{"collection":"folklore-oral-tradition","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_52195/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_52195","id":"gutenberg_52195","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/52195","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Adventure","Category: Travel Writing","Folklore -- Norway","Norway -- Description and travel"],"text":"[Illustration: \u201cHe picked his way, with much circumspection, between\nthe prostrate forms of the tiny people.\u201d\n\n_T. G. J._ VOL. I., p. 233.]\n\n\n\n\n                              THE OXONIAN\n                                  IN\n                              THELEMARKEN;\n\n                                  OR,\n\n                NOTES OF TRAVEL IN SOUTH-WESTERN NORWAY\n                   IN THE SUMMERS OF 1856 AND 1857.\n\n                  WITH GLANCES AT THE LEGENDARY LORE\n                           OF THAT DISTRICT.\n\n                                  BY\n                  THE REV. FREDERICK METCALFE, M.A.,\n                  FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD,\n                               AUTHOR OF\n                       \u201cTHE OXONIAN IN NORWAY.\u201d\n\n          \u201cAuf den Bergen ist Freiheit; der Hauch der Gr\u00fcfte,\n          Steigt nicht hinauf in die sch\u00f6nen L\u00fcfte,\n          Die Welt is volkommen \u00fcberall,\n          Wo der Mensch nicht hinein k\u00f6mmt mit seiner Qual.\u201d\n\n          \u201cTu nidum servas: ego laudo ruris am\u0153ni\n          Rivos, et musco circumlita saxa, nemusque.\u201d\n\n                            IN TWO VOLUMES.\n                                VOL. I.\n\n                                LONDON:\n                    HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,\n                     SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,\n                     13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.\n                                 1858.\n\n               [_The right of Translation is reserved._]\n\n                                LONDON:\n             SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,\n                             COVENT GARDEN\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nIn the neighbourhood of Bayeux, in Normandy, it is said that there\nstill lingers a superstition which most probably came there originally\nin the same ship as Rollo the Walker. The country folks believe in\nthe existence of a sprite (goubelin) who plagues mankind in various\nways. His most favourite method of annoyance is to stand like a horse\nsaddled and bridled by the roadside, inviting the passers-by to mount\nhim. But woe to the unlucky wight who yields to the temptation, for\noff he sets--\u201cHalloo! halloo! and hark away!\u201d galloping fearfully\nover stock and stone, and not unfrequently ends by leaving his rider\nin a bog or horse-pond, at the same time vanishing with a loud peal\nof mocking laughter. \u201cA heathenish and gross superstition!\u201d exclaims\nfriend Broadbrim. But what if we try to extract a jewel out of this\nugly monster; knock some commonsense out of his head. Goethe turned the\nold fancy of _Der getreue Eckart_ to good account in that way. What\nif a moral of various application underlies this grotesque legend.\nSuppose, for the nonce, that the rider typify the writer of a book.\nUnable to resist a strong temptation to bestride the Pegasus of his\nimagination--whether prose or verse--he ventures to mount and go forth\ninto the world, and not seldom he gets a fall for his pains amid a loud\nchorus of scoffs and jeers. Indeed, this is so common a catastrophe,\nfrom the days of Bellerophon downwards (everybody knows that he was the\nauthor of the _Letters_[1] that go by his name), so prone is inkshed to\nlead to disaster, that the ancient wish, \u201cOh that mine adversary had\nwritten a book,\u201d in its usual acceptation (which entirely rests, be it\nsaid, on a faulty interpretation of the original language), was really\nexceedingly natural, as the fulfilment of it was as likely as not to\nlead to the fullest gratification of human malice.\n\nIn defiance, however, of the dangers that threatened him, the writer\nof these lines did once gratify his whim, and mount the goblin steed,\nand as good luck would have it, without being spilled or dragged\nthrough a horse-pond, or any mischance whatsoever. In other words,\ninstead of cold water being thrown upon his endeavours, _The Oxonian in\nNorway_ met with so indulgent a handling from that amiable abstraction,\nthe \u201cBenevolus Lector,\u201d that it soon reached a second edition.\n\nSo far the author\u2019s lucky star was in the ascendant. But behold his\ninfatuation, he must again mount and tempt his fate, \u201cAy! and on the\nsame steed, too,\u201d cries Mr. Bowbells, to whom the swarming sound of\nlife with an occasional whiff of the sewers is meat, and drink, and all\nthings; who is bored to death if he sees more of the quiet country than\nBrighton or Ramsgate presents, and is about as locomotive in his tastes\nas a London sparrow.\n\n\u201cNorway again, forsooth--_nous revenons \u00e0 nos moutons_--that horrid\nbleak country, where the cold in winter is so intense that when you\nsneeze, the shower from your olfactories rattles against the earth like\ndust-shot, and in summer you can\u2019t sleep for the brazen-faced sun\nstaring at you all the twenty-four hours. What rant that is about\n\n    The dark tall pines that plume the craggy ledge,\n    High over the blue gorge,\n\nand all that sort of thing. Give me Kensington Gardens and Rotten Row!\u201d\n\nStill--in spite of Bowbells--we shall venture on the expedition, and\nprobably with less chance of a fiasco than if we travelled by the\nexpress-train through the beaten paths of central Europe. There, all\nis a dead level. Civilization has smoothed the gradients actually\nand metaphorically--alike in the Brunellesque and social sense.\nAs people progress in civilization, the more prominent marks of\nnational character are planed off. Individuality is lost. The members\nof civilized society are as like one another as the counters on a\ndraft-board. \u201cThey rub each other\u2019s angles down,\u201d and thus lose \u201cthe\npicturesque of man and man.\u201d The same type keeps repeating itself with\nsickening monotony, like the patterns of paper-hangings, instead of\nthose delightfully varied arabesques with which the free hand of the\npainter used to diversify the walls of the antique dwelling.\n\nBut it is not so with the population of a primitive country like\nNorway. Much of the simplicity that characterized our forefathers\nis still existing there. We are Aladdined to the England of three\ncenturies ago. Do you mean to say that you, a sensible man or woman,\nprefer putting on company manners at every turn, being everlastingly\nswaddled in the artificial restraints of society; being always among\ngrand people, or genteel people, or superior people, or people\nof awful respectability? Do you prefer an aviary full of highly\neducated song-birds mewed up so closely that they \u201cshow off\u201d one\nagainst another, filled with petty rivalries and jealousies, to the\ngay, untutored melody of the woods poured forth for a bird\u2019s own\ngratification or that of its mate? Do you like to spend your time\nfor ever in trim gardens, among standards and espaliers, and spruce\nflower-beds, so weeded, and raked, and drilled, and shaped, that you\nfeel positively afraid of looking and walking about for fear of making\na _faux pas_? Oh no! you would like to see a bit of wild rose or native\nheather. (Interpret this as you list of the flowers of the field, or\na fairer flower still.) You prefer climbing a real lichened rock _in\nsitu_, that has not been placed there by Capability Brown or Sir Joseph\nPaxton.\n\nIndeed, the avidity with which books of travel in primitive\ncountries--whether in the tropics or under the pole--are now read,\nshows that the more refined a community is, the greater interest it\nwill take in the occupation, the sentiments, the manners of people\nstill in a primitive state of existence. Our very over-civilization\nbegets in us a taste to beguile oneself of its tedium, its frivolities,\nits unreality, by mixing in thought, at least, with those who are\nnearer the state in which nature first made man.\n\n\u201cThe manners of a rude people are always founded on fact,\u201d said Sir\nWalter Scott, \u201cand therefore the feelings of a polished generation\nimmediately sympathize with them.\u201d It is this kind of feeling that\nhas a good deal to do with urging men, who have been educated in all\nthe habits and comforts of improved society, to leave the groove, and\ncarve out for themselves a rough path through dangers and privations in\nwilder countries.\n\n\u201cYou will have none of this sort of thing,\u201d said Dr. Livingstone, in\nthe Sheldonian theatre, while addressing Young Oxford on the fine\nfield for manly, and useful, and Christian enterprise that Africa\nopens out,--\u201cYou will have none of this sort of thing there,\u201d while he\nuneasily shook the heavy sleeve of his scarlet D.C.L. gown, which he\nhad donned in deference to those who had conferred on him this mark of\nhonour. Yes, less comforts, perhaps, but at the same time less red tape.\n\n\u201cBrown exercise\u201d is better than the stewy, stuffy adipocere state of\nframe in which the man of \u201cindoors mind\u201d ultimately eventuates. Living\non frugal fare, in the sharp, brisk air of the mountain, the lungs\nof mind and body expand healthfully, and the fire of humanity burns\nbrighter, like the fire in the grate when fanned by a draught of fresh\noxygen. Most countries, when we visit them for the first time, turn\nout \u201cthe dwarfs of presage.\u201d Not so Norway. It grows upon you every\ntime you see it. You need not fear, gentle reader, of being taken\nover beaten ground. \u201cThe Oxonian\u201d has never visited Thelemarken and\nS\u00e6tersdal before. So come along with me, in the absence of a better\nguide, if you wish to cultivate a nearer acquaintance with the roughly\nforged, \u201chardware\u201d sort of people of this district, content to forget\nfor a while the eternal willow-pattern crockery of home. Thelemarken is\nthe most primitive part of Norway; it is the real _Ultima Thule_ of the\nancients; the very name indicates this, and the Norwegian antiquaries\nquote our own King Alfred in support of this idea. It is true, that on\nnearer inspection, its physical geography will not be found to partake\nof the marvellous peculiarities assigned to Thule by the ancient Greek\nnavigator, Pytheas, who asserts that it possessed neither earth, air,\nor sea, but a chaotic mixture of all three elements. But that may\nemphatically be said to be neither here nor there. Inaccessible the\ncountry certainly is, and it is this very inaccessibility which has\nkept out the schoolmaster; so that old times are not yet changed, nor\nold manners gone, nor the old language unlearned under the auspices\nof that orthoepic functionary. The fantastic pillars and arches of\nfairy folk-lore may still be descried in the deep secluded glens of\nThelemarken, undefaced with stucco, not propped by unsightly modern\nbuttress. The harp of popular minstrelsy--though it hangs mouldering\nand mildewed with infrequency of use, its strings unbraced for want of\ncunning hands that can tune and strike them as the Scalds of Eld--may\nstill now and then be heard sending forth its simple music. Sometimes\nthis assumes the shape of a soothing lullaby to the sleeping babe, or\nan artless ballad of love-lorn swains, or an arch satire on rustic\ndoings and foibles. Sometimes it swells into a symphony descriptive\nof the descent of Odin; or, in somewhat of less Pindaric, and more\nDibdin strain, it recounts the deeds of the rollicking, death-despising\nVikings; while, anon, its numbers rise and fall with mysterious cadence\nas it strives to give a local habitation and a name to the dimly seen\nforms and antic pranks of the hollow-backed Huldra crew.\n\nThe author thinks that no apology is needed for working in some of the\nlegendary interludes which the natives repeated to him, so curious and\ninteresting, most of which he believes never appeared before in an\nEnglish dress, and several of them in no print whatever. Legends are\nan article much in request just now; neither can they be considered\ntrifling when viewed in the light thrown upon the origin of this\nbranch of popular belief and pastime by the foremost men of their time,\n_e.g._, Scott, and more especially Jacob Grimm. Frivolous, indeed! not\nhalf so frivolous as the hollow-hearted, false-fronted absurdities\nof the \u201cgreat and small vulgar,\u201d is the hollow-backed elf, with the\ngrand mythological background reaching into the twilight of the\nearth\u2019s history, nor so trifling the simple outspoken peasant, grave,\nyet cheery, who speaks as he thinks, and actually sometimes laughs a\ngood guffaw, as the stuck-up ladies and gentlemen of a section of the\nartificial world, with their heartless glitter, crocodile tears, their\nsolemn pretence, their sham raptures.\n\nI must not omit to say that the admirable troll-drawing, which forms\nthe frontispiece of the first volume, is one selected from a set of\nsimilar sketches by my friend, T. G. Jackson, Esq., of Wadham College,\nOxford. It evinces such an intimate acquaintance with the looks of\nthose small gentry that it is lucky for him that he did not live in the\ndays when warlocks were done to death.\n\n                                                                  F. M.\n\n    LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD,\n        _May, 1858_.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS TO VOL. I.\n\n\n                              CHAPTER I.\n\n    The glamour of Norwegian scenery--A gentle angler in a\n    passion--The stirring of the blood--A bachelor\u2019s wild scream\n    of liberty--What marriage brings a salmon-fisher to--Away,\n    for the land of the mountain and the flood--\u201cLittle\u201d circle\n    sailing--The Arctic shark--Advantages of gold lace--A lesson\n    for laughers--Norwegian coast scenery--Nature\u2019s grey friars--In\n    the steps of the Vikings--The Norwegian character--How the\n    Elves left Jutland--Christiansand harbour                      pp. 1-15\n\n                             CHAPTER II.\n\n    Disappointed fishermen--A formidable diver--Arendal, the\n    Norwegian Venice--A vocabulary at fault--Ship-building--The\n    Norwegian Seaboard--Sandefjord, the Norwegian Brighton--A\n    complicated costume--Flora\u2019s own bonnet--Bruin at large--Skien\n    and its saw-mills--Norway cutting its sticks--Wooden\n    walls--Christopher Hansen Blum--The Norwegian phase of\n    religious dissent--A confession of faith--The Norsk Church the\n    offspring of that of Great Britain                            pp. 16-28\n\n                             CHAPTER III.\n\n    A poet in full uniform--The young lady in gauntlet gloves\n    again--Church in a cave--Muscular Christianity in the\n    sixteenth century--A miracle of light and melody--A romance\n    of bigotry--How Lutheranism came in like a lion--The Last\n    of the Barons--Author makes him bite the dust--Brief\n    burial-service in use in South-western Norway--The\n    S\u00f6renskriver--Norwegian substitute for Doctors\u2019 Commons--Grave\n    ale--A priestly Samson--Olaf\u2019s ship--A silent woman--Norwegian\n    dialects--Artificial salmon-breeding--A piscatorial prevision pp. 29-47\n\n                             CHAPTER IV.\n\n    Mine host at Dal--Bernadotte\u2019s prudent benignity--Taxing the\n    bill of costs--Hurrah for the mountains--Whetstones--Antique\n    wooden church--A wild country--\u201cRaven depth\u201d--How the\n    English like to do fine scenery--Ancient wood-carving--A\n    Norwegian peasant\u2019s witticism--A rural rectory--Share and\n    chair alike--Ivory knife-handles--Historical pictures--An\n    old Runic Calendar--The heathen leaven still exists in\n    Norway--Washing-day--Old names of the Norsk months--Peasant\n    songs--Rustic reserve--A Norsk ballad                         pp. 48-68\n\n                              CHAPTER V.\n\n    A lone farm-house--A scandal against the God Thor--The\n    headquarters of Scandinavian fairy-lore--The legend of Dyr\u00eb\n    Vo--A deep pool--A hint for alternate ploughboys--Wild\n    goose geometry--A memorial of the good old times--Dutch\n    falconers--Rough game afoot--Author hits two birds with one\n    stone--Crosses the lake Totak--A Slough of Despond--An honest\n    guide--A Norwegian militiaman--Rough lodgings--A night with the\n    swallows--A trick of authorship--Yea or Nay                   pp. 69-81\n\n                             CHAPTER VI.\n\n    No cream--The valley of the Maan--The Riukan foss--German\n    students--A bridge of dread--The course of true love never\n    did run smooth--Fine misty weather for trout--Salted\n    provisions--Midsummer-night revels--The Tinds\u00f6--The priest\u2019s\n    hole--Treacherous ice--A case for Professor Holloway--The\n    realms of cloud-land--Superannuated--An ornithological\n    guess--Field-fares out of reach of \u201cTom Brown\u201d--The best\n    kind of physic--Undemonstrative affection--Everywhere the\n    same--Clever little horses                                    pp. 82-96\n\n                             CHAPTER VII.\n\n    An oasis--Unkempt waiters--Improving an opportunity--The church\n    in the wilderness--Household words--A sudden squall--The\n    pools of the Quenna--Airy lodgings--Weather-bound--A\n    Norwegian grandpapa--Unwashed agriculturists--An uncanny\n    companion--A fiery ordeal--The idiot\u2019s idiosyncrasy--The\n    punctilious parson--A pleasant query--The mystery of making\n    flad-brod--National cakes--The exclusively English phase of\n    existence--Author makes a vain attempt to be \u201chyggelig\u201d--Rather\n    queer                                                        pp. 97-113\n\n                            CHAPTER VIII.\n\n    Northwards--Social colts--The horse shepherd--The tired\n    traveller\u2019s sweet restorer, tea--Troll-work--Snow\n    Macadam--Otter hunting in Norway--Normaends Laagen--A vision\n    of reindeer--The fisherman\u2019s hut--My lodging is on the cold\n    ground--Making a night of it--National songs--Shaking down--A\n    slight touch of nightmare                                   pp. 114-128\n\n                             CHAPTER IX.\n\n    The way to cure a cold--Author shoots some dotterel--Pit-fall\n    for reindeer--How mountains look in mountain air--A\n    natural terrace--The meeting of the waters--A phantom\n    of delight--Proves to be a clever dairymaid--A singular\n    cavalcade--Terrific descent into Tjelm\u00f6-dal--A volley of\n    questions--Crossing a cataract--A tale of a tub--Author reaches\n    Garatun--Futile attempt to drive a bargain                  pp. 129-141\n\n                              CHAPTER X.\n\n    The young Prince of Orange--A crazy bridge--At the foot of\n    the mighty V\u00f6ring Foss--A horse coming downstairs--Mountain\n    greetings--The smoke-barometer--The V\u00f6ring waterfall--National\n    characteristics--Paddy\u2019s estimate of the Giant\u2019s\n    Causeway--Meteoric water--New illustrations of old\n    slanders--How the Prince of Orange did homage to the glories\n    of nature--Author crosses the lake Eidsfjord--Falls in\n    with an English yacht and Oxonians--An innkeeper\u2019s story\n    about the Prince of Orange--Salmonia--General aspect of\n    a Norwegian Fjord--Author arrives at Utne--Finds himself\n    in pleasant quarters--No charge for wax-lights--Christian\n    names in Thelemarken--Female attire--A query for Sir Bulwer\n    Lytton--Physiognomy of the Thelemarken peasants--Roving\n    Englishmen--Christiania newspapers--The Crown\n    Prince--Historical associations of Utne--The obsequies of Sea\n    Kings--Norwegian gipsies                                    pp. 142-160\n\n                             CHAPTER XI.\n\n    From Fairy-lore to Nature-lore--Charming idea for stout\n    folk--Action and reaction--Election-day at Bergen--A laxstie--A\n    careless pilot--Discourse about opera-glasses--Paulsen Vellavik\n    and the bears--The natural character of bears--Poor Bruin\n    in a dilemma--An intelligent Polar bear--Family plate--What\n    is fame?--A simple Simon--Limestone fantasia--The paradise\n    of botanists--Strength and beauty knit together--Mountain\n    hay-making--A garden in the wilderness--Footprints\n    of a celebrated botanist--Crevasses--Dutiful snow\n    streams--Swerre\u2019s sok--The Rachels of Eternity--A Cockney\u2019s\n    dream of desolation--Curds-and-whey--The setting-in of\n    misfortunes--Author\u2019s powder-flask has a cold bath--The shadows\n    of the mountains--The blind leading the blind--On into the\n    night--The old familiar music--Holloa--Welcome intelligence pp. 161-187\n\n                             CHAPTER XII.\n\n    The lonely ch\u00e2let--The Spirit of the\n    hills--Bauta-stones--Battlefields older than\n    history--Sand-falls--Thorsten Fretum\u2019s hospitality--Norwegian\n    roads--The good wife--Author executes strict\n    justice--Urland--Crown Prince buys a red nightcap--A melancholy\n    spectacle--The trick of royalty--Author receives a visit\n    from the Lehnsman--Skiff voyage to Leirdals\u00f6ren--Limestone\n    cliffs--Becalmed--A peasant lord of the forest--Inexplicable\n    natural phenomena--National education--A real postboy--A\n    disciple for Braham--The Hemsedal\u2019s fjeld--The land\n    of desolation--A passing belle--The change-house of\n    Bj\u00f6berg--\u201cWith twenty ballads stuck upon the wall\u201d--A story\n    about hill folk--Sivardson\u2019s joke--Little trolls--The way to\n    cast out wicked fairies--The people in the valley--Pastor\n    Engelstrup--Economy of a Norwegian change-house--The Halling\n    dance--Tame reindeer--A region of horrors                   pp. 188-214\n\n                             CHAPTER XIII.\n\n    Fairy-lore--A wrestle for a drinking-horn--Merry time is\n    Yule time--Head-dresses at Haga--Old church at Naes--Good\n    trout-fishing country--A wealthy milkmaid--Horses subject\n    to influenza--A change-house library--An historical\n    calculation--The great national festival--Author threatens,\n    but relents--A field-day among the ducks--Gulsvig--Family\n    plate--A nurse of ninety years--The S\u00f6lje--The little fat\n    grey man--A capital scene for a picture--An amazing story--As\n    true as I sit here--The goat mother--Are there no Tusser\n    now-a-days?--Uninvited guests--An amicable conversation about\n    things in general--Hans saves his shirt--The cosmopolitan\n    spirit of fairy-lore--Adam of Bremen                        pp. 215-241\n\n                             CHAPTER XIV.\n\n    A port-wine pilgrimage--The perfection of a landlady--Old\n    superstitious customs--Levelling effects of unlevelled roads--A\n    blank day--Sketch of an interior after Ostade--A would-be\n    resurrectionist foiled--The voices of the woods--Valuable\n    timber--A stingy old fellow--Unmistakeable symptoms of\n    civilization--Topographical memoranda--Timber-logs on\n    their travels--The advantages of a short cut--A rock-gorge\n    swallows a river--Ferry talk--Welcome--What four years can\n    do for the stay-at-homes--A Thelemarken manse--Sp\u00e6wives--An\n    important day for the millers--How a tailor kept watch--The\n    mischievous cats--Similarity in proverbs--\u201cThe postman\u2019s\n    knock\u201d--Government patronage of humble talent--Superannuated\n    clergymen in Norway--Perpetual curates--Christiania\n    University examination--Norwegian students--The Bernadotte\n    dynasty--Scandinavian unity--Religious parties--Papal\n    propagandists at Troms\u00f6--From fanaticism to field-sports--The\n    Linn\u00e6a Borealis                                             pp. 242-276\n\n                             CHAPTER XV.\n\n    Papa\u2019s birthday--A Fellow\u2019s sigh--To Kongsberg--A word for\n    waterproofs--Dram Elv--A relic of the shooting season--How\n    precipitous roads are formed in Norway--The author does\n    something eccentric--The river Lauven--Pathetic cruelty--The\n    silver mine at Kongsberg--A short life and not a merry\n    one--The silver mine on fire--A leaf out of Hannibal\u2019s book--A\n    vein of pure silver--Commercial history of the Kongsberg\n    silver mines--Kongsberg--The silver refining works--Silver\n    showers--That horrid English                                pp. 277-296\n\n                             CHAPTER XVI.\n\n    A grumble about roads--Mr. Dahl\u2019s caravansary--\u201cYou\u2019ve waked\n    me too early\u201d--St. Halvard--Professor Munck--Book-keeping\n    by copper kettles--Norwegian society--Fresh milk--Talk\n    about the great ship--Horten the chief naval station of\n    Norway--The Russian Admiral--Conchology--T\u00f6nsberg the\n    most ancient town in Norway--Historical reminiscences--A\n    search for local literature--An old Norsk Patriot--Nobility\n    at a discount--Passport passages--Salmonia--A tale for\n    talkers--Agreeable meeting--The Roman Catholics in Finmark--A\n    deep design--Ship wrecked against a lighthouse--The courtier\n    check-mated                                                 pp. 297-317\n\n\n\n\nTHE OXONIAN IN THELEMARKEN.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n    The glamour of Norwegian scenery--A gentle angler in a\n    passion--The stirring of the blood--A bachelor\u2019s wild scream\n    of liberty--What marriage brings a salmon-fisher to--Away,\n    for the land of the mountain and the flood--\u201cLittle\u201d circle\n    sailing--The Arctic shark--Advantages of gold lace--A lesson\n    for laughers--Norwegian coast scenery--Nature\u2019s grey friars--In\n    the steps of the Vikings--The Norwegian character--How the\n    Elves left Jutland--Christiansand harbour.\n\n\nA strange attraction has Norway for one who has once become acquainted\nwith it: with its weird rocks and mountains--its dark cavernous\nfjords--its transparent skies--its quaint gulf-stream warming\napparatus--its \u201cBorealis race\u201d--its fabulous Maelstrom--its \u201cLeviathan\nslumbering on the Norway foam\u201d--its sagas, so graphically portraying\nthe manners and thoughts of an ancient race--its sturdy population,\ndescendants of that northern hive which poured from the frozen loins\nof the north, and, as Montesquieu says, \u201cleft their native climes\nto destroy tyrants and slaves, and were, a thousand years ago, the\nupholders of European liberty.\u201d\n\n\u201cVery attractive, no doubt,\u201d interrupts Piscator. \u201cIn short, the\ncountry beats that loadstone island in the East hollow, which extracted\nthe bolts out of the ships\u2019 bottoms; drawing the tin out of one\u2019s\npockets, and oneself thither every summer without the possibility of\nresistance. But a truce to your dithyrambs on scenery, and sagas, and\nliberty. Talk about the salmon-fishing. I suppose you\u2019re coming to\nthat last--the best at the end, like the postscript of a young lady\u2019s\nletter.\u201d\n\nWell, then, the salmon-fishing. A man who has once enjoyed the thrill\nof _that_ won\u2019t so easily forget it. Here, for instance, is the month\nof June approaching. Observe the antics of that \u201cold Norwegian,\u201d the\nRev. Christian Muscular, who has taken a College living, and become a\nsober family man. See how he snorts and tosses up his head, like an\nold hunter in a paddock as the chase sweeps by. He keeps writing to\nhis friends, inquiring what salmon rivers are to be let, and what time\nthey start, and all that sort of thing, although he knows perfectly\nwell he can\u2019t possibly go; not even if he might have the priest\u2019s water\non the Namsen. But no wonder Mr. Muscular is growing uneasy. The air\nof Tadpole-in-the-Marsh becomes unhealthy at that season, and he feels\nquite suffocated in the house, and prostrated by repose; and as he\nreads Schiller\u2019s fresh \u2018Berglied,\u2019 he sighs for the mountain air and\nthe music of the gurgling river.\n\nBut there are mamma and the pledges; so he must resign all hope of\nvisiting his old haunts. Instead of going there himself, in body, he\nmust do it in spirit--by reading, for instance, these pages about the\ncountry, pretty much in the same way as the Irish peasant children,\nwho couldn\u2019t get a taste of the bacon, pointed their potatoes at it,\nand had a taste in imagination. Behold, then, Mr. Muscular, with all\nthe family party, and the band-boxes and bonnet-boxes, and umbrellas\nand parasols numbered up to twenty; and last, not least, the dog \u201cOle\u201d\n(he delights to call the live things about him by Norsk names), bound\nfor the little watering-place of Lobster-cum-Crab. Behold him at the\n\u201cGreat Babel junction,\u201d not far from his destination, trying to collect\nhis scattered thoughts--which are far away--and to do the same by his\nluggage, two articles of which--Harold\u2019s rocking-horse and Sigfrid\u2019s\npap-bottle--are lost already. Shall I tell you what Mr. Muscular is\nthinking of? Of \u201cthe Long,\u201d when he shut up shop without a single care;\nfeeling satisfied that his rooms and properties would be in the same\nplace when he came back, without being entrusted to servants who gave\n\u201cswarries\u201d above-stairs during his absence.\n\nLeaving him, then, to dredge for the marine monstrosities which abound\nat Lobster-cum-Crab, or to catch congers and sea-perch at the sunken\nwreck in the Bay--we shall start with our one wooden box, and various\nother useful articles, for the land of the mountain and the flood--pick\nup its wild legends and wild flowers, scale its mountains, revel in the\ndesolation of its snowfields, thread its sequestered valleys--catching\nfish and shooting fowl as occasion offers; though we give fair notice\nthat on this occasion we shall bestow less attention on the wild\nsports than on other matters.\n\nOn board the steamer that bore us away over a sea as smooth as a\nmirror, was a stout English lady, provided with a brown wig, and who\nused the dredging-box most unsparingly to stop up the gaps in her\ncomplexion.\n\n\u201cA wild country is Norway, isn\u2019t it?\u201d inquired she, with a sentimental\nair; \u201cyou will, no doubt, have to take a Lazaroni with you to show you\nthe way?\u201d (? Cicerone).\n\n\u201cThe scenery,\u201d continued she, \u201cisn\u2019t equal, I suppose, to that of\nHoban. Do you know, I was a great climber until I became subject to\npalpitations. You wouldn\u2019t think it, so robust as I am; but I\u2019m very\ndelicate. My two families have been too much for me.\u201d\n\nI imagined she had been married twice, or had married a widower.\n\n\u201cYou know,\u201d continued she, confidentially, \u201cI had three children, and\nthen I stopped for some years, and began again, and had two more.\nChildren are such a plague. I went with them to the sea, and would you\nbelieve it, every one of them took the measles.\u201d\n\nBut there was a little countrywoman of ours on board whose vivacity\nand freshness made up for the insipidity of the \u201cHoban lady.\u201d She\ncan\u2019t bear to think that she is doing no good in the world, and spends\nmuch of her time in district visiting in one of the largest parishes\nof the metropolis. Not that she had a particle of the acid said to\nbelong to some of the so-called sisters of mercy--reckless craft that,\nborne along by the gale of triumphant vanity, have in mere wantonness\nrun down many an unsuspecting vessel--I mean trifled with honest\nfellows\u2019 affections, and then suddenly finding themselves beached, in a\nmatrimonial sense, irretrievably pronounce all men, without exception,\nmonsters. And, thus, she whose true mission it was to be \u201cthe Angel in\nthe House,\u201d presiding, ministering, soothing, curdles up into a sour,\nuneasy devotee.\n\nAt sea, a wise traveller will be determined to gather amusement\nfrom trifles; nay, even rather than get put out by any delay or\nmisadventure, set about performing the difficult task of constructing\na silk purse out of a sow\u2019s ear. For instance, our vessel, being\noverburdened, steered excessively ill, as might be seen from her\nwake, which, for the most part, assumed the shape of zigzags or arcs\nof circles. This disconcerted one grumpy fellow uncommonly. But we\nendeavoured to restore his good humour by telling him that we were not\npractising the \u201cgreat\u201d but the \u201clittle\u201d circle sailing. His mantling\nsulkiness seemed to evaporate at this pleasantry; and, subsequently,\nwhen, on the coal lessening, and lightening our craft astern, she\nsteered straighter, he facetiously apostrophized the man at the wheel--\n\n\u201cYou\u2019re the man to take the kinks out of her course; we must have you\nat the wheel all night, and as much grog as you like, at my expense,\nafterwards.\u201d\n\nThe captain, who was taken prisoner on returning from the Davis\u2019\nStraits fishery, during the French wars, and was detained seven years\nin France, gives me some information about the Arctic shark (Squalus\nArcticus), which is now beginning to reappear on the coast of Norway.\n\n\u201cWe used to call them the blind shark, sir--more by token they would\nrush in among the nets and seize our fish, paying no more attention to\nus than nothing at all. They used to bite pieces out of our fish just\nlike a plate, and no mistake, as clean as a whistle, sir. I\u2019ve often\nstuck my knife into \u2019em, but they did not wince in the least--they did\nnot appear to have no feeling whatsomdever. I don\u2019t think they had any\nblood in \u2019em; I never saw any. I\u2019ve put my hand in their body, and it\nwas as cold as ice.\u201d\n\n\u201cBy-the-bye, captain,\u201d said I, to our commander, who was a fubsy,\nlittle round red-faced man, with a cheery blue eye, \u201chow\u2019s this? Why,\nyou are in uniform!\u201d\n\n\u201cTo be sure I am. Th\u2019 Cumpany said it must be done. Those furriners\nthink more of you with a bit of gowd lace on your cap and coat. An\norder came from our governor to wear this here coat and cap--so I put\n\u2019em on. What a guy I did look--just like a wolf in sheep\u2019s clothing.\u201d\n\n\u201cOr a daw in borrowed plumes,\u201d suggested I.\n\n\u201cBut I put a bould face on\u2019t, and came a-board, and walked about just\nas if I had the old brown coat on, and now I\u2019ve got quite used to the\nchange.\u201d\n\nNow this little fellow is as clever as he is modest--every inch\na seaman. I\u2019ve seen him calm and collected in very difficult\ncircumstances on this treacherous old North Sea.\n\nLast year, in the autumn, the captain tells me he was approaching the\nNorwegian coast in the grey of the morning when he descried what he\ntook to be a quantity of nets floating on the water, and several boats\nhovering about them. He eased the engine for fear of entangling the\nscrew. Some Cockneys on board, who wore nautical dresses, and sported\ngilt buttons on which were engraved R. T. Y. C., laughed at the captain\nfor his excessive carefulness. Presently it turned out that what had\nseemed to be floating nets were the furniture and hencoops of the\nill-fated steamer _Norge_, which had just been run down by another\nsteamer, and sunk with a loss of some half a hundred lives. A grave\nNorwegian on board now lectured the young men for their ignorance and\nbravado.\n\n\u201cThey just did look queer, I\u2019ll a-warrant ye,\u201d continued our\nnorth-country captain. \u201cThey laughed on t\u2019other side of their mouths,\nand were mum for the rest of the voyage.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat vessel\u2019s that?\u201d asked I.\n\n\u201cOh! that\u2019s the opposition--the Kangaroo.\u201d\n\nThis was the captain\u2019s pronunciation of _Gangr Rolf_ (Anglic\u00e8, Rollo,\nthe Walker), the Norwegian screw, which I hear rolls terribly in a\nsea-way.\n\n\u201cHurrah!\u201d I exclaimed. \u201cSaall for Gamle Norge,\u201d as we sighted the loom\nof the land. How different it is from the English coast. The eye will\nin vain look for the white perpendicular cliffs, such as hedge so much\nof old Albion, their glistening fronts relieved at intervals by streaks\nof darker hue, where the retreating angle of the wall-like rock does\nnot catch the sun\u2019s rays; while behind lie the downs rising gently\ninland, with their waving fields of corn or old pastures dotted with\nsheep. Quite as vainly will you cast about for the low shores of other\nparts of our island--diversified, it may be, by yellow dunes, with the\nsprinkling of shaggy flag-like grass, or, elsewhere, the flat fields\nterminating imperceptibly in flatter sands, the fattening ground of\noysters.\n\nAs far as I can judge at this distance, instead of the coast forming\none sober businesslike line of demarcation, with no nonsense about it,\nshowing exactly the limits of land and ocean, as in other countries,\nhere it is quite impossible to say where water ends and land begins. It\nis neither fish nor fowl. Those low, bare gneiss-rocks, for instance,\ntumbled, as it were, into a lot of billows. One would almost think\nthey had got a footing among the waves by putting on the shape and\naspect of water. Well, if you scan them accurately you find they are\nunmistakeably bits of islands. But as we approach nearer, look further\ninland to those low hills covered with pine-trees, which somehow or\nother have managed to wax and pick up a livelihood in the clefts and\ncrannies of the rocks, or sometimes even on the bare scarps. While\never and anon a bald-topped rock protruding from the dark green masses\nstands like a solitary Friar of Orders Grey, with his well shaven\ntonsure, amid a crowd of black cowled Dominicans.\n\n\u201cSurely that,\u201d you\u2019ll say, \u201cis the coast line proper?\u201d\n\n\u201cWrong again, sir. It is a case of wheels within wheels; or, to be\nplain, islands within islands. Behind those wooded heights there are\nall sorts of labyrinths of salt water, some ending in a _cul-de-sac_,\nothers coming out, when you least expect it, into the open sea again,\nand forming an inland passage for many miles. If that myth about King\nCanute bidding the waves not come any further, had been told of this\ncountry, there would have been some sense in it, and he might have\nappeared to play the wave-compeller to some purpose. For really, in\nsome places, it is only by a nice examination one can say how far the\nsea\u2019s rule does extend.\u201d\n\nThe whole of the coast is like this, except between the Naze and\nStavanger, rising at times, as up the West Coast, into magnificent\nprecipices, but still beaded with islands from the size of a pipe\nof port to that of an English county. Hence there are two ways of\nsailing along the coast, \u201cindenskj\u00e6rs,\u201d _i.e._, within the \u201cskerries,\u201d\nand \u201cudenskj\u00e6rs,\u201d or outside of the \u201cskerries,\u201d _i.e._, in the open\nsea. The inner route has been followed by coasters from the days of\nthe Vikings. Those pilots on the Norwegian Government steam-vessels\nwhom you see relieving each other alternately on the bridge, spitting\nthoughtfully a brown fluid into a wooden box, and gently moving their\nhand when we thread the watery Thermopyl\u00e6, are men bred up from boyhood\non the coast, and know its intricacies by heart. The captain is, in\nfact, a mere cypher, as far as the navigation is concerned.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve never been in Norway before?\u201d I inquired of the fair Samaritan.\n\n\u201cNo; this is my first visit. I hope I shall like it.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can imagine you will. If you are a lover of fashion and formality,\nyou will not be at ease in Norway. The good folks are simple-minded and\nsincere. If they invite you to an entertainment, it is because they are\nglad to see you. Not to fill up a place at the table, or because they\nare obliged to do the civil, at the same time hoping sincerely you won\u2019t\ncome. Their forefathers were men of great self-denial, and intensely\nfond of liberty. When it was not to be had at home, they did what those\nbirds were doing that rested on our mast during the voyage, migrated\nto a more congenial clime--in their case to Iceland. The present\nNorwegians have a good deal of the same sturdy independence about them;\nsome travellers say, to an unpleasant degree. It\u2019s true they are rather\nrough and uncouth; but, like their forefathers, when they came in\ncontact with old Roman civilization in France and Normandy, they will\nprogress and improve by intercourse with the other peoples of Europe.\n\n\u201cTheir old mythology is grand in the extreme. Look at that rainbow,\nyonder. In their eyes, the bow in the cloud was the bridge over which\nlay the road to Valhalla. Then their legends. Do you know, I think that\nmuch of our fairy lore came over to us from Norway, just as the seeds\nof the mountain-flowers in Scotland are thought by Forbes to have come\nover from Scandinavia on the ice-floes during the glacial period. If I\nhad time, I could tell you a lot of sprite-stories; among others, one\nhow the elves all left Jutland one night in an old wreck, lying on the\nshore, and got safe to Norway. To this country, at all events, those\nlines won\u2019t yet apply:--\n\n    \u201cThe power, the beauty, and the majesty\n    That had her haunts in dale, or fairy fountain,\n    Or forest, by slow stream, or pebbly spring,\n    Or chasms, or watery depths; all these have vanished.\n    They live no longer in the faith of reason.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut here we are in Christiansand harbour, and yonder is my steamer,\nthe _Lindesnaes_, which will take me to Porsgrund, whither I am bound;\nso farewell, and I hope you will not repent of your visit to Norway!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n    Disappointed fishermen--A formidable diver--Arendal, the\n    Norwegian Venice--A vocabulary at fault--Ship-building--The\n    Norwegian Seaboard--Sandefjord, the Norwegian Brighton--A\n    complicated costume--Flora\u2019s own bonnet--Bruin at large--Skien\n    and its saw-mills--Norway cutting its sticks--Wooden\n    walls--Christopher Hansen Blum--The Norwegian phase of\n    religious dissent--A confession of faith--The Norsk Church the\n    offspring of that of Great Britain.\n\n\nTwo Englishmen were on board the _Lindesnaes_, who had been fishing a\nweek in the Torrisdal Elv, and had had two rises and caught nothing;\nso they are moving along the coast to try another river. But it is too\nlate for this part of Norway. These are early rivers, and the fish have\nbeen too long up to afford sport with the fly.\n\nThe proverb, \u201cnever too old to learn,\u201d was practically brought to my\nmind in an old Norwegian gentleman on board.\n\n\u201cMy son, sir, has served in the English navy. I am seventy years old,\nand can speak some English. I will talk in that language and you in\nNorwegian, and so we shall both learn. You see, sir, we are now going\ninto Arendal. This is a bad entrance when the wind is south-west, so we\nare clearing out that other passage there to the eastward. There is a\ndiver at work there always. Oh, sir, he\u2019s frightful to behold! First,\nhe has a great helmet, and lumps of lead on his shoulders, and lead\non his thighs, and lead on his feet. All lead, sir! And then he has a\ndagger in his belt.\u201d\n\n\u201cA dagger!\u201d said I; \u201cwhat\u2019s that for?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! to keep off the amphibia and sea-monsters; they swarm upon this\ncoast.\u201d\n\nAs he spoke, the old gentleman contorted his countenance in such a\nmanner that he, at all events, let alone the diver, was frightful to\nbehold. Such was the effect of the mere thought of the amphibia and\nsea-monsters. Fortunately, his head was covered, or I can\u2019t answer for\nit that each particular hair would not have stood on end like to the\nquills of the fretful porcupine. It struck me that he must have been\nreading of Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon hero, and his friend Breca, and\nhow they had naked swords in their hands to defend them against the\nsea-monsters, and how Beowulf served the creatures out near the bottom\nof the sea (sae-grunde n\u00e9ah).\n\nAt Arendal, where the vessel stops for some hours, I take a stroll with\na Norwegian schoolboy. Abundance of sycamore and horse-chesnut, arrayed\nin foliage of the most vivid hue, grow in the pretty little ravines\nabout this Norwegian Venice, as it is called.\n\n\u201cWhat is the name of that tree in Norsk,\u201d I asked of my companion,\npointing to a sycamore.\n\n\u201cAsk, _i.e._ ash.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd of that?\u201d inquired I, pointing to a horse-chesnut.\n\n\u201cAsk,\u201d was again the reply.\n\nClose to the church was the dead-house, where corpses are placed in\nwinter, when the snow prevents the corpse being carried to the distant\ncemetery. In the little land-locked harbour I see a quantity of small\nskiffs, here called \u201cpram,\u201d which are to be had new for the small price\nof three dollars, or thirteen shillings and sixpence English. The\nvicinity of this place is the most famous in Norway for mineralogical\nspecimens. Arendal has, I believe, the most tonnage and largest-sized\nvessels of any port in Norway. Ship-building is going forward very\nbriskly all along the coast since the alteration in the English\nnavigation laws. At Grimstead, which we passed, I observed eight\nvessels on the stocks: at Stavanger there are twenty.\n\nThe reader is perhaps not aware that, reckoning the fjords, there\nis a sea-board of no less than eight thousand English miles in\nNorway--_i.e._, there is to every two and a half square miles of\ncountry a proportion of about one mile of sea-coast. This superfluity\nof brine will become more apparent by comparing the state of things in\nother countries. According to Humboldt, the proportion in Africa is one\nmile of sea-coast to one hundred and forty-two square miles of land.\nIn Asia, one to one hundred. In North America, one to fifty-seven. In\nEurope, one to thirty-one.\n\nWith such an abundance of \u201cwater, water everywhere\u201d--I mean salt, not\nfresh--one would hardly expect to meet with persons travelling from\nhome for the sake of sea-bathing. And yet such is the case. On board\nis a lady going to the sea-baths of Sandefjord. She tells me there is\nquite a gathering of fashionables there at times. Last year, the wife\nof the Crown Prince, a Dutch woman by birth, was among the company.\nShe spent most of her time, I understood, in sea-fishing. Besides\nsalt-water baths, there are also baths of rotten seaweed, which are\nconsidered quite as efficacious for certain complaints as the mud-baths\nof Germany. Landing at Langesund, I start for Skien on board the little\nsteamer _Traffic_.\n\nA bonder of Thelemark is on board, whose costume, in point of ugliness,\nreminds one of the dress of some of the peasants of Bavaria. Its chief\ncharacteristics were its short waist and plethora of buttons. The\njacket is of grey flannel, with curious gussets or folds behind. The\nQuaker collar and wristbands are braided with purple. Instead of the\ncoat and waistcoat meeting the knee-breeches halfway, after the usual\nfashion, the latter have to ascend nearly up to the arm-pits before\nan intimacy between these two articles of dress is effected. Worsted\nstockings of blue and white, worked into stars and stripes, are joined\nat the foot by low shoes, broad-toed, like those of Bavaria, while\nthe other end of the man--I mean his head--is surmounted by a hat,\nsomething like an hourglass in shape.\n\nThe fondness of these people for silver ornaments is manifest in the\nthickly-set buttons of the jacket, on which I see is stamped the\nintelligent physiognomy of that king of England whose equestrian statue\nadorns Pig-tail-place; his breeches and shoes also are each provided\nwith a pair of buckles, likewise of silver.