them, it was clear
that, with the dogged obstinacy of these people, rather than bate the
price, she was marching back with the cow to her distant home in the
mountains. A roundabout ascent of nearly four miles English brought us
to the principal mine, which, as the crow flies, can be reached by a
footpath in half that distance. The device of a hammer and pick, set
crosswise over a door, with the German motto, “Gluckauf,” reminded me
that these mines were first worked by miners from that country.

Presenting my credentials, I was ushered into a room in the
superintendent’s house, and equipped with the toggery worn on those
occasions--a dark green blouse, a leather apron fastened by a broad
belt, and worn on the opposite side of the person to what aprons
usually are; and lastly, an uncommonly stout black felt hat, with no
brim--in shape, I should imagine, just like those worn by the Armenian
priests. Such was the disguise which I assumed, and very suitable it
was. The apron and blouse protected my clothes from dirt, and, if a
piece of silver ore had attempted to fall upon my head, the hat would
have acted as a helmet, and warded it off. My guide into “the bowels of
the harmless earth” now approached, and we entered the level--commenced
in 1716 by Frederick the Fifth--and progressed for nearly two miles
along the tramway, lighted by a flaring torch, the ashes of which the
conductor ever and anon knocked off into a vessel of water on the
route. All was still, except that now and then a sound as of rushing
waters jarred upon the ear. I found that it was the water pumped out
of the mine by the engine, which usually glides quietly along in its
wooden channel; but in places where there was a slight ascent, got
very angry, and shot along with increased velocity. At the end of this
passage we came upon a group of miners, cooking their porridge for the
mid-day meal. They are on duty, I understood, twenty-four hours at a
stretch, so as to save the loss of time in getting to their work and
back again, the distance in and out being so considerable. The men
looked prematurely old, as far as I was able to judge from the very
unfavourable light; and that, no doubt, has a great deal to do with
looks at all times. The prettiest girl that ever joined in a Christmas
revel, would be shocked if she could see a faithful representation
of her face as it looked by the blue flickering light of the envious
snapdragon.

But, to speak seriously, I find that though there is no explosive
air in the mine, yet there is a closeness in the atmosphere which is
prejudicial to health. At a comparatively early age the men become
“ödelagt”--_i.e._, worn out. After a certain number of years of service
they are pensioned. Their wages are, for one class of men, 24 skillings
to 30 skillings per diem; for another, 30 skillings to 36 skillings;
so that the lowest is about 10_d._, and the highest rate about 1_s._
3_d._, English. In this mine, which is called the Kongengrube (King’s
Mine), two hundred are employed. Where we now stood was about the
centre of the mine; above us was a perpendicular ascent to the top
of the mountain, which we had avoided by entering the level. But we
now had to descend, perpendicularly, a series of ladders, lighted by
the dim light of a candle, which the guide, for fear of fire, had
taken instead of the torch. We now descended fifty-five perpendicular
ladders, of unequal lengths, but averaging, I understood, five fathoms
each; so that, according to Cocker, the “tottle” we descended was 1650
feet, though, when we stood at the bottom of the perpendicular shaft,
we were in reality 3120 feet from the upper mouth. Each ladder rests on
a wooden stage, and the top of it against a sort of trap-door let into
a similar stage above. This perpendicularity of the shaft is its chief
danger. Should a large piece of rock become loosened above, there is
nothing but these wooden stages to prevent it smashing through to the
bottom of the shaft; and as no notice, such as “Heads below--look out,”
is given, not a few dreadful accidents have taken place in consequence.
Again, from the construction of the mine, it is peculiarly dangerous in
case of fire.

It was only in May last that a fire broke out suddenly in the
Gotteshülfe in der Not (God’s help in time of need) Mine, where there
are eighty-eight ladders. The fire raged with such fury that four
unfortunate men were choked before they could escape. A fifth got out
alive. The burning continued eight days. The bodies have only just been
found, August 18th.

Fire, I find, is used to make new horizontal shafts. We went into
one of these side shafts to see the operation. Arrived at the end of
the gallery, which was as symmetrical as a railway tunnel, and very
hot, our further progress was barred by a great iron door; this being
opened, I saw a huge fire of fir poles blazing away at the far end of a
kind of oven. After the fire has thus burned for several hours, it is
suffered to go out; and the miners, approaching with their picks, can
with very little effort chip off several inches of the hard rock, which
has become as brittle as biscuit from the action of heat. The biscuit
being cleared away, a fresh fire is lit, and another batch baked and
removed; and so on, day by day, till the miners come to ore.

