{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_45588/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_45588","id":"gutenberg_45588","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/45588","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Short Stories","Readers -- Geography","Scandinavia -- Juvenile literature"],"text":"NEAR THE TOP OF THE WORLD\n\n           [Illustration: STORIES OF NORWAY SWEDEN & DENMARK]\n\n                                   By\n\n                             Nelle E. Moore\n\n\n                        CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS\n\n                NEW YORK    CHICAGO    BOSTON    ATLANTA\n                        SAN FRANCISCO    DALLAS\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                          COPYRIGHT, 1936, BY\n                        CHARLES SCRIBNER\u2019S SONS\n\n                Printed in the United States of America\n\n               All rights reserved. No part of this book\n                 may be reproduced in any form without\n               the permission of Charles Scribner\u2019s Sons\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                                Foreword\n\nThis book is intended to encourage a friendly attitude towards people of\nother lands. Fast steamers, airplanes, and the radio have made the\npeople of all lands neighbors, and American boys and girls must become\nbetter acquainted with their neighbors across the seas if they are to\nunderstand and appreciate them. Through material such as is given in\nNear the Top of the World, children may come to know interesting and\nlikable people of another country, and to regard them as people like\nthemselves, not as queer or amusing.\n\nThe author traveled widely in Scandinavia for the purpose of gathering\nmaterial. She watched the people, especially the children, at work and\nplay. She visited homes, schools, libraries, farms, saeters, Lapp\nsettlements. She talked with teachers, librarians, and other citizens of\nNorway, Sweden, and Denmark, and they assisted her generously in seeing\nand interpreting life in their lands.\n\nThe pictures which illustrate the stories are photographs, some of them\ntaken by the author. For other pictures she is grateful to the\nAmerican-Swedish News Exchange, New York, the Norwegian Government\nRailway, New York, and the Danish Government Railway, New York.\n\nThe vocabulary is simple and although the book was written for no\nspecific grade, the sentence structure has been adapted to third grade\nreading. The stories were tested in third grade classrooms and revised\nto remove any difficulties that were encountered. The vocabulary was\nchecked with the Gates Word List and the Thorndike Word List with the\nfollowing results: 74 per cent of the words in the random sampling fall\nin the Gates 1500 list; 84 per cent in Thorndike\u2019s first 2000 list, 90\nper cent in Thorndike\u2019s first 3000 list, and 94 per cent in Thorndike\u2019s\nfirst 5000 list. Very few unusual words have been used.\n\nThe material has numerous possibilities for classroom use:\n\n                     (a) As a Social Science Reader\n\nThe book will be of special service to teachers seeking material for\nunits of study on other lands for social science classes. Curriculum\nmakers for elementary schools have set up such units to break away from\nthe more formal units of geography and history, but have found their\nattempts to be only partially successful because of the dearth of\nsuitable reading material to put into the hands of the pupils.\n\n                   (b) As Supplementary to Geography\n\nSchools having separate courses in geography will find Near the Top of\nthe World a valuable supplementary reader. From the story Greeting a\nStrange Sun to the story Planting of the Flag of Norway at the Bottom of\nthe Earth, there are experiences to help children interpret how people\nmake their ways of living fit the land in which they live.\n\n                    (c) As Supplementary to History\n\nIn the folklore, the Viking tales, the descriptions of castles and\nopen-air museums, the readers of Near the Top of the World see history\nas the background for the present-day life of Norway, Sweden, and\nDenmark.\n\n                      (d) For Recreational Reading\n\nBoys and girls, always interested in children of other lands, will find\nthe book one to read just for fun. It will be especially liked by the\nchildren in America who are of Scandinavian origin or who have relatives\nin the Scandinavian countries.\n\nIn whatever way the book is used, the readers cannot fail to make\ninteresting discoveries about the Scandinavian countries that have so\ngenerously contributed to American citizenship.\n\n                                                              THE AUTHOR\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                                Contents\n\n         NEAR THE TOP OF THE WORLD\n         GREETING A STRANGE SUN\n         ON THE SEAS OF THE FAR NORTH\n         FISHING ISLANDS\n         THE GIANTS OF THE NORTH LANDS\n         IN THE LAND OF EVERGREEN TREES\n         HOW THE MOUNTAIN WAS CLOTHED\n         REINDEER LAND\n         THROUGH FARM LANDS OF NORWAY\n         IN THE HIGH PASTURES\n         ON THE FLAT FARM LANDS OF DENMARK\n         A TELLER OF TALES\n         A CITY IN THE MIDST OF SEVEN MOUNTAINS\n         IN A CITY BUILT ON ISLANDS\n         THE CHILDREN OF THE NORTH CELEBRATE\n         WINTER SPORTS IN THE NORTH LAND\n         AT SCHOOL IN THE FAR NORTH\n         IN AN OPEN-AIR MUSEUM\n         A TALE OF A WANDERING STORY-TELLER\n         BURIED TREASURES OF THE OLD SEA KINGS\n         TALES OF THE OLD SEA KINGS\n         IVAR, A VIKING BOY\n         PLANTING THE FLAG OF NORWAY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE EARTH\n         BOOKS TO READ\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                             Illustrations\n\n      The top of the world\n      Map of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark\n      How the sun seems to move around the horizon\n      This tree is farther north than any other tree in the world\n      The North Cape and the midnight sun\n      Lars and Kari on the deck of the ship\n      Birds frightened by the boat\n      Fish hung on poles to dry\n      The fishing boat had a good catch\n      Fredrik\n      Walking on a glacier\n      A Norwegian Fjord\n      Evergreen trees in winter\n      Men with poles keep the logs moving\n      Lapps traveling with reindeer\n      A Lapp hut\n      Children in a Lapp school\n      A two-wheeled buggy or cariole\n      A fence loaded with grass\n      A Norwegian farm\n      Lonely little huts in the mountains\n      A Norwegian saeter\n      Matti, Ingrid, and Ole\n      A farmhouse with a thatched roof\n      A Danish egg\n      An old town in Denmark\n      A co-operative dairy farm\n      The birthplace of Hans Andersen\n      Paper cutting done by Hans Andersen\n      Dolls dressed like the characters in Andersen\u2019s stories\n      Statue of Hans Christian Andersen\n      The city of Bergen\n      The city of Stockholm\n      One of the small summer homes\n      The boys with their rafts\n      Changing the guard in front of the royal castle\n      Christmas brings skis for old and young\n      Dancing around the Maypole\n      Swedish children in national costume\n      Olaf\u2019s little sister\n      In both Norway and Sweden school children learn to ski\n      A ski jumper\n      Sail skating\n      Sleds on the ice\n      The first day of school\n      Swedish boys in school\n      Harold\u2019s time plan\n      Norwegian children celebrating Independence Day\n      A seventh-grade time plan\n      Martha and Nils picking berries\n      Nils helping to repair the roof\n      Nils helping the boys to build a boat\n      A swimming contest in Copenhagen\n      A room in an open-air museum\n      Another room in an open-air museum\n      Folk dancing at a museum\n      The Viking ship as it was found\n      A Viking ship rebuilt\n      Captain Andersen\u2019s ship, Viking, leaving Oslo\n      An old rock picture of a Viking ship\n      Treasures of the old sea-kings\n      Amundsen\u2019s equipment, now in a museum\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                 STORIES OF NORWAY, SWEDEN AND DENMARK\n\n\n                       Near the Top of the World\n\n\nChildren of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark live near the top of the world.\nSome of them dance round the Yule tree on a day as dark as night and\nround the Maypole on a night as light as day!\n\nOn the map of the top of the world on the next page you can find their\nlands.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nKari and Lars live near the top of Norway. They travel by boat. They see\nthe fishing boats and the birds that roost on the rocky walls near the\nsea.\n\nThe little Lapp girl and her dog also live in that land far to the\nnorth. But to them it is the land of the reindeer. They wander from\nplace to place. They live in tents or rude huts wherever the reindeer\nfind food.\n\nOlaf of Norway and Gerda of Sweden live farther to the south of those\nlands. To them in winter their land is a land of skis. And to many girls\nand boys Norway and Sweden in winter is a land of Christmas trees.\n\nHarold lives in America, but he knows the lands near the top of the\nworld. His grandmother lives in Norway and his cousin lives in Sweden.\nTo Harold those lands make many a storybook tale come true. When he\nvisited them he saw the old Viking boats which were like the boat in\nwhich Leif Ericsson sailed to America so long ago. He saw castles where\nboys long ago were dubbed knights.\n\n[Illustration: ON THIS MAP YOU WILL FIND KARI, LARS, OLAF, GERDA, AND\nOTHER CHILDREN OF THE NORTH LANDS]\n\nChristian lives on the flat lands of Denmark. Denmark was the home of\nthe great story-teller, Hans Christian Andersen.\n\nBut now turn the pages of this book and let these children, and many\nothers too, tell you stories from that land near the top of the world.\n\n\n\n\n                         Greeting a Strange Sun\n\n\nAbout noon, one day late in January, a group of school children dressed\nin warm coats, caps, and mittens stood in the snow eagerly waiting for\nsomething. Suddenly one of the big boys pulled a rope that sent the flag\nto the top of its pole. There it waved a greeting as over the edge of\nthe earth peeped the sun!\n\nWhile the children watched, the rim of gold became half a round ball.\nThen it began to drop and in an hour no part of that ball could be seen\nin the sky.\n\nThose children live in a town near the top of the world. Weeks and weeks\nhad passed since they had seen the sun. About the time that American\nchildren were having Thanksgiving the sun had dropped from sight. There\nwas no sunshine in that northern town on Christmas day. The children\nwent to school through cold dark streets lighted by electricity. Then\ncame days when there was a pale light in the sky, like the dawn that\ncomes just before the sun rises. At last came that day in January when\nthe sun appeared. No wonder the flag was raised to greet him!\n\nAs those children greeted the big shining ball they knew that now they\nwould see the sun in the sky for months. Each day it would stay a little\nlonger.\n\nTime went on. One day about the middle of May the children saw the sun\nin the east early in the morning not to set again for weeks and weeks.\nEach day it seemed to move around the sky in a big circle near the\nground. To girls and boys who live in the far north of Norway and Sweden\nthe sun seems to go _around_ their homes, not _over_ them from east to\nwest as we see it. The picture of the midnight sun shows just how the\nsun seems to move around low in the sky. Of course, as you know, the\nearth is really moving around the sun.\n\nFor many weeks the children had sunshine while they worked and while\nthey played. No longer did they have to work in their schoolrooms by\nelectric light. They ate their breakfasts, dinners, and suppers while\nthe sun shone. They even had sunshine while they slept, sunshine all\nthrough the night. The sun did not set again until late in July. And in\nJuly the sun was gone from the sky only a few hours each night.\n\n[Illustration: THIS PICTURE SHOWS HOW THE SUN SEEMS TO MOVE AROUND THE\nHORIZON\nAn exposure was made every 20 minutes without\nchanging the position of the camera.]\n\nDay after day the sun was gone for a little longer time until one day in\nNovember it set again not to return until the next January.\n\nHammerfest, the town in which those children live, is in Norway. It is\nfarther north than any other town in the world. It is a small town with\nonly about six hundred homes.\n\nThe homes in Hammerfest are built of wood. Many of them are not painted\nand the wood has turned dark brown from the weather. Other homes are\npainted white, light green, pink, and blue. These colored houses are\npretty with their roofs of red tile.\n\nThe streets are narrow and look very bare without trees, and few trees\ncan grow in the cold of the far north. Hammerfest has a park with a\nhalf-dozen or more trees and just outside the town stands a lone\ntree\u2014the most northern tree in the world. The school children are proud\nof those few trees even though they are no larger than shrubs. They\npoint them out to the visitors who come to their town.\n\n[Illustration: THIS TREE IS FARTHER NORTH THAN ANY OTHER TREE IN THE\nWORLD]\n\nHammerfest faces the sea. The girls and boys of Hammerfest hurry to meet\nthe ships that stop on their shores. They look to see what flag each\nship flies. When they see the flag of a ship they are sure to know from\nwhat country it comes. They see ships with Swedish flags, ships with\nDanish flags, ships with Dutch flags, ships with English flags, ships\nwith American flags, and many other ships with other flags. The boys\nlike to watch ships unload coal, machinery, grain, and foodstuffs; and\nto watch other ships being loaded with fish, cod-liver oil, and hides.\n\n[Illustration: THE NORTH CAPE AND THE MIDNIGHT SUN]\n\nBoth the boys and the girls like to go aboard the passenger ships that\nvisit their port. Sometimes they try to talk to the passengers. They\nhear many strange languages\u2014English, Dutch, French, German, and\nItalian. They see people from many different countries\u2014England,\nScotland, America, Holland, France, Germany, and Italy. People from\nalmost all over the world stop at Hammerfest on the large steamers which\ncarry them to the very top of Norway to a big rock that sticks out into\nthe Arctic Ocean. That rock called the North Cape is less than one\nhundred miles from Hammerfest. Many, many people visit the North Cape\neach summer at the time when the sun shines there at midnight.\n\nDuring the summer the girls and boys play along the shores of the Arctic\nOcean. Often they find wood that has been carried in by the waves. We\ncall such wood driftwood. When the cool evenings come driftwood is fine\nfor burning in open fireplaces. One day some of the boys found pieces of\nstrange wood and bark. An old sailor told them that those pieces were\nfrom the great palm trees which grow far to the south where the sun\nshines all the year round. It had been carried to them by the warm\nstream of water which also keeps their shores from freezing even in the\ncold winters.\n\nVisitors who walk along the streets of that town far to the north get a\nstrong smell of cod-liver oil. Hammerfest has a big factory where men\nmake cod-liver oil. They take the livers from codfish and press them to\nget the oil. Then they put the oil in large barrels ready for ships to\ncarry it away to other parts of Norway and to countries far away. Many\ngirls and boys in America have tasted cod-liver oil from Hammerfest, as\nmuch of it is sold in our country.\n\nMany of the children of Hammerfest have never seen a street-car nor a\ntrain. But they have electric lights in their homes and on their\nstreets. Their town is too small to need street-cars and, because of the\nmountains and the great distances between the towns, no railroads have\nbeen built in that land so far north. But those children get their mail\nand packages from boats. They travel by boats too. Their boats come all\nthe year round as regularly as trains in towns on the railroads.\n\nPerhaps some children will think, \u201cBut surely ships cannot visit those\nnorthern shores in the winter when the sun is gone from the sky. The\nwaters must be frozen.\u201d But they are wrong about the northern lands near\nthe sea. Ships come and go all the year round. Those waters are never\nfrozen.\n\nThose northern shores are warmed in a strange way. South of the United\nStates of America is a body of water called the Gulf of Mexico. That\nbody of water lies at a place on the earth where it gets warm sunshine\nall the year round. The water is always very warm. It is that warm water\nwhich keeps the land near the top of the earth warm.\n\nThe Gulf of Mexico seems to act in a way similar to a tank in the\nbasement of a large house which sends water to heat the rooms far from\nthe basement. A stream of warm water from that warm gulf is carried\nthousands of miles across the ocean to the shores of this northland.\nThis is called the Gulf Stream. And the Gulf Stream keeps those shores\nwarm enough for people to live there comfortably even during the months\nwhen no sun shines.\n\nSome people who have traveled in many parts of the world have visited\nthis town farther north than any other town in the world. Some of them\nsay, \u201cHammerfest is not only the town which lies farthest north; it is\nalso unlike any other town in the world.\u201d And perhaps that is what the\nreaders of this book are thinking too.\n\n\n\n\n                      On the Seas of the Far North\n\n\nClang! Clang! sounded the bell of the boat. Lars and Kari hurriedly said\ngood-bye to father and mother and ran over the narrow plank to the boat.\n\nLars and Kari live in Hammerfest. They were going to visit their\ngrandmother who lives about a two-days\u2019 ride to the south of their home.\n\nSoon their bags were put into the cabins where they would sleep that\nnight and they were on the deck waving their hands to their parents.\nThen in big comfortable chairs, they sat on the deck. It was August and\nthe air was cool and pleasant.\n\nLars liked best to watch the boatmen do their work, but Kari wanted to\nsee the land they passed. You might think that Kari could see land only\nto the left, for on the left is the coast of Norway, and surely there is\nonly water on the right toward the sea. But much of the time Kari saw\nland on both sides. Sometimes, though, the land on the right was only\nhuge rocks in the water, or small spots of land with water all around\nthem where only birds live. But part of the way the pieces of land on\nthe right were so large that Kari could not see the ends of them. They\nwere only small islands with water all around them too. Lars and Kari\nwere going to an island. Their grandmother lived in a town built on an\nisland off the coast of Norway.\n\n[Illustration: LARS AND KARI ON THE DECK OF THE SHIP]\n\nFor a long time both Lars and Kari watched the coast of Norway on their\nleft. For miles and miles they saw rolling banks of earth covered with\nshrubs of birch not even as tall as the one-story houses along the coast\nwhich were the homes of fishermen.\n\nSoon they heard the whistle of the boat. Lars said that the whistle was\nblowing because they were coming to a town. They ran to the other side\nof the boat. By that time the boat was stopping, but it was still out in\nthe water some distance from the town. A rowboat was coming from the\ntown to meet the boat. The rowboat was bringing mail and packages for\nthe large boat, and it would take back to shore the mail, packages, and\npassengers.\n\nLars and Kari had plenty of time to see the town. It was a fishing town.\nFish were hanging on lines all along the bank, and more fish were\nstretched upon the ground to dry in the sun. The captain told Lars that\nthe fish were herring. Perhaps some of the boxes that were loaded on the\nboat were boxes of herring which would be sent to America, for American\nmerchants buy a great deal of herring from Norway.\n\nThe boat had not gone far from the fishing town when Lars saw a fishing\nboat. He called to Kari and together they leaned over the rail of their\nboat to watch the fishermen. They had never seen so many fish before.\nBut they were soon watching the large gulls that flew along after the\nfishing boat. Some of the birds left the fishing boat and followed their\nboat. The gulls came so close that Kari almost touched one as it floated\nalong right over her head.\n\nKari told the captain about the gulls that evening when they were eating\nsupper in the dining room on the boat. The captain said, \u201cDuring the\nnight the boat will pass a mountain where thousands and thousands of\nbirds roost on the rocks.\u201d\n\n\u201cCan we see the birds from the boat?\u201d asked Lars.\n\n\u201cYou could see them,\u201d replied the captain, \u201cif you were awake, but the\nboat will pass that rock at three o\u2019clock in the morning. You will be\nsound asleep.\u201d\n\nBut Lars and Kari begged so hard that the captain promised to have them\ncalled when the boat was near the bird roost.\n\nLars and Kari didn\u2019t want to go to bed that night. They watched the sun\non the mountain peaks of the islands to their right and then back of\nthem to the north. At ten o\u2019clock the sun was still sending a glowing\nlight over the water. The captain said that it would shine until about\neleven that night. But Kari thought that they should go to bed at ten\no\u2019clock so that they could get a good sleep before three o\u2019clock.