The color scheme of a Norwegian winter night; a trip up the coast; the “Maiden of Lekö” and Torg’s Hat; the home of Haarek remind us of the early methods of introducing Christianity into Norway; Thangbrand, the ferocious Saxon priest; Olaf Tryggvesson; some interesting sights en route for the Lofotens; the Maelström and Pontoppidan’s sea serpent; the great Lofoten fisheries; the long war between cod and herring; sea life in the Lofotens; approach to Narvik; certain Norwegian characteristics.
The color scheme of a Norwegian winter night; a trip up the coast; the “Maiden of Lekö” and Torg’s Hat; the home of Haarek remind us of the early methods of introducing Christianity into Norway; Thangbrand, the ferocious Saxon priest; Olaf Tryggvesson; some interesting sights en route for the Lofotens; the Maelström and Pontoppidan’s sea serpent; the great Lofoten fisheries; the long war between cod and herring; sea life in the Lofotens; approach to Narvik; certain Norwegian characteristics.
Narvik, Norwegian Lapland, January 12.
N. Lat. 68° 30´: E. Long. 17° 30´ (circa).
My dear Judicia,
I would just as soon wager that you never heard of Narvik before, and that you don’t know any more of its whereabouts than the heading of this letter tells you. I am basing my wager on the assumption that your knowledge of Norway is just about as extensive as mine was before I came here. Well, I cannot blame you much for your ignorance (if ignorant you are), for Narvik is a very young thing. It was born on January 1, 1902, but it is fast getting to be one of the important towns of this country, thanks to the iron hills of Lapland. However, I mustn’t tell you about Narvik before you get there. First I will ask you to go up along the coast with me by steamer and get something of the unconscious spell of northern Norway in winter, when it doesn’t suspect that it is showing off.
I decided to come to Trondhjem by rail instead of bysteamer, so I hunted things up in myNorges Communicationerand found that I could go direct from Christiania to Trondhjem in sixteen hours and there take one of the mail boats of that Dampskibsselskab (I love to pronounce that word) up to Narvik. I have several thousand things to tell you about Christiania and Trondhjem, but these must wait until later, as I am planning to visit these cities again. In this letter I shall simply tell you about northern Norway in the cold, gloomy winter, which is really neither cold nor gloomy. It is wonderful, this Norwegian winter. The whole country does not realize that there is an American tourist north of Trondhjem, and if it did realize, it wouldn’t care, for it is attending to its own business. I get the same pleasure out of seeing this tourist-ridden country out of season that I got from seeing Oberammergau in the winter of 1905, when the natives had forgotten the previous decennial Passion Play and had not begun to think seriously of the next.
This “awful, uncanny darkness” that seems to frighten so many people is one of my chief delights. On the average there have been only three or four hours a day when I could see to read by daylight, but the twenty-hour nights have been anything but depressing to me. It has been clear weather nearly all the time, and there have been many substitutes for Phœbus. Even when there has been no moon and no northern lights, the starlight has usually been enough to bring out in sharp relief the changing outline of mountains and rocky headlands. But much of the time the stars have hadassistance. A brand new moon came to the rescue soon after we left Trondhjem, and as it was not particularly bothered by the blinding sunlight it had a great chance to make the most of itself. It is surprising how much light even a very new moon can give when it is not annoyed or forced out of business by such a light trust as the sun.
Occasionally the aurora borealis has come to lend its very gentle, wavering quota of illumination. It is extremely timid, and a bright moon can frighten it into retirement. But when it does appear it is the most bewitching of phantoms. It is always restless, always timid. It darts a long, white ray up to the zenith and then snatches it back as if in terror lest something should seize it and hold it fast. Sometimes it is as if a dozen streamers of the softest phosphorescent material were blown out by the action of some huge electric fans at the North Pole. The scene is never twice alike, even when seen from the same point, and when seen from the deck of a little steamer, winding its way through a twisting, cliff-bound channel, the variety is endless.
But the finest illumination of all is “under foot.” All the way from Trondhjem to Narvik we sailed through a sea of phosphorus. Imagine, Judicia, the brightest firefly or glowworm that you ever saw, and then picture several hundred of them together in a compact mass, and you will have some idea of one of the little floating islands of phosphorus through which we passed. I saw some of these greenish light globes that seemed as big as a grapefruit. It was as if green arc lights were strewnabout promiscuously through this whole northern sea. I wish Thomas Edison had been along to tell me how many candle power one of these arc lights possessed, but I am sure that one placed in a dark room would give light enough to read by. This is not a fish story, Judicia. Really you cannot imagine what a brilliant, watery-green glow these Norwegian phosphorus lights give.
All this way we have been sailing on an inland sea, so to speak. The whole coast from Trondhjem to Hammerfest, with the exception of a few miles, is fringed with a belt of protecting islands, and seasickness is about as nearly unknown here as it could be anywhere. The boat stopped at many little fishing stations and gave an opportunity, which the tourist steamers in summer do not give, to see real Norwegian life.
About eighty miles from Trondhjem we pass the island of Almenningen, where are situated the quarries from which the blue chlorite was taken to build the famous Trondhjem Cathedral. From there on we begin to get into the famous fishing country, though we do not reach the center of the industry until we get up to the Lofoten Islands. Norway, as every one knows, is famous for its fisheries. Salmon and cod and herring and sardines are caught by the billion and sent all over the world. A few miles beyond Almenningen we see numerous white streaks on the rocks, which the wily fishermen have painted there, so that the salmon are fooled into thinking them their favorite waterfalls and are thus lured into the nets. At Brönö, about a hundred and fifty miles from Trondhjem, a herring fleet wasstationed, waiting for the harvest. This herring fishery is conducted in a most scientific way. Scouts keep an eye out for asildstim, or shoal of herring, and as soon as one is located they send a hurry call by telegram to the nearest fleet, which is immediately towed to the scene of action by tugboats. Telegrams are also sent in all directions for the purpose of securing a supply of barrels and salt.
