CHAPTER XI.

Scandinavian origin of Old English and Border ballads—Nursery rhymes—A sensible reason for saying “No”—Parish books—Osmund’s new boots—A St. Dunstan story—The short and simple annals of a Norwegian pastor—Peasant talk—Riddles—Traditional melodies—A story for William Allingham’s muse—The Tuss people receive notice to quit—The copper horse—Heirlooms—Stories in wood-carving—Morals and match-making.

It is well known that some of the old English and Border ballads,e.g., “King Henrie,” “Kempion,” “the Douglas Tragedy,” the “Dæmon Lover,” are, more or less Scandinavian in their origin. In the same way, “Jack the Giant Killer,” and “Thomas Thumb,” derive many of their features from the Northern Pantheon.

Mr. Halliwell, in hisNursery Rhymes of England, andPopular Rhymes, quotes some Swedish facsimiles of our rhymes of this class, and states,further, on the authority of Mr. Stephens, that the English infants of the nineteenth century “have not deserted the rhymes chanted so many ages since by their mothers in the North.”[18]It struck me, therefore, that in this store-house of antiquities, Sætersdal, I might be able to pick up some information corroborative of the above hypothesis. It was some time, however, before I could make Solomon understand what I meant by nursery rhymes. At last he hit upon my meaning, and I discovered that the word here for a lullaby or jingle, is “börne-süd.” Elsewhere, it is called Tull, or Lull-börn, whence our Lullaby.

“What’s the use of such things?” said Solomon; “they are pure nonsense.”

But, on my entreaty, he and others recited a few, in a sort of simple chant. The reader acquainted with that species of literature in England will be able to trace some resemblance between it and the following specimens, which have been in vogue inthis out-of-the-way valley several hundred years. The oldest people in it have inherited the same from their forefathers, and they are in the old dialect, which is, in a great measure, the old Norse. While what is very remarkable, like as is the case with us and our nursery rhymes, the people in many cases recited to me what appeared sheer nonsense, the meaning of which they were themselves unable to explain.

Börn lig i brondo,Brondo sig i haando;Kasler i krogje,Kiernet i kove,Hesten mi i heller fast,Jeita te mi i scaare fast,Saa mi spil langst noro Heio.Bairn it lies a burning,Burning itself in the hands;Kettle is on the crook,The churn is in a splutter,My horse is fast on the rocks,My goat is fast on the screes,My sheep play along the northern heights.

Börn lig i brondo,Brondo sig i haando;Kasler i krogje,Kiernet i kove,Hesten mi i heller fast,Jeita te mi i scaare fast,Saa mi spil langst noro Heio.

Börn lig i brondo,

Brondo sig i haando;

Kasler i krogje,

Kiernet i kove,

Hesten mi i heller fast,

Jeita te mi i scaare fast,

Saa mi spil langst noro Heio.

Bairn it lies a burning,Burning itself in the hands;Kettle is on the crook,The churn is in a splutter,My horse is fast on the rocks,My goat is fast on the screes,My sheep play along the northern heights.

Bairn it lies a burning,

Burning itself in the hands;

Kettle is on the crook,

The churn is in a splutter,

My horse is fast on the rocks,

My goat is fast on the screes,

My sheep play along the northern heights.

Here is another, which would remind us of a passage in “The Midsummer Night’s Dream,” onlythat the squirrel is now reaper instead of coach-maker:—

Ekorne staa paa vaadden o’ sloHöre dei kaar dei snöre;Skjere laeste, kraaken dro,O, roisekattan han kjore.The squirrels they stand on the meadow and mow,Hear how they bustle the vermin;The magpie it loads, and who draws but the crow,And the waggoner, it is the ermine.

Ekorne staa paa vaadden o’ sloHöre dei kaar dei snöre;Skjere laeste, kraaken dro,O, roisekattan han kjore.

Ekorne staa paa vaadden o’ slo

Höre dei kaar dei snöre;

Skjere laeste, kraaken dro,

O, roisekattan han kjore.

The squirrels they stand on the meadow and mow,Hear how they bustle the vermin;The magpie it loads, and who draws but the crow,And the waggoner, it is the ermine.

The squirrels they stand on the meadow and mow,

Hear how they bustle the vermin;

The magpie it loads, and who draws but the crow,

And the waggoner, it is the ermine.

A similar one:—

Reven sitte i lien,Hore börne grin,Kom börne mine, o gaer heim mi ma,Saa skal wi gama sja.Han traeske, hun maale,Kiessling knudde, kjette bake,Muse rödde mi rumpe si paa leiven.The fox, the fox, she sits on the lea,Hears her bairns a-crying:Come, bairns mine, and go home with me,What games you shall then be seeing.The fox he thrashed, the vixen she ground;The kitten kneads, the cat she bakes,The mouse with his tail he sprinkles the cakes.[19]

Reven sitte i lien,Hore börne grin,Kom börne mine, o gaer heim mi ma,Saa skal wi gama sja.Han traeske, hun maale,Kiessling knudde, kjette bake,Muse rödde mi rumpe si paa leiven.

