Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.Bergen, Northeast from Laksevaag.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Bergen, Northeast from Laksevaag.
The German merchants of the league grew more insolent as they grew more powerful, and they used to swagger around the quays, beating and bullying the native Norwegians who chanced to be in their way. It is with peculiar delight that I read of a trick played on them by the notorious pirate, the Norwegian Baron Alf Erlingsson, called “Little Sir Alf.†He was as bold in spirit as he was diminutive in stature, and he became aconstant terror to the Hanseatic merchants, because of the depredations he committed upon them. They tried by every means in their power to get him into their hands, but he always outwitted them. As Boyesen says: “It was of no use that the league sent out ships of war to capture him; he outmaneuvered them, deceived them, sent them on a wild-goose chase, and ended by capturing his would-be captors.â€
As a final, crowning insult, he one day appeared incognito in an open boat and bargained with them about the price set upon his head. It is a sad fact that later the little pirate’s luck deserted him. He was captured and brought before Queen Agnes of Denmark. On his arrival before this lady, she twitted him mercilessly about his size. He blazed out in return that she would never live to see the day when she could bear such a son, at which the queen furiously ordered him to be put to death by way of the rack and wheel.
There is an old cathedral here, which the Bergeners proudly point out as the home of the Reformation when it first reached Norway. Perhaps you might not think this anything to be very proud of, in view of what I told you in one of my other letters about the introduction of the Reformation from Denmark. But Bergen does have a right to be proud, for it was here that Bishop Gjeble Pedersson lived and finally succeeded in educating a good, native Norwegian clergy, which gradually supplanted the abominable class Denmark sent.
Denmark’s treatment of Norway in matters of religionwas only a sample of her treatment of Norway in all matters. King Christian I wished to arrange a marriage between James III of Scotland and his daughter Margaret, but, as he did not happen to have sufficient money in his exchequer to supply the customary dowry, he promptly pawned the Orkneys for fifty thousandgulden, and the Shetland Isles for an additional sum. Thus poor, downtrodden Norway lost her island possessions, which she had colonized and held for ages. It was a cruel blow, and the land mourned as for the loss of her own children.
To the northwest of Bergen is an interesting tower called Sverresborg, named for Sverre Sigurdsson, the most romantic figure in all Norwegian history, and certainly the country’s greatest king, from the point of view of pure genius. For thirty years, at the end of the twelfth century, the history of Norway is the history of Sverre. Bergen is more closely associated with him than any other town in Norway, for it was here that the “Birchlegs†and the “Baglers,†with whom he was so closely identified, fought for a whole summer.
Sverre was born in the Faroe Isles at a time when Norway was absorbed, as usual, in a red-hot dispute over the succession to the throne. Sverre’s father had been King Sigurd Mouth, and his mother, whose name was Gunhild, had been cook in the king’s service, if the saga is true. At any rate, she was a very sharp-witted woman, and kept his royal parentage secret from every one, even from the boy himself. Magnus Erligsson occupied the throne of Norway and made every effortto exterminate the race of Sigurd Mouth. He heard that there was an illegitimate son of old Sigurd in the Faroes, and he sent a spy named Unas to kill the child. Gunhild cleverly averted this danger by inducing Unas to marry her and become the child’s stepfather. She was in the service of Bishop Matthias as a milkmaid, and she brought up her son with the idea that he should become a priest.
It so happened that when Sverre was a young man there was in Norway a pretender named Eystein Little-Girl. He certainly did not earn his nickname through his shyness in pushing his claims. He organized a small rebel band of brave outlaws and robbers, who succeeded in having him proclaimed king. Soon after, however, Eystein Little-Girl was killed, and his miserable band of supporters, who had come to be called “Birchlegs,†because of their dilapidated appearance and their birch-bark shoes, seemed destined to pass out of existence. They sought a new leader, and at this point Sverre appeared on the scene. They invited him to become their leader, and he accepted.
With this ragged little band of outlaws, numbering less than a hundred, Sverre set out to gain the throne of Norway, and in the end he succeeded. For long he roamed about, like Robin Hood with his merry men. He would “drop in†on a country festival and scare the people so that they fled, whereupon he and his merry men would sit down to a comfortable banquet.
However, this was more by way of a practical joke, enforced by hunger, than by any real cruelty, for Sverrewas by nature extremely merciful. On one occasion, when he and his Birchlegs were crossing a mountain lake on rafts, he himself started out on the last one, but when he was some distance from shore a poor comrade, who was nearly dead and was being left behind, called piteously to be taken along. Although every raft was crowded to its utmost capacity, Sverre went back and got the dying man. The raft was so overloaded that he now had to stand up to his knees in icy water, but he did finally reach the other shore. It is reported that when Sverre’s foot left the raft (he was the last man to disembark), it sank out of sight. His followers regarded this as a miracle, and it filled them with hope.
Amid incredible hardships he fought his way to the throne, and he became so formidable that nurses throughout all Norway used to scare bad boys by saying that Sverre would catch them if they didn’t watch out.