\n\nContrasting with this odd-looking monster is a Norwegian young\nlady, with neat modern costume, and pair of English gauntlet kid\ngloves. Her bouquet is somewhat peculiar; white lilies, mignionette,\nasparagus-flower, dahlias, and roses. Her carpet-bag is in a cover,\nlike a white pillowcase.\n\nBears, I see by a newspaper on board, are terribly destructive this\nyear in Norway. One bruin has done more than his share. He has killed\ntwo cows, and wounded three more; not to mention sheep, which he\nappears to take by way of _hors d\u2019\u0153uvres_. Lastly, he has killed two\nhorses; and the peasants about Vaasen, where all this happened, have\noffered eight dollars (thirty-six shillings) for his apprehension, dead\nor alive.\n\nAt the top of the fjord, fourteen English miles from the sea, lies\nSkien. The source of its prosperity and bustle are its saw-mills. Like\nShakspeare\u2019s Justice, it is full of saws. The vast water-power caused\nby the descent of the contents of the Nord-S\u00f6 is here turned to good\naccount: setting going a great number of wheels. Two hundred and fifty\ndozen logs are sawn into planks per week; and the vessels lie close by,\nwith square holes in their bows for the admission of the said planks\ninto their holds. All the population seems to be occupied in the timber\ntrade. Saws creaking and fizzing, men dashing out in little shallops\nafter timbers that have just descended the foss, others fastening\nthem to the endless chain which is to drag them up to the place of\nexecution; while the wind flaunts saw-dust into your face, and the\nwater is like the floor of a menagerie. That unfortunate salmon, which\nhas just sprung into the air at the bottom of the foss, near the old\nRoman Catholic monastery, must be rather disgusted at the mouthful he\ngot as he plunged into the stream again.\n\nBut we must return to the modern Skien. This timber-built city was\nnearly half burnt down not long ago; but as a matter of course the\nplace is being rebuilt of the old material. Catch a Norwegian, if he\ncan help it, building his house of stone. Stone-houses are so cold and\ncomfortless, he says. Since the fire, cigar-smoking has been forbidden\nin the streets under a penalty of four orts, or three shillings and\nfourpence sterling, for each offence.\n\nThe great man of Skien appears to be one Christopher Hansen Blum.\n\n\u201cWhose rope-walk is that?\u201d\n\n\u201cChristopher Hansen Blum\u2019s.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd that great saw-mill?\u201d\n\n\u201cChristopher Hansen Blum\u2019s.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd those warehouses?\u201d\n\n\u201cChristopher Hansen Blum\u2019s.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd that fine lady?\u201d\n\n\u201cChristopher Hansen Blum\u2019s wife.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd the other fine lady, my fair travelling companion with the\ngauntlet kid gloves?\u201d\n\n\u201cChristopher Hansen Blum\u2019s niece.\u201d\n\nThis modern Marquis of Carabas (_vide Puss in Boots_) is also, I\nunderstand, one of the chief promoters of the canal which is being\nquarried out of the solid rock between Skien and the Nord-S\u00f6; the\ncompletion of which will admit of an uninterrupted steam traffic from\nthis place to Hitterdal, at the northern end of that lake, and deep in\nthe bowels of Thelemarken.\n\nA great stir has been lately caused at Skien by the secession from the\nestablishment of Gustav Adolph Lammers, the vicar of the place. The\nhistory of this gentleman is one of the many indications to be met\nwith of this country having arrived at that period in the history of\nits civilization which the other countries of Europe have passed many\nyears ago;--we mean the phase of the first development of religious\ndissent and a spirit of insubordination to the established traditions\nof the Church as by law established. We are transported to the days\nof Whitfield and Wesley. Lammers, who appears to be a sincere person,\nin spite of the variety of tales in circulation about him, commenced\nby inculcating greater strictness of conduct. He next declined to\nbaptize children. This brought him necessarily into conflict with the\nchurch authorities, and the upshot was that he has seceded from the\nChurch; together with a number of the fair sex, with whom he is a great\nfavourite. The most remarkable part of the matter, however, is that he\nwill apply, it is said, for a Government pension, like other retiring\nclergy. Whether the Storthing, within whose province all such questions\ncome, will listen to any such thing remains to be seen.[2]\n\nA tract in my possession professes to be the Confession of Faith of\nthis \u201cNew Apostolic Church.\u201d In the preamble they state that they wish\nto make proper use of God\u2019s Word and Sacraments. But as they don\u2019t see\nhow they can do this in the State Church, in which the Word is not\nproperly preached, nor the Sacraments duly administered, they have\ndetermined to leave it, and form a separate community, in conformity\nwith the Norwegian Dissenter Law of July 16, 1845. The baptism of\ninfants they consider opposed to Holy Writ. All that the Bible teaches\nis to bring young children to Christ, with prayer and laying on of\nhands, and to baptize them when they can believe that Jesus Christ\nis the son of God, and will promise to obey his Gospel. Hence the\nelders lay hands upon young children, and at the same time read Mark\nx., verses 13-17. At a later period, these children are baptized by\nimmersion. The Holy Communion is taken once a month, each person\nhelping himself to the elements; confession or absolution, previously,\nare not required.\n\nThe community are not bound to days and high-tides, but it is quite\nwilling to accept the days of rest established by law, on which they\nmeet and read the Scriptures.\n\nMarriage is a civil contract, performed before a notarius publicus.\n\nThe dead are buried in silence, being borne to the grave by some of the\nbrethren; after the grave is filled up a psalm is sung.\n\nAll the members of the community agree to submit, if necessary, to\nbrotherly correction; and if this is of no avail, to expulsion.\nTemporary exclusion from the communion is the correction to be\npreferred. These rules were accepted by ten men and twenty-eight\nwomen, on the 4th July, 1856--giving each other their right hand, and\npromising, by God\u2019s help,\n\n    In life and death to serve the Lord Jesus,\n    To love each other with sincere affection,\n    To submit themselves one to another.\n\nWe have given the following particulars, because the state of the\nChristian religion in Norway must for ever be deeply interesting to\nEngland, if on no other account, for this reason, that in this respect\nshe is the spiritual offspring of Great Britain. Charlemagne tried to\nconvert Scandinavia, but he failed to reach Norway. The Benedictine\nmonk, Ansgar of Picardy, went to Sweden, but never penetrated hither;\nin fact, the Norsk Christian Church is entirely a daughter of the\nEnglish. The first missionaries came over with Hacon the Good, the\nfoster son of our King Athelstan; and though this attempt failed,\nthrough the tenacity of the people for heathenesse, yet the second did\nnot, when Olaf Trygveson brought over missionaries from the north of\nEngland--Norwegian in blood and speech--and christianized the whole\ncoast, from Sweden to Trondjem, in the course of one year--996-997.[3]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n    A poet in full uniform--The young lady in gauntlet gloves\n    again--Church in a cave--Muscular Christianity in the\n    sixteenth century--A miracle of light and melody--A romance\n    of bigotry--How Lutheranism came in like a lion--The last\n    of the Barons--Author makes him bite the dust--Brief\n    burial service in use in South-Western Norway--The\n    S\u00f6renskriver--Norwegian substitute for Doctors\u2019 Commons--Grave\n    ale--A priestly Samson--Olaf\u2019s ship--A silent woman--Norwegian\n    dialects--Artificial salmon breeding--A piscatorial prevision.\n\n\nNext day, at five o\u2019clock, A.M., I drove off to the head of the\nNord-S\u00f6, distant half-a-dozen miles off, and got on board the steamer,\nwhich was crowded with passengers. An old gentleman on board attracted\nmy attention. His dress was just like that of a livery servant in a\nquiet family in England--blue coat, with stand-up collar, and two rows\nof gold lace round it. This I find is the uniform of a s\u00f6renskriver.\nKonrad Swach--for that was his name--is a poet of some repute in this\ncountry. His most popular effusion is on the national flag of Norway,\nwhich was granted to them by the present King, Oscar--a theme, be it\nremarked, which would have secured popularity for a second-rate poem\namong these patriotic Northmen. To judge from the poet\u2019s nose, it\nstruck me that some of his poetic inspirations is due to drink. The\nfront part of the vessel is beset by Thelemarken bonders, male and\nfemale, in their grotesque dress.\n\nThe young lady in gauntlet gloves is also on board, whom I make bold to\naddress, on the strength of our having journeyed together yesterday. As\nwe steam along through the usual Norwegian scenery of pines and grey\nrocks, she points out to me the mouth of a curious cave.\n\n\u201cThat is Saint Michael\u2019s Church, as it is called. The opening is about\nsixteen feet wide, and about as many high, and goes some eighty feet\ninto the cliff. In the Catholic times, it was used as a church, and\nbecame a regular place of pilgrimage, and was regarded as a spot of\npeculiar sanctity. In the sixteenth century, as the story goes, when\nthe reformed faith had been introduced into the country, the clergyman\nof the parish of Solum, in which St. Michael\u2019s was situate, was one\nMr. Tovel. Formerly a soldier, he was a man of strong will, zealous for\nthe new religion, and a determined uprooter of \u2018the Babylonian remnants\nof popery,\u2019 as he phrased it. The church in the cave was now sadly\ncome down in the world, and had been despoiled of all its valuables.\nBut in the eyes of the bonders, who, with characteristic tenacity of\ncharacter, adhered to the old faith, it had risen higher in proportion.\nNumerous pilgrims resorted to it, and miracles were said to be wrought\nat the spot. At night, it was said, soft singing might be heard, and a\nstream of light seen issuing from the orifice, which lies four hundred\nfeet above the water.\n\n\u201cOne autumn evening, the reverend Mr. Tovel was rowing by the place\nwhen the above light suddenly illumined the dark waters. The boatmen\nrested on their oars and crossed themselves. Tovel urged them to land,\nbut in vain. Determined, however, on investigating the matter himself,\nhe obtained the services of two men from a neighbouring village, who\napparently had less superstitious scruples than his own attendants,\nand watched from his abode, on the other side of the lake, for the\nreappearance of the light. On the eve of St. Michael he looks out,\nand sure enough the light was visible. Off he sets, with his two men,\ntaking with him his Bible and sword. The night was still, with a few\nstars shining overhead. Reaching the foot of the rock, the priest\nsprang ashore, and invited the boatmen to accompany him, but not a step\nwould they go. The superstition bred in the bone was not so easily to\nbe eradicated, even by the coin and persuasion of Herr Tovel.\n\n\u201c\u2018Cowards! stay here, then,\u2019 exclaimed his reverence, as he started up\nthe steep ascent alone. After a hard scramble, he stood a foot or two\nbelow the cavern, when just as his head came on a level with its mouth\nthe light suddenly vanished. At this trying moment, Tovel bethought him\nof the great Reformer, how he fought with and overcame the Evil One.\nThis gave him fresh courage, and he entered the cavern, singing lustily\nLuther\u2019s psalm--\n\n    \u201c\u2018En Berg saa fast er os vor Gud,\n    So godt et Skiold og Vaerge;\n    Fra alt vor Not Han frier os ud\n    Han kan og nun os bierge.\u2019\n\n\u201cAt the last words the light suddenly reappeared. An aged priest,\ndressed up in the full paraphernalia of the Romish church, issues from\na hidden door in the interior of the cave, and greets Tovel with the\nwords--\n\n\u201c\u2018Guds Fred,\u2019 (God\u2019s peace); \u2018why should I fear those who come in God\u2019s\nname?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018What!\u2019 exclaimed the astonished Tovel; \u2018is it true, then, that Rome\u2019s\npriests are still in the land?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Yes; and you are come sword in hand to drive out a poor old priest\nwhose only weapon is a staff.\u2019\n\n\u201cAs he spoke, the door of an inner recess rolled back, and Tovel beheld\nan altar illuminated with iron lamps, over which hung a picture of St.\nMichael, the saint often worshipped in caves and mountains.\n\n\u201c\u2018It is your pestiferous doctrines against which I wage war, not\nagainst your person,\u2019 rejoined Tovel. \u2018Who are you, in God\u2019s name?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018I am Father Sylvester, the last priest of this Church. When the\nnew religion was forced upon the land, I wandered forth, and am now\nreturned once more, to die where I have lived. The good people of\nGisholdt Gaard have secretly supported me.\u2019\n\n\u201cMoved with this recital, the Lutheran priest asks--\u2018And are you trying\nto seduce the people back to the old religion?\u2019\n\n\u201cThe aged man rejoins, with vehemence--\n\n\u201c\u2018It were an easy task, did I wish to do so; but I do not. It is only\nat night that I say prayers and celebrate mass in the inner sacristy\nthere.\u2019\n\n\u201cTovel, thoroughly softened, when he finds that his beloved Reformed\nfaith was not likely to suffer, finishes the conversation by saying--\n\n\u201c\u2018Old man, you shall not lack anything that it is in my power to give\nyou. Send to me for aught that you may have need of.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe venerable priest points to the stars, and exclaims, solemnly--\n\n\u201c\u2018That God, yonder, will receive both of us, Protestant and Catholic.\u2019\n\n\u201cAfter this they cordially shook hands. Tovel went home an altered man.\nSome time afterwards, the light ceased to shine entirely. He knew why.\nOld Father Sylvester was no more.\n\n\u201cMr. Tovel got off much better than many clergymen of the Reformed\nfaith in those days. Old Peder Clausen, the chronicler, relates that he\nknew a man whose father had knocked three clergymen on the head. The\nstern old Norwegian bonders could ill brook the violence with which the\nDanes introduced Lutheranism; a violence not much short of that used by\nKing Olaf in rooting out heathenism, and which cost him his life.\u201d\n\nI thanked the young lady for her interesting information.\n\nPresently a curious figure comes out of the cabin. It was a\nfine-looking old man, with white hair, and hooked nose, and keen eyes,\nshadowed by shaggy eyebrows. His dress consisted of a blue superfine\nfrock-coat, with much faded gold embroidery on a stand-up collar; dark\nbreeches, and Hessian boots. On his breast shone the Grand Cross of the\nNorth Star. A decided case of Commissioner Pordage, of the island of\nSilver-Store, with his \u201cDiplomatic coat.\u201d\n\nThat\u2019s old Baron W----, the last remnant of the Norsk nobility. He\nwears the dress of an Amtman, which office he formerly held, and loses\nno opportunity of displaying it and the star. He it was who in 1821\nprotested against the ph\u00e6velse (abolition) of the nobility. The Baron\nwas evidently quite aware of the intense impression he was making\nupon the Thelemarken bonders. On our both landing, subsequently, at a\nstation called Ulefoss, I was highly diverted at seeing him take off\nhis coat and star and deposit the same in a travelling-bag, from which\nhe drew forth a less pretending frock, first taking care to fold up the\ndiplomatic coat with all the precision displayed by that little man of\nCruikshank\u2019s in wrapping up Peter Schlemil\u2019s shadow. We both of us are\nbound, I find, for the steamer on the Bandagsvand.\n\n\u201cWell, what are we waiting for?\u201d said I, to the man who had brought my\nhorse and carriole.\n\n\u201cOh, we must not start before the Baron. People always make way for\nhim. He won\u2019t like us to start first.\u201d\n\n\u201cJump up,\u201d said I, putting my nag in motion, and leaving the Baron\nin the lurch, who was magniloquizing to the people around. All the\nbonders \u201cwo-ho\u2019d\u201d my horse, in perfect astonishment at my presumption,\nwhile the Baron, with a fierce gleam of his eye, whipped his horse into\nmotion. I soon found the advantage of being first, as the road was\ndreadfully dusty; and being narrow, I managed to keep the Baron last,\nand swallowing my dust for a considerable distance.\n\nWe were soon at Naes, on the Bandagsvand, where lay the little steamer\nwhich was to hurry us forty-two miles further into Thelemarken, to a\nspot called Dal. The hither end of the lake, which is properly called\nHvide-s\u00f6 (white-sea), is separated from the upper, or Bandagsvand,\nby a very narrow defile jammed in between tremendous precipices. We\npass the church of Laurvig on the right, which is said to be old and\ninteresting. The clergyman, Mr. H----, is on board. He tells me that\nthe odd custom of spooning dust into a small hole (see _Oxonian in\nNorway_) is not usual in this part of Norway. The term used for it is\n\u201cjords-paakastelse.\u201d The burial-service is very brief; being confined\nto the words, \u201cAf Jord er du, Til Jord skal du blive, ud af Jord skal\ndu opstaae.\u201d\n\nFor his fee he receives from one ort = tenpence, to sixteen dollars,\naccording to circumstances. In the latter case there would be a\nlong funeral oration. Close by the church is the farm of Tvis\u00e6t\n(twice-sown), so called, it is said, because it often produced two\ncrops a year. Although placed in the midst of savage and desolate\nscenery, the spot is so sheltered that it will grow figs in the open\nair.\n\nThe S\u00f6renskriver is also on board, the next Government officer to\nthe Amtman, or governor of the province. He is going to a \u201cSkifte,\u201d\nas it is called. This word is the technical expression for dividing\nthe property of a deceased person among his heirs, and is as old as\nHarald H\u00e2rfager, the same expression being used in Snorro\u2019s Chronicle\nof his division of his kingdom among his sons. In this simple country\nthere is no necessity for Doctors\u2019 Commons. The relatives meet, and\nif there is no will the property is divided, according to law, among\nthe legal heirs: if there is one, its provisions are carried out:\nthe S\u00f6renskriver, by his presence, sanctioning the legality of the\nproceeding.\n\nHe informs me that there is generally a kind of lyke-wake on the\nmelancholy occasion, where the \u201cgrave \u00f6l\u201d and \u201carve \u00f6l,\u201d \u201cgrave ale,\u201d\nor \u201cheirship ale,\u201d is swallowed in considerable quantities. In a recent\nSkifte, at which he presided, the executors charged, among the expenses\nto come out of the estate, one tonder malt and sixty-five pots of\nbrantviin; while for the burial fee to the priest, the modest sum of\none ort was charged. While the S\u00f6renskriver was overhauling these items\nwith critical eye, the peasant executor, who thought the official was\nabout to take exception to the last item, or perhaps, which is more\nlikely, wishing to divert his attention from the unconscionable charge\nfor drink, observed that he really could not get the funeral service\nperformed for less. The pastoral office would seem, from this, not to\noccupy a very high position among these clod-hoppers. Sixty-five pots,\nor pints, of brandy, a huge barrel of malt liquor, and ten-pennyworth\nof parson.\n\nMr. C., who is acquainted with Mr. Gieldrup, the priestly Samson of\nAal, in Hallingdal, gives me some account of his taking the shine\nout of Rotner Knut, the cock and bully of the valley. It was on the\noccasion of Knut being married, and the parson was invited to the\nentertainment, together with his family. During the banquet, Rotner,\nevidently with the intention of annoying the priest, amused himself by\npulling the legs of his son. Offended at the insult, Gieldrup seized\nthe peasant, and hurled him with such force against the wooden door of\nthe room, that he smashed through it. After which the parson resumed\nhis place at the board, while Knut put his tail between his legs, as\nmuch abashed as Gunther, in the Nibelungenlied, when, at his wedding,\nhe was tied up to a peg in the wall by his bride, the warrior virgin\nBrunhild.\n\nIt is customary in Hallingdal, where this occurred, to accompany the\nHallingdance with the voice. One of the favourite staves in the valley\nhad been--\n\n    Rotner Knut, Rotner Knut,\n    He is the boy to pitch the folks out.\n\nIt was now altered, and ran as follows, greatly to Knut\u2019s chagrin,--\n\n    Rotner Knut, Rotner Knut,\n    The priest is the man to pitch him out.\n\nOn another occasion, Gieldrup was marrying two or three couples, when\none of the bridegrooms, impatient to be off, vaulted over the chancel\nrails, and asked what was to pay. In the twinkling of an eye the\nmuscular parson caught him by the shoulders and hurled him right over\nthe heads of the bystanders, who stood round the rails.\n\nAs we steam along, the S\u00f6renskriver points out to me, on the top of\nthe lofty rocks on the left, a rude representation in stone of a ship,\nwhich goes by the name of \u201cOlaf\u2019s skib.\u201d Among other idiosyncrasies of\nthe saint and martyr, one was, that of occasionally sailing over land.\nHow his vessel came to be stranded here, I cannot learn. Further on, to\nthe right, you see two figures in stone, one of which appears to have\nlost its head, not metaphorically, but in the real guillotine sense.\n\nThe bonders will give you a very circumstantial account, part of which\nwill not bear repetition here, how that this is a Jotul, who had some\ndomestic unpleasantness with his lady, and treated her at once like the\nDefender of the Faith did Anne Boleyn (we beg pardon of Mr. Froude)\ncasting her head across the water, where it is still lying, under the\npine trees yonder, only that the steamer cannot stop to let us see it.\nThe lady and gentleman were petrified in consequence.\n\n    And lo! where stood a hag before,\n    Now stands a ghastly stone, &c.\n\n\u201cI see you speak Norsk,\u201d said the S\u00f6renskriver, \u201cbut you will find\nit of very little use yonder, at Dal. The dialect of Thelemarken,\ngenerally, is strange, but at Dal it is almost incomprehensible, even\nto us Norwegians. It is generally believed that the language here still\npossesses a good deal of the tone and turn of the old Icelandic, which\nwas once spoken all the country through.\u201d\n\nI did not, however, find it so difficult. The Norwegians look upon\nEnglish, I may here remark, as hard to pronounce. On that notable\noccasion, say they, when the Devil boiled the languages together,\nEnglish was the scum that came to the top. A criticism more rude than\neven that of Charles V.\n\nAs we approach the landing-place, to my astonishment, I perceive a\ngentleman fly-fishing at the outlet of the stream into the lake.\n\nHe turned out to be Mr. H----, who is traversing the country, at\nthe expense of the Government, to teach the people the method of\nincreasing, by artificial means, the breed of salmon and other fish.\nHe tells me, that last year he caught, one morning here, thirty-five\ntrout, weighing from one to six pounds each.\n\nHis operations in the artificial breeding-line have been most\nsuccessful; not only with salmon, but with various kinds of fish.\nHe tells me it is a mistake to suppose that the roe will only be\nproductive if put in water directly. He has preserved it for a long\nperiod, transporting it great distances without its becoming addle, and\ngives me a tract which he has published on the subject. As we are just\nnow at home in England talking of stocking the Antipodal rivers with\nsalmon, this topic is of no little interest. The method of transporting\nthe roe in Norway is in a wooden box, provided with shelves, one above\nanother, and two or three inches apart, and drilled with small holes.\nUpon these is laid a thin layer of clean, moist, white, or moor, moss\n(not sand), and upon that the roe, which has already been milted.\nThis is moistened every day. If the cold is very great, the box is\nplaced within another, and chaff placed in the interstices between\nthe two boxes. In this way roe has been conveyed from Leirdals\u00f6ren to\nChristiania, a week\u2019s journey. Professor Rasch, who first employed\nmoss in the transport, has also discovered that it is the best\nmaterial for laying on the bottom of the breeding stews, the stalks\nplaced streamwise. Moss is best for two reasons: first, it counteracts\nthe tendency of the water to freeze; and secondly, it catches the\nparticles of dirt which float down the stream, and have an affinity\nrather for it than for the roe. The roe is best placed touching the\nsurface of the stream, but it fructifies very well even when placed\nhalf, or even more, out of the water. Care is taken to remove from the\nstews such eggs as become mouldy, this being an indication that they\nare addle. If this is not done, the mouldiness soon spreads to the\nother good roe, and renders it bad. With regard to the nursery-ground\nitself, it is of course necessary to select a spring for this purpose\nwhich will not freeze in winter, and further, to protect the water from\nthe cold by a roofing or house of wood.\n\nI suppose the next thing we shall hear of will be, that roe that\nhas been packed up for years will, by electricity or some sort of\nhocus-pocus, be turned to good account, just as the ears of corn in\nthe Pyramids have been metamorphosed into standing crops. Mr. H----\u2019s\navocation, by-the-bye, reminds me of an old Norwegian legend about\n\u201cThe Fishless Lake\u201d in Valders. Formerly it abounded with fish; but\none night the proprietor set a quantity of nets, all of which had\ndisappeared by the next morning. Well, the Norwegian, in his strait,\nhad recourse to his Reverence, who anathematized the net-stealer.\nNothing more came of it till the next spring; when, upon the ice\nbreaking, all the nets rose to the surface, full of dead fish. Since\nthen no fish has been found in the lake. Mr. H---- might probably\nsucceed in dissolving the charm.\n\n\u201cI see you are a fisherman,\u201d said Mr. H----; \u201cyou\u2019ll find the parson\nat M\u00f6, in Butnedal, a few miles off, an \u2018ivrig fisker\u2019 (passionate\nfisherman)--ay! and his lady, too. They\u2019ll be delighted to see you.\nThey have no neighbours, hardly, but peasants, and your visit will\nconfer a greater favour on them than their hospitality on you. That\nis a very curious valley, sir. There are several \u2018tomter\u2019 (sites) of\nfarm-houses, now deserted, where there once were plenty of people: that\nis one of the vestiges of the Black Death.\u201d\n\nOn second thoughts, however, he informed me that it was just possible\nthat Parson S---- might be away; as at this period of the summer, when\nall the peasants are up with their cattle at the S\u00e6ters, the clergy,\nhaving nothing whatever to do, take their holiday.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n    Mine host at Dal--Bernadotte\u2019s prudent benignity--Taxing the\n    bill of costs--Hurrah for the mountains--Whetstones--Antique\n    wooden church--A wild country--\u201cRaven depth\u201d--How the English\n    like to do fine scenery--Ancient wood-carving--A Norwegian\n    peasant\u2019s witticism--A rural rectory--Share and chair\n    alike--Ivory knife-handles--Historical pictures--An old Runic\n    calendar--The heathen leaven still exists in Norway--Washing\n    day--Old names of the Norsk months--Peasant songs--Rustic\n    reserve--A Norsk ballad.\n\n\nMine host at Dal, a venerable-looking personage, with long grey hair\nfloating on his shoulders, was a member of the Extraordinary Meeting\nof Deputies at Eidsvold in 1815, when the Norwegians accepted the\nJunction with Sweden. I and the old gentleman exchanged cards. The\nsuperscription on his was--Gaardbruger Norgaard, Deputeret fra Norges\nStorthing--_i.e._, Farmer Norgaard, A Deputy from Norway\u2019s Storthing.\n\nAnother reminiscence of his early days is a framed and glazed copy of\nthe Grundlov (Fundamental Law) of Norway, its palladium of national\nliberty, which a hundred and twelve Deputies drew up in six weeks, in\n1814. Never was Constitution so hastily drawn up, and so generally\npractical and sensible as this.\n\nThe Crown Prince, the crafty Bernadotte, with his invading army of\nSwedes, had Norway quite at his mercy on that occasion; but the idea\nseems to have struck him suddenly that it was as well not to deal too\nhardly with her, as in case of his not being able to hold his own in\nSweden, he might have a worse place of refuge than among the sturdy\nNorwegians. \u201cI am resolved what to do, so that when I am put out of the\nstewardship they may receive me into their houses.\u201d So he assented to\nNorway\u2019s independence.\n\nFor my part, at this moment, I thought more about coffee than Norwegian\nliberty and politics; but as it was nine o\u2019clock, P.M., the good people\nwere quite put out by the request. Coffee in the forenoon, say they,\ntea in the evening. As it was, they made me pay pretty smartly for the\naccommodation next morning. \u201cWhat\u2019s to pay?\u201d said I, striding into the\nroom, where sat the old Deputy\u2019s daughter, the mistress of the house,\nat the morning meal. She had not long ago become a widow, and had taken\nas her second husband, a few days before, a grisly-looking giant, who\nsat by in his shirt-sleeves.\n\n\u201cAsk _him_,\u201d said the fair Quickly, thinking it necessary, perhaps,\njust so recently after taking the vow of obedience, by this little\npiece of deference to her new lord to express her sense of submission\nto his authority. For my part, as an old traveller, I should rather say\nshe did it for another feeling. English pigeons did not fly that way\nevery day, and so they must be plucked; and the person to do it, she\nthought, was the Berserker, her awful-looking spouse. The charge was\nexorbitant; and as the good folks were regaling themselves with fresh\nmutton-chops and strawberries and cream, while they had fobbed us off\nwith eggs and black bread and cheese--the latter so sharp that it went\nlike a dagger to my very vitals at the first taste--I resolutely taxed\nthe bill of costs, and carried my point; whereupon we took leave of the\nDeputy and his descendants.\n\nIn one sense we had come to the world\u2019s end; for there is no road for\nwheels beyond this. The footpath up the steep cliff that looks down\nupon the lake is only accessible to the nimble horses of the country.\n\u201cHurrah!\u201d exclaimed I, as I looked down on the blue lake, lying\nhundreds of feet perpendicularly below us. \u201cHurrah for the mountains!\nAdieu to the \u2018boppery bop\u2019 of civilization, with all its forms and\nceremonies, and turnpikes and twaddle. Here you can eat, and drink,\nand dress as and when you like, and that is just the fun of the thing,\nmore than half the relaxation of the trip.\u201d Why, this passion for\nmountain-travelling over the hills and far away is not peculiar to\nEnglishmen. Don\u2019t the ladies of Teheran, even, after their listless\n\u201c_vie \u00e0 la pantoufle_,\u201d delight to hear of the approach of the plague,\nas they know they are sure to get off to the hills, and have a little\ntent-life in consequence? Didn\u2019t that fat boy Buttons (not in Pickwick,\nbut Horace), cloyed with the Priest\u2019s luscious cheesecakes, long for a\nbit of coarse black bread, and run away from his master to get it?\n\nThe precipitous path is studded at intervals with heaps of hones, or\nwhet-stones. I find that about here is the chief manufacture in all\nNorway for this article. One year, a third of a million were turned\nout. The next quarry in importance is at Kinservik, on the Hardanger\nFjord. Surmounting the ascent, we traverse swampy ground dotted with\nbirch-trees, and presently debouch upon one of those quaint edifices\nnot to be found out of this country--stabskirke (stave church), as\nit is called--of which Borgund and Hitterdal Churches are well-known\nspecimens. It is so called from the lozenge-shaped shingles (staves),\noverlapping each other like fish-scales, which case the roof and every\npart of the outside. Smaller and less pretending than those edifices,\nthis secluded place of worship was of the same age--about nine hundred\nyears. The resinous pine has done its work well, and the carving on the\ncapitals of the wooden pillars at the doorway is in good preservation,\nthough parts have lately been churchwardenized.\n\n\u201cThat is Eidsborg church,\u201d said a young student, who had volunteered to\naccompany me, as he was bound to a lone parsonage up the country, in\nthis direction. \u201cThis is the church the young lady on board the steamer\ntold you was so remarkable.\u201d\n\nAfter making a rough sketch of the exterior, we proceeded on our\njourney. The few huts around were tenantless, the inhabitants all\ngone up to the ch\u00e2lets. The blanching bear-skulls on the door of one\nof these showed the wildness of the country we are traversing; while\na black-throated diver, which was busy ducking after the fish in the\nsedge-margined pool close by, almost tempted me to load, and have a\nlong shot at him. As we proceed, I observe fieldfares, ring-ouzel, and\nchaff-finches, while many English wild flowers enliven the scene, and\ndelicious strawberries assuage our thirst. Pursuing our path through\nthe forest, we come to a post on which is written \u201cRavne j\u00fcv,\u201d Anglic\u00e8,\nRaven depth.\n\n\u201cDet maa De see,\u201d (you must see that,) said my companion, turning off\nup a narrow path, and frightening a squirrel and a capercailzie, which\nwere apparently having a confab about things in general. I followed him\nthrough the pine-wood, getting over the swampy ground by the aid of\nsome fallen trunks, and, in two or three minutes, came to the \u201cRavne\nj\u00fcv.\u201d It is made by the Sandok Elv, which here pierces through the\nmountains, and may be seen fighting its way thousands of feet below us.\nWhere I stood, the cliff was perpendicular, or rather sloped inwards;\nand, by a singular freak of nature, a regular embrasured battlement had\nbeen projected forward, so as to permit of our approaching the giddy\nverge with perfect impunity.\n\n    Es schwebt eine _Brustwehre_ \u00fcber den Rand\n      Der furchtbaren Tiefe gebogen\n    Sie ward nicht erbauet von Menschen-hand\n      Es h\u00e4tte sich\u2019s Keiner verwogen.\n\nLying flat, I put my head through an embrasure, and looked down into\nthe Raven\u2019s depth.\n\n\u201cAh! it\u2019s deeper than you think,\u201d said my companion. \u201cWatch this piece\nof wood.\u201d\n\nI counted forty before it reached a landing-place, and that was not\nabove half the way.\n\nAnnoyed at our intrusion, two buff-coloured hawks and a large falcon\nkept flying backwards and forwards within shot, having evidently chosen\nthis frightful precipice as the safest place they could find for\ntheir young. Luckily for them, the horse and guide had gone on with\nmy fowling-piece, or they might have descended double-quick into the\nsable depths below, and become a repast for the ravens; who, as in duty\nbound, of course frequent the recesses of their namesake, although none\nwere now visible.\n\nWhat a pity a bit of scenery like this cannot be transported to\nEngland. The Norwegians look upon rocks as a perfect nuisance, while\nwe sigh for them. Fancy the Ravne j\u00fcv in Derbyshire. Why, we should\nhave Marcus\u2019 excursion-trains every week in the summer, and motley\ncrowds of tourists thronging to have a peep into the dark profound, and\nsome throwing themselves from the top of it, as they used to do from\nthe Monument, and John Stubbs incising his name on the battlements,\ncutting boldly as the Roman king did at the behests of that humbugging\naugur; and another true Briton breaking off bits of the parapet,\njust like those immortal excursionists who rent the Blarney Stone in\ntwo. Then there would be a grand hotel close by, and greasy waiters\nwith white chokers, and the nape of their neck shaven as smooth as a\nvulture\u2019s head (faugh!) and their front and back hair parted in one\ncontinuous straight line, just like the wool of my lady\u2019s poodle. How\nstrongly they would recommend to your notice some most trustworthy\nguide, to show you what you can\u2019t help seeing if you follow your nose,\nand are not blind--the said trustworthy guide paying him a percentage\non all grist thus sent to his mill. Eventually, there would be a high\nwall erected, and a locked gate, as at the Turk Fall at Killarney, and\na shilling to pay for seeing \u201cprivate property,\u201d &c. &c. No, no! let\nwell alone. Give me the \u201cRaven deep\u201d when it is in the silent solitudes\nof a Norwegian forest, and let me muse wonderingly, and filled with\nawe, at the stupendous engineering of Nature, and derive such\nedification as I may from the sight.\n\nAt Sandok we get a fresh horse from the worthy Oiesteen, and some\ncapital beer, which he brings in a wooden quaigh, containing about half\na gallon.\n\nOn the face of the \u201cloft,\u201d loft or out-house, I see an excellent\nspecimen of wood carving. \u201cThat,\u201d said Oiesteen, \u201chas often been\npictured by the town people.\u201d All the farm-houses in this part of the\ncountry used to be carved in this fashion. One has only to read the\nSagas to know why all these old houses no longer exist. It is not that\nthe wood has perished in the natural way; experience, in fact, seems\nto show that the Norwegian pine is almost as lasting, in ordinary\ncircumstances, as stone, growing harder by age. The truth is, in those\nfighting days of the Vikings, when one party was at feud with another,\nhe would often march all night when his enemy least expected him, and\nsurrounding the house where he lay, so as to let none escape, set it on\nfire.\n\nThe lad who took charge of the horse next stage was called Bj\u00f6rn\n(Bear), a not uncommon name all over Norway. It was now evening, and\nchilly.\n\n\u201cAre you cold, Bj\u00f6rn?\u201d said the student.\n\n\u201cNo; the Bj\u00f6rn is never chilly,\u201d was the facetious reply. The nearest\napproach to a witticism I had ever heard escape the mouth of a\nNorwegian peasant.\n\nTwo or three miles to the right we descry the river descending by a\nhuge cataract from its birthplace among the rocky mountains of Upper\nThelemarken. Presently we join what professes to be the high road from\nChristiania, which is carried some twenty miles further westward, and\nthen suddenly ceases.\n\nLong after midnight, we arrived at the Rectory House at ----, where\nI was to sleep. Mr. ---- was an intelligent sort of person, very\nquiet and affable, and dressed in homespun from head to foot. After\nbreakfast, the staple of which was trout from the large lake close by,\nI offered him a weed, which he declined, with the remark, \u201cIeg tygge,\u201d\nI chew. The ladies, as usual, are kind and unassuming, with none of\nthe female arts to be found in cities. A friend of mine, proud of his\nfancied skill in talking Norsk, was once stopping at a clergyman\u2019s\nin Norway, when he apologised to the ladies for his deficiencies in\ntheir language. He was evidently fishing for compliments, and was\nconsiderably taken aback when one of them, in the most unsophisticated\nmanner, observed, taking him quite at his word, \u201cOh yes, strangers, you\nknow, often confound the words, and say one for another, which makes it\nvery difficult to comprehend them.\u201d\n\nLudicrous mistakes are sometimes made by the Norwegians also. An\nEnglish gentleman arrived at a change-house in \u00d6sterdal late one\nevening, and was lucky in obtaining the only spare bed. Presently, when\nhe was on the point of retiring to rest, a Norwegian lady also arrived,\nintending to spend the night there. What was to be done? Like a gallant\nEnglishman as he was, with that true, unselfish courtesy which is not,\nas in France, confined to mere speeches, he immediately offered to give\nup his bed to the \u201cunprotected female,\u201d who was mistress of a little\nEnglish. \u201cMany thanks; but what will you do, sir?\u201d \u201cOh! I will take\na chair for the night.\u201d At this answer the lady blushed, and darted\nout of the room, and in a few minutes her carriole was driving off\nin the darkness. What could be the meaning of it? The peasant\u2019s wife\nsoon after looked into the room, with a knowing sort of look at the\nEnglishman. He subsequently discovered the key to the enigma. The lady\nthought he said \u201che would take a _share_,\u201d and was, of course, mightily\noffended. So much for a smattering of a foreign language. Doubtless,\nfrom that day forward, she would quote this incident to her female\nfriends as an instance of the natural depravity of Englishmen; and this\nscapegrace would be looked upon as a type of his nation.\n\nThe priest has some knives, the handles of which are of ivory, and\nexquisitely carved in a flowing pattern. They cost as much as three\ndollars apiece, a great sum. But the artificer, who lives near, is the\nbest in Thelemarken, the part of Norway most celebrated for this art.\nThe patterns used are, I hear, of very ancient date; being, in some\ninstances, identical with those on various metal articles discovered\nfrom time to time in the barrows and cromlechs.\n\nThe walls of the sitting-room are hung with some engravings on national\nsubjects, _e.g._, \u201cAnna Kolbj\u00f6rnsdatter og de Svenske,\u201d \u201cOlaf, killed\nat Sticklestad,\u201d and \u201cKonrad Adeler, at Tenedos.\u201d Kort Adeler, whose\nname lives in a popular song by Ingemann, was born at Brevik, in 1622,\nbut took service under the Venetians, and on one occasion fought and\nslew Ibrahim, the Turkish admiral. Ibrahim\u2019s sword and banner are still\nto be seen at Copenhagen. Adeler\u2019s successor, as Norwegian Admiral, was\nthe renowned Niels Juel, the Nelson of the North.\n\nI saw tossing about the Manse an old Runic Calendar, which nobody\nseemed to care anything about. It was found in the house when the\nparson came there, and appeared occasionally to have been used\nfor stirring the fire, as one end was quite charred. Without much\ndifficulty I succeeded in rescuing it from impending destruction, and\npossess it at this moment. Some of these calendars are shaped like a\ncircle, others like an ellipse. They were of two kinds. Messedag\u2019s\nstav (mass-day stave) and Primstav. But the latter term properly\napplies to a much more complex sort of calendar than the other. It\ncontained not only runes for festivals and other days, but also the\nSunday letter or quarters of the moon for every golden number. Its\nname is derived from prima luna, _i.e._, the first full moon after\nthe vernal equinox. The primstav proper was generally four feet long.\nThe almanack I here obtained is flat, and figured on two sides, not\nas some of the old Anglo-Saxon calendars were, square, and figured on\nfour sides. It is shaped like a flat sword, an inch and a half broad\nand half an inch thick, and is provided with a handle. The owner of it\nappears to have been born on the 6th June, as his monogram which is on\nthe handle occurs again on that day. On the broad sides the days of the\nweek are notched, and on the narrow sides there is a notch for every\nseventh day; _i.e._, the narrow sides mark the weeks, the broad sides\nthe days.\n\nThe day-marks or signs do not go from January to July, and from July\nto December. On the one side, which was called the Vetr-leid, winter\nside, they begin with the 14th of October, or \u201cwinter night,\u201d and\nreach to the 13th of April. On the other side, which was called the\nsummer side, they begin with the 14th of April \u201csummer night,\u201d and\ngo to the 13th of October. The runes, or marks distinguishing the\ndays, are derived from a variety of circumstances: sometimes from the\nweather, or farming operations, or from legends of saints. But it\nmust be observed that hardly two calendars can be found corresponding\nto each other. Some are simpler, others more complex. In some, one\nsaint\u2019s day is distinguished, in others another. Winter then began with\nthe old Norwegians on the 14th of October; Midwinter was ninety days\nafter--_i.e._, on the 11th January, and Midsummer ninety-four days from\nthe 14th of April.\n\nThe great winter festival in honour of Thor, on 20th January, was\ncalled H\u00f6ggen\u00e4t, _i.e._--slaughter-night.[4] This word is derived from\nh\u00f6gge (to cut or hew), on account of the number of animals slaughtered\nin honour of Thor. The word still survives in Scotland, in Hogman\u00e1y\n(the last night of the old year).\n\nSnorro Sturlesen informs us that it was Hacon the Good, foster-son\nof our King Athelstan, who made a law that the great Asa, or heathen\nfestival, which used to be held for three successive days in January,\nshould be transferred to the end of December, and kept so many days as\nit was usual to keep Christmas in the English Church. His missionaries\nbeing Northmen who had resided in England, like St. Augustine, the\nApostle of England, accommodated themselves to the superstitions and\nhabits in vogue among the people they came to convert. The great\nbanquets, where people feasted on the flesh of horses and other\nvictims, were turned into eating and drinking bouts of a more godly\nsort; and the Skaal to Odin assumed the shape of a brimming bowl to the\nhonour of the Redeemer, the Virgin, and the saints. In their cups, no\ndoubt, their ideas would become at times confused, and many a baptized\nheathen would hiccup a health to Odin and Thor. Even now, as we have\nseen, after the lapse of so many centuries, much of the old heathen\nleaven infects their Christianity.\n\nWe may here observe that the Norwegian word for Saturday is L\u00f6verdag,\n_i.e._, washing-day, as a preparation for the Sunday festival, so that\nthe division of time into weeks of seven days must have originated in\nNorway within the period of its conversion to Christianity. Herein,\nthen, they differed from the Anglo-Saxons, who called it S\u00e6ternd\u00e6g\n(Saturns-day); while the South Germans called it after the Jewish\nSabbath, Sambaztag, now Samstag. The Scandinavians had exhausted their\ngreat gods upon the other days. Sun and Moon, Tyr, Odin, Thor, and\nFreya, had been used up, so they took the appropriate name L\u00f6verdag,\nabove-mentioned.\n\nThe following are the old names of the Norsk months:\n\n    Gorm\u00e1na\u00f0r      from Oct. 21   to Nov. 19.\n    \u00ddlir            \u201d   Nov. 20   \u201d  Dec. 19.\n    M\u00f6rs\u00fagr         \u201d   Dec. 20   \u201d  Jan. 18.\n    \u00deorri           \u201d   Jan. 19   \u201d  Feb. 17.\n    Goe, or G\u0153      \u201d   Feb. 18   \u201d  March 19.\n    Ein m\u00e1na\u00f0r      \u201d   March 20  \u201d  April 18.\n    Gauk            \u201d   April 19  \u201d  May 18.\n    Skerpla         \u201d   May 19    \u201d  June 17.\n    S\u00f3lm\u00e1na\u00f0r       \u201d   June 18   \u201d  July 22.\n    Heyannir        \u201d   July 23   \u201d  Aug. 21.\n    Tvim\u00e1na\u00f0r       \u201d   Aug. 22   \u201d  Sep. 20.\n    Haustm\u00e1na\u00f0r     \u201d   Sep. 21   \u201d  Oct. 20.\n\nSome of these names are very appropriate, _e.g._, Gorm\u00e1na\u00f0r is\ngore-month, when so many victims were slaughtered. \u00ddlir, or J\u00fdlir, is\nthe month that prepares for Yule. M\u00f6rs\u00fagr refers to the good cheer\nwhich people sucked up at that period. \u00deorri is said to come from\n\u00deverra, to get short, because the good things are then nearly run out.\nGaukm\u00e1na\u00f0r is Gauk\u2019s (cuckoo\u2019s) month. S\u00f3lm\u00e1na\u00f0r is the sun\u2019s month.\nHeyannir is hay-time. Tvim\u00e1na\u00f0r (from tvi, two) is the second month\nafter midsummer, while Haustm\u00e1na\u00f0r is harvest (scottic\u00e8) \u201char\u2019st\u201d month.