Reven sitte i lien,

Hore börne grin,

Kom börne mine, o gaer heim mi ma,

Saa skal wi gama sja.

Han traeske, hun maale,

Kiessling knudde, kjette bake,

Muse rödde mi rumpe si paa leiven.

The fox, the fox, she sits on the lea,Hears her bairns a-crying:Come, bairns mine, and go home with me,What games you shall then be seeing.The fox he thrashed, the vixen she ground;The kitten kneads, the cat she bakes,The mouse with his tail he sprinkles the cakes.[19]

The fox, the fox, she sits on the lea,

Hears her bairns a-crying:

Come, bairns mine, and go home with me,

What games you shall then be seeing.

The fox he thrashed, the vixen she ground;

The kitten kneads, the cat she bakes,

The mouse with his tail he sprinkles the cakes.[19]

Another:—

So ro ti krabbe skjar,Kaar mange fiske har du der?En o’ ei fiörde,Laxen den store;En ti far, en ti mor,En ti den som fisker dror.Sow row to the crab-skerrys,[20]How many fishes have you there?One, two, three, four,The salmon, the stour.One for father, for mother one;One for him the net who drew.

So ro ti krabbe skjar,Kaar mange fiske har du der?En o’ ei fiörde,Laxen den store;En ti far, en ti mor,En ti den som fisker dror.

So ro ti krabbe skjar,

Kaar mange fiske har du der?

En o’ ei fiörde,

Laxen den store;

En ti far, en ti mor,

En ti den som fisker dror.

Sow row to the crab-skerrys,[20]How many fishes have you there?One, two, three, four,The salmon, the stour.One for father, for mother one;One for him the net who drew.

Sow row to the crab-skerrys,[20]

How many fishes have you there?

One, two, three, four,

The salmon, the stour.

One for father, for mother one;

One for him the net who drew.

Now and then a different course of treatment is proposed for the fractious baby, as in the following:—

Bis, Bis, Beijo,Börn will ikke teio,Tak laeggen,Slo mod vaeggen,So vil börne teio.Bis, Bis, Beijo,Baby won’t be still, O,By the leg take it,’Gainst the wall whack it,So will baby hush, O.

Bis, Bis, Beijo,Börn will ikke teio,Tak laeggen,Slo mod vaeggen,So vil börne teio.

Bis, Bis, Beijo,

Börn will ikke teio,

Tak laeggen,

Slo mod vaeggen,

So vil börne teio.

Bis, Bis, Beijo,Baby won’t be still, O,By the leg take it,’Gainst the wall whack it,So will baby hush, O.

Bis, Bis, Beijo,

Baby won’t be still, O,

By the leg take it,

’Gainst the wall whack it,

So will baby hush, O.

This reminds me of another:—

Klappe, Klappe, söde,Büxerne skulle vi böte,Böte de med kjetteskind,Saa alle klorene vend te ind,I rumpen paa min söde.Clappa, Clappa, darlin’,Breeches they want patchin’,Patch them with a nice cat-skin,All the claws turned outside in,To tickle my little darlin’.

Klappe, Klappe, söde,Büxerne skulle vi böte,Böte de med kjetteskind,Saa alle klorene vend te ind,I rumpen paa min söde.

Klappe, Klappe, söde,

Büxerne skulle vi böte,

Böte de med kjetteskind,

Saa alle klorene vend te ind,

I rumpen paa min söde.

Clappa, Clappa, darlin’,Breeches they want patchin’,Patch them with a nice cat-skin,All the claws turned outside in,To tickle my little darlin’.

Clappa, Clappa, darlin’,

Breeches they want patchin’,

Patch them with a nice cat-skin,

All the claws turned outside in,

To tickle my little darlin’.

It being now noon (noni), or Solomon’s meal-time, he left me, promising to give me a call in the evening.

“Yes, and you must take a glass of finkel with me; it will refresh your mind as well as body.”

“Not a drop, thank you. If I begin, I can’t stop.”

“That’s the way with these bonders,” observed the Lehnsman to me, when we were alone; “even the most intelligent of them, if they once get hold of the liquor, go on drinking till they are furiously drunk.”

This then is pre-eminently the country for Father Mathews!

“By-the-bye,” said the Lehnsman, “our parson has left us, and his successor is not yet arrived; but I think I can get the keys from the clerk, and we will go to the vicarage, and look at the kald-bog (call-book), a sort of record of all the notable things that have ever happened at the kald (living).”

Presently we found ourselves seated in the priest’s chamber, with the said book before us.