\n\nAt three o\u2019clock the steward of the boat knocked at the cabin door. Lars\nand Kari jumped up quickly. Each one pulled on warm stockings and shoes\nand coat and cap. They hurried to the deck. The sun was shining brightly\nagain; in fact it had risen two hours earlier.\n\n[Illustration: BIRDS FRIGHTENED BY THE BOAT]\n\nSuddenly the boat moved close to a rocky wall. Such a screaming of bird\ncries! There on the rocks were so many, many birds that they never could\nhave counted them. And many more, frightened by the boat, were flying\nabout in the air crying wildly.\n\nLars and Kari were delighted to have seen the thousands of birds at\ntheir resting place on the rocks, but they were glad to go back to bed,\neven though the sun was so high in the sky. And they slept until eight\no\u2019clock too.\n\nBefore noon they reached the island where their grandmother lived. A\nboat came from the shore to meet them. They said good-bye to the captain\nand the other workers on the boat and went to the shore where their\ngrandmother was waiting for them.\n\n\n\n\n                            Fishing Islands\n\n\nLars stayed on the island with his grandmother that winter. He went to a\nlarger and better school than the one in Hammerfest.\n\nAt first Lars thought, \u201cHow lonely I shall be when the days are short\nand the nights are long.\u201d To his surprise he found that the days with\nlittle sunshine were the busiest days on the islands. Lars was on one of\nthe Lofoten islands where thousands of fishermen catch fish during the\ntime of the long nights.\n\nLate in January the fishing boats began to arrive. Before many days\nthousands of boats had come. The boats brought thousands and thousands\nof fishermen. The huts along the coast were soon opened. The quiet spots\nwere now noisy with the chugging of boats and the voices of busy people.\n\nLars soon made friends with some fisher people. One old fisherman told\nhim many things that he wanted to know about the cod, for that is the\nfish those fishermen came to Lofoten to catch.\n\n[Illustration: FISH HUNG ON POLES TO DRY]\n\nWhy did the fishermen come at this time of the year? Were there no cod\nin these waters in the summer? Those were questions Lars asked the old\nfisherman.\n\nLars learned that the cod were great travelers. They had come from the\nbig Atlantic Ocean to reach the Lofoten Islands. Great numbers of cod\nswim together. They reach those waters of the Lofoten late in January.\nBy the time the water is dark with the fish, the fishermen are ready to\nbegin their fishing.\n\nBut the waters in the Lofotens get many, many more fish than those which\ncome in from the Atlantic. It is in the waters of these islands that the\ncod mothers lay the eggs from which baby cod are hatched. And millions\nand millions of baby cod are hatched each year.\n\nLars watched some fishermen fastening a fishing line on the shore. The\nline was a strong and heavy cord. Most of the lines used by the Lofoten\nfishermen are five or six thousand feet long. The long fishing line is\nheld near the top of the water by corks which will not sink. The long\nline is taken far out to sea by the boats. The end of the long line has\na heavy weight fastened to it. That weight is dropped into the water and\nit holds the fishing line in the place that the fishermen want it. Short\nlines are fastened to each long line. The short lines have hooks upon\nthem. More than a thousand hooks are dropped into the water from each\nlong fishing line.\n\n[Illustration: THIS FISHING BOAT HAD A GOOD CATCH]\n\nSome of the fishermen use nets instead of lines. They go out in boats to\nset their nets.\n\nEach morning the fishing boats with the fishermen go out to take the\nfish off the hooks on the lines and to put more bait on the hooks, or to\nempty the fish from the nets. Lars wanted to go out in the boat with his\nfriend, but the old fisherman said that fishing was too dangerous for a\nyoung boy like Lars.\n\nThe fishing is so dangerous that the Government of Norway sends officers\nto the islands every winter to help protect the fishermen. No fishing\nboat is allowed to leave the shore to go to the lines or nets until the\nofficer gives the signal that the waters are safe. But in spite of the\nhelp of the officers many lives are lost in those waters each year.\n\nOne morning Lars saw the flag which was the signal of the officer that\nthe sea was safe for the fishing boats. Then he saw the thousands of\nboats start out to sea to look after the lines and nets. There were\nrowboats, motor boats, steamboats, and sailboats. He could see the boats\nfar off the shores for hours as the men worked to load the fish they had\ncaught.\n\nFive hundred fish is a good catch for a boat, but sometimes a boat\nbrings in a thousand cod at one haul. After a few days of fishing, fish\nare everywhere on the islands. They hang on poles along the shore. They\nlie stretched on the rocks. And everywhere is the smell of fish.\n\nLars watched the fishermen taking the livers out of the fish and boxing\nthem. He knew that many of the livers would be sent to Hammerfest where\nhe lived, and there they would be made into cod-liver oil.\n\n\n\n\n                     The Giants of the North Lands\n\n\nOnce upon a time very strong giants lived on the high mountains of the\nNorth lands. So fairy tales of the far north say. And according to those\ntales, the giants pulled up great bits of earth leaving deep hollow\nplaces between rocky walls. Water from the sea filled those hollow\nplaces, so arms of the sea ran far back into the land. And those giants\nalso tore great rocks out of the earth and tossed them at each other in\ntheir battles. So even the tops of the mountains are rough and uneven\nwith the holes they tore in the earth and huge rocks lie on the ground\nwhere they tossed them.\n\nVisitors to that part of Norway called Jotunheim, which means the \u201cHome\nof the Giants,\u201d might believe that those fairy tales were true. For they\nsee the arms of the sea running between the mountain walls and the rough\nland on top of the mountains. Surely none but giants\u2019 hands could have\ntorn the land into such shapes!\n\n[Illustration: FREDRIK]\n\nBut when they go to the tops of the mountains, they see some _real\ngiants_ like those which, long, long ago, did cut the land of Norway and\nSweden and Denmark into strange forms. Those giants are sheets of ice.\nWe call them glaciers. Before travelers in the mountains get near the\nlarge ice-sheets, they see tongues of glaciers which look like rivers of\nice running down the side of the mountain.\n\nFredrik is a Norwegian boy who helps many travelers see a glacier. His\nfather drives an automobile for a large hotel in the mountains. He takes\nthe guests from the hotel to see the glacier. When Fredrik is not in\nschool, he goes with his father. Fredrik opens the many gates. For the\ncar must travel through lands which belong to different farmers. The\ngates must be kept shut so that the cattle will not stray away from\ntheir own land.\n\nFredrik often tells the visitors what caused those rivers of ice. Snow\nand sleet fell on the mountains. The cold on the high peaks kept the\nsnow from melting away, so year after year the snow gathered there. The\nload of snow became heavier and heavier. The snow melted a little, then\nfroze again, until it formed a great ice sheet which we call a glacier.\n\nSome of the ice moved slowly down the mountain side. It formed the\nrivers of ice which the travelers see on the mountain slopes. But as the\nrivers of ice got lower down the mountain, the ice melted, but it melted\nvery, very slowly. Little by little, only a few inches a year, the river\nof ice has moved back. As the ice moved down the slopes it carried under\nit big rocks and fine gravel. Great heaps of the rock and gravel are\nleft behind when the ice melts. From those rocks men can tell just how\nfar the ice moves back each year.\n\n[Illustration: WALKING ON A GLACIER]\n\nSometimes the ice melts in such a way that a cave is formed in the ice.\nAs the sun shines on the thin walls around the cave the colors on the\nice are very beautiful. The ice looks green, purple, and blue instead of\nwhite like the rest of the glacier. Some bits of the ice hang down, or\nstick up, like great icicles. The icicles too are bright colors in the\nsunshine.\n\nSometimes visitors to the glacier go into the cave or walk about on the\nice. They do not stay long, for the ice cracks and pops and makes a\ngreat deal of noise. The visitors are always told that pieces of ice\noften break off the glacier and come sliding down.\n\nFredrik has been up to the top where the great ice-sheet lies for miles,\nand miles, and miles. You may be sure that Fredrik was not alone on the\nglacier. He went with a guide who knew where all the cracks in the ice\nare. Walking on a glacier is dangerous for a person who does not know\nthe ice. The ice is most dangerous when soft snow covers the deep cracks\nin the ice. Then a traveler may step on some soft snow and drop several\nfeet into the ice. But travelers say that a walk on a glacier is great\nsport for people who have learned how to walk there. Many travelers from\ndifferent parts of the world go to Norway to climb glaciers.\n\nFreezing and thawing made the rocks on the mountain crack and break. So\nafter the glaciers passed, the low places between the mountains were cut\ndeeper. Water from the sea came in to fill those low places and make the\nfjords.\n\n[Illustration: A NORWEGIAN FJORD]\n\nSo the great ice sheets were the _real_ giants that made the sharp peaks\nof the mountains, the waterways, and the lakes of the north land.\n\nOf course, much of the snow which falls on the mountains does melt and\nrun off in streams. Sometimes the rivers flow rapidly down steep slopes.\nSometimes the water tumbles over a high rocky bank and falls hundreds of\nfeet to land below.\n\nThe people of the north lands have put some of the falls to work. For\nyears the falling water has turned wheels that have run mills to grind\ngrain and to saw logs. But now the water of some of the great falls has\nbeen turned into electricity. High in the mountains are large houses\nwhere the water is made into the new power. From the power-houses\nelectricity is sent for miles and miles to light homes and to run\nmachines in factories. Norway has no coal. The Norwegians turn the water\ninto heat and power such as coal makes. Sometimes people in Norway call\nthe waterfalls their \u201cwhite coal.\u201d So waterfalls are also mountain\ngiants.\n\nPeople who visit Norway and its mountains are almost sure to come away\nbelieving in giants\u2014but not _fairy-tale giants_.\n\n\n\n\n                     In the Land of Evergreen Trees\n\n\nNear the Christmas season the mountain forests of Norway and Sweden\nbecome a fairyland of ice and snow. Then the forest rings with the\nsounds of voices and the blows of the axes of boys cutting trees that\nwill be decorated for the Yule-tide feasts in their homes. And thousands\nand thousands of pretty little trees are cut at that time of the year.\n\nEric and Hubert are Swedish boys who live in that land of evergreen\ntrees. Their father owns a farm in the northern part of Sweden, but he\nworks nearly all the year round in the forests. Eric, who is twelve\nyears old, often helps his father in the forest. Hubert is only nine,\nand too young to work with the trees; but he goes with his father and\nEric many times to play about in the woods and to watch the others at\ntheir work.\n\nDuring the winter the men cut down the big trees and saw them into logs\nwhich are easy to handle. Then Eric helps stack the logs as they fall\nfrom the saws.\n\nBut when spring comes Eric is one of the busiest workmen. The strong\nwoodcutters load big logs on to sleds to be hauled to the river bank a\nmile away. Eric drives the horse which hauls his father\u2019s logs to the\nriver. Often Hubert rides with Eric. The boys sit on the big logs on the\nsled as the horse pulls them along through the snow on the mountain\nroad.\n\n[Illustration: EVERGREEN TREES IN WINTER]\n\nThe logs are unloaded at the river bank. Soon the river will be flowing\nrapidly with much water from the melting snows from the mountains. Many\nfarmers will then float logs in the same stream; therefore at the river\nbank each of Eric\u2019s logs must be marked so that his father can claim\nthem at the end of the waterway. Sometimes Hubert stays by the river\nbank to watch the men who work for his father place his father\u2019s mark on\neach of the logs. The mark is the initials E. K. in a circle.\n\nThe boys enjoy seeing the logs go tumbling down the swift-flowing\nrivers. They have often stopped at a spot below where the river spreads\nout into a lake. When the logs reach that spot they stack in the water.\nMen then go along with poles to keep the logs moving. Sometimes there\nare acres and acres of logs in the lakes of Sweden at one time.\n\nThe Swedish and Norwegian people make many things of wood\u2014their ships,\ntheir houses, their furniture, their bridges, their telephone poles, and\nmany, many other things. But many of the logs which are floated down the\nriver from that mountain forest where Eric works are made into paper.\n\nEric and Hubert have been to the factory which stands near the bank of\nthe waterway which carries their logs. Thousands of men work there. They\nput the logs through a mill which grinds them into coarse fibers. Those\nshreds are then mixed with water and chemicals to make a pulp. The pulp\nis pressed under heavy rollers and dried to make sheets of\npaper\u2014newspaper, writing paper, wrapping paper, and cardboard.\n\nOne day when Hubert was lighting a fire with a safety match, his father\ntold him that the wood of the match had come from the big trees of the\nforests too. A Swedish man found the way to make safety matches. And\nSweden was the first country to make the matches that will not catch\nfire unless the head of the match is scratched on a certain kind of\nrough paper. He told Hubert, too, that safety matches from Sweden are\nused all over the world.\n\nIn the school which Eric and Hubert attend the boys are taught to plant\ntrees. And every spring they plant little trees to take the places of\nthe big trees which the woodmen have cut down.\n\nThe school boys learn that about one fourth of Norway\u2019s land and about\none half of Sweden\u2019s land are covered with trees. But they are taught\ntoo that the people can use up the supply of trees that Nature has given\nthem. So they help obey the laws of their country which require that\ntrees be planted to keep the forests from being destroyed.\n\n[Illustration: MEN WITH POLES KEEP THE LOGS MOVING]\n\n\n\n\n                      How the Mountain Was Clothed\n\n\nA Norwegian story-teller wrote a story \u201cHow the Mountain Was Clothed.\u201d\nThis is his story:\n\nThrough a deep cut between two mountains, a river hurried down over the\nrocks. The mountain walls on either side were high and steep. But one\nside of the mountain was bare. But at the foot even of this side, and so\nnear the river that it was bathed in its spray, stood a cluster of\ntrees. They gazed upward and outward, but they could not move one way or\nanother.\n\n\u201cSuppose we clothe the mountain,\u201d said the juniper to the fir.\n\nThe fir looked up at the naked mountainside and replied, \u201cIf any body is\nto do it, I suppose it will have to be we.\u201d\n\nThe fir looked over toward the birch and asked, \u201cWhat do you think,\nBirch?\u201d\n\nThe birch glanced up the bare mountainside. The wall leaned over so that\nit seemed to the birch as if it could scarcely breathe. \u201cYes, indeed,\nlet us clothe it,\u201d he said.\n\nSo the three took upon themselves the task to clothe the bare mountain.\nThat was their goal, and they soon set out to see whether they could\nreach that goal. The juniper went first.\n\nWhen they had gone but a little way, they met the heather. The juniper\nseemed to want to pass it by. \u201cNo, take it along,\u201d said the fir. So the\nheather joined them.\n\nBefore long the juniper began to slip, \u201cTake hold of me,\u201d said the\nheather. The juniper did so, and whenever the smallest crack could be\nseen, the heather put its finger into it. Wherever the heather had first\npried in a finger, the juniper put a whole hand. They crawled and crept,\nthe fir working hard, the birch always behind the rest.\n\n\u201cThis is a noble work,\u201d said the birch.\n\nThe mountain began to wonder what kind of creatures these might be that\ncame clambering up its side. And after it had thought the matter over\nfor a hundred years or two it sent a little brooklet down to find out.\nAs it happened, the brook went at the time of the spring floods. It\ncrept down till it met the heather. \u201cDear, dear heather,\u201d said the\nbrook, \u201cwon\u2019t you let me pass? I am so tiny.\u201d The heather was very busy,\nso merely raised itself a bit, and worked on. The brooklet slipped in\nunderneath and away.\n\n\u201cDear, dear juniper, won\u2019t you let me pass? I am so very little.\u201d The\njuniper eyed it severely, but since the heather had let the brook slip\nby, the juniper might do that too.\n\nThe brook raced on down the hill, and came to where the fir stood\npuffing, out of breath, on the hillside. \u201cDear, dear fir, won\u2019t you let\nme by?\u201d begged the brook, \u201cI am so very small,\u201d and kissed the fir on\nthe foot, and smiled. The fir let it by.\n\nAnd the birch made way for the brook, even before it was asked.\n\n\u201cHi, hi, hi!\u201d said the brook and grew. \u201cHa, ha, ha!\u201d said the brook and\ngrew larger. \u201cHo, ho, ho!\u201d said the brook, and tore up the heather, the\njuniper, the fir, and the birch by their roots and flung them pell mell,\nhead o\u2019er heels, down the steep slope of the mountain.\n\nThe mountain sat for several hundred years after that and smiled at the\nmemory of that day. It was plain to be seen: _The mountain did not want\nto be clothed._\n\nThe heather fretted and worried until it grew green again, and then it\nset forth once more. \u201cCourage!\u201d said the heather.\n\nThe juniper half raised itself to get a good look at the heather. So\nlong did it sit half raised that at last it sat upright. It scratched\nits head, set forth again, and dug in so hard for a foothold that it\nseemed surely the mountain must feel it. \u201cIf you won\u2019t have me, then I\nwill have you.\u201d\n\nThe fir stretched its toes a bit to see if they were all right, raised\nfirst one foot and then the other, and finally both feet at once. It\nfirst looked to see where it had climbed, next where it had been lying,\nand finally where it was to go. It then went on its way, pretending it\nhad never fallen.\n\nThe birch, which had soiled itself badly, got up and brushed itself off.\nAway they went, faster than ever, to the sides and straight up, in\nsunshine and in rain.\n\n\u201cWhat can all this mean?\u201d asked the mountain, one fair day, all\nglittering with dew, as the summer sun shone down upon it, the birds\nsang, the hare hopped about, and the woodmouse piped.\n\nThe day finally came when the heather could peep over the top with one\neye. \u201cOh dear, oh dear!\u201d said the heather, and away it went.\n\n\u201cDear me,\u201d said the juniper, \u201cwhat is it the heather sees?\u201d and just\nmanaged to reach high enough to peer over. \u201cOh dear, oh dear!\u201d it\nexclaimed and was off.\n\n\u201cWhat is it the juniper\u2019s up to today?\u201d the fir wondered, taking longer\nsteps in the heat of the sun. Before long it rose on its toes and peered\nover. \u201cOh dear, oh dear!\u201d Its branches and needles rose straight up on\nend.\n\n\u201cWhat is it all the others see and I don\u2019t?\u201d the birch asked, as it\ncarefully lifted its skirts, and tripped after them. \u201cOh\u2014oh\u2014! If there\nisn\u2019t a huge forest of fir and heather and juniper and birch already on\nthe other side of the mountain waiting for us!\u201d it exclaimed. The\nglittering dew rolled off its leaves as it quivered in the sunshine.\n\n\u201cAh, that\u2019s what it means to reach our goal!\u201d said the juniper.\n\n                                                              (Adapted.)\n\n                             \u201cBj\u00f6rnstjerne Bj\u00f6rnson,\u201d from Norway\u2019s Best\n                             Stories, published by American-Scandinavian\n                             Foundation, New York.\n\n\n\n\n                             Reindeer Land\n\n\nReindeer land! Surely the land of the far, far north in Norway and\nSweden may be called reindeer land.\n\nOne man who traveled in that land tells of a strange sight he saw there.\nOn snow ahead of him one day he saw something moving. It looked as if\nthousands of hares were playing in the snow. They seemed to jump, or\nleap, into the air and to come down in the same spot. But why should so\nmany hares be there? And why did they move so strangely? The man went\ncloser, and found that his _hares_ were reindeer tails! Yes, just tails!\nAnd thousands of them! The bodies of the reindeer were buried in the\nsnow and just the stubby tails stuck out. The reindeer had dug into the\nsnow, throwing up a bank which hid their bodies from sight. They were\neating the moss which they found under the snow and happily wagging\ntheir tails as they ate.\n\nThe reindeer are about the only animals that can get a living in those\nmountains where little grows except moss. And the people, called Lapps,\nwho roam about with them get their living from the reindeer.