\n\nBut our readers will think us becoming prosy, so we will mount the\ncart, and discarding the society of the fat peasant woman who proposes\ninflicting herself upon us, accept the kind offer of our intelligent\nstudent to accompany us on our journey to Kos-thveit (Kos-thwaite, as\nwe should say in East Anglia), on the Lake of Totak.\n\n\u201cAre there any songs current in the mouths of the peasants here?\u201d\nI inquired, as we drove very slowly along a narrow road, through\nmorasses, studded with birch. \u201cThis is pre-eminently the old fashioned\npart of Norway, so I suppose if they are anywhere they are here.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes. There has been a student from Christiania wandering about\nthese parts lately, collecting songs for the purpose of publication.\nMany of them are dying out fast. Some years ago, the girls used to\nimprovise over the loom. At weddings, lad and lass used to stevne (sing\nstaves) in am\u0153bean fashion, on the spur of the moment.\u201d\n\nSome of these pieces are highly witty and satirical. But the bonders\nare very averse to repeating them. One of them, on being asked by the\nstudent to repeat a stave, replied, \u201cIeg vil ikke v\u00e6re en Narr for\nByen-folk:\u201d (I won\u2019t play the fool to amuse the city folks.)\n\nHere is a specimen of one native to this part done into English.\n\nSTAVE.\n\n    _A._ Oh! fair is the sight to see,\n           When the lads and the lasses are dancin\u2019;\n         The cuckoo, he calls from the tree,\n           And the birds through the green wood are glancin\u2019!\n\n    _B._ Oh! \u2019tis fair in Vining-town,\n           When to kirk the lovers repair:\n         Of other light need they have none,\n           So light is the bride\u2019s yellow hair.\n\n    _A._ Oh! fair is the sight I trow,\n           When the bride the kirk goes in,\n         No need of the torch\u2019s glow,\n           So bright is her cherry chin.[5]\n\n    _B._ Her neck\u2019s like the driven snow,\n           Her hair\u2019s like the daffodil,\n         Her eyes in their sockets glow,\n           Like the sun rising over the hill.\n\nThe whole winds up with a description of the married life of the pair.\n\n    _A._ The cock he struts into the house,\n           The bonder gives him corn,\n         The flocks on the northern lea browse,\n           And the shepherd he blows his horn.\n\n    _B._ The shepherd the mountain ascends,\n           And the setting sun doth bide,\n         As blithe, when night descends,\n           As the bairns at merry Yule-tide.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n    A lone farm-house--A scandal against the God Thor--The\n    headquarters of Scandinavian fairy lore--The legend of Dyr\u00eb\n    Vo--A deep pool--A hint for alternate ploughboys--Wild\n    goose geometry--A memorial of the good old times--Dutch\n    falconers--Rough game afoot--Author hits two birds with one\n    stone--Crosses the lake Totak--A slough of despond--An honest\n    guide--A Norwegian militiaman--Rough lodgings--A night with the\n    swallows--A trick of authorship--Yea or Nay.\n\n\nAt Kos-thveit, on the lake Totak, stands a lone farm-house, the\nproprietor of which procured me a man and a maid to row me over the\ndreary waters, now rendered drearier by a passing squall which overcast\nthe sky. Pointing to the westward, where the lake narrowed, and\nreceded under the shadows of the approaching mountains, the ferryman\ntold me that yonder lay the famous Urebro Urden,[6] where the god\nThor, when disguised by beer, lost his hammer, and cleared a road\nthrough the loose rocks while engaged in searching for it. Indeed,\nwith the exception of Nissedal, in another part of Thelemarken, which\nis reputed as the head quarters of trolls and glamour, this gloomy\nlake and its vicinity abound, perhaps more than any part of Norway, in\ntales of Scandinavia\u2019s ancient gods and supernatural beings. The man\nalso mentioned the legend of Dyr\u00eb Vo, which has been put into verse by\nWelhaven.\n\nThe following version will give some idea of the legend--\n\n    The bonniest lad all Vinje thro\u2019\n      Was Dyr\u00eb of Vo by name,\n    Firm as a rock the strength, I trow,\n      Of twelve men he could claim.\n    \u201cWell Dyr\u00eb,\u201d quoth a neighbour bold,\n    \u201cWith trolls and sprites, like Thor of old,\n      To have a bout now fear ye?\u201d\n      \u201cNot a bit, were it mirk,\u201d said Dyr\u00eb.\n\n    Full soon, they tell, it did befal\n      That in the merry Yule-tide,\n    When cups went round, and beards wagg\u2019d all,\n      And the ale was briskly plied:\n    All in a trice the mirth grew still:\n    Hark! what a sound came from the hill,\n      As a hundred steers lowed near ye.\n      \u201cWell, now its right mirk,\u201d quoth Dyr\u00eb.\n\n    Then straightway he hied to Totak-vand,\n      And loosened his boat so snell;\n    But as he drew near to the other strand\n      He heard an eldritch yell.\n    \u201cWho\u2019s fumbling in the churn? What ho!\u201d\n    \u201cBut who art thou?--I\u2019m Dyr\u00eb Vo,--\n      All in the moor, so weary;\n      And so dark as it is?\u201d asked Dyr\u00eb.\n\n    \u201cI\u2019m from Ashowe, and must away\n      To Glomshowe to my lady;\n    Bring the boat alongside, and do not stay,\n      And put out your strength: so; steady.\u201d\n    \u201cYou must shrink a bit first,\u201d was Vo\u2019s reply,\n    \u201cMy boat is so little, and you so high;\n      Your body\u2019s as long as a tall fir-tree,\n      And, remember, its dark,\u201d said Dyr\u00eb.\n\n    The Troll he shrunk up, quite funny to see,\n      Ere the boat could be made to fit him,\n    Then Dyr\u00eb--the devil a pin cared he\n      For Trolls--began to twit him.\n    \u201cNow tell me, good sir, what giant you are.\u201d\n    \u201cNo nonsense--you\u2019ll rue it--of joking beware,\u201d\n      Growled the Troll, so dark and dreary.\n      \u201cBesides, it is mirk,\u201d laughed Dyr\u00eb.\n\n    But the Troll by degrees more friendly grew,\n      And said, when he over was ferried,\n    \u201cIn your _trough_ I\u2019ll leave a token, to shew\n      The measure of him you\u2019ve wherried.\n    Look under the thwarts when darkness wanes,\n    And something you\u2019ll find in return for your pains;\n      A trifle wherewith to make merry.\u201d\n      \u201cFor now it is mirk,\u201d said Dyr\u00eb.\n\n    When daylight appeared, a glove-finger of wool\n      He found in the boat--such a treasure--\n    Four skeps it did take to fill it full,\n      Dyr\u00eb uses it for a meal-measure.\n    Then straight it became a proverb or saw,\n    Dyr\u00eb Vo is the lad to go like Thor\n      \u2019Gainst Trolls, and such like Feerie.\n      \u201cBest of all when it\u2019s mirk,\u201d thought Dyr\u00eb.\n\n\u201cVery deep, sir,\u201d said the boatman, as I let out my spinning tackle, in\nthe faint hopes of a trout for supper.\n\n\u201cWas the depth ever plumbed?\u201d inquired I.\n\n\u201cTo be sure, sir. That\u2019s a long, long time ago--leastways, I have heard\nso. There was an old woman at Kos-thveit yonder, whose husband had the\nill-luck to be drowned in the lake. She set people to work to drag for\nhis body, but nowhere on this side of the country could she get a rope\nsufficiently long for the work. So she had to send to the city for one.\nAt last they reached the bottom, and found the lake as deep as it was\nbroad, with a little to spare, for the rope reached from Kos-thveit to\nRauland, just across the water, and then went twice round the church,\nwhich you see standing alone, yonder on the shore, three miles off.\u201d\n\n\u201cWho serves that church?\u201d inquired I.\n\n\u201cVinje\u2019s Priest,\u201d he answered. \u201cThat was his boat-house we passed.\u201d\n\nWe landed on the eastern shore of the lake, at a spot called Hadeland,\nwhere a cluster of farm-houses were to be seen upon a green slope,\nshowing some symptoms of cultivation. Richard Aslackson Berge, the\nfarmer at whose house I put up, a grimy, ill-clad fellow, quite\nastounded me by the extent of his information. Catching sight of\nmy wooden calendar, he immediately fetched an old almanack, which\ncontained some explanation of the various signs upon the staff. Fancy\none of your \u201calternate ploughboys\u201d--as the Dean of Hereford and other\nwould-be improvers of the clod-hopping mind, if I remember rightly,\ncall them--fancy one of these fellows studying with interest an\nancient Anglo-Saxon wooden calendar; and yet this man Berge, besides\nthis, talked of the older and younger Edda, the poem of Gudrun, and,\nif my memory serves me, of the Nibelungenlied. He had also read the\nHeimskringla Saga. The promoters of book-hawking and village lending\nlibraries will be interested to hear that this superior enlightenment\nwas due to a small lending library, which had been established by a\nformer clergyman of the district. There was a pithiness and simplicity\nabout this man\u2019s talk which surprised me.\n\n\u201cThe wild geese,\u201d says he, \u201ccome over here in the spring, and after\ntarrying a few days make over to the north, in the shape of a\nsnow-plough.\u201d Milton would have said, \u201cRanged in figure, wedge their\nway.\u201d\n\nSeveral old swords and other weapons have been dug up in the vicinity,\nindicative of rugged manners and deeds quite in keeping with the rugged\nfeatures of the surrounding nature. On an old beam in the hay-loft\nis carved, in antique Norsk--\u201cKnut So-and-so was murdered here in\n1685\u201d--the simple memorial of a very common incident in those days.\n\nFor the moderate sum of four orts (three and fourpence) I hire a horse\nand a man to the shores of the Mi\u00f6svand. To the left of our route--path\nthere is none--is a place called Falke Riese (Falcon\u2019s Nest), where\nRichard tells me that his grandfather told him he remembered a party\nof Dutchmen being located in a log-hut, for the purpose of catching\nfalcons, and that they used duen (tame doves) to attract them. This is\ninteresting, as showing the method pursued by the grandees of Europe,\nin the days of hawking, to procure the best, or Norwegian breed. At\none time, this sport was also practised by the great people of this\ncountry. Thus, from Snorro, it appears that Eywind used to keep falcons.\n\nMy guide, Ole, has been a soldier, but much prefers the mountain air to\nthat of the town.\n\n\u201cIn the town,\u201d says he, \u201cit is so traengt,\u201d (in Lincolnshire, throng,)\n_i.e._, no room to stir or breathe.\n\nIn the course of conversation he tells me he verily believes I have\ntravelled over the whole earth.\n\nWhile the horse is stopping to rest and browse on a spot which afforded\na scanty pasturage, a likely-looking lake attracted my observation, and\nI was speedily on its rocky banks, throwing for a trout--but the trout\nwere too wary and the water too still. While thus engaged, a distant\nhorn sounds from a mountain on the right, sufficiently startling\nin such a desolate region. Was game afoot this morning, and was I\npresently to hear--\n\n    The deep-mouthed blood-hound\u2019s heavy bay,\n    Resounding up the hollow way.\n\nGame was afoot, but not of the kind usually the object of the chase.\nThe Alpine horn was blown by a s\u00e6ter-lad to keep off the wolves, as I\nwas informed. As nothing was to be done with the rod, I tried the gun,\nand as we slope down through the stunted willows and birch copses that\npatch the banks of the Mi\u00f6svand, I fall in with plenty of golden plover\nand brown ptarmigan, and manage to kill two birds with one stone. In\nother words, the shots that serve to replenish the provision-bag arouse\na peasant on the further side, who puts over to us in his boat, and\nthus saves us a detour of some miles round the southern arm of the\nlake. As we cross over, I perceive far to the westward the snow-covered\nmountains of the Hardanger Fjeld, which I hope to cross. The\nwesternmost end of the lake is, I understand, twenty-four English miles\nfrom this. To the eastward, towering above its brother mountains, is\nthe cockscombed Gausta, which lies close by the Riukan Foss, while all\naround the scenery is as gaunt and savage as possible. At Schinderland,\nwhere we land, after some palaver I procure a horse to Erlands-gaard, a\ncabin which lies on the hither side of the northern fork of the Mi\u00f6sen,\nsaid to be seven miles distant. But the many detours we had to make\nto avoid the dangerous bogs, made the transit a long affair. In one\nplace, when the poor nag, encumbered with my effects, sank up to his\nbelly, I expected every moment to see the hungry bog swallow him up\nentirely. With admirable presence of mind he kept quite still, instead\nof exhausting himself in struggling, and then by an agile fling and\npeculiar sleight of foot, got well out of the mess.\n\nThe delay caused by these difficulties enabled me to bring down some\nmore ptarmigan, and have a bang at an eagle, who swept off with a sound\nwhich to my ears seemed very like \u201cdon\u2019t you wish you may get it.\u201d But\nperhaps it was only the wind driving down the rocks and over the savage\nmoorland.\n\nThe modest charge of one ort (tenpence), made by my guide for horse and\nman, not a little surprised me. I did not permit him to lose by his\nhonesty.\n\nUnfortunately, the boat at Erlands-gaard is away; so meanwhile I cook\nsome plover and chat with the occupants of the cabin. Sigur Ketilson,\none of the sons, is a Konge-man, (one of \u201cthe king\u2019s men,\u201d or\nsoldiers, mentioned in the ballad of \u201cHumpty-dumpty.\u201d) He has been out\nexercising this year at T\u00f6nsberg, one hundred and forty English miles\noff. The mere getting thither to join his corps is quite a campaign in\nitself. On his road to headquarters he receives fourteen skillings per\ndiem as _viaticum_, and one skilling and a half for \u201c_logiment_.\u201d A\nbed for three farthings! He is not forced to march more than two Norsk\n(fourteen English) miles a day. The time of serving is now cut down\none-half, being five instead of ten years, and by the same law every\nable-bodied person must present himself for service, though instead of\nthe final selection being made by lot, it is left to the discretion of\none officer--a regulation liable to abuse.\n\nAt last the boat returns, and embarking in it by ten o\u2019clock P.M., when\nit is quite dark, I arrive at the lone farm-house at Holvig. Mrs. Anna\nHolvig is reposing with her three children, her husband being from\nhome. There being only one bed on the premises, I find that the hay\nthis night must be my couch. The neighbouring loft where I slept was\na building with its four ends resting, as usual, on huge stones. At\nintervals during the night I am awoke by noises close to my ear, which\nI thought must be from infantine rats, whose organs of speech were not\nfully developed. In the morning I discover that my nocturnal disturbers\nwere not rats, but swallows, who had constructed their mud habitations\njust under the flooring where I slept. \u201cThe swallow twittering from its\nstraw-built nest\u201d may gratify persons of an elegiac turn; but under the\ncircumstances the noise was anything but agreeable.\n\n\u201cThe breezy call of incense breathing morn,\u201d in which the same poet\nrevels, was much more to my liking; indeed, one sniff of it made me as\nfresh as a lark, and I picked my way to the house by the lake side,\nand enjoyed my coffee. The little boy, Oiesteen Torkilson, though only\neight years of age, has not been idle, and has procured a man and horse\nfrom a distant s\u00e6ter. The price asked is out of all reason, as I don\u2019t\nhesitate to tell the owner. Before the bargain is struck, I jot down a\nfew remarks in my journal. With the inquisitiveness of her nation, the\nwoman asks what I am writing. \u201cNotices of what I see and think of the\npeople; who is good, and who not.\u201d Out bolts the lady, to apprise the\nman of her discovery that \u201cthere\u2019s a chield amang ye taking notes, and\nfaith he\u2019ll print it.\u201d My device succeeded. Presently she finished her\nconfab with the peasant, and returned to say that he would take a more\nmoderate payment.\n\nI observed here, for the first time, the difference between the two\nwords \u201cja\u201d and \u201cjo.\u201d\n\nHave you seen a bear?--\u201cJa.\u201d Haven\u2019t you seen a bear?--\u201cJo.\u201d I have\nmet educated Norwegians who had failed to observe the distinction. A\nperfectly similar distinction was formerly made in England between\n\u201cyes\u201d and \u201cyea.\u201d[7]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n    No cream--The valley of the Maan--The Riukan foss--German\n    students--A bridge of dread--The course of true love never\n    did run smooth--Fine misty weather for trout--Salted\n    provisions--Midsummer night revels--The Tinds\u00f6--The priest\u2019s\n    hole--Treacherous ice--A case for Professor Holloway--The\n    realms of cloud-land--Superannuated--An ornithological\n    guess--Field-fares out of reach of \u201cTom Brown\u201d--The best\n    kind of physic--Undemonstrative affection--Everywhere the\n    same--Clever little horses.\n\n\nThe path, I find, is at a higher level than I imagined, for, on\nreaching a s\u00e6ter, no bunker (sour milk, with a thick coating of cream)\nis to be had, as the temperature is too low, the girl tells me, for the\nprocess of mantling to take place.\n\nThe horse being exceedingly lazy, I administered a rebuke to him, when\nhe was not slow in returning the compliment, striking me with his heels\nin the thigh. Luckily I was close behind him, or the thread of my\nstory might have been abruptly snapped.\n\nPine now begins to take the place of birch, and we descend very rapidly\ninto the valley of the Maan, pronounced Moan. To our right, among\nthe trees, is heard the roar of the famous Riukan foss, which at one\nperpendicular shoot of nine hundred feet, discharges the waters of the\ngreat Mi\u00f6svand and other lakes into the valley.\n\nLeaving my guide to rest for a space, I plunged into the forest, and,\nafter a precipitous descent, espy a cottage close to the falls. Here\nsat two strangers, regaling themselves on wild strawberries and milk,\nwhile the master of the hut was carving a wooden shoe, and the mistress\nsuckling a baby. The travellers both wore spectacles and longish hair,\nand a pocket-compass depending from their necks. Each carried a _beau\nideal_ of a knapsack, and I knew them at once to be German students.\nAfter eating their meal, they observed that they had \u201cyut yespeist,\u201d\nwhich stamped them at once to be from the Rhine; the pronunciation of\n_g_ as _y_ being the shibboleth of detection. \u201cEine _y_ute _y_ebratene\n_y_ans ist eine _y_ute _y_abe _Y_oddes\u201d (a yood yoast yoose is a yood\nyift of Yod), is a saying fastened on the Rhinelander by the more\northoepic Hanoverian. But it is more than doubtful whether these good\npeople will have any opportunity in this country of tasting any such\ndelicacy.\n\nA few yards brought us to the magnificent amphitheatre of the Riukan,\non the further side of which we have the fall full in view. On the face\nof the smooth, nearly perpendicular wall which shuts in the vast arena\nto the right of us, is an exceedingly narrow ledge--\n\n    A bridge of dread,\n    Not wider than a thread--\n\nalong which foolhardy people have occasionally risked their\nnecks, either out of mere bravado or in order to make a short cut\nto the Mi\u00f6svand, which I left this morning. This is the famous\nMari-stien--everybody knows the legend about it--sadly exemplifying\nthe fact that the course of true love never did run smooth: how young\nOiesteen fell from it on his way to a stolen interview with Mary of\nVestfjordalen, and she lost her senses in consequence, and daily\nhaunted the spot for years afterwards, pale and wan, and silent as a\nghost, and is even now seen when the shades of evening fall, hovering\nover the giddy verge of \u201cThe remorseless deep which closed o\u2019er the\nhead of her loved Lycidas.\u201d\n\nBut as neither I nor the Teutons could see any possible good in risking\nour necks for nought, and valued a whole skin and unbroken bones,\nafter assaying to take in and digest the wonderful sight, we presently\nretraced our steps without setting foot on ledge.\n\nFive miles below this is D\u0153l, where some accommodation, at a dear rate,\nis to be obtained of Ole Tarjeison.\n\nNext morning, the summit of Gausta, which rises just over the Maan\nto the height of 5688 feet, and commands a magnificent view of the\ndistrict of Ringerike, is covered with cloud. But what is bad weather\nto others, is good in the eyes of the fisherman. So, instead of\nlamenting \u201cthe wretched weather,\u201d I get out my trout-rod and secure\nsome capital trouts (at times they are taken here seven pounds in\nweight), part of which I have sprinkled with salt, and put into the\nprovision-bag, with a view to the journey I purpose taking from hence\nacross the Fjeld to Norway\u2019s greatest waterfall, the V\u00f6ringfoss, in the\nHardanger.\n\nWhile sauntering about, a printed notice, suspended in the passage of\nthe house, attracts my attention, which afforded a considerable insight\ninto the morals of the Norwegian peasant. It was dated April 18, 1853,\nand was to this effect: The king has heard with much displeasure that\nthe old custom of young unmarried men running about at night, sometimes\nin flocks (flokkeviis), especially on Sundays and saints\u2019-days, after\nthe girls, while asleep in the cow-houses, has been renewed. His\nMajesty, therefore, summons all Christian and sober-minded parents,\nand house-fathers, to protect their children and servants from this\nnocturnal rioting. He also calls upon them to keep the two sexes\napart, for the sake of order and good morals; and if the same shall\nbe detected conniving at these irregularities, they shall, for the\nfirst offence, be mulcted one dollar seventy-two skillings; for the\nsecond offence, double that amount, &c. The young men shall have the\nsame punishment; and, for the third offence, be confined from three\nto six months with hard labour in a fortress. Girls who receive such\nclandestine visits, shall be punished in like manner. Informers shall\nbe entitled to receive the fine. All Government officers are required\nto make known these presents. This notice must be read at churches,\nposted in conspicuous places, and sent about by messengers.\n\nHere, then, I obtained the certain knowledge of a custom--similar\nto one which still lingers in Wales--which I had suspected to be\nprevalent, but the existence of which the inhabitants of the country,\nfor some reason or other, I found slow to admit. The above ordinance\nis a renewal of a similar one made 4th March, 1778, from which it\nappears that the immorality of \u201cNattefrieri\u201d (night-courting) has long\nprevailed in Norway.\n\nEight English miles below this the Maan finds ample room and verge\nenough to expatiate in the deep Tinds\u00f6, which is, perhaps, one of the\nmost dangerous lakes in Norway, being subject to frightfully sudden\nstorms; while the precipitous cliffs that bound it, for the most part\nonly afford foothold to a fly, or such like climbers. There is an old\ntale about this lake, illustrative of the dangers to which a clergyman\nis subject in the discharge of his duties. Many years ago, the parson\nof the parish had to cross over the lake to do duty in the \u201cannex\nchurch\u201d at Hovind. The weather was threatening; but his flock awaited\nhim, and so he started, commending himself to God and his good angels.\nLong before he approached his destination, the wind had so increased\nin violence that the boatmen were overpowered, and the boat was dashed\nto pieces against the adamantine walls of the Haukanes Fjeld. All on\nboard were lost but the priest, who was carried by the billows into\na small cleft in the rock, far above the usual high-water mark. For\nthree days he sat wedged in this hole, from whence there was no exit.\nOn the fourth day, the winds and waves abated; and some boatmen, who\nwere rowing by, as good fortune would have it, heard the faint cry\nfor assistance which the captive gave, as he saw them from his \u201ccoin\nof vantage.\u201d And so he was rescued from his terrible predicament;\nand the notch in the wall still goes by the name of the Prestehul,\n\u201cPriest\u2019s-hole.\u201d\n\nBishop Selwyn, with his well-found yacht, sailing among the deep bays\nof New Zealand, confirming and stablishing the Maoris in the Christian\nfaith, will have to wait a long time before he can meet with such an\nadventure as the Tinds\u00f6 priest. But then you\u2019ll say, in winter time it\nis all right, and the parson can dash along over the ice, defying the\ndangers of the deep and the bristling rocks. Not so, however; there\nare not unfrequently weak places in the ice, which look as strong as\nthe rest, but which let in the unfortunate traveller. Not long ago,\nfive men and a horse were thus engulphed. So in the Heimskringla Saga,\nKing Harold and his retinue perish by falling through the ice on the\nRandsfjord, at a place where cattle-dung had caused it to thaw.\n\nGiving up all thoughts of ascending the Gausta,--as I understand the\nchance of a view from it in this misty weather is very precarious,--I\nhire a horse from one Hans Ostensen Ingulfsland, to convey my luggage\nto Waage, on the Mi\u00f6svand. Hans was ill, apparently of a deranged\nstomach and liver, and, with rueful aspect, consulted me on his case.\nAll the medicine he had was what he called a _probatum_, in a small\nbottle. The probatum turned out to be a specific for the gravel, as I\nsaw from a label on the flask; so I gave him what was more likely to\nsuit his case, some blue pill and rhubarb.\n\nHans\u2019 father used to entertain travellers, but his charges became so\nhigh that all his customers forsook him; and M. Doel, who appears to be\nin a fair way to imitate his predecessor, set up in \u201cthe public line.\u201d\n\nHitherto the valley has been clear of cloud; and on arriving at Vaa,\nI stop to rest, and sketch the distant smoke of the Riukan ascending\nfrom its rocky cauldron towards heaven. Presently the mist, which had\nall the morning hidden the \u201ccomb\u201d of Gausta, threw off a few flakes;\nthese gradually extend and unite, and pour along the mountain-tops to\nmy left, and in a few minutes reach to and absorb the smoke of Riukan,\nand hide it from view. Up boil the fogs, as if by magic, from all\nsides; and, like the image of Fame, in _Virgil_, the vapour rises from\nthe depths of the valley, and reaches up to the sky. Doubtless it was\nthe spirit of the place, wroth at my profane endeavour to represent\nher shrine on paper; and the sullen \u201cmoan\u201d of the stream might, by\nan imaginative person, have been supposed to be the utterance of her\ncomplaint.\n\nIn the foreground, intently watching my operations as he sits upon a\nrock, is old Peer Peerson Vaa, who being over eighty, is past work,\nand having no children, has sold his Gaard to one Ole Knutzen, on the\ncondition of having his liv-brod (life-bread)--_i.e._, being supported\ntill his death. This is not an uncommon custom in Norway. He is\n\u201cfarbro\u201d (uncle) to the man at D\u0153l.\n\nObserve the simplicity of the language. So the Norsk for \u201caunt\u201d is\n\u201cmoerbro,\u201d--mother\u2019s brother.\n\nI here obtain a dollar or two of small change, with which I am ill\nprovided. It is curious, by-the-bye, to see how one of these bonders\nlooks at half-a-dozen small coins before he is able to reckon the\namount. This is in consequence of the infrequency of money up the\ncountry.\n\nAs we ascend the Pass, I observe some dusky-looking birds, which\nturn out to be ringouzels. According to a Norwegian whom I consulted\non the subject, they are the substitute, in a great measure, if not\naltogether, in this part of the country, for the\n\n    Ouzel cock, so black of hue,\n    With orange-tawny bill,\n\nwhose plaintive song so delights us in Great Britain.\n\nSeveral fieldfares, also, chattered in a startled and angry manner\nas they rose from the low birch bushes, impatient, no doubt, for the\nperiod, now fast approaching, when their young ones will be ready to\nfly and start for Germany, one of their chief winter _habitats_, where,\nunder the appellation of \u201cKrammets-vogel,\u201d they will appear in the bill\nof fare at the hotels. What an odd notion, to be sure, of all these\nbirds going so far to lie-in! What an infinity of trouble they would\nsave themselves if they stopped, for instance, during the breeding\nperiod, in Germany or England! Aye; but then they would be exposed to\nthe depredations of \u201cTom Brown\u201d and others of the genus schoolboy,\nwhose destructive and adventurous qualities generally first develop\nthemselves in the bird-nesting line.\n\nOne of the straps which fastened my luggage to the horse having broken,\nmy guide very soon constructs, of birch twig, a strap and buckle\nwhich holds as fast as any leathern one I ever saw. This fertility\nof invention is due to the non-division of labour. What could an\nEnglishman have done under similar circumstances?\n\nHalvor Halvorsen, my guide, is a poor weakly fellow, and having seen\nme prescribe for Ingulfsland, he asks me if I can do anything for him.\nGood living and less hard work are all he wants; but, unfortunately,\nwhile he has plenty of the latter, he gets but little of the former. On\nhis back is a great load of milk-pails, and some provisions (potatoes\nand flad-brod) for his spouse, who is taking care of a s\u00e6ter, which we\nshall pass.\n\nAt length we arrive there: it is a cot of unhewn stone-slabs, and\nbefore the door a lot of dried juniper-bushes, the only firing\nwhich the desolate plateau affords. Gro Johannsdatter, a really\npretty-looking young woman, with delicate features, smiles in a\nsubdued manner as we enter, and thanks her husband quietly and\nmonosyllabically for bringing up the food. This, together with her\nlittle boy, she proceeds to examine with inquisitive, eager eye. The\nlarder was doubtless nearly empty. She then gives her husband, whom she\nhad not seen for some time, a furtive look of affection, but nothing\nmore--no embrace, no kiss. How undemonstrative these people are! It\nis a remarkable characteristic of the lower orders of Norway, that,\nunlike their betters, they never think of kissing or embracing before\nstrangers. Compare this with those demonstrations in Germany and\nFrance, where not the opposite sexes, but great bearded men, will kiss\neach other on either cheek with the report of popguns, regardless of\nbystanders.\n\nPresently they go into the inner compartment of the hut, and then at\nlength I believe I heard the sound of a kiss. While she makes up the\nfire, and boils some milk for her husband, who has many hours of\nmountain still before him, I endeavour to take a slight sketch of her\nand the abode.\n\nNo sooner does she become aware of my intentions, than, with true\nfeminine instinct, she begs me to wait a moment, while she divests\nherself of an ugly clout of a kerchief which hides a very pretty neck.\nThe sketch concluded, she asks for a sight of it, and, with a pleased\nsmile, exclaims, \u201cNo, no; I\u2019m not so smuk (pretty, smug) as that.\u201d\n\nThese ch\u00e2lets, by-the-bye, are not called s\u00e6ter in this part of Norway,\nbut stol, or st\u00f6l. They are very inferior in accommodation to those in\nthe Hardanger district and elsewhere.\n\nBeyond crossing a river, Humle-elv, when, by my guide\u2019s recommendation,\nI spring on the horse\u2019s back, I find nothing noted in my diary\nconcerning the rest of the day\u2019s journey.\n\nThese little horses will carry up and down steep mountains from\nfifteen Norwegian Bismark lbs. (nearly two hundred weight English) up\nto twenty-two. How the little nag, with my luggage and myself on his\nback, managed to win his way over the stream, which was at least two\nfeet deep, and among the large slippery stones on its bottom, it was\ndifficult to divine. They are very cats for climbing, though they do\nnot share that animal\u2019s aversion to water, which they take to as if it\nwas their natural element.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n    An oasis--Unkempt waiters--Improving an opportunity--The church\n    in the wilderness--Household words--A sudden squall--The\n    pools of the Quenna--Airy lodgings--Weather-bound--A\n    Norwegian grandpapa--Unwashed agriculturists--An uncanny\n    companion--A fiery ordeal--The idiot\u2019s idiosyncrasy--The\n    punctilious parson--A pleasant query--The mystery of making\n    flad-brod--National cakes--The exclusively English phase of\n    existence--Author makes a vain attempt to be \u201chyggelig\u201d--Rather\n    queer.\n\n\nIt was already dark when we emerged from the morasses and loose rocks,\nand lighted by good luck on the little patch of green sward on the\nnorthern shores of the Mis\u00f6vand, adjoining the farm-house of Waagen. On\nreferring to the map, reader, and finding this spot set down upon it,\nyour imagination, of course, pictures a regular village, or something\nof that sort; but this is not the case. A couple of gaards, with a belt\nof swampy grass land, are all the symptoms of man to enliven this\nintensely solitary waste of grey rocks, bog, birch, and water.\n\nThe proprietors are Gunnuf Sweynsen and his brother Torkil, together\nwith one Ole Johnson, a cousin. Gunnuf is absent, guiding the Germans\nacross the Fjeld.\n\nThe best method to proceed is, I find, to take boat from here to\nLien, which is about twenty-four miles distant, at the very top or\nnorth-eastern end of the lake; a horse must then be procured to carry\nmy effects for the other seventy English miles across the mountains. A\nbargain is soon struck with Johnson, who has once before traversed most\nof the route; and for the sum of eight dollars (thirty-six shillings\nEnglish) he undertakes to horse and guide me the whole way to the\nHardanger.\n\nThe stabur, or hay-loft, affords me a tolerable night\u2019s resting-place.\nThere were no women-folk about to make things comfortable; so I managed\nwith the three unkempt _valets de chambre_ instead, who boiled me some\ncoffee, greased my boots, and did the needful quite as well as one\nof those short-jacketed, napkin-carrying, shilling-seeking German\nkellners who supersede the spruce chamber-maid of the English inn.\n\nBy early day we walk across the dew-dank meadow down to the shore of\nthe lake, while a few black ducks, which scuttle off at our approach,\nwarn me to get my fowling-piece ready. The water is so shallow near\nthe land, that the boat gets aground; and the men are in the water in\na moment and pushing her off, and into the boat again in a twinkling\nas she shot into the deeps, the water streaming from their legs in\ncascades, about which they seemed to care as little as the black ducks\naforesaid.\n\nAs we glide out into the offing, my spinning-tackle is got out, as I\ndetermine to improve the opportunity, and see what the lake can boast\nof in the way of fish. A banging trout is soon fixed on the deadly\ntriangles which garnishes the sides of the bright metal minnow, to the\ngreat delight of the boatmen, to whom the operation is entirely novel.\n\nTake warning, piscatorial reader, from me, and mind you use a plaited\nline with spinning-tackle. In my hurry I had used a fine twisted one,\nwhich kinked up into a Gordian knot the moment it was slack, and I lost\nsome time in getting out another line.\n\nYonder, on the western shore of the lake, standing in the midst of the\nsilent wilderness, rises the solitary house of God where the people of\nthese parts worship, its humble spire of wood reflected on the surface\nof the lake. With the exception of Hovden Church and our boat, the\nwaters and shores exhibit nothing else indicative of the proximity of\nman.\n\nThe congregation must be a very scattered one, for if ever people dwelt\nfew and far between, it is in these solitudes. Not one of the three\nclergymen of the parishes of Vinje, Sillejord, and Tind, who share in\nthe Sunday duty which is performed here a dozen times a year, can live\nunder fifty miles off. A Diocesan Spiritual Aid Society is certainly\nwanted in these regions.\n\nSuch words as \u201chyre,\u201d to hire; \u201cede,\u201d to eat; \u201cbeite,\u201d to bite;\n\u201caarli,\u201d early, let drop by the boatmen in the course of conversation,\nremind me that I am in a part of the country where a portion of the\nold tongue still keeps its ground, such as it was when brought over\nto England, and engrafted on its congener, the Anglo-Saxon, nearly a\nthousand years ago.\n\nQuite a tempest of wind now suddenly springs up, sending us along at a\ngreat pace, and rendering it difficult, when I now and then caught a\ntrout by the tackle trailing astern, to lay-to and secure the fish. The\ntwenty-four miles were soon behind us, and we found ourselves in the\nQuenna river. \u201cDucks ahead!\u201d was the cry of the lively Torkil, and my\nfowling-piece soon added fowl to the fish. No fear of starvation now,\neven though the larder at Lien prove to be empty.\n\nAs it is some hours to nightfall, I rig my fly-rod, and try the pools\nof the Quenna. Some fat, cinnamon-coloured flies, which I found\nreposing under the stones, being hardly yet strong enough on the wing\nto disport themselves aloft, gave me a hint as to the sort of fly that\nwould go down, and, my book containing some very similar insects, I\nhad no lack of sport, securing several nice fish. They do run as large\nas five pounds, I hear.\n\nOn returning to the small farm-house where I was to spend the night,\na horse, I found, had been procured; and as a beautiful evening gave\npromise of a fine day on the morrow, we prepared to start by earliest\ndawn. My bed of skins was, as usual, laid in the hay-shed; and I\nretired in the highest possible spirits at the prospect of crossing the\ndesolate and grand mountain-plateau that separates us from the western\nshores of Norway.\n\nAs this spot stands at an elevation of some three thousand feet above\nthe sea, there were no pine-trees growing near; so the shed was\nconstructed of undressed birch poles, and was about as weather-tight\nas a blackbird\u2019s wicker cage. The chinks near my pillow I stopped up\nwith loose hay. Vain precaution! Before dawn I awoke, cold and stiff.\nThe weather had changed; my sleeping-chamber was become a very temple\nof the winds, and the storm made a clean breach through the tenement,\nhaving swept out the quasi-oakum which I had stuffed into the crevices.\n\nOn issuing from my dormitory, I found the weather was frightful. A\ndeluge of rain, and wind, and thick mist filled the space between earth\nand sky. To attempt the passage of the Fjeld was not to be thought\nof, as there is no road whatever. Departure, therefore, being out\nof the question, I made up my mind to another day\u2019s sojourn at the\ncottage, which was the most comfortless, dirty spot I ever met with in\nThelemarken; and that is saying a good deal. During the day, most of\nthe natives--Ole, my guide, among the rest--were away at the ch\u00e2let.\nBesides myself, there were only two other persons left at home; and\nthese, as my journey is at a stand-still, I may as well describe.\n\nA tall, old man, his height bowed by the weight of more than eighty\nyears, sat in a kubbe-stol--a high backed chair, made out of a solid\ntrunk of tree, peculiar to Thelemarken--warming his knees at the fire\nin the corner, and mumbling to himself. Presently he lay down on a\nbench, and snored. Before long up he got, and spooned up a quantity\nof cold porridge; and then, turning his bleared eyes at me, as I sat\nfinishing a sketch of the interior of the dwelling, including himself,\ncroaked out,--\n\n\u201cEr du Embedsman?\u201d (Art thou a Government servant?)\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, that\u2019s odd.\u201d\n\nAnd then he commenced warming his knees and mumbling, and then snored\nas before, extended on the bench; and before long, rose and spooned\nup porridge. These were his daily and hourly avocations. His name was\na grand one--Herrbj\u00f6rn Hermanson--but the owner of it was disgusting.\nNo wonder; he never washes at all, so that the appearance of his\ncountenance may be conceived. When he departs this life he will undergo\nablution.\n\n_Apropos_ of this, in the absence of a better occupation, I gave a\nclassic turn to the affair, and in my thoughts altered a line of\nJuvenal:--\n\n    Pars bona _Norwegi\u00e6_ est, si verum admittimus, in qua\n    Nemo sumit _aquam_ nisi mortuus.\n\nThat I don\u2019t think is a libel. Indeed, with \u201cthe wretchlessness of\nmost unclean living\u201d--this application of the words of the Seventeenth\nArticle is not mine, but a late geological Dean of Westminster\u2019s, in\nhis sermon on the cholera--the inhabitants of this country generally\nhave a very practical acquaintance.\n\nThe other person who kept at home all day, was a young fellow of\nthirty, with swarthy face and gleaming eyes. His dark, shaggy head of\nhair was surmounted by a cap like that worn by the Finns, with a bunch\nof wild flowers stuck in a red band that encircled it. His dress was a\nshort jacket, skin knee-breeches, and jack-boots. His time was occupied\nbetween smearing the boots with reindeer fat, sharpening a knife of\nformidable dimensions, and casting small bullets; while ever and anon\nhe would repair to a small looking-glass of three inches square, hung\nagainst the wall, and contemplate a very forbidding, peculiar set of\nfeatures therein. There was something uncanny about the look of the\nfellow which I did not much relish. Presently he takes my pipe from the\ntable, and coolly commences smoking it. Subsequently I find that Joh\nis not as other men are, and only half in possession of his senses.\n\nSome twenty years ago tame reindeer were introduced upon these\nmountains from Finmark, and great things were expected from the\nimportation; but the enterprize did not answer; and a couple of years\nago the proprietors slaughtered all the deer, and there was a great\nmerry-making at a farm called Norregaard on the occasion. Deep drinking\nwas the order of the day; raw potato brandy was gulped down in profuse\nquantities. For forty-eight hours without intermission did the bout\ncontinue. Like Paddy\u2019s noddle in respect to the shillelagh, most of\nthese mountaineers\u2019 heads are proof against the knock-me-down power of\nstrong alcohol. Not so Joh\u2019s, who was one of the party; in the midst\nof the festivities he lost his reason, and went stark staring mad.\nIt was long before he quieted down; since then he has never done any\nwork, or shared in the labours of the rest of the family; nothing will\npersuade him, however, to touch brantviin now. The burnt child dreads\nthe fire--the brandy must formerly have had a fearful fascination for\nhim. I drew a cork from a small flask with me; the moment the sound\ncaught his ear, his face whirled round to where I sat with the rapidity\nof an automaton, and he glared a look of peculiar meaning at me from\nunderneath his heavy eyebrows, which at the time I could not comprehend.\n\nBut though he is averse to all regular work, there is one thing I find\non which he spares no pains,--reindeer stalking. This is the occupation\non which he starts day after day, without speaking a word to the rest\nof the household; in season and out of it, he is continually alone on\nthe mountains around. Outside the door are a dozen pairs of antlers,\nthe trophies of his skill. Only last week he shot a female deer, the\nfifth or sixth this summer, although the season fixed by law has not\nyet arrived. But he is out of the ken of informers.\n\nDrying on the wall outside is a rein-skin, and in the house are two or\nthree hides which his ingenuity has converted into leather. His boots\nare of that material--so are his knee-breeches. He is often absent\nfor days on the mountain, not unfrequently sleeping under a rock. If\nhe discovers a flock of deer in a spot where the nature of the ground\nwill not permit of his getting within shot, he bides till they move,\ndodging about unperceived. Not long since, he killed two specimens\nof the Fjeld-frass, or glutton, whose scent is said to be incredibly\nkeen, nosing wounded game miles off. One of these wretches he saw track\nand catch and kill a wounded (skamskudt) deer; and while it was thus\noccupied he stole upon it unawares, and became possessed of deer and\nglutton both.\n\nAt all events, he showed more gumption on this occasion than an\nEnglish parson with whom I am acquainted. One day he saw that\ndiminutive British equivalent to the glutton--a weazel--pursuing\nsimilar tactics--overtake an unfortunate hare. As usual, poor puss was\nfascinated, and her legs refused their office in the way of flight;\nbut each time the ferocious little creature tried to fasten upon her,\nshe knocked it over with her paws, jumping at it and pushing it over.\nOff set the parson, not to smash the brute with his cane, but to tell\nhis Grace\u2019s keeper. It is needless to add, that when he returned with\nthat functionary the vampire quadruped had got on the hare\u2019s neck, and\nsucked all the blood out of its veins, managing to get clean off to\nboot.\n\nBut to return to Joh. Observing me engaged in frying trout, he suddenly\nexclaims--the first word he had spoken--\u201cKann De spise reen?\u201d (can you\neat reindeer?) \u201cTo be sure.\u201d Upon which he bolted out of the hut, and\nsoon returned with a lump of venison weighing perhaps four pounds,\nwhich he silently placed on the board. It was evident to me that Joh\nwas a person of capabilities; and I soon got him to work, repairing my\nknapsack and gun-case. A few artificial flies, of which he was not slow\nin comprehending the meaning, rewarded his endeavours in the saddler\u2019s\nart.\n\nTowards evening the family returned from the s\u00e6ter,--two strapping\nmaidens, Kari and Gunhild, among the number. The occupation in which\nsome of the party forthwith engaged--the mystery or craft of making\nflad-brod, the national esculent--soon drove me into the fresh air.\nAt a table sits one of the girls, roller in hand, busily engaged in\nrolling out huge flat cakes of dough, sprinkling them with water by\nmeans of a little brush. The Alfred of the occasion was the father of\nJoh, who, with a sort of trowel, whips up the cakes, and flaps them\ndown on the girdle-iron, a flat disk, about three-quarters of a yard in\ndiameter. At the proper moment he gives them a turn, and in a minute\nthey are done, and whisked into the hands of the other girl, who piles\nthem on a table. The girdle-iron being large, the smoke is prevented\nascending the chimney in its natural way, and becomes dissipated all\nover the one sitting-room of the house, and this it is that drives me\nout of it.\n\nThis favourite food is sometimes prepared in sufficient quantities for\na whole winter\u2019s consumption. I have seen, in a large gaard, nearly a\ndozen Abigails hard at work kneading, sprinkling, rolling, and baking\nthe cakes. The only time when they are endurable to the palate, in my\nopinion, is when they are just warm off the fire. When warm, they are\nflexible, and are then folded up compactly, if wanted for travelling.\n\nAnother national cake, something like a pikelet in taste and\nconsistency, is the waffel-kage, which is about half an inch thick,\noblong, and moulded into squares; this is by no means to be despised.\n\nI was early down among the hay for the purpose of recruiting my\nvital energies for the morrow, when our work was cut out for us,\nand plenty of it. The interstices between the bars of the cage were\nweather-tightened afresh, and I was resolved to be as cosy and\ncomfortable as circumstances would permit. Neither the French nor\nthe Germans have any word to represent that very pleasant accident\nof our being, which we call comfort; so they borrow the word and its\nderivatives out and out from our English vocabulary when they desire\nto express a thing, which, after all, they cannot possibly have\nexperienced practically. Only fancy, then, the Norwegians presuming\nto think of such a phase of existence. And yet they have a word said\nto answer exactly to our word \u201ccomfortable,\u201d--viz., \u201chyggelig,\u201d from\nhygge; which is, no doubt, identical with our word \u201cto hug,\u201d or\nembrace.