The following curious reminiscence of the second priest after the Reformation is interesting:—

“One Sunday, when the priest was just going up into the pulpit (praeke-stol), in strode the Lehnsman Wund (or ond = bad, violent), Osmund Berge. He had on a pair of new boots, which creaked a good deal, much to the scandal of the congregation, who looked upon this sort of foot-covering as an abomination; shoes being the only wear of the valley. The priest, who had a private feud with Osmund, foolishly determined to take the opportunity of telling him a little bit of his mind, and spoke out strongly on the impropriety of his coming in so late, and with creaking boots, forsooth. Bad Osmund sat down, gulping in hiswrath, but when the sermon was ended, he waited at the door till the priest came out of church, and in revenge struck him with his knife,after the custom of those days. The priest fell dead, and the congregation, in great wrath at the death of their pastor, set upon the murderer, stoned him to death a few steps from the church, and buried him where he fell. Until a few years ago, a cairn of stones, the very implements, perhaps, of his lapidation, marked the spot of his interment. After this tragical occurrence, the parish was without a clergyman for three years; till at last another pastor was introduced by a rich man of those parts, on the promise of the parishioners that he should be protected from harm.”

I found, in the same book, a curious notice of one Erik Leganger, another clergyman. When he came to the parish, not a person in it could read or write. By his unremitting endeavours he wrought a great change in this respect, and the people progressed in wisdom and knowledge. This drew upon him the animosity of the Father of Evil himself. On one occasion, when the priest wassledging to his other church, the foul fiend met him in the way; a dire contest ensued, which ended in the man of God overpowering his adversary, whom he treated like the witch Sycorax did Ariel, confining him “into a cloven pine.”

A later annotator on this notable entry says, the only way of explaining this affair is by the fact that the priest, although a good man, had a screw loose in his head (skrue los i Hovedet). But this Judæus Apella ought to have remembered the case of Doctor Luther, not to mention Saint Dunstan.

The good Lehnsman, who entered with great enthusiasm into my desire for information on all subjects, now commenced reading an entry made by a former priest, with whom he had been acquainted, of his daily going out and coming in during the period it had pleased God to set him over that parish, with notices of his previous history. His father had been drowned while he was a child, and his widowed mother was left with three children, whom she brought up with great difficulty, owing to her narrow means. Being putto school, he attracted the notice of the master, who encouraged him to persevere in his studies. Finally, by the assistance of friends, he got to the University, earning money for the purpose by acting as tutor in private families during the vacations. At last he passed his theological examination, but only as “baud illaudabilis;” the reason for which meagre commendation he attributes to his time being so taken up with private tuition. At the practical examination he came out “laudabilis,” so that he had retrieved his position. He then mentions how that he was married to the betrothed of his boyhood and became a curate; till at length he was promoted to this place, which he had now left for better preferment, expressing the hope, in his own hand-writing, “that he had worked among his people not without profit. Amen.”

At this moment, the good Lehnsman—whether it was that the heat or his fatigue in my behalf was too much for him, or whether it was that he was overcome by the simple and feeling record of his former pastor’s early struggles—turned pale, and became deadly sick. Eventually he recovered,and, in his politeness, sat down to dinner with me in his own house.

In the evening I took my fly-rod, and went down to the river with a retinue of forty rustics at my heels. The flies, however, having caught hold of one boy’s cap, nearly breaking my rod, the crowd were alarmed for their eyes, and kept a respectful distance, while I pulled out a few trout; an exploit which drew from them many expressions of by no means mute wonder.

After this I sat down on a stone, and had a chat with these fellows. They had evidently got over the feeling so common among the peasantry of being afraid at being laughed at by the stranger and by each other. Many of them blurted out something. Riddles (Gaator or Gaade, allied to our word “guess,”) were all the go. These are a very ancient national pastime. They were, however, of no great merit. Here are specimens:—

Rund som en egg,Länger end kirke-vægg.Round as an egg,Longer than a church-wall.Answer.A roll of thread.

Rund som en egg,Länger end kirke-vægg.

Rund som en egg,

Länger end kirke-vægg.

Round as an egg,Longer than a church-wall.

Round as an egg,

Longer than a church-wall.

Answer.A roll of thread.

Rund som solen, svart som jorde.Round as the sun, swart as the earth.[i.e., the large round iron on which girdle-cake is baked.]

Rund som solen, svart som jorde.

Round as the sun, swart as the earth.

[i.e., the large round iron on which girdle-cake is baked.]

Hvad er det som go rund o giore eg?What is that which goes round o’ gars eggs?Answer.A grindstone. Adouble entendreis contained in the word egg;which means either “edge,” or “egg.”

Hvad er det som go rund o giore eg?

What is that which goes round o’ gars eggs?

Answer.A grindstone. Adouble entendreis contained in the word egg;which means either “edge,” or “egg.”

I know a wonderful tree,The roots stand up and the top is below,It grows in winter and lessens in summer.Answer.A glacier.