Much more interesting than this are the cod fisheries, which were increasingly in evidence as we neared the Lofotens; but I will tell you more about that later.
A most curious rock formation marks the arctic circle, for directly on this imaginary line is a petrified man riding a petrified horse. A little to the north is a rock called the “Maiden of Lekö,” and near by are the “Seven Sisters of Alstahoug”—hard-featured, raw-boned girls, each about four thousand feet tall. Between the seven sisters and the “Maiden of Lekö,” Torg’s Hat lies floating on the sea—a stone hat, eight hundred feet high, pierced by a four-hundred foot tunnel. Perhaps you will be interested, as I was, to know how, when, and why these various people and Torg’s headgear got here. It seems that once the devil’s young brother, who lived in this neighborhood, went to see his seven devilish sisters. During the visit he met a cousin, the “Maiden of Lekö,” and fell in love with her. Unfortunately she did not reciprocate. The devil’s brother then smothered his love in rage, mounted his horse, and set out to kill the maiden. He took his bow and shot an arrow at her. But just at the crucial momentTorg, the hero of the story, saw the danger and threw his hat at the arrow, which pierced it through, four hundred feet (I’m afraid Torg had a big head), and harmlessly buried itself in the land near by. At this point the sun rose and turned everything and everybody to stone. Thedramatis personæand the stage properties continue to exist through all these centuries. The devil’s brother sits on his charger and draws his bow. The maiden looks longingly for Torg, the seven she-devils look on, and the arrow is seen sticking into a near-by island after boring its immense tunnel through Torg’s Hat. This last is a truly wonderful phenomenon, and I know of no other way to explain it than by the arrow theory. The tunnel is four hundred feet long, four hundred feet above the sea, and varies in height from sixty-five to two hundred and forty-five feet.
We are now unmistakably in the north. I have not seen the sun since I left the scene of this ancient drama. For a few hours a day all the southern half of the sky has been illuminated by a soft glow, a cross between dawn and twilight. The combination produces color schemes much more beautiful than either could produce alone, and the always changing and always majestic outline of the mountains adds tremendously to their effect.
It has been warm enough to permit me to stand on deck quite comfortably all the time, and that in spite of the fact that it is midwinter and that I am more than a hundred miles north of the arctic circle. Thetemperature has a peculiar tendency to actually rise as you go north along this western coast. Even as far north as Hammerfest the water up to the very heads of the still fjords never freezes, while in the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, about nine hundred miles due south, it is no uncommon thing for the big steamers crossing from Stockholm to be frozen in solid. The mean January temperature of the Lofoten Islands is about the same as that of Berlin, warmer if anything. Hammerfest is in the same latitude as the arctic regions of America, where Franklin perished, and as the uninhabitable regions of northern Siberia, yet the average winter temperature here is rather warmer than in New York. As I write, here in Narvik, January 12, a hundred miles north of the arctic circle and about twenty-nine degrees of latitude north of New York, it is raining, and there is no snow on the ground. Of course I don’t need to tell you that the Gulf Stream is responsible for all this.
Another peculiarity about the coast of Norway is that it is rising bodily out of the ocean. At Trondhjem it is a well-ascertained fact that in the days of Olaf Tryggvesson, who, as I have told you, was king about nine hundred years ago, the coast line there was twenty feet higher than it is now. In Hammerfest there are unmistakable indications of an old coast line six hundred and twenty feet above the present one. In some parts of Scandinavia the land is rising at the rate of five feet in a century. At that rate it will be about ten miles higher a million years from now. Even with my geologicallyuntrained eye I can easily see in many of the fjords distinct lines which must formerly have been on the sea level.
Directly in the center of the stage of this old drama, the “Maiden of Lekö,” is an island called Thjötö or Thjotta, formerly the private property of an earl named Haarek. This Haarek was a heathen earl who lived in the time of the aforementioned Olaf Tryggvesson. Olaf was a Christian king, and consequently he was much distressed that this heathen earl possessed so much power. He accordingly summoned Haarek to his court and told him that he must either be baptized or killed. The former course seemed to Haarek on the whole the more attractive, and in the end he and all his house were baptized.
Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to tell you something about the strenuous methods by which Norway was converted to Christianity. Olaf Tryggvesson was the first great missionary-king, and he attacked with fiery zeal the problem of converting his realm. He was so strenuous that he aroused much anger in his subjects, who finally rebelled. At this, Olaf, who was always equal to any emergency, summoned six of the ringleaders, and holding an ax over the head of each in turn he offered them their choice of being killed or baptized. Most of them chose to be baptized, but one asked the priest where were the old heroes, Harald Fairhair and Halfdan the Swarthy. The priest replied that they were in hell, whereupon the courageous chieftain said very well, he would like to join them, andhe was promptly killed. I suspect that in this case the heathen was nobler than the Christians.
King Olaf had a crony in his court, chaplain Thangbrand, the Saxon priest. Thangbrand was a perfectly ferocious man, whose insincerity as a missionary of the gospel of peace must have been most evident. Some years before he had visited Bishop Siric of Canterbury, who had presented him with a valuable and unique shield, on which was wrought the image of the crucified Christ. As Boyesen says:
“Shortly after this occurrence, Thangbrand made the acquaintance of Olaf Tryggvesson, who admired the shield greatly and desired to buy it. The priest received a munificent compensation, and, finding himself suddenly rich, went and bought a beautiful Irish girl, whose charms had beguiled him. A German warrior who saw the girl claimed her, and when his demand was scornfully refused challenged the priest. A duel was fought, and the German was killed. Some ill feeling was aroused against Thangbrand by this incident, and he fled to his friend, Olaf Tryggvesson, and became his court chaplain.”