In 1195 the Byzantine Emperor Alexius had a quarrel on his hands and sent an ambassador, Reidar, to collect from Norway two hundred mercenaries. Reidar collected his force and was prepared to return, when Bishop Nicholas, who hated Sverre with almost insane malignity, persuaded him to turn his attention to the task of wiping out the powerful Birchlegs. Accordingly these two hundred mercenaries were formed into the famous band called “Baglers†(crookmen, frombagall, a bishop’s crook or staff). The historic war between the Baglers and the Birchlegs centered around Bergen.
I climbed Flöifjeldet the other day, one of Bergen’sfour real hills, and as I looked down on the city I could seem to see the whole struggle between Birchlegs and Baglers. But that was not the only famous struggle which took place in Bergen, and Sverre’s is not the only great name closely associated with it. Here, in Christ Church, Haakon Haakonsson was crowned on St. Olaf’s Day, July 29, 1247. On this occasion a continuous banquet was held for three days, for which function a huge boathouse was “commandeered,†as the palace was not large enough for the guests. It was the most splendid feast that had ever been held in Norway, and after the banquet a five-day fête was held in honor of the cardinal. At this fête Ordeals were forever abolished, on the very excellent ground that “it was not seemly for Christian men to challenge God to give his verdict in human affairs.â€
Another reform was introduced, excluding from the royal succession all illegitimate sons—in the future. In putting forward this reform, Haakon Haakonsson must have made an effort to forget that he himself was an illegitimate son of King Haakon Sverresson.
His father, who was a son of the great Sverre, as his name indicates, had been foully murdered by his stepmother, the dowager queen Margaret. This dowager queen had stolen away Christina, Sverresson’s half-sister. As Sverresson was her legal protector, he tried in every way to get her back. Argument and pleading proving vain, he resorted to stratagem. He sent his cousin, Peter Steyper, who “burst into the princess’ room while her mother was taking a bath, crying at thetop of his voice that the Baglers had come to town.†Christina was terrified, but Steyper told her not to fear, as he would save her. He took her in his arms and fled to the wharves, where he hustled her aboard his ship. The dowager queen soon discovered the trick and dashed down to the water’s edge in the most scandalousdécolleté. She reached it just as the ship pulled off and for a long time vainly screamed curses after it. However, she took a glorious revenge by inviting her stepson to a banquet of peace and there poisoning him.
Interesting as is the history of Norway, it is to say the least “strenuous,†and it is rather a relief if you have been on Flöifjeldet, dreaming of Sverre and Haakonsson, to come down into Bergen’s quiet, old-fashioned market, where there are no Birchlegs and no Baglers now. The name “Bergen,†or Björgvin, means “pasture on the mountains,†and seems to suggest a restfulness with which history has not always favored the city. Many of the fisherwomen, orfiskerpiger, in the market place are gayly dressed in some of the varied forms of the national costume. However, I understand that the costumes are so much gayer and more conspicuous in the Hardanger and Sætersdal regions that I think I will wait until I get there before I tell you about them. I have not yet seen any of the well-known fjords, though I doubt if there is anything much finer in that line than the Ofotenfjord at Narvik.
I do not know when or from where I shall write to you again, but it will be from somewhere among the fjords, as no one could really feel the full spell of Norway,I suppose, without exploring the famous Hardanger and Sogne and some of the others. Another place which I want surely to see before I leave Norway is the famous Sætersdal in the south. It is here I understand that one may find the pastpar excellence—not history, for Sætersdal is not a particularly historic region, but the customs and manners and dress and general characteristics of the Norwegians of a few centuries back.
It may be some time before I shall write again, as there is much to see and much to explore. In the mean-time please prepare yourself to chalk up many points for Norway, for its fjords and itsdals, as you know, are among its chief claims to distinction.
Yours as ever,
Aylmer.
Norwegian fjord scenery; the “Seven Sisters†and “Pulpit Rockâ€; a comparison of the Sogne and Hardanger type of beauty; a drowned village; the cliff, Hornelen; the “City of Rosesâ€; Björnstjerne Björnson; over the Romsdal-Gudbrandsdal route by carriole; an atmospheric kaleidoscope; the land of the “fosâ€; some Norwegian characteristics illustrated by the “skydsgutâ€; the “sæter†huts on the “fjeldâ€; Norwegian fauna; the terror of a lemming raid; “into the valley of death rode the six hundredâ€; a strange shipwreck; the giants of the Sogne; Balholm and Longfellow; Leif Eriksson; “The Skeleton in Armor.â€
Norwegian fjord scenery; the “Seven Sisters†and “Pulpit Rockâ€; a comparison of the Sogne and Hardanger type of beauty; a drowned village; the cliff, Hornelen; the “City of Rosesâ€; Björnstjerne Björnson; over the Romsdal-Gudbrandsdal route by carriole; an atmospheric kaleidoscope; the land of the “fosâ€; some Norwegian characteristics illustrated by the “skydsgutâ€; the “sæter†huts on the “fjeldâ€; Norwegian fauna; the terror of a lemming raid; “into the valley of death rode the six hundredâ€; a strange shipwreck; the giants of the Sogne; Balholm and Longfellow; Leif Eriksson; “The Skeleton in Armor.â€
Marok, Geiranger Fjord, June 27.