I know a wonderful tree,

The roots stand up and the top is below,

It grows in winter and lessens in summer.

Answer.A glacier.

Four gang, four hang,Two show the way, two point to the sky,And one it dangles after.Answer.Cow with her legs, teats, eyes, horns, and tail.

Four gang, four hang,

Two show the way, two point to the sky,

And one it dangles after.

Answer.Cow with her legs, teats, eyes, horns, and tail.

What is that as high as the highest tree,But the sun never shines on it?Answer.The pith.

What is that as high as the highest tree,

But the sun never shines on it?

Answer.The pith.

What goes from the fell to the shoreAnd does not move?Answer.A fence.

What goes from the fell to the shore

And does not move?

Answer.A fence.

These country-people are not deficient in proverbs—e.g.,

Another man’s steedHas always speed.

Another man’s steed

Has always speed.

Much of what they said was spoken in an outlandish dialect, and what made it worse, when Iasked for an explanation, they all cried out together, like the boys in a Government school in India. Indeed, when they were once fairly afloat it was difficult to curb the general excitement.

Moe, a Norwegian writer, who has penetrated into many of the out-of-the-way valleys of this part of the country and Thelemarken, states that the peasants are provided with a large budget of traditional melodies; but more than this, these genuine and only representatives of the ancient “smoothers and polishers of language” (scalds), not only use the very strophe of those ancient improvisatores, but have also a knack of improvising songs on the spur of the moment, or, at all events, of grafting bits of local colouring into old catches.

The peasants around tipped me one or two of these staves. When the company are all assembled, one sings a verse, and challenging another to contend with him in song, another answers, and, after a few alternate verses, the two voices chime in together. What I heard was not extempore, but traditional in the valley.

One young fellow commenced a stave whichseemed to be a great favourite, for directly he began it, the others said, “To be sure, we all know that; sing it, Thorkil.”

In the evening, true to his promise, old Solomon appeared. He had called to mind a tale that would perhaps please me.

“There was once on a time a shooter looking for fowl on the heights (heio) above Sætersdal. Well, on he went, doing nothing but looking up into the tree-tops for the fowl, when, all of a sudden, he found himself in a house he had never seen before. There were large chambers all round, and long corridors, and so many doors he could not number them. He went seeking about all over till he was tired. Folk he could see none, nor could he find his way out. At last he came to one chamber where he thought he could hear people, so he opened the door and looked in; and there sat a lassie alone (eisemo); so he spoke to her, and asked who lived there. So she answered they were Tuss folk, and that the house was so placed that nobody could see it till they got into it, and then one could not get out again.‘That’s the way it went with me,’ said she, mournfully; ‘I have been here a long time now, but don’t think I shall ever get out again.’ The shooter on this got very frightened, and asked her if she could not tell him some way of escape. ‘Well,’ answered the girl, ‘I’ll tell you how you can do it, but you must first promise me to come back to the gaard and take me away.’ This he promised at once to do without fail. ‘Now, then, follow me, and open the door I point out. They are sitting at the board and eating (aa eta), and he who sits at the top is the king, and he’s bigger and brawer than all the others, so that you’ll know him directly. You must take your rifle, and aim at the king—only aim, you mustn’t shoot. They’ll be in such a fright they’ll drive you out directly you heave up the gun; so you’ll be all safe, and then you must think of me. You must come here next Thursday evening[21]as ever is, and the next, and the third; and then I’ll follow you home—of that you may be certain.’ So shewent and showed him the door, and he opened it and went in, and saw them all eating and drinking, and he up with his gun and pointed it at the one at the top of the table. Up they all jumped in alarm; he sprung out, they after him, and so he got clean out and safe home. On the first Thursday evening away he went to the Fell, and the second, and talked each time with the girl; but the third Thursday, on which all depended, he didn’t come. I don’t know why it was he did not keep his promise. Perhaps he thought if he took her home he should have to marry her. Anyhow it was base ingratitude. Some three or four years after the shooter was on the heights again, when he heard a girl’s voice greet (gret), and lament that she was so dowie (dauv) and lonely, and could not get away to her home. He knew the voice at once—it was the girl he had deserted. He looked round and round, and about on all sides, but could see nothing but rocks and trees, and so nothing could be done for the poor lassie.”

“Now I think of it,” continued Solomon, “thereis a tuss story I’ve heard about this Rigegaard where you are stopping.”

“Delightful!” thought I; “I never did yet sleep in a haunted house—it will be a capital adventure for the journal.”