At the bottom of the mine I was rewarded by the sight of a vein of pure
silver. At first it seemed to me very like the rest of the rock, except
that it was rougher to the touch; but with a little beating, like a
dull schoolboy, it brightened up wonderfully, and I saw before me a
vein of native silver, two or three inches in width, and descending
apparently perpendicularly. The native silver thus found, together with
the argentiferous rock, is packed up in a covered cart, under lock and
key, and driven into Kongsberg, where the smelting works are situate.

“How does the refined silver go to Christiania?” I inquired.

“In a country cart,” was the reply, “driven by a simple bonder.” Even
Queen Victoria’s baby-plate might pass in this manner through the
country without danger of spoliation.

No specimens are permitted to be sold in the mine; the men, I
understand, are searched each time that they leave work.

The fortunes of these celebrated silver mines, which were discovered
in 1623, have been like the mines themselves. There have been many ups
and downs in them. At one time they have been worked by the State; at
another, they have been in private hands; and sometimes the exploration
stopped altogether. After thus lying idle for some years, the works
were, in 1814, if I am rightly informed, offered for sale by the
Danish Government to our present consul-general at Christiania, and
the purchase was only not completed in consequence of that gentleman
declining to keep up the full amount of workmen, a condition which
the Government insisted on. Be this as it may, they were set a-going
by the Government in 1816, and the Storthing voted 21,000 dollars for
the purpose, and even greater sums in subsequent years. And yet, in
1830, the mine was not a paying concern. Just about this time, however,
the miners hit upon a rich vein, and ever since 1832 it has paid. The
greatest yield was in 1833, when about 47,000 marks of pure silver
were obtained. At present, about 400 marks are obtained weekly, or
about 21,000 per annum. There is an actual profit of nearly 200,000
dollars a year. Notwithstanding this brilliant state of affairs, there
has, reckoning from first to last, been a loss of several millions of
dollars on the venture.

At one time Kongsberg was a city of considerable importance. At
present, there are less than 5000 inhabitants; but in 1769, when
Christiania had only 7496 inhabitants, Trondjem 7478, and Bergen
13,735, Kongsberg had over 8000. But it must be always considered
important, as being the great mining school of the country--a country
which contains, no doubt, vast mineral treasures under its surface.

Tough work it was ascending the ladders, and very hot withal. But as
I intended to be in Drammen that evening, distant five-and-twenty
miles, no time was to be lost. My climbing on the fjeld had been
capital practice; and such was the pace at which I ascended, that the
superintendent, who joined us, broke down or bolted midway.

We were soon at Kongsberg, it being down hill all the way. People
told me I must by no means omit going to see a monument on the hill,
between the mines and the town, where the names of ten kings, who
had come to see the mine, were recorded, including Bernadotte. But I
preferred devoting the rest of my spare time to what I considered much
more instructive, viz., a visit to the establishments for reducing
and refining the silver ore. As good luck would have it, I had an
opportunity of witnessing the process for refining silver. About 2000l.
worth of the precious metal was in an oven, with a moveable bottom,
undergoing the process of refinement by the intense heat of a pine-wood
fire, blown upon it from above.

Schiller’s magnificent “Song of the Bell” rose to my mind--

    Nehmet Holz von Fichtenstamme,
    Doch recht trocken lasst as seyn,
    Dass die eingepresste Flamme
    Schlage zu dem Schwalch hinein!

The mynte-mester, a fat man, of grave aspect, illuminated by large
spectacles, ordered one of the Cyclopses around to put what looked
like a thin, long poker, with a small knob at the end, into the boiling
mass. It came out coated with a smooth envelope of dead metal. This
the director examined, and shook his head; so away went the blow-pipe
as before. Presently the same process was repeated. On the poker-knob
being inserted a third time, the director scrutinized it carefully,
and then said, “færdig!” On examining it, I found projecting, like a
crown of airy thorns, a coating of exceedingly fine spicula of frosted
silver. That was the signal that it was sufficiently purified. Never
till now had I known so exactly the force of the words of the Psalmist,
“Even as silver which from the earth is tried and purified seven times
in the fire.”