\n\nAnyhow, my efforts to be \u201chyggelig\u201d were not successful that night.\nLike the Grecian hero under different circumstances, I could not rest;\nno wonder, therefore, I was up and stirring early; indeed, I had been\nstirring all night. The sun shone out brightly, every leaf and blade\nof grass and rock reflecting his rays from their moist surfaces. The\nrain had ceased falling from the clouds, but not from the mountains.\nThe river was brimful and roaring fiercely, the toying cascades of\ntwenty-four hours ago now swollen into blustering cataracts, while\nfresh ones were improvised for the occasion. But, alas! I was ill\nfitted for enjoying the glorious scene. Ague-fits shot through my limbs\nand frame; and even before we started, I felt as if I had already\ntravelled many miles.\n\nIt was clear I had caught cold, if nothing worse; but there was no\nhelp for it. The very idea of stopping another day in this den, with\nJoh and Herrbj\u00f6rn for my companions, was intolerable. Seventy miles,\nit is true, lay before me, and not a house on the route. Behind me it\nwas a good fifty miles back to civilized life, and double or treble\nthat distance to a doctor. \u201cNulla retrorsum,\u201d too, is my motto, unless\nthings come to such a pass as they did with Havelock\u2019s men on the road\nto Lucknow. The upshot was that I trusted in Providence, and set my\nbreast manfully to the mountain, supported by that inward consciousness\nof endurance so dear to a Briton, which every now and then tried to\nexpress itself, comically enough, by feebly humming \u201cThere\u2019s life in\nthe old dog yet.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n    Northwards--Social colts--The horse shepherd--The tired\n    traveller\u2019s sweet restorer, tea--Troll-work--Snow\n    Macadam--Otter hunting in Norway--Normaends Laagen--A vision\n    of reindeer--The fisherman\u2019s hut--My lodging is on the cold\n    ground--Making a night of it--National songs--Shaking down--A\n    slight touch of nightmare.\n\n\nLeaving the angry Quenna, we struck northward up a gradual ascent of\nrock, polished apparently by former rains, its surface fissured at\nintervals by deep cracks, and dabbed with patches of yellow moss,\ndwarf birch, and glaucous willow, but, for the most part, fortunately\naffording capital walking ground. A covey of grey ptarmigan, a snipe\nor two, and some golden plover, rose before us; but I felt so weak and\nill that I had not the heart to load my fowling-piece, which the little\nhorse bore, along with my other effects, attached to the straddle.\n\nAs we journey along, a distant neigh (in Thelemarken speech \u201cneija,\u201d\nin Norwegian, \u201cvrinske,\u201d) reaches my ear, and I descry three colts\nbounding down the rocks to us. On joining our party, seemingly tired\nof the loneliness of the mountain, and delighted at the idea of a new\nequine companion, they dance round our little nag in most frolicksome\nmood. In spite of all we can do to prevent them, they stick to us, now\nin front, now alongside, now at our rear. At this moment a man\u2019s voice\nis heard, and a wild figure in frieze jacket, of the true Thelemarken\ncut, knee-breeches, and bare calves, rushes up breathless. \u201cWell,\nAmbrose,\u201d said my guide, \u201cI thought they were yours, but they would\nfollow us. We couldn\u2019t stop them.\u201d Indeed, Ambrose found the task\nequally difficult. He had never taken lessons from Mr. Rarey. It was\nonly by seizing the ringleader by his forelock, and hanging heavily\nwith the other arm on his neck, he managed to turn him from the error\nof his way, which would most likely have only terminated with our day\u2019s\njourney\u2019s end.\n\n\u201cAnd who is Ambrose?\u201d inquired I. \u201cWhere is his St\u00f6l? I see no symptoms\nof one.\u201d\n\n\u201cSt\u00f6l! bless you, langt ifra (far from it). He is a flytte-maend. He\ncomes up on the mountain with a lot of horses and N\u00f6d (Scotic\u00e8 nowt,\nhorned cattle), for about six weeks in the summer. He has a bag of\nmeal, and he lives upon that and the milk of one milking cow, which\nhe has with him. At night, he sleeps under a rock or stone, flitting\nabout from place to place, wherever he can find grass for the cattle.\nHe receives a small sum a head for his trouble, when he has taken them\nback safe and sound.\u201d\n\nHard life of it, thought I. Bad food and worse lodging; not to mention\nthat the beasts of prey occasionally diminish the number of his charge,\nand with it the amount of his earnings.\n\nAfter toiling along for twenty English miles of treeless wilderness,\nskirting several lakes, floundering through many bogs, and sitting on\nthe horse as he forded one or two rivers, we reached a knoll, which\nthe guide called Grodhalse. It was a curious spot: itself green and\nsmiling with grassy herbage; behind it, higher up the slope, patches of\nunmelted snow; while at our feet ran a rill of snow-water.\n\n\u201cWe must qvile (_i.e._, while = rest) here a bit,\u201d said Ole. \u201cThere is\nno other grass to be found for many miles.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, then, light a fire in a moment,\u201d said I, a cold shudder running\nthrough me the very moment I stood still, and I at once enveloped\nmyself in my pea-coat, buttoning the collar over my ears. \u201cFill that\nkettle with water, and have it boiling as soon as ever you can. Here\nare some matches.\u201d The green prickly juniper scrub, which he forthwith\ndragged up by the roots, soon blazed up with the proverbially transient\ncrackling of fire among the thorns; and the little copper kettle which\nI had prudently caused to be brought soon succeeded in first simmering\nand then boiling. Dickens\u2019s kettle on the hob never uttered such\ndelightful music.\n\nIf I had been philosophically inclined, and had possessed a\nthermometer, which I did not, I might have availed myself of the\nopportunity of ascertaining the exact height we had reached, by seeing\nat what number of degrees the fluid boiled. But what was much more\nto the purpose, I had some tea at hand, and two quarts of the hot\ninfusion, with a thimblefull of brandy, were soon under my belt. Never\ndid opium, or bang, or haschish-eater experience such a sweet feeling\nstealing over the sense. Talk of a giant refreshed with wine: give me\ntea when I am knocked up. The chemistry-of-common-life people will talk\nto you about The\u00efne and its nutritious qualities, but until that moment\nI did not know what tea would do for you. My eyes, which just before\nwere half blind, saw again. My blood, which seemed to be curdled into\nthick, heavy lumps, in my veins, was liquified afresh. That of St.\nJanuarius never underwent such a quick metamorphosis. Mr. Waterton will\nexcuse the allusion.\n\nThe knoll was at a very high level; the snow behind us, and the icy\nrunnel issuing from its bowels at our feet, gave a keenness to the\nair, but the tea[8] put me in a genial perspiration, the pea-coat\naiding and abetting by keeping in the caloric. And when the little\nhorse, refreshed by his nibble, was caught and reloaded, I loaded my\nfowling-piece, and felt quite strong enough to carry it. Before long we\nwere among some grey ptarmigan, and I brought one or two down.[9]\n\n\u201cCurious spot, this,\u201d said I, to the guide, as we came to an\namphitheatrical ridge of abraded rock, on the very edge of which rested\nhuge blocks[10] of stone, some pivoted on their smallest face. The\ncause of the phenomenon was evident. The glacier power, which formerly\nmoved these stones onward, day by day, had been arrested--_opera\nimperfecta manebant_--and so the blocks came to a stand still where\nthey now are. \u201cThey must have been placed there by the Trolls,\u201d I\nobserved, giving a peep at Ole\u2019s countenance. \u201cKanskee\u201d (perhaps), was\nhis slow and thoughtful reply.\n\n\u201cYou ought to see this in winter time,\u201d he continued. \u201cNo stones to\nbe seen then--no impediments. We go straight ahead. I travelled last\nwinter, on snow-shoes, sixty miles in the day.\u201d\n\nWinter is, emphatically, the time for locomotion here; the crooked ways\nare made straight, and the mountains smooth.\n\n\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d said I, pointing to a snail, browsing on the irregularly\nround leaf of a species of dwarf sorrel, which grows high on the\nmountains. A \u201csneel,\u201d said he. \u201cSnecke\u201d is the modern Norwegian\nappellation.\n\nOle is a bit of a sportsman, and has committed havoc among the\nreindeer. Last winter he killed a couple of otters, and got two dollars\nand a half for their skins.\n\n\u201cAnd where did you find the otters?\u201d inquired I, curious to know\nwhether these animals imitate the seal and walrus, and make breathing\nholes in the solid ice. \u201cOh, they keep in the foss-pools of the\nrivers, which are the only places not frozen over. Now and then they\ncut across the land from one pool to another. I followed them on\nsnow-shoes, and killed them with a stave. A man paa ski (on snow-shoes)\ncan overtake an otter.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is strange,\u201d he went on, \u201cwe have seen no \u2018reen.\u2019 I never came over\nthese mountains without seeing them.\u201d\n\nBut in fact the day had now become overcast, and, fearful of a relapse,\nI had abstained from stopping to examine the surrounding objects more\nnarrowly. We had now arrived on the left of a lake, about fourteen\nmiles long, the name of which is Normaends Laagen. Between us and the\nlake intervened a stony plain, grassed over at intervals, perhaps half\na mile in breadth; while close to our left, some little still valleys\nran up towards the higher plateau.\n\n\u201cThere they are,\u201d exclaimed Ole, pointing to ten reindeer, feeding\nabout two hundred yards off, between us and the lake. The discovery was\nmutual and simultaneous; for, with an oblique squint at us, their white\nscuts flew up, and they trotted leisurely to the southward.\n\n\u201cShall I put a bullet into the gun?\u201d asked I.\n\n\u201cNo use whatever,\u201d said Ole. \u201cThey\u2019ll be miles off in a few minutes.\u201d\n\nAnd, sure enough, I could see them clearing the ground at a lazy\ncanter, and presently disappear behind some rising ground.\n\nOur lodging for the night was to be at a place called Bessebue. This\nwas a stone hut erected by some fishermen, who repair hither in the\nautumn with a horse or two and some barrels of salt, and catch the\ntrout which abound in the lake. At that period, the fish approach\nthe shore from out of the deeps to spawn, and are taken in a garn,\n_i.e._, standing net of very fine thread. At other times the hut\nis uninhabited. But to my guide\u2019s surprise we find that there are\noccupants. These are two brothers from Urland, on the Sogne Fjord,\nabout sixty miles from this. They are fine young fellows, named\nNicholas and Andreas Flom, who have come up here with 110 head of\ncattle to feed on the shores of the lake. None but a Norwegian farmer\nwould think of making such an excursion as this. In September they will\ndrive them direct across the mountains to Kongsberg for sale. A drove\nof this sort, I find, is called drift,[11] and the drovers driftefolk.\n\nWith much good nature these young fellows offered to share with us all\nthe accommodation that Bessebue afforded. \u201cBut,\u201d said they, \u201cwe have\nalready got three travellers arrived, who are going to stop the night.\u201d\n\nNow Bessebue, or Bessy\u2019s bower, as I mentally nicknamed it, albeit\nthere was not a ghost of a Bessy about the premises, though it might\nin an ordinary way lodge a couple of wayfarers did not seem to offer\nanything like ample room and verge enough for \u201cthe seven sleepers\u201d who\nproposed lodging there that night. Its accommodation consisted of one\nroom, built of dry stones, with a hole in one corner of the roof for\na chimney, the floor being divided into two unequal parts by a ledge\nor slab of stone, which served for table, and chair, and shelf. The\nroom might be seven or eight feet square, (not so big as the bed of\nWare,) part of which, however, was taken up by certain butter and milk\npails and horse furniture. So, how we were all to sleep I did not know.\nNevertheless, the shivering demon was again clapperclawing me--\u201cPoor\nTom\u2019s acold.\u201d--The good effects of the tea had evaporated, and aches\nof all sorts throbbed within my frame. So I settled down passively on\nthe stone ledge, and warmed my wet toes against the reeking, sputtering\nbrands of juniper twig that blazed at intervals, and served to show, in\nthe advancing night, the black, slimy, damp-looking sides of the hut.\nAbove my head was the smoke hole; behind me, on the floor, were the\nskins which formed the drovers\u2019 couch.\n\nAfter swallowing a fresh jorum of tea, I sank into this, my pea-coat\nall around me, and my sou\u2019-wester, with its flannel lining and\near-covers tied under my chin; the younger drover, with all the\nconsideration of a tender nurse, tucking me in under the clothes. In\nspite of my superfluity of clothing, and the smoke with which the\napartment was filled, I had great difficulty in getting warm. After\neating their simple suppers by the light of the fire, a song was\nproposed, and one of the three strangers proceeded to sing, in a clear\nmanly voice, the national song on Tordenskiold.[12]\n\nThe glow of the juniper wood, which had now burnt down into a heap of\nred embers, lit up the features, grave but cheery, of the singer and\nthe hearers; and all sick as I was, I enjoyed the whole immensely,\nafter a dreamy fashion, and longed for the brush of a Schalken to\nrepresent the strange scene. Here we were, on a wild, trackless,\ntreeless, savage mountain, with creature comforts none, and yet these\nsimple fellows, without any effort, were enjoying themselves a vast\ndeal more than many with all the conventional appliances and means to\nsecure mirth.\n\nThe song of \u201cGamle Norge,\u201d the \u201cRule Britannia\u201d of the North, of\ncourse succeeded. After this a song-book was produced from a crevice\nunder the eaves, and, as the fire was nearly out, and no more fuel\nwas inside the hut, a candle-end, which I had brought with me to\ngrease my boots, being lit, enabled the minstrel to sing a ditty by\ninch of candle. It was one in honour of the Norsk kings, from Harald\nHaarfager[13] downwards, by Wergeland, said to be Norway\u2019s best poet.\nThis closed the entertainment.\n\n\u201cWe must get to bed, I think, now,\u201d said Nicholas; \u201cit is waxing\nlatish, and I must be up by dawn, after the kre\u00e4turen (cattle). I say,\nholloa, you Englishman, Metcal; can you make room for me and Andreas?\u201d\n\n\u201cYou can try, but I really don\u2019t see how it is to be managed, we are\nsuch big fellows; I\u2019ll sit on the ledge, if you like.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, no; you\u2019re ill. It\u2019ll be all right. If we can only just manage to\nfit in, it will be square strax (immediately). You won\u2019t be too warm,\u201d\ncontinued he, pulling a slate over the smoke-hole; \u201cthe night is very\ncold.\u201d\n\nSo, in the brothers got, merely divesting themselves of their coats\nand waistcoats, while I had on all the coats in my wardrobe, like some\nharlequin in his first _d\u00e9but_ at a country fair. At first, the squeeze\nwas very like the operation one has so often witnessed in the old\ncoaching days, of wedging any amount of passengers into a seat made to\nhold four--\u201cHiggledy piggledy, here we lie.\u201d Truly, necessity makes us\nacquainted with strange bedfellows. But by degrees we shook down. When\na tea-cup is full to overflowing, there is room for the sugar. However,\nit was necessary, whenever one of us changed his position, for the\nothers to do the same, like the poor niggers on board the slaver in the\nMiddle passage. The coverlets were of the scantiest; but there did not\nseem to be any unfair attempt made to steal a skin from one\u2019s neighbour\nwhen he had gone to sleep, as the Kansas men are said to be in the\nhabit of doing when bivouacking out.\n\nThe others had, if possible, less elbow-room than we three. The two\nelder were allowed to take the middle places, while the younger ones\nwere pressed against the damp, hard wall. The hut was soon quiet;\noutside it was frosty, with no wind, and the only noise within was\nthe occasional snoring of one of the party, which was so sonorous,\nthat it made me think of \u201cthe drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe\u201d (see\nShakspeare)--though I can\u2019t say I ever heard one. At last I fell off.\nHow soundly I slept that night, with the exception of a slight touch of\nnightmare, in which, by an inverted order of things, I rode the mare\ninstead of the mare riding me; scudding along at one time after the\nreindeer, over stock and stone with wonderful celerity; at another,\ndashing in snow-shoes after the otters, or whirling among the moors, in\nthe midst of an odd set of elfin coursers and riders.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n    The way to cure a cold--Author shoots some dotterel--Pit-fall\n    for reindeer--How mountains look in mountain air--A\n    natural terrace--The meeting of the waters--A phantom\n    of delight--Proves to be a clever dairymaid--A singular\n    cavalcade--Terrific descent into Tjelm\u00f6-dal--A volley of\n    questions--Crossing a cataract--A tale of a tub--Author reaches\n    Garatun--Futile attempt to drive a bargain.\n\n\nThe grey light of the morning was peeping through the hole in the\nroof, when I was awoke by Nicholas bestirring himself, and kicking\nhis way through the conglomerate of prostrate forms. Thank goodness,\nmy feverish chill had left me. \u201cRichard was himself again!\u201d The\nsuperfluity of vestments, together with the animal heat generated by\nseven human beings, packed as we had been, had done the business. The\nblack wall I found trickling with moisture, like the sides of a Russian\nbath, from the hot smoke and steam, condensed by the colder stones. I\nfelt no return of the complaint, and doubtless the sovereign nostrum\nfor me, under the circumstances, was the one I accidentally took.\n\nAfter a cup of coffee, some cold trout and biscuit, I was ready to\nstart; before doing which I put a trifle in Nicholas\u2019 hand, which he\npronounced a great deal too much. As we trudged along, a solitary raven\nor two were not wanting to the landscape; while, contrasting with\ntheir funereal plumage and dismal croak, was the cheerful twittering\nwhite-rumped stone-chat (steen-ducker), bobbing about from stone to\nstone, seemingly determined to enjoy himself in spite of the Robinson\nCrusoe nature of his haunts. Presently I let fly at a large flock of\ndotterel--\u201cRundfugel,\u201d as the guide called them--and made a handsome\naddition to the proviant.\n\nIn one spot, where the available space for walking was narrowed by the\nhead of a lake on one side, and an abrupt hill on the other, we came\nupon what looked like a saw-pit, four feet long and two feet broad,\nbut which had been filled up with large stones. This, I was informed,\nwas once a pit-fall for the reindeer, but now discontinued. It was\njudiciously placed in a defile which the deer were known to make for\nwhen disturbed.\n\nNot far beyond, as I passed what looked like a grey stone, the guide\nsaid--\u201cThat is Viensla Bue.\u201d In fact, it was a small den, four feet\nhigh, constructed by some reindeer-hunter. I peeped in, and saw an iron\npot and bed of moss, which show that it is still at times visited by\nman.\n\n\u201cYonder is Harteigen,\u201d exclaimed Ole, pointing to a singular\nsquare-shaped mountain, to the left, with precipitous sides, which\nlooked two or three miles off, but which was in reality a dozen; such\nis the clearness of this atmosphere. Indeed, at home, every object\nappears to me to have a fuzzy, indistinct outline, when compared with\nthe intensely sharp, definite outline of everything here.\n\n\u201cThat mountain to our right, is Granatknuten,\u201d continued my guide, \u201cand\nthis is Soveringsrindan.\u201d\n\nAt least such was the name, as far as I could decipher his strange\npronunciation, of the curious terraced elevation on which our path now\nlay.\n\nIt looked like a regular embankment, which it was difficult to imagine\nwas not the work of men\u2019s hands. In height, this terrace varied from\nthirty to eighty feet; its crown, which was perfectly even, and\ncomposed of shingle, mossed over in places, was about twenty feet\nbroad, and afforded excellent walking; while in length it was about\ntwo English miles, and formed a gentle curve, cut in two about midway\nby a stream flowing from the Granatknuten to our right. On either\nside of the terrace were narrow moat-like lakes; while, to complete\nthe illusion of its being a work of defence, at the distance of a few\nhundred yards to the right below the mountain, stood a mass of what\nseemed the irregular fortifications of an old castle.\n\nLeaving the terrace, we presently walked along the bed of an ancient\ntorrent, the peculiarity of which was that the stones which formed it\nfitted so exactly that they looked as if they had been laid by the\nhand of a mason. Before long we joined company with a stream going\nthe same way as ourselves, so that we have now passed the water-shed.\nHitherto the waters we have seen find their outlet in the River\nLougen, which flows down past Kongsberg to Laurvig, at the mouth of the\nChristiania-Fjord. Henceforward all the converging streams descend into\nthe Hardanger-Fjord.\n\nAfter a rough descent, we reach the first s\u00e6ter, where Ole stops to\ntalk with a damsel, Gunvor by name. Her dark hair, being drawn tightly\nback, so as to leave a thorough view of her well-cut face, eventuated\nin two tails, neatly braided with red tape.\n\nA sleeveless jacket of red cloth fitted tightly to her figure,\nreminding me of the Tyrolese bodice, while her arms were covered with\nvoluminous coarse linen shirt-sleeves, of spotless white, and buttoned\nat the wrist, while the collar was fastened at the throat to large\nsilver studs. Across her bosom, in the fork of the bodice, was an inner\npatch of black cloth, garnished with beads. Gunvor smiled with an air\nof conscious pride as she bid us enter into her s\u00e6ter, which, like\nherself, was extremely neat, contrasting favourably with the slovenly\nappearance of things in Thelemarken, which I had left behind me.\n\nAround were ranged well-scoured vessels, full of all the mysterious\nproducts of the mountain dairy; were I to recount the names of which,\nthe reader, who knows practically of nothing beyond milk and cream, and\ncheese and butter, would be astonished that so many things, of which\nhe never heard, could be prepared out of simple cow\u2019s and goat\u2019s milk.\nThe only thing that did not quite square with my notions of the idyllic\nmodesty and simplicity of the scene was the sight of a youth, who had\ncome up from the Hardanger, and was a servant of the farmer to whom the\ns\u00e6ter belonged, stretched out asleep on Gunvor\u2019s bed.\n\nRefreshed with a lump of reindeer flesh out of my wallet, together\nwith thick milk and brandy, we followed the path in its circuit round\nsome more _rochers montonn\u00e9es_, where the action of former glaciers is\nvisible to perfection in the smoothed inclines and erratic blocks now\nstanding stockstill. After many a toilsome up and down, we at length\nget the first bird\u2019s-eye view of a darksome piece of water, lying\nthousands of feet below us in a deep trough of gigantic precipices. My\ndestination is the farm-house of Garatun (tun = town, the original\nmeaning of which was enclosure); but to my utter astonishment I find\nthat we have still fourteen miles of toil between us and the haven of\nrest.\n\nBefore long we overtake a singular cavalcade, which afforded an insight\ninto Norwegian peasant life. There were four light little horses, each\nloaded with what looked like a pair of enormous milk pails. These are\ncalled strumpe, and are full of whey or thick milk, or some product of\nthe mountain dairy. Two men followed the horses, each with a sort of\nAlpen-stock, only that at the end, grasped by the hand, there stuck\nout a stump of a branch. This I found is not only used as a walking\nstaff, but is also most useful in another way. Each of the pails has\nof course to be hung on the straddle separately, and unless there is a\nsecond man to hold up the pail, already slung, till the other is also\nadjusted, the straddle would turn round under the horse\u2019s belly, and\nthe pail upset. This crutched stick, therefore, is used to prop up one\nside until the counterpoising pail is suspended on the other side the\nhorse. Besides the men, there was a young girl, with her fair hair\nbraided with red tape, her bodice of green cloth, while the stomacher\nor \u201cbringeklut\u201d was of red cloth, studded as usual with strings of\ncoloured beads. A little boy was also of the party, dressed in the\ncostume of the men, the only characteristic feature of which was a\npair of red garters, tied _over_ the trousers below the knee, for the\npurpose I heard of keeping them out of the dirt.\n\nThe descent into Tjelm\u00f6-dal was terrific. My horse was lightly loaded;\nbut the others were weighted, as I thought, beyond their powers, and\nthe liquid within was alive, and swayed about, and was therefore more\nburdensome than dead weight proper. But, as usual, the horses were left\nto pick their own way, which was in places steeper than the ascent of\nSt. Paul\u2019s, the only assistance given them being a drag on the crupper\nfrom behind. The crupper, be it said, was not such as one generally\nsees, but a pole, about two feet long, curved in the middle for the\ntail to fit into, with either end fastened by wicker straps to the\ncorresponding pail. This pristine contrivance, which has no doubt been\nin use for centuries, keeps the weight comparatively steady, and eases\nthe horse.\n\n\u201cWho are you? Where do you come from? Are you an Englishman? Are you\na landscape painter?\u201d was a part of the volley of questions which\nthey forthwith discharged at the writer of these lines, as he joined\nthe party at the side of a thundering torrent of some breadth and\ndepth--too deep to ford--where the little boy and girl, I observed,\nwere jumping upon the nags.\n\n\u201cMay I mount on that horse?\u201d was the short interrogatory with which I\nanswered them, having an eye to the main chance, and thinking that my\ntired horse, who was moreover far behind, had little chance of getting\nsafely over with me on his back.\n\n\u201cBe so good! be so good! (v\u00e6r so godt!)\u201d was the good-natured reply,\nand I was in a moment astride of the animal, after the fashion for\nriding donkeys bareback in England, _i.e._, more aft than forward; and,\nafter a few plunges among the stones, we were safe over the cataract.\nThe two men, by the aid of their poles, crossed just above, leaping\nfrom one slippery stone to another, at the risk of flopping into the\ndeep gurgling rapids that rushed between them.\n\nWe had scarcely got through when a terrible commotion was raised in\nfront, and a simultaneous burst of \u201cburra burraing\u201d (wohoa-ing) ensued\nfrom all the party. In turning an angle of the corkscrew descent one\nof the pails had caught a projecting rock, and become unhooked, and\nwas rolling away, the horse very nearly doing the same thing, right\nover the precipice. To stop its course, lift it up, and hook it on the\nstraddle, was a task speedily accomplished by these agile mountaineers.\n\nThe fright having subsided, off we started again, and the queries\nrecommenced. A Norwegian is a stubborn fellow, and sticks to his point.\nLittle was to be got out of me but parrying answers, and the peasants\nguessed me of all the countries of Europe, ultimately fixing on Denmark\nas my probable native country.\n\nAfter twisting and turning and passing one or two waterfalls of\nconsiderable height, we at length reached the bottom of the chasm,\nin which the river, which I had left some hours before, had forced\nits almost subterranean passage from the Fjeld. The gigantic wall of\nlimestone on the opposite side rose, I should say at a rough guess,\nfive times as high as the cliff impending over the Giant\u2019s Causeway,\nand in more than one spot a force tumbled over the battlements.\n\nBy nine o\u2019clock, P.M., to my great relief, as I was miserably\nfoot-sore, my boots not having been properly greased, we arrived at\nGaratun, one of half a dozen small farmsteads that lay on the small\ngrassy slopes by the side of the dark Eidsfjord. An old crone showed\nme upstairs into a room, round which were ranged eight chests or boxes\nwith arching tops, painted in gaudy colours, with the name of Niels\nGaratun and his wife inscribed thereon. Round the wooden walls I\ncounted twenty cloth dresses of red, green, and blue, suspended from\nwooden pegs. No beer being procurable, I slaked my raging thirst, while\ncoffee was preparing, with copious draughts of prim, a sort of whey.\n\nBefore long, two or three peasants stalked in, hands in pockets, and\nforthwith, according to custom, commenced squirting tobacco-juice from\ntheir mouths with all the assiduity of Yankees.\n\n\u201cWho are you? Are you going up to the Foss to-morrow? Will you have a\nhorse and a man? Many gentlemen give one dollar for the horse and one\nfor the man. It\u2019s meget brat (very steep); Slem Vei (bad road).\u201d\n\nTo all which observations I replied that I was very tired, and could\nanswer no questions at all that night. Upon which the spitters retired\nwith an air of misgiving about me, as they had evidently calculated on\nnailing the foreigner to a bargain at the first blush of the thing;\nand, when the news of my arrival got wind, their market was sure to be\nlowered by competition. One of them, after closing the door, popped his\nhead in again, and said--\n\n\u201cHe thought he could do it cheaper; but I had better say at once, else\nhe should be up to the s\u00e6ter in the morning before I got up.\u201d\n\n\u201cI would say nothing till nine o\u2019clock the next morning,\u201d was my reply,\nand I was left to rest undisturbed; the men apparently thinking me an\nodd individual.\n\nLong before nine o\u2019clock my slumbers were disturbed by the entrance\nof a sharp-looking individual, who asked if I would have coffee? He\ndid not belong to the house even; but by this _ruse_ it was evident he\nintended to steal a march on the others.\n\n\u201cFor four orts\u201d (three shillings and fourpence), said he, \u201cI\u2019ll\nguide you up to the Foss, and then row you across the lake to Vik on\nthe Hardanger.\u201d The bargain was concluded at once; not a little to\nthe consternation of the two dollar men, who, when they presented\nthemselves at 9 o\u2019clock, found that they were forestalled.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n    The young Prince of Orange--A crazy bridge--At the foot of\n    the mighty V\u00f6ring Foss--A horse coming downstairs--Mountain\n    greetings--The smoke-barometer--The V\u00f6ring waterfall--National\n    characteristics--Paddy\u2019s estimate of the Giant\u2019s\n    Causeway--Meteoric water--New illustrations of old\n    slanders--How the Prince of Orange did homage to the glories\n    of nature--Author crosses the lake Eidsfjord--Falls in\n    with an English yacht and Oxonians--An innkeeper\u2019s story\n    about the Prince of Orange--Salmonia--General aspect of\n    a Norwegian Fjord--Author arrives at Utne--Finds himself\n    in pleasant quarters--No charge for wax-lights--Christian\n    names in Thelemarken--Female attire--A query for Sir Bulwer\n    Lytton--Physiognomy of the Thelemarken peasants--Roving\n    Englishmen--Christiania newspapers--The Crown\n    Prince--Historical associations of Utne--The obsequies of Sea\n    Kings--Norwegian gipsies.\n\n\nFrom my guide I learn that this land\u2019s-end nook has been lately in a\ntremendous ferment, in consequence of the young Prince of Orange, who\nis making a tour in company with the Crown Prince of Norway, having\nvisited the V\u00f6ring Foss. The Prince, whom report destines for England\u2019s\nsecond Princess, appears to have been very plucky (meget flink) at the\noutset of the excursion, and outwalked all the rest of the party--at\nall events they suffered him to think so. Half way up, however, he was\ndead beat, and compelled to get on pony back.\n\nAt first the narrow valley is tolerably level, blocked up, however,\nwith monstrous rocks and stones. Soon we arrive at a crazy bridge\nspanning the torrent. Striding on to this, Herjus turns round to see\nwhat I am doing. Finding me close behind, he goes on. The traveller in\nNorway must learn at a pinch\n\n    To cross a torrent foaming loud\n    On the uncertain footing of a spear.\n\n\u201cMany people get frightened at this bridge,\u201d says he, \u201cand we are\nforced to lead them over.\u201d\n\nAt this I was not surprised. Three fir trees, of immense length, thrown\nacross the thundering waters from two projecting cliffs, and supported\nmidway by a rock in the stream, formed the permanent way. This, I\nunderstood, was very rotten; there was no sort of hand-railing, and\nat every step we took the frail timbers swayed unpleasantly with our\nweight. Passing M\u00f6bu, up to which salmon force their way, we recross\nthe stream by a newly constructed, safe bridge, and leave it to thread\nits passage through cliffs, where no man can follow, to the foot of the\nmighty V\u00f6ring Foss.\n\nWe now begin to ascend a precipitous path right in front of us, which\nhere and there assumes the shape of a regular staircase, by means of\nrough slabs of rock, placed one above another. If I had encountered\na laden horse coming down the steps of the Monument, I should not\nhave been more astonished than I was, on meeting upon this staircase\na horse, loaded with two great pails. Close behind him was one Knut\nTveit\u00f6. Grasping tightly at the wooden crupper described in the last\nchapter (hale-stock = tail-stick), he acted as a powerful drag to break\nthe animal\u2019s descent. With reins hanging loosely on his extended neck,\nears pricked up, and fore-foot put forward as a feeler into mid-air,\nthe sagacious little beast, with nothing more than his own good sense\nto guide him, is groping his way down the loose and steep steps, now\nand then giving a sort of expostulatory grunt, as the great iron nails\nin his shoes slip along a rock, or he receives a jolt more shaking than\nordinary.[14]\n\n\u201cWilkommen fra St\u00f6len\u201d (welcome from the ch\u00e2let), was the expressive\ngreeting of Herjus to the stranger, whose reply was, \u201cGesegned arbeid!\u201d\n(blessed labour). My guide\u2019s words first awoke me to the fact that this\nis the path by which Knut had to toil to the summer pasture of his\nflocks and herds.\n\nBidding farewell to Knut, who waited a few minutes while I made a rough\nsketch of himself and his horse, we went on climbing. Hitherto the\nheight of the mountains around had served to keep out the sun\u2019s rays;\nbut now our altitude was such, that they no longer served as a parasol,\nand as we emerged from the shadow into the broiling glare, the labour\nbecame proportionately greater. But we soon reach the top of the\nascent, and open upon a bleak moor, flagged at intervals with flattish\nstones.\n\nTo the north rose a roundish mountain, clad with snow. This is I\u00f6keln,\n5700 feet high, called by the natives Yuklin. Between us and it, at the\ndistance of about a mile across the moor, rose a thin, perpendicular\nspire of smoke, which might have been taken for the reek of a gipsy\ncampfire.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s V\u00f6ring,\u201d said the guide, stuffing a quantity of blue and cloud\nberries into his mouth. \u201cWe shall have good weather; you should see\nV\u00f6ring when the weather is going to be bad--doesn\u2019t he smoke then?\u201d\n\nI observed that all the people here talked thus of the Fall, assigning\na sort of personality to the monster, as if it was something more than\na mere body of water.\n\n\u201cAnd here we are at V\u00f6ring,\u201d said the guide, after we had\nsteeple-chased straight across the swamp to the shadowy spire. As\nhe said this, he pointed down into an abyss, from which proceeded\ndull-sounding thunderings.\n\nI found we were standing on the verge of a portentous crater, nine\nhundred feet deep, into which springs, at one desperate bound, the\nfrantic water-spirit. The guide\u2019s phlegmatic appearance at this moment\nwas a striking contrast to the excitement of Paddy this summer, when he\nwas showing me the organ-pipes of the Giant\u2019s Causeway, sounding with\nthe winds of the Atlantic.\n\n\u201cThis, yer honner, is allowed by all thravellers to be the most\nwonderfullest scane in the whole world. There\u2019s nothing to be found\nlike it at all at all. Many professors have told me so.\u201d\n\nStraight opposite to us the cliff rose two or three hundred feet\nhigher, and shot down another stream of no mean volume. But it was the\ncontact of the V\u00f6ring with the black pit-bottom that I desired to see.\nThis, however, is no easy matter. At length I fixed on what appeared\nto be the best spot, and requesting the man to gripe my hand tight, I\ncraned over as far as I could, and got a view of the whole monster at\nonce. Did not he writhe, and dart, and foam, and roar like some hideous\nprojectile blazing across the dark sky at night. Such a sight I shall\nnever behold again. It was truly terrific. It was well that the guide\nheld me fast, for a strange feeling, such as Byron describes, as if of\nwishing to jump overboard, came over me in spite of myself.\n\nBut, after all, the V\u00f6ring Foss is a disappointment. You can\u2019t see it\nproperly. A capital defect. One adventurous Englishman, I understand,\ndid manage by making a detour, to descend the cliff, and actually\nlaunched an India-rubber boat--what odd fellows Englishmen are--on\nthe infernal surge below. A man who was with him told me he held the\nboat tight by a rope, while the Briton paddled over the pool. Arrived\nthere, without looking at the stupendous column which rose from where\nhe was to the clouds, or rather did _vice vers\u00e1_, he pulled out of his\npocket a small pot of white paint, and forthwith commenced painting his\ninitials on the rock, to prove, as he said, that he had been there.\n\nThis reminds me of one of our countrymen who arrived in his carriage at\ndead of night at some Italian city of great interest. \u201cAntonio, what is\nthe name of this place?\u201d On hearing it, he puts the name down in his\npocket-book, and orders the horses, exclaiming--\u201cThank goodness; done\nanother place.\u201d\n\nThe next thing will be that we shall hear of some Beckford blasting the\nrock, and erecting a summer-house like that at the Falls of the Rhine,\nfor the tourists to peep out of.\n\nFancy a Dutchman in such a place! The elation of the Prince of Orange,\nwhen he got to this spot, was such, that he and the botanist who\naccompanied him, are recorded to have drunk more wine than was good\nfor them. \u201cPull off your hat, sir,\u201d he hiccuped to the chief guide, in\nreverence, the reader will suppose, to the spirit of the spot. \u201cPull\noff your hat, I say; it is not every day that you guide a Prince to the\nV\u00f6ring!\u201d\n\nIt was not till six o\u2019clock that we were down at Garatun; so that the\nexcursion is a good stiff day\u2019s work. But to this sort of thing I had\nbecome accustomed, having walked on the two preceding days a distance\nof more than sixty English miles.\n\nCrossing the gloomy little lake Eidsfjord, in a small boat rowed by\nmy guide, and then over the little isthmus which separates it from\nthe sea, I arrived at the \u201cMerchant\u2019s\u201d at Vik. An English yacht, with\nOxford men on board, lay at anchor close by. This I boarded forthwith,\nand was entertained by the hospitable owner with tea and news from\nEngland.\n\nMagnus, the innkeeper, is evidently a man making haste to be rich. He\nhas cows in plenty on the mountains; but he takes care to keep them\nthere, and there is, consequently, not a vestige of cream or milk in\nhis establishment, let alone meat, or anything but flad-brod and salted\ntrout. He exultingly tells me that he was the guide-in-chief to the\nDutch Prince, and what a lot of dollars he got for it. I don\u2019t know\nwhether these people belie his Royal Highness, but here is another\nanecdote at his expense.\n\n\u201cMagnus,\u201d said the Prince, after paying him, \u201care you content? Have\nI paid as much as any Englishman ever did? For if any Englishman ever\npaid more, tell me, and I\u2019ll not be beaten.\u201d\n\nAs far as I could gather, Magnus, in reply, hummed and hawed in a\nsomewhat dubious manner, and thus managed to extract a dollar or two\nmore from his Highness.\n\nPrinces, by-the-bye, seem the order of the day. During the few hours I\nstopped here, a Prussian Prince and his suite, travelling _incognito_,\nalso arrived, and passed on to the Waterfall.\n\nThe stream between this and the fresh-water lake above holds salmon and\ngrilse, but there are no good pools.\n\nOn a lovely morning I took boat for Utne, further out in the\nHardanger-Fjord. The English yacht had left some hours before, but was\nlying becalmed, the white sail hanging against the mast, under some\ntall cliffs flanking the entrance to the small Ulvik-Fjord. One or\ntwo stray clouds, moving lazily overhead, throw a dark shadow on the\nmountains, which are bathed in warm sunshine. Among the dark-green\nfoliage and grey rocks which skirt the rocky sides of the Fjord for\nmiles in front of us, may at times be descried a bright yellow patch,\ndenoting a few square yards of ripening corn, which some peasant has\ncontrived to conjure out of the wilderness. Near the little patch may\nbe descried a speck betokening the cabin of the said Selkirk.\n\nAs you approach nearer, you descry, concealed in a little nook cut\nout by nature in the solid rock, the skiff in which the lonely\nwight escapes at times from his isolation. In fact, he ekes out his\nsubsistence by catching herring or mackerel, or any of the numerous\nfinny tribes which frequent these fjords; in some measure making up to\nthe settlers the barrenness of the soil. Presently I hear a distant\nsound in the tree-tops. Look! the clouds, hitherto so lazy, are on the\nmove; the placid water, which reflected the yacht and its sails so\ndistinctly just now, becomes ruffled and darkens; and anon a strong\nwind springs forth from its craggy hiding-place. See! it has already\nreached the craft, and she is dancing out into the offing, lying\ndown to the water in a manner that shows she will soon lessen her\neight miles distance from us, and beat out to sea with very little\ndifficulty. As for poor luckless me, the boatmen had, of course,\nforgotten to take a sail; so that the wind, which is partly contrary,\nand soon gets up a good deal of sea, greatly retards our progress.\n\nAt length we arrive at Utne, a charming spot lying at the north-western\nentrance to the S\u00f6r-Fjord. What excellent quarters I found here. The\nmistress, the wife of the merchant, a most tidy-looking lady, wearing\nthe odd-looking cap of the country, crimped and starched with great\ncare, bustled about to make me comfortable. Wine and beer, pancakes and\ncherries, fresh lamb and whiting--O noctes c\u0153n\u00e6que Deum!--such were the\ndelicacies that fell to my share, and which were, of course, all the\nmore appreciated by me after a fortnight\u2019s semi-starvation among the\nmountains, crowned by the stingy fare of the dollar-loving Magnus.[15]\n\nI think I have not mentioned that in Thelemarken and the Hardanger\ndistrict one meets with quite a different class of Christian names from\nelsewhere in Norway, where the common-place Danish names, often taken\nfrom Scripture, are usual. Ole, it is true, being the name of the great\nnational saint, is rife all over, especially in Hallingdal; so much so\nthat if you meet with three men from that district, you are sure, they\nsay, to find one of the three rejoicing in that appellation. The female\npart of the family here rejoice in the names of Torbior, Guro, and\nIngiliv.\n\n\u201cI wish, Guro, you would teach me the names of the various articles\nof female attire you wear,\u201d said I to the said damsel, a rosy-cheeked\nlass, her mouth and eyes, like most of the girls in the country,\nbrimfull of good nature, though, perhaps, not smacking of much\nrefinement. Her hair-tails were, as usual, braided with red tape: and,\nit being Sunday, these were bound round her head in the most approved\nmodern French fashion.\n\n\u201cOh! that is called Troie,\u201d said she, as I pointed to a close-fitting\njacket of blue cloth, which, the weather being chilly, she wore over\nall; and this is called Overliv--_i.e._, the vest of green fitting\ntight to her shape, with the waist in the right place.\n\nWhat can so good a judge as Sir Bulwer Lytton, by-the-bye, be about\nwhen he talks somewhere of a \u201cshort waist not being unbecoming, as\ngiving greater sweep to a majestic length of limb.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd this is the Bringe-klud\u201d (the little bit of cloth placed across\nthe middle of the bosom); \u201cand this is called Stak,\u201d continued she,\nwith a whole giggle, and half a blush.\n\n\u201cAnd who was that reading aloud below this morning?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, that was Torbior\u201d (the mistress of the house).\n\n\u201cAnd what was she reading?\u201d\n\n\u201cThe Bible; she always does that every morning. We all assemble\ntogether in that room.\u201d\n\nGuro was fair; not so many of the inhabitants of the Hardanger\ndistrict. The dark physiognomies and black eyes of some of the peasants\ncontrast as forcibly with the blond aspect of the mass, as the Spanish\nfaces in Galway do with the fair complexions of the generality of the\ndaughters of Erin. One wonders how they got them. I never heard any\nsatisfactory solution offered of the phenomenon.\n\nTwo Englishmen, who have also found their way hither, are gone to have\na sight of the neighbouring Folge Fond. One of them is a Winchester\nlad, who has been working himself nearly blind and quite ill. His\ncompanion is of a literary turn, and indulges in fits of abstraction.\nEmerging from one of these, he asks me whether there is ever a full\nmoon in Carnival-time at Rome. Eventually, I discover the reason of\nhis query. He is writing a novel, and his \u201cPyramus and Thisbe\u201d meet\nwithin the Colosseum walls, at that period of rejoicing, by moonlight.\nBut more circumspect than Wilkie, who makes one of the figures in his\nWaterloo picture eating oysters in June, he is guarding against the\npossibility of an anachronism.\n\nAmong the luxuries of this most tidy establishment are some Christiania\npapers. The prominent news is the progress of the Crown Prince, who is\ntravelling in these parts. He landed here, and sketched the magnificent\nmountains that form the portals of the enchanting S\u00f6r (South) Fjord. At\nUllenswang, on the west shore of that Fjord, he invited all the good\nladies and gentlemen, from far and near, to a ball on board his yacht\n_Vidar_, dancing with the prettiest of them. What particularly pleases\nthe natives is the Prince\u2019s free and easy way of going on. He chews\ntobacco strenuously, and to one public functionary he offered a quid\n(skrue), with the observation, \u201cEr de en saadaan karl (Is this in your\nline)?\u201d At a station in Romsdal, where he slept, he was up long before\nthe aides-de-camp. After smoking a cigar with the Lehnsman in the keen\nmorning air, finding that his attendants were still asleep, he went to\ntheir apartment, and, like an Eton lad, pulled all the clothes from\ntheir beds.