“It’s a long time ago since, though. The ‘hill-folks’ used to come and take up their quarters here at Yule. It was every Yule the same; they never missed. They did keep it up, I believe you, in grand style, eating, and drinking, and clattering till they made the old house ring again. At last, Arne—he lived here in those days—gave the underground people notice to quit; he would not put up with it any longer. So off they went. In the hurry of departure they left some of their chattels, and, among others, a little copper horse, which Arne put out of sight, though he had no idea what it was used for. Next day, a Troll came down from the hill above yonder, into which the whole pack had retired for the present, and claimed the property. Arne, however, had taken a fancy to the horse, and would not give it up. They might have that little drinking-beaker ofstrange workmanship, but the copper horse he was determined to keep. ‘Well,’ said the Troll, ‘keep it then; but, mind this, never you part with it. If ever you do, this house will never be free from poverty and bad luck to the end of the present race.’[22]‘Good!’ replied Arne, ‘I’ll take care of that, and my son will keep the horse after me, and hand it down as an heir-loom.’

“After this, the house went on prosperously, and no more was heard of the Trolls. Many years after, when Arne and his son were dead, the grandson parted with the horse. He had heard of the story, but he did not care; he did not want such trash—not he. After this, nothing went well with him. Poverty overtook him, and the family fell into the utmost distress.”

“But,” interposed I, “the people seem very well-to-do. I see no symptoms of poverty. The woman is a filthy creature, and that towel is disgusting[all travellers in Norway, mind and take a towel with you], and the food she gives me is uneatable; but I hear they are rich.”

“Yes,” said Solomon, “but this is quite another branch of the family. The other one died quite out, and then the destiny altered. The present people have risen again in the world.”

Talking of heirlooms, there is no copper horse now, of course, but there are several quaint things about the gaard, mementos of ancient days. Among the rest were two curious old hand-axes, used, as above-mentioned, by the Norwegians as walking sticks, when not applied to more desperate service, the iron being then used as a handle. The door-jambs of an out-house, moreover, are of singularly beautiful carving. These are a couple of feet in width, and formerly adorned the entrance to the old church of Hyllenstad, and give an idea of the great taste displayed by these people in ecclesiastical ornament in the Roman Catholic days. A tale is told here in wood, which I could not make out. It is most likely connected with the building of the church. Sundry figures appear with bellowsand hammers, and the implements of the carpenter. But these are afterwards exchanged for weapons of a more deadly nature. A man with a sword drives it right through another, while on the corresponding jamb a gentleman is seen in hot contest with a dragon, whose tail is artfully mingled with the arabesques around. All these figures are carved in bold relief. The work was no doubt by Norwegian artists, for the interlacing foliage is in that peculiarly graceful and broad style (mentioned by Mallet and Pontoppidan), which always seems to have been at home in this country. These beautiful panels, together with the slender pillars joined to them, sold at the auction of the old materials for one dollar!

So little has this valley been modernized, that I find in almost every house specimens of the Primstav, or old Runic calendar, handed down from father to son for centuries. “It is the same with those tales you have heard,” said the Lehnsman; “the oldest people in the valley got them from the oldest people before them, though not in writing, but by oral tradition.”

“And what is the state of morals up here?”

“The Nattefrieri is very much in vogue, but the evil consequences are not so great as may be imagined.”

I must own that the revelations of the Lehnsman stripped those people, in my eyes, of a good deal of the romance with which their literary tastes had invested them. Nor was my idea of the artless and unsophisticated simplicity of these rustic Mirandas enhanced, when I was told that match-making was not uncommon among the seniors, and the juniors consented to be thus bought and sold. Hear this, ye manœuvring mammas!

“With a little hoard of maxims preaching down a daughter’s heart.”

Yes! marriage here, as among the grand folks elsewhere, turns upon a question of lots of money—a handsome establishment. Perhaps, too, the jilts of refined and polished society will rejoice, to hear that they are kept in countenance by the doings in Sætersdal. It sometimes, though rarely, happens that a girl is engaged to a young fellow, who means truly by her, the wedding guests are bidden, and she—bolts with another man.

Off again—Shakspeare and Scandinavian literature—A fat peasant’s better half—A story about Michaelmas geese—Explanation of an old Norwegian almanack—A quest after the Fremmad man—A glimpse of death—Gunvar’s snuff-box—More nursery rhymes—A riddle of a silver ring—New discoveries of old parsimony—The Spirit of the Woods—Falcons at home—The etiquette of tobacco-chewing—Lullabies—A frank invitation—The outlaw pretty near the mark—Bjaräen—A valuable hint to travellers—Domestic etcetera—Early morning—Social magpies—An augury—An eagle’s eyrie—Meg Merrilies—Wanted an hydraulic press—A grumble at paving commissioners—A disappointment—An unpropitious station-master—Author keeps house in the wilderness—Practical theology—Story of a fox and a bear—Bridal stones—The Vatnedal lake—Waiting for the ferry—An unmistakable hint—A dilemma—New illustration of the wooden nutmeg truth—“Polly put the kettle on”—A friendly remark to Mr. Caxton—The real fountain of youth—Insectivora—The maiden’s lament.

