Northwards—Social colts—The horse shepherd—The tired traveller’s sweet restorer, tea—Troll-work—Snow Macadam—Otter hunting in Norway—Normaends Laagen—A vision of reindeer—The fisherman’s hut—My lodging is on the cold ground—Making a night of it—National songs—Shaking down—A slight touch of nightmare.
Northwards—Social colts—The horse shepherd—The tired traveller’s sweet restorer, tea—Troll-work—Snow Macadam—Otter hunting in Norway—Normaends Laagen—A vision of reindeer—The fisherman’s hut—My lodging is on the cold ground—Making a night of it—National songs—Shaking down—A slight touch of nightmare.
Leaving the angry Quenna, we struck northward up a gradual ascent of rock, polished apparently by former rains, its surface fissured at intervals by deep cracks, and dabbed with patches of yellow moss, dwarf birch, and glaucous willow, but, for the most part, fortunately affording capital walking ground. A covey of grey ptarmigan, a snipe or two, and some golden plover, rose before us; but I felt so weak and ill that I had not the heart to load my fowling-piece, which the little horse bore, along with my other effects, attached to the straddle.
As we journey along, a distant neigh (in Thelemarken speech “neija,” in Norwegian, “vrinske,”)reaches my ear, and I descry three colts bounding down the rocks to us. On joining our party, seemingly tired of the loneliness of the mountain, and delighted at the idea of a new equine companion, they dance round our little nag in most frolicksome mood. In spite of all we can do to prevent them, they stick to us, now in front, now alongside, now at our rear. At this moment a man’s voice is heard, and a wild figure in frieze jacket, of the true Thelemarken cut, knee-breeches, and bare calves, rushes up breathless. “Well, Ambrose,” said my guide, “I thought they were yours, but they would follow us. We couldn’t stop them.” Indeed, Ambrose found the task equally difficult. He had never taken lessons from Mr. Rarey. It was only by seizing the ringleader by his forelock, and hanging heavily with the other arm on his neck, he managed to turn him from the error of his way, which would most likely have only terminated with our day’s journey’s end.
“And who is Ambrose?” inquired I. “Where is his Stöl? I see no symptoms of one.”
“Stöl! bless you, langt ifra (far from it). Heis a flytte-maend. He comes up on the mountain with a lot of horses and Nöd (Scoticè nowt, horned cattle), for about six weeks in the summer. He has a bag of meal, and he lives upon that and the milk of one milking cow, which he has with him. At night, he sleeps under a rock or stone, flitting about from place to place, wherever he can find grass for the cattle. He receives a small sum a head for his trouble, when he has taken them back safe and sound.”
Hard life of it, thought I. Bad food and worse lodging; not to mention that the beasts of prey occasionally diminish the number of his charge, and with it the amount of his earnings.
After toiling along for twenty English miles of treeless wilderness, skirting several lakes, floundering through many bogs, and sitting on the horse as he forded one or two rivers, we reached a knoll, which the guide called Grodhalse. It was a curious spot: itself green and smiling with grassy herbage; behind it, higher up the slope, patches of unmelted snow; while at our feet ran a rill of snow-water.
“We must qvile (i.e., while = rest) here a bit,”said Ole. “There is no other grass to be found for many miles.”
“Well, then, light a fire in a moment,” said I, a cold shudder running through me the very moment I stood still, and I at once enveloped myself in my pea-coat, buttoning the collar over my ears. “Fill that kettle with water, and have it boiling as soon as ever you can. Here are some matches.” The green prickly juniper scrub, which he forthwith dragged up by the roots, soon blazed up with the proverbially transient crackling of fire among the thorns; and the little copper kettle which I had prudently caused to be brought soon succeeded in first simmering and then boiling. Dickens’s kettle on the hob never uttered such delightful music.
If I had been philosophically inclined, and had possessed a thermometer, which I did not, I might have availed myself of the opportunity of ascertaining the exact height we had reached, by seeing at what number of degrees the fluid boiled. But what was much more to the purpose, I had some tea at hand, and two quarts of the hot infusion,with a thimblefull of brandy, were soon under my belt. Never did opium, or bang, or haschish-eater experience such a sweet feeling stealing over the sense. Talk of a giant refreshed with wine: give me tea when I am knocked up. The chemistry-of-common-life people will talk to you about Theïne and its nutritious qualities, but until that moment I did not know what tea would do for you. My eyes, which just before were half blind, saw again. My blood, which seemed to be curdled into thick, heavy lumps, in my veins, was liquified afresh. That of St. Januarius never underwent such a quick metamorphosis. Mr. Waterton will excuse the allusion.
The knoll was at a very high level; the snow behind us, and the icy runnel issuing from its bowels at our feet, gave a keenness to the air, but the tea[8]put me in a genial perspiration, the pea-coat aiding and abetting by keeping in the caloric. And when the little horse, refreshed by his nibble,was caught and reloaded, I loaded my fowling-piece, and felt quite strong enough to carry it. Before long we were among some grey ptarmigan, and I brought one or two down.[9]
“Curious spot, this,” said I, to the guide, as we came to an amphitheatrical ridge of abraded rock, on the very edge of which rested huge blocks[10]of stone, some pivoted on their smallest face. The cause of the phenomenon was evident. The glacier power, which formerly moved these stones onward, day by day, had been arrested—opera imperfecta manebant—and so the blocks came to a stand still where they now are. “They must have been placed there by the Trolls,” I observed, givinga peep at Ole’s countenance. “Kanskee” (perhaps), was his slow and thoughtful reply.