\n\nThe Lapps are small people. The men and women are not much taller than\nmost ten-year-old boys and girls. They have yellow skin, blue or gray\neyes, and brown hair. They dress in the skins of the animals or in\ncoarse cloth. They look very much like the Eskimos.\n\nThe word _Lapps_ means _people at land\u2019s end_. And that part of Norway\nand Sweden which lies at their very tops is called Lapland. Most of the\nLapps wander about, following the reindeer. Wherever the reindeer find\nplenty of moss, the Lapps pitch their skin tents, or build themselves a\nhut of sod covered with brush. In those huts they and their wolf-like\ndogs live until the reindeer begin to wander farther away.\n\nThe Lapps and their dogs sleep together in the huts on beds which are\nheaps of brush covered with reindeer skins. Getting ready for bed is a\nsimple task for these people. They merely take off their moccasins and\nlie down to sleep in their clothes. They wear the same clothes, too, for\nmonths and months and very seldom take a bath.\n\nA kettle of reindeer meat is always boiling over coals on rocks in the\ncenter of the hut. The Lapps get food from the kettle whenever they feel\nhungry and eat it with spoons made of reindeer horn from rude bowls or\nplates of wood or bone.\n\n[Illustration: LAPPS TRAVELING WITH REINDEER]\n\nDay and night some Lapp and his dogs watch the herd of reindeer as they\nwander on the mountains. A few reindeer are kept near the hut to furnish\nmilk for the camp.\n\nThe reindeer not only furnish the skins for clothes and covers and milk\nand meat for food, they are also the Lapps\u2019 horses. The Lapp children\nlike to go sleigh riding behind a reindeer. But sometimes the ride is\nrough. The children may be thrown out into the snow. The reindeer wears\nbut little harness, so the driver cannot hold him if he cares to run.\n\nSeveral families of Lapps go every summer from Sweden across a body of\nwater to a place in Norway where the moss on the mountains is very good.\nThe reindeer swim across the water. The Lapps go in boats and join the\nreindeer on the other side.\n\nOne Lapp family that crosses the water from Sweden has built a hut of\ntimber for its summer home in Norway. It is no larger than the skin or\nsod huts. Both the mother and the father have to stoop to enter the\nhouse. But the little Lapp girl and her dogs can run in and out easily.\n\nBut, even though the Lapps move about from place to place, the Lapp\ngirls and boys go to school. The law of Sweden requires these children\nto go to school for six years. They begin their lessons when they are\nseven years old and go to school until they are thirteen. Each\nsettlement has its own school. The schoolhouse is just another Lapp hut.\nIn the summer the children study their lessons sitting on the ground in\nfront of or in the hut. The teacher lives in the hut and moves when the\ncamp moves. Many of the teachers are Lapps who have been educated to\nteach; but some of the teachers are Swedes or Norwegians.\n\n[Illustration: A LAPP HUT]\n\nThe children must learn both the Lapp language and the Swedish language,\nif they live in Sweden. They learn both the Lapp language and the\nNorwegian, if they live in Norway. First they learn to read, write, and\nwork with numbers. After they can read and write a little, they begin\nother lessons. They learn about the plants and animals of the north\nland. They learn how to raise and care for the reindeer. They are\ntaught, too, how to care for their own bodies\u2014how to bathe, brush their\nteeth, cook their food, and clean their huts. But they do not learn\nthose lessons of cleanliness and care of the body well, because their\nmothers and fathers do not practise them in the homes. Perhaps in a few\nyears when the Lapp children grow up they will be cleaner than their\nmothers and fathers are. At least that is what the teachers hope.\n\n[Illustration: CHILDREN IN A LAPP SCHOOL]\n\nThe Lapps make trinkets of reindeer horns and bone, moccasins of the\nskins and plaited grass, and dolls dressed as Lapp children dress. When\nthe boats which carry tourists along the seas of Norway come near the\ncamp, the Lapps go to meet the boats. They carry with them bags of the\ntrinkets to sell to the people from other countries who are on the\nboats.\n\nIn Sweden many Lapps ride on the trains. Sometimes they carry boxes\nfilled with trinkets which they have made. They put them in shops that\nsell such wares to visitors in Sweden. If you rode on a train across the\nnorthern part of Sweden, you would see many Lapps, and you would see\ntheir trinkets in the shops\u2014bone letter-openers, fur moccasins, fur\nmittens, dolls dressed in fur.\n\nNot all Lapps follow the reindeer. Some of them live in one place all\nthe year and earn a living by fishing and farming. Their homes are not\nmuch better than the huts of the wandering mountain Lapps, but they\ndress much like their Norwegian and Swedish neighbors. These people are\ncalled Sea Lapps.\n\n\n\n\n                      Through Farm Lands of Norway\n\n\nAs Roald climbed into the two-wheeled buggy beside his mother and sister\nAnnie, he was too excited to speak. If only his father would let him\ndrive the pretty dun-colored horse hitched to the buggy!\n\nRoald knew little about horses. He lived in Oslo, a city in Norway. He\nhad never owned a pony of his own, and really had never visited in the\ncountry where boys ride and drive horses.\n\nEarly that spring his father had said, \u201cThis summer we will take a\nvacation and go through the farm lands of Norway.\u201d For weeks Roald\nwaited for the day when that journey could begin.\n\nThen one day in July the journey did begin. The family left Oslo by\ntrain. But to Roald the journey didn\u2019t really begin until they left the\ntrain at a small town miles from the city and climbed into that\ntwo-wheeled buggy which Norwegians called a _cariole_.\n\nThe dun-colored horse took them only a short way. For most of their\njourney was to be on small steamboats on the waterways of Norway, called\nfjords, and by automobiles on mountain roads. But Roald gladly climbed\non the boat.\n\nTheir first boat glided along narrow waterways for miles and miles\nbetween mountain walls that in some places rise almost straight up from\nthe water. Roald began to wonder whether this could be a part of\nNorway\u2019s farm land. But now and then, even in this mountainous region,\nhis father pointed out a lone farmhouse perched up on the mountainside.\n\nSoon the boat passed shores that were less steep and Roald saw stretches\nof low and rolling land between mountain peaks. He caught glimpses of\nfarms lying close together. This farm land was like the farm land he had\nseen near Oslo.\n\nRoald wondered what farmers grew in this land of mountains and water.\nBut he did not need to leave his boat to see some of the farmers\u2019\nproducts. As the boat stopped at a small town along the fjords to\ndeliver the mail and boxes of foodstuffs, boys came on deck to sell\nbaskets of fruit\u2014cherries, raspberries, blueberries, currants, and\napples.\n\n[Illustration: A TWO-WHEELED BUGGY OR CARIOLE]\n\nAfter a day on the fjords, the family traveled in an automobile. Roald\nsoon asked, \u201cWhat are those strange fences we see everywhere in the\nfields?\u201d But he needed no answer to his question, for in a few minutes\nhe saw one of those fences loaded with grass. All along the way he saw\nmen, women, and children in the fields making hay. The men cut the grass\nand the women and girls and boys helped rake it into small stacks and\nhung it on the fencelike frames to dry in the sun.\n\n[Illustration: A FENCE LOADED WITH GRASS]\n\nThey saw farmers cutting grass on slopes that are covered with rocks.\nThe farmers used scythes and hand sickles to cut around the many rocks.\nFarmers in many countries would call such rocky hillsides waste land,\nbut in Norway no blade of grass can be wasted if the cattle are to be\nwell fed during the winter.\n\nRoald looked up at one place and saw a big bundle of grass dangling in\nthe air. \u201cOh, Father, look!\u201d he cried. And his father smiled as he said,\n\u201cYou must not be surprised to see bundles moving along over your head.\nFarmers who live on the mountains send hay, baskets of berries, buckets\nof milk or butter down to the valleys on strong wires which have been\nstretched down the mountain slopes.\u201d And in a few minutes Roald saw a\nwoman hang a bundle of hay on a wire and start it sliding down to the\nbarn below.\n\nAt one place the automobile stopped for an hour. Roald and his father\ntook a walk. Back from the road were a farmhouse and the barns of a\nlarge farm. They walked along a narrow road up to the house. They saw\npeople at work in the fields. In one field a man was raking grass. He\nwas riding on a rake behind two horses. Other men were loading the grass\non a low-wheeled wagon to haul it to the barn where it would be hung on\nthe fences to dry. In another field girls were gathering potatoes which\nthe men had dug.\n\nFar back across the field was a wire pen which caught Roald\u2019s eye. At\nfirst he thought that he was looking at a chicken house. But as he\nwalked closer he saw that foxes and not chickens lived in the pen. What\ncunning foxes they were! Baby foxes lay sleeping in the sun. Other foxes\nran about the pen, jumping up on the box houses and off as they pleased.\nThe foxes had long black fur. Down the back of each fox was a stripe of\nfur tipped with white. Such animals are called silver foxes because of\nthe white tips on the black fur.\n\nAt first Roald felt sorry for the baby foxes. He imagined that they were\nunhappy and longing to be free to run away into the woods. But his\nfather said, \u201cThese foxes have never lived anywhere except in this pen.\nThey are well fed, and, no doubt, are very contented in the pen.\u201d\n\nFarmers in this northland often raise foxes for sale. The silver foxes\nare very valuable. People pay large prices for fox furs and they like\nthe pretty silver tips on them. Ships that sail from Norway to other\ncountries carry many fox pelts to those other lands.\n\nBut Roald soon forgot the foxes as he watched some boys busily working\nin another field. Rows of poles were sticking in the ground in that\nfield and bunches of grain hung on each pole. The boys were pulling up\nthe poles, turning them around, and sticking them back into the ground.\n\n[Illustration: A NORWEGIAN FARM]\n\nRoald watched them for some time. From one of the boys he learned that\ngrain in that part of Norway is usually dried on poles. By the time the\noats, barley, and rye are ripe enough to cut summer is nearly over. The\nwet fall weather begins. The grain must be dried as quickly as possible.\nStacking it in shocks on the ground would not do, for the rainy weather\nwould rot it. The farmers in Norway fasten their grain on short poles to\nhold it up off the wet ground.\n\nThe grain on one side of the poles which Roald saw had received more\nsunshine than the grain on the other side of the poles. That is why the\nboys were in the field turning the poles. They wanted all the grain on\nthe poles to dry quickly.\n\nRoald was surprised to see other boys cutting small shrubs and branches\nof trees and hanging them on fence posts to dry. What would they ever do\nwith those dry leaves? But his father told him that if he stayed on the\nfarm during the winter he would see the goats eating the dried leaves\nand liking them too. And most farmers in Norway keep goats as well as\ncows, horses, and pigs.\n\nRoald and his father and his mother and sister then rode on a bus to the\nnext town. They did not travel very fast, for the bus driver is also the\nmailman. He stopped at each farmhouse along the road for which he had\nmail. Sometimes he dropped the mail in a mail box by the side of the\nroad, but often girls or boys were waiting at the farm gate to take the\nmail. Often the driver gave a sack full of mail to a farmer or a man who\nruns a small store in a village. That man delivers mail to the families\nwho live farther back off the main road.\n\nAt one place the man who was to take a sack of mail was not outside his\nhouse to meet the bus. The driver and all the passengers on the bus were\nimpatient. The driver honked the horn of his car, but still the farmer\ndid not come. Then the bus driver went over to a post by the gate and\npushed a button. He told Roald that by pushing that button he rang an\nelectric bell at the farmhouse. So Roald was not surprised to see the\npostman come running after the bell had been rung.\n\nRoald was ready to take the train back to Oslo after a week in the\ncountry, but he talked about the farms all the rest of the summer.\n\n\n\n\n                          In the High Pastures\n\n\n                         \u201cCome, children dear,\n                         For night draws near,\n                         Come, children.\u201d\n\nDuring the summer months you might hear a Norwegian girl, high up on a\nmountain, calling her cows with such a rhyme. She would, no doubt, call\neach cow by name, just as the girl does in the old rhyme.\n\n                         \u201cCome, children all,\n                         That hear my call,\n                         Brynhilda fair,\n                         With nut-brown hair!\n                         Come, little Rose,\n                         Ere day shall close;\n\n                         And Birchen Bough,\n                         My own dear cow;\n                         And Morning Pride,\n                         And Sunny Side;\u2014\n                         Come, children dear,\n                         For night draws near,\n                         Come, children.\u201d\n\nDotted here and there far up in the mountains stand lonely little huts.\nFor months during the year, the roofs of those huts are covered with\nsnow and no smoke comes from the chimneys. But as soon as the winter\nsnows are gone and the tender green grass covers the mountain slopes,\nthe girls take the cattle to the mountains to feed on the fresh grass.\nThose girls will live in the lonely huts until the snows of the next\nwinter begin to fall on the mountains. In Norway the people call a\nfarmer\u2019s mountain pasture his saeter (say ter).\n\n[Illustration: LONELY LITTLE HUTS IN THE MOUNTAINS]\n\nSometime in June many girls start on the journey to a saeter. The girls\nlook forward to that day for weeks even though they will be very lonely\nup in the mountains. Anne and Hulda are sisters who go to a saeter each\nsummer. Anne is only fourteen years of age and Hulda is seventeen.\nSigrid, who is about the same age as Hulda, and Martha, who is much\nolder, live on a farm not far from the farm where Anne and Hulda live.\nAnne, Hulda, Sigrid, and Martha take their cows to the same saeter. So\nthe four girls live together for three months each summer.\n\nOne summer, Anne, Hulda, Sigrid, and Martha started for the saeter on\nJune 25. They live in a part of Norway that is far from a fjord or a\nrailroad, so they had to travel on foot. They did not go alone, for\nthere was too much to take to the saeter. Their older brothers went with\nthem. The girls dressed in heavy brown khaki suits and high-topped\nshoes, walked ahead with the cows, the sheep, and the goats. The boys\ncame behind them with horses loaded with food, churns, milk cans,\nbedding, and cooking vessels. At first they traveled along a main road\nand walking was easy. Only a few miles from their homes, they stopped\nfor a week at a house near the road. The cows ate the grass off the\nmountain slopes near the house, and the boys planted potatoes on a patch\non the mountainside which was level enough that crops would not be\nwashed away.\n\nAt the end of the week they again loaded the horses and started on the\nrest of their journey. To reach the high pastures, they must walk up a\nnarrow zigzag road. The small dun-colored horses climb the paths\ncarrying the bundles. What a lot of turns the road has! One mountain\npath has twenty-seven turns. Of course, the many turns make a longer\nroad than a straight one would be, but the girls are glad for the\nzigzags. They make the road less steep and they follow the smoother\npaths.\n\nBy the end of the day, the cattle reached their green pastures. And the\ngirls opened the hut which was to be their home for almost three months.\nThe hut was made of rough timber. It had a sod roof on which grew grass\nand small shrubs.\n\nThe boys helped the girls clean the hut which had been closed for so\nmany months. They unloaded the goods which the horses had carried up the\nmountain and put everything in place. In one corner of the one big room,\nthey put the churn, the milk cans, and the tools. In another corner was\na fireplace. On it they hung iron kettles on which the girls would cook\ntheir food and boil the milk to make cheese. On a table at one side of\nthe room they put the crocks for the milk and on a shelf above the\ntable, they placed the dishes. At one end of the room on wooden beds,\nthey put the mattresses of straw and warm covers which look like small\nfeather beds.\n\nThe next morning the boys set out down the mountain again. They must\nreturn to help gather the grain and cut the grass on the farm. The girls\nare left alone with the cattle.\n\nAll four of the girls got up early each morning. They milked the cows\nand the goats. After breakfast of cheese and bread and butter and milk,\nAnne and Sigrid each morning took the cattle to the pasture. While the\ncattle wandered about on the mountain eating the fresh grass, the girls\nlay in the sun or searched for wild berries\u2014blueberries, raspberries,\nand blackberries.\n\n[Illustration: A NORWEGIAN SAETER]\n\nEach evening Anne and Sigrid called the cattle. They knew each one by\nname, and perhaps some of their cows were named Rose, Birchen Bough, and\nMorning Pride like the cows in the old rhyme. They drove the herds back\nto the barns near the hut and went home for supper.\n\nHulda and Martha had supper ready. They had smoked herring, goat\u2019s\ncheese (goat\u2019s cheese is dark brown in color and tastes sweet),\npotatoes, bread, butter, milk, and fresh berries. Hulda and Martha were\nbusy all day. They took care of the milk, cleaned the house, and walked\ntwo miles to the main road to meet the postman who passes in the\nafternoon each day. One day each week they got the milk ready for the\nman who came to take it to factories where butter and cheese are made.\n\nThe girls were glad when Saturday nights came. Then some of their\nrelatives and friends came out to see them. Girls from other saeters\ncame too if they were not too far away. On these nights sometimes the\ngirls and boys sang songs and danced on the grass.\n\nOle, Kristian, and Sofie are other Norwegian girls who take cows to the\nhigh pastures. They live on a farm near a fjord. They take their cattle\npart way up to the saeter on a boat. The girls, dressed in dark dresses\nand heavy shoes, carrying big knapsacks on their backs, travel on the\nsame boat with the cows. When they leave the boat, they drive the cows a\nfew miles up the mountain. They live much as Anne, Hulda, Sigrid, and\nMartha live on their saeter. These girls can go to the village by boat\nto buy groceries.\n\nAutomobile roads have been built in some parts of the high mountains.\nTourists climb the high mountains in automobiles. Round and round they\nclimb, sometimes on a road that is like a shelf sticking out from the\nrocky wall. And here and there they may go right through the wall\nitself, for holes, or tunnels, have been cut through the rocky banks.\n\nTourists who travel through those mountains are glad to find a hotel at\na saeter on their way where they can get food or stay over night. And\nhotels have been built at saeters which are near the automobile roads.\nThe hotel is a large wooden building. It stands near the huts which are\nthe homes of the family which cares for the cattle.\n\nMatti, Ingrid, and their brother Ole go each summer to a large saeter\ncalled Grotli. Their father has a hotel there. Grotli means \u201cGoat\u2019s\nHill,\u201d and Grotli looks like a goat\u2019s hill in the summer when the goats\nrun about on the mountain.\n\n[Illustration: MATTI, INGRID, AND OLE]\n\nEarly in the spring Matti, Ingrid, and Ole, and their father and their\nmother move to Grotli. Sometimes the snow is still on the ground when\nthey arrive. Then the children may think that Grotli looks more like\nreindeer hill. A farmer, who lives near the saeter, has a herd of tame\nreindeer. They wander about on the mountain. They rub the snow out of\nthe way with their noses and eat the fresh grass and moss which they\nfind underneath.\n\nSometimes visitors in Norway ask, \u201cWhy must the cattle go so far away\nfrom the farm to the high pastures?\u201d If they ask a Norwegian milkmaid,\nshe might say, \u201cThe grass which grows on the farm must be saved for\nwinter feed. Not enough grass grows on the farm for both summer and\nwinter. Fresh, tender grass grows on the high mountains, so the cattle\neat it in the summer. Then no grass is wasted.\u201d\n\nBut the milkmaid may not know why the saeter is _so far_ away from the\nfarms. And, of course, it does seem strange to American girls and boys\nthat a farmer sends his cattle to feed in high pastures miles from his\nfarm, while in the mountains just above his own farm graze the cattle of\nanother farmer who lives miles away. Why cannot a farmer graze his\ncattle on the mountains near his home? The answer to that question is a\nstory of long, long ago in Norway.\n\nLong ago the farmers in Norway found that they must use the grass on the\nhigh mountains for summer feed. The king said, \u201cEach farmer may have a\npart of the grass lands on the high mountains for his pasture. But each\nfarmer must use only a certain amount of land and he must find a place\nwhich no other farmer has already claimed.