My dear Judicia,
Have you ever seen the ocean so still that there was not a single, tiniest wind-made ripple on it; when a rowboat left a broadening wake a quarter of a mile long, and when the circling sea gulls could signal to their images beneath? If not, I wish you could transport yourself by telegraph here to Marok. Here in this quiet, mountain-guarded Geiranger Fjord, eighty miles or so from the open sea, it is even calmer than the proverbial mill pond. It is not the stagnant calm of the mill pond either, suggesting green slime and malarial gases, but a clear, fresh, healthy calm, suggesting only peace and shelter from the elements. Probably the fjord’s surface will not long be left unmolested. Soon a breeze will come creeping around the turn of the Sunelvsfjord, or down thedal, from the frozen Lake Djupvand.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.Across the Glassy Geirangerfjord.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Across the Glassy Geirangerfjord.
My purpose in this letter, Judicia, is not to take you on the “best trip in Norway,†or indeed on any trip. Countless trips have been carefully planned and then as carefully written up for the assistance of future travelers and for the benefit of tourist agencies. I shall simply take you as though you were a chessman and put you on whatever spot I choose. I hope you will not rebel at such autocratic treatment, for I shall try to make the best moves I can. If you suddenly find yourself moved from one fjord ordalto another without the assistance of steamer or train orNorges Communicationer, or anything but pure imagination, I hope you will accept the move in good faith. You know it’s yours as a reader not to question why, yours not to make reply, etc. I hope the places I describe will be their own reply.
Geiranger (please consult a map if you would know where it is) is probably oftener described and more praised than almost any other fjord in Norway, though it seems to me absolutely impossible to pick out any single fjord for first prize. Perhaps Geiranger would not receive so much attention were it not for its famous “Seven Sisters†and “Pulpit Rock.†The Seven Sisters are seven branches of a waterfall which drops hundreds of feet sheer into the fjord. As was the case with Bergen and its hills, it is an unfortunate, prosy, geographical fact that there are only four real branches to the waterfall; but three little wisps of spray up at the top separate slightly and give a somewhat plausible pretext for the name. Directly opposite the Seven Sisters is a projectingrock of most striking appearance, which would make an excellent pulpit if the preacher desired to address a vast audience of screaming sea gulls, but the pulpit is so high in air and so inaccessible that any other audience would be impossible.
There is one house which occupies a nook on the side of one of these lofty cliffs in Geiranger Fjord in such an inaccessible spot that formerly the only method of reaching it was by a rope, lowered by a member of the household. More recently, however, a flight of steps has been cut in the rock. It is often said that at some of these little houses the children are tethered, in order to prevent their falling down into the fjord.
Before I go any farther, Judicia, I must tell you something about the Norwegian fjords in general. Like so many other portions of the globe, Norway traces its peculiar formation to the grinding, irresistible glaciers of the ice age. While the actual coast line of Norway is about seventeen hundred miles, the distance is increased to twelve thousand if all the indentations are added, so that the fjords alone have a coast line which would stretch nearly halfway around the world. Also some of them are very deep, the Sogne showing a depth of nearly a mile in some places far inland. There are several fjords which stand out with particular prominence, not that they are necessarily finer than others, but because they are more accessible. The most southerly fjord to achieve fame is the Hardanger; then, going north, the Sogne, the Nord, the Hjörund, the Geiranger, and the Molde. One author, who signs himself O. W. F.,thus vividly contrasts the great Hardanger and Sogne: “… whereas the mountains of the Sognefjord are knit together in mighty knots, those of Hardanger shoot in straight, slim peaks from the bottom of the fjord, higher and higher, until at last they end in glittering glaciers. Whereas the Sognefjord is wild, Hardanger is deep blue and tranquil.â€
But the Nordfjord is not like either. The mountains do not rise continuously to a lofty tableland, but at intervals, in sharp, isolated peaks. No fjord is quite like another, and I cannot sympathize with the tourists who complain that Norwegian scenery, even in its grandeur, is monotonous. Of course to some unfortunate traveler who craves some new excitement every day Norway may be a dull country after he has once seen two or three of the fjords. They will all look alike to him, and some of these calm retreats like Marok will be unendurable.
Marok is a center for some of the most delightful excursions in Norway. A fifteen-mile boat ride and then a fifteen-mile drive to Oie will take you through one of the most varied and beautiful scenes that the imagination can picture. It is inspiring, no less in the mountain walls that rise on the Geiranger than in the smiling, sunlit Norangdal, which leads from Hellesylt to Oie.