\n\nThe great advantage which will ensue from the personal acquaintance\nthus formed between the Prince and this sturdy section of his subjects,\nis thoroughly understood, and the Norskmen appreciate the good of it,\nafter their own independent fashion. One or two speakers, however, have\ngreeted him with rather inflated and fulsome speeches, going so far as\nto liken him to St. Olaf, of pious memory. The only resemblance appears\nto be, that he is the first royal personage, since the days of that\nmonarch, who has visited these mountains.\n\nUtne has some curious historical recollections. In a hillock near the\nhouse several klinkers, such as those used for fastening the planking\nof vessels, have been discovered. Here then is a confirmation of the\naccounts given by Snorr. The ship, which was the Viking\u2019s most valuable\npossession, which had borne him to foreign lands, to booty and to fame,\nwas, at his death, drawn upon land; his body was then placed in it, and\nboth were consumed by fire. Earth was then heaped over the ashes, and\nthe grave encircled by a ship-shaped enclosure of upright stones, a\ntaller stone being placed in the centre to represent the mast.\n\nSometimes, too, the dying Sea King\u2019s obsequies were celebrated in a\nfashion, around which the halo of romance has been thrown. \u201cKing Hake\nof Sweden cuts and slashes in battle as long as he can stand, then\norders his war-ship, loaded with his dead men and their weapons, to\nbe taken out to sea, the tiller shipped, and the sails spread; being\nleft alone, he sets fire to some tar-wood, and lies down contented on\nthe deck. The wind blew off the land, the ship flew, burning in clear\nflame, out between the islets and into the ocean, and there was the\nright end of King Hake.\u201d[16]\n\nConsidering that this place is so near such an enormous tract of snow\nand ice as the Folgefond, it is rather astonishing to find that it will\ngrow cherries, apples, and corn, better than most places around.\n\nI make a point in all these spots of examining any printed notice that\nI may come across, as being likely to throw light on the country and\nits institutions. Here, for instance, is a Government ordinance of\n1855, about the Fante-folk, otherwise Tatere, or gipsies. From this I\nlearn that some fifteen hundred of these Bedouins are moving about the\nkingdom, with children, who, like themselves, have never had Christian\nbaptism or Christian instruction. They are herewith invited to settle\ndown, and the Government promises to afford them help for this purpose;\notherwise they shall still be called \u201cgipsies,\u201d and persecuted in\nvarious ways.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\n    From Fairy lore to Nature lore--Charming idea for stout\n    folk--Action and reaction--Election day at Bergen--A laxstie--A\n    careless pilot--Discourse about opera-glasses--Paulsen Vellavik\n    and the bears--The natural character of bears--Poor Bruin\n    in a dilemma--An intelligent Polar bear--Family plate--What\n    is fame?--A simple Simon--Limestone fantasia--The paradise\n    of botanists--Strength and beauty knit together--Mountain\n    hay-making--A garden in the wilderness--Footprints\n    of a celebrated botanist--Crevasses--Dutiful snow\n    streams--Swerre\u2019s sok--The Rachels of Eternity--A Cockney\u2019s\n    dream of desolation--Curds and whey--The setting in of\n    misfortunes--Author\u2019s powder-flask has a cold bath--The shadows\n    of the mountains--The blind leading the blind--On into the\n    night--The old familiar music--Holloa--Welcome intelligence.\n\n\nFrom Utne I take boat for a spot called Ose, in a secluded arm of the\nFjord. My boatman, an intelligent fellow, tells me that Asbj\u00f6rnsen,\nthe author of a book of Fairy Tales, is now, like Mr. Kingsley, turned\nnaturalist, and has been dredging with a skrabe (scraper) about here.\nHe has discovered one small mussel, and a new kind of star-fish,\nwith twelve rays about twelve inches long, body about the size of a\ncrown-piece, and the whole of a bright red. The rays are remarkably\nbrittle. This I afterwards saw in the Museum at Bergen. Asbj\u00f6rnsen is\nan exceedingly stout man, and very fat, and the simple country-people\nhave the idea, therefore, that he must be very rich. Wealth and fatness\nthey believe must go together.\n\nThe wind, which had all the morning been blowing from the land, as the\nafternoon advances veers round, like the Bise of the Mediterranean, and\nthus becomes in our favour. I now see the reason why the men would not\nstart till the afternoon. In fine weather, the wind almost invariably\nblows from the sea after mid-day, and from the mountain in the morning;\nand, in illustration of the law that action and reaction are always\nequal and contrary, the stronger it blows out, the stronger it blows\nin. Tit for tat.\n\nErik, who is very communicative, says, \u201cThis is our election day at\nBergen for South Bergen-Stift. We don\u2019t choose directly; every hundred\nmen elect one; and this College of Voters elects the Storthing\u2019s-man.\nMr. H----, the clergyman, is one of the sitting members.\u201d\n\n\u201cHas every male adult a vote?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo. In the country they must have a land-qualification, and pay so\nmuch tax to Government; besides which, before they can exercise their\nfranchise, they must swear to the Constitution. People think much more\nof the privilege than they did formerly. Several have qualified lately.\nThe more voters, the more Storthing\u2019s-men, so that the Storthing is\nincreasing in number.\u201d\n\nAs we scud along, we pass a stage projecting from a rock. This is a\nLaxstie, or place where salmon are caught, as they swim by, by means\nof a capstan-net, which is hoisted up suddenly as they pass over it.\nBut I shall have occasion to describe one of these curious contrivances\nhereafter.\n\n\u201cVery curious fish, those salmon,\u201d continued my informant. \u201cThey are\nvery fond of light--like moths for that; always like to take up the\nFjord where the cliffs are lowest--at least, so I hear.\u201d\n\nThe breeze being fresh, we went gaily along; \u201cSo hurtig som sex\u201d\n(as quick as six), said the man, using a saying of the country.\nPresently, he fastened the sheet, drew a lump of tobacco out of his\nwaistcoat-pocket, and began to chew.\n\n\u201cYou must not fasten the sheet,\u201d interposed I.\n\n\u201cWhy, you are not \u2018s\u00f6-raed\u2019 (frightened of the sea)?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; but you Norskmen are very careless. Supposing a Kaste-wind comes\nfrom that mountain plump upon us, where are you?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, that is never the case in summer.\u201d\n\n\u201cCan you swim?\u201d said I.\n\n\u201cNo.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, I can; so that in case of accident you have more reason to be\nalarmed than I. But I have property in the boat, and I shan\u2019t run the\nrisk of losing it.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! you English are very particular. Not long ago I rowed four\nEnglishmen. Directly we got in the bay, although it was beautiful\nweather, one and all they pulled out a cloth bag with a screw to it,\nand blew it up, and put it round their waists.\u201d\n\nI could not help smiling at my countrymen\u2019s peculiarities. As we swept\nalong under the cliffs, I inquired whether there were any bears about\nhere.\n\n\u201cBears! forstaae sig (to be sure)! You see that speck yonder? That\u2019s\nVellavik.\u201d\n\nI took out my double glass to discern it--they are infinitely superior\nto the single ones.\n\n\u201cBless me! why you have got a skue-spil kikkert[17] (theatre-glass)!\u201d\n\n\u201cSkue-spil! what do you know about skue-spil?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, I once was at Bergen, and went to see a play.\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed! And how did you like it?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot much. I also saw a juggler and a rope-dancer: that I liked a vast\ndeal better.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut about that bear at Vellavik?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes. Well, Paulsen Vellavik, who lives yonder, was up under the\nmountain early in the spring. The bears get up there then to eat the\nyoung grass, for it springs there first. He was coming down a narrow\nscaur--you know what I mean? Such a place as that yonder\u201d--pointing\nto a deep scaur in the side of the mountain. \u201cSuddenly he meets four\nbears coming towards him, two old, two young. The bears did not wish to\nmeet him, for when they were some distance off, they turned out of the\nroad, and tried to climb up out of the scaur; but it was too steep. So\ndown they came towards him, growling horribly. He immediately stuffed\nhis body, head foremost, into a hole which he saw in the cliff. It\nwas not deep enough to get himself hidden in. His legs stuck out. In\nanother second two of the bears were upon him, biting at his legs. To\nscream was death. His only chance of preservation was to sham dead.\nAfter biting him, and putting him to great pain, which he endured\nwithout a sound, the bears paused, and listened attentively. Paulsen\ncould distinctly feel their hot breath, and, indeed, see them from\nhis hiding-place. After thus listening some time, and not hearing him\nbreathe or move, they came to the conclusion that he was dead, and then\nthey left him. Faint with loss of blood, his legs frightfully bitten,\nhe managed, nevertheless, to crawl home, and is slowly recovering.\u201d\n\n\u201cThat is a very good bear-story,\u201d said I; \u201chave you another?\u201d\n\n\u201cAh, sir, the bear is a curious creature; he does not become so savage\nall at once. When they are young, they eat berries and grass; presently\nthey take to killing small cattle--I mean sheep and goats. Later in\nlife they begin killing horses and cows, and when the bear is very old,\nhe attacks men. But they are great cowards sometimes. Ivar Aslaacson\nmet a she-bear and three young ones this summer. She bit his leg; but\nhe drove her off with nothing but a bidsel\u201d--_i.e._, iron bit and\nbridle.\n\nThe biter bit, as you may say. This seems rather a favourite weapon of\nattack. Snorro relates how those two ruffians, Arek and Erek, rode off\ntogether into the forest, and were found dead, their heads punched in\n\u201cmed hesten-hoved-band\u201d--_i.e._, with their horses\u2019 bits.\n\n\u201cOnce,\u201d continued my informant, \u201cI and a party of young fellows went\nup to a s\u00e6ter on the mainland, just opposite Utne. It was Sunday, and\nwe were going to have a lark with the s\u00e6ter girls. They were in great\nalarm, for they had seen a bear snuffing about. Off we set in pursuit.\nAt last we found him, skulking about, and drove him with our cries down\ntowards the cliffs that look over the Fjord. We saw him just below us,\nand shouted with all our might, and the dogs barked. This alarmed him,\nand he seemed to lose his head, for he jumped to a place where there\nwas no getting away from. Down we thundered rocks and stones at him. He\nlooked in doubt what to do. Then he tried to jump upon another rock;\nbut the stone slipped from under him, and rolled down, and he after it,\nand broke his neck. A famous fat fellow he was.\n\n\u201cA year or two ago, some men were fishing along shore at Skudenaes,\nwhen, lo and behold, they saw something white swimming along straight\nfor the land. It was a white bear. One of them landed, and ran for a\ngun, and shot at the beast as it touched the shore. It put up its paws\nin a supplicating manner, as if to beg them to be merciful, but a shot\nor two more killed the animal without it offering any resistance. It\nis thought that the creature had escaped from some ship coming from\nSpitzbergen.\u201d\n\nAfter a favourable run, we enter a deep Fjord, and landing at its\nextremity, march up to a cluster of houses. Here I agree with one\nSimon, for the sum of three dollars, to convey my effects over the\nFjeld to the Sogne Fjord. His daughter Sunniva prepares me some coffee.\nTo ladle out the cream, she places on the board a stumpy silver spoon,\nthe gilding of which is nearly worn off. It was shaped like an Apostle\nspoon, except that the shaft was very short, and ended in something\nlike the capital of a pillar.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s a curious spoon,\u201d I observed to Madam, who now appeared on\nhousehold cares intent.\n\n\u201cAh! that belonged to my grandfather, Christopher Gaeldnaes. Did you\nnever hear of him?\u201d\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t say I ever did.\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed! Why he was a man renowned for wisdom and wealth all over\nNorway in the Danish days. Our clergyman tells me that this sort of\nspoon used to be hung round the child\u2019s neck at baptism.\u201d (D\u00f6be =\ndipping.)\n\nIn the Museum of Northern Antiquities at Copenhagen, a similar one may\nbe seen.\n\nThe extent of the household accommodations was not great. There were no\nsheets; as a make-shift, I suggested a table-cloth, of the existence\nof which I was aware; and, in place of a towel, the _pis-aller_ was\na shirt. I rose at three o\u2019clock, A.M., as we had a long journey\nbefore us; but Simon was not ready till much later. He was evidently a\nfumbling sort of fellow; and even when we had started, he had to run\nback and get something he had forgotten. From my experience in guides,\nI augured ill of his capabilities. To judge from the map, I thought we\nought to accomplish the passage of the Fjeld before dark; but all that\ncould be got out of him on this subject was, he could not say. If we\ncouldn\u2019t get over, there was a ch\u00e2let where we might sleep.\n\nAs we trudged up the very narrow valley behind the houses, following\nthe brawling stream, I had leisure to survey the surrounding objects.\nRight and left were impending mountains of enormous height, while in\nfront of us stood, forbidding our approach, a wall of rock. Behind\nlay the placid Fjord, with a view of Folgefond in the distance, just\ncatching the blush of the sunrise. The summits of some of the cliffs\nwere cut into all sorts of fantastic shapes. The stupendous ruins which\nchoked the path and stream, and were of limestone, at once explained\nthe reason of the horrid forms above. The rock, from its nature, is\nevidently given to breaking away, and when it does so, does not study\nappearances. My guide, however, has something to say on the subject.\n\n\u201cYonder, sir, is the priest. Don\u2019t you see him? His nose\n(Probst-snabel) came away some months ago, so that now his face is not\nso easy to make out. That other rock goes by the name of St\u00f6rk\u2019s stool.\nDid you ever hear the story? St\u00f6rk was a strong man, and a daring\nwithal. One day he was up at a Thing (assize) at Kinservik, where the\nBishop presided. Enraged at some decision made by his right reverence,\nSt\u00f6rk struck at him with his axe, but luckily missed him, making a\nfearful gash in the door-post. St\u00f6rk immediately fled to Ose, below\nthere. Not long after, the Bishop\u2019s boat was descried rowing into the\nFjord, to take vengeance for the act of violence. St\u00f6rk at once fled\nup to that rock there, to watch the proceedings. Close by it there is\na hole, and he had ready a vast flat stone, for the purpose of drawing\nit over the mouth, in case the Bishop came in pursuit. Meantime, he had\nleft instructions with his son Tholf (which also means twelve) how to\nact. Tholf, who was a huge fellow, and nearly as strong as his father,\nset out in his boat to meet the Bishop, having on board a barrel of\nbeer. As the other boat drew near he rested on his oars, and asked the\nBishop\u2019s permission to drink his health; and this being given, he took\nup the barrel and began drinking out of the bung-hole. The size of this\nfellow rather appalled the Bishop, who discreetly inquired whether\nSt\u00f6rk had any other such sons. \u2018He has _Tholf_,\u2019 was the crafty answer.\nWhen the Bishop, not relishing an encounter with twelve such fellows,\nturned his boat round, and retreated with all speed.\u201d\n\nIn spite of my anticipations, I find the path gradually unfolds itself\nas we advance, worming in and out of the rocks. More luxuriant\nshrub-vegetation I never beheld; a perfect Paradise of Sub-alpine\nplants. There were raspberries, and strawberries, and haeggebaer\n(bird-cherry), the wood of which is the toughest in Norway; besides\nmany kinds of wild flowers, peeping among the fallen rocks. And then\nthe ferns: there was the delicate oak-leaved fern, and the magnificent\n\u201cpolysticum logkitis,\u201d with several others. Growing among these was a\nplant which appeared to be parsley-fern, specimens of which I stuffed\ninto my book.\n\n\u201cAy, that\u2019s a nasty plant, sir,\u201d said my guide. \u201cEn hel Maengde (a\ngreat lot) of it grows hereabouts. We call it Torboll\u201d (I suppose from\nthe destroying god Thor), \u201cor Heste-spraeng (horse-burster). It stops\nthem up at once, and they begin to swell, and the only chance then is a\nclyster.\u201d\n\nThe cause of all this luxuriance of vegetation is to be found in the\nsheltered position of the valley, and the moisture caused by the\n\n    Thousand pretty rills\n    That tumble down the rocky hills.\n\nOne wonders where so much water comes from; till, lifting up the eye\nbeyond the tall cliffs that lie still in the shadow, the vision lights\non a field of glistening snow, which the morning sun has just caught\nand illumined.\n\nEach step that we ascend the flowers grow perceptibly smaller and\nsmaller, but their tints brighter, while the scenery grows more rugged\nand sombre, and its proportions vaster--an apt representation of savage\nstrength pillowing beauty on its bosom.\n\nAs we climb higher and higher, we pass a waterfall, over which hovers\nan iris, one of those frequent decorations of Norwegian landscape which\na British islander but seldom sees in his be-fogged home. Looking back,\nand following the stream below with my eye, I perceive two figures\napproaching the water\u2019s edge.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s my son and daughter,\u201d exclaimed Simon. \u201cThey are going to make\nhay on that slope on the other side,\u201d said he, pointing to a little\ngreen spot high up the mountain.\n\nIf a crop was to be got there it would be one, methought, such as the\nScripture describes, \u201cwith which the mower filleth not his hand, nor he\nthat bindeth up the sheaves his bosom.\u201d Such little matters indicate\nthe wrestle that mankind here has to make both ends meet; in other\nwords, to get a supply of forage enough to last from September to May.\n\n\u201cBut there\u2019s no bridge,\u201d exclaimed I. \u201cThey can\u2019t get over.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, they\u2019ll manage.\u201d\n\nAnd sure enough I saw the boy first, and then the girl, take off their\nshoes, and with a hop, spring, and a jump, light on a stone standing\nout in the torrent, and then on another; and so over with the agility\nof mountain goats. One false step--an easy matter when the rocks were\nso slippery--and they would have endangered limb at any rate, for the\nlin was deep, and worked up to a dangerous pitch of exasperation by the\nknock-me-down blows that its own gravity was giving it.\n\nBefore we emerge from the vast labyrinth of mountain ruin, one\noverhanging fragment particularly arrests my attention, for, under its\neaves, a quantity of martens had constructed their mud habitations,\nand were darting out and athwart the stream and back again with their\nmuscipular booty, with intense industry. The trout abound in the brook\nthat placidly flows through the little green plain beyond; but, with\nsuch a host of winged fly-catchers about, I doubt whether they ever\nget into season. Here, taking advantage of this little oasis of sweet\ngrass, two or three s\u00e6ters had been constructed, with the cows and\nsheep around them. The bald rock, up which our path now lay, was of\nmica-slate, striped with bands of white felspar; cold and grey, it\nwas void of grass. The beautiful ferns we had left nestling among the\nclefts far behind, but a bit of stone-crop held its own here and there,\nand the claret-stalked London Pride asserted its dignity with much\npertinacity. There was also abundance of a red flower.\n\n               On the bare waterless brow\n    Of granite ruin, I found a purple flower,\n    A delicate flower, as fair as aught I trow,\n    That toys with zephyrs in my lady\u2019s bower.\n\n\u201cAh!\u201d said Simon, as I picked up some specimens, \u201cit must be nigh\nthirty years ago that I guided a Thelemarken priest over this Fjeld. He\ntold me the name of that \u2018grass\u2019 you\u2019ve got there (a Norwegian calls\nall flowers \u2018grass\u2019) but I don\u2019t mind it now. He had a large box with\nhim, and filled it full of grass and mosses. He was very particular\nabout that black moss under the snow. His name was--let me see--\u201d\n\n\u201cSommerfeldt,\u201d suggested I, the well-known author of the _Supplementum\nFlor\u00e6 Laponic\u00e6_.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s it!\u201d exclaimed Simon; \u201cquite right.\u201d\n\nThe inclined plane, up which we strode, was clearly the work of\na glacier. But though there was no ice now, there were crevasses\nnotwithstanding. The mountain was traversed with deep parallel\nfissures, from a few inches to two or three feet in width. There might\nhave been a score of them--the widest spanned by little bridges of\nstone, thrown across by the peasants for precaution\u2019s sake.\n\n\u201cDangerous paths these on a dark night,\u201d observed I.\n\n\u201cYes, and in broad daylight too,\u201d was the response.\n\n\u201cMind how you go--it\u2019s very slape. Do you see that mark?\u201d continued he,\npointing to a long scrawl on the slippery surface, which terminated on\nthe edge of one of these yawning chasms. \u201cThe best horse in the valley\nmade that. He slipped in there, and was lost. Nabo (neighbour) Ole\u2019s ox\ndid the same thing in another place. Forfaerdelig Spraekke (frightful\ncrack)! Pray take care; let me go first. It will be very bad going, I\nsee, to-day. The snow is so much melted this summer,\u201d said he, as we\nscrambled down into a deep basin, the bottom of which was occupied by\ngrim Stygian pools of snow-slush and spungy ice. We were no sooner out\nof this slough of despond, than we were on a quasi glacier, with its\nregularly-marked dirt bands. The snow on which we trod was honeycombed\nand treacherous. Underneath it might be heard rumbling rills busily\nengaged in excavating crevasses. Now and then one of them came to the\nlight of day, with that peculiar milky tint of freshly-melted snow,\nas if the fluid was loth to give up all at once its parent colour,\ndutiful child. To add to the strangeness of the scene, the sun, which\nwas now high in heaven, catching the face of the mica-slate, bronzed it\ninto the colour of the armour we have seen worn by the knights at the\nChristmas pantomime.\n\n\u201cWe call that Swerre\u2019s Sok,\u201d said my guide, pointing to an eminence\non my left, reminding me that the brave Norsk king of that name, when\npursued by his foes, escaped with the remnants of his army by this\nappalling route. \u201cHe took his sleeping quarters at the s\u00e6ter we are\ncoming to,\u201d continued Simon.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s Yuklin,\u201d said my cicerone, pointing to a rounded mountain to\nthe right, muffled in \u201ca saintly veil of maiden white,\u201d and looking\nso calm and peaceful amid the storm-tost stone-sea that howled around\nus. To the left were two lesser snow mountains, Ose Skaveln and Vosse\nSkaveln, looking down on the scene of confusion at their feet with\nno less dignity than their sister. Striking images these of tranquil\nrepose and rending passion! It was a magnificent, still, autumn day;\nif it had been otherwise, it would be difficult to imagine what\nfeatures the scene would have assumed. I have seen a good deal of the\nFjeld; but, until now, I had no notion how it can look in some places.\n\u201cVegetation has ceased now,\u201d said the old man, with a kind of shiver,\nwhich was quite contagious, as we stumbled among\n\n    Crags, rocks, and mounds, confusedly hurled,\n    The fragments of an earlier world.\n\nBut a common-place comparison may perhaps bring what I saw home to my\nreaders. Suppose a sudden earthquake, or a succession of them, were\nto rend, and prostrate, and jumble and tumble all London, choking up\nthe Thames with debris of all imaginable shapes, and converting its\nbed into deep standing pools, with now and then the toppling tower of\na temple or a palace reflecting itself in the waters. And, to crown\nall, not a single living mortal to be seen about the ruins. If this\nwill not suffice to illustrate the scene, the blame must be laid on my\nbarrenness of invention.\n\nWell, after some miles of this amusement, we came upon a broad, hollow\nway. To the right of this path was the dark, soft, slaty micaceous\nschist, but it came no further; and to the left of the line was nothing\nbut white granitic gneiss. A little further on the rock was scorched.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s the Torden,\u201d said Simon; \u201ca man was struck by lightning here\nnot so long ago.\u201d\n\nAt last we emerged on a sort of stony moor, and after eight hours\u2019 walk\nsuddenly got upon a small plot of grass, and stopped at a ch\u00e2let. I was\nnot sorry to preface an attack on my own stores by a slight foray among\nthe milky produce of the Fjeld dairy. The curds (\u201cDravle\u201d or \u201cgum\u201d)\nproved excellent.\n\nThis spot was called Hallingskie, and was forty-two English miles from\nthe first farm in Hallingdal. Hitherto, on the whole, we had got on\npretty successfully, though at a rather tortoise pace. It was now that\nour misfortunes began. In the first place, it was too late to think of\nachieving the passage of the Fjeld by daylight. So we were to sleep\nat a certain distant ch\u00e2let; notwithstanding which Simon seemed in\nno hurry to move; and it was only when I started off alone that he\nbestirred himself, jabbering as fast as possible to the old man and\nwoman who lived on this lonely spot. Presently we missed our way, or\nrather direction--for there was no way whatsoever--and lost much time\nin hitting off the scent again. If we kept to the right, we got among\nsnow; if too much to the left, the valley was effectually stopped up by\ninky lakes, laving the bases of perpendicular cliffs. A shot or two at\nptarmigan somewhat enlivened the horrors of the scene.\n\nAt last, after many ups and downs and round-abouts, we descend into\na valley, and cross over a deepish stream, both of us sitting on the\nhorse. Once on the further bank, I, of course, relieved the horse of my\nweight. Not so my precious Norskman. The unfortunate nag, pressed down\nby his bulk, sunk at once almost to his hocks in the morass, and only\nby a prodigious effort extricated himself, to flounder back into the\nstream. Before I was aware of it, to my consternation, I saw the poor\ncreature was getting into deep water, and then swimming, only his mouth\nout of water, with all my baggage, coat, gun, &c., submerged. The\nwretched Simon, who had never had the adroitness to throw himself from\nthe poor beast\u2019s back, sat firmly upon him, just like the Old Man of\nthe sea on the back of Sinbad the sailor--a proper incubus. Of course\nthey\u2019ll both be drowned, thought I; but no! the poor beast has secured\na footing on the further side of the water, and gradually emerges, all\nmy traps dripping gallons of water. My maps, and powder, and gun, too,\nterrible thought! So much for the pleasures of travelling in Norway.\n\nPresently, the quadruped recrossed at the ford above. After scolding\nthe man most resolutely for his carelessness, and adjusting the pack,\nwhich had got under the horse\u2019s belly, I proceeded. On we trudged, I\nsulky beyond measure, and weary to boot, but consoling myself with the\nthought of being speedily at the ch\u00e2let, where I might rest for the\nnight, and dry my effects. The shadows of the mountains beginning to\nlengthen apace over the dreary lake which we were now skirting, warned\nme that the day was far spent. But still no symptoms of a habitation.\nThe way seemed interminable. At last, halting, I Old-Baileyed the\nguide.\n\n\u201cHow far have we to go?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot so very far.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut night is coming on.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, we shall get there in a liden Stund (a little while.)\u201d\n\n\u201cHvor er St\u00f6len (where is the ch\u00e2let)?\u201d\n\n\u201cIt ought to be near.\u201d\n\n\u201cOught to be! what do you mean? Haven\u2019t you been this road before?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo. But the st\u00f6l is near the second great lake, and the second lake\ncan\u2019t be far. We\u2019ve passed the first.\u201d\n\nAfter this agreeable revelation I was wound up into a towering state of\nire, which made it prudent not to say more.\n\nPicking my way with difficulty through brooks, and holes, and rocks, on\nI stumped. Twilight at last became no-light, as we emerged on the side\nof what seemed to be a lake. Here the ch\u00e2let ought to be. But whether\nor no, it was too dark to see. Halting, the guide exclaimed--\n\n\u201cWhat are we to do?\u201d\n\n\u201cDo? why sleep under a rock, to be sure. Take the load off the horse,\nand turn him loose. But stop. Is not that the st\u00f6l?\u201d exclaimed I,\nadvancing to a dark object, a few yards from us, when I plunged up to\nmy knees in a peat-hag, from which I with difficulty extricated myself.\nHitherto my feet had been dry, but they were so no longer.\n\n\u201cHold your tongue!\u201d I thundered out to the guide, who kept chattering\nmost vociferously, and assuring me that the st\u00f6l ought to be here.\n\n\u201cListen! is not that a bell, on the side of the hill?\u201d We listened\naccordingly. Sure enough it was the sound of a bell on the side of\nthe mountain, mingling with the never-ceasing hum of the distant\nwaterfalls. It must be some cattle grazing, and the s\u00e6ter could not be\nfar off. \u201cTry if you can\u2019t make your way up in the direction of the\nsound. The building must be there.\u201d\n\nDuring the half-hour that my Sancho was absent, I tramped\ndisconsolately, like \u201cthe knight of the sorrowful figure,\u201d up and down\na little square of ground by the horse, to keep myself warm, as,\nbesides being wet, I sensibly felt the cold of the perpetual snow which\nlay not far off. In due time Simon returned. The solitary bell was that\nof a horse, who was feeding on the slope, but no s\u00e6ter could he find.\n\n\u201cCan you holloa?\u201d I exclaimed; \u201clet\u2019s holloa both together.\u201d\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t, sir,\u201d croaked he; \u201cI have no voice.\u201d And now I perceived what\nI had before scarcely noticed, that his voice did not rise above the\ncompass of a cracked tea-kettle. So, as a last resource, I commenced\na stentorian solo--\u201cWi har tabt Veien; hvor er St\u00f6len,\u201d--(We have\nlost our way. Where is the st\u00f6l?)--till the rocks rebellowed to the\nsound. Suddenly I hear in the distance a sound as of many cattle-bells\nviolently rung, and then, as suddenly, all the noise ceased.\n\n\u201cStrange that. Did you not hear it?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cSurely they were cattle.\u201d\n\nMy guide\u2019s superstitions, I fancy, began to be worked on, and he said\nnothing. Neither did any response come to my louder inquiries, except\nthat of the echoes. There was nothing for it, then, but to unload the\nhorse, and take up a position under the lee of some stone. The night\nwas frosty, and my pea-coat was wet through, with immersion in the\nriver. Nevertheless, I put it on, and over all, the horse-rug, regular\ncold water-cure fashion. Then, munching some of the contents of my\nwallet, and drinking my last glass of brandy, I lit a pipe. Before\nlong, a bright star rose above the mountain, and out twinkled, by\ndegrees, several other stars.\n\n\u201cThe moon,\u201d my man said, \u201cmust soon follow;\u201d but before her cold\nlight was shed across the valley, I had dozed off. At four o\u2019clock\nI was awoke by Simon, begging me to rise, which I felt very loth to\ndo. Awakened by the cold, he had got up, and by the grey dawn had\ndiscovered the s\u00e6ter, not many hundred yards distant.\n\n\u201cMy good Englishman, do get up, and dry yourself,\u201d he added, \u201cthey\u2019ve\nlit a fire.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\n    The lonely ch\u00e2let--The spirit of the hills--Bauta\n    stones--Battlefields older than history--Sand falls--Thorsten\n    Fretum\u2019s hospitality--Norwegian roads--The good wife--Author\n    executes strict justice--Urland--Crown Prince buys a red\n    nightcap--A melancholy spectacle--The trick of royalty--Author\n    receives a visit from the Lehnsman--Skiff voyage to\n    Leirdals\u00f6ren--Limestone cliffs--Becalmed--A peasant lord of the\n    forest--Inexplicable natural phenomena--National education--A\n    real postboy--A disciple for Braham--The Hemsedal\u2019s fjeld--The\n    land of desolation--A passing belle--The change house of\n    Bj\u00f6berg--\u201cWith twenty ballads stuck upon the wall\u201d--A story\n    about hill folk--Sivardson\u2019s joke--Little trolls--The way to\n    cast out wicked fairies--The people in the valley--Pastor\n    Engelstrup--Economy of a Norwegian change-house--The Halling\n    dance--Tame reindeer--A region of horrors.\n\n\nBobbing my head low, I entered the ch\u00e2let. One side of the small\ninterior was occupied by a bed, on which lay a woman with an infant\nin her arms, while at the other end of the couch--heads and tails\nfashion--were a little boy and girl. The other side of the den was\noccupied by shelves covered with cheeses and vessels of milk, while\nnear the door was the hearth, on which some dried juniper and willow\nbushes were crackling, under the superintendence of the stalwart Hans,\nwho had left his helpmate\u2019s side. Of course the good folks bid me\nwelcome, and bewailed my mischance; and I felt as secure here, though\nquite alone, and not a soul in England knew where I was, as if I had\nbeen in my native country.\n\nTaking a seat on the end of a box, which I turned up for the\npurpose--the only seat in the place--I commenced warming my outer man\nwith the blaze and smoke of the cabin, and my inner with a kettle of\nhot tea. How fortunate it was that I thought of taking a stock of it\nwith me.\n\n\u201cDid not you hear me cry out, last night?\u201d asked I, when I had thawed a\nlittle.\n\n\u201cWe heard a noise outside, and peeped out. All the cattle sprang to\ntheir feet in great alarm; so we thought it might be some wild animal.\nAfterwards, we heard the sound repeated, and did not know what to make\nof it. I didn\u2019t like to venture out.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou thought it was a troll, no doubt,\u201d suggested I, but did not press\nhim on this point.\n\nReader, if you lived the life of these people, I\u2019ll venture to say\nthat, were you as matter-of-fact a body as ever lived, you would become\ninfected with a tinge of superstition in spite of yourself.\n\nPresently Hans and his wife got up to milk the cows, and we resumed\nour journey. There were trout of three pound weight, I learned, in the\ndark lake close by, but I had had quite enough of mountain sojourn for\nthe present. The next two or three hours\u2019 travel presented the same\nscenes as before, savage in the extreme. Now snow, now ice, now rocks\nsplintered, riven asunder, cast upon heaps, and ranged in fantastic\ngroups, with now and then a delicate anemone, red or white, and other\nAlpine plants peeping modestly out of the ruins.\n\nAt last, emerging on a grassy slope, we saw, five or six miles below\nus, the arm of the Sogne Fjord, whither we were journeying. What a\npleasure it was to tread once more on a piece of flat road, which\nwe did at a place called Flom. More than one Bauta stone erected to\ncommemorate some event, about which nobody knows anything at all, is\nto be found here. Not long ago they were very numerous; but these\nrelics of a heathen race have been gradually destroyed by the bonders.\nOffensive and defensive armour is not unfrequently picked up in the\nneighbourhood, so that this secluded valley must have been at one time\nthe scene of great events.\n\nOver the stream to the left, I see one of those sand-falls so frequent\nin this country, and more destructive to property than the snow\navalanche.[18] In an unlucky hour some sudden rain-storm washes off\nthe outer skin--_i.e._, grass, or herbage, of a steep hill of loam or\nsand. From that hour the sides of the hill keep perishing--nothing will\ngrow upon them, and every rain the earthy particles keep crumbling off\nfrom the slope: thus, not only curtailing the available land above, but\ndamaging the crops below. Woe to the farmer who has a mud or sand-fall\nof this description on his property.\n\nNot sorry was I to darken the doors of Thorsten Fretum, whose house\nstood on an eminence, commanding a view up the valley and the Fjord.\nBayersk Oel and Finkel--old and good--raw ham, eggs, and gammel Ost--a\nbanquet fit for the gods--were set before me. Thorsten Fretum is a man\nof substance, and of intelligence to boot. He has twice been member\nof parliament--one of the twenty peasant representatives out of the\naggregate one hundred and four which compose the Storthing. A person of\nenlightened views, he is especially solicitous about the improvement\nof the means of road-communication. At present, between the capital,\nChristiania, and Bergen there are no less than sixty miles of boating;\nfancy there being sixty miles of sea voyage, and no other means of\ntransit between London and Aberdeen.\n\nMr. Fretum is well acquainted with the mountains, and from him I learn\nthat my guide has brought me some twenty miles out of the right way.\nMrs. Fretum, a nice-looking woman, wears the regular peasant cap of\nwhite linen stiffly starched, but of lighter make than those used in\nthe Hardanger, while round the forehead is fastened a dark silk riband.\nShe is the mother of fourteen sons, some of whose small white heads I\ncould see now and then protruded through a distant door to get a sight\nof the stranger.\n\nMr. Fretum catches large salmon in the river, and exhibits flies of his\nown construction. A few of mine will serve him as improved patterns,\nand at the same time be an acknowledgment of his hospitality.\n\nThe lyster, I find, is used, but as the river is not of a nature to\nadmit of boats, the weapon is secured by a string to the wrist of the\ncaster. I must not omit to say that I deliberately fined my guide one\ndollar for the injury I had sustained by his carelessness, which he\nsubmitted to with a tolerably good grace, evidently thinking I had let\nhim off very cheaply.\n\nAn old man and a young girl row me in the evening to that most pretty\nspot, Urland. Here I find shelter at the merchant\u2019s, just close to the\nwhitewashed church, which, according to tradition, was originally a\ndep\u00f4t for merchandize, and belonged to the Hanse League. As I landed,\na crowd of peasants stood on the beach taking farewell of a lot of\ndrovers bound for the south. They wore, instead of the national red\ncap, one of blue worsted, adorned with two parallel white lines.\nThis is peculiar to parts of the Sogne district. The Crown Prince,\nby-the-bye, enchanted the peasants by purchasing one of the aforesaid\nred nightcaps to take to Stockholm.\n\nDidn\u2019t I get up a good fire in the iron stove which garnished one\ncorner of the comfortable room upstairs. With a palpitating heart I\nthen opened my box to investigate the amount of damage done by the\nimmersion. What a sight! Those carefully starched white shirts and\ncollars which I had expressly reserved for the period when I should\nget back to towns and cities, limper than the flexible binding of the\nguide-book. The books, too, and maps humid throughout; the ammunition\nnearly in the same plight; while those captain-biscuits, on which\nI counted, were converted into what I should imagine was very like\nbaby-food, though I am not skilled in those matters.\n\nThere was no need of the cup of cold water, which travelling Englishmen\nso often insist on placing near the red-hot thirty-six pounders\n(_i.e._, iron German stoves) for the purpose of neutralising the\ndryness of the atmosphere in the apartment, for I was soon in a cloud\nof steam rising from the drying effects.\n\nThe _Morgen-Bladt_, I see, still continues to give accounts of the\nCrown Prince\u2019s progress. He has been examining some extensive draining\noperations near Molde, much to the wonderment of the peasants.\n\n\u201cI trow the king\u2019s son knows as much about these things as the best\nfarmer among us,\u201d said a red-capped bonder to another in the crowd.\n\n\u201cAy, and a vast deal more, let me tell thee, neighbour Ole.\u201d And then a\nstrapping youth exclaims,\n\n\u201cHow sorry I am that I\u2019ve served out my time under the king (_i.e._,\nas a soldier); I finished last year. It must be sheer holiday work to\nserve under such a bonny lad as that.\u201d\n\nThe Viceroy continually indulges in harmless pleasantries with the good\nfolks, without any loss of dignity by thus unbending. Can any one tell\nme why things are so different in England? When Shakspeare said \u201cthat\na sort of divinity hedges a king,\u201d he did not mean to say that royalty\nshould be iced. I remember many years ago being at a public masked\nball at a continental capital when the King, who was good humouredly\nsauntering all among the maskers, came up and asked me what character\nmy dress represented, and then made some witty _apropos_ as he passed\non through the crowd.\n\nThe usual explanation given for the sharper distinction of ranks in\nGreat Britain is the vulgarity and want of _savoir faire_ of the less\nelevated classes, who, if they get an inch, will take an ell. If this\nis true, it is a great blot on the Anglo-Saxon, or whatever you call\nit, character, that an Englishman cannot take some middle place between\nflunkeyism and forwardness, sycophancy and rudeness.\n\nDuring the evening I am favoured with a visit from the Lehnsman, who\ninforms me that the stream close by is rented by an Englishman, who\nnever comes, although it holds good salmon. I also learn, that by a\nvery wise regulation, which might be imitated with good effect in\nEngland, he has to report annually to the chief government officer of\nthe district (1), upon the amount of grain sown; (2), the prospects\nof the harvest; (3), on the result of the harvest. This enables the\nauthorities and merchants to regulate their measures accordingly, and\nneither more nor less grain is imported than is necessary.\n\nMons and Illing were the names of the two clever boatmen who manned\nour skiff the next day to Leirdals\u00f6ren, distant nearly forty miles.\nRounding a vast cliff, whose sides were so steep as not to afford a\nparticle of foothold in case of need, the bark bounds merrily along\nbefore a regular gale, and we lose sight very soon of the peaceful\nUrland, and descry another little green spot, Underdal, with its black\nchapel of ease to the mother church. Lower down on the same side we\nopen the entrance to Neri Fjord, guarded by stupendous limestone\nbluffs; one of these is black with the exposure of many thousand\nyears, and nearly perpendicular. But the most picturesque is the\nwestern portal, where in parts the white rock has become turned into\na beautiful purple, diversified here and there by patches of green\nfoliage.\n\nI should not have liked to be here on a sun-shiny day, just after dame\nNature had completed the operation of opening the white limestone. A\npair of green spectacles would have been much needed to take off the\nedge of the glare. That street in Marseilles (see _Little Dorrit_), the\nminute description of the glare and heat of which reminds one of the\ntautological pie-man, \u201call hot, hot--hot again!\u201d must have been nothing\nto it.\n\nMany eagles have made these fastnesses their dwelling-places, and I\nhear from the boatmen they commit frequent ravages among the sheep and\ngoats.\n\nOf aquatic birds, red-throated divers are the only ones we see. Indeed,\nin this part of Norway, the traveller misses the feathered multitudes\nthat are to be seen within the Arctic circle.\n\nBut the wind has suddenly failed us, and the five hours, in which we\nwere to accomplish the distance, will infallibly expand into ten;\nfor to our left lies Simla Naze, which is only half way; and the sun\nresting on its arid peak tells us it is already five o\u2019clock, P.M.,\nalthough we started before mid-day. Hence we see far down the Fjord\nto seaward. Yonder is Fresvik, the snow lying on the mountain above\nilluminated in a wonderful manner by the shooting rays of the sun,\nwhich is itself hidden behind a mist-robe. Further seaward, at least a\ndozen miles from here, may be plainly seen the yellow corn-fields about\nSystrand, near which is Sognedal, famous for its large Bauta stones.\n\nWe now veer round sharp to the eastward, and enter another arm of the\nimmense Fjord. To our right lies the farm-house of Froningen, and\nbehind it a large pine-forest--a rare sight about here--where the\ntimber has been ruthlessly exterminated by the improvident peasants.\nThis forest, consequently, which is seven English miles square, and the\nproperty of a single peasant, is of great value. Our mast, which has\nhitherto been kept standing, in the vain hope of the breeze revisiting\nus at this point, is now unshipped; and I unship that most astonishing\ncontrivance, the rudder, with its tiller a yard and a-half long. It was\nwith such an instrument that King Olaf split open the skull of the son\nof Hacon Jarl.\n\nAs we approach Leirdal, the boat takes the ground a good distance from\nthe landing-place. The detritus brought down from the Fille-Fjeld by\nthe rapid Leirdal river, is gradually usurping the place of what was,\nsome years ago, deep water. And yet, notwithstanding the shallowness\nand the great mass of fresh water coming in, there is less ice here\nin winter than at Urland, where the water is immensely deep, and much\nmore salt. Indeed, the natural phenomena of this country are frequently\ninexplicable.\n\nThe throng of great, ill-fed looking peasants, who crowded the humble\npier of piles, eager for a job, told tales of a numerous population\nwith little to do. Although it was already night in this dark defile,\njammed in between overshadowing mountains, I forthwith order a\ncarriole, and drive up the road.\n\n\u201cDo you go to school?\u201d I asked of my boy-attendant.\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d replied Lars Anders. \u201cWe must all go for six years, from eight\nto fourteen; that is to say, for the six winter months, from Martinmas\nto Sanct Johann\u2019s Tid (Midsummer.) After that, we go to the clergyman\u2019s\nfor six months, to receive religious instruction.\u201d\n\nAt Midlysne, where I spent the night, some hermetically sealed\nprovision boxes indicate a visit from Englishmen, who have been\ncatching salmon here. But the increased rate of charges would of itself\nhave suggested something of the kind.\n\nA boy met us on the road next morning with three fine salmon on his\nback. He had caught them in a deep hole, near Seltum Bridge, and offers\nthem for sale at twopence a pound. The salmon go up as far as Sterne\nBridge, and are then stopped by a defile, where the torrent is choked\nup by masses of fallen rock.