It was desired to have the silver in small nodules for silversmiths, as
more easily workable than in a lump. For this purpose, a vessel of cold
water was placed under the furnace-spout. Another Cyclops stationed
himself in front of the said spout, holding in his hand the nozzle of
some hose connected with a water-engine. With this he took aim at the
orifice (reminding me much of a Norskman shooting game sitting, but in
this case it was flying, as will be seen). A signal is given, a cock
turned, and out rushes the white-hot molten metal; but at the moment of
its escape from the trap, the fireman discharges a jet of cold water
at it; the consequence is, that, instead of descending in a continuous
stream, the blazing jet is squandered, and falls into the vessel below
in a shower of silver drops. Danaë could have explained the thing
to a nicety, only her shower was one of gold; while the metal most
predominant in her own composition would seem to have been brass.

The gentleman who had been conversing with me in German, and apparently
considered me a Teuton, said he could talk French also; but as for
that horrid English, those people began a sentence and rolled it
in their mouths, spit it half out, and the rest they swallowed. I
strongly recommend any Englishman, who wishes to hear what people on
the Continent think of John Bull and his wife, not to betray his nation
if he can help it, and then he has some chance of getting at the true
state of opinion without flattery. This rule will apply to general
society, such as one meets abroad. But there is a no less golden
exception, which is this: never at a custom-house or police-office know
the language of the officials; if you do, they are sure to badger you,
especially if you are above suspicion. If, on the other hand, you shrug
your shoulders, and keep replying to their remarks in English, you will
completely foil their efforts at annoyance, and they will not be able
to make anything of you, and look out for other prey.

Another remarkably polite and intelligent official now proceeded to
show me some beautiful specimens of pure silver in another part of the
building. Some of these “Handstene,” as they are called, I purchased.
Here, too, were those splendid specimens that appeared at the Great
Exhibition in London, and also in Paris; and gained a medal in both
instances. The bronze medal, designed by Wyon, with the busts of
Victoria and Albert, and likewise the silver one of Napoleon, were side
by side; the latter pretty, doubtless, but, to my thinking, and also
that of the inspector, vastly inferior to the former, which, he said,
was a real work of art.

My companions at dinner were the engineer of the new road out
of Kongsberg, and a Hungarian refugee, getting his living by
portrait-painting. All things considered, I should think that the
engineer’s trade was the better of the two. But the artist was a
good-looking fellow, and twirled his moustache with great complacency;
so that, perhaps, he got sitters. At all events, he could have no
competition.




CHAPTER XVI.

    A grumble about roads--Mr. Dahl’s caravansary--“You’ve waked
    me too early”--St. Halvard--Professor Munck--Book-keeping
    by copper kettles--Norwegian society--Fresh milk--Talk
    about the great ship--Horten the chief naval station of
    Norway--The Russian Admiral G----Conchology--Tönsberg the
    most ancient town in Norway--Historical reminiscences--A
    search for local literature--An old Norsk patriot--Nobility
    at a discount--Passport passages--Salmonia--A tale for
    talkers--Agreeable meeting--The Roman Catholics in Finmark--A
    deep design--Ship wrecked against a lighthouse--The courtier
    check-mated.


The new road, which avoids some fearful hills, will soon be finished;
and that is the excuse for not repairing the old one, which was
something like what Holborn Hill would be with all the paving-stones up.

Prince Napoleon, who has just returned from his voyage to Spitzbergen
and the Arctic regions, is about to visit Kongsberg in company with
one of the Royal Princes of Sweden, to-morrow. It is lucky for the
highway surveyors that it is not the King of Oude. They doubtless
would have been put into the ruts to fill them up, or smelted in the
smelting-houses, or have had to undergo some other _refined_ process.

Sigur and I parted company at Hougesund; he proceeding homewards, and
I crawling along to Drammen, by the side of the elv, with the worst
horse I ever drove in Norway. Fortunately, the road is a dead level,
and good. The river abounds in salmon, which cannot get up higher than
Hougesund.

On the other side of it, I saw several lights, which I learned were at
saw-mills, which are working night and day. I suppose they are taking
time by the forelock. Hitherto, saw-mills have been in the hands of a
few privileged persons; but in 1860 the monopoly expires, and anybody
may erect one.

I had been strongly recommended to one Mr. Dahl. His caravansary I
found both comfortable and reasonable. The St. Halvard steam-boat,
which was to convey me next morning to some station in the Christiania
Fjord, started at seven o’clock, I found, so I requested to be called
at a little before six. The damsel walked into my bedroom, without any
preliminary knock, long before that hour.

“You’ve come too early,” said I; “the boat does not start till seven.”

“Oh, yes; but the passengers are accustomed to assemble on board half
an hour before.”

So much for the Norwegian value of time.