\u201d\n\nSo each farmer hunted himself a mountain pasture. When he found a space\nwhich he liked, if it had not already been claimed, he drove stakes into\nthe ground to mark it off. He put his name on the stakes and then the\nland was his. Many farmers had to take pasture lands which were far from\ntheir farms. They could find no other free land.\n\nYears and years have passed since the days when a farmer drove stakes\nand marked off his pasture land. The farms have passed to other owners.\nPerhaps now the great-great-great-grandsons of some of the farmers live\non the farms, or some farms may have been sold to other families. But\nthe new owners of the farms are also owners of the same saeters that the\nold farmers staked off for the farm. And that is why many a farmer today\ntakes his cattle to a saeter far from his home.\n\n\n\n\n                   On the Flat Farm Lands of Denmark\n\n\nOne day late in July, Christian was so excited he could hardly eat his\ndinner. School had closed for the summer vacation. The next morning\nChristian, who was only nine years old, was going to a farm to stay four\nwhole weeks. In fact he would stay on the farm until time for school to\nopen again in August.\n\nChristian lived in the largest city in Denmark. We call that city\nCopenhagen, but Christian calls it Kj\u00f8benhavn (Kuvn havn). Christian was\nnot the only boy in that city who was excited on that July day. Many\nboys, and girls too, were leaving the city for a summer on a farm.\n\nThey were not going to visit aunts or uncles or grandfathers. No, their\nvisits were going to be more exciting even than visits to aunts and\nuncles and grandparents would be, for many of them were going to be\nguests of families whom they had never seen.\n\nThose boys and girls live in very poor homes in the city. When school\ncloses for summer vacation, there is little for them to do. Their homes\nare small and there are few places near their homes where they can play.\nSo every summer farmers invite boys and girls from the city to be their\nguests for four weeks of their vacation. The officials of the railroads\nand of steamship lines give those boys and girls free rides on the\ntrains and boats to the farms.\n\nPerhaps Christian was happier than many of the boys. Only a few weeks\nearlier a letter had come to him from the farmer whom he had visited the\nsummer before. The letter said, \u201cAll of us here on the farm want you to\ncome to us again this summer. I think that even the cows, the chickens,\nthe ducks, and the geese missed you when you left last August.\u201d No\nwonder Christian was excited and happy!\n\nMorning came at last and Christian started very early on his journey to\nthe farm. He carried only a small bag of clothes with him, so he and his\nmother went to the station on a street car. He passed through the gate\nat the station and waited on the platform for his train. Other boys and\ngirls were waiting too. Soon they were on the train scrambling for seats\nby a window for they were eager to see as much of Denmark as they could.\n\nChristian had almost a whole day\u2019s journey to the farm. Denmark is made\nup of hundreds of small bodies of land with water separating them. To\nreach the farm Christian had to travel on two trains and two boats.\n\nChristian was interested in all that he saw. He was not surprised to see\nthe wide stretches of flat land, but after visiting farms of Norway you\nmay be surprised. Christian saw a field in which black and white cows\nwere eating the green grass. He could see far, far away across that\npasture. The land was as level as a floor, with not even a tiny hill in\nsight.\n\nAt other places he did see hills\u2014no very high ones though. That hilly\nland looks very little like land of Norway made by the giants. But the\nsame ice-sheets did make these hills. As the glaciers that covered\nDenmark melted, they left behind these piles of rocks and soil which we\ncall hills.\n\nSome sights which Christian saw are much like the sights in the land of\nthe Dutch children. The land of Denmark is flat like Holland, so the\nDanes have long made the wind work for them just as the Dutch have done.\nSo Christian saw windmills which still pump the water off the low lands\nor grind the farmers\u2019 grain.\n\nDenmark has many small farms. Many of the farms have even less than two\nacres. A piece of land so small as that in America would hardly be\ncalled a farm. Of course Denmark has large farms also. But Christian saw\nmany of the small farms as he rode across the country. The farm\nbuildings form three sides of a square. Many times the buildings are of\nred brick and the roof of straw woven into a covering called a thatched\nroof.\n\nThe farmer was at the train to meet Christian. They rode out to the farm\nin a wagon behind two bay horses. After what seemed to Christian a very\nshort ride he was opening the gate to the farm and could see the white\nfarmhouse and barns far back across the fields.\n\nThen began happy days for Christian. He liked the big light room at the\ntop of the clean white house which was his own, but he liked best the\nbig out-of-doors. He drank all the milk he wanted. He ate potatoes with\nheaps of butter, and eggs, and cheese, and sausages, and bread.\n\n[Illustration: A FARMHOUSE WITH A THATCHED ROOF]\n\nBut Christian worked too. One of his tasks was to help gather in the\neggs. The baskets were so quickly filled with eggs that the farmer took\nthem to town twice each week. Christian went with him. They took the\neggs to a large building where eggs are packed for shipping. Such a lot\nof eggs in that building! Christian wanted to know what the workmen did\nwith the eggs and before the summer was over he had learned.\n\nSome of the workers sorted the eggs, putting the big ones in one box,\nthe middle-sized ones in another, and the small ones in another. Other\nworkers tested them to see whether they were fresh. The fresh eggs were\nsent to other workmen who stamped on each egg in red the word \u201cDanish\u201d\nwith a red line around it.\n\n[Illustration: AN EGG WITH \"Danish\" STAMPED ON IT.]\n\nChristian asked, \u201cWhy do you put \u2018Danish\u2019 on the eggs?\u201d\n\nThe workman said, \u201cMany of these eggs are sent away from Denmark to\nother countries. We put the word \u2018Danish\u2019 on the eggs so that people\nwill know that the eggs come from Denmark. Then if they like the eggs,\nthey will know where to send for more. If they find bad eggs, they can\ntell us.\u201d\n\nThen the workman showed Christian some sheets of paper on which he kept\nrecords. From those sheets he could tell just what farmer brought in\neach box of eggs. He said, \u201cYou see, Christian, we keep such good\nrecords and each farmer keeps such good records that if a customer gets\na bad egg, we can find the very hen that laid that egg.\u201d\n\nChristian knew that the workman was only joking, but the workman did\nknow the date when the egg was laid. Christian knew too that the farmers\nknew which hens lay many eggs, and which hens lay large eggs.\n\nChristian learned to milk cows too. He could milk only a little, as his\nhands got tired. He milked only cows that were easy to milk. But he\ncould carry buckets of milk to the house.\n\nIn the large stable where the cows are milked, Christian saw a sheet of\nheavy paper tacked up over each stall. He read what was on some of those\npapers. They were the cows\u2019 _grade cards_. There were good grade cards\ntoo, for they told exactly what each cow can do\u2014how much each eats, how\nmuch milk each gives, whether that test is better or worse than other\ntests.\n\nChristian felt sorry when the farmer showed him one record. That record\nwas for a cow that was eating a great deal, but giving milk that tested\nlow in butter fat. The farmer said that he would have to fatten that cow\nand use it for meat.\n\nChristian went with the farmer to take big cans of milk and cream to the\ncheese factory and the creamery. The factory was in an old, old town.\nChristian liked to play on the narrow street near the factory.\n\nBut he always went with the farmer to take the milk and cream to the\nfactories. Over those buildings he saw a word that he asked the farmer\nabout. The word was the Danish word that means \u201cCo-operative.\u201d The\nfarmer told Christian the \u201cco-operative\u201d means that the farmers are\nworking together for the good of all. So instead of each farmer making\ncheese and butter on his own farm and selling it at whatever price he\nwishes, a group of farmers take their milk and cream to factories where\ncheese and butter are made for them. There the milk and cream are tested\nand each farmer is paid a fair price for his cans.\n\nIn the cheese factory were cheese balls marked with the word \u201cDanish\u201d in\nthe oval just as the eggs were marked. The man at the cheese factory\nsaid, \u201cWe put the name \u2018Danish\u2019 upon _good_ cheese only. Anybody in any\ncountry may be sure that cheese marked \u2018Danish\u2019 has been tested before\nit is sold.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: AN OLD TOWN IN DENMARK]\n\nChristian began to feel that it was a splendid idea to have the name\n\u201cDanish\u201d put upon only _good_ products. In that way people everywhere\nwould come to trust their country. The farmer told him that the idea was\nthe same for each person. He said that Christian could make his own name\nstand only for good things. He said, \u201cSee to it always that the work\nupon which you write your name is the very best work that you can do.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: A CO-OPERATIVE DAIRY FARM]\n\nOne day Christian went to visit a farm that had eight hundred acres.\nEight hundred acres is a large farm even in America where there is much\nland, and is, of course, a very large farm in a small country like\nDenmark. On that farm Christian learned more about the word\n\u201cco-operation\u201d which means \u201cworking together for the good of all.\u201d\n\nOn that big farm the farmer works with a college which teaches young\npeople how to run a farm. The young men who do the work on the farm for\nthe farmer are studying with the college teachers how to farm. The young\nwomen who cook the meals and take care of the house are also studying\nwith college teachers how to cook and care for a house.\n\nChristian had already decided that he wanted to be a farmer when he was\nold enough. Now he thought he wanted to study how to be a good farmer on\nthat large farm which worked with the college.\n\n\n\n\n                           A Teller of Tales\n\n\nAlmost every one has read the story of The Ugly Duckling. In the story,\nthe little duck just out of the shell looked about him and said, \u201cHow\nwide the world is!\u201d And his mother replied, \u201cThis is not all the world.\nThe world stretches far across the garden, quite into the parson\u2019s\nfield.\u201d\n\nNow that duck might have lived in the back yard of a small house in the\ntown of Odense, which lies in the center of an island in the middle of\nDenmark, with water all around it. That is where the man who wrote the\nstory of The Ugly Duckling lived. That man was Hans Christian Andersen.\n\nThe boy Hans might have been that Ugly Duckling himself. At least the\nworld in which he lived was as hard for the boy as the poultry yard was\nfor the duck. Hans\u2019s father was a poor man who made and mended shoes for\na living. He died when Hans was only eleven years old. Hans\u2019s mother\nwashed clothes for other people, to earn money enough to buy food. As\nshe stood on the river bank washing, Hans sat by and dreamed his dreams\nof fairy people. Perhaps that is where he saw Thumbelina sailing on a\nwater lily.\n\n[Illustration: THE BIRTHPLACE OF HANS ANDERSEN]\n\nOther boys made fun of Hans. So the lonely boy made playmates for\nhimself in his dreams. He made the darning needle walk and talk; his tin\nsoldier became a great hero. He cut fairy figures out of scrap paper.\n\nBut Hans dreamed other dreams too. He wanted to do great things in the\nreal world. His mother said, \u201cYou must go to work to earn money. The\ntailor will let you work in his shop.\u201d Hans was unhappy at the thought\nof sitting on a stool all day sewing and sewing. So he left the town of\nOdense and went to the big city of Copenhagen. He said, \u201cI\u2019ll go on the\nstage and act parts in plays.\u201d And he tried to act, but he was so\nawkward that he never could act well. Then he said, \u201cI\u2019ll sing beautiful\nsongs on the stage.\u201d But the teachers said that his voice was not good\nenough.\n\nHe made some friends in the city. They helped him get money to go to a\ngood school. By that time he was older than the other young people\nstudying at the school. They were not friendly to him. So once more he\nforgot his loneliness by dreaming dreams, and writing the stories he\ndreamed.\n\nMany, many children love the Snow Queen, and the Little Match Girl. Hans\nChristian Andersen wrote the stories about them. He wrote many, many\nother tales too and won even greater fame than he had ever dreamed for\nhimself.\n\n[Illustration: PAPER CUTTING DONE BY HANS ANDERSEN]\n\nHe travelled much in other lands. Everywhere he went he found children\nreading his books or listening to his tales. Some men would have felt\nvery important to have so much fame. But Hans Christian Andersen said,\n\u201cWhen I see how far my thoughts have flown, I am frightened. I wonder\nwhether I have kept my thoughts pure enough for so many children to read\nthem.\u201d\n\nLittle did he dream just how great was his fame. He wrote those fairy\ntales more than a hundred years ago. And even today no stories are more\nloved by children all over the world than the stories by that great\nteller of tales.\n\nBut perhaps the children of Denmark hear the most about the man who\nwrote those tales, for he was born in their country. A few years ago,\nthe children of Denmark celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the\nbirth of Hans Christian Andersen. At the schools they acted the stories\nthat Andersen wrote. In Copenhagen movie cameras took pictures of the\nplays acted by the school children. Those pictures are still shown to\nmany children in Denmark.\n\nIn the town of Odense still stands the house where Hans Christian\nAndersen was born. The people of Denmark have built a building beside\nthat old house in which to keep the things which belonged to Andersen.\nThe street in front of that house looks much the same as it looked when\nthe little boy, Hans, played there.\n\nOn the shelves in Andersen\u2019s old home are his fairy tales in Danish, in\nEnglish, in French, in Spanish, and in other languages too. Andersen\nwrote the stories in the Danish language, of course. But people in other\nlands wanted their children to read those wonderful tales too. So the\nstories have been rewritten in nearly every language in the world.\n\n[Illustration: DOLLS DRESSED LIKE THE CHARACTERS IN ANDERSEN\u2019S STORIES]\n\nWhen children visit that building, they like to look into the case in\nwhich stand dolls dressed like the characters in their best-loved\nstories. Those dolls were dressed by little girls who lived when\nAndersen was writing his tales. Many children like, too, the fairy\nfigures which Hans cut from paper. Some of those paper cuttings lie in a\nglass case, and beside them are the scissors Hans used when he cut them.\n\n[Illustration: STATUE OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN]\n\nIn the hall of that building to the memory of Andersen stands a statue\nof Hans Christian Andersen. Many other statues of Andersen have been\nerected, but none is liked better by Danish children than this one in\nwhich he is the children\u2019s teller of tales.\n\n\n\n\n                 A City in the Midst of Seven Mountains\n\n\nFrom the deck of a boat nearing Norway, Harold, an eight-year-old\nAmerican boy, watched the rocky shores. Harold\u2019s father too was watching\nthose shores. He was eagerly looking for familiar sights in the town\nwhere he had been born.\n\nHarold was going with his father and mother to visit his grandmother who\nlives in Norway. She lives in the very same home in which Harold\u2019s\nfather had lived when a boy.\n\nHarold had crossed the Atlantic on one of the big steamships that carry\ntravelers from the United States to countries across the seas. He had\nleft that steamship at a port in England. After a day\u2019s ride on a train,\nhe had boarded another boat to cross the North Sea to Norway.\n\n[Illustration: THE CITY OF BERGEN]\n\nIn a few hours after the shores of Norway came into sight, Harold saw\nthe buildings of a town built in the midst of mountains. His father told\nhim his grandmother lived in that town. It was Bergen (bear gen) which\nis surrounded by seven mountains. The houses of the town were all along\nthe side of one of the big mountains and along the lower banks of the\nsea. Harold\u2019s father was as happy as a boy to see again the red-tiled\nroofs of those houses among the green trees of the mountain slope.\n\nThe sun was shining when the boat pulled into dock at Bergen, but the\ncaptain told Harold to have his raincoat, rubbers, and umbrella handy,\nas rain might fall any minute. He said, \u201cA year has three hundred and\nsixty-five days and rain falls in Bergen on three hundred and sixty\ndays. That leaves only five clear days for Bergen in a year.\u201d\n\nHarold\u2019s father said that rain did not fall quite so often as the\ncaptain said. But he told Harold that records show Bergen\u2019s rainfall to\nbe six times as much as the rainfall in the town where Harold lives. And\nHarold\u2019s town gets enough rain each year to keep the grass green and to\nmake the plants grow well.\n\nHarold stopped along the water front to see the fishing boats which were\nstanding there. Men and women were selling fish from more than a hundred\nboats and from stands along the street near the boats. They sold cod,\nherring, and halibut. Harold\u2019s father said, \u201cBergen is the largest\nfishing market in the world. The fish are brought to Bergen in boats\nwhich fish far to the north of Bergen in the waters of the Arctic.\u201d\n\nBut they hurried away to grandmother\u2019s house. Harold was eager to see\nthe grandmother whom he had never seen. Grandmother was eagerly waiting\nfor her visitors too. She showed Harold a room which was to be his room\nfor the summer.\n\nThe room was small. Both the walls and the floor were painted light\nbrown. A small bed of wood stood in one corner. Over the clean white\nsheets, Harold found a soft quilt. The quilt was so fluffy and thick\nthat Harold thought it must be a small feather bed. His grandmother said\nthat the quilt was stuffed with down taken from the nests of eider\nducks.\n\nHarold enjoyed the warm cover each night, for even in summer the nights\nin Bergen are cool. But that soft quilt was hard to keep in place, no\nmatter how carefully it was tucked in.\n\nA tall narrow stove stood in one corner of the room. Harold did not need\na fire, but he found a box of wood beside the stove ready for a fire\nwhen the cold days came.\n\nIn a few days, Harold knew his way around the old city of Bergen.\nSometimes he walked along narrow streets between rows of wooden houses.\nSome of the houses are very, very old\u2014even more than six hundred years\nold.\n\nSome of the shops which Harold passed were on wide streets. Both the\nshops and the streets look much like shops and streets in American\ntowns. Of course some shops sold raincoats, umbrellas, and rubbers.\nOther shops sold articles which the Norwegians think visitors from other\nlands will like. On the walls of those old shops hang bright-colored\nrugs woven on a hand loom. One day Harold saw girls dressed in old\nNorwegian costumes weaving a rug.\n\nHarold bought a gift for his mother in one shop. It was a tiny Viking\nship made of silver with a dragon\u2019s head at its prow. Inside the ship\nwas a little spoon. The shopkeeper said that the little ship was made to\nhold salt for the table. Harold bought himself some woolen mittens. They\nwere very warm mittens made from the wool of the sheep of Norway\u2014white\nsheep and black sheep. The mittens were white with black figures on\nthem. The shopkeeper said that Norwegian women who live in the country\nknit or crochet the mittens and weave the rugs during the winter when\nthey cannot work in the fields.\n\nSometimes Harold did not get home at the right time for meals. His\ngrandmother thought that queer for any boy. She said that Harold\u2019s\nfather had always been ready for every meal when he was a boy. But at\nfirst Harold just couldn\u2019t remember what were the right hours for meals\nat grandmother\u2019s house. He was always on time for the first breakfast,\nwhich was served very early. He ate bread and butter and drank milk,\nwhile his grandmother, his mother, and his father ate bread and butter\nand drank coffee. But Harold often forgot the second breakfast, which\ngrandmother served at ten o\u2019clock. Then to grandmother\u2019s surprise he\nwould come into the house at twelve o\u2019clock expecting lunch. He got a\nlunch of course, and then might forget that dinner was served at three\no\u2019clock. Grandmother did not scold one bit though, and in a few days\nHarold learned to be on time for every meal. He liked grandmother\u2019s tea,\nwhich she served at eight o\u2019clock each evening. He always asked for some\nthick brown goat\u2019s cheese to eat with his bread and butter as he drank\nhis tea.\n\nHow pleased grandmother was when Harold went over to her after a meal,\nkissed her on the cheek, and said, \u201cTak for maten.