“You ought to see this in winter time,” he continued. “No stones to be seen then—no impediments. We go straight ahead. I travelled last winter, on snow-shoes, sixty miles in the day.”
Winter is, emphatically, the time for locomotion here; the crooked ways are made straight, and the mountains smooth.
“What’s that?” said I, pointing to a snail, browsing on the irregularly round leaf of a species of dwarf sorrel, which grows high on the mountains. A “sneel,” said he. “Snecke” is the modern Norwegian appellation.
Ole is a bit of a sportsman, and has committed havoc among the reindeer. Last winter he killed a couple of otters, and got two dollars and a half for their skins.
“And where did you find the otters?” inquired I, curious to know whether these animals imitate the seal and walrus, and make breathing holes in the solid ice. “Oh, they keep in the foss-pools of the rivers, which are the only places not frozenover. Now and then they cut across the land from one pool to another. I followed them on snow-shoes, and killed them with a stave. A man paa ski (on snow-shoes) can overtake an otter.”
“It is strange,” he went on, “we have seen no ‘reen.’ I never came over these mountains without seeing them.”
But in fact the day had now become overcast, and, fearful of a relapse, I had abstained from stopping to examine the surrounding objects more narrowly. We had now arrived on the left of a lake, about fourteen miles long, the name of which is Normaends Laagen. Between us and the lake intervened a stony plain, grassed over at intervals, perhaps half a mile in breadth; while close to our left, some little still valleys ran up towards the higher plateau.
“There they are,” exclaimed Ole, pointing to ten reindeer, feeding about two hundred yards off, between us and the lake. The discovery was mutual and simultaneous; for, with an oblique squint at us, their white scuts flew up, and they trotted leisurely to the southward.
“Shall I put a bullet into the gun?” asked I.
“No use whatever,” said Ole. “They’ll be miles off in a few minutes.”
And, sure enough, I could see them clearing the ground at a lazy canter, and presently disappear behind some rising ground.
Our lodging for the night was to be at a place called Bessebue. This was a stone hut erected by some fishermen, who repair hither in the autumn with a horse or two and some barrels of salt, and catch the trout which abound in the lake. At that period, the fish approach the shore from out of the deeps to spawn, and are taken in a garn,i.e., standing net of very fine thread. At other times the hut is uninhabited. But to my guide’s surprise we find that there are occupants. These are two brothers from Urland, on the Sogne Fjord, about sixty miles from this. They are fine young fellows, named Nicholas and Andreas Flom, who have come up here with 110 head of cattle to feed on the shores of the lake. None but a Norwegian farmer would think of making such an excursion as this. In September they will drive them direct across themountains to Kongsberg for sale. A drove of this sort, I find, is called drift,[11]and the drovers driftefolk.
With much good nature these young fellows offered to share with us all the accommodation that Bessebue afforded. “But,” said they, “we have already got three travellers arrived, who are going to stop the night.”
Now Bessebue, or Bessy’s bower, as I mentally nicknamed it, albeit there was not a ghost of a Bessy about the premises, though it might in an ordinary way lodge a couple of wayfarers did not seem to offer anything like ample room and verge enough for “the seven sleepers” who proposed lodging there that night. Its accommodation consisted of one room, built of dry stones, with a hole in one corner of the roof for a chimney, the floor being divided into two unequal parts by a ledge or slab of stone, which served for table, and chair, and shelf. The room might be seven or eight feet square, (notso big as the bed of Ware,) part of which, however, was taken up by certain butter and milk pails and horse furniture. So, how we were all to sleep I did not know. Nevertheless, the shivering demon was again clapperclawing me—“Poor Tom’s acold.”—The good effects of the tea had evaporated, and aches of all sorts throbbed within my frame. So I settled down passively on the stone ledge, and warmed my wet toes against the reeking, sputtering brands of juniper twig that blazed at intervals, and served to show, in the advancing night, the black, slimy, damp-looking sides of the hut. Above my head was the smoke hole; behind me, on the floor, were the skins which formed the drovers’ couch.
After swallowing a fresh jorum of tea, I sank into this, my pea-coat all around me, and my sou’-wester, with its flannel lining and ear-covers tied under my chin; the younger drover, with all the consideration of a tender nurse, tucking me in under the clothes. In spite of my superfluity of clothing, and the smoke with which the apartment was filled, I had great difficulty in getting warm.After eating their simple suppers by the light of the fire, a song was proposed, and one of the three strangers proceeded to sing, in a clear manly voice, the national song on Tordenskiold.[12]
The glow of the juniper wood, which had now burnt down into a heap of red embers, lit up the features, grave but cheery, of the singer and the hearers; and all sick as I was, I enjoyed the whole immensely, after a dreamy fashion, and longed for the brush of a Schalken to represent the strange scene. Here we were, on a wild, trackless, treeless, savage mountain, with creature comforts none, and yet these simple fellows, without any effort, were enjoying themselves a vast deal more than many with all the conventional appliances and means to secure mirth.