At five minutes to seven I found myself on board the boat, much to
the astonishment, no doubt, of the numerous passengers; who, with the
patient tranquillity of Norwegians, had long ago settled in their
places.

“St. Halvard--who was St. Halvard?” said I to a person near me, as we
scudded along through the blue wares, glistening in the morning sun,
and curled by a gentle breeze. He did not know, but he thought a friend
of his on board knew. The friend, an intelligent young lieutenant
in the army, from Fredrickshall, soon produced a book of Professor
Munck’s, but the volume made no mention of the enigmatical personage.
Seeing, however, that I looked over the pages with interest, nothing
would content the young _militaire_ but that I should retain possession
of it; which I accordingly did, with many thanks. It may be as well to
mention, that there are two Muncks in Norway; A. Munck, the poet, and
Professor A. P. Munck, the historian, a person of European reputation,
who is now engaged on a comprehensive work, “Norske Folks Historie,”
“History of the Norsk People.” He is also author of several other works
of antiquarian research.

“You have been in Thelemarken?” inquired the lieutenant. “That’s the
county for old Norsk customs and language. With all their dirt and
rude appearance, some of the bonders are very rich, and proud of their
wealth. I remember being at a farm some miles above Kongsberg, where I
saw a number of copper kettles ranged on a shelf, as bright as bright
could be; I found that these were the gauge of the bonder’s wealth.
For every thousand dollars saved a new copper kettle was added. You
have no idea how tenacious these people are of their social position.
When the son and daughter of two bonders are about to be married, a
wonderful deal of diplomacy is used, the one endeavouring to outwit the
other. It is surprising with all the chaffering and bargaining between
the elders that the marriages turn out so well as they do.

“And yet even the wealthiest of them live in the meanest manner.
I don’t suppose you would get any fresh milk in your travels in
Thelemarken, except at the sæters. You would not believe it, but
they are in the habit of keeping their milk from spring to autumn.
To prevent it becoming stale or maggoty, they stir it every day. In
process of time it assumes a very strong scent, which the people inhale
with great gusto. It is a filthy affair: but people accustomed to it
like it, I am told, above all things. A curious case in point occurs to
my mind: A Voged, who had been for some years stationed up in a wild
part of Thelemarken, was translated to Drammen, which is an agreeable
place, and by no means deficient in good society. But, with all this
improvement in neighbourhood, and the appliances of life; in spite of
his increased pay and higher position, the Voged sickened and pined; in
short, became a regular invalid. What could it be? He missed the thick,
stinking milk of the Thelemarken wilds. He petitioned to return to the
old Fogderie, where he would have less pay, but more milk; and, from
the last accounts, he is fully restored to health, and enjoying himself
amazingly.”

As we approached Horten, the chief naval station of Norway, I saw a new
church, apparently built in red stone, and in the Gothic style; which,
as far as I could judge, reflected no little credit on the architect.
At this moment, a Norskman tapped me on the shoulder, and asked--

“Are you an Englishman? Do you live in London? Have you seen the great
ship that is building on the banks of the Thames? They say it is twice
as long as the magazine at Horten yonder; but I can’t believe it.”

“You mean the _Great Eastern_, as they call it? I don’t know how long
the magazine is; but the ship is 680 feet long.”

“Vinkelig! det er accurat dobbelt.” (Really! then it is exactly double,
just as I heard.)

The daily steamer from Christiania to Fredrickshall met us here,
_Halden_, by name; and separated me from the intelligent lieutenant,
with whom I exchanged cards.

As we steamed out of Horten, past the gun-boats and arsenals, a
naval-looking man said--

“We have had a great man here lately, sir: the Russian Admiral G----.
The newspapers were strongly against his being allowed to pry about our
naval station; but he was permitted by the Government. After examining
everything very accurately, he said, ‘It’s all very good, too good: for
England will come and take it away from you.’”

“And what did the dockyard people think of that? Did they agree with
him?”

“Heaven forefend! They knew whom they had to deal with. As he walked
through the arsenal, he saw some shells lying about. ‘What is that?
some new invention?’ ‘Oh! no,’ said the officer; ‘it is only shells,
after the old fashion.’ The Russian admiral seemed contented with the
reply; but he was not going to be put off the real scent by a feint
of this kind. In fact, a Norwegian captain, not long ago, did invent
a peculiar kind of shell, which, with unerring precision, can be so
managed as to burst in a vessel’s side after effecting an entrance. The
Russian knew this, but kept his counsel then. Subsequently, he found an
opportunity of drawing a subaltern officer aside, to whom he offered
two hundred dollars to reveal the secret. But the Norskman would not
divulge the secret (shell out), only telling his superior, who took no
notice, but merely chuckled at the Russian’s duplicity.”