\u201d He was saying,\n\u201cThank you for the food,\u201d as his father had taught him to say it. All\npolite girls and boys in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark say, \u201cThank you for\nthe food,\u201d to their mothers after a meal.\n\n\n\n\n                       In a City Built on Islands\n\n\nOne day Harold and his father left Bergen to visit Harold\u2019s cousin\nAlbert who lived in Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden. They traveled\nfor a day and a night on a train.\n\nThe train crossed Norway on Norway\u2019s longest railway which passed\nthrough the high mountains. The electric train climbed the mountains\neasily and Harold saw that part of Norway which his storybooks call \u201cthe\nhome of the giants.\u201d\n\nThen the train left Norway and crossed Sweden. Harold thought the farms\nin Sweden looked much like the farms around his home in Minnesota. The\nfields were large. The houses were far apart. Sometimes the train went\nfor miles before Harold saw a farmhouse.\n\nWhen Harold reached Stockholm he saw a city which to him looked much\nlike any other city. But his cousin Albert said, \u201cYou will get your best\nview of Stockholm from high above the city.\u201d So he took them to the top\nof a tall tower and they looked down on the city. \u201cWhat a queer city it\nis!\u201d said Harold. \u201cIt is spread out over many islands.\u201d\n\nThen Albert told Harold how Stockholm came to be built where it is.\nAlbert had learned about the building of the city at school.\n\nThe city was built nearly seven hundred years ago. A rich nobleman\nplanned the city in the days when many pirates sailed on the Baltic Sea,\nthe sea which Stockholm faces. The nobleman wanted to build a fortress\nfor protection from the pirates. All along the sea coast were\nislands\u2014hundreds of islands. The nobleman chose three small islands\nback from the sea with many other islands in front of them and built a\nwall around them. He thought that behind the wall his people would be\nsafe from the pirates.\n\nA town grew up behind the wall. The days of the pirates passed.\nStockholm became a city of trade. It grew and grew. Buildings spread\nover other islands until today the city covers a dozen islands in a\nlarge lake which opens into a channel of water which flows to the sea.\n\n[Illustration: THE CITY OF STOCKHOLM]\n\nAnd Harold and Albert looked down on that city and watched the boats\ncoming and going on the many waterways.\n\nAlbert took his guests to a little home outside the city. \u201cThis is where\nwe live in the summer,\u201d he said. Harold thought the place looked like a\ntiny city of playhouses, but as they came nearer he saw that the\nplayhouses were real homes.\n\nHarold\u2019s aunt met them at the door of one of the cottages. It had two\nrooms and a porch. Vines and rose bushes grew over the porch. All the\nother cottages were much like the one where Albert lived.\n\nAround each house was a garden spot. Albert said, \u201cThese are our \u2018little\nfarms.\u2019\u201d Albert does most of the gardening on his \u201clittle farm.\u201d\n\nThe summer home though does not belong to Albert. The city owns those\ngarden spots. A few years ago many countries of the world were at war.\nSweden could not get the food from other countries that she needed.\nStockholm began then the plan of renting garden spots to its citizens,\nso that they might grow the food that they needed. The plan proved so\ngood that the city kept the garden spots after the war was over. And\nAlbert\u2019s father rents a little farm for Albert each summer. He pays a\nvery small sum for the use of the garden and cottage for the entire\nsummer\u2014a sum equal to about five dollars in American money.\n\n[Illustration: ONE OF THE SMALL SUMMER HOMES]\n\nAlbert showed Harold the vegetables, fruit, and flowers which he was\ngrowing on his farm. \u201cIn the fall,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019ll take my best\nspecimens to the fair in the city. I\u2019m sure to get a prize for some of\nthem.\u201d\n\nEach day after Albert had hoed his garden, he and Harold went to play\nwith the other boys who also lived on little farms. One day they went to\nthe lake to swim and to ride on the rafts. The boys had made the rafts\nof logs. Between the two logs at each end of the rafts they had fastened\na board for seats. Albert rowed the raft on which he and Harold rode\nwhile they rested from their swimming. Harold only laughed and swam away\nagain when Albert tipped the raft and threw him into the water.\n\n[Illustration: THE BOYS WITH THEIR RAFTS]\n\nOne morning the boys went to the city again. They walked through the\nstreets toward the quay\u2014the place where the boats land. Harold noticed\nthat all the buildings were of white stone. He knew that Sweden, like\nNorway, was a land of many forests. Why then were there so few wooden\nhouses? He asked Albert. His cousin told him, \u201cThe first city was built\nof wood, but fires came and destroyed the homes. People kept building of\nwood for many years, but again and again fires destroyed the homes. Wood\nis not Sweden\u2019s only building material. Under the soil around Stockholm\nis a fine building stone called granite. So the buildings you see in\nthis new city are of granite.\u201d\n\nThe boys stopped along the street to visit a flower market. It was\nbright with many colors. For in that city so far north many flowers\ngrow. In the market place were pinks, violets, sweet peas, roses,\nasters, dahlias, and long-stemmed gladioli.\n\nAbout noon the boys got on a boat at the quay to go to the King\u2019s\npalace. The palace of the King stands in an old part of the city. It is\non one of the islands where the old wall stood so long ago. Near the\nKing\u2019s palace are a few streets of old buildings with sharp gabled\nroofs. That part of Stockholm is called \u201cthe city between bridges.\u201d Day\nand night boats pass under the bridges and move along the water in front\nof the palace.\n\nThe boys reached the palace about noon. Albert wanted Harold to see the\nchanging of the King\u2019s guards. As they neared the palace, they heard\nsounds of band music. In the courtyard beside the palace, they saw a\nline of guards dressed in uniform such as guards of the palace have worn\nfor hundreds of years. Then the line of marching men came into sight.\nThe band in uniform marched first, then the guards who were to take the\nplace of those guards now at the palace. They crossed the bridge and\nentered the courtyard. The guards drilled for a few minutes at the\ncommand of the officer. The band played more music. Then the commander\ntold the new guards what their duties were and the old guards marched\naway, leaving them to protect the king and his property.\n\nThe next day Albert was going on a long hike with his Boy Scout troop.\nThe scout leader said that Harold could go with them. Early in the\nmorning the boys gathered near the water front to wait for their leader.\nSoon Harold felt at home with the group of boys wearing khaki suits and\ncarrying knapsacks even though he could not speak their language. Many\nof the boys could speak a little English and they talked to Harold in\nhis language.\n\n[Illustration: CHANGING THE GUARD IN FRONT OF THE ROYAL CASTLE]\n\nThe scouts hiked several miles that day. They stopped on the grounds of\nan old, old castle. In a few minutes tents were pitched for the night.\n\nThe leader took them into the castle, which had been built hundreds of\nyears ago. They went to the banquet hall of knights of old. Harold had\nnever seen such a beautiful room. The walls were covered with paintings\nof kings and knights. The ceiling was of gold. The boys stood before the\nKing\u2019s throne and imagined a page kneeling there to be dubbed a knight.\nThey could almost hear the words, \u201cI dub thee knight. Be ever true to\nyour country. Be ever strong; protect the weak; and do good deeds.\u201d\n\nThen outside on the courtyard of that old castle, the scouts took their\noath\u2014not unlike the one the knights of old had taken so many years ago.\nThey too pledged obedience to the laws of their country. They promised\nto be strong and to go forth to do good deeds day by day.\n\n\n\n\n                  The Children of the North Celebrate\n\n\n                            1. THE YULE-TIDE\n\nLong, long ago, so the old stories of the North say, frost giants who\nlived on the mountains wanted to keep the earth in darkness and cold,\nand the gods who lived in the valleys fought with the giants to keep\nsunshine and warmth on the earth.\n\nEarly in January each year when the nights were longest, the people in\nthe old days said, \u201cYule, the frost giant, has won in the battle against\nOdin, the god of the sun.\u201d Now the people knew that Odin would win the\nnext battle, which was always fought in the middle of the summer when\nthe days were longest; therefore they celebrated Yule\u2019s victory in the\nhappy thought that Odin would soon triumph over the frost giant. They\nlighted fires and made feasts which lasted for weeks. And so began the\nYule-tide celebration which the children of those northern lands today\ncelebrate each year.\n\nAfter years and years, the people who lived in these lands became\nChristians. They began to celebrate the day the Christ-child was born.\nAs the years passed, the Christmas celebration and the Yule celebration\ncame to be one big feast time.\n\nThe weeks before Yule time are busy weeks. The houses must be cleaned.\nCakes, cookies, and bread are baked. Sausages are made. Girls are sewing\non gifts and boys are sawing and pounding, making gifts too. The stores\nin the cities and towns are bright with decorations and happy buyers\ncrowd about buying gifts.\n\nThe day before Christmas comes at last. And for the girls and boys of\nNorway, Sweden, and Denmark the day before Christmas is a merrier day\neven than Christmas Day. Everybody is up early on that day. A tree of\nspruce or fir is set in place in the living room. No home is too poor to\nhave a yule-tree in that land of evergreen trees. Norway and Sweden have\nenough trees in their forests to supply every home, and ships carry\ntrees from their forests to the children of Denmark.\n\nAs soon as the Yule-tree is up the merriment begins. The girls and boys\nhelp decorate the tree with strings of bright paper, painted cones from\nthe evergreen trees, colored ornaments, and red candles, or bright\nelectric lights. The boys place a big log in the fireplace ready to\nbrighten the room with its glow.\n\n[Illustration: CHRISTMAS BRINGS SKIS FOR OLD AND YOUNG]\n\nAnother tree is then decorated in the yard for the birds. The boys set\nup a large branch of a tree and help the girls tie bunches of oats and\nbarley upon it so that the birds will have their Yule-time feast.\n\nAfter lunch the girls and boys stay away from the Yule-tree. But how\nexcited they are! For it is then that secret packages are heaped on the\nfloor underneath the branches of the tree. Darkness comes early in the\nnorthern parts of these countries at Christmas time. In the far north\nthe sun never shines at this time of the year. As early as three\no\u2019clock, Mother lights the tree and Father starts the Yule-log burning.\nThen all the family gather around the tree and the best fun of the day\nbegins. Those children do not have to wait until Christmas morning to\nsee their gifts. The packages are passed out as soon as the tree is\nlighted on Christmas Eve. Under the tree are presents for\neverybody\u2014dolls, toy trains, books, knives, skates, sleds, skis, and\ncandies and nuts and many, many other gifts too.\n\nAfter the gifts are unwrapped sometimes Father and Mother and the\nchildren and the servants join hands and sing carols around the tree. By\nthat time the dinner is ready. And that dinner is one of the best of the\nyear with fish, potatoes, peas, flat bread, sausages, ham, or maybe a\ngoose, pudding, and cakes. The children are tired and ready for bed at\nan early hour.\n\nThe next morning they are up early again. While it is quite dark they go\nto church for a Christmas service. Pretty Yule-trees stand beside the\naltar and the children carry gifts for the poor and place them beneath\nthe Yule-trees. They sing songs, repeat their prayers, and listen to the\npastor\u2019s story of the Christ-child.\n\nChristmas Day is a quiet day in most of the homes in Norway, Sweden, and\nDenmark. But after Christmas is over the merrymaking begins again. There\nare more feasts and parties. The children skate, and ski, and coast on\ntheir sleds as much as they please, for school is closed during the\nwhole of the Yule season.\n\n\n                           2. MID-SUMMER EVE\n\nAmerican girls and boys sometimes dance around a Maypole and crown a\nqueen on the first day of May. The girls and boys of Norway, Sweden, and\nDenmark have a midsummer holiday when they too dance around a gaily\ndecorated pole, but they are not celebrating the coming of May. They are\ngreeting the long summer day.\n\nIn the long ago people believed that June twenty-third was the day on\nwhich Odin, the sun god, won in the fight against the frost giants. So\nthey danced and sang in praise of Odin. And people of those lands have\nkept up the old custom.\n\n[Illustration: DANCING AROUND THE MAYPOLE]\n\nThe school children of one Swedish town were gay and happy on the\ntwenty-third of June. The big boys set up a tall pole in a field near\nthe schoolhouse. Then a crowd of girls and boys tied branches of fir,\nspruce, and pine on the pole. They put bright flowers among the green\nbranches.\n\nWhen the pole was bright with the evergreen and flowers, a troop of\ngirls and boys came from the schoolhouse and played games on the grass\naround the Maypole. But the greatest fun would come after dark. So early\nin the afternoon they hurried home to dress in their gayest costumes to\nbe ready for the frolic that night.\n\n[Illustration: SWEDISH CHILDREN IN NATIONAL COSTUME]\n\nGrown-ups came to the night celebration too. The dance lasted far into\nthe night, for all through those northern lands there is no darkness on\nthe midsummer eve. The sun shines all through the night in the places\nfar to the north, but even in the southern part of Sweden where these\nchildren live, the sun was gone but a few hours. During those hours\nwhile the sun was gone, the sky was almost as bright as day with\ntwilight.\n\n\n                3. AN AMERICAN FOURTH OF JULY IN DENMARK\n\nIn one town in Denmark, some girls and boys are as eager for the Fourth\nof July as American girls and boys are. For, like many American girls\nand boys, on that day they are going to a picnic in a park. Yes, they\nare going to a Fourth-of-July picnic and a picnic as much like an\nAmerican picnic as they can have. About the only things missing from\ntheir picnic are firecrackers. The law of Denmark will not permit\nfirecrackers.\n\nThe park is called The American National Park. The bands play patriotic\nAmerican music. The people sing American patriotic songs, \u201cThe\nStar-Spangled Banner\u201d and \u201cAmerica.\u201d Speakers tell about America and how\nour country won independence. The Stars and Stripes float in the breeze\nwith the Danish flag of red and white. People play ball and run races.\nThey eat lunches from big lunch baskets.\n\nOne American visitor asked, \u201cWho are the people celebrating our\nIndependence Day?\u201d If you asked that question at the park, and a Danish\nboy answered, the answer would be, \u201cThis is the Danish-American Club.\u201d\nHave you ever heard of Danish-American clubs in America? The members of\nDanish-American clubs in America are people who have come from Denmark\nto live in America. The Danish-American Club in Denmark is made up of\nDanish people who have lived in America at some time and Danish people\nwho have relatives living in America.\n\nSvend is one boy you might meet at a Fourth of July picnic in Denmark.\nSvend was born in the city of Chicago in the United States. His father\nand mother were both born in Denmark, but they lived in America about\nten years. Svend\u2019s father studied in the United States and learned to be\na librarian.\n\nSvend was only four years old when he went to Denmark to live. Of course\nSvend could speak English then. But when he was old enough to go to\nschool, he began speaking Danish all the time. His father wanted him to\nspeak English at home so that he would not forget the English words.\nSvend said, \u201cOh, if I speak English, the boys call me a _foreigner_.\u201d\nSvend was only seven years old when he said that. When he is older he\nwill study English in the schools of Denmark. Then perhaps he will be\nproud that he can speak English easily.\n\nSvend\u2019s father takes care of a library for the Danish-American Club. In\nhis library are many, many books telling about how Denmark and America\nwork together. Some of the books are written in Danish and some are\nwritten in English. Both Danish-American clubs in Denmark and\nDanish-American clubs in America give money to support the park and the\nlibrary.\n\nSvend\u2019s father is glad to take Svend to the Danish-American picnic on\nthe Fourth of July each year, for he wants Svend to love America, the\nland where he was born.\n\nKarl is another boy at the picnic. He is fifteen years old. He speaks\nEnglish very well from his study in school. Karl\u2019s family go to the\nFourth of July picnic because Karl\u2019s uncle lives in America. Karl writes\nto his cousins in the United States. From them he has learned many\nthings about our country.\n\nTravelers in Denmark sometimes go to the Fourth of July picnic. They\ncannot feel strange on that picnic ground with the many American flags\nand the American songs.\n\n\n\n\n                    Winter Sports in the North Land\n\n\n1. WITH THE SKI-JUMPERS\n\nNo sooner had Olaf entered the room where stood his Yule-tree than his\neyes lighted on a big package standing behind the tree. \u201cSkis,\u201d he\nthought, \u201csurely no other present could make such a huge package. But\nwas _his_ name on that package?\u201d\n\nFinally the moment came when his father called, \u201cFor Olaf,\u201d and the big\nbox was in Olaf\u2019s hands. Olaf lost no time in opening the prize package.\nHis eyes shone as he saw the new skis. At last he had a pair of skis fit\nfor any ski-jumper!\n\nOlaf had often watched ski-jumpers leap in the air like a bird and land\nsafely on runners many feet away and go sliding gracefully down a steep\nhillside. Now he too could learn to be a ski-jumper!\n\nLike most children of Norway and Sweden, Olaf had learned to run on skis\nwhen he was very young. By the time he had started to school, he could\nrun very well. On that Christmas morning, Olaf\u2019s little sister, only\nthree years old, got a pair of skis too. Olaf gave her the first pair of\nskis he had used and she played in the snow on them, while Olaf tried\nhis larger and finer pair.\n\n[Illustration: OLAF\u2019S LITTLE SISTER]\n\nSkiing is the favorite play of the boys at Olaf\u2019s school. Near the\nschool are skiing grounds where Olaf and his classmates play at recess\ntime. At first, of course, those boys ran on small hills. Then they\npractised on longer slopes. Olaf\u2019s father had said, \u201cYou must know how\nto handle your skis well before you begin ski-jumping.\u201d Now Olaf did\nknow how to run well on skis and he had the best kind of skis for\njumping.\n\nOlaf lives in Norway and nowhere in the world do people have better\nskiing grounds. The snows come in November and stay until March or\nApril, and the mountain slopes make long skiing tracks. The weather too\nis good for skiing. Although the weather is cold enough to keep the snow\nfor many months, the cold is not severe enough to keep sport lovers\nindoors.\n\nSkiing is not merely a child\u2019s sport in Norway. Olaf\u2019s father and mother\nboth ski. Many business men and their wives ski; farmers and their wives\nski; the King and Queen ski. Norwegians and the Lapps of the far north\noften travel on skis. Such travel is easy. With knapsacks filled with\nfood and strapped to their backs, travellers make long excursions in a\nshort time. So Olaf lives in a country which might truly be called, \u201cthe\nhome of the skis.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: IN BOTH NORWAY AND SWEDEN SCHOOL CHILDREN LEARN TO SKI]\n\nThe first Sunday after that Christmas when Olaf got his new skis, Olaf,\nhis father, and his mother went to a long skiing ground about a\nfive-mile ride from their home in Oslo. They left their home very early\nin the morning. They stood in line with many other men, women, and\nchildren waiting for the train. What a queer crowd it was! Sticking up\nover each head were the points of skis which looked like stubby trees.\nNo wonder one passer-by said the sight was like \u201ca forest of a thousand\ntrees.\u201d\n\nThen the train came with a special car to carry the skis, and the merry\ncrowd was off for the day. Olaf got his first lesson in ski-jumping.\n\nBut it was in February that Olaf got his greatest treat of the year.\nOslo is near the bottom of the long narrow country and on the side away\nfrom the sea. The land around Oslo is hilly but the slopes are not very\nsteep. One mountain for skiing is about an hour\u2019s ride on an electric\ncar from Oslo. On this mountain the youths of Norway gather in February\neach year to hold a skiing contest. So in February Olaf and his parents\nwith thousands and thousands of people from all over countries of the\nnorth went to see the ski-jumping contest.