The song of “Gamle Norge,” the “RuleBritannia” of the North, of course succeeded. After this a song-book was produced from a crevice under the eaves, and, as the fire was nearly out, and no more fuel was inside the hut, a candle-end, which I had brought with me to grease my boots, being lit, enabled the minstrel to sing a ditty by inch of candle. It was one in honour of the Norsk kings, from Harald Haarfager[13]downwards, by Wergeland, said to be Norway’s best poet. This closed the entertainment.
“We must get to bed, I think, now,” said Nicholas; “it is waxing latish, and I must be up by dawn, after the kreäturen (cattle). I say, holloa, you Englishman, Metcal; can you make room for me and Andreas?”
“You can try, but I really don’t see how it is to be managed, we are such big fellows; I’ll sit on the ledge, if you like.”
“Oh, no; you’re ill. It’ll be all right. If we can only just manage to fit in, it will be square strax (immediately). You won’t be too warm,” continued he, pulling a slate over the smoke-hole; “the night is very cold.”
So, in the brothers got, merely divesting themselves of their coats and waistcoats, while I had on all the coats in my wardrobe, like some harlequin in his firstdébutat a country fair. At first, the squeeze was very like the operation one has so often witnessed in the old coaching days, of wedging any amount of passengers into a seat made to hold four—“Higgledy piggledy, here we lie.” Truly, necessity makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows. But by degrees we shook down. When a tea-cup is full to overflowing, there is room for the sugar. However, it was necessary, whenever one of us changed his position, for the others to do the same, like the poor niggers on board the slaver in the Middle passage. The coverlets were of the scantiest; but there did not seem to be any unfair attempt made to steal a skin from one’s neighbour when he had goneto sleep, as the Kansas men are said to be in the habit of doing when bivouacking out.
The others had, if possible, less elbow-room than we three. The two elder were allowed to take the middle places, while the younger ones were pressed against the damp, hard wall. The hut was soon quiet; outside it was frosty, with no wind, and the only noise within was the occasional snoring of one of the party, which was so sonorous, that it made me think of “the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe” (see Shakspeare)—though I can’t say I ever heard one. At last I fell off. How soundly I slept that night, with the exception of a slight touch of nightmare, in which, by an inverted order of things, I rode the mare instead of the mare riding me; scudding along at one time after the reindeer, over stock and stone with wonderful celerity; at another, dashing in snow-shoes after the otters, or whirling among the moors, in the midst of an odd set of elfin coursers and riders.
The way to cure a cold—Author shoots some dotterel—Pit-fall for reindeer—How mountains look in mountain air—A natural terrace—The meeting of the waters—A phantom of delight—Proves to be a clever dairymaid—A singular cavalcade—Terrific descent into Tjelmö-dal—A volley of questions—Crossing a cataract—A tale of a tub—Author reaches Garatun—Futile attempt to drive a bargain.
The way to cure a cold—Author shoots some dotterel—Pit-fall for reindeer—How mountains look in mountain air—A natural terrace—The meeting of the waters—A phantom of delight—Proves to be a clever dairymaid—A singular cavalcade—Terrific descent into Tjelmö-dal—A volley of questions—Crossing a cataract—A tale of a tub—Author reaches Garatun—Futile attempt to drive a bargain.
The grey light of the morning was peeping through the hole in the roof, when I was awoke by Nicholas bestirring himself, and kicking his way through the conglomerate of prostrate forms. Thank goodness, my feverish chill had left me. “Richard was himself again!” The superfluity of vestments, together with the animal heat generated by seven human beings, packed as we had been, had done the business. The black wall I found trickling with moisture, like the sides of a Russian bath, from the hot smoke and steam, condensed by thecolder stones. I felt no return of the complaint, and doubtless the sovereign nostrum for me, under the circumstances, was the one I accidentally took.
After a cup of coffee, some cold trout and biscuit, I was ready to start; before doing which I put a trifle in Nicholas’ hand, which he pronounced a great deal too much. As we trudged along, a solitary raven or two were not wanting to the landscape; while, contrasting with their funereal plumage and dismal croak, was the cheerful twittering white-rumped stone-chat (steen-ducker), bobbing about from stone to stone, seemingly determined to enjoy himself in spite of the Robinson Crusoe nature of his haunts. Presently I let fly at a large flock of dotterel—“Rundfugel,” as the guide called them—and made a handsome addition to the proviant.
In one spot, where the available space for walking was narrowed by the head of a lake on one side, and an abrupt hill on the other, we came upon what looked like a saw-pit, four feet long and two feet broad, but which had been filled up with large stones. This, I was informed, was once a pit-fallfor the reindeer, but now discontinued. It was judiciously placed in a defile which the deer were known to make for when disturbed.
Not far beyond, as I passed what looked like a grey stone, the guide said—“That is Viensla Bue.” In fact, it was a small den, four feet high, constructed by some reindeer-hunter. I peeped in, and saw an iron pot and bed of moss, which show that it is still at times visited by man.