“It is an old Russian trick, that,” replied I; “if I remember rightly,
the Muscovites obtained the secret of the Congreve rocket by some such
underhand manœuvre.”

The admiral’s curiosity will remind the reader of the facetious
_Punch’s_ “Constantine Paul Pry,” who visited England and France for a
similar object.

As we steered down the vast Fjord, which is here of great width, and
ramifies into various arms, we see the _Nornen_, a new Norsk frigate,
in the offing, on her trial trip.

A little after noon, we were steaming down a shallow bay, surrounded
by low wooded islets, to Tönsberg, the most ancient town in Norway.
The harbour for shipping is in the Tönsberg Fjord, distant a bowshot
from where we land; but to get there by water would require a detour of
several miles. The isthmus is low and flat, and presents no engineering
difficulties whatever. In any other country, a ship canal would long
since have joined the two waters. At present, there is only a ditch
between.

The ruins of the old fortified castle are still discernible on the
elevation to the north of the town; and a sort of wooden building,
something between a summer-house and an observatory, has lately been
erected on the spot. The old castle (Tonsberg-hus) suffered a good deal
from an attack of the Swedes in 1503; and was totally destroyed in
1532, in the disturbances that ensued on the return of King Christian
II. to Norway. As early as the close of the ninth century, the city
was a place of resort for merchants, and the residence of the kings in
the middle ages. At one time there were half a score of churches in
the place; but of these none remained fifty years ago, except one very
ancient one, in the Pointed style; but this was pulled down by some
Vandal authorities of the place. During the troubles of the twelfth and
thirteenth centuries the town was taken and plundered more than once;
but it received its finishing blow from the Union of Calmar.

An eminence to the east of the town is called the Mollehaug, where in
the middle ages the renowned Hougathing, or Parliament, was held, and
the kings received homage. There being nothing left in the town to
indicate its former importance, I mounted up the Castle-hill, and took
a look of the surrounding country and Fjords, with the blue mountains
of Thelemarken far in the distance. The ancient seat of the Counts of
Jarlsberg is near at hand; from which family the surrounding district
bears the name of Grefskabet (county).

Afterwards I strolled into the cemetery. Some of the tombs were of
polished red granite, which is obtained in the neighbourhood; most of
them had long inscriptions. Under two relievo busts in white marble
was the short motto, “Vi sees igien,” (we shall meet again,) and then
a couple of joined hands, and the names of So-and-so and his Hustru
(gudewife). On an obelisk of iron I read--“Underneath rests the dust
of the upright and active burgher, the tender and true man and father,
merchant Hans Falkenborg. His fellow-burghers’ esteem, his survivors’
tears, testify to his worth. But the Lord gave, the Lord took. Blessed
be the name of the Lord.” On another stone was written--“Underneath
reposes the dust of the in-life-and-death-united friends, Skipper F.
and Merchant B. Both were called from the circle of their dear friends
December 10, 1850, at the age of 28. Short was their pilgrimage here
on earth; but who hath known the mind of the Lord, who hath been his
councillor? Peace be with their dust.” Altogether there was much good
taste exemplified in these memorials of the dead.

As I returned towards the inn, I called at the only bookseller’s in
this town of nearly three thousand inhabitants, in hopes of obtaining
some local literature in reference to a place of such historical
celebrity; Madame Nielsen, however, only sold school-books of the
paltriest description. After my walk, I was by no means sorry to sit
down to a good dinner at the inn. Opposite me sat a fine old fellow,
with grey streaming locks, while two bagmen and the host completed
the company. Under the influence of some tolerable Bordeaux, the old
gentleman became quite communicative; he had been in arms in ’14, when
Norway was separated from Denmark, and the Norskmen recalcitrated
against the cool handing them over from one Power to another.

“That was a perilous time for us; one false step, and we might have
been undone; but each man had only one thought, and that was for
his country. In this strait,” continued he, his eyes sparkling,
“one hundred Norskmen met at Eidsvold on May 1, and on May 17 the
constitution was drawn up which we now enjoy. Please God it may last.
The Norwegians may well be proud of it, and no wonder that the Swedes
are jealous of us with their four estates, and their miserable pretence
of a constitution--the worst in Europe. Their shoals of nobility are
the drag-chain; we got rid of them here in 1821. That was a great
blessing; Carl Johann was against it, and three thousand Swedish
soldiers were in the vicinity of Christiania. Count Jarlsberg, our
chief noble, was for the abolition; its chief opponent was Falsing. He
said in the Storthing, that if our nobility were abolished he would say
farewell to Norway. Another member took him up short, and said, ‘And
the Norsk hills would echo well.’”