Bidding adieu to the kind and hospitable Lehnsman and his spouse, whose courtesy and hospitalitymade up for the forbidding ways of Madame Rige, I turned my face up the valley. The carriage-road having now ceased, my luggage is transposed to the back of a stout horse, which, like the ancient Scottish wild cattle, was milk-white, with black muzzle. The straddle, or wooden saddle, which crosses his back, is called klöv-sal. Curiously enough, the Connemara peasants give the name of “cleve” to the receptacles slung on either side the ponies for the purpose of carrying peat, and through which the animal’s backcleaveslike a wedge. A very fat man came puffing and panting up to my loft to fetch my gear.

“What!” said I, “areyougoing to march with me all that distance?” with an audibleasideabout his “larding the lean earth as he walks along.” The allusion to Falstaff he of course did not understand. His literature is older than Shakspeare; indeed the bard of Avon often borrowed from it. Whence comes his “Man in the moon with his dog and bush,” but from the fiction in the Northern mythology of Mâni (the moon), and the two children, Bil and Hiuki, whom she stole fromearth. Scott’s Wayland Smith, too, he is nothing but Völund, the son of the Fin-king, who married a Valkyr by mistake, and used to practise the art of a goldsmith in Wolf-dale, and was hamstrung by the avaricious King Nidud, and forced to make trinkets for him on the desert isle of Saeverstad. Though it is only fair to say that the legend belonged also to the Anglo-Saxons, and indeed to most of the branches of the Gothic race. But we are forgetting our post-master. He was the first fat peasant I ever saw in this country.

“Nei, cors” (No, by the Rood). “I’m not equal to that. It’s nearly four old miles. My wife, a very snil kone (discreet woman), will schuss you.”

His better half accordingly appeared, clad in the dingy white woollen frock already described, reaching from the knee to the arm-holes, where is the waist. On this occasion, however, she had, for the purpose of expedition, put an extra girdle above her hips, making the brief gown briefer still, and herself less like a woman about to dance in a sack. Sending her on before, I sauntered along, stopping a second or two to examine thehuge unhewn slab before the church door, with a cross and cypher on it, and the date 1639; to which stone some curious legend attaches, which I have forgotten. Passing Solomon’s house, and finding he had gone to the mountains, I left for him some flies, and adouceur, to the bewilderment of his son. At a house further up the valley I found a primstav two hundred years old, the owner of which perfectly understood the Runic symbols.

“That goose,” said he, “refers to Martinsmass, (Nov. 11). That’s the time when the geese are ready to kill.”

So that our derivation of Michaelmas goose-eating from the old story of Queen Elizabeth happening to have been eating that dish on the day of the news of the defeat of the Spanish Armada, is a myth. We got the custom from Norway, but the bird being fit to eat on the 29th September, Englishmen were too greedy to wait, and transferred to the feast of the archangel the dish appertaining to the Bishop of Tours.

That’s a lyster for Saint Lucia (13th Dec.); it means that they used to catch much fish againstYule. That knife means that it is time to slaughter the pigs for Yule. That horn is Yule-horn [the vehicle for conveying ale to the throats of the ancient Norskmen]. That’s Saint Knut (Jan. 7th). That’s his bell, to ring winter out. The sun comes back then in Thelemarken. Old folks used to put their hands behind their backs, take a wooden ale-bowl in their teeth, and throw it over their back; if it fell bottom upwards, the person would die in that year. That’s St. Brettiva, (Jan. 11), when all the leavings of Yule are eat up. You see the sign is a horse. I’ll tell you how that is. Once on a time a bonder in Thelemarken was driving out that day. The neighbour (nabo) asked him if he knew it was Saint Brettiva’s day. He answered—

Brett me here, brett me there,I’ll brett (bring) home a load of hay, I swear.

Brett me here, brett me there,

I’ll brett (bring) home a load of hay, I swear.

The horse stumbled, and broke its foot; that’s the reason why the day is marked with a horse in Thelemarken.

“That’s St. Blasius (Feb. 3), marked with a ship. If it blows (bläse) on that day, it will blowall the year through. That’s a very particular day. We must not use any implement that goes round on it, such as a mill, or a spindle, else the cattle would get a swimming in the head (Sviva).

“That’s St. Peter’s key (Feb. 22). Ship-folks begin to get their boats ready then. As the weather is that day it will be forty days after.

“That,” continued this learned decipherer of Runes, “is St. Matthias (24th Feb.) If it’s cold that day, it will get milder, andvice versâ; and therefore the saying is, St. Matthias bursts the ice; if there is no ice, he makes ice. The fox darn’t go on the ice that day for fear it should break.

“That’s a mattock (hakke) for St. Magnus (16th April). We begin then to turn up the soil.

“That’s St. Marcus (25th April). That’s Stor Gangdag (great procession-day). The other gang-days are Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension.”

“And why are they called Gang-days?”