“Yonder is Harteigen,” exclaimed Ole, pointing to a singular square-shaped mountain, to the left, with precipitous sides, which looked two or three miles off, but which was in reality a dozen; such is the clearness of this atmosphere. Indeed, at home, every object appears to me to have a fuzzy, indistinct outline, when compared with the intensely sharp, definite outline of everything here.
“That mountain to our right, is Granatknuten,” continued my guide, “and this is Soveringsrindan.”
At least such was the name, as far as I could decipher his strange pronunciation, of the curious terraced elevation on which our path now lay.
It looked like a regular embankment, which it was difficult to imagine was not the work of men’s hands. In height, this terrace varied from thirty to eighty feet; its crown, which was perfectly even, and composed of shingle, mossed over in places, was about twenty feet broad, and afforded excellent walking; while in length it was about two English miles, and formed a gentle curve, cut in two about midway by a stream flowing from the Granatknuten to our right. On either side of the terrace were narrow moat-like lakes; while, to complete the illusion of its being a work of defence, at the distance of a few hundred yards to the right below the mountain, stood a mass of what seemed the irregular fortifications of an old castle.
Leaving the terrace, we presently walked along the bed of an ancient torrent, the peculiarity of which was that the stones which formed it fitted so exactly that they looked as if they had been laid by the hand of a mason. Before long we joined company with a stream going the same way as ourselves, so that we have now passed the water-shed. Hitherto the waters we have seen find their outletin the River Lougen, which flows down past Kongsberg to Laurvig, at the mouth of the Christiania-Fjord. Henceforward all the converging streams descend into the Hardanger-Fjord.
After a rough descent, we reach the first sæter, where Ole stops to talk with a damsel, Gunvor by name. Her dark hair, being drawn tightly back, so as to leave a thorough view of her well-cut face, eventuated in two tails, neatly braided with red tape.
A sleeveless jacket of red cloth fitted tightly to her figure, reminding me of the Tyrolese bodice, while her arms were covered with voluminous coarse linen shirt-sleeves, of spotless white, and buttoned at the wrist, while the collar was fastened at the throat to large silver studs. Across her bosom, in the fork of the bodice, was an inner patch of black cloth, garnished with beads. Gunvor smiled with an air of conscious pride as she bid us enter into her sæter, which, like herself, was extremely neat, contrasting favourably with the slovenly appearance of things in Thelemarken, which I had left behind me.
Around were ranged well-scoured vessels, full of all the mysterious products of the mountain dairy; were I to recount the names of which, the reader, who knows practically of nothing beyond milk and cream, and cheese and butter, would be astonished that so many things, of which he never heard, could be prepared out of simple cow’s and goat’s milk. The only thing that did not quite square with my notions of the idyllic modesty and simplicity of the scene was the sight of a youth, who had come up from the Hardanger, and was a servant of the farmer to whom the sæter belonged, stretched out asleep on Gunvor’s bed.
Refreshed with a lump of reindeer flesh out of my wallet, together with thick milk and brandy, we followed the path in its circuit round some morerochers montonnées, where the action of former glaciers is visible to perfection in the smoothed inclines and erratic blocks now standing stockstill. After many a toilsome up and down, we at length get the first bird’s-eye view of a darksome piece of water, lying thousands of feet below us in a deep trough of gigantic precipices. My destination isthe farm-house of Garatun (tun = town, the original meaning of which was enclosure); but to my utter astonishment I find that we have still fourteen miles of toil between us and the haven of rest.
Before long we overtake a singular cavalcade, which afforded an insight into Norwegian peasant life. There were four light little horses, each loaded with what looked like a pair of enormous milk pails. These are called strumpe, and are full of whey or thick milk, or some product of the mountain dairy. Two men followed the horses, each with a sort of Alpen-stock, only that at the end, grasped by the hand, there stuck out a stump of a branch. This I found is not only used as a walking staff, but is also most useful in another way. Each of the pails has of course to be hung on the straddle separately, and unless there is a second man to hold up the pail, already slung, till the other is also adjusted, the straddle would turn round under the horse’s belly, and the pail upset. This crutched stick, therefore, is used to prop up one side until the counterpoising pail is suspended on the other side the horse. Besides the men, there was a young girl,with her fair hair braided with red tape, her bodice of green cloth, while the stomacher or “bringeklut” was of red cloth, studded as usual with strings of coloured beads. A little boy was also of the party, dressed in the costume of the men, the only characteristic feature of which was a pair of red garters, tiedoverthe trousers below the knee, for the purpose I heard of keeping them out of the dirt.
The descent into Tjelmö-dal was terrific. My horse was lightly loaded; but the others were weighted, as I thought, beyond their powers, and the liquid within was alive, and swayed about, and was therefore more burdensome than dead weight proper. But, as usual, the horses were left to pick their own way, which was in places steeper than the ascent of St. Paul’s, the only assistance given them being a drag on the crupper from behind. The crupper, be it said, was not such as one generally sees, but a pole, about two feet long, curved in the middle for the tail to fit into, with either end fastened by wicker straps to the corresponding pail. This pristine contrivance, whichhas no doubt been in use for centuries, keeps the weight comparatively steady, and eases the horse.
“Who are you? Where do you come from? Are you an Englishman? Are you a landscape painter?” was a part of the volley of questions which they forthwith discharged at the writer of these lines, as he joined the party at the side of a thundering torrent of some breadth and depth—too deep to ford—where the little boy and girl, I observed, were jumping upon the nags.