\n\nThe jumpers gathered at the top of the long mountainside. Each\ncontestant wore a number fastened across his chest telling his place in\nthe contest. At a signal from an officer number one ran down the hill to\na bank of snow called the \u201ctake-off\u201d station. When he got to the\n\u201ctake-off,\u201d he jumped into the air. Olaf watched him breathlessly. Yes,\nhe landed on his feet. The crowd cheered heartily. An officer ran out\nwith a measuring rod to see how far he was from the \u201ctake-off\u201d when he\nlanded on his feet again.\n\n[Illustration: A SKI JUMPER]\n\nThen the other jumpers came in turn. Several failed to land on their\nfeet. But most of them laughed with the people looking on over their\nfailures even though they must have hated badly to lose.\n\nThe longest jump that day, and the longest that had ever been made at\nthat time, was two hundred and thirty-five feet. That is a long jump,\nbut, no doubt, some of the schoolboys who were watching the jumpers will\nbeat that record in a few years. Some of Olaf\u2019s playmates were able then\nto jump eighty feet. They are eagerly waiting to be old enough to enter\nthe big contest.\n\nThe boys learned much by watching expert ski-jumpers. One of their\nfavorite jumpers is the King\u2019s son, Prince Olaf. Prince Olaf was in the\nbig contest several times when he was a young man. The boys often saw\nPrince Olaf on skis. One day the Prince stopped where Olaf and his\nplaymates were practising and told them how to hold their feet to make a\nsafe landing. Olaf never forgot what the Prince said. And he was glad\ntoo that his mother had named him _Olaf_.\n\n\n                          2. WITH THE SKATERS\n\nA line of skaters on a waterway of Sweden was set for a race. The\nskaters looked more like huge white birds than the young boys they were.\nEach skater wore heavy skates and held tightly to a frame of a large\nwhite sail.\n\n[Illustration: SAIL SKATING]\n\nAway they flew over the smooth ice! The strong wind which blows over the\nlands carried them along swiftly. Most of the boys were skillful in\nguiding their course with the wind and keeping on the clear ice. But\nhere and there a skater had trouble. One skater was tossed to the bank;\nanother was sent sprawling on the hard ice, for the wind does not deal\ntoo gently with those who cannot follow its path.\n\n[Illustration: SLEDS ON THE ICE]\n\nWhen the race was over, the winner was hoisted in the air and cheered.\nThe skaters went their way to try again another day.\n\nSkaters in Denmark use sails too. The flat lands have such strong winds\nthat sail skating is great sport for Danish children. But even in the\nflat lands of Denmark there are days when the sail skaters are\ndisappointed. They gather for a race to find no wind that day; and, of\ncourse, no wind means no race.\n\nBut sail skating is only a part of the skating fun in those northern\nlands. Children all over Norway, Sweden, and Denmark skate during the\nwinter months. In many places playgrounds are flooded to make safe\nskating grounds for the girls and boys. On the safe ice even the tiny\ngirls and boys slide on the ice and ride on the chair-like sleds which\nare pushed along by the larger girls and boys.\n\nThe children of those northern lands learn early that outdoor sports\nhelp to build strong and healthy bodies.\n\n\n\n\n                       At School in the Far North\n\n\nAs the clocks struck eight one Monday late in August the big gates to\nthe school grounds swung open. With a shout waiting boys ran through one\ngate to a playground which they had not seen for several weeks. Crowds\nof girls ran through a gate to another playground on the other side of\nthat same schoolhouse.\n\nThat August day was the first day of school for girls and boys in nearly\nevery city and town in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.\n\nGirls and boys who live in those countries do not have such long summer\nvacations as have American girls and boys. Many of them go to school\nuntil the first of July and come back to school again in the last week\nof August. They go to school more days each week, too, than do American\nchildren. They go to school on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,\nFriday, and Saturday.\n\nThey start to school each morning after a very early breakfast. In\nwinter all the children of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark must dress and\neat their breakfast by electric lights, and go along the streets to\nschool while the street lights are still burning. Of course, those girls\nand boys in the far northern part of Norway and Sweden work by electric\nlight in their classrooms all the winter days.\n\n[Illustration: THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL]\n\nWith such an early breakfast, the pupils are hungry by the middle of the\nmorning. They are given a lunch time around ten thirty or eleven o\u2019clock\neach day. Many girls and boys eat a lunch at the schoolhouse, but others\ngo home for a lunch which they call \u201cbreakfast\u201d even though they had\neaten an earlier meal. The younger pupils go home from school about one\no\u2019clock and the older pupils leave school each day about three o\u2019clock.\n\n[Illustration: SWEDISH BOYS IN SCHOOL]\n\nSchoolhouses in the lands far to the north look much like American\nschoolhouses. Of course all the schoolhouses in those countries do not\nlook alike any more than do the school buildings in America.\n\n1. AT SCHOOL IN NORWAY\n\nHarold lives in Oslo, Norway. He is in the third grade. All the pupils\nin his room are boys and the teacher is a man.\n\nThe first day of school was a busy one for Harold. When the boys were in\nthe room the teacher said, \u201cWrite your name on the paper which I shall\ngive you.\u201d Harold wrote his name in clear letters.\n\nAfter the teacher got the names of all the boys he said, \u201cNow I shall\ntell you what lessons you will have each day. You may write them down on\na time plan.\u201d\n\nHarold and his classmates knew what a \u201ctime plan\u201d is. The storekeepers\nin the bookstores had given them pretty picture cards with blank places\non them where the pupils could write the names of the subjects and the\ntime at which each would recite. So when the teacher told them the\nlessons they would have each day they wrote them on their time plans.\nHarold\u2019s time plan looked like the one shown here.\n\nMost of the subjects the Norwegian girls and boys study in the third\ngrade are the same as those which American pupils study in the third\ngrade. American girls and boys study English; but on Harold\u2019s time plan\ninstead of English is _Norsk_. Norsk is the name for the language of\nNorway.\n\nIn one of the reading texts which many children read the first picture\nis a flag of Norway. Across the page from the picture is a poem about\nNorway. The poem is in Norsk of course. Children in Norway learn that\npoem so that they can say it without looking at the words.\n\n                      Ja, vi elsker dette landet,\n                      som det stiger frem,\n                      furet, v\u00e6rbitt, over vannet,\n                      med de tusen hjem;\n                      elsker, elsker det og tenker\n                      p\u00e5 v\u00e5r far og mor\n                      og den saganatt som senker\n                      dr\u00f8mme p\u00e5 v\u00e5r jord!\n\n                  (Yes, we love with fond devotion\n                    Norway\u2019s mountain domes,\n                  Rising stormlashed o\u2019er the ocean,\n                    With their thousand homes;\n                  Love our country while we\u2019re bending\n                    Thoughts to fathers grand,\n                  And to saga night that\u2019s sending\n                    Dreams upon our land,\n                  And to saga night that\u2019s sending,\n                    Sending dreams upon our land.)\n\n[Illustration: HAROLD\u2019S TIME PLAN]\n\nOn the seventeenth of May each year the Norwegian girls and boys march\nthrough the streets carrying flags and singing \u201cJa, vi elsker dette\nlandet.\u201d The seventeenth of May to them is what the Fourth of July is to\nus. It is their Independence Day.\n\n[Illustration: NORWEGIAN CHILDREN CELEBRATING INDEPENDENCE DAY]\n\nFor many, many years Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were governed by one\nking. But in 1905 Norwegians became free to govern themselves. They\nchose a king for their country. On the seventeenth of May each year\nschool children of Oslo and towns near Oslo parade past the palace of\nthe King. The King watches their parade. The children stand very quietly\nthen while the King speaks to them about Norway, their country.\n\nHarold\u2019s sister is in the seventh grade. Her time plan is shown on page\n137.\n\nMany pupils in the seventh grade find English to be their hardest\nsubject. Only a few English words are like Norsk words which they speak.\nOn the time plan you see the names of the days of the week\u2014Mandag\n(Monday), Tirsdag (Tuesday), Onsdag (Wednesday), Torsdag (Thursday),\nFredag (Friday), L\u00f8rdag (Saturday), S\u00f8ndag (Sunday). They are much like\nEnglish names for the days of the week.\n\nNorwegian pupils soon learn the English word \u201csummer,\u201d for the Norsk\nword is \u201csommer.\u201d They soon can say \u201ccome,\u201d for in Norsk they say\n\u201ckomme,\u201d and \u201cMany thanks\u201d which in Norsk is \u201cMange takke.\u201d\n\nThe Norwegians did not get words from the English, however. The English\ngot words from the Norwegians. Long, long ago some people from these\nnorthern lands went to live in the land of the English people. From them\nthe English learned to use some of the old Norsk words and they have\nkept some of those words in their language. English settlers brought the\nEnglish language to America, so Americans too use those old Norsk words.\n\nThe Norwegian pupils have a hard time learning to pronounce words which\nhave the letter \u201cw,\u201d for \u201cw\u201d is not used in the Norsk language. The\nEnglish word \u201cwarm\u201d is \u201cvarme,\u201d \u201cwork\u201d is \u201cverke,\u201d \u201cwash\u201d is \u201cvaske,\u201d\n\u201cwindow\u201d is \u201cvindue,\u201d \u201cwest\u201d is \u201cvest,\u201d and \u201cwell\u201d is \u201cvel.\u201d\n\nBut, of course, many, many other English words are not at all like Norsk\nwords.\n\n\n                         2. IN SWEDISH SCHOOLS\n\nGreda was very happy one morning as she went to school. She carried a\nsmall bundle in her hand as she hurried along. When she entered her\nclassroom she whispered to the teacher, \u201cToday is my birthday.\u201d Then the\nteacher brought out a small stand just big enough to hold the little\nSwedish flag which Greda took out of her bundle. As Greda put the flag\ninto the flag holder, her classmates said, \u201cHappy birthday, Greda,\u201d and\nsang a song to the flag.\n\n[Illustration: A SEVENTH GRADE TIMEPLAN]\n\nIn that Swedish school girls and boys study almost the same subjects as\nthe Norwegian girls and boys study. When winter comes and snow covers\nthe hills, the skiing teacher comes to school every day. Now skiing\nsounds like play, but it is a school study for girls and boys in those\nNorth lands.\n\nGirls and boys of Norway and Sweden want to be good ski runners and ski\njumpers. They begin to ski when they are very young. The young children\nrun only on small hills near the school. The older girls and boys go out\nto longer mountainsides for their practice.\n\nOf course many pupils get tumbles in the snow as they learn to run on\nskis. The teacher says, \u201cTo be a good ski runner, you must have courage\nto try, and if you fail, you must laugh and try again.\u201d\n\nSome children of the North lands go to school in the summer too. But the\nsummer school is very different from the regular school. \u201cSummer school\nis much more fun,\u201d Martha, a Swedish girl, said after she had spent a\nsummer in a camp and had studied with a camp teacher. Her brother Nils\nlikes camp school too.\n\nMartha and Nils are twins. They were nine years old when they went to\nthe summer camp.\n\n[Illustration: MARTHA AND NILS PICKING BERRIES]\n\nThat summer Martha picked gooseberries. She learned to make gooseberry\npie, gooseberry jelly, and gooseberry preserves. Nils only helped to\ntake the stems off the berries, but he thought that was fun when he\nworked with the other girls and boys of the camp.\n\n[Illustration: NILS HELPING TO REPAIR THE ROOF]\n\nNils helped to repair the roof on one of the summerhouses. That roof was\nof red tile. Nils carefully measured and fitted each piece of tile into\nits proper place.\n\nNils helped some of the older boys to build a boat. He had his first\nlesson in rowing in that very boat too.\n\n[Illustration: NILS HELPING THE BOYS TO BUILD A BOAT]\n\nBut both Martha and Nils liked best the foot races which the girls and\nboys of the camp ran every day. Martha was the best runner of the girls\nand Nils had a good record too even though he ran with boys larger than\nhimself.\n\n\n                        3. AT SCHOOL IN DENMARK\n\nIf you were to see a group of school children in a Danish town you would\nfind that they look very much like the Norwegian children and the\nSwedish children. They look much like girls and boys in America too.\n\nThose children study about the same subjects that the Norwegian and\nSwedish girls and boys study. They study from books written in Danish.\nDanish words and Norwegian words are alike in print, but the Danes and\nthe Norwegians do not pronounce them alike.\n\nSince an island is a small body of land with water all around it, and\nDenmark has so many islands, many girls and boys in Denmark live near\nwater. Since there is so much water in Denmark almost all Danish pupils\nlearn to swim at school. They begin swimming lessons when they first\nenter school.\n\nIn Copenhagen, which is Denmark\u2019s largest city, the schools have\nswimming contests. On the day of the contests classes from different\nschools gather at the water front. A high board wall has been built\naround a part of the water so that the place for the contests looks much\nlike a pool. Mothers and fathers sit on the platform near the walls and\nwatch the contests. Danish flags fly in the breeze. Everybody is excited\nwhen the contest begins.\n\n[Illustration: A SWIMMING CONTEST IN COPENHAGEN]\n\nThe older girls and boys in the schools in Copenhagen, like those in\nOslo, study English. One day each month a librarian visits each school\nin the city to take books to the pupils. She takes story books written\nin Danish to the younger pupils. But to the older pupils she takes books\nwritten in other languages which they have studied. Some of the books\nare written in French, some in German, and some in English. Those Danish\npupils read some of the same stories that American pupils read in their\nlibraries.\n\n\n\n\n                         In an Open-Air Museum\n\n\nGirls and boys always listen when grandfather begins a tale with, \u201cWhen\nI was a boy.\u201d But many times the girls and boys who listen to\ngrandfather\u2019s tales find it hard to make pictures in their minds of the\nhouses grandfather tells about, of the games he played, or of the dances\nhe and grandmother danced. And it is much, much harder to understand\nwhen grandfather and grandmother tell the tales that their grandfathers\nand grandmothers have told them!\n\nMany Swedish children go to a museum each year to see how their\ngreat-great-great-grandparents actually lived. For in that northern\ncountry\u2014and in Norway too\u2014people have built museums which are\ndifferent from America\u2019s big buildings with their many showcases filled\nwith things of long ago. They have built what they call open-air\nmuseums.\n\nA Swedish man got the idea for such a museum. One day more than sixty\nyears ago that man, a doctor, was far out in the country districts of\nSweden. There he saw old, old buildings with furniture like the\nfurniture used long, long ago. He saw people dressed in costumes like\nthose worn by their great-great-great-grandparents. The doctor said to\nhimself, \u201cWhy not buy some of those old, old houses, their furnishings,\nand the costumes of the people, and put them where many people can see\nthem?\u201d\n\nVery soon after, the doctor began carrying out his idea. Other people\nhelped him. What a big task it was! They brought together old houses,\nold churches, old schoolhouses, old windmills, and other farm buildings\nfrom all over Sweden. On a large piece of wooded land outside Stockholm\nthey rebuilt homes and constructed whole farms as nearly as possible\nlike homes and farms of the long, long ago. That is the way they made an\nopen-air museum.\n\nOne day a class of Swedish school children visited an open-air museum.\nVery soon after they entered the gate they saw a group of buildings. The\nbuildings were made of rude logs which have turned dark brown with age\nin the sun and rain. The teacher said that the group of houses belonged\nto one family. The pupils asked, \u201cWhy did a family build a group of\nhouses so close together like this?\u201d\n\nThe teacher told them that in the early days a family in Sweden usually\nhad several houses. They had a house with thick walls and thick roofs\nwhere they lived in the winter. They had another house with lighter\nwalls and roofs where they lived in the summer. They had a storehouse in\nwhich to keep their food and fuel. They also had a guest house, for in\nthose days the people in Sweden gave their guests a whole house to\nthemselves.\n\n[Illustration: A ROOM IN AN OPEN-AIR MUSEUM]\n\nThe pupils went inside one old, old house which had been built about\nseven hundred years ago. It is a one-story house with a sod roof. Inside\nthe children found furniture placed about the rooms as it had been\nplaced in those early days. But, of course, there was little furniture.\nAnd strangest of all there were no windows in the house. The light the\npeople could get from the sun came into the living room through a hole\nin the roof above the center of the room. That hole was just above an\nopen fireplace. Through it the smoke from the fire could escape. A long\npole hung from the hole into the room below. On that pole was a thin\nskin which could be pulled into place over the hole when the rains came.\n\nBut the children saw other houses more like those in which their\ngrandfathers and grandmothers had lived. In those houses the fireplace\nwas built in the corner of the room. They saw some fireplaces with\nkettles hanging just as they had hung in the days when a fire had blazed\non the fireplace. In the room were rude chairs cut from large tree\ntrunks. On the ceilings pictures had been carved and painted. The\nchildren knew the stories which those pictures told, for the stories\nwere Bible stories which they had read many times.\n\n[Illustration: ANOTHER ROOM IN AN OPEN-AIR MUSEUM]\n\nSome of the boys found an old bed which amused them very much. It had\nthree stories. The first story stood out into the room about a foot\nfarther than the second story, and the second story stood out about a\nfoot farther than the top story. In that way there were two steps up to\nthe upper bed. The girls and boys laughed, then the teacher lifted the\nlid into the lowest bed and said, \u201cThis is where the cats and dogs\nslept.\u201d Then he showed them the inside of the middle bed and said, \u201cThis\nis where the children slept.\u201d The children then guessed that the top bed\nwas for the mother and father.\n\n[Illustration: FOLK DANCING AT A MUSEUM]\n\nThat afternoon the pupils went to see the folk-dances. Some of their\nolder brothers and sisters were in the dances. They wore costumes such\nas Swedish people long ago wore, they danced the dances that were danced\nin those days.\n\nWhen the school children got back to their school the next day, they\nwanted to dance some of the old Swedish dances. The gymnasium teacher\nhelped them learn the steps, and the sewing teacher helped them make\ntheir costumes. Then one day they danced for their mothers and fathers\nand their grandmothers and grandfathers.\n\nWhen the teacher of those children told them about the man who had made\nthe gift of the museum to Sweden, the pupils agreed that the man who\nbuilt the open-air museum was a citizen of whom Sweden may be proud.\n\n\n\n\n                   A Tale of a Wandering Story-Teller\n\n\n\u201cSuppose we pretend that we are in the feast hall of one of the old\nguest houses of the Norsemen long, long ago,\u201d said one teacher to her\nchildren after they had visited an open-air museum.\n\nThen as the teacher told the children about an evening in a guest house\nsuch as they had seen at the museum, they imagined people seated around\nthe long table eating from the rude bowls and drinking from an old\ndrinking horn, while they listened to a tale told by a wandering\nstory-teller.\n\nA story-teller in those northlands was an important person in the old\ndays before stories had been written in books for people to read for\nthemselves. In those days, story-tellers went about from place to place\ntelling tales. They were always welcome guests in any home, for people\nhad little entertainment.\n\nIn the very earliest days, people knew little about why things happen as\nthey do on the earth. They did not know why we have day and night, or\nsummer and winter. They did not know why the rains fall, or the\nlightning and thunder come. Since they did not know the true reasons for\nthese things, they made up stories to tell why they happen as they do.\nThey said that many gods ruled over the earth. One god, called Wodin,\ncaused the day. Since day has but one sun, Wodin had but one eye. The\ngod Thor caused the lightning and thunder. Another god ruled over the\nsummer, bringing the warm days when plants could grow. He was called\nFrey. And the god Tye ruled over war and brought victory in battle.