Midway in this Norangdal a landslip occurred in 1908. It carried away a part of the road and formed a new lake by damming up the river. When the water of this new-born lake is clear, the roofs of the submerged houses of the old village may be plainly seen. There issomething uncanny in the thought that a skillful swimmer might dive far below the water’s surface andswiminto the garret window of any one of these former habitations.
Another trip which Marok affords is up the valley to Grotlid, past the frozen Lake Djupvand; but still another valley, the Romsdal, which extends from Næs on the Molde Fjord to Domaas on the Dovrefjeld, and there connects with the Gudbrandsdal, leading down toward Christiania, affords such a wonderful trip that I think I must wait and tell you of that and not dull your appetite by describing inferior valleys.
But Marok needs no valleys to add to its attraction. The superb Geiranger is surely enough to bring it fame. At the opening of the long fjord, which changes its name every few miles and at its inmost extremity assumes the name Geiranger, is situated the town of Aalesund. It is a beautiful port, but its chief claim to distinction lies in the fact that it was once the home of Rolf the Walker, who, you remember, conquered Normandy and caused his proxy to kiss Charles the Simple’s foot so violently that he fell from his horse. In token of this conquest the town of Rouen has given to Aalesund a statue of Rolf.
A few miles north of Aalesund the steamers going to Molde pass a cliff called Hornelen, which towers three thousand feet in air. There is no cliff in Norway which can compare with it, and that is equivalent to saying that there is none in Europe. Formerly every tourist steamer which sailed by Hornelen fired a gun in orderthat the passengers might hear the echo, but this was done once too often, for on one occasion the concussion made by the firing of the gun loosened an immense amount of rock on the side of the cliff, and this came hurtling down, leaving a hole which can plainly be seen now.
Farther up the coast and not so very far from Trondhjem lies Molde, the “City of Roses.†You see, Portland, Oregon, does not have a monopoly of the name. Molde might equally well call itself the “City of Honeysuckles†or the “City of the Wild Cherry.†The town is at the head of the fjord which bears its name, and far in the distance we can just distinguish the Romsdalshorn, which we shall later see at closer range. Those skilled in mathematics say that forty-six peaks are visible from Molde, and even the mathematically untrained can count nearly that number. Prominent among the forty-six stand out King, Queen, and Bishop—you see, church and state are side by side.
The citizens of Molde are proud to relate that once the great Björnstjerne Björnson was a school teacher in their town. They may well be proud, for Björnson stands out as one of the most daring figures in Norway’s recent history. All Norwegians, and most other Europeans who take any interest in literature, are familiar with the fine, commanding face of Björnson, surrounded with its halo of white hair. No wonder he held his audiences in the hollow of his hand whenever he made public addresses. His oratory was not of the highest order, but his powerful personality compelledattention. Those who could not hear him speak can feel the thrill of his personality in his poems and stories. Some of his peasant tales, such asA Happy BoyandThe Fisher Maiden, are considered the finest of their type in all literature. He wrote his first verses when he was ten years old and his genius in this line culminated in his ode calledBergliot. He was always emotional, often fiery, and generally radical in his views, so much so that his figure and his writings became the center of a whirlwind of controversy. He wrote several national dramas, such asBetween the BattlesandLame Hulda, but later his genius took such a radical turn that he had the greatest difficulty in getting any manager to stage his plays. His symbolical play,Beyond Our Powers, dealing with religious themes, was either violently criticised or as violently praised, according to the personal feelings of the critic, and another, calledIn God’s Way, caused even more heated discussion.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.German Battleships in Norwegian Waters.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
German Battleships in Norwegian Waters.
Björnson seems not to have cared how much discussion or opposition he aroused, though he never tried to arouse it simply for the sake of publicity. He was daring and defiant, and cared not a snap of his finger what this or that critic said of him. Toward the end of his life he turned more to short stories, and in all of these the violent, startling, emotional element was never lacking. In the end he won the highest literary honor by receiving in 1903 the Nobel Literary Prize. Strangely enough this apostle of radicalism preached conciliation with Sweden during the crisis of 1905, and later he wentso far as to advocate Pan-Germanism, the uniting of all the peoples of Germanic origin into a single nation.
There is no more interesting character in all the north than Björnson, unless it be his compatriot, Ole Bull. He could never be called “safe.†But in spite of his occasional wildness, he is recognized by all his people as a great reformer, and Molde is justly proud of its former school teacher.
I have rambled on a long time about Björnson. Interesting asfjordandfjeldanddalare in themselves, they always seem to me more interesting when enhanced by memories of some striking character with whom they are associated. Therefore, I hope you will forgive my frequent rambles.