Needless to say, King Olaf had no idea what Christianity really meant. To him it was merely a substitution of one polytheism for another. The Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and numberless saints took the place of Odin, Thor, Frey, and the rest of the old gods. The one difference which in time permeated the viking consciousness was that, while Odin and his colleagues rejoiced in bloodshed and cruelty, Christ the “White” advocated “Peaceon earth, good will to men.” Thirty years later King Olaf Haroldsson earned by his life, and still more by his death, the title of Olaf the Saint. He took the Norse imagination captive, and by his truly saintly life and death won his country to real Christianity.
The first Olaf Tryggvesson resorted at times to the most cruel measures in his efforts to convert his subjects. Raud the Strong, who refused to accept the new faith, he tortured most horribly, finally, it is said, forcing an adder down his throat, which cut its way through his side and killed him with its poison. Eyvind Kinriva, another chieftain who refused to be baptized, “had glowing coals put upon his stomach at the king’s command, and expired under horrible tortures.”
In all this, however, Olaf verily thought that he did God’s service. He was so burning with zeal for the new faith, without at the same time having the slightest conception of what the new faith meant, that he subjected everything to this one idea of fierce missionary enthusiasm.
The case was quite otherwise with the vicious priest, Thangbrand. It is certain that he recognized himself for a charlatan who was interested in the new religion only for what he could get out of it. He had a parish at one time at Moster in Norway, but, as he found it inconvenient to live and support his Irish beauty on his slender income, he “formed the habit of making forays into the neighboring shires, replenishing his stores at the expense of the heathen.” King Olaf was incensed at this, and as a penance he made the Saxon priest go on a missionaryjourney to Iceland. Here Thangbrand killed nearly as many men as he converted, and he was finally outlawed and compelled to leave the island. But it is strangely enough a fact that about a year after his enforced flight Iceland did legally adopt the new faith at the Althing of June in the year 1000.
I will tell you more about Olaf the Saint and some of the other Olafs and Haakons and Haralds when I come back to Trondhjem. If I run on any more now about history I shall never get you to Narvik. Not far from Thjotta is the great “Svartisen” glacier, which is, being interpreted, “Swarthy Ice,” or “Black Ice.” This is the only glacier in Europe which sends branches down to the edge of the sea.
Fifty miles or so north of the arctic circle there is a town called Bodö, which the tourist steamers utterly ignore, but our good mailskibof the Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab does not scorn it, and afforded us a most interesting stop of two or three hours. Like all these arctic towns, Bodö is built entirely of wood, and offers a good opportunity for fires, which opportunity is seldom neglected for a very long time. There is a church parsonage near the town, which once sheltered no less a celebrity than Louis Philippe, when he was traveling incognito as “Herr Müller.” There is one old room in this house which is still called Louis Philippe’s chamber.
From a hill above Bodö I got my first glimpse of the Lofotens, and I could hardly wait to get among these islands. Directly east of Bodö is a fjord with the unpronouncable name of Skjerstadfjord, which opens outto the main sea through three very narrow openings. The fjord is so large and the openings are so small that a tremendous torrent is formed four times daily by the two incoming and the two outgoing tides. The tide only rises and falls six or at most eight feet, but you can see that to cover a fjord thirty miles long and six or eight miles wide with six feet of water, and to accomplish the inundation in a few hours through a tiny opening, requires a violent torrent. At the Godöström or Saltström, the narrowest of the openings, the tide is so violent that only for an hour at ebb and full tide do the steamers dare to go through.
As we approached the Lofotens, we passed the famous Maelström on the left. This Maelström is a feeble little current which passes around the edge of the southernmost island of the group. Compared with the Saltström it is a calm mill pond, yet some poet had the nerve to fool all the world into thinking that some horrible, yawning cavity in the sea existed somewhere along the Norwegian coast. I have learned that two poets and a bishop are largely responsible for this idea. The poets are Campbell and Poe, and the bishop bore the name of Pontoppidan. Campbell writes:
“Round the isle where loud LofodenWhirls to death the roaring whale,” etc.
“Round the isle where loud LofodenWhirls to death the roaring whale,” etc.
“Round the isle where loud LofodenWhirls to death the roaring whale,” etc.
“Round the isle where loud Lofoden
Whirls to death the roaring whale,” etc.
Campbellcouldnot have seen the Maelström, or he would not have written so ridiculously about it. I doubt, too, if he was ever frightened by the “roar” of a whale. A minnow or a tadpole could swim through the Maelström without realizing that he was in it, and as for awhale being “whirled to death”—well, perhaps a poet has a right to say such things. The good Bishop Pontoppidan, in the same work in which he dilates upon the horrors of the Maelström, tells of a sea serpent orkraken: “Its back or upper part,” he says, “which seems to be in appearance about an English mile and a half in circumference (some say more, but I choose the least for greater certainty) looks at first like a number of small islands surrounded with something that floats and fluctuates like seaweed.”
You may imagine, Judicia, how I was comforted by a certain guide book’s reassurance that “there is no doubt that this dreaded monster is a purely optical illusion.” So there isn’t any sea serpent with a back an English mile and a half in circumference, and there isn’t any yawning chasm.
Regardless of whirlpools and sea serpents, the approach to the Lofotens gave one of the most interesting views I have seen anywhere. It was high noon when we left Bodö, and, as it did not get dark until nearly three o’clock, we had a good view. Dear old Baedeker, for whom I am coming to feel a genuine affection, states that these islands form a chain which has “not inaptly been likened to a backbone, tapering away to the smaller vertebræ of the tail at the south end.” Whoever said that originally had a good command over similes, for it does have very much that form. The jagged outline of the mountains as we sailed over the “darkling” expanse of water was something for poets to write about.