Dinner over, I drove through the woods back to Vallö, where I was to
meet the steamer. Two Swiss gentlemen possess a large establishment
here for the manufacture of salt by the evaporation of salt water; a
cotton mill is also adjoining, belonging to the same proprietors.

On applying for my ticket at the office--where it may be had a trifle
cheaper than on board--my passport is demanded and examined, and the
office-keeper informs me that it is against the rules to give a ticket
for an outward-bound steamer to any one whose passport has not been
countersigned by the Norwegian authorities. Now, on leaving Norway by
way of Christiania, as I was aware, it is required to be shown to the
police, and _viséd_, but as I had never been near the capital this
year, and, from the moment I had landed to this, the passport had never
been demanded, it did not occur to me that a _visé_ would be required.
For the moment I was disconcerted, as nobody was to be found at Vallö
who could remedy the defect.

On inquiry, however, I found that the naval officer in command of the
coming vessel was my old friend Captain H., and so I felt secure. There
were plenty of faces that I knew on board, among the rest some Oxford
Undergraduates returning from a delightful excursion up the country;
there were also some “Old Norwegians,” who had been fishing in the
north, and complained loudly of the unfavourableness of the season.
There had been an unusual amount of rain and cold, and the rivers had
been so full of snow-water, that the salmon had stuck at the mouths, a
prey to nets, &c., in preference to braving the chills of the Elv.

Among other small talk, I began to recount as I sat in the Captain’s
room, how I had seen the old gentleman with the star and diplomatic
coat. (See _antè_). Just then somebody came and called out the first
lieutenant by name, which was, I perceived, the very same as that of
the last baron whom I was engaged in taking off.

“Is he any relation?” I inquired in alarm.

“Only his son,” was the reply.

Fortunately I had not said anything derogatory to the papa, or I might
have placed myself in an awkward fix. This is only another proof how
cautious you ought to be on board one of these steamers of talking
about whom you have seen, and what you think, for the coast being the
great high road, everybody of condition takes that route--you may have
been, perhaps, for instance, abusing some merchant for overcharges--and
after speaking your mind, _pro_ or _con_, the gentleman with whom you
are conversing may surprise you with a--

“Ja so! Indeed! That’s my own brother.”

“Were you ever up beyond the North Cape?” said a Frenchman to me, at
dinner.

“Oh! yes; I once went to Vadsö.”

“And what sort of beings are they up there? Half civilized, I suppose?”

“Not only half, but altogether, I assure you,” said I. “I met with
as much intelligence, and more real courtesy and kindness, than you
will encounter half the world over.” At this moment my neighbour to
the left, a punchy, good-humoured-looking little fellow, with a very
large beard and moustache, which covered most of his face, and who had
evidently overheard the conversation, said, in English:

“You not remember me? You blow out your eyes with gunpowder upon the
banks of the Neiden. What a malheur it was! Lucky you did not be blind.
I am Mr. ----, the doctor at Vadsö. We went, you know, on a pic-nic
up the Varanger Fjord. Count R----, the bear-shooter, who was such a
tippler, was one of the party.”

“Opvarter (waiter), bring me a bottle of port, first quality, strax
(directly),” said I, remembering the little gentleman perfectly well,
and how kindly he and his companions had on that occasion drunk skall
to the Englishman, and made me partake of the flowing bowl. We had a
long chat, and presently he introduced me to his wife; who, I found,
was, like himself, a Dane. They were journeying to their native
country, after several years’ absence.

“What are those Roman Catholics doing up in Finmark?” said I.

“The people hardly know yet what to make of them,” he replied. “The
supposition generally is, no doubt, that they wish to convert the Fins.
But I don’t think so. They are aiming at higher game.”

“How so?”

“Russia!--That’s their object. They can’t get into that country itself.
But a vast quantity of Russians are continually passing and repassing
between the nearest part of Russia and Finmark. And they will try to
indoctrinate them. Their _point d’appui_ is most dexterously selected.
There is no lack of funds, I assure you. They have settled on an estate
at Alten, which they have bought.”

“And so clever and agreeable they are,” put in the Dane’s lady. “Mr.
Bernard especially. He has a wonderfully winning manner about him.”