\n\nFrom Husum station my attendant is a very small boy, who with\ndifficulty manages to clamber up on his seat behind. As we commence\nthe ascent of the remarkable road which surmounts the tremendous pass\nbeyond, a deep bass voice sounds close to my ear, startling me not a\nlittle. I\u2019ll tell you what, reader, you would have started too, if a\nvoice like that had sounded in your ears on such a spot, with no person\napparently near, or in sight, that could be the owner of it. Could it\ncome from that tiny urchin? Yet such was the case. Halvor Halvorsen\nwas sixteen years of age, although no bigger than a boy of eight. The\ncause of his emitting those hollow tones was, that he wished to descend\nfrom his perch and walk up the pass, which he cannot do unless the\nvehicle is stopped; as if such a shrimp as that would make any possible\ndifference to the horse. I suppose he has heard that the last ounce\nwill break the camel\u2019s back. His nickname is Wetle, the sobriquet of\nall misbegotten imps in this country. He cannot spell, and is nearly\ndaft, poor child; but for voice, commend me to him. The whip he\ncarries is nearly as long as himself; while his dress is exactly of the\nfashion worn by adults.\n\nFurther on the road branches in two directions; that to the left\ngoes over the Fille-Fjeld. We take that to the right, and mount the\nHemsedal\u2019s Fjeld, and are soon on the summit. Some miserable-looking\nch\u00e2lets dot the waste. One of these, Breitest\u00f6l, professes to give\nrefreshment; but I did not venture within its forbidding precincts. The\njuniper scrub has in many places been caught by the frost, studding the\nwilderness of grey rock, and yellow reindeer moss, with odd-looking\npatches of russet. A series of sleet showers, which the wind is driving\nin the same direction as I am going, ever and anon spit spitefully at\nme. High posts at intervals indicate the presence here, for many months\nin the year, of deep, deep snow, when everything is under one uniform\nwhite, wedding-cake covering; funeral crust, I should rather say, to\nthe unfortunate traveller, who chances to wander from the road, and\ngets submerged. Everything looks dreary in the extreme; the very brooks\nseem no longer to laugh joyously as they come tumbling down from the\nheights. There is a dull hoarse murmur about them to-day, whether it is\nthe state of the atmosphere, or the state of the wind, or the state of\nmy own spirit at the moment, I know not; perhaps they are loth to leave\nthe parental tarns for the lowlands. The bosom of mamma yonder is also\nruffled, I see, into uneasy motion. The writer of _Undine_ ought to\nhave been here to embody the imaginings suggested by the scene.\n\nI was all alone, my attendant having gone back with another traveller.\nPresently, I meet a solitary peasant girl, sitting in masculine fashion\non a white pony. The stirrups are too long, so she has inserted her\ntoes in the leathers. It struck me that the lines in the nursery rhyme--\n\n    This is the way the ladies ride,\n    This is the way the gentlemen ride,\n\nwill have to be inverted for the benefit of Norsk babies. The damsel\nstares at me with much astonishment, and I stare at her, and, as we\npass each other, a \u201cgood morning\u201d is exchanged. And now the water-shed\nis passed, as I reach an old barrow, which appears to have been opened;\nand I dart down hill in company with a swiftly coursing stream, the\nbeginning of the Hemsedal River.\n\nYonder to the left, auspicious sight, stands the change house of\nBj\u00f6berg. I am soon in the Stu\u00ea, eating mountain trout, and regaling\nmyself with Bayersk \u00d6l, and then coffee. The biting cold, although\nAugust was not yet over, sharpened my appetite. The waiters, who\nalternately bustled in and out of the room, were a thickset burly man,\nwearing a portentously large knife, with a weather-beaten, \u201cold red\nsandstone\u201d sort of countenance; and a female, dressed in the hideous\nfashion of the country, her waist under her armholes; a fashion none\nthe less hideous from her being in an interesting condition. These two\nwere the landlord, Knut Erickson Bj\u00f6berg, and his spouse, Bergita.\n\nWarmed by the repast, I have leisure to survey the apartment. There\nwere the usual amount of carved wooden spoons, painted bowls and\nboxes, but the prints upon the log-walls were what chiefly engaged\nmy attention. One of these was \u201cThe Bible map of the way to Life and\nDeath.\u201d A youth, in blue coat and red stockings, is beheld on the one\nside, bearing a cross. After a series of most grotesque adventures,\nhe arrives at heaven\u2019s gate, and is admitted by angels, who crown him\nwith a chaplet. On the other side of the picture is a sort of \u201cRake\u2019s\nProgress.\u201d A man is seen dancing with a lady in a flame-coloured dress.\nGarlands, drinking, and fighting, are the order of the day. At last\na person in black, with red toes and red horns, appears. There is a\ndoor into a lion\u2019s mouth, and, amid flames burning, evil spirits are\ndescried. In another picture the \u201cMarriage of Cana,\u201d is described\nnot less graphically, and with equal attention to costume. The\n_bizarre_--an educated person would pronounce it profane--treatment,\none would think, must sadly mar the good moral of the story. Knut was a\nmost intelligent fellow, as I detected at a glance, and so I prevailed\nupon him to schuss me to the next station, Tuf, instead of sending a\nstupid lad.\n\n\u201cThis is a strange wild country you live in, Knut,\u201d said I, when we\nhad driven a little distance.\n\n\u201cWell, sir, it is rather. What countryman are you, if I may be so bold?\u201d\n\n\u201cGuess.\u201d\n\n\u201cTo judge from the fishing-rod and the gun, you must be an Englishman.\nI once guided an Englishman--let me see--one Capitan Biddul (Biddulph?)\nover the mountains to the Sogne Fjord. Capitan Finne, too, the\nNorwegian Engineer, when he was surveying, I was a good deal with him.\u201d\n\n\u201cDo the people hereabouts believe in the hill-folk?\u201d (Haugefolk =\nfairies).\n\n\u201cTo be sure. There used to be a strange man living at Bj\u00f6berg before my\nfather took to the place; one Knut Sivardson Sivard. His head was full\nof those hill-people. He used to tell an odd tale of a circumstance\nthat happened to him years ago. One Yule, when he was just going to\nrest, came a tap at the door. \u2018Who is there?\u2019 he asked. \u2018Neighbours,\u2019\nwas the reply. Opening the door, he let in three queer-looking people,\nwith pointed white caps and dark clothes. \u2018I\u2019m Torn Hougesind,\u2019 said\none, with a swarthy face and a hideous great tooth in the middle of\nhis upper jaw. \u2018I\u2019m your nearest neighbour.\u2019 \u2018I\u2019m Harald Blaasind,\u2019\nsaid another. \u2018I\u2019m\u2019--I forget what the other called himself, but it was\nlike the other two names, the name of some of those mountains near by.\n\u2018Strange that I never saw you before,\u2019 said Sivard, doubtfully. \u2018But\nwe don\u2019t live so far off; we\u2019ve called in to see how you do this Yule\ntime.\u2019 Sivard did not like the appearance of matters, but said nothing,\nand set before them some Yule ale in a large birch bowl, such as we\nuse for the purpose in these parts. How they did drink, those three\nfellows! But Hougesind beat the rest hollow. Every now and then, as the\nale mounted to his brain, the creature laughed, and showed his monster\ntooth.\u201d\n\n\u201cA modern _Curius Dentatus_,\u201d mused I.\n\n\u201cPresently, in mere wantonness, he bit the board, saying, he would\nleave a mark of his visit. Sivard\u2019s son, Knut, who was a determined\nyoung fellow, lay in bed all this while, and rightly judged that if\nthe ale flowed at this pace, there would be very little left for the\nremainder of the Christmas festivities. So he slily reached his gun,\nwhich hung on the wall, and taking good aim, fired right at Hougesind,\nhim with the tooth, when the whole three vanished in a twinkling!\nSivard used to show the mark of the tooth in the board, but I have\nheard that it looked just as if it had been made by a horse tooth\nhammered into it. However, the tale got all over the country, and folks\nused to come up from Christiania to see Sivardson Sivard, and hear the\ndescription of what he had seen.\n\n\u201cFond of a joke was Sivard. There is a patch of grass you passed up\nthe road--a very scarce article hereabouts. Drovers used to stop there\nunbeknown to him, and give their cattle a bellyful, and then came and\ntook a glass at the house, and said nothing about it. He was determined\nto be even with them; so he dressed up a guy with an old helmet on,\nand a sword in his hand, and placed the figure close by a hovel there.\nNot many nights after, a drover came rushing into the house almost\nsenseless with fright. \u2018He is coming, he is coming! the Lord deliver\nme!\u2019 \u2018What now?\u2019 exclaimed Sivard. The drover explained that he was\ncoming along, when he spied a man in armour, with dreadful glaring\neyes and sword, rushing after him. He ran for his life. It was one of\nthe Hill folk. \u2018Are you certain he moved?\u2019 inquired Sivard, ready to\nburst with laughter. \u2018Quite certain.\u2019 \u2018But where were you?\u2019 \u2018Oh! I\nhad just turned out of the road a bit, to give the horses a bite of\ngrass\u2019--\u2018that did not belong to you,\u2019 continued the other. \u2018Serve you\nright for trespassing.\u2019\n\n\u201cBut we all believe in these people up here,\u201d continued my companion.\n\u201cNot so very long ago, Margit and Sunniva--two s\u00e6ter girls--just when\nthey were leaving with the cattle for home, at the end of the summer,\nsaw two little trolls steal into the deserted hut. They observed them\naccurately. They were dressed in red, with blue caps, and each had a\npipe and a neat little cane.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd do these people ever do harm?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes! Sometimes they injure the cattle, and make people ill. There\nare some women who are skilled in breaking the charm. They are called\n\u2018Signe-kone\u2019 (from signe, to exorcise, and kone, woman). One or two\nsuch live in the valley. They are considered better than any doctor for\na sore.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what is their method of cure?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhy, they smear something over the place, and say a few words, and\nblow (blaese). Blowing is an important part of the ceremony. They\nmeasure children, too, from head to foot; that is a good thing.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what sort of people,\u201d asked I, \u201care there in the valley?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! I can\u2019t say much for them. I\u2019m the vorstand (a kind of\nchurchwarden or parish trustee), so I know something about it. The\npriest, not long ago, told them from the pulpit that there were more\nbastards born, than children in lawful wedlock. But they don\u2019t care.\nIt\u2019s all Brantvun that does it. I\u2019ve seen lads come to church with a\nbottle of brandy, and, directly it\u2019s over, give the girls a drink. Hard\nwork for the clergyman, I believe you. But Pastor Engelstrup--you\u2019ve\nheard of him no doubt;--he was the man to manage them. Prodigiously\nstrong he was. When he was building his gaard at Gool, there was a beam\nthree of them were trying to lift on the roof, but couldn\u2019t. \u2018Let me\ntry,\u2019 said he, and raised the timber without more ado. He is gone up to\nAal, in Hallingdal now. We missed him very much. He was as good as he\nwas strong.\u201d\n\n\u201cIs he a big man?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo, not so very; but he is very thickset, with curly black hair, now\ngot grey.\u201d\n\nI find that Knut gets pretty well paid for maintaining a change-house\nin such a solitary spot as Bj\u00f6berg. The Government allows him three\nhundred dollars per annum for keeping the house open for travellers\nthrough the year, besides thirty dollars for every horse. He and\nothers, he tells me, are endeavouring to get the Storthing to advance\nmoney for the purpose of rendering the river navigable to Naes, which\nmight be done at an inconsiderable expense.\n\nAfter a continued descent, we arrive at Tuff. Here a pale-faced\nlittle tatterdemalion offers to dance the Halling dance for the sum\nof two skillings. They have a marvellous way in this national dance\nof flinging their legs high up into the air (the Hallingkast), and\ntwisting the body a couple of times round, horizontally, in the air.\nSome peasant girls in green skirts, with no cincture, fastened over\ntheir shoulders with braces,--their yellow hair surmounted by a red\n\u2018buy-a-broom-girl\u2019-shaped cap, are among the bystanders. The first\ncourse over, the lad tells me he is very poor, and begs me for some\npig-tail tobacco to chew, which I was unable to give him.\n\nI find that the peasants hereabouts keep two thousand tame reindeer,\nbut they are not found to answer.\n\nAs we coursed down the road from Tuff to Ekre, a new station, my\nschuss, Ingval Olsen, points out by the waning light, to some large\nstones that strewed the Fjeld to the left.\n\n\u201cThere was a gaard there, Gytogaard, under the mountain fifty years\nago,\u201d said he; \u201cbut one night, when all were a-bed, the mountain came\ndown and buried them all. Some human voices were heard for a day or\ntwo, and the cock kept crowing for eight days long, and then all was\nstill. No human labour could have extricated them.\u201d\n\nFurther in the wood a spot was shown me where a man was found murdered\nsome time back, and nobody ever found out who did it, or who the\nmurdered man was--a region of horrors.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\n    Fairy lore--A wrestle for a drinking horn--Merry time is\n    Yule time--Head-dresses at Haga--Old church at Naes--Good\n    trout-fishing country--A wealthy milkmaid--Horses subject\n    to influenza--A change-house library--An historical\n    calculation--The great national festival--Author threatens,\n    but relents--A field-day among the ducks--Gulsvig--Family\n    plate--A nurse of ninety years--The S\u00f6lje--The little fat\n    grey man--A capital scene for a picture--An amazing story--As\n    true as I sit here--The goat mother--Are there no Tusser\n    now-a-days--Uninvited guests--An amicable conversation about\n    things in general--Hans saves his shirt--The cosmopolitan\n    spirit of fairy lore--Adam of Bremen.\n\n\nNext morning I found my schuss-karl was brimful of tales, which he\nfirmly believed, about the trolls.\n\n\u201cYou see that Fjeld,\u201d said he, pointing to a magnificent abrupt\nmountain behind us. \u201cA friend of mine was taken in there on Yule night,\nand feasted with the hill people.\u201d\n\nI hummed to myself, as I thought of _Young Tamlane_--\n\n    The queen of fairies keppit him\n    In yon green hill to dwell.\n\n\u201cThey wanted,\u201d continued he, \u201cto keep him altogether, but he got away\nnotwithstanding. Cari Olsdatter, my sister, was changed in the cradle\ntoo when my mother had gone out one evening; but she came back just in\ntime to see an old woman carrying off the baby, and made her give it\nup. There was a bag of stones left in the cradle instead.\n\n\u201cTorkil Hermandson, too, who lived among the hills, they say he was\nmarried to a troll-qvind (\u2018elf-quean,\u2019 as a Lowlander would say),\ncalled Turi Hougedatter. She was to have for her dowry his fold, as\nfull as it would hold, of fat troll-cattle. So he set to work the\nnight before, and wattled in twice as much ground as his fold usually\ncovered. Sly fellow was Hermandson.\u201d\n\n\u201cYes, indeed,\u201d thought I, \u201cit seemed almost as if he was taking a leaf\nout of dame Dido\u2019s book, when she over-reached the simple aborigines of\nAfrica with her ox-hide _double entendre_.\u201d\n\nMy attendant has got in his harvest, so he has comparatively little for\nthe horse to do, and offers to schuss me all the way to Naes, which\noffer I accept. Presently we descend the hill at Gool, the former\nresidence of the Samsonian Gielstrup.\n\n\u201cYou see that hillock yonder, covered with firs,\u201d said my guide,\npointing to a spot lying at the confluence of the Hemsedals Elv and\nthat of Hallingdal. \u201cThere it was where Arne Hafthorn wrestled with\na troll one Christmas Eve, and got from him the great drinking horn,\nwhich has been in the family ever since. But it brought him no good.\nThere has always been one of the family stumm (dumb) or halv-vittig\n(half-witted); and it is not so many years ago that Arne was found dead\nclose by the hill there. This horn is still to be seen at a farm-house\na little way up Hallingdal. It is made of ox-horn, and mounted with\nsome unknown metal, and rests on a stand. Ah! you smile, but it is all\nvirkelig sant (actually true).\u201d[19]\n\n\u201cAnd what do you do for the fairies at Yule?\u201d said I.\n\n\u201cOh! we always place some cake and ale on the board when we go to bed\nat night.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, and what then? Do they partake of it?\u201d\n\n\u201cTo be sure! It\u2019s always gone in the morning. No doubt it is taken by\nthe \u2018hill people.\u2019 Merry time is Yule. We brew ale for the occasion,\nand bake a large cake, which we keep till Twelfth Night. Everybody\nstops at home on Christmas Day; but on the day after everybody goes out\nto visit everybody, and if you meet a person you always say, \u2018Glaedelig\nJule\u2019 (a happy Yule to you).\u201d\n\nAt Haga a different sort of head-dress begins to prevail among the male\npeasants, being a skull-cap of red cloth, like that worn by the Kirghis\nchiefs, as sketched by Atkinson, with stripes of black velvet radiating\nfrom the crown to the edge. Instead of the usual jacket, a green frock\nis worn, with stand-up collar, and an epaulet of the same coloured\ncloth on the shoulders.\n\nA grove of beautiful birches here overhangs the two streams, now\njoined in one fine river, which abounds with trout, some of which\nreach the weight of six pounds and upwards. The fly and bait are both\nused, I understand. At Naes there is very good accommodation at the\n\u201cMerchant\u2019s,\u201d including excellent wine and fresh meat. Part of the\nchurch here is seven hundred years old, and there are one or two old\npillars and a trefoil arch at the east end worth observing. The altar\npiece, representing the crucifixion, is by no means contemptible.\n\nFrom here boats may be procured right down the stream to Green, on the\nKr\u00f6ren Fjord, some fifty miles. Every now and then the stream widens\ninto a lake, and at times narrows into a cataract, so that a skilful\nboatman is required. This is by far the best way of proceeding; but\nthe peasants are not bound by law to forward you otherwise than on the\nhigh road; so, finding there was some difficulty, I took horse and\ngig, thereby missing some excellent shooting and fishing. Trout of ten\npounds are taken here, and there are numbers of ducks. Oats begin now\nto be cultivated instead of the hardier barley.\n\nThe plump, red-faced damsel who routed me out of bed in the morning,\nat the wretched station of Sevre, had actually a row of five silver\nbrooches confining the shirt over her exuberant bust. But this is\nnothing to the jacket with fifty silver clasps, which one of the\nancient Scalds is narrated to have worn.\n\nAs I journeyed along, on a most lovely quiet autumn morning, the road\nwould every now and then pierce into a thick pine wood, and then emerge\nupon the banks of the stream. More tempting spots for trout-fishing I\nnever saw. All the horses about here, I find, come from the north of\nthe Fjeld, few being bred in the valley. They almost invariably get a\nkind of influenza on coming south. The horse I am driving, which was\nbought at Leirdals\u00f6ren for fifty dollars in the spring, is only just\nrecovering from an attack of this kind.\n\nAt Trostem I find a bear has been seen five or six times, but there is\nno shooter about.\n\nWhile I wait for the horse, I eat breakfast, and look about me.\nWonderful to relate, I find on a shelf--what do you suppose, reader?--a\nBible! yes, that was there, but there was another volume, a cookery\nbook, printed at Copenhagen, 1799. One might as well expect to meet\nwith a book of Paris fashions among the squaws of the Ojibbeways.\nEating, it is true, forms the main part of a Norwegian\u2019s daily\nthoughts. The word mad (meat, food) is everlastingly in their mouths,\nand the thing itself almost as frequently, six meals a day not being\nuncommon. But then, what food! No cookery book surely required for\nthat. So that no doubt this book got here by mistake.\n\nThe little almanac, edited by Professor Handsteen, of Christiania, who\nis known in England as the author of \u201cTravels in Siberia,\u201d also lay\non the table. A little note I found in it is very significant of the\nsimple-minded superstition that still lingers among the peasantry, of\nwhich I have been giving indications above. It is to this effect:--\n\n\u201cThe orbit of the moon (maane-bane), has the same position with regard\nto the equator every nineteenth year, and it possibly may influence\nthe atmosphere. It has been supposed, in consequence, that there is\nsome similarity in the weather on any day to that of the corresponding\nday nineteen years ago. For this reason, in one column under the\nheading \u2018veirliget,\u2019 the weather is given as observed at Christiania,\nnineteen years ago. This, however, must not be looked on as divination\n(ingen sp\u00e6dom), but only as an historical calculation.\u201d This veirliget\n(weather) column having, notwithstanding the above caution, been\nturned by the peasants to superstitious uses, was, I hear, omitted\nfor a time, but it had to be restored, as the bonders would not buy\nthe almanac without it. I may here mention that the old dispute about\nthe exact day on which St. Olaf fell at Stikklestad has been recently\nrevived with great vigour. This great national festival has hitherto\nbeen kept on the 29th of July, \u201cOlsok.\u201d Hakon Hakonson was crowned king\non that day in 1247, and ever since it has been the coronation day of\nNorway. But the national mind was some time ago disagreeably disturbed\nby the discovery that the 29th could not after all have been the day\nof St. Olaf\u2019s death; for although tradition and Snorro assert that\nthere was an eclipse of the sun on that day, it has been ascertained\nby astronomical calculation, that this eclipse did not take place on\nthe 29th July, but on the 31st of August. One party, therefore, is\ncontending for the observance of the festival on the actual day (31st\nof August), while another insists upon adhering to the former date.\nUpon the whole, it would seem preferable to observe the day hallowed\nby the traditional recollections of the people. If we may be permitted\nsuch a comparison, who would like to see the festival of the Nativity\naltered from December 25th to some other day in the calendar?\n\nMeantime, after an unusual delay, the fresh relay arrives; a fine black\nstallion, dripping wet.\n\n\u201cI must write a complaint in the book for this,\u201d said I. \u201cYou are long\nafter your time. I shall never get to the end of my journey at this\nrate. You\u2019ll be fined a dollar, and serve you right.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! pray don\u2019t, sir; it\u2019s not my fault; the landlord\u2019s son is to\nblame; he never comes straight to tell us. And then the horse was over\nthe river. I\u2019ve had to swim him across, and the water is bad just now\nfor swimming. He shall go fast, and make up for lost time.\u201d\n\nSomewhat mollified, I did not put my threat in execution, much to the\nsatisfaction of Svend.\n\nSvend was a simple-minded individual in shooting matters, as I\npresently had occasion to see. On the sedgy shallows of a lake, just\nbefore the river began again to contract into rapids, a score of ducks\nwere assembled; some motionless, others busily employed in standing\non their heads in the water. Leaving the carriole, I stole with much\ncircumspection towards them, managing to keep some bushes between me\nand the birds, until I got within shot. Bang went one barrel, and\nthen another, and four ducks were _hors de combat_. When I returned\nto the vehicle with my prize, Svend expressed great astonishment that\nI had fired the barrels separately, as he thought they both went off\nat once.[20] He had never seen a double-barrelled gun before. Another\npeasant who was by, speedily cut some birch twigs with his toll-knife,\nand packed up the birds, taking care to stick the bills inside, that\nthe flies might not get into the gape (Gap\u00eb).\n\nAt length we descend upon Gulsvig, at the head of the Kr\u00f6ren Fjord. I\nat once perceived, from a glance at the interior of the house, that the\nstation-keeper was a man of some importance. In fact, he turned out to\nbe the Lehnsman of the district. In the inner room there were a large\nquantity of silver spoons, and a huge tankard of solid silver, pegged\ninside, and of great weight, which at once bespoke the owners to be\npeople of substance.\n\n\u201cAh! that was left me by my grandfather,\u201d said the landlord. \u201cIt has\nbeen a very long time in the family.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave you got any curious remains about here?\u201d inquired I; \u201cany\nbauta-stones, for instance, or do you know any legends?\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is a bauta-stone up yonder in the field; but as for legends, old\nMoer can tell you a lot of stories about the hill-folk, but she is not\nalways in the humour.\u201d\n\nGamle Moer (old mother), as he called her, Anna Olsdatter Gulsvig, just\nthen entered the room with a pipe in her mouth. An excellent portrait\nof her, by a Norwegian artist, hung against the wall. Her tall figure\nwas still erect, her eye undimmed, while her face, the complexion\nof which years had failed to sear, preserved traces of much former\nbeauty. A neat white cap, bound tight round with a red silk kerchief,\nconfined her grey locks. On her bosom were two or three pairs of\nsilver studs, and the national ornament, the s\u00f6lje. The one which she\nwore was of the size and shape of a small saucer. It was of silver\nfiligree-work, with a quantity of silver saucers (or bracteates), each\nabout half an inch in diameter, hung to it. Similar ornaments have been\nfound, I believe, in barrows; the pattern of them having probably been\nimported hither by the Varangian guard from Byzantium and the East; in\nthe same way that these Northern mercenaries probably gave the first\nidea of the Scandinavian-looking trinkets which have been recently\ndiscovered in the tombs at Kertch.\n\n\u201cHow do you do, Mrs. Anna?\u201d so I accosted the old lady, propitiating\nher by the offer of some tobacco. \u201cI hear you have some old stories;\nwill you tell me one?\u201d\n\n\u201cI can\u2019t awhile now; besides, I\u2019ve forgotten them.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! but now do, Moer,\u201d supplicated a little boy, her grandson. But\nthe old lady left the room. Presently, however, she came in again.\nThere was a look of inspiration in her clear grey eye, which seemed to\nbetoken that my desire would be granted.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s some Huldra stories ye were wanting to hear?\u201d said she in an\nodd dialect; \u201cwell, I\u2019ll just tell you one before I go and cook your\ndinner; you must be hungry. Let me see; yes, I once did see one of the\nHouge-folk.\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed! how was that?\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, you see, it\u2019s many years ago. I am an old woman now, over\nseventy. Then I was a lass of eighteen. It was one Thursday evening\nin September, and I was up at the s\u00e6ter. Two other girls had come in,\nand we thought we would have a dance--and so we danced up and down the\nfloor. The door was open, when suddenly I saw outside, staring fixedly\nat us, a little man, with brown breeches, grey coat, and a red cap on\nhis head. He was very fat, and his face, it looked so dark, so dark.\nWhat a fright I was in to be sure, and the other girls too. As soon as\nwe saw him, we left off dancing, you may depend upon it, directly. The\nnext moment he was gone, but the other girls durst not go to their\ns\u00e6ters, though they were only a few yards off. We all sat crouching\nover the fire for the rest of the night.\u201d Rapt into days of old, the\nintelligent eye of the old lady gleamed like a Sibyl\u2019s, as she told\nher story, with much animation. At the same time, she placed her hand,\nhalf unconsciously, as it seemed, on mine, the little boy all the while\ndrinking in the tale with suspended breath and timid looks; reminding\nme of the awful eagerness with which B\u00e9ranger, I think, describes the\ngrandchildren listening to some old world story of grandmamma\u2019s. A\ncapital scene it was for a picture--the group is still before me.\n\n\u201cYou must have been mistaken,\u201d said I.\n\n\u201cNot at all. That\u2019s not the only time I\u2019ve seen a Tuss.\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed! How was that?\u201d\n\n\u201cOne time I was up at the s\u00e6ter with Turi, another girl. We were just\ngoing to bed, when a stave was put through the little window-pane\n(gluggen), and moved gently backwards and forwards. We were frightened\nat first, but we heard a titter outside, and then we knew directly what\nit meant. It was two Friers (lovers) come, so we got up and let them\nin, and we were soon all four in bed together.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat!\u201d exclaimed I, in amazement.\n\n\u201cOh, that\u2019s the way we have here. Of course, you know we were dressed.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd were you married to the man afterwards?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; I married quite another person.\u201d\n\n\u201cI did just the same,\u201d put in her son, the Lehnsman, who had just\nentered. \u201cWe see no harm in that. A young farmer\u2019s son often sleeps\nwith a companion in this way, but she must be of the same rank of life\nas he is. If it was with a servant girl, it would be considered a\ndisgrace.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, but go on with your story,\u201d said I to the narrator.\n\n\u201cWhere was I? Let me see. Yes, we were in bed all snug, chatting\naway, when suddenly I heard a noise at the window. \u2018Hush!\u2019 whispered\nI--\u2018what\u2019s that? Listen.\u2019\n\n\u201cWe saw at this moment a pole put through the window, just like before.\nWhat a fright we were in. But we lay quite still. Presently the pole\nwas drawn back, and a minute after there was a terrible noise in the\nfi\u00f6s among the cattle--a loud lowing and bellowing, just as if one\nof them was being killed. Up we all got in a trice, and rushed out,\nand I saw a tuss stroking a black cow. It was in a muck sweat; this is\nas true as I sit here. It was at Nor-s\u00e6ter, a mile from the farm in\nSignedal, where I lived before I was gift (married) up here.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat is that tale about the goat, mother?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, ah! At Fagerlid, in Eggedal, a woman came one evening with a\nwhite female goat, and begged the master to change it for a buck. He\ndeclined. She came again three Thursday evenings running, till at last\nhe consented. They knew pretty well who she must be, for they saw\nsomething like the end of a tail behind her. So, when she went away,\nthey cast a toll-knife after her, to prevent any evil consequences.\nThey never repented the change; the female goat she left gave such an\nastonishing quantity of milk. As for the person who brought her, they\nnever saw her again.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut there are no tusser now-a-days?\u201d inquired I.\n\nWith a mysterious look the old lady took a pinch of snuff, and started\noff talking again, to the great delight of the small urchin; and so\nfast did she talk, that it was only by extraordinary attention, and\nstopping her now and then for an explanation of her antique dialect,\nthat I succeeded in mastering the story.\n\n\u201cTo be sure there are; people are seeing them constantly. It is only\nten years ago, that on the evening after Christmas, Hans \u00d6stenson, of\nMelbraten-gaard, three-quarters of a mile above Trostem, which you\npassed, heard a terrible noise in the fi\u00f6s (byre). He thought that the\ncows and sheep must have got together. So he lit a torch, and went\nout to see; but directly he came into the byre all was quiet in a\nmoment, and the cattle were in their right places. The man, suspecting\nglamour, took effectual means to put a stop to it, by immediately\nstriking his axe into the beam over the door of the cattle-shed.[21]\nMeantime Hans\u2019 wife, who was sick in bed, observed a crowd of little\npeople hustle into the house as soon as her husband was out of it,\nand lay dunen (bedding of eider-down) for themselves on the floor,\nand betake themselves to repose. She kept quite still. Presently the\nmaster returned with the news that \u2018It\u2019s all right; no harm done;\u2019 at\nthe same moment he claps his eyes on the little people stretched on\nthe floor. \u2018Holloa, my masters! What now?\u2019 said he, in a jovial tone,\nhaving drunk a tolerable quantity of Yule ale that evening. \u2018Who are\nyou, and whither bound?\u2019 \u2018We\u2019ve had a long journey of it,\u2019 replied one\nof the little people, rousing up, in somewhat shrill tones. \u2018We\u2019ve\ncome all the way from Kongsberg town. We\u2019ve been to the doctor there.\u2019\n\u2018Why so?\u2019 \u2018Why, Mars Hulte (the servant of the gaard), when he was\npouring the ale from the vat into the barrel, the other evening, let\nthe cullender drop on the leg of one of our people, who happened to\nbe near, though Hulte did not see him, and hurt it sorely. We want to\nstop here to-night; besides which, we wish to have a talk with you.\u2019\n\u2018Very good,\u2019 said Hans, not a whit disconcerted; \u2018make yourselves at\nhome; you seem to be acquainted with the house already. Just look out\nthere, while I step into bed!\u2019 And forthwith he picked his way, with\nmuch circumspection, between the prostrate forms of the tiny people.\nThis was no easy matter, as they lay so close together upon the floor.\nBut he gained the bed, fortunately without doing any more damage than\ntreading on the tip of one oldish fellow\u2019s toe, who set up a sharp\nscream.\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, and where do you live?\u2019 said Hans, resuming his place under\nthe skin (fell) by the side of his better half, who was perfectly\nastonished at her good man\u2019s boldness. \u2018We live just below here, under\nMelbraten Hatte; but we are a good deal annoyed by one of your horses,\nthat stables near there. The sewage leaks through, and drops on our\ntable. The request we have to make is, that you\u2019ll be so good as to\nmove his quarters.\u2019 \u2018Besides which,\u2019 said a Huldre, larger than the\nrest, who, at this moment, came from a corner, and stood bolt-upright\nby the bed-side, \u2018one good turn deserves another. You were making\na coat for the lad, just before Yule--you remember?\u2019 At this Hans\nstarted. \u2018And you thought you should not have enough cloth, but you\nhad. Do you know why? It was I who stretched out the cloth, so that you\nhad enough, and to spare. There was a bit left for me too. Look here,\nthis coat I have on was made of it!\u2019\n\n\u201cOn this, Hans said he should have no objection to comply with their\nrequest. The conversation then dropped, and from odd noises, a sort\nof miniature snore, which Hans heard about, he perceived that the\nlittle men in grey were dropping off to sleep again. It would never do,\nhowever, for the master of the house to follow their example, with such\noutlandish guests in the house. So he took care to keep his eyes well\nopen. Before long, by the flickering embers of the fire, he saw the\ntallest gentleman take his (Hans\u2019s) shirt, which his wife had put out\nfor the morrow, and begin tearing it into shreds. \u2018Hold hard there!\u2019\nexclaimed Hans, whose wife, overcoming her fears, had jogged him, when\nshe saw the produce of her industry thus impudently destroyed. \u2018Hold\nhard! I say.\u2019 \u2018We\u2019re short of linen,\u2019 answered the Huldra, soothingly,\n\u2018and this shirt of yours will make up into a great many shirts for us.\u2019\n\u2018Hold hard!\u2019 again screamed Hans, whose mettle was thoroughly roused,\nhis spouse also being in a great state of pucker, \u2018or I\u2019ll cock the\nrifle, by the rood!\u2019\n\n\u201cWhether it was his gesture to reach down the rifle, or whether the\nname of Cors (Rood or Cross) did it, Hans could not say; but they were\nall off in a moment. It was quite a treat to see them bundling out,\nhelter-skelter, as hard as ever they could get out,\u201d added the ancient\ndame, whose upraised eyebrows, and a twitch at the corner of her mouth,\nshowed that she was no foe to mirth, and enjoyed the rapid exit of the\nTrolls extremely.\n\n\u201cSuch lots of them,\u201d continued she, excitedly, as if she saw them\nthere and then, \u201che could not count them. He hurried after them to the\ndoorway, and got a sight of them, by the light of the snow and the\nstars, mounting on their horses, and riding away as fast as they could\nlay legs to ground. On examining his shirt, he found it was quite whole\nagain. So no damage was done after all. He took care, however, to move\nthe horse, in order to abate the nuisance complained of, and the animal\nthrove remarkably well in his new quarters. But I must get your dinner\nready.\u201d\n\nAnd so out the old lady went, in due time returning with some pancakes\nand fried siek, a sort of fresh-water herring, which, with perch and\ntrout, abounds in the lake close by.\n\nWhile the repast was digesting, I began to ruminate on these stories,\nand the remarkable likeness, nay, even identity, some of them exhibit\nto the superstitions of that part of Great Britain where the Northern\ninvaders mostly frequented. Fairy lore is traced by some authors to\nthe Pagan superstitions of Greece and Rome, and to the superstitions\nof the East. But we prefer to regard these supernatural beings in\nScandinavia rather as in the main of home-growth than as exotics; the\ncreations of a primitive people, who, living among wonderful natural\nphenomena, and being ignorant of their cause, with the proverbial\nboldness and curiosity of ignorance, were fond of deriving an origin\nfor them of their own manufacture, and one stamped with the impress of\ntheir own untutored imaginations. And what a country they live in for\nthe purpose![22] None fitter could have been devised for the residence\nand operations of mysterious and frightful beings. Plod along the\ncalm, friendly landscape of England, dotted thickly with houses and\nsteeples, with the church bells ringing merrily, or the station bell\nclanging imperatively (bells are the _b\u00eate noire_ of Trolls), and the\nscene alive with people,--a chaw-bacon, with no speculation in his\neye, driving along the heavy wain, or a matter-of-fact \u201ccommercial\u201d\nlabouring along with his loaded four-wheel over the dusty _strata\nviarum_,--and I\u2019ll defy you to be otherwise than common-place and\nunimaginative. But let even a highly-educated man wander alone through\nthe tingling silentness of the mighty pine-woods of the North, broken\nat one time by the rumble of an earthslip, at another by the roar of\na waterfall, seething in some weird chasm. Let him roam over the grey\nfjeld, and see through the morning mist a vast head bent threateningly\nover him, and, unless he be a very Quaker, his imagination will turn\nartist or conjuror, and people the landscape with the half-hidden forms\nof beings more or less than human. And so it was with the old heathen\nNorskman, living all alone in the wilderness. When he heard the tempest\nhowl through the ravine, and saw the whirlwind crumple up the trees, it\nmust be the spirits of Asgaard sweeping by with irresistible force. If\nin autumn evenings strange gabblings were heard aloft, caused by the\nbirds of passage moving southward, it must be troll-wives on their airy\nride. If lights were seen on the stream at night, they were \u201ccorpse\nlights,\u201d though in reality only caused by some fellow burning the water\nfor salmon. If the ice split with sudden and fearful sound, engulphing\nthe hopeless wayfarer, it was an evil spirit, requiring a human\nsacrifice. Those pot-looking holes and finger-marks in the rocks--those\nmysterious foot-marks, whence were they? Those strange, grotesque\nfigures, as like as they can be to human forms and faces--they must\nonce have been evil beings or demons, now turned to stone by some\nsuperior power--a power that at one time revealed itself in the hissing\nrace aloft of the Borealis; at another time blasted and shivered the\nrocks in thunder and lightning. The sea naturally would be a special\nlocality for these sprites. Did not they often see phantom-ships, which\na modern would explain by the natural phenomenon of the mirage? Did not\nsea-monsters from time to time show themselves to the lone fisherman?\nDid not they often see strange sights at the bottom of the transparent\ndeep? Did not the calm surface suddenly rise into ruffian, crested\nbillows, while dismal shrieks would echo at the same time from the\nrock-piercing caverns?\n\nBut other causes were at work. The more ancient inhabitants of\nScandinavia, some of them of giant size and prodigious strength, others\nsmall of stature but very agile, like the Fins or Laps, were driven\ninto the mountains by Odin and his Asiatics. From these hiding-places\nthey would at times emerge--the former to do deeds of ferocity and\nviolence, the latter to practise some of their well-known tricks, such\nas thieving, changing children, kidnapping people away with them. And\nthis would, in process of time, give rise to the fancy of the existence\nof supernatural beings, gigantic Jotuls and tiny Trolls (in the Edda\nFinnr is the name for dwarfs), endued with peculiar powers. In the same\nway the vulgar Scotch ascribed superhuman attributes to the Picts, or\nPechts.\n\nAdam of Bremen, in the eleventh century, says that Sweyne Estridson,\nKing of Denmark, told him that in Sweden people used to come from the\nhills and do great damage, and then disappear. The same author relates\nthat in Norway there were wild women and men, who lived in the woods,\nand were something between men and beasts. The existence of these\ncreatures, by whatever name called, being once assumed, all sorts of\nexplanations were given of their origin. Thus, there is an odd Swedish\nsuperstition, that when God hurled down Lucifer and his host from\nheaven, they did not all fall into the burning lake, but that some fell\ninto the sea, others upon the earth, and became the various spirits\nproper to those places. Another not less quaint Danish legend is to\nthis effect:--When Eve was washing her bairns one day in a spring,\nthe Almighty suddenly called to her. Alarmed, she threw those of her\nbairns that she had not washed aside, when God asked her whether all\nher children were there. She replied, \u201cYes.\u201d Whereupon he said, \u201cWhat\nthou hast tried to hide from God shall be hidden from men.\u201d In a moment\nthe unwashed children were separated from the others, and disappeared.\nBefore the flood, God put them all into a hole, the entrance of which\nhe fastened. From them all the underground people spring. Others\nagain, say that they descend from Adam, by his first wife, Lileth,\nwhile others pronounce them to be a mixed race of the sons of God and\ndaughters of men. Even Hermann Ruge, the pastor of Slidre, in Norway,\nin 1754, gravely talked of underground people who were something\nbetween men and beasts. While that strange compound of superstition and\nenthusiasm, Luther himself, speaks of changelings as a matter of course.\n\nBut it is time to think of another sort of changeling, I mean the fresh\nhorse, which, after a long delay, has arrived at the door. \u201cGood bye,\nMrs. Anna, many thanks.\u201d\n\n\u201cFarvel, farvel! if you meet with Tidemann on your travels, say Anna\nGulsvig sends him her greeting. Bless you, sir, we knew him well; he\nwas at my son\u2019s wedding, and pictured us all.\u201d\n\nShe was alluding to the celebrated painter of that name, who resides\nin D\u00fcsseldorf, but visits his native country, Norway, every summer,\nreturning home rich with pictorial spoils, gained in scenes like these.\nProfessor Gude, the eminent painter, also of D\u00fcsseldorf, is the son of\na gentleman who held a government office in this neighbourhood.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\n    A port-wine pilgrimage--The perfection of a landlady--Old\n    superstitious customs--Levelling effects of unlevelled roads--A\n    blank day--Sketch of an interior after Ostade--A would-be\n    resurrectionist foiled--The voices of the woods--Valuable\n    timber--A stingy old fellow--Unmistakable symptoms of\n    civilisation--Topographical memoranda--Timber logs on\n    their travels--The advantages of a short cut--A rock-gorge\n    swallows a river--Ferry talk--Welcome--What four years can\n    do for the stay-at-homes--A Thelemarken manse--Sp\u00e6wives--An\n    important day for the millers--How a tailor kept watch--The\n    mischievous cats--Similarity in proverbs--\u201cThe postman\u2019s\n    knock\u201d--Government patronage of humble talent--Superannuated\n    clergymen in Norway--Perpetual curates--Christiania\n    University examination--Norwegian students--The Bernadotte\n    dynasty--Scandinavian unity--Religious parties--Papal\n    propagandists at Troms\u00f6--From fanaticism to field-sports--The\n    Linn\u00e6a Borealis.\n\n\nDriving through the woods on the shores of the lake, after a good deal\nof up and down hill, I at length arrived at the ferry, twenty miles\nfrom Gulsvig, where the Krorenfjord contracts into a river. Green, the\nstation for the night, affords excellent accommodation; so much so,\nthat the notorious Danish Count (See _Oxonian in Norway_), so addicted\nto bear-hunting, has been up as far as here on purpose to taste the\nport-wine. By-the-bye, I encountered a Norsk proverb to-day, which if\nit were not ancient, would almost seem to have been made for the Count:\n\u201cHan har skut Bj\u00f6rn,\u201d literally, \u201che has shot a bear,\u201d is said of a man\nwho is drunk. People in that state not only see double, but shoot with\nthe longbow.\n\nGunild Green was the perfection of a landlady, putting meat and good\nbread before the wayfarer, and beer of the best. Her blue jacket, with\nits odd gussets behind, and broad edging of red and yellow braid, did\nnot, it is true, reach nearly down to the place where a woman\u2019s waist\nought to be. But that was no matter, for the skirt made up for the\nomission by advancing to the jacket. Her Quaker-like, quiet face was\nframed in a neat cap, and the forehead bound in with a silk kerchief.\nAll about the house betokened considerable wealth.\n\nBut notwithstanding that these people are of the Upper Ten Thousand\nof Norway, I hear that the old superstitious customs still obtain at\nthe gaard. A cross in chalk, or an axe or a toll-knife is placed over\nevery cattle-shed at Yule. The old lady gave no reason further than it\nwas skik (custom). A cake with a cross of juniper berries made on the\ntop of it is baked at Christmas against Candlemas-day (Kyndel-misse).\nIn other parts of Norway a small cake is baked for each person, and\nnot eaten till twenty days after. Again, the sledges are never allowed\nat Christmas to lie flat on the ground, but are reared up against the\nwall. If anybody goes thrice round the house, then looks in at a window\nthrough a black kerchief and sees anyone at the board without a head,\nthat person will die before next Yule.\n\nThe day after Yule the men go out with the cow-house ordure very early,\nbefore light. They never, if they can help it, bring in water for the\ncopper on Yule, but get a supply into the house the day before. On\nChristmas Eve every person of condition has a mess of rice-porridge,\nand the servants in better class houses come into the room and receive\na glass of something comfortable. The cattle are not overlooked on\nthis great Christian festival. \u201cCome, Dokkero,\u201d says the milkmaid, just\nlike some girl in Theocritus, to her cow, \u201cyou shall have some good\nfood to-day.