One very prosy author describes the scene as “picturesque.”What a fine, expressive, original word it is, and incidentally how faithful and obliging! It will attach itself to a Neapolitan beggar, or a Damascus rag fair or a Nile dahabiyeh, or anything else in the wide world, and I do think the Lofotens might have a word of their own. Without any directly applied adjective, Campbell makes you see the Lofotens and feel their spell by these two lines:
“Round the shores where runic OdinHowls his war-song to the gale.”
“Round the shores where runic OdinHowls his war-song to the gale.”
“Round the shores where runic OdinHowls his war-song to the gale.”
“Round the shores where runic Odin
Howls his war-song to the gale.”
After these lines, can’t you see the wind swirling around the sheer, rocky mountains?
It began to get dark as we approached the islands, and we had to feel our way through a big fishing fleet, which was just beginning operations. This fishing fleet was only a small section of the entire squadron. An average annual catch mounts up to nearly thirty million cod, and the record is thirty-seven million. Thirty million cod livers are taken out and boiled into cod-liver oil. Thirty million cod heads are burned and pulverized and made into fertilizer, and thirty million cod carcasses are hung up to dry, eventually to be sent all over the world.
This very useful fish formerly waged a mortal warfare with the herring in the region of Stavanger, very much farther south. The herring were the aborigines in that region, but in 1784 a battle resulted in a complete cod victory. For twenty-four years the cod held the fort. In 1808 a herring Napoleon arose and led his forces to victory. The cod were completely routed, and forsixty-one years the herring rejoiced in their native stamping ground, and the fishermen did not catch a single cod. In 1869 the cod again “came back” and have held their place ever since. However, there is no knowing when another Napoleon herring may arise. Perhaps fishes as well as men need a Hague Tribunal, and a Carnegie Foundation, and a Nobel Peace Prize.
These fishermen live a precarious and a dangerous life. Violent storms often spring up suddenly and toss their little smacks in all directions. In 1848, on February 11, five hundred fishermen were drowned in such a storm.
On one of the southern islands is a natural trap called “Whale Creek,” into which whales occasionally swim at high tide, and, being unable to turn around, find themselves stranded when the tide goes out. There is sea “life” all around these Lofoten Islands. There are eider ducks by the million, whose down is so valuable. These little ducks are said to have the power of diving one hundred and twenty feet for the crabs which form their daily bread. Lobsters and seals also bring a handsome revenue into the coffers of the natives. Of course sea gulls and porpoises are everywhere. Also there is a whole tribe of birds called “skua,” who live entirely by brigandage and highway robbery. Through laziness or inability, they will not or cannot earn their own “keep,” and they lie in wait and rob the sea gulls of their prey. If a Norwegian sea gull wishes to have any peace he must seek some secluded spot where he may dive and seize his prey unmolested by these skua thieves.
The most important stopping place in the LofotenIslands is the town of Svolvaer. The same author who thinks that the Lofotens in general are “picturesque” finds Svolvaer “most picturesque.” Well, whatever adjective you do use to characterize the islands in general, you must, in all fairness, apply in the superlative degree to Svolvaer. The great, raw cliffs, two thousand feet high, come so close to the water’s edge and rise so sheer that the little town gives the appearance of one flattening himself against the rock and clinging by his finger nails and eyebrows. The ships in the harbor look like discarded peanut shells beside these towering walls of rock.
The shape of these boats, particularly of the small rowboats, gives away their pedigree instantly. They are unmistakably descendants of the vikings. They have high prows and high sterns, and these are adorned with various viking ornamentations.
At Svolvaer several Sea-Lapps came to the wharf to meet our steamer. They are rather poor specimens of Laplanders. They have given up their old, wandering reindeer life and are making a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to be Norwegian fishermen. Being between hay and grass, or rather between reindeer and cod, they are a very scraggly, unkempt lot.
At Lödingen, about a hundred and forty miles from Svolvaer by the steamer’s winding course, I had to change to a little boat, which took me on an eight-hour trip through the long Ofotenfjord to Narvik. This Ofotenfjord is one of the very finest in Norway, and yet it is seldom visited by Americans, as the summer touriststeamers all sail by. We got to Lödingen early in the morning, about seven o’clock, hours before dawn, and were soon chugging over the quiet Ofoten in a little boat of almost steam-launch diminutiveness. About half-past nine there began to be very faint signs that there might be a sun somewhere, and by eleven o’clock it had gotten near enough to the horizon to flood half the sky with a soft glow of changing and indescribable color. I saw many familiar mountains on this trip. Two Matterhorns, a Dent du Midi, a Gramont, and a Fujiyama were unmistakable. Fujiyama was absolutely perfect except that a little part of the top of the cone had been clipped off as though with a giant egg-decapitator. Dent du Midi was perfect, too, only Chillon being absent.
At one of the ports of call on the way to Narvik, a port which apparently consisted of three houses, a small viking boat came out and contributed two persons to our passenger list. After our boat had started again and was well on its way, a little boy appeared from somewhere and suddenly remembered that he had meant to get off at that station. Obligingly, and as a matter of course, the captain signaled to his engineer, the engines were reversed, and the boat chugged back a long way; someone called to the viking rowboat, which came out and got the belated passenger. There is no hurry about anything in this part of Norway, no confusion and no yelling. The people seem to make a point of not talking at all unless they have something that must be said. At several of the stops passengers were transferred back and forth without the assistance of a single spoken wordby anybody. The Norwegians, at least in the quieter parts of the country, are as simple and genuine and honest as any people in the world. Truly I believe that it is a certain stolid honesty that makes them often so silent. I think they feel that it would not be quite genuine to say something that did not seem to be worth saying.