At the end of the long Molde Fjord is the little village of Næs, the starting point for the Romsdal-Gudbrandsdal route. No one who is not a stick or a lump of rock can take this trip without feeling his emotions stirred to their very foundations. There are few places in the world where nature has so unsparingly lavished her art as here. As if the diversity of the scenes were not enough in itself to hold our attention, nature provides an infinite variety of lighting effects. Fleecy clouds play about the mountain tops and then give way to full sunlight. A fog rolls up and curls around the Romsdalshorn, soon to dissolve into nothingness. A heavy curtain of clouds appears most unexpectedly, and the wildest thunder pounds and rolls and crackles through the valley to the accompaniment of pattering hail. We have hardly found shelter when all is over. The sunseems to shine twice as brightly as before, and a few discontented mutterings in the distance show whither the storm is retreating. All this in itself would be inspiring, yet the scenery needs no assistance in producing a feeling of reverence and awe.
On one side of the road towers the mountain pyramid called Romsdalshorn, beside which the poor little attempts of Cheops in Egypt would look pathetic. Opposite to the Romsdalshorn the “Witches’ Pinnacles†and the “Bridal Procession†carry on their little pantomime through endless ages. Formerly it was supposed to be a great feat to climb the Romsdalshorn, but it has now been done so many times that the glamor of the achievement has worn off. The whole route up the Romsdal is lined at this time of year with imposing waterfalls. A waterfall in Norway is called afos, and on this route, as on so many others in Norway, it is practically impossible to get out of sight of at least one tumblingfos. The three in Romsdal which excite the most interest are Mongefos, Værmofos, and Slettafos. The latter produces a roar which can be heard a great distance away, but the finest looking of the three is Værmofos. It makes one great leap of seven hundred feet and then is divided by a projecting rock into three separate falls, which leap another three hundred feet. But the Værmofos is only one of thousands and thousands, which leap or tumble helter-skelter into valleys and fjords all through the land. One writer says: “To enumerate the waterfalls of Romsdal would be rather a serious task. There are a dozen or two thatwould support half a dozen hotels, and be perpetually sketched, photographed, and stereoscoped if they were anywhere up the Rhine.â€
The road winds in sharp zigzags or wide curves ever higher and higher, with the Rauma surging along below in its rock-bound gulley until we reach Domaas at the top of the pass.
I should have told you before something about our method of locomotion. So much travel in Norway must be done by road (railway mileage is the least in proportion to the extent of territory of any country in Europe) that posting has been developed to a high degree, and certain peculiarly national conveyances have come into being. The most distinctive of these is the carriole, a very diminutive, two-wheeled gig, which accommodates but one person beside the driver, who sits up behind. Even this one person must place his feet in stirrups outside the wagon and below its floor. If he tries to keep his feet inside the wagon he will find himself cramped into a bowknot. Your driver, who is known asskydsgut(pronouncedshusgut), is generally a peasant boy. In many respects he is like peasant boys of other countries, but he is sure to possess the quality of absolute honesty. If you give him too much money by mistake, he will return your change. You cannot cheat yourself if you will. There is one other characteristic which yourskydsgutwill possess, if he is at all a normal Norwegian; that is a stolid sort of courtesy, which cannot be bullied into doing anything for you, but will invariably do the utmost if politely requested.Demand your carriole rather peremptorily and a little harshly, and you will get no answer—neither will you get your carriole. Tell yourskydsgutthat you are in a hurry to get started and would appreciate it if he could bring the carriole immediately. Before you have finished speaking he is off, and with all possible speed he brings you the carriole. The normal Norwegian simply cannot resist a polite appeal to his sympathy or courtesy. No more can he refrain from resisting to the finish an attitude of overbearing peremptoriness.
From the town of Domaas we must take a side excursion up into the Dovre Mountains orfjeld. Thefjeldis generally a wild, rough, mountain wilderness, implying snow fields. It is the paradise of the solitude seeker, unless it be robbed of its quietude by the ubiquitous huntsman. Here we find thesæterhuts in all their primitive, old-world charm. For centuries thesesæterhuts have existed just as they exist to-day. They are very rude affairs, being built only for summer occupation. Trunks of fir trees are fitted together, and the chinks are filled in with birch bark and sods. Generally a single room is used as sitting room, dining room, kitchen, bedroom, and dairy. This doesn’t sound particularly attractive for the ultimate consumer of the dairy products, but the dairying processes are really carried on in cleanly and sanitary fashion.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.A Stolkjaerre.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
A Stolkjaerre.
Into most of the accessible nooks of thefjeldthe sportsman has found his way. Beasts of the field and birds of the air are still abundant in some places. Of this latter class there are found the more or less internationalgrouse, woodcock, snipe, partridge, and golden plover. The Lapland bunting, the puffin, the kittiwake, and the capercaillie have a more northern sound, but I am not enough of a huntsman or a naturalist to know just where their habitat is.
Bears and wolves are still found in Norway and add a decided thrill to the life of the adventurous hunter. There is a single island off the mouth of the Trondhjem Fjord which has an almost complete monopoly of the red deer. For some strange reason the red deer has disappeared throughout the length and breadth of peninsular Norway, but still abounds on this island of Hitteren.