\u201d\n\nFinding that I can go some five miles by water, I select that method of\nconveyance. Indeed, I should prefer this species of locomotion for the\nrest of the journey, for I find, on examination, that in consequence\nof the jolting motion of the country carts, my effects are pounded up\nas if they had been brayed in a mortar. One or two silk kerchiefs have\nturned into tatters, and the sand of the cartridges has oozed out and\nbecome mixed up with the contents of the broken Macassar oil bottle,\nwhich I had destined for my elf-locks on again reaching civilization.\nThe boat was long and narrow, and easily rowed, but the stalwart rower\nwas hardly a match in speed for some little black and white ducks\nto which we gave chase. At last we got among them. Down they dived,\nand, as they reappeared, off went my gun; but in consequence of the\ncrankness of the boat, it was impossible to take aim quick enough, and,\nafter a few unavailing shots, I gave up the game, fairly beaten. My\nfishing tackle likewise did no execution among the trout, which now\nbegin to get smaller. The boatman mentioned two other kinds of fish to\nbe found here, \u201cscad\u201d and \u201cjup.\u201d\n\nIn fact we are now getting out of the wild sporting of the upper\nvalleys, although six rifles suspended in the passage of the next\nstation-house, Vassenrud, betokened the existence of large fowl, and\nprobably beasts of prey, in the forests around. Countless logs float\ndown this river, and I see here a list of the different brands used by\nthe Drammen merchants to distinguish the several owners.\n\nAs the horse I was to have lived across the Sound, I had ample time to\nlook about me, and observe the peculiarities of the establishment. The\nbest room floor was painted in figures, around it were ranged a score\nof high-backed, old-fashioned leather chairs, stamped with a pattern. I\nwish the author of the Sketch-book could have seen them; he would have\nmade them all tell a history at once. Leaving this room, I followed my\nnose, and entered the door facing. A very fat man, with a heavy, sleepy\neye, quite a tun of a fellow, a red skull-cap striped with black on his\nhead, sat in his shirt sleeves eating a leg of veal, which was flanked\nby some nice-looking bread and a bottle of brandy. It was only nine,\nA.M., but the opportunity was not to be lost, so I fell to also. Beside\nme, on a shelf, was a tankard of massive silver, weighing one hundred\nand twenty lod = about sixty-five ounces English. Pretty well to do,\nthought I, these peaceful descendants of the Vikings.\n\nIn reply to my query whether there were any old memorials about,\nthe obese Boniface moved his lack-lustre eye slowly, and shook his\nhead. Old memorials, forsooth! were not the newly-killed calf and its\nappetizing adjuncts subjects much more worthy of attention? Presently,\nhowever, after an interval of seemingly profound thought, he observed\nthat there was something like a coffin or two in the forest a mile off.\n\n\u201cHad they been opened?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo. People thought it unlucky to touch them. They were near his\nh\u00fbsman\u2019s, and the h\u00fbsman would show me them if I mentioned his name.\u201d\n\nAt the h\u00fbsman\u2019s I found nobody but his wife, who was ignorant on the\nsubject. So, after a fatiguing search, I returned without having\naccomplished my purpose, and the horse having arrived, I had to start.\nThe fat man was now recumbent on the bed within, looking uncommonly\nlike a barrel of beer. All Norwegians take a siesta at noon. The charge\nmade for my sumptuous repast was twelve skillings = five-pence English.\nAs we roll along gaily through the sombre pine-forests, the odour of\nwhich the Norwegians, I think wrongly, compare to that of a \u201cdead\nhouse\u201d (Liighus). I fall, as a matter of course, into conversation with\nKnut, my schuss.\n\n\u201cHad he ever seen these trolls which people talked of so much higher up\nthe valley.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo; I never _saw_ one; but I\u2019ve _heard_ one.\u201d\n\n\u201cIndeed, where?\u201d\n\n\u201cWhen I was hewing wood in the forest.\u201d\n\n\u201cWhat did he say?\u201d\n\n\u201cHe only said \u2018Knut\u2019 three times.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd did you speak?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo--that would have been unlucky. They are not such bad people, folks\nsay, if you only become well acquainted with them.\u201d\n\nIn the forest we passed some splendid trees near Snarum. \u201cValuable\ntimber about here,\u201d I observed.\n\n\u201cYes, very. It\u2019s not long ago that some sold for a hundred dollars\napiece (twenty pound sterling); they were seventy feet long, and more\nthan four in diameter. Vassenrud (the fat station-master, no wonder,\nwith all this property, he is fat) has a deal of forest. He sold some\nlately. He got sixteen thousand dollars for giving leave to fell the\ntimber on a square mile (seven English), none to be cut smaller than\nnine inches in diameter, eighteen feet from the ground. These trees\njust here belong to a stingy old fellow, who lives down there by the\nside of the river, Ole Ulen. A man came from the By (town) to see them,\nand make a purchase.\n\n\u201c\u2018I have come to look at the trees,\u2019 said he.\n\n\u201c\u2018Oh, yes,\u2019 said Ole Ulen; \u2018we\u2019ll go and see them.\u2019\n\n\u201cArrived in the forest, the stranger measured the big trees with his\neye, and thought they would suit exactly.\n\n\u201c\u2018Fine trees, aren\u2019t they?\u2019 said Ole Ulen, adjusting his spectacles,\nand almost breaking his neck to look up at the trees. \u2018So tall and so\nthick,\u2019 he continued, like a miser gloating over his treasure.\n\n\u201c\u2018Not bad,\u2019 replied the proposing buyer, in a careless tone, chuckling\ninwardly at the thought of the bargain he was going to drive with the\nplainly-dressed, simple-looking old bonder, but careful not to betray\nhis admiration of the magnificent timber, for fear of sending up the\nprices.\n\n\u201c\u2018No, not so bad,\u2019 said Ole Ulen, as they walked homeward.\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, what\u2019s to be the price?\u2019 asked the merchant, while they were\ndrinking a glass of brandy.\n\n\u201c\u2018Price!\u2019 replied the other; \u2018I\u2019m not going to sell them--never thought\nof it. You asked to look at them, and so you have, and welcome, and\nwell worth seeing they are.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, no doubt,\u2019 said Knut; \u2018he might do what he liked with his own\ntrees. Sell them or not, as he thought proper.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018But he\u2019s so fond of his money, he won\u2019t help his own kith and kin.\nThere was his son-in-law, over the river, had just completed a\npurchase, and went to him to borrow three hundred dollars.\n\n\u201c\u2018Very sorry,\u2019 was his reply, \u2018but he had got no cash in the house.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe young man went and got accommodated at another farm, and then\nreturned to Ule\u2019s.\n\n\u201c\u2018Well, how have you fared?\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018All right; I got the loan. They were the more willing to lend, for\nthey had some notes of old date, which are to be called in by the bank\nat Trondjem, before the month\u2019s out, and it will save them the trouble\nand expense of sending them up there.\u2019\n\n\u201c\u2018Ay, so,\u2019 replied Ule, meditatively. \u2018What is the date of the notes\nthat are to be called in? Perhaps I may have some.\u2019 And going to an old\ncupboard, he produced from a coffee-pot seven hundred dollars.\u201d\n\nWe now get into an enclosed and more cultivated country, and see\nsymptoms of civilization as we approached Vikersund, in the shape of\na drunken man or two staggering homewards; and, at the merchant\u2019s,\nwhere I stop to make some small purchase, there is a crowd of peasants\nclustering round the counter, or sitting in corners, imbibing corn\nbrantviin.\n\nAt Vikersund the road forks. That to the left leads to Christiania,\nby the shores of the beautiful Tyri Fjord and the pass of Krog-Kleven;\nthe other crossing the wide sound, the only vent of the Tyri, Hols, and\nRand fjords, by a very long bridge, goes to Drammen and Kongsberg.\n\nIn the stream lie thousands of logs that have been cut down in the\nmountains and along the feeders of this glorious waterway, to the\nvery foot of the Fillefjeld. Some of them have, perhaps, left their\nnative grove two or three years ago, and would never have got here\nwere it not for certain persons jogging their memories and goading\nthem into unwilling activity. One of the most characteristic features\nof a Norwegian valley are gangs of burly broad-chested men, armed with\nhuge poles, the ends of which are shod with a hook and spike. Directly\nthere are symptoms of the water rising after rain, these fellows appear\nsuddenly, and are seen pushing the stranded timbers from the shore,\ndashing through the water in their great jack-boots, to islands or\nshoals, for the like purpose, or boating across the river to set afloat\nsome straggling laggard; and, forthwith, all these, like so many great\ncadises, just disengaged from their anchor, and soon to take wing, go\nswarming down the stream. The boat, by-the-bye, used by these Norsk\nequivalents to the Far West lumber-men, is never destined to return to\nits mountain home, but will be sold below for what it will fetch.\n\nIn Norway scenes are constantly meeting the traveller\u2019s eye, whether it\nbe such as that just described, or the rude log-huts, or the countless\ntree stumps, the work of the axe, or the unthinned density of forests\nwhich are not near any watercourse, which forcibly bring to one\u2019s mind\nOliphant\u2019s description of Minnesota and the Far West. But there is this\ntrifling difference, that whereas there you may as likely as not be\nbulleted, or your weasand slit by a bowie-knife, you are safer in this\ncountry than in any land in Europe.\n\nAs it was my purpose to visit a clergyman in the neighbourhood, I\nleft the main route, and took a short cut, by which I saved six miles\nin distance, though not in time. For the short way was a pleasant\nalternation of ledges of rock and mudpits. Fortunately I was provided\nwith an air-cushion to sit upon, or the jolting must have proved\nfatal, at all events to my teeth. If there is no dentist here--such a\nthing I never heard of in Norway--there ought to be.\n\nAfter four or five miles up and down, we descended in good earnest\nthrough a straggling grove of pines, their dark foliage now rendered\ndarker by the fast approaching night. To our left I could see something\nwhite, and heard fierce roarings. The broad expanse of water at\nVikersund had narrowed into a mere fissure, only a few yards across,\nwith splintered walls of overhanging rock. What! that small-throated\nboa-constrictor going to swallow up such a monstrous lump of water at\na mouthful? Choked it will be, and no mistake. See, what a chattering,\nand frothing, and smoking! That lot of trees, too, they must stick\nin his gizzard; half-a-dozen have lodged there already, firm and\nimmovable, as if riveted by the strongest bolts. A few steps more, and\nbehold! the strife has ceased; the logs, together with the boiling\nsoapsuds, have shot through the tunnel or funnel, and lie heaving\nand panting on the waters of another river of no little breadth and\nvolume, which, swiftly gliding through the forest, cuts in here, and\njoins the narrow outlet of the great Drammen river at right angles.\n\nAfter their prodigious tussle, it must be quite a relief to those\nmuch battered logs to rock in the comparatively tranquil lap of\nthe Hallingdal river; for it is my old friend of Hemse-Fjeld\nreminiscence--who kept now rollicking and roaring like a schoolboy, now\nfloating lightly and whispering softly, like a miss in her teens, as we\njourneyed along together--that here clubs its fortunes with the lusty\nprogeny of the Fillefjeld.\n\nAt the fork made by the two streams dwelt a ferryman, who speedily\ntransferred my effects from the carriole to his frail boat. It\nrequired careful navigation to get over; as the surge of the Vikersund\nriver--which, as the ferryman told me, albeit it had come through\nsuch an eye of a needle, was by far the bigger of the two--was of\nsuch momentum and so sudden in its dash that the crowding waters of\nthe Halling were struck all of a heap by the concussion, and fairly\nturned round and fled. After recovering the first shock, however, it\ngradually established a nearer intimacy with the boisterous stranger,\nand they presently made a fresh start forward, and vaulted together\nover a rugged rapid below, which I could just see gleaming through the\ndusky shades of the evening, and the forest. The first struggles with\nthe world of the new-married couple.\n\n\u201cWe have only to get up the hill,\u201d said the ferryman, shouldering my\npack, as we safely reached the opposite shore, \u201cand we shall be soon at\nthe parson\u2019s house.\u201d\n\nA warm welcome did I get from my friend the pastor. He recognised my\nvoice directly, as he opened the door in the dark.\n\n\u201cVilkommen, Vilkommen, Metcalfe! Hvor staae til? (welcome, Metcalfe!\nhow are you?) Det fornoie mig meget, at de har ikke glemt os (I\u2019m glad\nyou\u2019ve not forgotten us).\u201d\n\nAnd I was speedily in the Stu\u00eb, shaking hands with the Fru\u00eb\n(clergymen\u2019s wives have by law this title; merchants\u2019 wives are only\nmadame). Her fair, good-humoured face fatter, and her figure rounder\nthan when I saw her four years ago at the mountain parish in the west.\nLisa, too, the hobbledehoy girl, all legs and arms, like a giblet pie,\nhas now become quite a woman, and more retiring. The baby, Arilda, too,\nruns about bigger and bonnier, while Katinka, another and elder sister,\nwhom I have never seen before, comes forward to greet her father\u2019s\nfriend. There are also some ladies from the \u201cby\u201d (town), with the\nlatest news, foreign and domestic.\n\nI spend a day or two with my kind and intelligent host and his family.\nMuch of his income is derived from land, so that he farms on a large\nscale. The house is beautifully situate. Beneath us may be seen the\nriver playing at hide and seek among umbrageous woods. On the hills\nopposite is the mother church of the district, with large farms\nclustering about it. The neighbourhood abounds in minerals. Not far off\nis a cobalt-work, now under the auspices of a Saxon company, and which\nis said to be productive. If the old derivation for cobold be from\ncobalt, because that particular sort of sprite\u2019s favourite _habitat_\nis a mine of this description, I shall, no doubt, pick up a goblin\nstory or two at the manse.\n\nKatinka, the eldest girl, is very well read; better certainly than any\nI have met with in the country, for they are not a reading people. She\nsings a national song or two with much feeling, and explains to me the\nmeaning of them, which, as they are written in old Norsk, would be\notherwise difficult of comprehension.\n\n\u201cBut how do you know the meaning of this outlandish lingo?--it\u2019s not a\nbit like the written Norsk of the present time.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt was not for nothing,\u201d replied she, \u201cthat I lived from a baby in\nthe mountain parish where we first saw you. The inhabitants of those\nsequestered dales still use many of the old words and forms of speech.\u201d\n\nI was soon on my hobby--legends and superstitions.\n\n\u201cHave you any witches or sp\u00e6-wives, as they are called in Scotland?\u201d\nasked I.\n\n\u201cSigne-kierringe, you mean. Oh, yes. They are still to be found. My\naunt there, when she was a girl, was measured by one.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow so?\u201d\n\n\u201cThey take a string, which they pretend has been prepared in some\nwonderful manner, and measure round the waist, and along the arms,\nand so on most accurately, and there is supposed to be some wonderful\nvirtue in the operation. It is a sure recipe against all harm from the\nNisser. But I have a book here, with a tale of one Mads, a warlock. He\nwas cutting timber in the forest; it was about mid-day. He had just\ngot the wedge into a fallen tree, when he saw his old woman come up\nwith his dinner. It was romme-gr\u00f6d (a peculiar sort of porridge). She\nsat down, when he just spied a tail peeping out behind her, which she\nchanced to stick in the cleft that he had made in the tree. Mads bade\nher wait a bit, and he would sit down and eat directly. The cunning\nfellow meantime managed to get the wedge out. The crack closed, and the\ntail was fast. At the same time he uttered Jesus\u2019 name. Up started the\nhag, and snapped off the end of her tail. What a scream she gave. On\nlooking at the dinner, he found it was nothing but some cow-dung in a\nbark basket.\u201d\n\n\u201cHave not the peasantry here,\u201d I inquired, \u201csome odd notions about the\nfairies stopping the wheel of the water-mill?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes!\u201d replied Miss Katinka. \u201cSeptember 1st is an important day for\nthe millers. If it is dry on that day it will be dry, they say, for a\nlong time. This is owing to the Quernknurre (mill sprite).\n\n\u201cThere is a tale in Asbj\u00f6rnsen of a miller near Sandok Foss, in\nThelemarken (I visited this place afterwards), whose mill-wheel would\nnot go, although there was plenty of water. He examined the machinery\naccurately, but could not discover what was amiss. At last he went to\nthe small door that opened into the wheel-box. Opening it a very little\nhe spied a most vicious-looking troll poking about inside. Closing the\ndoor with all speed, before the troll caught sight of him, he went\nto his hut and put on the fire a large pot full of tar. When it was\nboiling hot he went to the wheel door and opened it wide. The troll\ninside, who was busy scotching the wheel, faced round at him in a\nmoment, and opened his mouth (or rather his head) wider than a warming\npan, indeed so wide that his gape actually reached from the door sill\nto the top of the door. \u2018Did you ever see such a gape as that in all\nyour life?\u2019 said he to the miller. Without a moment\u2019s delay the miller\npoured the hot pitch right into the monster\u2019s throat (which might\nbe called pitching it into him), and answered the inquiry by asking\nanother, \u2018Did you ever get such a hot drink before?\u2019 It would appear\nthat the miller had effectually settled the creature, for he sunk\ndown into the water with a fearful yell, and never was heard of more.\nFrom that day forward the miller throve, and much grist came to him,\nactually and figuratively.\u201d\n\nMiss Katinka was not a classical scholar, so I suppressed certain\nillustrations which rose to my tongue, as she told the story, such as\n\u201chians immane,\u201d and the miller having used a most effectual digamma\nfor stopping the hiatus; and I told her instead, that in the Scottish\nhighlands there is a kindred being called Urisk, a hairy sprite, who\nsets mills at work in the night when there is nothing to grind, and\nthat he was once sent howling away by a pan full of hot ashes thrown\ninto his lap when asleep.\n\n\u201cI have read another curious story of a mill,\u201d continued my fair\ninformant.\n\n\u201cThere was a peasant up in the west whose mill (quern) was burned\ndown two Whitsuntides following. The third year, on Whitsun Eve, a\ntravelling tailor was staying with him, making some new clothes for the\nnext day. \u2018I wonder whether my new mill will be burnt down to-night\nagain?\u2019 said the peasant. \u2018Oh, I\u2019ll keep watch,\u2019 exclaimed the tailor;\n\u2018no harm shall happen.\u2019 True to his word, when night came on, the\nknight of the shears betook himself to the mill. The first thing he\ndid was to draw a large circle with his chalk on the floor, and write\n\u2018Our Father\u2019 round it, and, that done, he was not afraid, no not even\nif the fiend himself were to make his appearance. At midnight the door\nwas suddenly flung open, and a crowd of black cats came in. The tailor\nwatched. Before long the new comers lit a fire in the chimney-corner,\nand got a pot upon it, which soon began to bubble and squeak, as if it\nwas full of boiling pitch. Just then, one of the cats slily put its paw\non the side of the pot, and tried to upset it. \u2018Mind, nasty cat, you\u2019ll\nburn yourself,\u2019 said the tailor, inside his ring. \u2018Mind, nasty cat,\nyou\u2019ll burn yourself, says the tailor to me,\u2019 says the cat to the other\ncats. And then all the cats began dancing round the ring. While they\nwere dancing, the same cat stole slily to the chimney-corner and was on\nthe point of upsetting the pot, when the tailor exclaimed, \u2018Mind, nasty\ncat, you\u2019ll burn yourself.\u2019 \u2018Mind, nasty cat, you\u2019ll burn yourself,\nsays the tailor to me,\u2019 says the cat to the other cats. And then the\nwhiskered crew began to dance again round the tailor. Another attempt\nat arson was made with no better success. And all the cats danced round\nthe tailor, quicker and quicker, their eyes glowing, till his head spun\nround again. But still he luckily kept his self-possession and his\nsense. At last the cat, which had tried to upset the pot, made a grab\nat him over the ring, but missed. The tailor was on the alert, and next\ntime the cat\u2019s paw came near he snipped it off short with his shears.\nWhat a spitting and miauling they did make, as they all fled out of the\nmill, leaving the tailor to sleep quietly in his ring for the rest of\nthe night. In the morning he opened the mill door and went down to the\npeasant\u2019s house. He and his wife were still in bed, for it was Whitsun\nmorning, and they were having a good sleep of it. How glad the miller\nwas to see the tailor. \u2018Good morrow to you,\u2019 he said, reaching out his\nhand, and giving the tailor a hearty greeting. \u2018Good morrow, mother,\u2019\nsaid the tailor to the wife, offering her his hand. But she looked so\nstrange and so pale, he could not make it out. At last she gave him her\nleft hand, and kept the other under the sheepskin. Ay, ay, thought the\ntailor, I see how the ground lies.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe miller-wife was one of the subterranean people, then,\u201d I put in.\n\n\u201cNo doubt of it,\u201d said Miss Katinka.\n\n\u201cIf the tailor had been an Englishman,\u201d observed I, \u201cwe should have\nsaid that he \u2018knew which way the cat jumped;\u2019\u201d and then I had to\nexplain, and this elicited the remark, that the Norwegians are by no\nmeans deficient in proverbs.\n\n\u201cHave you a Norwegian equivalent to our commonest of English\nproverbs--\u2018to carry coals to Newcastle?\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cYes,\u201d put in the worthy pastor, \u201cbut with a difference. We say, \u2018to\ncarry the bucket over the brook to fetch water.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cWell, we have another, not less common--\u2018to reckon upon your chickens\nbefore they are hatched.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s our \u2018you must not sell the skin till you\u2019ve shot the bear.\u2019\nIt\u2019s just the same as yours, but with a local colouring.\u201d\n\n\u201cAll these proverbs, by the way, are not true,\u201d continued I. \u201cThere\nis an English proverb that it requires nine tailors to make a man: as\nif a tailor was inferior to the rest of mankind in courage. That last\nstory of Miss Katinka\u2019s is a proof to the contrary. I remember being in\nBerlin, just after the revolution of 1848, and visiting the cemetery\nof those who had fallen. There was one monument to the memory of one\nJohann Schwarz, with an inscription to the effect that he fought like\na hero, and received nine, or maybe nineteen wounds. Indeed, at the\nLondon police-offices, whenever a man is brought before his Worship\nfor assault and battery of the worst description, or for drubbing the\npolicemen within an inch of their lives, the odds are that it will be a\ntailor with a little body and a great soul.\u201d\n\nBut my last observations were quite lost on my fair informant. For at\nthis moment a letter was put into her hands, and she escaped from the\nroom, her colour rising, and her thoughtful eye assuming a softer and\nmore conscious expression.\n\n\u201cIt\u2019s Katinka\u2019s weekly letter from her betrothed,\u201d explained her\nfather, when she had gone; \u201cthey always correspond once a week, and\nthis is the day when the post arrives.\u201d\n\nAs I was walking about the house, in company with my clerical friend,\nI had a fresh proof of the facilities afforded in this country to\nclever artisans to improve themselves. Thus, one Ole, who is driving\nthe hay-cart up the steep inclined plane to the hay-loft, over\nthe cow-house, has shown a strong turn for mechanics, and on the\nclergyman\u2019s recommendation has obtained from the government three\nhundred dollars to defray the expense of a journey to England, that he\nmay be further initiated and perfected in the mysteries of his trade.\nAnother man about the farm, who has exhibited much natural talent as an\nengraver, is going to be sent to Christiania, to a craftsman in that\nline.\n\nAmong other things, I hear from my host of a regulation, in respect to\necclesiastical matters, which is well worth mentioning. In England,\nas we all know, no provision is made by the law for pensioning off a\nsuperannuated clergyman, or for the support of a clergyman\u2019s widow;\nnay, the very sensible proposal to pension a bishop, the other day, was\ndecried as simony. Not so in Norway. The widow of a beneficed clergyman\nhere has a proportion of the income of the benefice (from twenty to\nsixty dollars) during her life. Besides this, there is attached to\nmost parishes what is called an Enkes\u00e6de (widow farm). Formerly she\ncultivated this herself; but, by a late regulation, these places have\nbeen sold, and she has the profits, which vary, in different cases, in\namount.\n\nBesides the beneficed clergy, there are in Norway another class of\nclergy called Residerende Capellan. He holds a chapel of ease in some\nlarge parish, with land and house attached, but is quite independent\nof the rector. His appointment, like that of the beneficed clergy\ngenerally, is vested in the king. On a vacancy, the applications are\nreceived by the government, and sent to the king, marked 1, 2, 3, in\norder of merit. He generally chooses the first, but not always. The\nnumber of these chaplains is small--not above ten in all Norway. In\nsome respects, the Residerende Capellan has less work than the Sogne\nPrest, or rector. Thus the Fattig-wesen, or arrangement for the relief\nof the poor, is chiefly managed by the Sogne Prest.\n\nThe Personal Capellan corresponds to an English curate. Whenever\na rector requires a curate, he is bound to take one who is out of\nemployment; and he cannot get rid of him, but must retain his services\nas long as he is rector. His successor in the living, however, is not\nsimilarly bound. It is conceivable that the rector and curate may\nhave differences, and that this perpetuity of connexion may in some\ninstances become irksome to both. Generally, however, it is found to\nwork well--they make the best of it, like a sensible man and wife.\nAnd the curate is not exposed, as he sometimes is in England, to the\ncaprices of a rector, or a gyn\u00e6cocratical rectoress. Nor, again,\nis the public eye offended in this country with those unpleasant\nadvertisements of curates holding the views of Venn, with strong lungs,\nor of Anglicans skilful in intoning and church decoration.\n\n\u201cWhat examinations have you at the University of Christiania?\u201d I asked.\n\n\u201cThere are three. First, the Philosophisk, _i.e._, a mixed classical\nexamination; second, one in mathematics, physics, theology, and other\nsubjects; and, three years later, there is what is called an Embeds\nexamen (faculty examination), which, for the future clergyman, is in\ndivinity; for the lawyer, in law; and so on. After this examination,\nhowever, a clergyman is not compelled to be ordained directly--indeed,\nhe can put this off for some years.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd are the Norwegian students such ardent spirits as their brethren\nin Germany?\u201d\n\n\u201cArdent enough, but blessed, I hope, with more common sense. They are\nintense lovers of liberty, and their minds are full of the idea of\nScandinavian unity--_i.e._, a junction not only moral, but political,\nof the three kingdoms, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. It was only the\nother day that a thousand Norwegian students paid a visit to Upsala and\nStockholm, and then went over to Copenhagen. They were received with\nopen arms by the Danes. The shopkeepers would have no money for the\narticles they disposed of to them, begging them to take what they had\nasked for as a _souvenir_ of Denmark. They lived in private houses, and\npartook of the best during their stay, entirely gratuitously; the King\nhimself bore his share of the Leitourgia, lodging and boarding them in\nthe palace. This Scandinavian party is gaining ground. It would be a\ngreat thing for Norway if the Bernadotte dynasty could succeed to the\nthrone of the three kingdoms. They are of a much better stock than the\ndescendants of Christian the First. Look at Oscar and his eldest son,\nthe free-hearted, outspoken soldier; and then look at the throne of\nDenmark--a king who first marries a respectable princess and divorces\nher for another, and does the same by her for no reason but because he\nhas set eyes on a sempstress at a fire one night in the capital, and\nis determined to be possessed of her--and there she is, the Countess\nDanner. But he is blessed with no offspring, and when he dies the Danes\nget a Russian for their king, or what\u2019s next to it. No wonder, then,\nthat the Scandinavian idea finds favour in Denmark. Even the king\nfavours the idea; his toast, \u2018Denmark, Sweden, and Norway--three lands\nin peace, one in war,\u2019 shows that, selfish as he is, and careless of\ntrampling on the feelings of those he has sworn to love and cherish, he\nhas some little regard for the future of his people, and has not so far\nforgotten Waldemar and Knut, as to wish Denmark to be a mere appanage\nof Russia--in short, he has always aimed at being a popular monarch.\u201d\n\n\u201cA grand idea,\u201d said I, \u201cno doubt, this of Scandinavian unity. I hear\nthat Worsaae, and many of the Danish professors, have taken it up. But\nI don\u2019t think professors, generally, are practical men--at least, not\nin Germany, judging from what they did in Frankfort in 1848. They were\nwith child for many months, big with an ineffable conception, but they\nonly brought forth wind after all.\u201d\n\n\u201cAy! but we Norwegians don\u2019t manage in that way. Look at Eideswold, in\n1814, and say whether we are not practical men.\u201d\n\n\u201cDon\u2019t you think Norway has anything to fear from the jealousy of\nSweden?\u201d I went on, changing the subject.\n\n\u201cNo. There have been two or three times when we have been in a klem\n(hitch); but the good, sturdy common sense, and quiet resolution of us\nNorwegians has won the day. And now I think of it, this appointment of\nthe Crown Prince to be viceroy at Christiania will be of inestimable\nbenefit to the country. Our future ruler will get to understand the\npeople, and know their worth. He will see what our freedom is doing for\nus. He makes himself quite at home with all, gentle and simple: dances\nwith the parsons\u2019 wives and daughters, and smokes cigars with the\nmerchants, but he is observing all the while very narrowly; and he sees\nwe are all united in our attachment to our liberal institutions, and\nthriving under them wonderfully; while, at the same time, all are most\nloyal to the kingly house.\u201d\n\n\u201cBut don\u2019t you think these religious schisms, Lammers on the one hand\nand the Roman Catholics on the other, will be causing a split in your\nnational unity?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! no. It is true the Roman Catholics have a great cathedral at\nChristiania; but they don\u2019t number more than a couple of hundred in\nall.\u201d\n\n\u201cAh! but there are some more in the North. It was only the other day\nI heard that some Papists are engaged in an active propaganda about\nTroms\u00f6.\u201d\n\n\u201cNo doubt; the people up there have always been peculiarly inclined\nto be carried about by every wind of doctrine. It is there that the\nHaugianer made way; and it is there that these Papists have pitched\ntheir tents. They are going to work very systematically. They have\npurchased an estate at Alten. Every Sunday they preach to whoever will\ncome. One of their addresses begins with the following attractive\nexordium:--\u2018Beloved brethren, we have left father and mother, brothers\nand sisters, fatherland and friends, from affection to you.\u2019 Again,\nthey boldly talk of bringing into the country light for semi-darkness.\nThe poor Laps much want some little book to be distributed gratis to\nexplain to them the subtilty of these people. I wish you could make\nthe case known to the excellent English Bible Society. And whereas\nthe Haugians were always reputed to be cold and indifferent to the\npoor, these missionaries are very kind to them, visiting the sick, and\noffering food, clothing, and instruction gratis. The whole plan is most\nsubtly contrived, especially when the fanatic character of the Laps,\nand their poverty is considered. If the Government does not take care,\nand see after their spiritual and temporal wants, they may fall, I\ngrant, into the hands of those people. But I don\u2019t think the Norwegians\nwill ever listen to them. There is an independence in our character\nthat rebels against all priestly domination.\u201d\n\n\u201cSo there is in England. But even there it is astonishing to see how\nfar matters are going. Why! it is only the other day that a petition to\nour Queen, to restore the \u2018Greater Excommunication,\u2019 was put into my\nhands to sign.\u201d\n\nBut our conversation now turned from the vanities and vagaries of man\nto another topic.\n\nThe woods around are not deficient, I find, in capercailzie and black\ncock. Woodcocks, also, from the priest\u2019s description, must be here at\ntimes. It was a brown bird, he said, larger than a snipe, which at dusk\nflies backwards and forwards through an alley in the wood.\n\n\u201cThat is the Linn\u00e6a borealis,\u201d said my host to me, pointing to a\nbeautiful little white flower. \u201cA strange thing happened to me,\u201d he\nsaid, \u201cwhen I was at my mountain parsonage in the West. One Baron von\nD\u00fcbner, a Swedish botanist, drove up one day to my house. I found\nthat he had journeyed all the way thither to make inquiries about a\npeculiar plant which grows, he said, just under the Iisbrae, on a\nparticular spot of the Dovre Fjeld, and produces berries something like\na strawberry, which ripen at the time when the snow melts in spring. I\nmade particular inquiries, and at last found a lad who said he knew\nwhat the stranger meant. He had seen and eaten these berries while\ntending cattle on that particular part of the Fjeld. I gave him a\nbottle, and he promised next spring to get me some; the baron promising\nto give a handsome reward. But alas! poor Eric did not survive to\nfulfil his promise. He was drowned that winter by falling through the\nice. Now, do ask your botanists at Oxford about it.\u201d[23]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\n    Papa\u2019s birthday--A Fellow\u2019s sigh--To Kongsberg--A word for\n    waterproofs--Dram Elv--A relic of the shooting season--How\n    precipitous roads are formed in Norway--The author does\n    something eccentric--The river Lauven--Pathetic cruelty--The\n    silver mine at Kongsberg--A short life and not a merry\n    one--The silver mine on fire--A leaf out of Hannibal\u2019s book--A\n    vein of pure silver--Commercial history of the Kongsberg\n    silver mines--Kongsberg--The silver refining works--Silver\n    showers--That horrid English.\n\n\nOn the morning of my departure, I find the Norsk flag hoisted on a tall\nflagstaff, on the eminence in front of the house.\n\n\u201cWhat is the meaning of this, Miss Lisa?\u201d\n\n\u201cOh! that\u2019s for papa\u2019s birthday,\u201d said she, in high glee.\n\n\u201cI wish you many happy returns of the day,\u201d was my greeting to the\npastor, who was evidently not a little pleased at receiving the\ncompliment in English.\n\nEach of the ladies had something pretty to say to him on the occasion,\nand the Fru\u00eb produced a very handsome new meerschaum pipe mounted with\nsilver, which, by some magic process, she had obtained from the distant\nBy against this auspicious morning.\n\nAs we are off the high road, there is no change-house near; but, by my\nhost\u2019s assistance, I have procured the services of an excellent fellow,\nwho agrees to take me with his own horse in my friend\u2019s carriole all\nthe way to Kongsberg, twenty miles off, where I am to visit the silver\nmines, and return by the same conveyance to Hougesund, on my way to\nDrammen. How very kind these people are.\n\nSeeing I took an interest in legends, the two elder sisters had routed\nout some tracts on the subject, and the little Arilda presented me with\nsome Norwegian views, and a piece of ore from the neighbouring mine.\nMiss Lisa blushed and smiled, and did not know what to make of it, when\nI wickedly proposed that she should come with me to Oxford.\n\n\u201cNo,\u201d said mamma, \u201cif you were twenty years older, perhaps.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd I hope, when next you visit us,\u201d said the priest, \u201cyou\u2019ll be\nmarried, and bring Mrs. M.\u201d\n\n\u201cMarried! you know what I\u2019ve told you about Fellowships. We are\nProtestant monks.\u201d\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d retorted his reverence, \u201cI always say England is a great and\nenlightened country; but if you wish to see an _effete_ custom clung to\nwith desperate tenacity, go to England.\u201d\n\nWhat torrents of rain poured down that day, as we journeyed along\ntowards Kongsberg.\n\nPoor Sigur was speedily soaked through, his wadmel coat mopping up\nthe deluge like a sponge. But he took the thing quite as a matter of\ncourse. As for the horse, he went on quite swimmingly. Being encased in\nlengthy Cording\u2019s fishing boots, a sou\u2019-wester on my head, and a long\nmackintosh on my shoulders, I was quite jubilant, and could not help\ndefying the storm with certain exclamations, such as,\n\n    Blow winds, and crack your cheeks, &c.\n\nSigur, astonished at my spouting, asked for an explanation, and on\ngetting it, looked anything but an assent to my proposition.\n\nTruth be told, I was sorry for Sigur. But, at the same time,\nwaterproofed as I was, I had a sort of self-reliant and independent\nfeeling, as the rain pattered off my caoutchouc habiliments, pretty\nmuch the same, I should think, as the water-fowl tribe must have, when\nthey are having a jolly sousing, but keep perfectly dry withal.\n\n\u201cWell,\u201d said I, \u201cSigur,\u201d remembering it was September 1, \u201cit will be\nfine weather for the millers, at all events. No Quernknurre to be\nfeared this autumn.\u201d Sigur smiled curiously through the fringe of\nrain-drops that bugled his hat-rim. He was evidently astonished that\nthe Englishman had found out that.\n\n\u201cThat elv is called Dram Elv,\u201d said he, pointing to the river tearing\nalong with its fleet of logs. \u201cOnce, that farm-house which you see\nyonder, a couple of hundred feet above the river, was close to the\nwater\u2019s edge, but the water burst through some rocks below, and now\nit\u2019s a river instead of a lake. There is some old story about it,\u201d\ncontinued he, scratching his grizzled locks, \u201cbut I forget it now. They\nsay that the river takes its name from that Gaard.\u201d\n\nAt Hougesund I remarked what I had never seen before out of the towns\nin Norway--an intimation over the merchant\u2019s door that travellers\nwould find accommodation there. This will give a very good notion of\nthe amount of hotel competition in this country. I had a bag of shot,\nNo. 5, and as all shooting was now over, Sigur received directions to\nsell the same to the merchant for what he could get. The merchant took\nit, loudly protesting the while that he should never be able to sell it\nagain. \u201cOur shooters,\u201d said he, \u201cuse the largest hagel, not such dust\nas this.\u201d I can imagine that people accustomed to shoot game sitting,\nwould do so.\n\nIt was pitch dark long before we reached Kongsberg. There was nothing\nleft for it but to let the horse take his own course; but as he was\nunacquainted with the road, this was pretty much that of a vessel\nwithout a compass.\n\nAs good luck would have it, we overtook a traveller in a carriole, or\nthese lines would mayhap never have been written. \u201cYe gentlemen of\nEngland, who live at home at ease,\u201d are perhaps not aware, that in\nNorway, excepting on two or three pieces of newly-constructed road,\nthere is no such a thing as posts and rails to fence the highway from\ndanger. Now and then, as in Switzerland, the edge of a sheer precipice\nis supposed to be guarded by blocks of granite, placed two or three\nyards apart, but ordinarily fences are only used to keep in cattle. It\nwas not till the next day on returning that I became aware what I had\nescaped. It is true that there was no great depth to fall, but quite\nenough to break all my bones. But I might console myself with the\nthought, that I should have had an opportunity of talking to the doctor\nat Kongsberg, and obtaining from him some more information about his\nbrownie patient, mentioned at page 232 above.\n\nThe object of my detour to Kongsberg was to have a sight of the\ncelebrated silver mine in its neighbourhood. I had brought an\nintroduction to the Director, Lammers (brother of the Dissenting\nLammers of Skien), whom I found, next morning, deeply engaged in\nstudying a plan of the workings. Provided by him with a note to the\nSuperintendent, I put myself on my carriole, and started with Sigur for\nthe mine. The excellent Larsen, at whose comfortable caravansary I put\nup, had indoctrinated Sigur that it was usual for strangers to take a\ncarriage from the inn; for which, of course, I should have had to pay\npretty smartly. But I was determined to be eccentric for once, and did\nthe most obvious thing--take my own vehicle and attendant. The Lauven,\nthe best salmon river in the south of Norway, cuts the town in two with\na stream of great width. The old wooden bridge, being worn out, is\nnow being superseded by a new one, built exactly over it; so that we\nhave the novel sight of two bridges one above the other. I could not\nlearn that the good old Northern custom of burying a child under the\nnew bridge, to make it durable, has been observed. At all events, the\nKongsbergers, if they did so, kept their own counsel about it.\n\nIn Germany, too, this custom prevailed. Nay, within the last twenty\nyears (see Grimm, \u201cDeutsche Mythologie\u201d), when a new bridge was built\nat Halle, the people said that a child ought to be built into it.\nThiele, also, in his \u201cDanmark\u2019s Folkesagn,\u201d relates as follows:--\u201cA\nwall had to be built in Copenhagen, but as fast as they built it up, it\nsank into the swampy ground. In this dilemma, a small, innocent child\nwas set upon a stool with a table before it, on which were playthings\nand sweetmeats; and while it was amusing itself with these, twelve\nmasons set to work and built a vault over it, and, at the same time,\nset up the wall again to the sound of music. Since that time the wall\nhas never sunk the least.\u201d\n\nNothing noticeable caught my eye on the road, except a Thelemarken\npeasant-girl, in her quaint costume, dragging a little cow to market;\nbut as on our return we again encountered both of them, it was clear\nthat, with the dogged obstinacy of these people, rather than bate the\nprice, she was marching back with the cow to her distant home in the\nmountains. A roundabout ascent of nearly four miles English brought us\nto the principal mine, which, as the crow flies, can be reached by a\nfootpath in half that distance. The device of a hammer and pick, set\ncrosswise over a door, with the German motto, \u201cGluckauf,\u201d reminded me\nthat these mines were first worked by miners from that country.\n\nPresenting my credentials, I was ushered into a room in the\nsuperintendent\u2019s house, and equipped with the toggery worn on those\noccasions--a dark green blouse, a leather apron fastened by a broad\nbelt, and worn on the opposite side of the person to what aprons\nusually are; and lastly, an uncommonly stout black felt hat, with no\nbrim--in shape, I should imagine, just like those worn by the Armenian\npriests. Such was the disguise which I assumed, and very suitable it\nwas. The apron and blouse protected my clothes from dirt, and, if a\npiece of silver ore had attempted to fall upon my head, the hat would\nhave acted as a helmet, and warded it off. My guide into \u201cthe bowels of\nthe harmless earth\u201d now approached, and we entered the level--commenced\nin 1716 by Frederick the Fifth--and progressed for nearly two miles\nalong the tramway, lighted by a flaring torch, the ashes of which the\nconductor ever and anon knocked off into a vessel of water on the\nroute. All was still, except that now and then a sound as of rushing\nwaters jarred upon the ear. I found that it was the water pumped out\nof the mine by the engine, which usually glides quietly along in its\nwooden channel; but in places where there was a slight ascent, got\nvery angry, and shot along with increased velocity. At the end of this\npassage we came upon a group of miners, cooking their porridge for the\nmid-day meal. They are on duty, I understood, twenty-four hours at a\nstretch, so as to save the loss of time in getting to their work and\nback again, the distance in and out being so considerable. The men\nlooked prematurely old, as far as I was able to judge from the very\nunfavourable light; and that, no doubt, has a great deal to do with\nlooks at all times. The prettiest girl that ever joined in a Christmas\nrevel, would be shocked if she could see a faithful representation\nof her face as it looked by the blue flickering light of the envious\nsnapdragon.\n\nBut, to speak seriously, I find that though there is no explosive\nair in the mine, yet there is a closeness in the atmosphere which is\nprejudicial to health. At a comparatively early age the men become\n\u201c\u00f6delagt\u201d--_i.e._, worn out. After a certain number of years of service\nthey are pensioned. Their wages are, for one class of men, 24 skillings\nto 30 skillings per diem; for another, 30 skillings to 36 skillings;\nso that the lowest is about 10_d._, and the highest rate about 1_s._\n3_d._, English. In this mine, which is called the Kongengrube (King\u2019s\nMine), two hundred are employed. Where we now stood was about the\ncentre of the mine; above us was a perpendicular ascent to the top\nof the mountain, which we had avoided by entering the level. But we\nnow had to descend, perpendicularly, a series of ladders, lighted by\nthe dim light of a candle, which the guide, for fear of fire, had\ntaken instead of the torch. We now descended fifty-five perpendicular\nladders, of unequal lengths, but averaging, I understood, five fathoms\neach; so that, according to Cocker, the \u201ctottle\u201d we descended was 1650\nfeet, though, when we stood at the bottom of the perpendicular shaft,\nwe were in reality 3120 feet from the upper mouth. Each ladder rests on\na wooden stage, and the top of it against a sort of trap-door let into\na similar stage above. This perpendicularity of the shaft is its chief\ndanger. Should a large piece of rock become loosened above, there is\nnothing but these wooden stages to prevent it smashing through to the\nbottom of the shaft; and as no notice, such as \u201cHeads below--look out,\u201d\nis given, not a few dreadful accidents have taken place in consequence.