“May I mount on that horse?” was the short interrogatory with which I answered them, having an eye to the main chance, and thinking that my tired horse, who was moreover far behind, had little chance of getting safely over with me on his back.
“Be so good! be so good! (vær so godt!)” was the good-natured reply, and I was in a moment astride of the animal, after the fashion for riding donkeys bareback in England,i.e., more aft than forward; and, after a few plunges among the stones, we were safe over the cataract. The two men, by the aid of their poles, crossed just above, leapingfrom one slippery stone to another, at the risk of flopping into the deep gurgling rapids that rushed between them.
We had scarcely got through when a terrible commotion was raised in front, and a simultaneous burst of “burra burraing” (wohoa-ing) ensued from all the party. In turning an angle of the corkscrew descent one of the pails had caught a projecting rock, and become unhooked, and was rolling away, the horse very nearly doing the same thing, right over the precipice. To stop its course, lift it up, and hook it on the straddle, was a task speedily accomplished by these agile mountaineers.
The fright having subsided, off we started again, and the queries recommenced. A Norwegian is a stubborn fellow, and sticks to his point. Little was to be got out of me but parrying answers, and the peasants guessed me of all the countries of Europe, ultimately fixing on Denmark as my probable native country.
After twisting and turning and passing one or two waterfalls of considerable height, we at length reached the bottom of the chasm, in whichthe river, which I had left some hours before, had forced its almost subterranean passage from the Fjeld. The gigantic wall of limestone on the opposite side rose, I should say at a rough guess, five times as high as the cliff impending over the Giant’s Causeway, and in more than one spot a force tumbled over the battlements.
By nine o’clock,P.M., to my great relief, as I was miserably foot-sore, my boots not having been properly greased, we arrived at Garatun, one of half a dozen small farmsteads that lay on the small grassy slopes by the side of the dark Eidsfjord. An old crone showed me upstairs into a room, round which were ranged eight chests or boxes with arching tops, painted in gaudy colours, with the name of Niels Garatun and his wife inscribed thereon. Round the wooden walls I counted twenty cloth dresses of red, green, and blue, suspended from wooden pegs. No beer being procurable, I slaked my raging thirst, while coffee was preparing, with copious draughts of prim, a sort of whey.
Before long, two or three peasants stalked in,hands in pockets, and forthwith, according to custom, commenced squirting tobacco-juice from their mouths with all the assiduity of Yankees.
“Who are you? Are you going up to the Foss to-morrow? Will you have a horse and a man? Many gentlemen give one dollar for the horse and one for the man. It’s meget brat (very steep); Slem Vei (bad road).”
To all which observations I replied that I was very tired, and could answer no questions at all that night. Upon which the spitters retired with an air of misgiving about me, as they had evidently calculated on nailing the foreigner to a bargain at the first blush of the thing; and, when the news of my arrival got wind, their market was sure to be lowered by competition. One of them, after closing the door, popped his head in again, and said—
“He thought he could do it cheaper; but I had better say at once, else he should be up to the sæter in the morning before I got up.”
“I would say nothing till nine o’clock the next morning,” was my reply, and I was left to restundisturbed; the men apparently thinking me an odd individual.
Long before nine o’clock my slumbers were disturbed by the entrance of a sharp-looking individual, who asked if I would have coffee? He did not belong to the house even; but by thisruseit was evident he intended to steal a march on the others.
“For four orts” (three shillings and fourpence), said he, “I’ll guide you up to the Foss, and then row you across the lake to Vik on the Hardanger.” The bargain was concluded at once; not a little to the consternation of the two dollar men, who, when they presented themselves at 9 o’clock, found that they were forestalled.
The young Prince of Orange—A crazy bridge—At the foot of the mighty Vöring Foss—A horse coming downstairs—Mountain greetings—The smoke-barometer—The Vöring waterfall—National characteristics—Paddy’s estimate of the Giant’s Causeway—Meteoric water—New illustrations of old slanders—How the Prince of Orange did homage to the glories of nature—Author crosses the lake Eidsfjord—Falls in with an English yacht and Oxonians—An innkeeper’s story about the Prince of Orange—Salmonia—General aspect of a Norwegian Fjord—Author arrives at Utne—Finds himself in pleasant quarters—No charge for wax-lights—Christian names in Thelemarken—Female attire—A query for Sir Bulwer Lytton—Physiognomy of the Thelemarken peasants—Roving Englishmen—Christiania newspapers—The Crown Prince—Historical associations of Utne—The obsequies of Sea Kings—Norwegian gipsies.
The young Prince of Orange—A crazy bridge—At the foot of the mighty Vöring Foss—A horse coming downstairs—Mountain greetings—The smoke-barometer—The Vöring waterfall—National characteristics—Paddy’s estimate of the Giant’s Causeway—Meteoric water—New illustrations of old slanders—How the Prince of Orange did homage to the glories of nature—Author crosses the lake Eidsfjord—Falls in with an English yacht and Oxonians—An innkeeper’s story about the Prince of Orange—Salmonia—General aspect of a Norwegian Fjord—Author arrives at Utne—Finds himself in pleasant quarters—No charge for wax-lights—Christian names in Thelemarken—Female attire—A query for Sir Bulwer Lytton—Physiognomy of the Thelemarken peasants—Roving Englishmen—Christiania newspapers—The Crown Prince—Historical associations of Utne—The obsequies of Sea Kings—Norwegian gipsies.