I confess, Judicia, that I have not shot or caught a single bird, beast, or fish during all these past months, but I have seen a good many of them, and I have been much interested in reading the accounts of those who are initiated. One sportsman has amused himself and others by making a collection of the names by which different groups of animals are designated in the sporting world. He does not confine himself to Norway, but goes far afield and finds no less than thirty-one different names, all meaning “group.†Besides the common and well-known designations, he speaks of a “nide†of pheasants, a “wisp†of snipe, a “muster†of peacocks, a “siege†of herons, a “cast†of hawks, a “pride†of lions, a “sleuth†of bears, and several others equally fantastic and unfamiliar.
The most peculiarly national animal in Norway, whether he is designated collectively as a “pride†or a“muster†or a “siege†or otherwise, is the lemming. The lemming is a fierce little brute, about the size of a rat, but when brought to bay he is a most dangerous enemy. Ordinarily he is a rather harmless, useless beast, but once in awhile he becomes a national scourge. Such occasions are called “Lemming Years.†For some unaccountable reason swarms of lemmings are born, and they come sweeping over Norway in great waves. For days a ceaseless army of them marches seaward, and nothing can stop them. They eat all that lies in their path, and leave a track of devastation behind them like a plundering army of soldiers. They look neither right nor left, but travel straight on until they reach the open sea. They plunge down the mountain sides into the fjords, blindly and madly, and are soon drowned. It would be well for Norway if they all reached the sea, but alas, thousands fall by the wayside. Wells are choked up with their bodies, and the water is poisoned, so that “lemming fever†is the inevitable sequel to a lemming raid. I believe there has not been a big raid since 1902, but every summer the farmers expect them again and are filled with dread.
Returning to Domaas, we jog along in our carriole down to Otta in the Gudbrandsdal. Between Domaas and Otta, at a place called Kringen, the road “runs like a narrow ribbon between the steep cliff on the one side and the foaming river on the other.†Here, in 1612, six hundred Scottish mercenaries, hired by Gustavus Adolphus, landed at what is now Næs and prepared to walk to Sweden by way of the Romsdal and Gudbrandsdalvalleys. At Kringen the Norwegians collected big boulders at the top of the cliff. A peasant girl named Pillar Guri stood on the opposite side and blew a horn to let her compatriots know just when the Scottish soldiers were passing below. At the signal the fatal shower descended, and it is said that not one of the six hundred escaped. Truly “into the valley of death rode the six hundred.†A monument has been placed on the spot to commemorate the event.
Now, Judicia, will you be an obliging chessman? If so, take two jumps backward and one to the right and land at Loen on the Nordfjord. There is an excursion from here to Lake Loen which offers something unique to the weariest and most blasé globe-trotter. Lake Loen is buried in the midst of the wildest, glacier-surmounted hills, and it almost seems an intrusion for prying eyes to visit it, yet it must submit not only to this indignity but to the positive disgrace of having a little steamer, by name theLodölen, chug through its quiet waters. In some places great, jagged masses of glacial ice actually overhang the lake, hundreds of feet in air, and at times fragments break off and plunge down into the water.
Our little steamerLodölenis rather a curiosity, for its engine was taken from the wreck of a former ship. Some years ago theLodölen’spredecessor was quietly making its way along the eastern end of the lake when without warning a whole mountain, or at least a large part of a mountain, tumbled bodily into the lake. A tidal wave was created which caught the steamer and carried it farup the mountain side. To-day, from the deck of theLodölen, we can see the wreck of the old ship whose engine is propelling the new. Perhaps the guardians of the lake rebelled at the indignity of having a steamer invade its quietness, and took this means of showing their displeasure; but persistent humanity seems to be unwilling to be thwarted. Perhaps some day theLodölenwill meet with a similar fate and another steamer take its place.
The Sognefjord south of the Nordfjord is not only the deepest, but also the largest. For a hundred and thirty miles it stretches its branches into the heart of Norway. Indeed, it is shaped like a tree, the trunk being the main fjord. The great boughs which come out from this mighty trunk twist and taper into the most delicate twigs, and here and there diminutivedalsand hamlets present the appearance of leaves and buds, if you will permit your fancy to roam so far. Many authors are tempted into the most fanciful descriptions of Sogne’s grandeur. If you could see the dramatic audacity of nature here I am sure you would forgive even the extravagant imagination of the following description, which I quote from O. F. W.:
“Ever since the dawn of time these mighty graystone giants of the Sognefjord have sat there gloomy and stanch. Age has set deep marks on them. Their visages are now furrowed and weather-beaten, and their crowns snowy white. But their sight is still keen. When the storms of winter come sweeping in with the wild sagas of the sea, there is a blaze under those shaggybrows. They roar with hoarse voice across to one another when the rains of spring set in. In the dark autumn nights they shake their mighty limbs with such a crash and roar that huge masses scour down the slopes to the fjord, sweeping away all the human vermin that has crawled up and fastened itself upon them. Only during the light, warm, summer nights, when the wild breezes play about them and all the glories of the earth are sprinkled over them, when islands and holms rise out of the trembling sea and swim about like light, downy birds, when the birch is decked in green and the bird cherry is blossoming, the seaweed purling and the sea murmuring—then the deep wrinkles are smoothed out, then there falls a gleam of youth over the austere faces.â€
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.Fishermen Arranging their Nets at Balestrand on the Sognefjord.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Fishermen Arranging their Nets at Balestrand on the Sognefjord.