“Because a procession used to go round thefields, and the priest, at their head, held mass, to drive away all evil spirits.”

Here, then, we see the origin of our beating the bounds. Although, perhaps, the custom may be traced to some ceremonial in honour of Odin akin to the Ambarvalia at Rome in honour of Ceres. According to an old tradition, however, it originated thus. There was, many years ago, a great drought in Norway about this period of the year. A general procession-day was ordered in consequence, together with a fast, which was kept so strictly, that the cattle were muzzled, and the babe in the cradle kept from the breast. Just before the folks went to church it was as dry as ever, but when they came out, it was raining hard. We Christians ring the “passing bell” on the death of anybody, but are perhaps not aware that it began in northern superstition. Sprites, as we have mentioned elsewhere, can’t bear bells—one of them was once heard lamenting in Denmark that he could stay no longer in the country on account of the din of the church bells. So, to scare away the evil spirits, and let the departing soul have a quiet passage, the sexton tolls the bell.

“That’s Gowk’s-mass (May 1); you see the gowk (cuckoo) in the tree. That’s a great bird that. They used to say—

North, corpse-gowk, south, sow-gowk,West, will-gowk, east, woogowk.”

North, corpse-gowk, south, sow-gowk,

West, will-gowk, east, woogowk.”

“What’s the meaning of that?”

“Why, if you heard the cuckoo first in the north, the same year you would be a corpse; if in the south, you would have luck in sowing; if in the west, your will would be accomplished; if in the east, you would have luck in wooing.

“That’s Bjornevaak (bear’s waking day) May 22. You see it’s a bear. They say the bear leaves his ‘hi’ that day. On midwinter (Jan. 12) he gave himself a turn round.[23]

“That’s Saint Sunniva, Bergen’s Saint[24](July 8).

“That’s Olsok (St. Olaf’s day), July 29, marked with an axe. The bonder must not mow that day, or there will come vermin on the cattle.

“That’s Laurentius’ day, marked with a gridiron.

“That’s Kverne Knurran, marked with a millstone, Sept. 1. If it’s dry that day the millers will come to want water.

“That’s vet-naet (winter-night), Oct. 14, when the year began. That’s a glove,[25]to show cold weather is coming. There’s an old Runic rhyme about that, where Winter says:—

On winter-night for me look out,On Fyribod (Oct. 28) I come, without doubt;If I delay till Hallow e’en,Then I bow down the fir-tree green.”

On winter-night for me look out,

On Fyribod (Oct. 28) I come, without doubt;

If I delay till Hallow e’en,

Then I bow down the fir-tree green.”

The “Tale of the Calendar”[26]was, however, now interrupted by a tap at the window, and a man screams out—

“Where is the Fremmad man? where is the Fremmad man?”

“The stranger is here in the house,” was the reply.

And in came a man, who had evidently just dressed in his best, with something very like death written in his sunken cheeks, starting eyes, and sharpened features.

“Can you tell me what is good for so and so?” he asked. “Oh! what pain I endure.”

The poor fellow was clearly suffering from the stone, and there was no doctor within a great many days’ journey. His doom was evidently sealed.

Further up the valley, a fierce thunder-storm coming on, I entered one of the smoke-houses above described, where an old lady, Gunvor Thorsdatter, bid me welcome. She offered me her mullof home-dried sneeshing—it was rather a curious affair, being shaped like a swan’s-egg pear, and sprigged all over with silver. A very small aperture, stopped by a cork, was the only way of getting at the precious dust. Gunvor was above eighty, but in full possession of her faculties, and I judged her therefore not an unlikely person to have some old stories.

“What do you sing to the babies when you want to make them sleep?”

“I don’t know. All sorts of things.”

“Well, will you repeat me one?”

She looked hard at me for a moment, and suddenly all the deep furrows across her countenance puckered up and became contorted, just like a ploughed field when the harrow has passed over it. A stifled giggle next escaped her through hererkos odontôn, which was still white, and without gaps. A slight suspicion that I was making fun of her I at once removed from her mind; then, looking carefully round, and seeing that there was nobody else by, she croaked out, in a sort of monotonous melody, the following, which I give literally in English:—

Row, row to Engeland,To buy my babe a pearlen-band,New breeches and new shoes,So to its mother baby goes.

Row, row to Engeland,

To buy my babe a pearlen-band,

New breeches and new shoes,

So to its mother baby goes.

This sounds like our—

“To market, to market, to buy a plum-bun.”

Another, the first lines of which remind one of our—

Rockabye, babye, thy cradle is green,Father’s a nobleman, mother’s a queen.

Rockabye, babye, thy cradle is green,

Father’s a nobleman, mother’s a queen.