\n\nWe use the names of the four gods, Tye, Wodin, Thor, and Frey, even\ntoday. From them we got the names for four of the days of the week:\nTuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday\u2014Tye\u2019s day, Wodin\u2019s day, Thor\u2019s\nday, and Frey\u2019s day.\n\nThose early people believed, too, that huge giants lived on the\nmountaintops and tiny dwarfs lived under the ground. The old\nstory-tellers told many tales about fights between the gods and the\ngiants. One of the favorite tales was about Thor, the god of thunder and\nlightning. The tale that Norwegian teacher told her pupils was about\nThor and his Hammer. Her pupils listened almost as eagerly as those old\nViking families had listened around the feast table hundreds of years\nago.\n\n                          THOR AND HIS HAMMER\n\nThor lived in a beautiful palace in the valley of the gods which lay\nbetween two mountains. Thor had a beautiful wife with long golden hair.\nShe was called Sif.\n\nOne day when Sif was sitting in the sunshine with her long hair hanging\ndown over her shoulders she fell asleep. Loke, the god of mischief,\npassed by and saw her. Now Loke liked to play tricks on Thor, and when\nhe saw Sif asleep, he thought, \u201cThor loves Sif\u2019s beautiful hair. He will\nbe very angry if anything happens to it.\u201d Then he stole up, cut off\nSif\u2019s hair, and carried it away with him.\n\nWhen Sif awoke, she was very unhappy. She ran and hid herself. She did\nnot want Thor to see her without her hair.\n\nSoon Thor came. Sif was not there to meet him. The strong god\u2019s heart\nwas filled with fear. What was wrong with Sif? He ran quickly about the\npalace to look for her. He found her weeping bitterly. When he saw what\nhad happened he was very angry. Fire, like lightning, flashed from his\neyes. The floors of the palace trembled under his angry footsteps.\n\n\u201cThis is the work of that rascal, Loke,\u201d he cried. Then, like a\nthundercloud, he strode away from the palace.\n\nHe soon found Loke, and, no doubt, would have choked him had not Loke\npromised to give back Sif\u2019s hair as beautiful as it had ever been.\n\nNow Loke knew some skillful dwarfs who lived far underground. They made\nwonderful things of gold. He hurried away to find them.\n\nWhen he came to their smithy, he asked, \u201cCan you make me a crown of\ngolden hair which will grow just as any natural hair grows?\u201d\n\nThese dwarfs were very clever. Of course they could make such a crown.\nThey set their fire ablaze and began pounding with their hammers. In a\nshort time they had Loke\u2019s treasure ready for him. But that was not all\nthey gave him. Two other gifts were his. One was a magical spear; and\nthe other a ship that was more wonderful than any other ship the dwarfs\never had made.\n\nLoke went back to the land of the gods carrying his three gifts. When he\nreached that valley he began bragging about the fine work the dwarfs had\ndone. \u201cNo other dwarfs can do such wonderful work,\u201d he said. \u201cAll other\ndwarfs are stupid compared with these.\u201d\n\nA dwarf named Brok heard Loke\u2019s boasts. Now Brok had a brother who was a\nclever workman too. Many of the gods thought him the best workman of all\nthe dwarfs. Brok was angry when he heard Loke\u2019s bragging. He said, \u201cMy\nbrother can make more wonderful things of gold and iron and brass than\nyour dwarfs have made.\u201d\n\nAt that Loke laughed and laughed. \u201cGo to your brother,\u201d he said; \u201cif he\ncan make three such precious gifts as the golden hair, the spear, and\nthe ship, I will give him my head.\u201d\n\nBrok at once went down to the underworld where his brother lived. He\ndeclared that he would get Loke\u2019s head if any magic could be worked. He\ntold his brother what Loke had said. Soon that dwarf was hard at work.\nIn a few hours Brok started off with a golden boar, a shining ring, and\na mighty hammer as his three gifts to the gods.\n\nWhen he reached the land of the gods he found all the gods waiting to\nsee what his gifts would be. The gods appointed three judges to decide\nwhether Loke or Brok had the more wonderful gifts.\n\nLoke brought forth the golden hair and gave it to Thor. Thor placed the\nhair upon Sif\u2019s head. Behold it began to grow, and again Sif was the\nbeautiful maiden she had been. Then Loke brought out the spear and gave\nit to the judges. It was a spear that never missed its mark. Then he\ngave the gods the wonderful ship which would sail wherever its master\nwished to go no matter which way the water ran or what direction the\nwind blew.\n\nLoke was very proud of his gifts. Brok would not have any treasures so\nfine.\n\nThen Brok came before the judges. He brought out the shining ring. \u201cThis\nring,\u201d he said, \u201cwill throw off many other rings as bright and shiny as\nthis one.\u201d Next he brought out the boar, saying, \u201cThis animal can run\nfaster than the fastest horse. On dark nights its bristles will shine so\nthat the night will be as light as day.\u201d Then he gave Thor the hammer.\n\u201cThis hammer,\u201d he said, \u201cwill crush whatever it strikes, and it will\nnever fail to come back to your hand no matter where you throw it.\u201d\n\nThor took the hammer and swung it round his head. Lightning flashed\nthrough the skies and peals of thunder filled the air. The gods gathered\nround to see the hammer. Surely such a hammer would be the greatest\nprotection against the giants. So they said that the hammer was the\ngreatest gift of all. Brok had won.\n\nBut how was Brok to get Loke\u2019s head! He started toward that young\nbraggart. Loke growled, \u201cI will give you whatever you want, but not my\nhead.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou promised your head, and your head I will have,\u201d answered the angry\ndwarf.\n\n\u201cCome and get it,\u201d shouted Loke as he ran away. But when Brok told Thor\nwhat had happened, Thor went and brought Loke back, for Thor always saw\nto it that the gods did as they promised.\n\n\u201cCut off my head if you will,\u201d said Loke, \u201cbut you must not touch my\nneck. I did not promise you any of my neck.\u201d\n\nThen Brok saw that he could not take Loke\u2019s head after all. For how\ncould he get the head without touching the neck! But still he was\ndetermined to punish the rascally Loke. So he sewed his lips together,\nsaying, \u201cI cannot have your head, but I can close your mouth so that you\ncan no longer go about boasting.\u201d\n\nFrom that day on the gods felt safe from the frost-giants who were\nalways trying to get into the valley of the gods. Those giants for more\nthan half of the year kept the world covered with ice and snow. They\nhushed the flowing of the waters and the singing of the birds. They\nhated the warm sunshine which made the flowers bloom, and covered the\nmountains with grass, and brought the songs from the birds. They hated\nthe god of the sun. They hated Thor, for it was Thor\u2019s hammer that kept\nthem from the land of the gods.\n\nThen a morning came when Thor awoke to find that his hammer was gone. He\nsearched and searched, but the hammer could not be found. Then in great\nfear he thought, \u201cThe giants have stolen the hammer while I slept.\u201d At\nthat thought he was very angry. Fire flashed from his eyes and the earth\ntrembled under his angry voice. \u201cCome, Loke,\u201d he called, \u201cwe must be off\nat once to the land of the giants. The gods can never be safe if the\nhammer is in the hands of our enemies.\u201d\n\nLoke thought of a way to get into the home of the giants. He dressed\nhimself like a huge bird and on its magical wings flew straight to that\nhigh mountaintop where the giants lived.\n\nThe giants were surprised to see Loke, but they gave him welcome. Loke\nsoon learned that the giants did have the hammer, but search as he\nwould, he could not find it. At last the mighty giant who was greatest\nof all the giants said, \u201cThor may have his hammer when the gods bring me\na beautiful goddess to be my wife.\u201d\n\nLoke returned to tell Thor what he had heard. Thor was puzzled, for what\ngoddess would ever consent to be the bride of a giant? Then Thor thought\nof a plan to outwit the giant. He would dress as a maiden and go to the\nland of the giants with Loke. Perhaps he could trick the giants.\n\nSoon the broad wings of the huge bird were again carrying Loke to the\nhome of the giants. With Loke, this time, rode Thor dressed as a maiden,\nwearing a heavy veil over his face.\n\nThey entered the land of the giants and were greeted by the mighty\ngiant, who was pleased that a goddess had come to be his wife. He said\nto his servants, \u201cMake a great feast and invite all the giants to come\nto see my bride.\u201d\n\nThe giants came and the feast was spread. But all the time, the maiden\nkept the veil over her face. The mighty giant begged to look upon the\nface of his bride. Then Loke said, \u201cThe hammer must be ours before I can\ntake the veil from the maiden\u2019s face.\u201d\n\nSo the mighty giant brought the hammer and placed it on the maiden\u2019s\nlap. At that moment, Loke took the veil from the face and the giants saw\nbefore them the mighty Thor with the powerful hammer in his hands. They\nran away in fear, as Thor whirled the hammer round and round and balls\nof fire flashed through the sky and peals of thunder filled the air.\n\nThor and Loke lost no time in getting back to the land of the gods. All\nthe gods were out to greet them, and great was their joy to see the\nwonderful hammer. Once more the gods were safe from the wicked giants.\n\n\n\n\n                 Buried Treasures of the Old Sea Kings\n\n\nMany secrets of the long, long ago lie buried deep under the ground. In\nevery land there are people who dig for such buried treasures. Only a\nfew years ago some men in Norway dug down to a most wonderful treasure.\nWhat do you suppose they found? It was an old, old ship that the early\nsailors of that northland had sailed upon the seas more than two\nthousand years ago.\n\nYou can imagine how eagerly they worked to get every piece of the old\nship out of the ground and to patch the pieces together to rebuild the\nold craft. And what a beautiful ship they finally had!\n\nThat ship, called the Oseborg Ship, stands today in a shed in an\nopen-air museum near Oslo. School girls and boys go there with their\nteachers to see the old ship. They almost always look the longest at the\nbig dragon\u2019s head that rode on the front of the boat, or at the _prow_\nof the boat as sailors call it.\n\nHow many, many questions those pupils ask about the old ship and about\nthe old kings of the seas, who were called _Vikings_. And you can\nimagine how eagerly they listen to the tales of those daring sailors who\nventured far, far out into the unknown seas in their long, black boats,\neach of which looked like a huge animal with its head sticking up out of\nthe water.\n\n[Illustration: THE VIKING SHIP AS IT WAS FOUND]\n\nOther treasures have been dug from the earth in Sweden too. One old\nchest had in it many queer things. One object from that old chest which\ninterests Swedish girls and boys is a large gold ring with eight small\nrings upon it. Those rings of gold had been used for money long ago\nbefore people made coins. In those early days a man buying something\nwould break off a piece of gold from one of the rings to pay for his\npurchase.\n\n\n\n\n                       Tales of the Old Sea Kings\n\n\nA long black boat, floating a red flag with a large black raven upon it,\nglided through the fjords and out to the open sea. At its prow stood a\ndragon\u2019s head; at its stern was the animal\u2019s tail. Along its sides,\nwhich looked like the body of a huge beast, were rows of big round\nshields painted red, black, and white. Behind those shields, on each\nside of the long boat, sheltered from the sprays of water, sat forty men\nwho rowed the boat.\n\nSo the old ship of the sea kings which now stands in the museum had\nglided in the long, long ago.\n\nThose old kings of the seas who sailed such boats are sometimes called\nVikings. They got that name from the waterways which are now called\nfjords, but which were called _viks_ in the early days. The Northmen who\nkept their boats along the viks were called _Vikings_.\n\nNearly every Northman in those early days had a boat. They needed boats\nto go about on the fjords, but they also loved the open sea and sailed\nout upon it. Finding the material with which to make a boat was an easy\ntask, for many great trees grew on the mountainsides of their lands.\n\nSome of the ships that sailed on the seas reached the shores of other\nlands. In those lands the Vikings saw shining gold and silver and sharp\nweapons of bronze. The Northmen had no such treasures in their land.\nAfter hearing about such riches, the Vikings were not content without\nthem. Some of the braver ones said, \u201cWe will sail our boats to those\nlands and take the rich treasures for ourselves.\u201d\n\nSo the Vikings became sea rovers, or pirates, as sea robbers are often\ncalled. Those early Vikings believed that the riches of the world\nbelonged rightly to the people who were strong enough to take them for\nthemselves.\n\nDuring the long winters, the Vikings stayed at home. In the daytime,\nthey mended their boats, or built new boats. In the evenings they\ngathered around the feast table and listened to tales of adventures at\nsea. But when the warm days of sunshine came, they hastened to plant\ntheir crops and then to sail away to rob their neighbors.\n\nThe Vikings had no instrument with which to tell the direction they were\nsailing. They had no glasses through which to sight land. They took big\nbirds, called ravens, with them on their boats to help them. When they\nwanted to find land, they would turn loose one of the birds. The raven\nwould fly to land. By following the bird, the seamen too found land.\n\n[Illustration: THE OLD VIKING SHIP REBUILT]\n\nWhen one of the dragon-like ships came near the shores of another land,\nthe people on the shores were filled with fear. Sometimes they tried to\nkeep the robbers from landing on their shores. Then the Vikings would\nget their battle axes and their shields and fight their way into the\nland. They were cruel fighters. Often they left whole towns in\nruin\u2014people dying, and homes and crops in flames. For years the Vikings\nkept up their life as sea robbers.\n\nAfter a time, some of the Vikings thought, \u201cWe will take our families\nand build new homes for ourselves in the rich lands we have visited.\u201d\n\nSo Viking boats sailed away from the northland carrying whole families.\nSome went to nearby lands where the English live. Others went to live on\nlands that belong to the French. But many others sailed farther away and\nbuilt homes on an island which is called Iceland. Other families\nfollowed them to Iceland. Before many years there were more than a\nthousand Vikings living on the island.\n\nSome of the Vikings who had gone to live in Iceland still liked to sail\nthe seas. Stories say that one of them, a very daring seaman called Lief\nEricsson, sailed and sailed a very long way from his home. He found a\nland with many green trees and green grass and grapevines loaded with\nfruit. Lief called the land Vinland because of the grapes. But now\npeople believe that the shores which Lief Ericsson found were really the\nshores of our land, America. Lief\u2019s voyage to Vinland was made about\nfive hundred years before Columbus found the new world.\n\nSome people have said, \u201cThe story that Lief Ericsson found America\ncannot be true. A Viking ship could not have crossed the big ocean.\u201d\n\nBut there was still a \u201cViking\u201d living in Norway. He was a young Captain\nAndersen. He believed that the old Viking ships could cross the ocean.\nEven as a boy he had dreamed of how fine it would be to cross the ocean\nin a real Viking ship like those of the old Viking days.\n\nAbout the time Captain Andersen was dreaming his dream, one of the old\nViking ships which now stands in the museum was found buried deep under\nground. Captain Andersen saw that ship. A few years later, the young\ncaptain heard of a World\u2019s Fair to be held in Chicago, a city in\nAmerica. Then he got an idea. He thought, \u201cI\u2019ll build a ship that will\nbe a true copy of the old Viking ship\u2014I\u2019ll build it the same size as\nthat old ship and will sail it with the same equipment across the\nAtlantic Ocean to America. I\u2019ll sail the ship through the waters of\nNorth America to Chicago and show it to the visitors at the World\u2019s\nFair.\u201d\n\n[Illustration: CAPTAIN ANDERSEN\u2019S SHIP _VIKING_ LEAVING OSLO]\n\nAnd the young captain set about the task of building the ship. Of course\nhe had difficulties. He had to have money, but he got it. Finally the\nship was built. It was named the _Viking_ and Captain Andersen was made\nits commander.\n\nThe _Viking_ set sail on April 30, 1893, with a crew of twelve men. On\nJune 13, it reached America. Captain Andersen\u2019s dream had come true.\n\nThe _Viking_ was taken to Chicago. Thousands and thousands of visitors\nat the World\u2019s Fair saw the old ship.\n\nThe _Viking_ was left in Chicago. It still stands under a shelter in\nLincoln Park. On the old ship is a message which says that the ship came\nacross the ocean under its own sails. It came to carry a message of\ngood-will to the people of the United States of America.\n\n\n\n\n                           Ivar, a Viking Boy\n\n\nIn the days of the Vikings, a son was born to the noble and bold\nHjorvard and his wife Sigrlin. A feast day was set on which the babe was\nto be named. This was the custom for \u201cname fastening\u201d in Viking homes.\n\nOn the day for the \u201cname fastening,\u201d people for miles about gathered at\nHjorvard\u2019s home. Hjorvard took his son on his lap. A vessel filled with\nwater was brought in and Hjorvard poured water on the child. Then he\nsaid in a loud voice so that all the people could hear him,\n\n\u201cIvar, the boy shall be named after his grandfather. He will fight many\nbattles. He shall be fair like his mother, and be called his father\u2019s\nson, for he will wage war from an early age and wander far and wide.\u201d\n\nHjorvard placed a sprig of garlic around his son\u2019s neck, as a \u201cname\nfastening,\u201d meaning that as the garlic stood high among the grasses so\nwould little Ivar stand among men. Then he placed by Ivar\u2019s side a\ndouble-edged sword and a coat of mail, a shield, and a helmet of silver.\nEvery animal born on Hjorvard\u2019s farm on the day of the birth of little\nIvar was to belong to the child.\n\n[Illustration: From \u201cThe Viking Age,\u201d Paul du Chaillu.]\n\n    Pictures have been found cut into rocks in Norway and Sweden.\n    This is an old rock picture of a Viking ship, made many, many\n    years ago. It shows a Viking defending his ship against two\n    smaller ones.\n\nIvar grew well. There was great joy in the family when he cut his first\ntooth. His father, as was the Viking custom, gave him a \u201ctooth fee.\u201d The\ngift was a knife in a gold sheath. This was fastened to a leather belt\nsewn with gold thread. He gave him also a large farm where he would live\nwhen he became a man.\n\nAs time went on Ivar grew to be a beautiful child; he was fair and had\nblue eyes. Like all boys of his age he loved to play. Nothing pleased\nhim more than to put in the water a toy boat with a sail and watch it go\nout to sea.\n\nWhen Ivar was six years old his parents began to think of sending him to\nbe fostered. Boys who were to be great warriors were not brought up at\nhome but sent to some friend who was wise and brave, to be educated.\nIvar\u2019s father and mother chose a brave man named Gudbrand to educate\nIvar.\n\nIvar\u2019s father made ready to send a messenger to Gudbrand. On the day\nwhen the messenger was to sail, a fleet of fifteen boats was seen coming\ntowards the shore. Each ship carried a white shield on its mast. This\nmeant that they were friendly and peaceful.\n\nAs the vessels came nearer shore they made a beautiful sight. Along the\nsides of the boats were the colored shields of the warriors. The sails,\ntoo, were striped in bright colors. Ahead of the other ships was a\ndragon ship flying a flag with an eagle on it. By this flag every one\nknew that this was Gudbrand\u2019s ship.\n\nHjorvard and Sigrlin were glad to see Gudbrand\u2019s ship coming at this\ntime. Hjorvard went out to meet the great warrior. There were great\nfeasts that day.\n\nThe next day when Gudbrand was talking to some of the warriors, Hjorvard\ncame up to him with Ivar in his arms. He put Ivar on Gudbrand\u2019s knees.\nIt was an old custom that the man upon whose knee a child was seated was\nbound to become his \u201cfosterer.\u201d Hjorvard\u2019s men shouted with joy to see\nIvar seated upon the knees of Gudbrand, who was known for his wisdom and\nbravery.\n\nAt last the day came when Ivar was to leave his mother. Sigrlin was sad\nto see him go for he was to be away for long years. Ivar walked down to\nthe shore between his parents, chatting merrily. As the ship left the\nshore Sigrlin stood on the headland watching it go. Then, with a deep\nsigh, she went homeward.\n\nThe wind was fair and after a sail of three days Gudbrand\u2019s ships\nreached home. Sigrid, his wife, was well pleased when she saw Ivar. She\nprepared a room for him close to her own.\n\nFor a few days Ivar was homesick. He missed his father and mother and\nhis playmates. Everything was new and strange. Soon, however, he grew to\nlove his new home and his foster parents.