There you have the Sogne, the poet’s Sogne perhaps, but I think not too fanciful, for the Sogne is the poet’s fjord above all others, and anyone who has no poetry in him should not invade its precincts. At Balholm, on this fjord, the German emperor is commemorating the famous Fridthjof with a statue. Longfellow translated the Fridthjof saga, so Balholm is thus connected with him too, and adds another point in favor of Sogne’s claim to the name of the poet’s fjord.
Longfellow wrote several poems connected with the northland. The most famous, as you know, and the one which connects Norway with America, isThe Skeleton in Armor. I have read it half a dozen times since I came to Norway, and it has done more than anything else to make me feel and see the spell of the old vikings.
This has been a long letter and I have not touched upon Hardanger or Sætersdal or the North Cape, but those will keep for another letter, and if you will transform yourself into a “castle,†or, better still, remain a queen and move several squares due north, you will arrive at Marok again, where the gleaming Geiranger is beginning to be ruffled by evening breezes. I will write to you soon, probably from Sætersdal, where I know I shall find seventeenth-century Norway in all its charm.
As ever yours,
Aylmer.
Aylmer visits the North Cape; Narvik to Hammerfest; the oft-imagined midnight sun a realization; Vanniman and the sun compass; Hardanger Fjord and region; the Norwegian Sunday; a country wedding; the snow tunnel at Haukeli Sæter; the precipice of Dalen; a natural boomerang; the “Norwegian Rhineâ€; the romance of Helgenotra; a “stave-kirkeâ€; Henrik Ibsen; educational difficulties in Norway; itinerant schoolmasters; the charm of Sætersdal; wherein lies the Spell of Norway?
Aylmer visits the North Cape; Narvik to Hammerfest; the oft-imagined midnight sun a realization; Vanniman and the sun compass; Hardanger Fjord and region; the Norwegian Sunday; a country wedding; the snow tunnel at Haukeli Sæter; the precipice of Dalen; a natural boomerang; the “Norwegian Rhineâ€; the romance of Helgenotra; a “stave-kirkeâ€; Henrik Ibsen; educational difficulties in Norway; itinerant schoolmasters; the charm of Sætersdal; wherein lies the Spell of Norway?
Bredvik, Sætersdal, August 18.
My dear Judicia,
Before I tell you about Sætersdal I must say something about the North Cape and the midnight sun. Perhaps you wonder why I don’t save the famous North Cape for a climax instead of taking you up there first and then way back to the southernmost tip of Norway. My reason, which I hope later to justify, is this. To me the spell of Norway lies most of all in itsdalsand in itssæterregions, where the simplicity of the natives is untarnished and where the country is naturally beautiful. The place where this is true to the fullest extent is in the region whose appropriate name, Sætersdal, combines the thought of rugged upland and smilingdal.
I do not mean to minimize the glories of the North Cape. They are superb and almost too wonderful for us. They make us gasp for breath, and perhaps we feel almost tired after surveying them. I have felt “timorousâ€about approaching that subject at all, for many thousands of people, among them some noted writers, have visited the spot and have seen the midnight sun. Certainly ninety-nine per cent of them have tried to describe it, and many have had their attempts published.
I will not take you step by step, or port by port, on the long journey to Hammerfest, for I took you up as far as Narvik when I went there last winter, and the continuation is much the same. We pass Tromsö, the northernmost of Norway’s six bishoprics, and the town which long enjoyed the distinction of having the northernmost church in the world. Of course, thriving little Hammerfest has now robbed it of that honor. Hammerfest, I suppose, is more widely known, by name at least, than almost any other village of its size in the world, with the possible exceptions of Oberammergau and Stratford-on-Avon, which have earned their distinction in quite different ways. Every schoolboy and schoolgirl learns that Hammerfest is the most northerly town in the world. It has only two thousand inhabitants, but with the inpouring waves of tourists in the summer it becomes a most lively place. The whole town is pervaded winter and summer with a nauseating smell of boiling cod-liver oil. Doubtless the product is a fruitful source of income to the inhabitants, but personally I should hardly care to live in the reeking smell of it all my life.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.Three Little Belles of the Arctic at Tromsö.
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.
Three Little Belles of the Arctic at Tromsö.
On the Fulgnæs, a promontory a little to the north of the town, there is theMeridianstötten, a column of granite with a bronze globe surmounting it, markingthe spot, as the Latin and Norwegian inscriptions indicate, where the “geometers of three nations, by order of King Oscar I and Czars Alexander I and Nicholas I,†completed in 1852 the arduous task of measuring the degrees.