About four o’clock in the afternoon, when it had long been night, we came in sight of Narvik. I was astonished to see what a busy, hustling city it was. All along the fjord, in fact all the way from Trondhjem, I had lived in an atmosphere of slow, almost stolid, quiet. No one had been in a hurry. But here was a busy, noisy little city. Hundreds of bright electric lights twinkled in the distance, and from miles away I could hear the clanking of chains, the chugging of machinery, the tooting and puffing of trains, and a thousand other noises that go to the making of a commercial town’s wharves. A Baedeker of fifteen years back does not mention Narvik, for the very good reason that it did not exist; yet now it is the busiest town north of the arctic circle anywhere in the world. The iron mines of Kiruna in Swedish Lapland and the new railway from there to Narvik have made this seaport possible. It is said that now two and a quarter million tons of iron ore are exported annually from Narvik to all parts of the world, a large share going to Emden in Germany. Some of it, strangely enough, finds its way to Philadelphia, and not so very long ago I read in the paper of a collision of one of these Narvik iron-ore ships with anAmerican ship in Delaware Bay. At the time I read the item I had not been to Norway, and I remember wondering where in the world Narvik was, and why an iron-ore ship from there should be in Delaware Bay. It is almost unbelievable that little Norway, with less than three million inhabitants, all told, has the fourth largest commercial fleet in the world, following Great Britain and the United States and Germany; yet such is the case. Narvik now contributes very considerably to this commercial fleet. There are frequently five or six big ships lying in the harbor, and others are always up at the wharves being loaded with ore.
As our little boat drew up at the wharf, a number of hotel porters appeared on the scene, and I tried to judge of them and choose by the appearance of the porters. Full of dignity, and absorbed in my occupation of studying the hotels through their representatives, I stepped boldly off the gangplank. Oh, Judicia! Alas for my dignity. My feet shot out from under me, and I slid into that nest of porters as a man slides for second base. My suit case and rug case bounded merrily away, and my derby rolled off, and just to the edge of the wharf, where it balanced for a long time and finally fell over, between the wharf and the steamer. Those hotel porters had never seen anything so humorous. As soon as they found I was not hurt, they separated into little groups and went off to laugh. One of them fished for my derby and collected my suit case and rug case, for which offices I was so grateful that I finally went to his hotel, which bears the name of Fönix. AllNarvik was covered with glare ice, and it required the greatest skill to navigate the streets at all. It was raining gently, which made the ice a trifle more treacherous.
Fönix is Norwegian for “Phœnix,” and the hotel is very appropriately named, because it has risen out of the ashes of a former hotel which was burned a few years ago. My beloved British author, the inventor of the word “picturesque,” stopped at this same hotel when he was in Narvik. His chief items about the town are that there was a pianola in the parlor of the hotel and that the man in the next room to his made a good deal of noise. However, Narvik need not feel badly over such neglect, for the same author’s principal headline about Christiania is that the people “wear goloshes a good deal,” which he thinks rather a clever idea. His book is all right in its way, and gives an interesting account of a ski trip he took, but I cannot see how he could travel through Norway and apparently find pianolas and goloshes the most interesting attractions. He finds the Norwegian fishermen a “white-faced, ill-fed, unintelligent looking lot,” for which condition he believes consumption is largely responsible. I cannot imagine where he got this idea. I certainly haven’t noticed the ravages of consumption.
This seems to be lengthening into a very long letter, but I must tell you something about Narvik. It is a ramshackly, ugly town, architecturally speaking. There are no fine buildings, and everything gives the appearance of having been hastily tumbled together, any oldway. Of course it is a mushroom town which sprang up simply to accommodate the endless stream of iron ore coming from Lapland, so I don’t have any trouble in forgiving its ugliness. It reminds me very much of the Alaskan towns that Rex Beach describes so vividly, though there are no evidences of wickedness here. It all looks temporary, and I should not be surprised if fifty years from now there should be a fine-looking city in place of this crude pioneer town.
Everybody, everywhere, is as honest as the hills, and it is wonderfully refreshing to find such a condition after traveling in Italy. I went into a shop to buy a needle and thread (for I am going to attempt to sew on a button) and the shop girl said she only had a full sewing kit, which would cost akroner(twenty-seven cents), and as that was more than I should want I could probably get a single needle and thread at the next shop. I went there and succeeded in getting one needle for threeöreand a spool of thread for ten—total expense, thirteenöre(three cents). The Norwegians as a class—hotel keepers, shopkeepers, cab drivers, and everyone else—would rather starve than keep a quarter of anörethat didn’t belong to them. Imagine a Neapolitan shopkeeper who considered it wrong to cheat a customer. He would be considered mentally unbalanced, almost a dangerous person, if he really indulged in conscientious scruples in such matters. These genuine, trusty Norwegians are a positive comfort to one who has lately been robbed in Naples.
Our waitress at the Fönix has one custom in commonwith all other waitresses in Norway. As she brings on each course, she says what sounds like “shuket.” With each course her voice sinks lower and lower, until at the dessert she barely whispers it. At first when I heard it I though she was trying to be kittenish. But as I didn’t “rise,” and as she kept on saying it, I changed my mind. I have only just learned that she was saying a very much abbreviatedvaer saa god, which means “be so good,” and is somewhat equivalent to “if you please,” though much more universal. I have heard it a thousand times since I came to Norway, from young and old, high and low. It is never obsequious, the smirking prerequisite of an expected tip. It is natural politeness, and second nature to the Norwegians. It would be ill-mannered to omitvaer saa godwhen serving anyone in any way.
I have recently heard from Phillips that he is reveling in the snow of Swedish Lapland. He is going to Luleå at the head of the Baltic to-morrow, and has invited me to join him there. So I am going to leave here to-morrow morning for Luleå, and go from there by rail to Trondhjem.