“The chief of the mission,” continued the doctor, “is M. Etienne, a
Russian by birth, whose real name is Djunkovsky, and who has become a
convert from the Greek faith. He is styled M. le Préfet Apostolique des
Missions Polàires du Nord, de l’Amerique, &c.; and proposes, he says,
to operate hereafter on parts of North America. On St. Olaf’s day, he
invited forty of the most respectable people in the neighbourhood to a
banquet, and, in a speech which he made, said that the Norsk religion
had much similarity with the Roman Catholic; and that Saint Olaf was
the greatest of Norsk kings. Still, I think they have higher game in
view than Norway.”

A master-stroke of policy, thought I. The Propaganda will have
surpassed itself if it should succeed in setting these people thinking.
The children of the autocrat will cast off their leading-strings yet;
and the strife between the Latin and Greek Church rage, not between the
monks at the Holy City, but in the heart of holy Russia.

At this pause in the conversation, the Frenchman, who did not seem a
whit disconcerted at his former _faux pas_, recommenced his criticisms.
The fare, and the doings on board generally, evidently did not jump
with his humour. “What is this composition?” he inquired of the
steward. “Miös-Ost?” (a sort of goat’s-milk cheese, the size and shape
of a brick, and the colour of hare-soup). “It’s very sweet,” observed
the Frenchman, sarcastically; “is there any sugar in it?”

“No!” thundered the captain, who did not seem to relish these
strictures. “No. It’s made of good Norsk milk, and that is so sweet
that no sugar is required.”

This remark had the effect of making the Gaul look small, and he gulped
down any further satire that he might have had on his tongue.

I heard, by-the-bye, an amusing anecdote of these cheeses. They are
considered a delicacy in Norway; and a merchant of Christiania sent
one as a present to a friend in England. The British custom-house
authorities took it for a lump of diachylon, and charged it
accordingly, as drugs, a great deal more than it was worth.

As we sail through the Great Belt, the mast-tops of a wrecked vessel
appear sticking out of the water near the lighthouse of Lessö. It
has been a case of collision, that dreadful species of accident that
threatens to be more fatal to modern navies than storms and tempests.
In this case, the schooner seemed determined to run against something,
so she actually ran against the lighthouse, in a still night, and when
the light was plain to see. The concussion was so great, that the
vessel sank a few yards off, with some of her crew. The lighthouse rock
is in _statu quo_.

    Run your head against a wall,
    It will neither break nor fall.

On board was Mr. D----, a chamberlain at the Court of Stockholm. This
gay gentleman professed to be terribly smitten by the charms of a
Danish lady, and wished very much to know whether she was married.
I heard that she was, but she apparently desired to relieve the
monotony of the voyage by a little flirtation, and kept her secret. On
awaking from a nap on one of the sofas, a friend informed me that the
chamberlain, whom I saw sketching a dozing passenger, had done the like
by me. I quietly got out my sketch-book, and took him off as quickly
as possible. Happening to look my way, he saw what was going on, and
sprang up, as if shot. “Those who live in glass houses,” &c. I begged
him to look at the caricature I had made;--eyes staring out of head,
hair brushed up, &c. This counterfeit presentment seemed to strike him
all of a heap; he shut up his sketch-book, and walked out of the cabin;
while a Swedish Countess, very young and pretty, who had been smoking
a very strong cigar on deck, and had to abide the consequences of her
rashness, came downstairs, and took refuge in the ladies’ apartment.

END OF VOL. I.




FOOTNOTES


[1] See Lempriere’s _Classical Dictionary_.

[2] His application has been refused.

[3] Since the above was written, we find that the plot is thickening.
Archdeacon Brun, of Norderhoug, insists on all communicants being
examined by him previously to being admitted to the rite; while, at
Sarpsborg, there has been a meeting to discuss the sin of eating the
blood of animals, and the possibility of holiness free from sin in this
life.

[4] Their days always began with the sunset of the day before. Our
fortnight and se’night are lingering reminiscences of this old Norsk
method of calculation by nights instead of days.

[5] In the original, kinn = cheek.

[6] (See _Oxonian in Norway_, second edition, p. 170.) Close to this
desolate spot lives the möller-gut (miller’s lad) as he is called,
whose real name is Tarjei Augaardson. This man is a famous fiddler.
His countryman, Ole Bull, hearing of his musical talents, sent for
him, and he often played in public at Christiania and Bergen. He now
only exercises his talents at bryllups (weddings), receiving at times
ten dollars and upwards, which are chiefly contributed by the guests.
With the money earned by him in the capital he bought a farm in this
desolate spot; but he seems but ill-adapted for the bonder’s life, and
is much in debt. Could not he emulate Orpheus, and set some of these
rocks dancing off which now encumber the land?