Tippi, Tippi, Tua (evidently our “Dibity, Dibity, Do”),Mother was a frua (lady),Father was of gentle blood,Brother was a minstrel good;His bow so quick he drew,The strings snapt in two.Longer do not playOn your strings, I pray:Strings they cost money,Money in the purse,Purse in the kist,Kist in the safe,Safe is in the boat,Boat on board the ship,Ship it lies in Amsterdam,What’s the skipper’s name?His name is called Helje;Have you aught to sell me?Apples and onions, onions and apples,Pretty maidens come and buy.

Tippi, Tippi, Tua (evidently our “Dibity, Dibity, Do”),

Mother was a frua (lady),

Father was of gentle blood,

Brother was a minstrel good;

His bow so quick he drew,

The strings snapt in two.

Longer do not play

On your strings, I pray:

Strings they cost money,

Money in the purse,

Purse in the kist,

Kist in the safe,

Safe is in the boat,

Boat on board the ship,

Ship it lies in Amsterdam,

What’s the skipper’s name?

His name is called Helje;

Have you aught to sell me?

Apples and onions, onions and apples,

Pretty maidens come and buy.

This species of accumulated jingle is called “Reglar,” and reminds us of “The House that Jack built.”

Another, sung by a woman with a child on her knee:—

Ride along, ride a cock-horse,So, with the legs across;Horse his name is apple-grey[27](abel-graa),Little boy rides away.Where shall little boy ride to?To the king’s court to woo;At the king’s court,They’re all gone out,All but little dogs twain,Fastened with a chain:Their chains they do gnaw,And say “Wau, wau, wau.”

Ride along, ride a cock-horse,

So, with the legs across;

Horse his name is apple-grey[27](abel-graa),

Little boy rides away.

Where shall little boy ride to?

To the king’s court to woo;

At the king’s court,

They’re all gone out,

All but little dogs twain,

Fastened with a chain:

Their chains they do gnaw,

And say “Wau, wau, wau.”

“Very good,” said I. “Many thanks. Have you any gaade (riddles)?”

Upon which, the old lady immediately repeated this:—

Sister sent to sister her’n,Southwards over the sea,With its bottom out, a silver churn,Guess now what that can be.Answer.A silver ring.

Sister sent to sister her’n,

Southwards over the sea,

With its bottom out, a silver churn,

Guess now what that can be.

Answer.A silver ring.

Before parting with her, I begged the old lady to accept a small coin in return for her rhymes, which she said she had heard from her grandmother; but this she indignantly refused to accept, begging me at the same time, as she saw a man approaching, not to say a word about what she had been telling me. The fact is, as has been observed by the Norwegians themselves, that the peasants fancy that nobody would inquire about these matters unless for the sake of ridiculing them, of which they have a great horror. Although they retain these rhymes themselves, they imagine that other people must look upon them as useless nonsense.

The man who approached the cottage brought with him a tiny axe, a couple of inches long, which he had dug up in the neighbourhood. Its use I could not conceive, unless, perhaps, it was the miniature representation of some old warrior’s axe, which the survivors were too knowing and parsimonious to bury with the corpse, and so they put in this sham. That the ancient Scandinavians were addicted to this thrift is well known. In Copenhagen, as we have already seen, facsimiles,on a very small scale, of bracelets, &c. which have been found in barrows, are still preserved. This peasant had likewise a bear-skin for sale. The bear he shot last spring, and the meat was bought by the priest.

The storm being over, I walked on through the forest alone, my female guide being by this time, no doubt, many miles in advance. All houses had ceased, but, fortunately, there was but one path, so that I could not lose my way. How still the wood was! There was not a breath of wind after the rain, so that I could distinctly hear the sullen booming of the river, now some distance off. As I stopped to pick some cloud-berries, which grew in profusion, I heard a distant scream. It was some falcons at a vast height on the cliff above, which I at first thought were only motes in my eyes. With my glass I could detect two or three pairs. They had young ones in the rock, which they were teaching to fly, and were alternately chiding them and coaxing them. No wonder the young ones are afraid to make a start of it. If I were in their places I should feel considerable reluctance about making a first flight.

At length I spied a cottage to the right in the opening of a lateral valley. Hereabout, I had heard, were some old bauta stones; but an intelligent girl who came up, told me a peasant had carried them off to make a wall. This girl, who wore two silver brooches on her bosom, besides large globular collar-studs and gilt studs to her wristbands, asked me if I would not come and have a mjelk drikke (drink of milk).

Jorand Tarjeisdatter was all the time busily engaged in chewing harpix (the resinous exudation of the fir-tree); presently, on another older woman coming in, she pulled out the quid, and gave it to the new-comer, who forthwith put it into her own mouth. But after all this is no worse than Dr. Livingstone drinking water which had been sucked up from the ground by Bechuana nymphs, and spit out by them into a vessel for the purpose.

Jorand was nice-looking, and had a sweet voice, and without the least hesitation she immediately sang me one or two lullabies,e.g.—

Back to Index Next