\nAgain, from the construction of the mine, it is peculiarly dangerous in\ncase of fire.\n\nIt was only in May last that a fire broke out suddenly in the\nGottesh\u00fclfe in der Not (God\u2019s help in time of need) Mine, where there\nare eighty-eight ladders. The fire raged with such fury that four\nunfortunate men were choked before they could escape. A fifth got out\nalive. The burning continued eight days. The bodies have only just been\nfound, August 18th.\n\nFire, I find, is used to make new horizontal shafts. We went into\none of these side shafts to see the operation. Arrived at the end of\nthe gallery, which was as symmetrical as a railway tunnel, and very\nhot, our further progress was barred by a great iron door; this being\nopened, I saw a huge fire of fir poles blazing away at the far end of a\nkind of oven. After the fire has thus burned for several hours, it is\nsuffered to go out; and the miners, approaching with their picks, can\nwith very little effort chip off several inches of the hard rock, which\nhas become as brittle as biscuit from the action of heat. The biscuit\nbeing cleared away, a fresh fire is lit, and another batch baked and\nremoved; and so on, day by day, till the miners come to ore.\n\nAt the bottom of the mine I was rewarded by the sight of a vein of pure\nsilver. At first it seemed to me very like the rest of the rock, except\nthat it was rougher to the touch; but with a little beating, like a\ndull schoolboy, it brightened up wonderfully, and I saw before me a\nvein of native silver, two or three inches in width, and descending\napparently perpendicularly. The native silver thus found, together with\nthe argentiferous rock, is packed up in a covered cart, under lock and\nkey, and driven into Kongsberg, where the smelting works are situate.\n\n\u201cHow does the refined silver go to Christiania?\u201d I inquired.\n\n\u201cIn a country cart,\u201d was the reply, \u201cdriven by a simple bonder.\u201d Even\nQueen Victoria\u2019s baby-plate might pass in this manner through the\ncountry without danger of spoliation.\n\nNo specimens are permitted to be sold in the mine; the men, I\nunderstand, are searched each time that they leave work.\n\nThe fortunes of these celebrated silver mines, which were discovered\nin 1623, have been like the mines themselves. There have been many ups\nand downs in them. At one time they have been worked by the State; at\nanother, they have been in private hands; and sometimes the exploration\nstopped altogether. After thus lying idle for some years, the works\nwere, in 1814, if I am rightly informed, offered for sale by the\nDanish Government to our present consul-general at Christiania, and\nthe purchase was only not completed in consequence of that gentleman\ndeclining to keep up the full amount of workmen, a condition which\nthe Government insisted on. Be this as it may, they were set a-going\nby the Government in 1816, and the Storthing voted 21,000 dollars for\nthe purpose, and even greater sums in subsequent years. And yet, in\n1830, the mine was not a paying concern. Just about this time, however,\nthe miners hit upon a rich vein, and ever since 1832 it has paid. The\ngreatest yield was in 1833, when about 47,000 marks of pure silver\nwere obtained. At present, about 400 marks are obtained weekly, or\nabout 21,000 per annum. There is an actual profit of nearly 200,000\ndollars a year. Notwithstanding this brilliant state of affairs, there\nhas, reckoning from first to last, been a loss of several millions of\ndollars on the venture.\n\nAt one time Kongsberg was a city of considerable importance. At\npresent, there are less than 5000 inhabitants; but in 1769, when\nChristiania had only 7496 inhabitants, Trondjem 7478, and Bergen\n13,735, Kongsberg had over 8000. But it must be always considered\nimportant, as being the great mining school of the country--a country\nwhich contains, no doubt, vast mineral treasures under its surface.\n\nTough work it was ascending the ladders, and very hot withal. But as\nI intended to be in Drammen that evening, distant five-and-twenty\nmiles, no time was to be lost. My climbing on the fjeld had been\ncapital practice; and such was the pace at which I ascended, that the\nsuperintendent, who joined us, broke down or bolted midway.\n\nWe were soon at Kongsberg, it being down hill all the way. People\ntold me I must by no means omit going to see a monument on the hill,\nbetween the mines and the town, where the names of ten kings, who\nhad come to see the mine, were recorded, including Bernadotte. But I\npreferred devoting the rest of my spare time to what I considered much\nmore instructive, viz., a visit to the establishments for reducing\nand refining the silver ore. As good luck would have it, I had an\nopportunity of witnessing the process for refining silver. About 2000l.\nworth of the precious metal was in an oven, with a moveable bottom,\nundergoing the process of refinement by the intense heat of a pine-wood\nfire, blown upon it from above.\n\nSchiller\u2019s magnificent \u201cSong of the Bell\u201d rose to my mind--\n\n    Nehmet Holz von Fichtenstamme,\n    Doch recht trocken lasst as seyn,\n    Dass die eingepresste Flamme\n    Schlage zu dem Schwalch hinein!\n\nThe mynte-mester, a fat man, of grave aspect, illuminated by large\nspectacles, ordered one of the Cyclopses around to put what looked\nlike a thin, long poker, with a small knob at the end, into the boiling\nmass. It came out coated with a smooth envelope of dead metal. This\nthe director examined, and shook his head; so away went the blow-pipe\nas before. Presently the same process was repeated. On the poker-knob\nbeing inserted a third time, the director scrutinized it carefully,\nand then said, \u201cf\u00e6rdig!\u201d On examining it, I found projecting, like a\ncrown of airy thorns, a coating of exceedingly fine spicula of frosted\nsilver. That was the signal that it was sufficiently purified. Never\ntill now had I known so exactly the force of the words of the Psalmist,\n\u201cEven as silver which from the earth is tried and purified seven times\nin the fire.\u201d\n\nIt was desired to have the silver in small nodules for silversmiths, as\nmore easily workable than in a lump. For this purpose, a vessel of cold\nwater was placed under the furnace-spout. Another Cyclops stationed\nhimself in front of the said spout, holding in his hand the nozzle of\nsome hose connected with a water-engine. With this he took aim at the\norifice (reminding me much of a Norskman shooting game sitting, but in\nthis case it was flying, as will be seen). A signal is given, a cock\nturned, and out rushes the white-hot molten metal; but at the moment of\nits escape from the trap, the fireman discharges a jet of cold water\nat it; the consequence is, that, instead of descending in a continuous\nstream, the blazing jet is squandered, and falls into the vessel below\nin a shower of silver drops. Dana\u00eb could have explained the thing\nto a nicety, only her shower was one of gold; while the metal most\npredominant in her own composition would seem to have been brass.\n\nThe gentleman who had been conversing with me in German, and apparently\nconsidered me a Teuton, said he could talk French also; but as for\nthat horrid English, those people began a sentence and rolled it\nin their mouths, spit it half out, and the rest they swallowed. I\nstrongly recommend any Englishman, who wishes to hear what people on\nthe Continent think of John Bull and his wife, not to betray his nation\nif he can help it, and then he has some chance of getting at the true\nstate of opinion without flattery. This rule will apply to general\nsociety, such as one meets abroad. But there is a no less golden\nexception, which is this: never at a custom-house or police-office know\nthe language of the officials; if you do, they are sure to badger you,\nespecially if you are above suspicion. If, on the other hand, you shrug\nyour shoulders, and keep replying to their remarks in English, you will\ncompletely foil their efforts at annoyance, and they will not be able\nto make anything of you, and look out for other prey.\n\nAnother remarkably polite and intelligent official now proceeded to\nshow me some beautiful specimens of pure silver in another part of the\nbuilding. Some of these \u201cHandstene,\u201d as they are called, I purchased.\nHere, too, were those splendid specimens that appeared at the Great\nExhibition in London, and also in Paris; and gained a medal in both\ninstances. The bronze medal, designed by Wyon, with the busts of\nVictoria and Albert, and likewise the silver one of Napoleon, were side\nby side; the latter pretty, doubtless, but, to my thinking, and also\nthat of the inspector, vastly inferior to the former, which, he said,\nwas a real work of art.\n\nMy companions at dinner were the engineer of the new road out\nof Kongsberg, and a Hungarian refugee, getting his living by\nportrait-painting. All things considered, I should think that the\nengineer\u2019s trade was the better of the two. But the artist was a\ngood-looking fellow, and twirled his moustache with great complacency;\nso that, perhaps, he got sitters. At all events, he could have no\ncompetition.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\n    A grumble about roads--Mr. Dahl\u2019s caravansary--\u201cYou\u2019ve waked\n    me too early\u201d--St. Halvard--Professor Munck--Book-keeping\n    by copper kettles--Norwegian society--Fresh milk--Talk\n    about the great ship--Horten the chief naval station of\n    Norway--The Russian Admiral G----Conchology--T\u00f6nsberg the\n    most ancient town in Norway--Historical reminiscences--A\n    search for local literature--An old Norsk patriot--Nobility\n    at a discount--Passport passages--Salmonia--A tale for\n    talkers--Agreeable meeting--The Roman Catholics in Finmark--A\n    deep design--Ship wrecked against a lighthouse--The courtier\n    check-mated.\n\n\nThe new road, which avoids some fearful hills, will soon be finished;\nand that is the excuse for not repairing the old one, which was\nsomething like what Holborn Hill would be with all the paving-stones up.\n\nPrince Napoleon, who has just returned from his voyage to Spitzbergen\nand the Arctic regions, is about to visit Kongsberg in company with\none of the Royal Princes of Sweden, to-morrow. It is lucky for the\nhighway surveyors that it is not the King of Oude. They doubtless\nwould have been put into the ruts to fill them up, or smelted in the\nsmelting-houses, or have had to undergo some other _refined_ process.\n\nSigur and I parted company at Hougesund; he proceeding homewards, and\nI crawling along to Drammen, by the side of the elv, with the worst\nhorse I ever drove in Norway. Fortunately, the road is a dead level,\nand good. The river abounds in salmon, which cannot get up higher than\nHougesund.\n\nOn the other side of it, I saw several lights, which I learned were at\nsaw-mills, which are working night and day. I suppose they are taking\ntime by the forelock. Hitherto, saw-mills have been in the hands of a\nfew privileged persons; but in 1860 the monopoly expires, and anybody\nmay erect one.\n\nI had been strongly recommended to one Mr. Dahl. His caravansary I\nfound both comfortable and reasonable. The St. Halvard steam-boat,\nwhich was to convey me next morning to some station in the Christiania\nFjord, started at seven o\u2019clock, I found, so I requested to be called\nat a little before six. The damsel walked into my bedroom, without any\npreliminary knock, long before that hour.\n\n\u201cYou\u2019ve come too early,\u201d said I; \u201cthe boat does not start till seven.\u201d\n\n\u201cOh, yes; but the passengers are accustomed to assemble on board half\nan hour before.\u201d\n\nSo much for the Norwegian value of time.\n\nAt five minutes to seven I found myself on board the boat, much to\nthe astonishment, no doubt, of the numerous passengers; who, with the\npatient tranquillity of Norwegians, had long ago settled in their\nplaces.\n\n\u201cSt. Halvard--who was St. Halvard?\u201d said I to a person near me, as we\nscudded along through the blue wares, glistening in the morning sun,\nand curled by a gentle breeze. He did not know, but he thought a friend\nof his on board knew. The friend, an intelligent young lieutenant\nin the army, from Fredrickshall, soon produced a book of Professor\nMunck\u2019s, but the volume made no mention of the enigmatical personage.\nSeeing, however, that I looked over the pages with interest, nothing\nwould content the young _militaire_ but that I should retain possession\nof it; which I accordingly did, with many thanks. It may be as well to\nmention, that there are two Muncks in Norway; A. Munck, the poet, and\nProfessor A. P. Munck, the historian, a person of European reputation,\nwho is now engaged on a comprehensive work, \u201cNorske Folks Historie,\u201d\n\u201cHistory of the Norsk People.\u201d He is also author of several other works\nof antiquarian research.\n\n\u201cYou have been in Thelemarken?\u201d inquired the lieutenant. \u201cThat\u2019s the\ncounty for old Norsk customs and language. With all their dirt and\nrude appearance, some of the bonders are very rich, and proud of their\nwealth. I remember being at a farm some miles above Kongsberg, where I\nsaw a number of copper kettles ranged on a shelf, as bright as bright\ncould be; I found that these were the gauge of the bonder\u2019s wealth.\nFor every thousand dollars saved a new copper kettle was added. You\nhave no idea how tenacious these people are of their social position.\nWhen the son and daughter of two bonders are about to be married, a\nwonderful deal of diplomacy is used, the one endeavouring to outwit the\nother. It is surprising with all the chaffering and bargaining between\nthe elders that the marriages turn out so well as they do.\n\n\u201cAnd yet even the wealthiest of them live in the meanest manner.\nI don\u2019t suppose you would get any fresh milk in your travels in\nThelemarken, except at the s\u00e6ters. You would not believe it, but\nthey are in the habit of keeping their milk from spring to autumn.\nTo prevent it becoming stale or maggoty, they stir it every day. In\nprocess of time it assumes a very strong scent, which the people inhale\nwith great gusto. It is a filthy affair: but people accustomed to it\nlike it, I am told, above all things. A curious case in point occurs to\nmy mind: A Voged, who had been for some years stationed up in a wild\npart of Thelemarken, was translated to Drammen, which is an agreeable\nplace, and by no means deficient in good society. But, with all this\nimprovement in neighbourhood, and the appliances of life; in spite of\nhis increased pay and higher position, the Voged sickened and pined; in\nshort, became a regular invalid. What could it be? He missed the thick,\nstinking milk of the Thelemarken wilds. He petitioned to return to the\nold Fogderie, where he would have less pay, but more milk; and, from\nthe last accounts, he is fully restored to health, and enjoying himself\namazingly.\u201d\n\nAs we approached Horten, the chief naval station of Norway, I saw a new\nchurch, apparently built in red stone, and in the Gothic style; which,\nas far as I could judge, reflected no little credit on the architect.\nAt this moment, a Norskman tapped me on the shoulder, and asked--\n\n\u201cAre you an Englishman? Do you live in London? Have you seen the great\nship that is building on the banks of the Thames? They say it is twice\nas long as the magazine at Horten yonder; but I can\u2019t believe it.\u201d\n\n\u201cYou mean the _Great Eastern_, as they call it? I don\u2019t know how long\nthe magazine is; but the ship is 680 feet long.\u201d\n\n\u201cVinkelig! det er accurat dobbelt.\u201d (Really! then it is exactly double,\njust as I heard.)\n\nThe daily steamer from Christiania to Fredrickshall met us here,\n_Halden_, by name; and separated me from the intelligent lieutenant,\nwith whom I exchanged cards.\n\nAs we steamed out of Horten, past the gun-boats and arsenals, a\nnaval-looking man said--\n\n\u201cWe have had a great man here lately, sir: the Russian Admiral G----.\nThe newspapers were strongly against his being allowed to pry about our\nnaval station; but he was permitted by the Government. After examining\neverything very accurately, he said, \u2018It\u2019s all very good, too good: for\nEngland will come and take it away from you.\u2019\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what did the dockyard people think of that? Did they agree with\nhim?\u201d\n\n\u201cHeaven forefend! They knew whom they had to deal with. As he walked\nthrough the arsenal, he saw some shells lying about. \u2018What is that?\nsome new invention?\u2019 \u2018Oh! no,\u2019 said the officer; \u2018it is only shells,\nafter the old fashion.\u2019 The Russian admiral seemed contented with the\nreply; but he was not going to be put off the real scent by a feint\nof this kind. In fact, a Norwegian captain, not long ago, did invent\na peculiar kind of shell, which, with unerring precision, can be so\nmanaged as to burst in a vessel\u2019s side after effecting an entrance. The\nRussian knew this, but kept his counsel then. Subsequently, he found an\nopportunity of drawing a subaltern officer aside, to whom he offered\ntwo hundred dollars to reveal the secret. But the Norskman would not\ndivulge the secret (shell out), only telling his superior, who took no\nnotice, but merely chuckled at the Russian\u2019s duplicity.\u201d\n\n\u201cIt is an old Russian trick, that,\u201d replied I; \u201cif I remember rightly,\nthe Muscovites obtained the secret of the Congreve rocket by some such\nunderhand man\u0153uvre.\u201d\n\nThe admiral\u2019s curiosity will remind the reader of the facetious\n_Punch\u2019s_ \u201cConstantine Paul Pry,\u201d who visited England and France for a\nsimilar object.\n\nAs we steered down the vast Fjord, which is here of great width, and\nramifies into various arms, we see the _Nornen_, a new Norsk frigate,\nin the offing, on her trial trip.\n\nA little after noon, we were steaming down a shallow bay, surrounded\nby low wooded islets, to T\u00f6nsberg, the most ancient town in Norway.\nThe harbour for shipping is in the T\u00f6nsberg Fjord, distant a bowshot\nfrom where we land; but to get there by water would require a detour of\nseveral miles. The isthmus is low and flat, and presents no engineering\ndifficulties whatever. In any other country, a ship canal would long\nsince have joined the two waters. At present, there is only a ditch\nbetween.\n\nThe ruins of the old fortified castle are still discernible on the\nelevation to the north of the town; and a sort of wooden building,\nsomething between a summer-house and an observatory, has lately been\nerected on the spot. The old castle (Tonsberg-hus) suffered a good deal\nfrom an attack of the Swedes in 1503; and was totally destroyed in\n1532, in the disturbances that ensued on the return of King Christian\nII. to Norway. As early as the close of the ninth century, the city\nwas a place of resort for merchants, and the residence of the kings in\nthe middle ages. At one time there were half a score of churches in\nthe place; but of these none remained fifty years ago, except one very\nancient one, in the Pointed style; but this was pulled down by some\nVandal authorities of the place. During the troubles of the twelfth and\nthirteenth centuries the town was taken and plundered more than once;\nbut it received its finishing blow from the Union of Calmar.\n\nAn eminence to the east of the town is called the Mollehaug, where in\nthe middle ages the renowned Hougathing, or Parliament, was held, and\nthe kings received homage. There being nothing left in the town to\nindicate its former importance, I mounted up the Castle-hill, and took\na look of the surrounding country and Fjords, with the blue mountains\nof Thelemarken far in the distance. The ancient seat of the Counts of\nJarlsberg is near at hand; from which family the surrounding district\nbears the name of Grefskabet (county).\n\nAfterwards I strolled into the cemetery. Some of the tombs were of\npolished red granite, which is obtained in the neighbourhood; most of\nthem had long inscriptions. Under two relievo busts in white marble\nwas the short motto, \u201cVi sees igien,\u201d (we shall meet again,) and then\na couple of joined hands, and the names of So-and-so and his Hustru\n(gudewife). On an obelisk of iron I read--\u201cUnderneath rests the dust\nof the upright and active burgher, the tender and true man and father,\nmerchant Hans Falkenborg. His fellow-burghers\u2019 esteem, his survivors\u2019\ntears, testify to his worth. But the Lord gave, the Lord took. Blessed\nbe the name of the Lord.\u201d On another stone was written--\u201cUnderneath\nreposes the dust of the in-life-and-death-united friends, Skipper F.\nand Merchant B. Both were called from the circle of their dear friends\nDecember 10, 1850, at the age of 28. Short was their pilgrimage here\non earth; but who hath known the mind of the Lord, who hath been his\ncouncillor? Peace be with their dust.\u201d Altogether there was much good\ntaste exemplified in these memorials of the dead.\n\nAs I returned towards the inn, I called at the only bookseller\u2019s in\nthis town of nearly three thousand inhabitants, in hopes of obtaining\nsome local literature in reference to a place of such historical\ncelebrity; Madame Nielsen, however, only sold school-books of the\npaltriest description. After my walk, I was by no means sorry to sit\ndown to a good dinner at the inn. Opposite me sat a fine old fellow,\nwith grey streaming locks, while two bagmen and the host completed\nthe company. Under the influence of some tolerable Bordeaux, the old\ngentleman became quite communicative; he had been in arms in \u201914, when\nNorway was separated from Denmark, and the Norskmen recalcitrated\nagainst the cool handing them over from one Power to another.\n\n\u201cThat was a perilous time for us; one false step, and we might have\nbeen undone; but each man had only one thought, and that was for\nhis country. In this strait,\u201d continued he, his eyes sparkling,\n\u201cone hundred Norskmen met at Eidsvold on May 1, and on May 17 the\nconstitution was drawn up which we now enjoy. Please God it may last.\nThe Norwegians may well be proud of it, and no wonder that the Swedes\nare jealous of us with their four estates, and their miserable pretence\nof a constitution--the worst in Europe. Their shoals of nobility are\nthe drag-chain; we got rid of them here in 1821. That was a great\nblessing; Carl Johann was against it, and three thousand Swedish\nsoldiers were in the vicinity of Christiania. Count Jarlsberg, our\nchief noble, was for the abolition; its chief opponent was Falsing. He\nsaid in the Storthing, that if our nobility were abolished he would say\nfarewell to Norway. Another member took him up short, and said, \u2018And\nthe Norsk hills would echo well.\u2019\u201d\n\nDinner over, I drove through the woods back to Vall\u00f6, where I was to\nmeet the steamer. Two Swiss gentlemen possess a large establishment\nhere for the manufacture of salt by the evaporation of salt water; a\ncotton mill is also adjoining, belonging to the same proprietors.\n\nOn applying for my ticket at the office--where it may be had a trifle\ncheaper than on board--my passport is demanded and examined, and the\noffice-keeper informs me that it is against the rules to give a ticket\nfor an outward-bound steamer to any one whose passport has not been\ncountersigned by the Norwegian authorities. Now, on leaving Norway by\nway of Christiania, as I was aware, it is required to be shown to the\npolice, and _vis\u00e9d_, but as I had never been near the capital this\nyear, and, from the moment I had landed to this, the passport had never\nbeen demanded, it did not occur to me that a _vis\u00e9_ would be required.\nFor the moment I was disconcerted, as nobody was to be found at Vall\u00f6\nwho could remedy the defect.\n\nOn inquiry, however, I found that the naval officer in command of the\ncoming vessel was my old friend Captain H., and so I felt secure. There\nwere plenty of faces that I knew on board, among the rest some Oxford\nUndergraduates returning from a delightful excursion up the country;\nthere were also some \u201cOld Norwegians,\u201d who had been fishing in the\nnorth, and complained loudly of the unfavourableness of the season.\nThere had been an unusual amount of rain and cold, and the rivers had\nbeen so full of snow-water, that the salmon had stuck at the mouths, a\nprey to nets, &c., in preference to braving the chills of the Elv.\n\nAmong other small talk, I began to recount as I sat in the Captain\u2019s\nroom, how I had seen the old gentleman with the star and diplomatic\ncoat. (See _ant\u00e8_). Just then somebody came and called out the first\nlieutenant by name, which was, I perceived, the very same as that of\nthe last baron whom I was engaged in taking off.\n\n\u201cIs he any relation?\u201d I inquired in alarm.\n\n\u201cOnly his son,\u201d was the reply.\n\nFortunately I had not said anything derogatory to the papa, or I might\nhave placed myself in an awkward fix. This is only another proof how\ncautious you ought to be on board one of these steamers of talking\nabout whom you have seen, and what you think, for the coast being the\ngreat high road, everybody of condition takes that route--you may have\nbeen, perhaps, for instance, abusing some merchant for overcharges--and\nafter speaking your mind, _pro_ or _con_, the gentleman with whom you\nare conversing may surprise you with a--\n\n\u201cJa so! Indeed! That\u2019s my own brother.\u201d\n\n\u201cWere you ever up beyond the North Cape?\u201d said a Frenchman to me, at\ndinner.\n\n\u201cOh! yes; I once went to Vads\u00f6.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd what sort of beings are they up there? Half civilized, I suppose?\u201d\n\n\u201cNot only half, but altogether, I assure you,\u201d said I. \u201cI met with\nas much intelligence, and more real courtesy and kindness, than you\nwill encounter half the world over.\u201d At this moment my neighbour to\nthe left, a punchy, good-humoured-looking little fellow, with a very\nlarge beard and moustache, which covered most of his face, and who had\nevidently overheard the conversation, said, in English:\n\n\u201cYou not remember me? You blow out your eyes with gunpowder upon the\nbanks of the Neiden. What a malheur it was! Lucky you did not be blind.\nI am Mr. ----, the doctor at Vads\u00f6. We went, you know, on a pic-nic\nup the Varanger Fjord. Count R----, the bear-shooter, who was such a\ntippler, was one of the party.\u201d\n\n\u201cOpvarter (waiter), bring me a bottle of port, first quality, strax\n(directly),\u201d said I, remembering the little gentleman perfectly well,\nand how kindly he and his companions had on that occasion drunk skall\nto the Englishman, and made me partake of the flowing bowl. We had a\nlong chat, and presently he introduced me to his wife; who, I found,\nwas, like himself, a Dane. They were journeying to their native\ncountry, after several years\u2019 absence.\n\n\u201cWhat are those Roman Catholics doing up in Finmark?\u201d said I.\n\n\u201cThe people hardly know yet what to make of them,\u201d he replied. \u201cThe\nsupposition generally is, no doubt, that they wish to convert the Fins.\nBut I don\u2019t think so. They are aiming at higher game.\u201d\n\n\u201cHow so?\u201d\n\n\u201cRussia!--That\u2019s their object. They can\u2019t get into that country itself.\nBut a vast quantity of Russians are continually passing and repassing\nbetween the nearest part of Russia and Finmark. And they will try to\nindoctrinate them. Their _point d\u2019appui_ is most dexterously selected.\nThere is no lack of funds, I assure you. They have settled on an estate\nat Alten, which they have bought.\u201d\n\n\u201cAnd so clever and agreeable they are,\u201d put in the Dane\u2019s lady. \u201cMr.\nBernard especially. He has a wonderfully winning manner about him.\u201d\n\n\u201cThe chief of the mission,\u201d continued the doctor, \u201cis M. Etienne, a\nRussian by birth, whose real name is Djunkovsky, and who has become a\nconvert from the Greek faith. He is styled M. le Pr\u00e9fet Apostolique des\nMissions Pol\u00e0ires du Nord, de l\u2019Amerique, &c.; and proposes, he says,\nto operate hereafter on parts of North America. On St. Olaf\u2019s day, he\ninvited forty of the most respectable people in the neighbourhood to a\nbanquet, and, in a speech which he made, said that the Norsk religion\nhad much similarity with the Roman Catholic; and that Saint Olaf was\nthe greatest of Norsk kings. Still, I think they have higher game in\nview than Norway.\u201d\n\nA master-stroke of policy, thought I. The Propaganda will have\nsurpassed itself if it should succeed in setting these people thinking.\nThe children of the autocrat will cast off their leading-strings yet;\nand the strife between the Latin and Greek Church rage, not between the\nmonks at the Holy City, but in the heart of holy Russia.\n\nAt this pause in the conversation, the Frenchman, who did not seem a\nwhit disconcerted at his former _faux pas_, recommenced his criticisms.\nThe fare, and the doings on board generally, evidently did not jump\nwith his humour. \u201cWhat is this composition?\u201d he inquired of the\nsteward. \u201cMi\u00f6s-Ost?\u201d (a sort of goat\u2019s-milk cheese, the size and shape\nof a brick, and the colour of hare-soup). \u201cIt\u2019s very sweet,\u201d observed\nthe Frenchman, sarcastically; \u201cis there any sugar in it?\u201d\n\n\u201cNo!\u201d thundered the captain, who did not seem to relish these\nstrictures. \u201cNo. It\u2019s made of good Norsk milk, and that is so sweet\nthat no sugar is required.\u201d\n\nThis remark had the effect of making the Gaul look small, and he gulped\ndown any further satire that he might have had on his tongue.\n\nI heard, by-the-bye, an amusing anecdote of these cheeses. They are\nconsidered a delicacy in Norway; and a merchant of Christiania sent\none as a present to a friend in England. The British custom-house\nauthorities took it for a lump of diachylon, and charged it\naccordingly, as drugs, a great deal more than it was worth.\n\nAs we sail through the Great Belt, the mast-tops of a wrecked vessel\nappear sticking out of the water near the lighthouse of Less\u00f6. It\nhas been a case of collision, that dreadful species of accident that\nthreatens to be more fatal to modern navies than storms and tempests.\nIn this case, the schooner seemed determined to run against something,\nso she actually ran against the lighthouse, in a still night, and when\nthe light was plain to see. The concussion was so great, that the\nvessel sank a few yards off, with some of her crew. The lighthouse rock\nis in _statu quo_.\n\n    Run your head against a wall,\n    It will neither break nor fall.\n\nOn board was Mr. D----, a chamberlain at the Court of Stockholm. This\ngay gentleman professed to be terribly smitten by the charms of a\nDanish lady, and wished very much to know whether she was married.\nI heard that she was, but she apparently desired to relieve the\nmonotony of the voyage by a little flirtation, and kept her secret. On\nawaking from a nap on one of the sofas, a friend informed me that the\nchamberlain, whom I saw sketching a dozing passenger, had done the like\nby me. I quietly got out my sketch-book, and took him off as quickly\nas possible. Happening to look my way, he saw what was going on, and\nsprang up, as if shot. \u201cThose who live in glass houses,\u201d &c. I begged\nhim to look at the caricature I had made;--eyes staring out of head,\nhair brushed up, &c. This counterfeit presentment seemed to strike him\nall of a heap; he shut up his sketch-book, and walked out of the cabin;\nwhile a Swedish Countess, very young and pretty, who had been smoking\na very strong cigar on deck, and had to abide the consequences of her\nrashness, came downstairs, and took refuge in the ladies\u2019 apartment.\n\nEND OF VOL. I.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n[1] See Lempriere\u2019s _Classical Dictionary_.\n\n[2] His application has been refused.\n\n[3] Since the above was written, we find that the plot is thickening.\nArchdeacon Brun, of Norderhoug, insists on all communicants being\nexamined by him previously to being admitted to the rite; while, at\nSarpsborg, there has been a meeting to discuss the sin of eating the\nblood of animals, and the possibility of holiness free from sin in this\nlife.\n\n[4] Their days always began with the sunset of the day before. Our\nfortnight and se\u2019night are lingering reminiscences of this old Norsk\nmethod of calculation by nights instead of days.\n\n[5] In the original, kinn = cheek.\n\n[6] (See _Oxonian in Norway_, second edition, p. 170.) Close to this\ndesolate spot lives the m\u00f6ller-gut (miller\u2019s lad) as he is called,\nwhose real name is Tarjei Augaardson. This man is a famous fiddler.\nHis countryman, Ole Bull, hearing of his musical talents, sent for\nhim, and he often played in public at Christiania and Bergen. He now\nonly exercises his talents at bryllups (weddings), receiving at times\nten dollars and upwards, which are chiefly contributed by the guests.\nWith the money earned by him in the capital he bought a farm in this\ndesolate spot; but he seems but ill-adapted for the bonder\u2019s life, and\nis much in debt. Could not he emulate Orpheus, and set some of these\nrocks dancing off which now encumber the land?\n\n[7] \u201cYea\u201d and \u201cnay,\u201d in Wiclif\u2019s time, and a good deal later, were the\nanswers to questions framed in the affirmative. \u201cWill he come?\u201d To this\nwould have been replied \u201cyea\u201d and \u201cnay,\u201d as the case might be. But\n\u201cWill he not come?\u201d To this the answer would have been \u201cyes\u201d or \u201cno.\u201d\nSir T. More finds fault with Tyndal that in his translation of the\nBible he had not observed this distinction, which was evidently going\nout even then,--that is, in the reign of Henry VIII.; and, shortly\nafter, it was quite forgotten.--TRENCH\u2019S _Study of Words_.\n\n[8] \u201cUnder circumstances of most privation I found no comfort\nso welcome as tea. We drank immoderately of it, and always with\nadvantage.\u201d--_Dr. Kane\u2019s Arctic Voyage._\n\n[9] The greatest height at which grouse have been seen was by\nSchlagentweit in the Himalaya, 11,000 feet above the sea.\n\n[10] Many of these stones are so nicely balanced, that they may\nbe moved without losing their equilibrium. Hence they are called\nRokke-steene (rocking-stones). Formerly they were looked upon as\nancient funereal monuments, like similar upright stones in Great\nBritain and elsewhere. Lieut. Mawry, who overturned the Logan stone,\nand was forced to set it up again at his own expense, might indulge his\npeculiar tastes with impunity in this country.\n\n[11]\n\n    Anton Shiel he loves not me,\n    For I gat two drifts of his sheep.\n                              _Border Ballad._\n\n[12] Tordenskiold was a renowned admiral. According to tradition, he\nnever would have a man on board his ship who would not stand up at a\nfew paces with outstretched arm, and a silver coin in his fingers, and\nlet him have a shot at it. The Norwegian still considers it an honour\nto trace his descent from one who served under Tordenskiold.\n\n[13] It begins thus--\n\n    Lord of the North is Harald Haarfager,\n      Petty kings all from their kingdoms he hurls,\n    \u201cBloody axe\u201d Erik for tyranny banished\n      After becomes one of England\u2019s proud Earls, &c.\n\n[14] Ordinarily on the high roads these animals are unshod, and yet\nseem to take no damage from the want of this defence. One is reminded\nof the text--\u201cTheir horses\u2019 hoofs shall be counted like flint.\u201d The\nshoe of the mountain horses is usually fastened on with four prodigious\nnails.\n\n[15] The following is the printed tariff of charges at these places. It\nis fixed by the Voged of the district:\n\n                                      skill.  _d._\n    \u201cBed with warm room                 24 = 10 English.\n      \u201d   \u201d   cold room                 16\n    Contor (_i.e._ large) cup of coffee  8\n    Small cup of coffee                  4\n    Large cup of tea                     6\n    Small ditto                          3\n    Warm breakfast                      20\n    Warm dinner                         24\n    Bed for single folk                  2\n    Eggedosis (glass of egg-flip)       10\n    Bottle of red wine                  48\n\nN.B.--Servants nothing, but if a traveller stops in cold room for half\nan hour without taking any refreshment, he must pay 4 skill, or if in\na warm one, 8 skill.\u201d It must be observed that the latter charges are\nnever enforced, and that in some districts a bed is only 12 skill, and\na cup of coffee 5 skill.\n\n[16] Emerson.\n\n[17] From \u201ckige,\u201d to spy, still extant in the Scottish word \u201cto keek.\u201d\n\n[18] To life also sometimes. Thus, King Ormud was overwhelmed, Snorro\ntells us, by a rush of stones and mud caused by rain after snow.\n\n[19] The famous Oldenburg horn was, according to Danish tradition,\ngiven by a mountain sprite to Count Otto of Oldenburg.\n\n[20] The robber chief, Kombaldos, in Chinese Tartary, is related by\nAtkinson to have entertained a similar idea.\n\n[21] In the Isle of Man, so long occupied by Norwegians, we find a\nsimilar legend. At the good woman\u2019s second accouchement, Waldron\nrelates, a noise was heard in the cow-house, which drew thither the\nwhole assistants. They returned, on finding that all was right among\nthe cattle, and lo! the second child had been carried from the bed, and\ndropped in a lane.\n\n[22] Faye, Norske Folkesagn.\n\n[23] I have not succeeded in obtaining any satisfactory information\nabout this plant.\n\n\n\n\n                   NEW AND CHEAPER EDITION, REVISED.\n\n      _Now ready, in One Volume, with Map and New Illustrations,\n                            price 10s. 6d._\n\n                        THE OXONIAN IN NORWAY;\n               Or, Notes of Excursions in that Country.\n\n                    BY THE REV. F. METCALFE, M.A.,\n                      Fellow of Lincoln College.\n\nFROM THE SPECTATOR.--\u201cBy far the best book of general travels that we\nhave met with on this section of Scandinavia. Part of the excellence\narises from the length of time devoted to the subject and pursuits of\nthe author. A persevering angler, he penetrated fiord, lake, and river;\na plucky sportsman, he clomb mountains and threaded marsh and forest in\nsearch of game. These pursuits, too, forced him into connexion with the\npeasantry and farmers, with whom a knowledge of the language enabled\nthe traveller to make himself at home. His Oxford character gave him\na standing in more civilized places--towns and steamers. Mr. Metcalfe\npossesses an eye for the beauty of scenery, and the peculiarities of\nmen. He has also an easy, off-hand, and lively English style. The\nreader will find the _Oxonian in Norway_ a very agreeable companion.\u201d\n\nFROM THE MORNING CHRONICLE.--\u201c_The Oxonian in Norway_ is replete with\ninterest, is written in an animated style, and is one of those books\nwhich cannot fail to be at the same time amusing and instructive. Mr.\nMetcalfe visited places where an Englishman was a rarity; and all who\ntake an interest in customs practised by various peoples, will welcome\nhis book for the accounts of Norwegian manners and customs which\nhave not been touched upon before. Numerous interesting and exciting\nanecdotes, in connexion with the author\u2019s excursions in pursuit of\nfishing and shooting, pervade throughout.\u201d\n\nFROM BLACKWOOD\u2019S MAGAZINE.--\u201cMr. Metcalfe\u2019s book is as full of facts\nand interesting information as it can hold, and is interlarded with\nracy anecdotes. Some of these are highly original and entertaining.\nMore than this, it is a truly valuable work, containing a fund of\ninformation on the statistics, politics, and religion of the countries\nvisited.\u201d\n\nFROM THE DAILY NEWS.--\u201cWe have seldom met with a more readable record\nof sporting reminiscences. The sketches of life and scenery are also\nvigorous and characteristic. We recommend these volumes to all lovers\nof sport. There is a vast amount of information in them, conveyed in a\npleasant form.\u201d\n\nFROM THE MORNING HERALD.--\u201cWe welcome the second edition of this truly\ninteresting work with great pleasure. It will prove a useful handbook\nto those who contemplate a similar excursion, whilst people who remain\nat home will scarcely find a better book from which to obtain useful\nand interesting information concerning the country and its inhabitants.\u201d\n\nFROM THE ATHEN\u00c6UM.--\u201cMr. Metcalfe went about with much activity both by\nland and sea, and a great deal of information is to be found in these\nvolumes. His matter is good, his style free, candid, and agreeable, and\nhis general tone manly and genial.\u201d\n\nFROM THE LITERARY GAZETTE.--\u201cThese volumes are extremely lively and\nentertaining, written in a vein of high animal spirits, and full of\ndetails which bring the country and the people vividly before us.\u201d\n\nFROM THE PRESS.--\u201cWe have to thank Mr. Metcalfe for a couple of very\namusing volumes. He has made several trips to Norway, and has here\ngiven to the public the fruits of his experience. He is a keen angler,\nand at the same time an intelligent observer--gifted with excellent\npowers of description and a quick perception of humour. Hence his\nnotices of Norwegian scenery and of the manners and social state of the\npeople are of a kind to attract all classes of readers.\u201d\n\n      HURST & BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS, SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,\n                     13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n                            [Illustration]\n\n                    Under the Especial Patronage of\n               HER MAJESTY & H.R.H. THE PRINCE CONSORT.\n                 NOW READY, IN ONE VOLUME, ROYAL 8vo.,\n                  WITH THE ARMS BEAUTIFULLY ENGRAVED,\n\n                 _Handsomely Bound, with Gilt Edges_,\n\n                            LODGE\u2019S PEERAGE\n                                  AND\n                              BARONETAGE,\n                               For 1858.\n\n                       ARRANGED AND PRINTED FROM\n             THE PERSONAL COMMUNICATIONS OF THE NOBILITY,\n             AND CORRECTED THROUGHOUT TO THE PRESENT TIME.\n\nLODGE\u2019S PEERAGE AND BARONETAGE is acknowledged to be the most\ncomplete, as well as the most elegant, work of the kind that has ever\nappeared. As an established and authentic authority on all questions\nrespecting the family histories, honours, and connexions of the titled\naristocracy, no work has ever stood so high. It is published under the\nespecial patronage of Her Majesty, and His Royal Highness the Prince\nConsort, and is annually corrected throughout, from the personal\ncommunications of the Nobility. It is the only work of its class in\nwhich, _the type being kept constantly standing_, every correction is\nmade in its proper place to the date of publication, an advantage which\ngives it supremacy over all its competitors. Independently of its full\nand authentic information respecting the existing Peers and Baronets\nof the realm, the most sedulous attention is given in its pages to the\ncollateral branches of the various noble families, and the names of\nmany thousand individuals are introduced, which do not appear in other\nrecords of the titled classes. Nothing can exceed the facility of its\narrangements, or the beauty of its typography and binding, and for its\nauthority, correctness and embellishments, the work is justly entitled\nto the high place it occupies on the tables of Her Majesty and the\nNobility.\n\n[FOR THE CONTENTS OF THIS WORK SEE NEXT PAGE.]\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n                    LODGE\u2019S PEERAGE AND BARONETAGE\n\n                    LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL CONTENTS.\n\nHistorical View of the Peerage.\n\nParliamentary Roll of the House of Lords.\n\nEnglish, Scotch, and Irish Peers, in their orders of Precedence.\n\nAlphabetical List of Peers of Great Britain and the United Kingdom,\nholding superior rank in the Scotch or Irish Peerage.\n\nAlphabetical List of Scotch and Irish Peers, holding superior titles in\nthe Peerage of Great Britain and the United Kingdom.\n\nA Collective List of Peers, in their order of Precedence.\n\nTable of Precedency among Men.\n\nTable of Precedency among Women.\n\nThe Queen and Royal Family.\n\nThe House of Saxe Coburg-Gotha.\n\nPeers of the Blood Royal.\n\nThe Peerage, alphabetically arranged.\n\nFamilies of such Extinct Peers as have left Widows or Issue.\n\nAlphabetical List of the Surnames of all the Peers.\n\nAccount of the Archbishops and Bishops of England, Ireland, and the\nColonies.\n\nThe Baronetage, alphabetically arranged.\n\nAlphabetical List of Surnames assumed by members of Noble Families.\n\nAlphabetical List of the Second Titles of Peers, usually borne by their\nEldest Sons.\n\nAlphabetical Index to the Daughters of Dukes, Marquises, and Earls,\nwho, having married Commoners, retain the title of Lady before their\nown Christian and their Husbands\u2019 Surnames.\n\nAlphabetical Index to the Daughters of Viscounts and Barons, who,\nhaving married Commoners, are styled Honourable Mrs; and, in case of\nthe husband being a Baronet or Knight, Honourable Lady.\n\nMottoes alphabetically arranged and translated.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\u201cA work which corrects all errors of former works. It is the production\nof a herald, we had almost said, by birth, but certainly, by profession\nand studies, Mr. Lodge, the Norroy King of Arms. It is a most useful\npublication.\u201d--_Times._\n\n\u201cLodge\u2019s Peerage must supersede all other works of the kind, for two\nreasons; first, it is on a better plan; and, secondly, it is better\nexecuted. We can safely pronounce it to be the readiest, the most\nuseful, and exactest of modern works on the subject.\u201d--_Spectator._\n\n\u201cThis work derives great value from the high authority of Mr. Lodge.\nThe plan is excellent.\u201d--_Literary Gazette._\n\n\u201cThis work should form a portion of every gentleman\u2019s library. At all\ntimes, the information which it contains, derived from official sources\nexclusively at the command of the author, is of importance to most\nclasses of the community; to the antiquary it must be invaluable, for\nimplicit reliance may be placed on its contents.\u201d--_Globe._\n\n\u201cThe production of Edmund Lodge, Esq., Norroy King of Arms, whose\nsplendid Biography of Illustrious Personages stands an unrivalled\nspecimen of historical literature, and magnificent illustration. Of Mr.\nLodge\u2019s talent for the task he has undertaken, we need only appeal to\nhis former productions. It contains the exact state of the Peerage as\nit now exists, with all the Collateral Branches, their Children, with\nall the Marriages of the different individuals connected with each\nfamily.\u201d--_John Bull._\n\n                    HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,\n                     SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,\n                 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET, LONDON.\n\n         TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS THROUGHOUT THE KINGDOM.","title":"The Oxonian in Thelemarken, volume 1 (of 2): or, Notes of travel in south-western Norway in the summers of 1856 and 1857. With glances at the legendary lore of that district.","tradition":"folklore-oral-tradition","translated_text":null,"word_count":62984}