From my guide I learn that this land’s-end nook has been lately in a tremendous ferment, in consequence of the young Prince of Orange, who is making a tour in company with the Crown Princeof Norway, having visited the Vöring Foss. The Prince, whom report destines for England’s second Princess, appears to have been very plucky (meget flink) at the outset of the excursion, and outwalked all the rest of the party—at all events they suffered him to think so. Half way up, however, he was dead beat, and compelled to get on pony back.
At first the narrow valley is tolerably level, blocked up, however, with monstrous rocks and stones. Soon we arrive at a crazy bridge spanning the torrent. Striding on to this, Herjus turns round to see what I am doing. Finding me close behind, he goes on. The traveller in Norway must learn at a pinch
To cross a torrent foaming loudOn the uncertain footing of a spear.
To cross a torrent foaming loudOn the uncertain footing of a spear.
To cross a torrent foaming loud
On the uncertain footing of a spear.
“Many people get frightened at this bridge,” says he, “and we are forced to lead them over.”
At this I was not surprised. Three fir trees, of immense length, thrown across the thundering waters from two projecting cliffs, and supported midway by a rock in the stream, formed the permanent way. This, I understood, was very rotten;there was no sort of hand-railing, and at every step we took the frail timbers swayed unpleasantly with our weight. Passing Möbu, up to which salmon force their way, we recross the stream by a newly constructed, safe bridge, and leave it to thread its passage through cliffs, where no man can follow, to the foot of the mighty Vöring Foss.
We now begin to ascend a precipitous path right in front of us, which here and there assumes the shape of a regular staircase, by means of rough slabs of rock, placed one above another. If I had encountered a laden horse coming down the steps of the Monument, I should not have been more astonished than I was, on meeting upon this staircase a horse, loaded with two great pails. Close behind him was one Knut Tveitö. Grasping tightly at the wooden crupper described in the last chapter (hale-stock = tail-stick), he acted as a powerful drag to break the animal’s descent. With reins hanging loosely on his extended neck, ears pricked up, and fore-foot put forward as a feeler into mid-air, the sagacious little beast, with nothing more than his own good sense to guide him, isgroping his way down the loose and steep steps, now and then giving a sort of expostulatory grunt, as the great iron nails in his shoes slip along a rock, or he receives a jolt more shaking than ordinary.[14]
“Wilkommen fra Stölen” (welcome from the châlet), was the expressive greeting of Herjus to the stranger, whose reply was, “Gesegned arbeid!” (blessed labour). My guide’s words first awoke me to the fact that this is the path by which Knut had to toil to the summer pasture of his flocks and herds.
Bidding farewell to Knut, who waited a few minutes while I made a rough sketch of himself and his horse, we went on climbing. Hitherto the height of the mountains around had served to keep out the sun’s rays; but now our altitude was such, that they no longer served as a parasol, and as weemerged from the shadow into the broiling glare, the labour became proportionately greater. But we soon reach the top of the ascent, and open upon a bleak moor, flagged at intervals with flattish stones.
To the north rose a roundish mountain, clad with snow. This is Iökeln, 5700 feet high, called by the natives Yuklin. Between us and it, at the distance of about a mile across the moor, rose a thin, perpendicular spire of smoke, which might have been taken for the reek of a gipsy campfire.
“That’s Vöring,” said the guide, stuffing a quantity of blue and cloud berries into his mouth. “We shall have good weather; you should see Vöring when the weather is going to be bad—doesn’t he smoke then?”
I observed that all the people here talked thus of the Fall, assigning a sort of personality to the monster, as if it was something more than a mere body of water.
“And here we are at Vöring,” said the guide, after we had steeple-chased straight across theswamp to the shadowy spire. As he said this, he pointed down into an abyss, from which proceeded dull-sounding thunderings.
I found we were standing on the verge of a portentous crater, nine hundred feet deep, into which springs, at one desperate bound, the frantic water-spirit. The guide’s phlegmatic appearance at this moment was a striking contrast to the excitement of Paddy this summer, when he was showing me the organ-pipes of the Giant’s Causeway, sounding with the winds of the Atlantic.
“This, yer honner, is allowed by all thravellers to be the most wonderfullest scane in the whole world. There’s nothing to be found like it at all at all. Many professors have told me so.”
Straight opposite to us the cliff rose two or three hundred feet higher, and shot down another stream of no mean volume. But it was the contact of the Vöring with the black pit-bottom that I desired to see. This, however, is no easy matter. At length I fixed on what appeared to be the best spot, and requesting the man to gripe my hand tight, I craned over as far as I could,and got a view of the whole monster at once. Did not he writhe, and dart, and foam, and roar like some hideous projectile blazing across the dark sky at night. Such a sight I shall never behold again. It was truly terrific. It was well that the guide held me fast, for a strange feeling, such as Byron describes, as if of wishing to jump overboard, came over me in spite of myself.