[7] “Yea” and “nay,” in Wiclif’s time, and a good deal later, were the
answers to questions framed in the affirmative. “Will he come?” To this
would have been replied “yea” and “nay,” as the case might be. But
“Will he not come?” To this the answer would have been “yes” or “no.”
Sir T. More finds fault with Tyndal that in his translation of the
Bible he had not observed this distinction, which was evidently going
out even then,--that is, in the reign of Henry VIII.; and, shortly
after, it was quite forgotten.--TRENCH’S _Study of Words_.

[8] “Under circumstances of most privation I found no comfort
so welcome as tea. We drank immoderately of it, and always with
advantage.”--_Dr. Kane’s Arctic Voyage._

[9] The greatest height at which grouse have been seen was by
Schlagentweit in the Himalaya, 11,000 feet above the sea.

[10] Many of these stones are so nicely balanced, that they may
be moved without losing their equilibrium. Hence they are called
Rokke-steene (rocking-stones). Formerly they were looked upon as
ancient funereal monuments, like similar upright stones in Great
Britain and elsewhere. Lieut. Mawry, who overturned the Logan stone,
and was forced to set it up again at his own expense, might indulge his
peculiar tastes with impunity in this country.

[11]

    Anton Shiel he loves not me,
    For I gat two drifts of his sheep.
                              _Border Ballad._

[12] Tordenskiold was a renowned admiral. According to tradition, he
never would have a man on board his ship who would not stand up at a
few paces with outstretched arm, and a silver coin in his fingers, and
let him have a shot at it. The Norwegian still considers it an honour
to trace his descent from one who served under Tordenskiold.

[13] It begins thus--

    Lord of the North is Harald Haarfager,
      Petty kings all from their kingdoms he hurls,
    “Bloody axe” Erik for tyranny banished
      After becomes one of England’s proud Earls, &c.

[14] Ordinarily on the high roads these animals are unshod, and yet
seem to take no damage from the want of this defence. One is reminded
of the text--“Their horses’ hoofs shall be counted like flint.” The
shoe of the mountain horses is usually fastened on with four prodigious
nails.

[15] The following is the printed tariff of charges at these places. It
is fixed by the Voged of the district:

                                      skill.  _d._
    “Bed with warm room                 24 = 10 English.
      ”   ”   cold room                 16
    Contor (_i.e._ large) cup of coffee  8
    Small cup of coffee                  4
    Large cup of tea                     6
    Small ditto                          3
    Warm breakfast                      20
    Warm dinner                         24
    Bed for single folk                  2
    Eggedosis (glass of egg-flip)       10
    Bottle of red wine                  48

N.B.--Servants nothing, but if a traveller stops in cold room for half
an hour without taking any refreshment, he must pay 4 skill, or if in
a warm one, 8 skill.” It must be observed that the latter charges are
never enforced, and that in some districts a bed is only 12 skill, and
a cup of coffee 5 skill.

[16] Emerson.

[17] From “kige,” to spy, still extant in the Scottish word “to keek.”

[18] To life also sometimes. Thus, King Ormud was overwhelmed, Snorro
tells us, by a rush of stones and mud caused by rain after snow.

[19] The famous Oldenburg horn was, according to Danish tradition,
given by a mountain sprite to Count Otto of Oldenburg.

[20] The robber chief, Kombaldos, in Chinese Tartary, is related by
Atkinson to have entertained a similar idea.

[21] In the Isle of Man, so long occupied by Norwegians, we find a
similar legend. At the good woman’s second accouchement, Waldron
relates, a noise was heard in the cow-house, which drew thither the
whole assistants. They returned, on finding that all was right among
the cattle, and lo! the second child had been carried from the bed, and
dropped in a lane.

[22] Faye, Norske Folkesagn.

[23] I have not succeeded in obtaining any satisfactory information
about this plant.




                   NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION, REVISED.

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                        THE OXONIAN IN NORWAY;
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                    BY THE REV. F. METCALFE, M.A.,
                      Fellow of Lincoln College.

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                     13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.

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Mottoes alphabetically arranged and translated.

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End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Oxonian in Thelemarken, volume 1
(of 2), by Frederick Metcalfe

*** 