It may be some time before I shall write again, in view of which I hope you have been sensible enough to read this very long letter in installments.
Auf wiedersehen, then, until Trondhjem.
As ever,
Aylmer.
Some interesting etymology; from Trondhjem to Hell and return; Haralds, Haakons, and Olafs; Hasting and his sack of “Rome”; Harald Fairhair and his matrimonial ventures; Rolf the Walker; kissing by proxy; the descendants of Harald Fairhair; a Christian saint on the throne of Norway; Harold Gilchrist, a miracle of presumption; the blood-curdling bravery of the Jomsvikings; the troubled times before the accession of Olaf the Saint.
Some interesting etymology; from Trondhjem to Hell and return; Haralds, Haakons, and Olafs; Hasting and his sack of “Rome”; Harald Fairhair and his matrimonial ventures; Rolf the Walker; kissing by proxy; the descendants of Harald Fairhair; a Christian saint on the throne of Norway; Harold Gilchrist, a miracle of presumption; the blood-curdling bravery of the Jomsvikings; the troubled times before the accession of Olaf the Saint.
Trondhjem, February 15.
My dear Judicia,
I think I left you about a month ago in the seaport of Narvik. I want to give you by way of preamble some etymological information of interest which I have learned in connection with that name. The endingvik, which appears on the average in about every third name in Norway, means “creek.” It is the same root as thevikin the word “viking,” and corresponds to the English “wich” or “wick.” A viking was nothing more nor less than a “creekling.” A modern resident of Sandwich or Harwich or even of Battle Creek is no less a viking, etymologically, than the old Norsemen.
I left Narvik January 13, spent that night in Gellivare, and joined Phillips next day at Luleå. The ride from Narvik to Riksgränsen, the first Swedish town, is one of the most beautiful I have ever taken. Right along the edge of a long arm of the Ofotenfjord the trainwound its way, always climbing and always entering tunnels, only to emerge a little higher above the fjord. It was just beginning to dawn, with a fresh, clean light.
We had a great time in Luleå, and I shall have to admit that Sweden has some attractions after all. I came here to Trondhjem by way of Bräcke and Ostersund and Storlien, a route you can trace by the map I inclose, if you care to. Storlien is the border town between the two countries, and near it a wide path cut through the forest marks the boundary.
From here on we dropped right down to the edge of the fjord, which we reached at the town with the startling name of Hell. It is a delightful, smiling little town, and its only misfortune lies in its name. It offers an endless and irresistible opportunity for questionable puns. One guide book says: “Ten miles from Trondhjem on the railway to Sweden there is a station called Hell. The number of return tickets for this quiet rural spot which are bought by English tourists but never used constitutes quite a source of revenue.”
You see, even the prosy guide book cannot resist such an opportunity for a joke. Probably at least two thirds of the English-speaking tourists who visit this town imagine that they are original when they remark that the town is paved with good intentions, and that they are going to write aDivine Comedylike Dante, etc., etc.
Hell is beautifully situated and offers pleasant excursions in all directions.
Here in Trondhjem I am in the heart and soul of Norway. The town was founded under the original nameof Nidaros by our old friend Olaf Tryggvesson. Century after century the Haakons and the Olafs and Haralds and Eriks and all the other kings and warriors fought for Norway here. Many of the streets are named for the old heroes. The cathedral, which dominates the whole town, is a perpetual memorial to Olaf the Saint. I could not find a more appropriate spot from which to write you something about the history of Norway. There is so much that is interesting that I feel hopeless about trying to really make you acquainted with it. Hjalmar Boyesen has written five hundred and twenty-eight pages of vividly, dramatically interesting history on the subject, yet he does not pretend to write exhaustively. All I shall do is to skim over a thousand years or so and here and there pick out an incident or a character that particularly interested me.
The old Norsemen, the vikings, were the most terrible of roving marauders, terrible at least to the rest of the world. Tacitus says: “They deem it a disgrace to acquire by sweat what they might obtain by blood.” The chieftains were venerated in almost direct proportion to the number of marauding expeditions they had made and the number of towns they had plundered. For the sake of glory they made countless sallies in all directions, over the Baltic, to Finland and Germany, across to England and Ireland, to France, to Spain, and even to Italy. A marauder named Hasting is said to have gone as far as Italy and to have sought to conquer the Eternal City of Rome.
Unfortunately for this desire, Hasting was not goodat geography. He arrived with his fleet at the city of Luna, near Carrara, and, thinking it was Rome, he concocted a wily scheme. He sent word to the bishop there that he was dying and wished to be baptized into the Christian faith before he passed away. The simple priest was in ecstasy at the thought of the heavenly glory he would win by converting such a notorious robber. He made great preparations for the reception of the Norseman. On the day when the ceremony of baptism was to be held, messengers came to the bishop saying that Hasting had suddenly died. A pompous funeral was held, and the bishop prepared to say masses for the welfare of the viking’s soul. As all were assembled for this purpose, Hasting suddenly burst from his coffin, called to his men, and fell savagely upon the bishop and the priests. It is reported that “blood flowed in torrents through the sacred aisles.” The whole city was captured amid a scene of wholesale slaughter. Some time after Hasting discovered that it was not Rome he had captured after all.
For many years various chieftains with picturesque names kept up this marauding life, interspersing their piratical raids with occasional attacks upon each other.