But, after all, the Vöring Foss is a disappointment. You can’t see it properly. A capital defect. One adventurous Englishman, I understand, did manage by making a detour, to descend the cliff, and actually launched an India-rubber boat—what odd fellows Englishmen are—on the infernal surge below. A man who was with him told me he held the boat tight by a rope, while the Briton paddled over the pool. Arrived there, without looking at the stupendous column which rose from where he was to the clouds, or rather didvice versá, he pulled out of his pocket a small pot of white paint, and forthwith commenced painting his initials on the rock, to prove, as he said, that he had been there.
This reminds me of one of our countrymen who arrived in his carriage at dead of night at some Italian city of great interest. “Antonio, what is the name of this place?” On hearing it, he puts the name down in his pocket-book, and orders the horses, exclaiming—“Thank goodness; done another place.”
The next thing will be that we shall hear of some Beckford blasting the rock, and erecting a summer-house like that at the Falls of the Rhine, for the tourists to peep out of.
Fancy a Dutchman in such a place! The elation of the Prince of Orange, when he got to this spot, was such, that he and the botanist who accompanied him, are recorded to have drunk more wine than was good for them. “Pull off your hat, sir,” he hiccuped to the chief guide, in reverence, the reader will suppose, to the spirit of the spot. “Pull off your hat, I say; it is not every day that you guide a Prince to the Vöring!”
It was not till six o’clock that we were down at Garatun; so that the excursion is a good stiff day’s work. But to this sort of thing Ihad become accustomed, having walked on the two preceding days a distance of more than sixty English miles.
Crossing the gloomy little lake Eidsfjord, in a small boat rowed by my guide, and then over the little isthmus which separates it from the sea, I arrived at the “Merchant’s” at Vik. An English yacht, with Oxford men on board, lay at anchor close by. This I boarded forthwith, and was entertained by the hospitable owner with tea and news from England.
Magnus, the innkeeper, is evidently a man making haste to be rich. He has cows in plenty on the mountains; but he takes care to keep them there, and there is, consequently, not a vestige of cream or milk in his establishment, let alone meat, or anything but flad-brod and salted trout. He exultingly tells me that he was the guide-in-chief to the Dutch Prince, and what a lot of dollars he got for it. I don’t know whether these people belie his Royal Highness, but here is another anecdote at his expense.
“Magnus,” said the Prince, after paying him,“are you content? Have I paid as much as any Englishman ever did? For if any Englishman ever paid more, tell me, and I’ll not be beaten.”
As far as I could gather, Magnus, in reply, hummed and hawed in a somewhat dubious manner, and thus managed to extract a dollar or two more from his Highness.
Princes, by-the-bye, seem the order of the day. During the few hours I stopped here, a Prussian Prince and his suite, travellingincognito, also arrived, and passed on to the Waterfall.
The stream between this and the fresh-water lake above holds salmon and grilse, but there are no good pools.
On a lovely morning I took boat for Utne, further out in the Hardanger-Fjord. The English yacht had left some hours before, but was lying becalmed, the white sail hanging against the mast, under some tall cliffs flanking the entrance to the small Ulvik-Fjord. One or two stray clouds, moving lazily overhead, throw a dark shadow on the mountains, which are bathed in warm sunshine. Among the dark-green foliage and grey rockswhich skirt the rocky sides of the Fjord for miles in front of us, may at times be descried a bright yellow patch, denoting a few square yards of ripening corn, which some peasant has contrived to conjure out of the wilderness. Near the little patch may be descried a speck betokening the cabin of the said Selkirk.
As you approach nearer, you descry, concealed in a little nook cut out by nature in the solid rock, the skiff in which the lonely wight escapes at times from his isolation. In fact, he ekes out his subsistence by catching herring or mackerel, or any of the numerous finny tribes which frequent these fjords; in some measure making up to the settlers the barrenness of the soil. Presently I hear a distant sound in the tree-tops. Look! the clouds, hitherto so lazy, are on the move; the placid water, which reflected the yacht and its sails so distinctly just now, becomes ruffled and darkens; and anon a strong wind springs forth from its craggy hiding-place. See! it has already reached the craft, and she is dancing out into the offing, lying down to the water in a manner that shows she will soon lessen her eight miles distance from us, and beatout to sea with very little difficulty. As for poor luckless me, the boatmen had, of course, forgotten to take a sail; so that the wind, which is partly contrary, and soon gets up a good deal of sea, greatly retards our progress.
At length we arrive at Utne, a charming spot lying at the north-western entrance to the Sör-Fjord. What excellent quarters I found here. The mistress, the wife of the merchant, a most tidy-looking lady, wearing the odd-looking cap of the country, crimped and starched with great care, bustled about to make me comfortable. Wine and beer, pancakes and cherries, fresh lamb and whiting—O noctes cœnæque Deum!—such were the delicacies that fell to my share, and which were, of course, all the more appreciated by me after a fortnight’s semi-starvation among the mountains, crowned by the stingy fare of the dollar-loving Magnus.[15]
I think I have not mentioned that in Thelemarken and the Hardanger district one meets with quite a different class of Christian names from elsewhere in Norway, where the common-place Danish names, often taken from Scripture, are usual. Ole, it is true, being the name of the great national saint, is rife all over, especially in Hallingdal; so much so that if you meet with three men from that district, you are sure, they say, to find one of the three rejoicing in that appellation. The female part of the familyhere rejoice in the names of Torbior, Guro, and Ingiliv.