\n\nGudbrand and Sigrid had a son named Hjalmar. He was a year older than\nIvar. The two boys became good friends and learned together. As they\ngrew older they were taught gymnastic exercises, games of ball, running,\nwrestling, jumping, and swimming. They learned how to steer and sail a\nboat. They learned how to ride. They even learned ship building and\nworked in the ship yards. Both boys were taught how to write on birch\nbark and to engrave letters on stone, gold, and silver.\n\nIvar and Hjalmar were better at sports than any other boys of their age.\nThey could swim like eels and could shoot straight.\n\nWhen Ivar was fifteen years old Gudbrand gave him a beautiful ship\ncalled _Stallion of the Surf_. Hjalmar also received a beautiful ship\ncalled _Deer of the Surf_. Gudbrand took the two boys sailing with him\nand trained them to build camp and to cook for themselves.\n\nIvar began to wish to see his own people again. Then the two boys sailed\nto the home of Ivar\u2019s father and mother. They were greeted with great\njoy by Hjorvard and Sigrlin, who treated Hjalmar as kindly as if he were\ntheir own son.\n\n[Illustration: TREASURES OF THE OLD SEA KINGS\n(a)Dragon\u2019s head from prow of boat. (b) An old chest.\n(c) Old coins. (d) Gold rings which were used for money.]\n\nAfter three years Ivar and Hjalmar were ready to sail the seas on\nexpeditions of their own. They were Vikings, brave and bold.\n\n                                           Adapted from Ivar the Viking,\n                                           Paul du Chaillu.\n\n\n\n\n         Planting the Flag of Norway at the Bottom of the Earth\n\n\nCrowds of people stood on the banks of the fjord at Oslo in Norway.\nBands were playing and flags were waving. Cheer after cheer arose from\nthe crowd as the boat, the _Fram_, came into sight. On the _Fram_ was a\nbrave Norwegian named Nansen who was returning from adventures in Eskimo\nland.\n\nIn the crowd which cheered Nansen was a lad seventeen years old who also\ndreamed dreams of adventure. That lad was Roald Amundsen. \u201cSome day,\u201d\nsaid Roald, \u201cI\u2019ll travel as far north as I can go. I\u2019ll stand at the\nNorth Pole\u2014the spot at the very top of the world.\u201d\n\nPeople had known for a long time then that the earth is a big ball. The\nspot at the very top of the big ball is called the North Pole and the\nspot at the very bottom of the ball is called the South Pole. No matter\nwhich way a person standing at the North Pole looked he would be looking\nsouth toward the other end of the ball. If he stood at the South Pole,\nno matter which way he looked, he would be looking north towards the top\nof the ball. But when Roald was dreaming his dreams no one had stood at\neither the North Pole or the South Pole. Roald thought, \u201cPerhaps I can\nbe the first to visit the North Pole.\u201d\n\nHow would he know when he reached a spot which no one had seen? Roald\nhad seen the instrument which sailors use to tell direction when out at\nsea. It is a needle that always points toward the north star and that\nstar is almost directly overhead at the North Pole. Roald knew that he\ncould carry such a needle with him. With it he would be able to tell\nwhen he came to the North Pole. For there the needle could no longer\npoint north, so it would move about trying to find north.\n\nBut Roald was then too young for such an adventure. Ten years passed\nafter Nansen\u2019s return before he began to prepare for a journey to the\nNorth Pole. He was to sail in the same boat that Nansen had used, the\n_Fram_. Amundsen\u2019s party was almost ready to start from Norway when news\ncame that an American, named Peary, had reached the North Pole. Already\nthe Stars and Stripes floated over that spot at the top of the earth.\n\nRoald Amundsen still longed to visit the North Pole, but he decided not\nto go at that time. He said, \u201cNo one has yet reached the South Pole\u2014at\nthe bottom of the earth. We will go to the South Pole. Perhaps the\nNorwegian flag may be the first to float there.\u201d\n\nOn a bright sunny day in August, 1910, about a year after Peary found\nthe North Pole, Amundsen and his men set out on the long journey from\nNorway to the South Pole at the bottom of the earth. He knew that the\nAntarctic (ant ark tic)\u2014the land and water at the bottom of the\nearth\u2014is a place of ice and snow. Amundsen knew much about cold lands\nof ice and snow as he had always lived in Norway. He had traveled on\nskis ever since he was a small boy. He had read many books about the\nland to which he was going.\n\nHe planned everything very carefully so that he and his men would have\nevery chance to succeed. He said, \u201cIf a person starting on a hard task\nprepares for the task carefully, he is likely to succeed\u2014and then\npeople say he had _good luck_. If a person does not prepare carefully,\nhe is likely to fail\u2014and then people say he had _bad luck_.\u201d\n\nOn the deck of the _Fram_ were ninety-six Eskimo dogs. Amundsen said,\n\u201cThe Eskimo dog is the best animal to endure the cold and to pull\nsledges over the ice and snow.\u201d Amundsen gave each man in the crew a\nnumber of dogs to be in his care. The men named their dogs and began\nmaking friends with them as soon as the journey began. They must have\nthe dogs ready to work well with them by the time they reached the\nAntarctic.\n\nOn the deck of the boat too were skis and snowshoes, heavy blankets,\nsuits of Eskimo clothes, suits of reindeer skins, canned meat and other\nfoods, and lumber ready to fit together for a house. Amundsen had tried\nto make sure that he and his men would _be lucky_.\n\nThe first part of the journey was through the North Sea along the coast\nof Norway. Then the _Fram_ sailed into the Atlantic Ocean. As they\ntraveled farther and farther south, the weather got warmer each day. The\nmen saw the sun get higher and higher in the sky each noon. Then they\ncame to a place where the sun at noon was almost directly over their\nheads. They were then halfway between the North Pole and the South Pole.\n\n[Illustration: AMUNDSEN\u2019S EQUIPMENT, NOW IN A MUSEUM]\n\nThe men put on light summer clothes. The dogs kept under the shelter\nbuilt for them, but still they suffered from the heat.\n\nThe _Fram_ went on farther south, but the weather began to grow cooler\nand cooler. The farther the boat went from the place where the sun was\nalmost directly over head at noon, the cooler the weather was. The men\nput on warmer clothing and the dogs left their shelters.\n\nBy New Year\u2019s Day the _Fram_ was in the icy waters of the Antarctic. The\nmen saw huge pieces of ice floating in the water. The boat had to make\nits way through the ice. In about two weeks more, they reached a wall of\nice about one hundred feet high. Amundsen was expecting that wall of\nice, which was the edge of the great field of ice called _The Great Ice\nBarrier_.\n\nThe _Fram_ could go no farther. The men unloaded the supplies on the\nice. Not far from that spot, they dug into the ice and made a cellar\nwhere they stored their supplies. Over it they set up the house they had\nbrought from Norway. They called their new home _Framheim_, which means\n_Fram home_.\n\nIn January the weather in the Antarctic is much like June weather in the\nfar north. Day after day the men watched the sun go in a circle around\ntheir home on the ice. The sun there moved much the same as they had\nseen it move in the Arctic where Hammerfest lies. At Hammerfest, that\ntown which is farther north than any other town, the sun is in the east\nin the early morning, in the south at noon, in the west in the late\nafternoon, and in the north at midnight. But in the Antarctic the men\nsaw the sun in the east in the early morning, in the _north_ at noon, in\nthe west in the late afternoon, and in the _south_ at midnight.\n\nThe men knew that after April twenty-second the sun would not be seen in\nthis land at the bottom of the earth for four months. They would not\nhave time to reach the South Pole before that long night came. They must\nwait for another summer.\n\nDuring the long night the men lived comfortably in their house on the\nice. They looked over every sledge, every piece of harness, their\nclothes, and their skis to make sure that everything was in shape for\nthe trip over the ice to the South Pole.\n\nThe sun appeared in the sky for only a few minutes on August\ntwenty-fourth. Each day after that it crept a little higher and stayed a\nlittle longer until at last the long day came when the sun was in the\nsky for weeks and weeks without setting.\n\nFor weeks after the sun appeared, the weather was bitter cold. The men\nwatched for signs of warmer weather. Late in September they saw a seal\ncrawl out of the water. They then knew that they soon would have warmer\ndays, so they began to prepare for the journey to the pole.\n\nOn October twentieth, Amundsen and four other men with four sledges and\nfifty-two dogs set out from Framheim. The sledges were loaded with\nprovisions enough to last four months. As they journeyed south, they\nstopped at different places and built up piles of snow blocks. The heaps\nof snow would help them find their way back. Under the blocks of snow\nthey put supplies which they would need as they came back.\n\nThe dogs made good time over the ice of the Antarctic. They traveled\nabout seventeen miles a day. The men on their skis easily kept up with\nthe dogs. But by the middle of November they came to snow-covered\nmountains. Some of them are two miles high. Travel was then harder. The\nparty traveled up about one mile. They then rested. Travel was easier\nfor a few days as they had reached a high level stretch of land which we\ncall a plateau (pla t\u014d). They then began to climb mountains again. Early\nin December they were up two miles high. From that time on they traveled\non another plateau. Travel was easy on this level stretch of land. The\nmen knew that the South Pole was on this plateau. The end of their\njourney seemed near.\n\nOn the night of December thirteenth, they had that strange feeling that\nsomething was going to happen. And at three o\u2019clock the next day they\nwere on the spot which they reckoned to be the South Pole. The happy men\nseized each other\u2019s hands. How glad they were! They then did the most\nimportant act of the journey\u2014they planted the flag of Norway on that\nspot.\n\nThe hands of all five men held the flag as it was set into place.\nAmundsen would have it that way. He said later, \u201cIt was not for one man\nto do this; it was for all who staked their lives in the struggle, and\nheld together through thick and thin.\u201d\n\nAs the men put the flag in place, they said, \u201cThus we plant thee,\nBeloved Flag, at the South Pole, and give the plateau on which it lies\nthe name _King Haakon VII\u2019s Plateau_.\u201d\n\nSo while the Stars and Stripes floated at the top of the earth, the red,\nwhite, and blue flag of Norway floated at its bottom.\n\nIn about six weeks the happy men were back in Framheim. About a week\nlater the _Fram_ set sail for the long return trip to Norway. But early\nin March the _Fram_ reached land from which messages could be sent and\nthe whole world soon knew that the flag of Norway had been planted at\nthe South Pole. And the whole world did honor to the brave men from the\nnorth who planted it there.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                             BOOKS TO READ\n\n\nWhile you are studying about Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, you will enjoy\nreading one or more of these books.\n\n1. Aanrud, H., Lisbeth Longfrock. Ginn and Company: Boston.\n\n    A story of farm life in Norway long ago. Note.\u2014A new translation of\n    this is published by the John C. Winston Company, Philadelphia,\n    under the title, Sidsel Longskirt and Solve Suntrap.\n\n2. Asbjornsen, P. C., Fairy Tales from the Far North, Burt Publishing\nCompany.\n\n    Stories that children of the far north read.\n\n3. Aulaire, Ingri M. d\u2019, and Aulaire, Edgar P. d\u2019, Children of the\nNorthlights. Viking Press: New York.\n\n    Stories of Lapp children with many beautiful illustrations.\n\n4. Bay, J. C., Danish Fairy and Folk Tales. Harper and Brothers: New\nYork.\n\n    More stories that children of the far north read.\n\n5. Burglon, N., Children of the Soil. Doubleday, Doran and Company:\nGarden City, New York.\n\n    A story of Sweden, which tells of old Swedish customs.\n\n6. Everson, F. M., and Everson, H., Coming of the Dragon Ships. E. P.\nDutton and Company: New York.\n\n    Two Viking children, their adventures and everyday doings.\n\n7. Falkberg, J., Broomstick and Snowflake. Macmillan Company: New York.\n\n    Fairy tales with one especially amusing story about a giant.\n\n8. Hamsun, M. A., Norwegian Farm. Lippincott Company: Philadelphia.\n\n    Translated from the Norwegian\u2014a picture of farm life of present-day\n    Norway and of the doings of a lively family of children.\n\n9. Lagerlof, S. O. L., Wonderful Adventures of Nils. Doubleday, Doran\nand Company: Garden City, New York.\n\n    An interesting story by one of Sweden\u2019s best story-tellers. Nils\n    flies over Sweden on the back of a goose. This book was written to\n    help in making geography interesting for Swedish children.\n\n10. Lattimore, E. F., Seven Crowns. Harcourt, Brace and Company: New\nYork.\n\n    A little girl visits her grandmother in Copenhagen and spends seven\n    crowns as she pleases.\n\n11. Palm, A., Wanda and Greta at Broby Farm. Longmans, Green and\nCompany: New York.\n\n    This is translated from the Swedish and tells what happened to two\n    little girls and their dog.\n\n12. Scott, G., Kari. Doubleday, Doran and Company: Garden City, New\nYork.\n\n    A story of a girl in Norway.\n\n13. Schram, C. W., Olaf, Lofoten Fisherman. Longmans, Green and Company:\nNew York.\n\n  Olaf lives in the Lofoten Islands and goes fishing.\n\n14. Thorne-Thomsen, G., East O\u2019 the Sun and West O\u2019 the Moon. Row,\nPetersen and Company: Evanston, Ill.\n\n  A collection of Norwegian fairy and folk tales.\n\n15. Zwilgmeyer, D., Johnny Blossom. Pilgrim Press: Boston.\n\n  A story of a little boy in Norway some years ago.\n\n16. Zwilgmeyer, D., What Happened to Inger Johanne. Lothrop, Lee and\nShepard: Boston.\n\n  An amusing story of the doings of a Norwegian girl.\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n                    INDEX AND PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY\n\n                          KEY TO PRONUNCIATION\n\n                          \u0101 as in m\u0101te\n                          \u0103 as in c\u0103t\n                          \u00e2 as in c\u00e2re\n                          \u0227 as in \u0227sk\n                          \u00e4 as in f\u00e4rm\n\n                          \u0113 as in \u0113ve\n                          \u0115 as in l\u0115t\n                          \u1ebd as in h\u1ebdr\n                          \u012b as in m\u012bnd\n\n                          \u012d as in \u012dt\n                          \u014d as in m\u014dte\n                          \u014f as in n\u014ft\n                          \u00f4 as in \u00f4r\n\n                          \u016b as in m\u016bte\n                          \u016d as in c\u016dt\n                          \u00fb as in b\u00fbrn\n                          [=oo] as in f[=00]d\n                          [)oo] as in f[)oo]t\n\n                  *       *       *       *       *\n\nAmerican relations:\n  trade with, 9, 12, 37, 49, 94\n  travel in, 10, 30, 49, 90, 115, 117\n  Independence day in Denmark, 114-17\n  explorer at North Pole, 180\n  Scandinavian Foundation, 42\n  Danish Clubs, 115-16\n\nAmundsen, Roald (\u00e4h\u00b4m\u016dn sen, r\u014dld), 176-88\n\nAndersen, Captain, 169-71\n\nAndersen, Hans Christian, 4, 82-9\n\nAntarctic (\u0227nt\u00b4\u00e4rk\u00b4t\u012dk), 185, 186\n\nArctic Ocean (\u00e4rk\u00b4t\u012dk \u014d\u00b4shun), 11-12, 93\n\nAtlantic Ocean, 22, 182\n\n\nBaltic Sea, 98\n\nbird roosts, 17-19\n\nBjornson, Bjornstjerne (By\u00fbrn\u00b4s\u016dn, by\u00fbrnst\u00b4y\u016brn), 42\n\nboy scouts, 104-6\n\nBrok (br\u014fk), 156-9\n\nburied treasures, 162-4, 177\n\n\ncariole (k\u0103r\u00b4\u012d \u014dl), 51\n\ncattle, 27, 60-70, 73, 77-78\n\nChristmas, 32, 108, 109, 110, 111\n\ncities and towns:\n  Bergen (b\u0115r\u00b4gen), 90-96\n  Copenhagen (k\u014d\u00b4pn h\u0101\u00b4gen), 71, 143\n  Hammerfest (h\u00e4m \u1ebdr f\u0115st), 7, 11-14, 184\n  Odense (\u014d\u00b4th\u0115n s\u0101), 82, 86\n  old Danish town, 78\n  Oslo (\u014ds\u00b4l\u014d), 51, 136, 143, 162\n  Stockholm (st\u014fk\u00b4holm), 97-106, 146\n\nclothing:\n  for high pastures, 67\n  explorers, 182-4\n  old costumes, 113, 150\n\ncoal, 9, 32\n\nco-operation:\n  Danish plan, 79-81\n\n\nDanish-American Club, 115-16\n\ndragon boats, 163, 165, 175\n\n\neider ducks, 93\n\nelectricity:\n  in far north, 5\n  on farms, 59\n  power plants, 32\n  use of, 7, 11, 129\n\nEricsson, Leif (\u0115r\u00b4\u012dk s\u016dn, l\u0113f), 4, 168\n\n\nfactories:\n  cheese making, 64-6, 79\n  creameries, 64-6, 78\n  cod-liver oil, 11, 25\n  electric power, 32\n  matches, 37\n  paper, 36-7\n\nfairy tales:\n  far north, 26, 153\n\nfarms:\n  Danish co-operative, 79-81\n  Denmark, 71-81\n  drying grain, 57-58\n  fox farms, 56-7\n  \u201clittle farms,\u201d 101\n  making hay, 53-4, 56\n  Norway, 51-9\n\nfish:\n  cod, 20-5, 93\n  drying, 24-5\n  halibut, 93\n  herring, 16, 93\n  market, 93\n  shipping, 9\n\nfishermen, 16, 20-5\n\nfishing boats, 16, 17, 20-4\n\nfishing towns, 16, 24\n\nfjord (fy\u014drd):\n  cause of, 30-1\n  travel on, 51-3, 165\n\nflags:\n  American, 9, 114, 117, 181, 187\n  Danish, 9\n  Norwegian, 134, 187-8\n  other lands, 9\n  Swedish, 138\n\nfood, 66, 75, 95-6, 108, 110\n\nforests, 33\n  conservation, 37\n\nFram (fr\u00e4m), 180-8\n\n\ngiants:\n  fairy tale, 26, 32, 107, 111, 153, 158-61\n  nature\u2019s, 27, 32\n\nglaciers (gl\u0101 sh\u016drz), 27-32, 73\n\ngods, 153\n  Frey (fr\u012b), 153\n  Loki, or Loke (l\u014d\u00b4k\u0113), 153-61\n  Odin (\u014d\u00b4d\u012dn), 107, 111\n  Thor (th\u00f4r), 153-61\n  Tye (t\u012b), 153\n  Wodin (w[=oo] d\u012dn, or \u014d\u00b4din), 153\n\ngovernment:\n  protection of fishermen, 24\n  providing land, 69-70, 101\n  Scandinavian union, 134\n  Norway\u2019s separate government, 134-5\n\nGudbrand (g[=oo]d\u00b4br\u0103nd), 174-6\n\nGulf Stream, 12-13\n\n\nhigh pastures, 60-70\n\nHjalmar (hy\u00e4l\u00b4m\u00e4r), 176-8\n\nHjorvard (hy\u00f4r\u00b4v\u00e4rd), 172-3, 175\n\nhouses:\n  farm houses, 74-5\n  fisherman huts, 15-16\n  Lapp huts, 46-7\n  old houses, 147-50, 152, 167\n  saeter huts, 60-1\n  summer houses, 100-6, 139-42\n  Stockholm buildings, 103\n\n\nIndependence day:\n  Norwegian, 134\n  American in Denmark, 114-17\n\ninstruments for direction, 180\n\nislands:\n  coast of Norway, 14-17\n  Denmark, 142\n  Stockholm, 97-8\n\nIvar (\u012b\u00b4v\u00e4r), 172-8\n\n\nJotunheim (y[=oo] t\u016dn h\u012bm), 26\n\n\nknights, 4, 105-6\n\nlanguages:\n  foreign, 10, 87, 143\n  in schools, 136-7\n\nLapland, 45\n\nLapps, 44-50\n\nLofoten (l\u014d f\u014d\u00b4ten), 20-5\n\nlogging, 33-6\n\n\nmail delivery, 12, 59\n\nMaypole, 1, 11-14\n\nMid-summer Eve, 111-114\n\nmilkmaids, 60-69\n\nmountains:\n  carriers, 56\n  city in midst, 90, 92\n  high peaks, 26, 32, 52-3\n  how clothed, 38-42\n  moss, 44\n  streams, 34-6\n  walls, 17, 52-3\n\nmuseums:\n  Amundsen\u2019s equipment, 183\n  Andersen, 86-7\n  open-air, Oslo, 162-3\n  open-air, Norway and Sweden, 145-52\n\n\nNansen (n\u00e4n\u00b4s\u0115n), 179-80\n\nnational anthem:\n  Norwegian, 133\n\nnorthern seashores, 12\n\nNorsk (n\u00f4rsk):\n  words, 136\n\nNorth Cape, 11\n\nNorth Pole, 179-80\n\nNorth Sea, 90\n  Odense (\u014d\u00b4th\u0115n s\u0101), 82, 86\n  Oseborg (\u014ds\u00b4b\u00fbrg), ship, 162\n  Oslo (\u014ds\u00b4l\u014d), 51, 136, 144, 162\n\n\npalace, 103, 104, 136\n\npaper pulp, 36-7\n\npirates, 98, 168\n\nplateau (pla to):\n  King Haaken VII\u2019s (h\u00e4w\u00b4k\u014dhn), 186\n\n\nquay (k\u0113), 102-3\n\n\nrainfall, 92\n\nreindeer (r\u0101n\u00b4d\u0113r), 1, 43-8, 68-9\n\n\nsaeter (s\u0101 t\u1ebdr), 60-70\n  Grotli (gr\u014dt\u00b4l[~i]), 68\n  huts, 60, 63-4\n  location of, 69-70\n\nschools:\n  Danish, 71-2, 80-1, 142-4\n  Lapp, 47-9\n  libraries, 144\n  Norwegian, 132-7\n  studies, 131, 134\n  Swedish, 137-42\n  Viking education, 173-6\n\nships:\n  of different nations, 9\n  on northern seas, 12\n  passenger, 10\n\nSif (s\u012df), 154-5, 157\n\nSigrlin (s\u012dgr\u00b4l\u012dn), 172, 175\n\nSouth Pole, 181, 187-8\n\nsports:\n  races, 141-2\n  sail-skating, 124-7\n  skating, 111, 127\n  skiing, 1, 111, 118-24, 181, 186\n  swimming, 102, 139-42\n  teaching of, 138\n\nsun, 3, 5, 6, 7, 18, 182, 183\n\nsunshine:\n  days without, 5, 13, 20\n  nights with, 7, 20\n\n\nThor (th\u00f4r), 153-61\n\ntravel:\n  automobile, 27, 53, 67\n  boats, 12, 14, 67, 73\n  dog sleds, 182, 186\n  on mountain roads, 62-3, 51, 67\n  railways, 12, 51, 97\n  cariole, 51\n  skis, 120-1, 181\n\ntrees:\n  birds\u2019 Christmas, 109\n  birch, 15, 38\n  fir, 38, 108, 112\n  juniper, 38\n  most northern, 9\n  pine, 112\n  spruce, 108, 112\n\n\nViking (v\u012b\u00b4k\u012dng or v\u012bk\u00b4\u012dng):\n  boats, 2, 163, 165, 174-6\n  boy, 172-8\n  custom of \u201cname fastening,\u201d 172-3\n  how named, 165\n  modern, 169-71\n  tales of, 165-9\n\n\nwaterfalls, 32\n\nwind on flat lands, 125-6\n\nwindmills, 74\n\nwood, uses of, 8, 36, 93-4, 103\n\nwoodcutters, 34\n\n\nYule-tide, 33, 107-11\n\nYule-tree, 1, 33, 108-9","title":"Near the Top of the World: Stories of Norway, Sweden & Denmark","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":30095}