Our steamer, in going from Hammerfest to the North Cape, passes the Hjelmöstoren cliff, the home of millions, perhaps of billions of flapping, shrieking sea birds. Although the old birds and the wise ones are never disturbed by the passing steamer, even when it fires off a gun, the young fledgelings flap about in such clouds that they actually darken the face of the sun.
Finally we reach the grand old North Cape on the island of Magerö. The steamer drops anchor in Hornvik Bay, and we leave it and zigzag up the newly built road to the famous cliff. Our good shipKong Haraldlooks like a beetle floating on the water’s surface. The waves, which seemed rather formidable to us from the little boat which took us ashore, have now assumed the appearance of almost invisible ripples.
Come to the edge of the cliff with me, Judicia, and you will see a sight which you will never forget. If your nerves are strong and your conscience is clear, you may not tremble at the awfulness of the scene. But unless you are dead to emotion, something must stir within you. Far below and far beyond stretches the apparently limitless Arctic Sea—the vast, fatal, compelling sea which brave men of many nations have died in exploring. And there surely is the midnight sun. It must be that, for it is just midnight, and that great red ball of firehanging a little above the horizon is very evidently not the moon. It is easy, isn’t it, to speak of the midnight sun, and hard to realize it. That mysterious golden globe bowling lazily along the northern horizon is in process of making a million sunsets and a million sunrises in other parts of the world, but here all is blended into one. Doctor John L. Stoddard, in a burst of eloquence, has thus described the color scheme which nature here presents:
“Far to the north the sun lay in a bed of saffron light over the clear horizon of the Arctic Ocean. A few bars of dazzling orange cloud floated above, and still higher in the sky, where the saffron melted through delicate rose color into blue, hung light wreaths of vapor touched with pearly opaline flushes of pink and golden gray. The sea was a web of pale slate color shot through and through with threads of orange and saffron, from the dance of a myriad shifting and twinkling ripples. The air was filled and permeated with a soft, mysterious glow, and even the very azure of the southern sky seemed to shine through a net of golden gauze. Midway … stood the midnight sun, shining on us with subdued fires and with the gorgeous coloring of an hour for which we have no name, since it is neither sunset, nor sunrise, but the blended loveliness of both.…â€
Flowery as the language is, it is not one particle exaggerated. Exaggeration would be impossible.
A less ambitious author frankly admits his inability to describe a northern midsummer night. “The memory of one night in Norway,†he says, “makes one feel howpowerless language is to describe the splendor of that … glory—glory of carmine and orange and indigo, which floods not only the heavens, but the sea, and makes the waves beneath our keel a ‘flash of living fire.’â€
A more scientific, if less poetic person, who visited the northland was Vanniman, the American engineer, who was with Wellman when he made his unsuccessful attempt to reach the North Pole by airship. Vanniman perhaps neglected the beauties of nature for the more sordidly practical occupation of inventing a sun compass. The principle of this instrument is most interesting. Reasoning that at the precise moment of midnight the sun is due north, he “constructed a clock the hour hand of which traveled in the opposite direction to the sun, so that, on being pointed at the midnight sun and set going, it continued to point due north.â€
I would feel more reluctant to tear myself and you from the glories of the North Cape were it not that quieter, gentler glories await us farther south. In the deep blue Hardanger Fjord and its surroundings we find all nature gentler and milder, even in its grandeur, than the nature of the far north or even of the rugged Sogne. The Hardanger district is fir-clothed and alder and birch-clothed as well, and presents a softer loveliness than the knotted, “brawny†aspect of other fjords. I’ll venture to say that the word Hardanger suggests to you, Judicia, only a species of embroidery, but if you had only seen the district it would suggest warmth of forest-clotheddal, majesty of lofty waterfall, and depthof cool fjord. Hardanger is famous, even in Norway, for its waterfalls. It outdoes the Romsdal. The Skjeggedalsfos is quite the finest in all Europe, and would not blush if placed beside Niagara, while several otherfosesin the Hardanger district are nearly as fine.
Sometimes the Hardanger’s gentle smile has savored of the nature of a mask, for in one of itsfosesit has kept a lurking danger. Far inland through the Eidfjord and the Simodal there is on a high plateau a glacier named the Rembesdal. From this a stream trickles into a mountain lake, then to plunge over a cliff into the Simodal. In former years, whenever the snow melted suddenly on the Rembesdal Glacier, the water thus formed would collect in a rocky upland valley choked off by the glacier itself from every exit. The water would gradually collect here until it was a small lake in itself, and still the glacier barred its way to freedom. Finally the strain would become too great, the barrier would give away, and the irresistible mass of ice, pushed on by the lake which it had formed, would plunge madly down into the lower lake, then over the cliff, and down into the peaceful, unsuspecting Simodal, where it would drown and destroy all that lay in its path. Finally human skill came to the aid of nature, and Norwegian engineers built under the glacier an iron tunnel through which the waters of the upper, artificial lake may drain down into the lower, natural lake.