“I wish, Guro, you would teach me the names of the various articles of female attire you wear,” said I to the said damsel, a rosy-cheeked lass, her mouth and eyes, like most of the girls in the country, brimfull of good nature, though, perhaps, not smacking of much refinement. Her hair-tails were, as usual, braided with red tape: and, it being Sunday, these were bound round her head in the most approved modern French fashion.
“Oh! that is called Troie,” said she, as I pointed to a close-fitting jacket of blue cloth, which, the weather being chilly, she wore over all; and this is called Overliv—i.e., the vest of green fitting tight to her shape, with the waist in the right place.
What can so good a judge as Sir Bulwer Lytton, by-the-bye, be about when he talks somewhere of a “short waist not being unbecoming, as giving greater sweep to a majestic length of limb.”
“And this is the Bringe-klud” (the little bit of cloth placed across the middle of the bosom);“and this is called Stak,” continued she, with a whole giggle, and half a blush.
“And who was that reading aloud below this morning?”
“Oh, that was Torbior” (the mistress of the house).
“And what was she reading?”
“The Bible; she always does that every morning. We all assemble together in that room.”
Guro was fair; not so many of the inhabitants of the Hardanger district. The dark physiognomies and black eyes of some of the peasants contrast as forcibly with the blond aspect of the mass, as the Spanish faces in Galway do with the fair complexions of the generality of the daughters of Erin. One wonders how they got them. I never heard any satisfactory solution offered of the phenomenon.
Two Englishmen, who have also found their way hither, are gone to have a sight of the neighbouring Folge Fond. One of them is a Winchester lad, who has been working himself nearly blind and quite ill. His companion is ofa literary turn, and indulges in fits of abstraction. Emerging from one of these, he asks me whether there is ever a full moon in Carnival-time at Rome. Eventually, I discover the reason of his query. He is writing a novel, and his “Pyramus and Thisbe” meet within the Colosseum walls, at that period of rejoicing, by moonlight. But more circumspect than Wilkie, who makes one of the figures in his Waterloo picture eating oysters in June, he is guarding against the possibility of an anachronism.
Among the luxuries of this most tidy establishment are some Christiania papers. The prominent news is the progress of the Crown Prince, who is travelling in these parts. He landed here, and sketched the magnificent mountains that form the portals of the enchanting Sör (South) Fjord. At Ullenswang, on the west shore of that Fjord, he invited all the good ladies and gentlemen, from far and near, to a ball on board his yachtVidar, dancing with the prettiest of them. What particularly pleases the natives is the Prince’s free and easy way of going on. He chews tobacco strenuously,and to one public functionary he offered a quid (skrue), with the observation, “Er de en saadaan karl (Is this in your line)?” At a station in Romsdal, where he slept, he was up long before the aides-de-camp. After smoking a cigar with the Lehnsman in the keen morning air, finding that his attendants were still asleep, he went to their apartment, and, like an Eton lad, pulled all the clothes from their beds.
The great advantage which will ensue from the personal acquaintance thus formed between the Prince and this sturdy section of his subjects, is thoroughly understood, and the Norskmen appreciate the good of it, after their own independent fashion. One or two speakers, however, have greeted him with rather inflated and fulsome speeches, going so far as to liken him to St. Olaf, of pious memory. The only resemblance appears to be, that he is the first royal personage, since the days of that monarch, who has visited these mountains.
Utne has some curious historical recollections. In a hillock near the house several klinkers, such as those used for fastening the planking of vessels,have been discovered. Here then is a confirmation of the accounts given by Snorr. The ship, which was the Viking’s most valuable possession, which had borne him to foreign lands, to booty and to fame, was, at his death, drawn upon land; his body was then placed in it, and both were consumed by fire. Earth was then heaped over the ashes, and the grave encircled by a ship-shaped enclosure of upright stones, a taller stone being placed in the centre to represent the mast.
Sometimes, too, the dying Sea King’s obsequies were celebrated in a fashion, around which the halo of romance has been thrown. “King Hake of Sweden cuts and slashes in battle as long as he can stand, then orders his war-ship, loaded with his dead men and their weapons, to be taken out to sea, the tiller shipped, and the sails spread; being left alone, he sets fire to some tar-wood, and lies down contented on the deck. The wind blew off the land, the ship flew, burning in clear flame, out between the islets and into the ocean, and there was the right end of King Hake.”[16]
Considering that this place is so near such an enormous tract of snow and ice as the Folgefond, it is rather astonishing to find that it will grow cherries, apples, and corn, better than most places around.
I make a point in all these spots of examining any printed notice that I may come across, as being likely to throw light on the country and its institutions. Here, for instance, is a Government ordinance of 1855, about the Fante-folk, otherwise Tatere, or gipsies. From this I learn that some fifteen hundred of these Bedouins are moving about the kingdom, with children, who, like themselves, have never had Christian baptism or Christian instruction. They are herewith invited to settle down, and the Government promises to afford them help for this purpose; otherwise they shall still be called “gipsies,” and persecuted in various ways.