Finally an Yngling chief named Harald arose from obscurity and conceived the brilliant idea of conquering all Norway and uniting it into a single nation. The idea was presented to him very forcibly by a maiden named Princess Gyda, to whom he sent messengers asking her to become his wife. Like Sigrid the Haughty, Gyda was furious. She vowed that she would teach littlekings the risks of proposing to her. She scorned Harald’s overtures, sending word that when he was king over all Norway she would consider his offer. The idea appealed to Harald, and he wondered why he had not thought of it before. Accordingly he vowed that he would not cut his hair until he had conquered all Norway. He eventually succeeded in his undertaking, but the process was long, and his hair, being of decidedly blond “persuasion,” waved like a bright banner wherever he went. He had always been called Harald Frowsly-Headed, but now he came to be called Harald Fairhair, and he founded a race of kings that ruled Norway for centuries. Also he married the proud Gyda, and lived happily ever after. Gyda seems to have been not even annoyed by the fact that during the interval in which he had been conquering Norway and letting his hair grow he had married a maiden named Aasa and had three sons.
Harald was a jealous tyrant, and made life in Norway so uncomfortable that many of the earls and nobles fled and founded settlements in the Hebrides and the Orkneys, and even in Iceland. Rolf the Walker (so called because he was so huge that no horse could carry him) embarked for France and made terrible ravages there. King Charles the Simple, however, succeeded in making a peace with him whereby Rolf was to be baptized and receive large fiefs. As token of his fealty to Charles the Simple he was to kiss the king’s foot. The haughty Rolf snorted at such an idea and sent one of his servants to perform the osculation. The proxy stalked stiffly toKing Charles, seized his foot, and kissed it so violently that the simple Charles tumbled from his horse. Charles was frightened out of what wits he had, and instead of punishing such insolence gave Rolf the hand of his daughter in marriage, and also gave him half of his kingdom. This territory came to be called Normandy, and about two centuries later Rolf’s descendant, William the Conqueror, achieved fame.
Harald had countless matrimonial ventures. Besides Aasa and Gyda, he married half a dozen other wives. One of them, Snefrid by name, was a sorceress. For several years the king forgot everything but his passion for her, forgot even his other wives. She bore him five sons and then died, and the king was almost insane with grief until he discovered that she had been a sorceress. He was then thoroughly angry, and to save his face he married right and left in all directions. Among others he wooed Ragnhild, daughter of King Erik of Jutland. Ragnhild was a girl of some spirit. She said she would not put up with one thirtieth part of the king’s affection, and he could give her the whole or none. He accordingly deserted his other wives and devoted himself to Ragnhild. She bore him a son, who later became King Erik Blood-Axe.
When Harald was seventy years old he married his servant-girl, Thora, who was so tall that she was known as the “Pole.” She bore him a son, who became King Haakon the Good.
I should not dwell so much on Harald’s matrimonial adventures except they that form indirectly an importantlink in the long chain of Norwegian history. He had a small army of children, and he was foolish enough to stipulate at his death that each child, whether legitimate or illegitimate, should inherit a province, but that all should owe allegiance to his favorite son, Erik Blood-Axe.
For centuries there was a ceaseless squabbling among the numerous descendants. Every one who had any ambition asserted that he was a son or a descendant of Harald, and claimed the throne. As it was of course impossible to disprove such a claim, might became the only right. Two centuries later a vicious Irishman, named Harold Gilchrist, landed in Norway and claimed to be a son of King Magnus Barefoot and consequently a descendant of Harald Fairhair. He had no proof whatever of his claim, but no one could disprove it, and, as Gilchrist was a cruel and unscrupulous man, he actually succeeded in gaining the throne. He learned a smattering of the Norwegian language and ruled cruelly, leaving a monstrous name behind him, and a long line of vicious children who helped to complicate matters.
After all this it is a pleasure to come to a king who thoroughly earned the name of Haakon the Good. This king was the image of his father in face and figure, but exactly opposite to him in character. It is difficult to guess how he came by his wonderful qualities of soul and mind. His father was a faithless, polygamous roué, and his mother’s only claim to distinction lay in the fact that she was a servant-girl of gigantic stature. Haakon was almost a saint. He seems to have possessed everygood quality in the category. He was gentle and lovable and mild, yet he was a model of manly strength and courage. He was beautiful to look at, and the bitterest enemy could not be in his presence for even a few minutes without falling under the spell of his powerful personality. With heart and soul and the tenderest conscience, he sought only for the good of his people. It was a new thing for a king to use his office for any purpose other than the gratification of selfish ambition. No wonder the people almost worshiped him.
He had spent his boyhood in England and had been baptized, and now the one desire of his heart was to bring his country to accept the Christian faith. He was so mild, and he loved mankind so devotedly, that he could not bring himself to use the militant methods of conversion which his successor, Olaf Tryggvesson, employed. He was too gentle to be a successful propagandist in a country fanatically devoted to Odin, but he did win a great many true converts in his quiet way. At one time he was forced much against his will to attend a popular feast in honor of Odin, but he quieted his conscience by making the sign of the cross over Odin’s horn. In battle he was almost invincible. At one time the sons of Gunhild attacked him with a force six times his own in strength, but so great was the zeal which Haakon’s followers displayed that his little handful of men won a great victory.
His enemies on this occasion were the sons of Erik Blood-Axe’s queen, Gunhild. She was as near a devil as Haakon a saint, and never has a queen been moreheartily or more deservedly hated. Her sons inherited her devilish disposition with interest. This wicked queen brought troublous times to Norway after the death of Haakon the Good. One man, Tryggve, a grandson of Harald Fairhair and consequently a rival claimant to the throne, Gunhild particularly hated. She tricked him into her power and murdered him, but Tryggve’s widow fled to a tiny islet in the Randsfjord and there gave birth to Olaf Tryggvesson, later to be one of the greatest of Norway’s kings, the violent but successful propagandist of Christianity.
The name of little Olaf’s mother was Aastrid, and with fine courage she roamed for years with her little baby, a starving outcast, in continual terror of Gunhild. Her foster-father, Thorolf Lousy-Beard, joined her and her child, and for long they lived a hunted, precarious life. Fortunately for Norway, all Gunhild’s efforts proved in vain. Once one of her spies almost had the child, when a half-witted peasant appeared on the scene, rushed at the spy with a pitchfork, and saved Olaf’s life.
Earl Haakon was another of Harald Fairhair’s descendants who somehow escaped Gunhild’s murderous tentacles. He joined King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark, and as a reward for murdering Gold-Harald, an aspirant to the Danish throne, Bluetooth generously offered to accompany him on an expedition against Gunhild. On their arrival in Norway they took everything without striking a blow. “So great was the hatred of Gunhild and her sons,” says Boyesen, “that not a man drew his sword in their defense.” Gunhild fled in terrorto the Orkneys, but, according to Saga report, was later enticed to Denmark by Harald Bluetooth, under promise of marriage, and drowned, at his command, in a swamp.
Earl Haakon now became King Haakon of Norway. He was a powerful and great king, and a sincere heathen. Harald Bluetooth was an insincere Christian. With ulterior and decidedly questionable motives he sent for Haakon to come and be baptized. For some reason Haakon appeared to obey, visited Bluetooth, and with a shipload of priests set sail from Denmark; but whether because of twinges of conscience or for less worthy reasons, he repented, hustled the priests ashore, and made an enormous sacrifice to Odin. Two ravens, messengers of Odin, immediately alighted on his ship and croaked loud approval, whereat Haakon was highly encouraged. The Christian Bluetooth was enraged. He sought the alliance of a powerful company of pirates called Jomsvikings.
These, under the influence of the flowing bowl, made most extravagant vows of vengeance (on Bluetooth’s account) against King Haakon. On the morning after things seemed different to them, but nevertheless, for their vows’ sake, they set out for Norway. Earl Erik, an illegitimate son of Haakon, born, it is said, when the king was fifteen years old, heard news of the Jomsvikings, and he and his father prepared to give them a warm reception. When the two fleets met, there ensued one of the wildest and most ferocious battles in all history. The phenomenal courage of these old heroes is almost unbelievable. One of the Jomsvikings, by name Haavardthe Hewer, had both his legs cut off at the knees, but he fought on furiously, standing on the stumps of his knees. Bue the Big received a blow from one of Erik’s men which completely struck off his nose. Bue never stopped to mourn such a trifle as the loss of a nose. He jokingly remarked to one of his companions: “Now I fear the Danish maidens will no more kiss me.”
At length Haakon and Erik were victorious. Vagn Aakeson, the leader of the Jomsvikings, was bravely and hopelessly fighting on. “When all but thirty of his men were dead, he at last surrendered. The captives were brought ashore and ordered to sit down in a row upon a log. Their feet were tied together with a rope, while their hands remained free. One of Erik’s men, Thorkell Leira, whom Vagn at that memorable feast had promised to kill, was granted the privilege of reciprocating the intended favor toward Vagn. With his ax uplifted, he rushed at the captives, and, beginning at one end of the log, struck off one head after another. He meant to keep Vagn until the last, in order to increase his agony. But Vagn sat chatting merrily with his men; and there was much joking and laughter.
“‘We have often disputed,’ said one, ‘as to whether a man knows of anything when his head is cut off. That we can now test, for if I am conscious after having lost my head, I will stick my knife into the earth.’
“When his turn came, all sat watching with interest. But his knife fell from his nerveless grasp, and there was no trace of consciousness. One of the vikings on the log seemed in particularly excellent spirits. He laughedand sang as he saw the bloody heads of his comrades rolling about his feet.”
The next cracked a clever pun at the executioner’s expense, and Erik, who was superintending the job, was so pleased at his audacity that he pardoned him. The next of the doomed men had long flaxen hair, and humorously requested the executioner not to soil his hair with the blood. Accordingly an assistant was delegated to hold out of harm’s way the glorious flaxen locks. Just as the ax was descending, the Jomsviking jerked his head in such a way that the hands of the assistant were struck off at the wrists. He laughed derisively, and Erik, who was particularly partial to such cleverness, pardoned him.
At this point Gissur the White was suddenly shot dead by an arrow coming from nowhere in particular. It seemed that Haavard the Hewer, whom everybody had forgotten, was still alive and still standing on the bloody stumps of his knees. With his last dying gasp of strength he had shot this arrow.
During the battle King Haakon sacrificed one of his sons, and this horrible action did much to hasten the king’s overthrow. His name became a nightmare to his subjects. It was a name to scare bad boys with. In the most abominable manner he insulted several of his most powerful nobles, and finally they rose in revolt. In terror Haakon fled with a single thrall, named Kark, to Rimul, the home of his mistress Thora. She hid the two in a pigsty, and there they spent a horrible night. A searching party, under the leadership of Olaf Tryggvesson,who had lately returned to Norway from Russia, where he had spent his youth, walked all about, within hearing of the miserable king in his hiding place. Olaf mounted a stone close to the sty and said in a loud tone, which the two miserable men could hear, that he offered a great reward to whoever should find Haakon. This of course added to Haakon’s terrors the fear of treachery on the part of his thrall.
All night king and thrall sat in their noisome den, eyeing each other in awful, mutual distrust. Toward morning the king was overpowered by sleep. “But the terrors of his vigil pursued him sleeping. His soul seemed to be tossed on a sea of anguish. He screamed in wild distress, rolled about, rose upon his knees and elbows, and his face was horrible to behold.” Kark then stabbed his master, cut off his head, and took it to Olaf, claiming his reward. Olaf, on the dead king’s account, took vengeance on the traitor by killing him.
Longfellow has immortalized this event, and I lately came across these lines of his, commemorating Olaf’s celebration: