CHAPTER III
TRONDHJEM
Wild the Runic faith,
And wild the realms where Scandinavian chiefs
And Skalds arose, and hence the Skald's strong verse
Partook the savage wildness. And methinks
Amid such scenes as these the Poet's soul
Might best attain full growth; pine-cover'd rocks,
And mountain forests of eternal shade,
And glens and vales, on whose green quietness
The lingering eye reposes, and fair lakes
That image the light foliage of the beach.
Southey.
There would not be much to see in the Low Countries if they were deprived of their historical associations, their ancient buildings and their superb paintings. Most parts of Europe owe very much of their interest and their beauty to the long-continued presence of mankind.
But the delights of Norway are of another sort, and a yachting trip among her fjords and islands would lose little of its attraction to many, had they as few associations as those of Alaska. The chief charm of this northern country must always be found in the fact that a large steamer may sail far into the heart of her lofty mountains through winding valleys, enclosed by towering rock sides, over which fall streams with courses so steep that they sometimes reach the surface of ocean only in the form of spray. In Norway one may proceed up a wild Highland glen with scenery grander than anything even in Scotland, without leaving the surface of the sea. Here and there such river gorges as that of the Hudson near West Point are somewhat recalled to one's mind, but on the whole the scenery of Norway is not at all like anything else. The overpowering vastness of it all is perfectly unique.[31]
But, even if one has not realised the fact amid the romantic scenery of those fjords where the works of man are confined to tiny fields like handkerchiefs scantily stretched upon the mountain sides, and settlements of wooden huts which are lost among the towering mountains of God, in Trondhjem Fjord one can hardly ignore the fact that this northern land has a history and a mythology of no mean kind, and one that is her very own. Though they have added less to the general sum of human action than have the thoughts of Greece and the achievements of Rome, the mythology of the North is more robust, its history is more virile, its literature is less voluptuous, its feelings more stern and deep. As the Swedish poet and bishop, Esaias Tegnér, expresses it: "Go to Greece for beauty of form, but to the North for depth of feeling and thought."
Doubtless the difference is largely geographical, as is well set forth in a thought-provoking passage of Sir Archibald Geikie's Romanes Lecture, delivered at Oxford in 1898. "Who can doubt that the legends and superstitions of ancient Greece took their form and colour in no small measure from the mingled climates, varied scenery and rocky structure of that mountainous land, or that the grim, litanic mythology of Scandinavia bears witness to its birth in a region of rugged snowy uplands under gloomy and tempestuous skies." And to those of English speech at least the history of the North should mean much more, because it was not merely our teachers and civilisers, but our very selves that first launched dragon-prowed vessels on these clear waters and first heard the eddas recited by the Skalds.
Just to the right of the spot where the broad river Nid pours its rather muddy waters into the Trondhjem Fjord, there rises a low hill, and there, commanding a glorious prospect far over the brown-green mountains and the slate-blue waters of the sea, once stood a great Temple for the worship of the Gods whose names are hourly on our lips, whenever we need to distinguish the days. A mighty line of Earls once had their seat in Ladir or Lade—for such are the ancient and modern names of the village where the Temple stood—and widely their authority was known. The greatest of them ruled over all the Norse for a quarter of a century (970-995), but so proud was he of his ancestral stock that he preferred to be known as the Earl of Ladir rather than as King of Norway. Sixteen earls recognised his sway, and he trowed in the old Gods.
Thus the Heimskringla describes his sway. "Whiles Earl Hakon ruled in Norway was the year's increase good in the land. And good peace there was betwixt man and man among the bonders.
"Well beloved of the bonders was the earl the more part of his life, but as his years wore, it was much noted of the earl that he was mannerless in dealing with women.... Whereof he won great hatred from the kin of such women, and the bonders fell a-murmuring sore against it, even as they of Thrandheim are wont to do when aught goeth against their pleasure."
Now a mysterious person named Oli was at Dublin, at that time a great settlement of Norsemen. Concerning him the earl heard rumours that he found exceedingly disquieting. He had a great friend called Thorir Klakka, "who was long whiles at viking work, but whiles would go cheaping voyages, and was of good knowledge of lands. Him Earl Hakon sent West-over-sea, bidding him go a cheaping voyage to Dublin, as many folk were wont, and look into it closely what this man Oli was; and if he found that he verily was Olaf Tryggvison, or any other offspring of the kingly stem of the North, then was Thorir to entangle him with guile if he might bring it to pass."
Thorir had no difficulty in getting into conversation with Oli, and in reply to his questions about the conditions in Norway, he told how the earl was so mighty a man that none durst speak but as he would. Yet he admitted that many mighty men, yea, all the people, would be most fain and eager to have a king for the land come of the blood of Harald Fairhair.
"Now when they had oft talked in this wise, Olaf bringeth to light before Thorir his name and kin, and asked his rede, what he thought of it, if Olaf should fare to Norway, whether the bonders would take him for king. But Thorir egged him on full fast to the journey, and praised him much and his prowess. So Olaf fell a-longing sorely to fare to the land of his fathers: and he saileth from the west with five ships, first to the South-Isles, and Thorir was in company with him."
So Olaf got back eventually to the kingdom of his fathers, and "when he came north to Agdaness he heard that Earl Hakon was in the firth, and withal that he was at strife with the bonders. And when Thorir heard tell of these things, then were matters gone a far other way than he had been deeming; for after the battle with the Jomsburg vikings (notable pirates whose stronghold was in Pomerania) were all men of Norway utterly friendly to Earl Hakon for the victory he had gotten, and the deliverance of all the land from war; but now so ill had things turned out that here was the earl at strife with the bonders, and a great lord come into the land."
There was a man named Worm Lyrgia, a wealthy bonder, and he had to wife one who was known as the Sun of Lund, where her father dwelt; she was the fairest among women. Thralls came from the Earl of Ladir to carry her away by force, but Worm (despite his name) was a man of spirit and fire. He "let the war-arrow fare four ways through the countryside with this bidding withal, that all men should fall with weapons on Earl Hakon to slay him." This incident, which was far from being an isolated case, proved very unfortunate for the government of the earl; in fact, he soon became a fugitive with a single thrall, named Kark.
"Then he arose, and they went to the stead of Rimul, and the earl sent Kark to Thora, bidding her come privily to him. So did she, and welcomed the earl kindly, and he prayed her to hide him for certain nights till the gathering of the bonders went to pieces. Said she: 'They will be seeking thee here about my stead both within and without; for many wot that I would fain help thee all I may, but one place there is about my stead where I deem that I would not think of seeking for such a man as thou, a certain swine-sty to wit.'
"So they went thither: and the earl said: 'Make we ready here; for we must take heed to our lives first of all.' Then dug the thrall a deep hole therein, and bore away the mould, and then laid wood over it. Thora told the earl the tidings how Olaf Tryggvison was come into the mouth of the firth, and had slain Erland his son.
"Then went the earl into the hole and Kark with him, and Thora did it over with wood, and strawed over it mould and muck and drave the swine thereover. And this swine-sty was under a certain big stone."
So the bonders and Olaf fell straightway into good friendship, and the son of Tryggvi ascended the throne of his fathers. He was one of the greatest of the kings of the Norse, superior in many respects to his namesake, who is distinguished as the saint. The chief secret of his power is opened to us by the following passage from the Faereyinga Saga, for popularity in the viking age was gained by much the same qualities that secure it in an English Public School to-day. "Once in the spring King Olaf said to Sigmund. 'We will amuse ourselves to-day, and prove our feats of skill.' 'I am not the man for that, lord,' said Sigmund, 'but thou shalt have thy way in this as in all other things that are in my hands.' Then they tried their might in swimming and shooting and other feats of skill and strength, and men say that Sigmund came very nigh the king in many feats, albeit he came short of him in all, as did every other man that was then living in Norway."
To return to the swine-sty in the Heimskringla. Olaf came to seek the earl at Thora's stead as she had said he would. Then he "held a House-Thing out in the garth, and himself stood up on that same big stone that was beside the swine-sty.
"There spake Olaf to his men, and some deal of his speaking was that he would with wealth and worth further him who should bring Earl Hakon to harm.
"Now this talk heard the earl, and Kark, and they had a light there with them; and the earl said: 'Why art thou so pale, or whiles as black as earth? Is it not so that thou wilt bewray me?'
"'Nay,' said Kark.
"'We were born both on one and the same night, said the earl, 'nor shall we be far apart in our deaths.
"Then fared King Olaf away as the eve came on, but in the night the earl kept himself waking, but Kark slept and went on evilly in his sleep. Then the earl waked him and asked what he dreamed: and he said, 'I was e'en now at Ladir and King Olaf laid a gold necklace on the neck of me.'
"The earl answered: 'A blood-red necklace shall Olaf do about thy neck whenso ye meet. See thou to it; but from me shalt thou have but good even as hath been aforetime; so bewray me not.'
"So thereafter they both waked, as men waking one over the other.
"But against the daybreak the earl fell asleep, and speedily his sleep waxed troubled, till to such a pitch it came that he drew under him his heels and his head as if he would rise up, and cried out high and awfully.
"Then waxed Kark adrad and full of horror, and gripped a big knife from out his belt, and thrust it through the earl's throat and sheared it right out. That was the bane of Earl Hakon.
"Then Kark cut the head from the earl, and ran away thence with it; and he came the next day to Ladir, and brought the earl's head to King Olaf, and told him all these things that had befallen in the going of him and Earl Hakon, even as is here written.
"Then let King Olaf lead him away thence, and smite the head from him."
At Ladir thereafter King Olaf made a feast and bade to it lords and other great bonders. "But when the feast was arrayed, and the guests were come, the first eve was the feast full fair and the cheer most glorious, and men were very drunk; and that night slept all men in peace there.
"But on the morrow morn when the king was clad he let sing mass before him, and when the mass was ended the king let blow for a House-Thing. And all his men went from the ships" (a "goodly host and great" of them were laid in the Nid) "therewith, and came to the Thing. But when the Thing was established the king stood up and spake in these words: 'A Thing we held up at Frosta, and thereat I bade the bonders be christened; and they bade me back again turn me to offering with them.... But look ye, if I turn me to offering with you, then will I make the greatest blood-offering that is, and will offer up men; yea, and neither will I choose hereto thralls and evil-doers; but rather will I choose gifts for the gods the noblest of men.'"
He proceeded to name some of the chief men present. This was a convincing argument, and when the bonders saw that they lacked might to meet the king, they professed their willingness to trow in the faith of the White Christ. And at Ladir, on the site of the Godhouse, the king let build a church. A Romanesque doorway about a century later than his time still exists in the south wall of the chancel, under which is a crypt; but the present church is a very plain plastered structure, dated 1694; a porch was added in 1767.
Close by, in the year 996, King Olaf Tryggvison raised a city on Nid bank. He chose a site at the very mouth, almost surrounded by the stream, and he desired that his town should be such as he had seen in Christian lands. He would that the Norse should resemble other Europeans, should trow in Christ and dwell in towns and grow rich by trade. The new settlement was known as Nidaros, because it was at the mouth of the Nid, or else as Kaupstad, because it was a merchants' town. But during the sixteenth century it was called as we know it to-day, taking its name from the district round. At first it did not prosper, for though Olaf Tryggvison gave men tofts whereon to build them houses, they did not want a town, nor aught but their farms and their ships.
But when the holy bones of another Olaf, martyr and king and saint, were there enshrined and over them sprang the tall vaulting of Scandinavia's fairest church, pilgrims and trade and prosperity resorted to the mouth of the Nid.
Little of the saint was in Olaf Haraldson during his earlier years. The first story of him in the sagas displays him as a mischievous boy. "On a time it befell that King Sigurd would ride away from his house, and no man was home at the stead; so he bade Olaf, his stepson, to saddle him a horse. Olaf went to the goat-house, and took there the biggest buck-goat and led it home, and laid thereon the saddle of the king, and then went and told him he had harnessed him the nag."
A renowned viking he became, whose deeds men talked about in all the lands from Sweden to the British Isles. But as King of Norway he would have no peace but with believers in the White Christ. Perhaps his methods lacked charity and tact, and his temper lacked control, that he was wealth-grasping, the sagas distinctly say, but he was truly of a religious frame and in comparison with his faith he counted not anything dear.
At the time when he was establishing his power the city that Olaf Tryggvison had founded on Nid-bank was already in decay. King Olaf the Saint, we read in the Heimskringla "gat him gone at his speediest and held out to Nidoyce, where King Olaf Tryggvison had let set a cheaping-stead and reared a king's-house; but before that there was only one house in Nidness, as is writ before. But when King Eric became ruler of the land, he favoured Ladir, where his father had had his chief abode, but he left unheeded the houses which King Olaf had let build on the Nid; and some were now tumbled down, while othersome, though standing, were scarce meet for dwelling in. King Olaf steered his ships up into the Nid; and forthwith he let dight for dwelling the houses yet standing, and reared those up again which were fallen down, and had thereat a throng of men; and he let flit into the houses both the drink and the victuals, being minded to sit there Yule-tide over."
Thrandheim "he deemed was all the pith of the land" (and thither he fared at his speediest), "if he might there bring the folk down under him while the earl was away from the land. But when King Olaf came to Thrandheim, then was no uprising against him there, and there he was taken to king; and he set him down there in the harvest-tide at Nidoyce, and there dight him winter-quarters. He let house a king's garth, and reared Clement's Church there whereas it now standeth. He marked out tofts for garths, and gave them to goodmen, and chapmen, or to any others he would, and who were minded to house. He sat there with many men about him, for he trusted the Thrandheimer's good faith but little, if so be the earl should come back to the land."
A few chapters further on the court of the king is described.... "King Olaf let house a king's garth at Nidoyce. There was done a big court hall with a door at either end, but the high-seat of the king was in the midmost of the hall. Up from him sat Grimkel, his court-bishop, and next to him again other clerks of his; but down from the king sat his counsellors. In the other high-seat straight over against him sat his marshal, Biorn the Thick, and then the guests. If men of high degree came to King Olaf, they were well seated.... Withal he had thirty house-carles to work all needful service in the garth, and at whatso ingatherings were needful; he had many thralls withal. In the garth also was a mickle hall, wherein slept the bodyguard, and there was withal a mickle chamber wherein the king held his court councils."
His canonisation came to pass thus. His vigorous propaganda on behalf of the true faith was by no means universally approved in Norway, and he had to take refuge in Russia (p. 231). Thence he returned to recover his kingdom, but even in almost desperate straits he would be succoured by none other than Christian men. One Arnliot Gellini offered his services and the king asked at once of his faith. "But he said this of his troth, that he trowed in his might and main. 'And that belief has served me full well hitherto; but now I am minded to trow in thee, O King.'
"The king answered: 'If thou wilt trow in me, then thou shalt believe in what I teach thee. Thou shalt believe this, that Jesus Christ has created heaven and earth and all men, and that to him shall fare after death all those who are good, and who believe aright.'
"Arnliot answered: 'I have heard tell of the White Christ, but I am not well learned in his doings, nor where he ruleth; so I will now believe all that thou hast to tell me, and I will leave all my matter in thy hand.'
"Then Arnliot was christened, and the king taught him as much of the faith as he deemed was most needful, and arrayed him to the vanward battle-array, and before his own banner."
On the field of Sticklestead, a few miles from Trondhjem, Olaf fell in fight against foes who were supported by English gold, for Knut the Rich, though a Christian himself, was planning a vast Empire of the North, and his political zeal was stronger than his enthusiasm for the holy faith (p. 115). His viceroy in Norway was one Hakon, the last of the stout Earls of Ladir, to whom he gave a court-bishop named Sigurd, a Dane. "That Bishop was a man masterful, and pompous of speech; he gave King Knut all the word-propping he might, and was the most unfriend of King Olaf."
The Christian host went down before the troops whose faith was mixed, and after various adventures, the body of the king was buried at Nidaros, or Trondhjem, in Clement's Church, which he had built. "That winter uphove the word of many men there in Thrandheim[32] that King Olaf was a truly holy man, and that many tokens befell at his holy relic. And then many began to make vows to King Olaf about those matters whereon they had set their hearts. From such vows many folk got bettering." "Next summer there grew up mickle talk about the holiness of King Olaf, and all word-rumour about the king was changed."
When Grimkel the bishop caused the chest of the king to be opened there was glorious fragrance, and when the face was exposed the lips were as ruddy as if Olaf had just gone to sleep. And so by degrees, as miracles increased, and old sharp feelings wore away, Olaf became the patron saint of all the Norse; Churches were raised to him in many lands, including a fair sprinkling in English seaports from Exeter to York.
The Cathedral that rose to enshrine the relics of St. Olaf would be a striking feature of any city in the world, and it completely dominates this far northern, low-roofed town. Both from far off and near it is a Church of very English type, and it stands in a regular close amid fair trees and grass. The vegetation indeed seems more to suit the English south than a spot not far outside the Arctic Circle. It forms an impressive illustration of the influence that the warm currents of ocean exert upon westward looking shores. For the opposite point of America is north of Labrador.
It has been in the hands of restorers for about the same time that the temple was in the hands of builders, and very amply fulfilled is Du Chaillu's prophecy that it would lose the quaint old look so much esteemed by the lovers of antiquity (p. 223). Much as some cry out against the restorer in England, that country is far ahead of the Continent both in reverence for the work of the past and in making serious efforts rather to bind up what is broken down than merely to present facsimiles of it to posterity. Trondhjem Cathedral has been rebuilt rather than restored, though Mr. Christie, the architect, has strictly followed the ancient lines. Sarcastic people might say that he has given us a building which ranks high among modern churches!
Shortly before the earliest part of the Cathedral was built, Nidaros became the seat of an Archbishop whose metropolitan jurisdiction extended further than did that of any bishopric before. In 1151 Nicolas Breakspear, once it is said a beggar at St. Alban's, afterwards the only English pope,[33] came to set in order the affairs of the Northern Church. He arranged for the formation of a province that should include all Christians of Norwegian stock. The other sees in Norway (Bergen, Stavanger, Oslo (p. 95) and Hamar) were placed under the supervision of the Primate of Nidaros. Far over the sea his authority was likewise known, by bishops midst the British Isles, of Kirkwall in Orkney and of Sodor (or the Southern Isles[34]) and Man, by the Bishop of the Faroes, whose cathedral was at Kirkebö (p. 23), by the twin Bishops of Skalholt and Holar in Iceland and even by the first of American prelates, he who sat at Garth (or Garde) in Greenland[35] far away, knowing not that he lived in a different quarter of the world.
Trondhjem Cathedral is a great cruciform church about 325 feet long, whose nave and quire are aisled, and the western towers project north and south to widen the great façade: at the east end of the quire is an octagonal corona, and on the northern side, joined only by a passage, is the apsidal Church of St. Clement, recalling the position of the Lady Chapel at Ely. It is built of blue-grey saponite, a local stone easy to work, varied with marble from the island of Almenningen.
The oldest part is the transept which was raised by the great Archbishop Eystein. He was the foe of Sverre Sigurdsson, the knight-errant king, who in his youth had been ordained, still ignorant of his royal birth. In 1180 at a battle near Nidaros he contrived to establish his power and the archbishop fled to St. Edmundsbury in England, launching as a Scythian dart against the recreant priest a sentence of the excommunication of the Church. When no one seemed in the least impressed, and the king's power was waxing fast, the archbishop became more prudent. Making his peace with Sverre he returned to Nidaros and found less strenuous occupation in building his cathedral. He died in 1188, and the king gave his funeral address.
Each transept has the usual three storeys with corner turrets and a square chapel opening on the east. They are rich in shafts and arcading with plentiful zigzag moulding, and they are really striking examples of the style that the Normans brought to England. The upper parts display a certain restiveness to commence the development of later forms. The present tower arches are modern.
Not much later than the transepts is the little chapel of St. Clement, sometimes called the Lady Chapel and sometimes the Chapter House. Its nave is vaulted in two bays and flanked by western turrets; the roof of the apse is sustained by four clustered pillars bearing pointed arches.
The quire and nave and octagonal corona are fairly uniform in style but surprisingly otherwise in plan. They belong to that period of Gothic architecture when lancets were just giving place to traceried windows, and clustered shafts and foliage caps and deeply-moulded arches were more beautiful than after or before. The works were in progress through much of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and evidently dragged on long. A bad fire gave a serious set-back in 1328. It is doubtful whether the nave was ever done. It was begun as early as 1248 by Archbishop Sigurd, son of one of the brave birkebeiner or birchlegs, who had helped King Sverre to his throne.
The builders of each part seem to have been profoundly unconscious of what their colleagues elsewhere had been about. For they were working on the foundations of three little older churches. St. Clement's was built originally by St. Olaf himself, his son Magnus the Good raised a church over his later grave where now the corona stands, a stone church of St. Mary was erected by Harald Hardredy (p. 95) on the site of the quire.[36] Most awkwardly St. Clement's joins the rest of the church; the beautiful aisle-encircled corona declines to meet the quire at any understandable angle, the walls and pillars of the quire itself trend apart on either side toward the east.[37] See plan opposite p. 246.
NORTH-EAST CORNER OF QUIRE, LOOKING INTO AISLE AND CORONA
[Face page 86
Over the great central tower, which long was cut off by a low metal roof, have been raised a tall spire of wood and four pinnacles of stone. It is largely this lofty steeple in the centre that gives the Cathedral so English a look. The magnificence of this fair church is all the more striking when one realises that, with a few most unimportant exceptions, it is the furthest north of all the buildings of the middle ages. Yet its equal is not to be found in any part of Europe further south, till the latitude of Glasgow is reached.
The most striking feature of Trondhjem to-day is that so large and thriving a town should be almost wholly of wood, even in the business section and including the vast palace of the king. In 1872 the city seemed to Du Chaillu (p. 223) singularly cheerless from the large sections that had been burnt and not rebuilt, while grass grew in many of the streets. Things are very different to-day. The thoroughfares are broad and straight, most of them pleasantly fringed with trees, and there is all the character of a prosperous, substantial town. A few wooden buildings are two centuries old, for instance the vane of the Raadhus is dated 1710 and that of the Hospitals Kirken[38] 1704, but these do not in the very least affect the general character of the place, and the aspect of the streets as a whole is as modern as well could be. The Cathedral quarter by a river bend seems to exhale a quite different atmosphere from the whole of the rest of the town. It is almost as though an English close had invaded an American city.
Near the white square tower of the Frue Kirke (dated 1739) is a wide open space where on market-days stalls are erected and country and town deal directly with each other in those picturesque surroundings that are so largely the same all over the north of Europe. The harness of the horses looks primitive, and all the weight is on the shafts, but they race along like the wind, and when a destination is reached, the owner needs to do no more than to slip round the front foot of his beast a long strap attached to the carriage. Little of the Norwegian costume that is so attractive a feature of the fjord villages is to be seen in the city; the general life of towns is becoming distressingly the same all over the Western world. The atmosphere is, however, distinctly Norse by the quays, where the fish boats come in and large barrels of their catchings are rolled about, and also where high wooden warehouses, not entirely without picturesqueness, fringe the shores of the Nid and exhale a smell of fish and tar.
The days of Danish supremacy are recalled on a hill just east of the Cathedral on the other side of the river by the picturesque old Fortress of Christiansten, which dates from the seventeenth century, and displays rubble stone walls surmounted by grassy slopes and penetrated by brick-vaulted passages and rooms. This period and this district of Norway were chosen by Victor Hugo when writing his first romance, Han d'Islande, which he published anonymously in 1823. The scene is, however, laid chiefly in Munkholm, a small rocky island which rises out of the waters of the fjord immediately opposite the town. In very earliest days of Christianity in Norway a Benedictine cloister was reared there, and for half a thousand years the monks remained, but little beyond the name survives to indicate their occupation to-day. Fortifications have long existed where the psalter was chanted in days of yore.
Victor Hugo himself explains the object of the work: "I wished to describe a girl who might realise the ideal of all fresh and poetic imagination, the girl of my dreams ... you, Adèle, my beloved.... And beside her I wanted to set a young man, not such as I am but such as I would wish to be." He has certainly succeeded so far that his characters are entirely French, and he seems rather to have made a mistake in placing the scene so far from France. The nightmare, gruesome character of the book is bloodcurdling enough, but decidedly overdone, and though the work is very well worth reading as the early effort of one of the greatest of writers, it contributes little to his fame and still less, perhaps to the interest of a visit to Trondhjem. The local colour is extremely poor, a fact that is hardly surprising when it is remembered that the author had never visited Norway.
The hills stand about Trondhjem, as indeed about all other Norway towns; some of them display, five hundred feet above the sea, marks of former beaches where waves lapped cliffs unnumbered years ago, before the movements of the globe had raised the land so high. And from places within an easy walk of the city, there is a magnificent panorama, westward over hills riven in all directions by the jagged edged sea, and eastward to the snowy mountains of the Kiolen range that form the frontier of Sweden. Superbly beautiful at all times is the prospect of wooded hill and inland sea, particularly when seen in softer outline as the long Arctic twilight gradually gives place to the paler illumination of the moon, and little lights begin to sparkle over land and sea. But even in such dreamy conditions the city, beautiful from its verdure and striking from its position, declines to look like a mediæval or even a historic town. Though for more than a thousand years the landscape below has been the scene of the varied activities of mankind, and from it has gone out power by which the life of half Europe has been quickened, even yet there is rather the restless atmosphere of new settlements in a country still only half subdued, than that of quiet peace and sense of satisfied repose, such as broods over an ancient Italian seaport, where every corner has been transformed by untold generations of man and centuries ago even the rough hill-sides were terraced to enlarge his domain.
Some three miles from the city, amid pine forests of perpetual shade, the River Nid plunges over hard dark blue rocks to form the Lerfos Falls. Most Norwegian cascades are chiefly spray, and by their great resemblance to bridal veils are associated with the happiest events in the lives of most of us. But these are more business-like waterfalls, which are not left in peace by mankind. The Lower Fall, or Lille Lerfos, is a rather average sort of thing: in a broad open place where much naked rock is exposed the water of the stream plunges over a sort of stairway to descend abruptly for nearly eighty feet, and the effect is not improved by various works in cement. A path along the wooded river bank leads to the Upper Fall, or Store Lerfos, which is one of the most beautiful anywhere to be seen. The stream leaps down a hundred feet, and both high and low the surging mass of whitened waters is cleft by tree-bearing rocks, while mist-like foam spreads far and wide.
Europe has cathedrals statelier than that of Trondhjem and mediæval cities of greater intrinsic charm, but the interest of nearly everything is affected chiefly by its position, and it is startling indeed among the wildness of the northern fjords to come upon this history-haunted spot, to see this fair cathedral rising from the trees and grass of so English-looking a close. And in the long-drawn aisles of the ancient Metropolitan Church it is strange to reflect that the saint who was here enshrined in one of the stateliest of Gothic fanes was the doughty Olaf the Thick, famed in life for his wild viking career, who knew the craft of the bow, and of all men was the best in shooting of hand-shot, who was but twelve winters old when he first stepped on a warship to begin the harrying and burning in which so much of his life was spent! And as the bright sunlight streams through the lancet windows to illuminate and shade chaste arcading and hanging foliage carved in stone, with the deep mouldings of arch and vault, it is difficult indeed to realise that one is hardly more than three degrees outside the Arctic Line.[39]
CHAPTER IV
CHRISTIANIA
And now to all the brave ones here,
And to the maids that love us—
To men who never knew a fear,
Maids pure as saints above us.
The Norway maidens! fill on high—
The Norsemen, brave to do and die!
And shame to him who passes by
The pledge to Love and Freedom.
For Norge, translated by Lady Wilde.
Cleaving the Skager Rak from the Cattegat the small peninsula of Jutland projects far into the large gulf by which the Scandinavian mountain mass is riven on the south. And at the head of the gulf a lovely island-dotted fjord penetrates far among the hills that encircle the long and narrow Norway Lakes.
The shores of the fjord are rocky, in places eaten into cliffs, pines cover all the slopes from which they are not cleared. Just here and there distant mountains of more jagged outline overtop the lower hills. For some miles the seaway is narrow, but it broadens out again before the end is reached. Less wild and rugged, less grand and awesome, than the high-walled fjords that cut into the western coast, but not less beautiful in some respects.
By many coves the sea runs in among the woods, and during saga days here lived sea-kings who never slept under sooty roof-tree, nor ever drank in hearth ingle. Into one of the arms of the branching fjord, the water then called Drafn and now known as Drammensfjord, hove Olaf the Thick, the Holy, with his host in 1028, for he had heard that Knut the Rich, England's all-wielder, was close upon his heels. Knut was planning a great Norse Empire; he had made himself master of Norway, and held Things in every folk-land that he reached. Olaf could not meet him in warfare, but he held him in Drafn water in safety till he heard that Knut was gone south into Denmark, and then he fared forth, only to find that for the time at least the land was beguiled from under him.
A few miles from the arm of the sea that had sheltered St. Olaf another saint was born, related to himself, Hallward, a worthy merchant of those parts, who got his bane while trying to protect a woman who was being attacked by men. Him Harald Hardredy, the same who met his end at Stamford Bridge in 1066, chose to be the patron saint of the new southern town which he founded to rival the capital far north.
In the Heimskringla we read how "King Harald let rear a cheaping-stead east in Oslo, and sat there often; whereas it was good there for the ingathering of victual, with wide countrysides all round about. There he sat well for the warding of the land against the Danes no less than for onsets at Denmark, which he was often wont to, though he might have no great host out."[40]
After his death we learn that "it was the talk of all men that King Harald had been beyond other men in wisdom and deft rede, no matter whether he should take swiftly, or do longsome, a rede for himself or others.... King Harald was a goodly man, and noble to behold; bleak haired and bleak bearded, his lipbeard long; one eyebrow somewhat higher than the other; large hands and feet, yet either shapely waxen; five ells was the tale of his stature. To his unfriends was he grim and vengeful for aught done against him."[41]
To this appreciation we may add that Harald was no bad judge of the best site for a town; for with the rocky forest-covered hills rising all round, and the lake-like sea with its many islands gently rippling in front, this capital has one of the best situations enjoyed by any European town. Nothing but huge advantages of site and greater nearness to the communications of the world could have reconciled Norway to her Government's abandoning the myriad associations of the far more historic city in the North.
During the reign of Sigurd Jerusalem-farer (1121-1130) to Oslo came from Ireland one Harald Gilli, who said he was a Norse king's son, but he did not claim the kingdom for himself. And Sigurd said that Harald should tread bars for his fatherhood, and that ordeal was deemed somewhat hard, but still Harald yeasaid it.
"He fasted unto iron, and that ordeal was done, which is the greatest that ever has been done in Norway, whereas nine glowing ploughshares were laid down, and Harald walked them barefoot, and was led by two bishops. Three days thereafter the ordeal was proven, and his feet were unburnt.
"After that King Sigurd took kindly to the kinship of Harald, but Magnus his son had much ill-will to him, and many lords turned after him in the matter. King Sigurd trusted so much in his friendship with all the folk of the land, that he bade this, that all should swear that his son Magnus should be king after him; and he gat that oath sworn by all the land's-folk.
"Harald Gilli was a tall man and slender of build, long-necked, somewhat long-faced, black-eyed, dark of hair, quick and swift of gait, and much wore the Irish raiment, being short-clad and light-clad. The northern tongue was stiff for him, and he fumbled much over the words, and many men had that for mockery. Harald sat on a time at the drink with another man, and told tales from the west of Ireland; and this was in his speech that in Ireland there were men so swift-foot that no horse might catch them up at a gallop. Magnus, the king's son, overheard that and said: 'Now is he lying again, as is his wont.'
"Harald answers: 'True is this, that,' says he, 'those men may be found in Ireland whom no horse in Norway shall outrun.'
"On this they had some words and both were drunk. Then said Magnus: 'Now here shalt thou wager thine head, if thou run not as hard as I ride my horse, but I will lay down against it my gold ring.'
"Harald answers: 'I say not that I run so hard, but I shall find those men in Ireland who so will run, and on that may I wager.'
"Magnus, the king's son, answers: 'I shall not be faring to Ireland, here shall we have the wager, and not there.'
"Harald then went to bed and would have nought more to do with him. This was in Oslo.
"But the next morning when matins were over, Magnus rode up unto the highway and sent word to Harald to come thither; and when he came he was so dight that he had on a shirt and breeches with footsole bands, a short cloak, an Irish hat on his head, and a spear-shaft in hand.
"Now Magnus marked out the run. Harald says: 'Overlong art thou minded to have the run.' Magnus forthwith marked it off much longer and said that even so it was over-short.
"There were many folk thereby. Then took they to the running, and Harald ever kept at the withers.
"But when they came to the end of the run, said Magnus: 'Thou holdest by the girth, and the horse drew thee.' Magnus had a Gautland horse full swift. They took again another run back, and then Harald ran all the course before the horse. And when they came to the end of the run, Harald asked: 'Held I by the girth now?' Magnus answers: 'Thou didst take off first.'
GAMLA UPSALA
Details of Runic Stone and Plan of old Cathedral]
[Face page 99
"Then Magnus let the horse breathe a while; and when he was ready, he smote the horse with his spurs, and he came swiftly to the gallop. Then Harald stood still, and Magnus looked back and called: 'Run now,' says he. Then Harald swiftly overran the horse, and far ahead, and so to the run's end; and came home so much the first, that he laid him down, and sprang up and hailed Magnus when he came."[42]
Oslo stood on the Akers Elv, and was chiefly on its eastern bank; Oslo-havn still exists, by the mouth of the stream just eastward of the railway-circled cape on which frowns the castle Akershus. Less than a mile to the north, not far from the river's western shore, stands a small twelfth century Romanesque structure that belonged to a suburb of Oslo and is prosaically known to-day as Gamle Akers Kirke.[43]
Oslo was a great city, one of the chief centres of Norwegian trade, and a bishop's stool stood in the church where Hallward's bones were shrined. It also played an important part in history when the great king, Hakon IV., of the Birch legs party (p. 85), overcame his domestic enemies there at a great battle during 1240. He thus restored peace to Norway, torn by the factions of a hundred years, and so widely did his fame extend that St. Louis asked for his help against Saracens and the pope for assistance against the emperor himself. But, feeling more interest in matters nearer home, Hakon preferred to direct his attention to joining Iceland to Norway (p. 54).
Old Oslo was, however, much damaged by fire and wasted by war when about 1624 the illustrious Dane-Norway king, Christian IV., rebuilt the city on a slightly more western site and called it by his own name. In addition to his other accomplishments, which, as we shall see (p. 132) were very great, this Christian was a brave soldier, and the song of Ewald (d. 1781), "King Christian stood by the lofty mast" has become a National Anthem of the Danes. He fully realised the great advantage of having the Capital of Norway as near Copenhagen as he could. Christiania was but a few days' sail, Trondhjem was almost in another world.
Of the new city's early days there still survive memorials in the present rather picturesque seventeenth century buildings of the peninsular castle of Akershus, in the old brick Raadhus with its archway and arcaded gables, and also in the Stor Torv, or great market-place, with its untented stalls round the statue of the Founder of the Town under the high spired clock tower of Vor Frelsers Kirke, which is dated 1696.
The general character of present-day Christiania was, however, given to it during the early years of the nineteenth century when the city was largely extended toward the west. Happily the early Gothic revival had not reached Norway then, and the chief buildings are Classic, a style that is vastly to be preferred to any other for buildings that are not really among the best of their kind.
A decent, rather uninspiring town. Broad streets with trolley-trams. Straight streets with shrubs and trees. Houses of brick or cement. Numerous little open spaces are, without much imagination, devoted to the cultivation of such vegetables as grass, elm, birch, willow, lilac and poplar. Like Capetown, which in position it somewhat resembles, Christiania depends for its beauty entirely on mountainous surroundings, for there is little that is striking in the streets.
It is remarkable that in the capital of a country so extremely democratic, that has swept its nobility into the mass of the commons, by far the most conspicuous building should be the Palace of the King, and that in the chief town of a land of such strong national feeling, the main street should bear the name of one who gained the crown of Norway only at the point of the sword.
Few classic structures in the world are more magnificently placed than the palace: it stands high up, wide gardens stretch around, and through them the great portico looks down along the broad, straight, well-gardened, chief street of the town, called after Karl Johan. Neither the architecture of the building nor the laying out of the gardens is at all worthy of the superb position, but the effect nevertheless is most striking. Were the Palace of Stockholm (p. 203) placed here and the park laid out on the same lines as the gardens of Versailles, the great central thoroughfare of the city being made a wide boulevard to match, there might have risen on this spot one of the most monumental and stately of all European cities. Unfortunately the Palace was only erected in 1825-48—when architecture was at its lowest ebb in every part of the western world—and neither material nor design is good. Karl Johans Gade, at whose other end is the Hoved Banegaard, or chief railway station, has gardens for a section of its length, but for the most part it is unfortunately bordered by houses of brick and stucco that rise straight from the pavements. Nevertheless the grandeur of the encircling mountains obliterates all minor defects. In front of the Palace, looking along the great street that bears his name, is a statue to Karl Johan, better known to the world perhaps as Bernadotte, Napoleon's marshal, who forgot his own country and his father's house, to champion the liberties of the North, Scandinavian in all but speech.
Where end the gardens by the street of Karl Johan rises the Storthings-Bygning, or the seat of a parliament, some of whose members reside within the Arctic Line.
Across the same noble thoroughfare, nearer the Palace, stand face to face the University, famed for many a distinguished name and also for the possession of viking ships, and the National Theatre, renowned for its connection with the great name of the dramatist whose appearance was tersely summed up by Björnson:—
Tense and lean, the colour of gypsum,
Behind a vast coal-black beard, Henrik Ibsen.
to whom a statue rises in the grounds. His charming play the Dolls House (1879) was one of the first of his works to gain a reputation through the world, while it started, or stirred, about woman and her place a discussion whose end is not in sight, and also did very much to naturalise all modern drama by abolishing such devices as soliloquies, and attempting to set upon the stage what really happens in the world.[44]
Well worth attention would be those very boats that first explored the wild fjords of the storied North, that pushed their unwelcome dragon-prows into every bay and broad river of Europe from end to end, that caused even the great Charles to weep, that added a petition to the Litany of the Church, that formed the navies on whose power were built kingdoms in Sicily and Russia, in Normandy and amidst the British Isles, that centuries before the days of Columbus sailed through ice-laden seas to the well-favoured American shore. Here they are! Put together with skill and preserved with care, they stand in sheds that form part of the University Museum. That ships will be required beyond the grave to sail on undiscovered seas is the simple opinion of many unsophisticated branches of mankind. The Chinese send vessels to the illustrious dead by burning them on earth. Probably with the same idea the ancient Norse buried them in their barrows or howes. The ship on which a viking had sailed in life became his coffin after death. Thus simply does the Heimskringla in the Story of Hakon the Good describe such burials. "So King Hakon let take all the ships of Eric's sons which had been beached, and let draw them up aland. There King Hakon let lay Egil Woolsark in a ship, and all those of his folk with him who were fallen, and let heap over them stones and earth. Then King Hakon let set up yet more ships, and bear them to the field of battle; and one may see the mounds to-day."[45]
Such a king's howe was heaped up long ago at Gogstad on Sandefjord, where to-day is a prosperous little watering-place, hard by the mouth of the seaway by which Christiania is gained. Here in 1880 a well-preserved viking ship was brought to light and in due course it was reverently deposited in the Museum of the University at the Capital. Its lines are graceful and it is of very shallow draught. The size is quite considerable, just seventy-eight feet from end to end. It is framed with a heavy keel and rather light ribs; the planks are extremely neatly cut and carefully riveted together with iron nails and square washers. It must have possessed some suppleness, which was probably an advantage in a stormy sea. The two ends are very much alike, but by the stern is a steering-board, like a great oar, fixed loosely on the side that we still know as the starboard.
Through the third plank from the top are pierced rowlocks and along the gunwale are ranged the big-bossed shields by which the Northmen sought to ward off blows. They are round, not large, and painted yellow and black.
Compared with those of Chinese junks or Arab dhows, the lines of the viking vessel are strikingly modern in character: this is much less surprising than it otherwise would be when it is recollected that the Bronze Age sculptures on the Scandinavian rocks prove that boats of considerable dimensions had been used by the ancestors of the builders for something like a thousand years.
The dragon prow is no longer to be seen. Such features were clearly detachable, for among the primitive laws and customs of Iceland it is written: "This was the beginning of the heathen laws, that men must not keep a ship at sea with a figure-head on; but if they have, then they must take off the head before they come in sight of land, and not sail to land with gaping heads and yawning jaws to frighten the spirits or wights of the country."[46] Thoughtful precaution!
Near the centre of the boat are remains of the pine mast that rose from a mortice in a log whose either end is fashioned after the pattern of a fish's tail. The square sail, perhaps of painted wool, was hoisted or lowered by a pulley. Aft of the mast in the centre is a log-built house, whose timbers, both at the ends and those that on the sides lean together to form the roof, fit into grooved beams, reminding one of the construction of the stavekirkes. This deckhouse in all probability was constructed to form the tomb.
A well-found boat, suited to the navigation of the fjords! But what courage must have been required of those who sailed across the stormiest of oceans in so frail a craft! Within the howe, but not within the boat, twelve horses, six dogs and one peacock were buried with their lord.[47]
The sun sets on the harbour over Bygdö, almost an island, yet not quite. The famous Oscarshall is on its eastern shore. In the deep shade of the woods there has been formed such an open air museum as all Norse love, and hither have been collected ancient wooden buildings from country villages and from isolated farms that give a good idea of some aspects of the Norway of bygone years.
One of the buildings is of the kind called a stabbur, a common adjunct to a prosperous farm. It formed a storehouse, which could likewise be used for extra sleeping-rooms whenever there was need. In the upper chamber, reached by a ladder, were preserved the initialled chests in which each member of the family preserved his valuables, or hers—clothes to a large extent. Thus each daughter had her trousseau packed, ready for removal to her husband's home. In this room, too, were kept blankets and tablecloths and things we store in linen closets now.
The room below, which is narrower, for the upper one projects to right and left, was used for such things as grain bins and stores of food, bacon or mutton or flour.[48] (For drawing see chapter-heading.)
The stavekirke was moved from Gol, a small village in Hallingdal passed by the railway to Bergen.[49] It is an excellent example of a mysterious form of Christian architecture that is confined to Norway, nothing like it existing in any other part of Europe.
In a modern building surrounding a court is a small but very interesting folk museum, divided into domestic, commercial and ecclesiastical; it is dated 1898. A reredos carved in very high relief, which displays Christ at the Last Supper gesticulating and delivering an impassioned address to the Disciples, is at any rate unconventional in treatment. Most of the domestic furniture, such things as beds, chests, chairs and even jugs, is carved in soft wood. Many pieces are dated, usually in the eighteenth century, but the collection begins about the year 1500.
GREENSTED CHURCH
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So close against the hills the city stands that a short electric railway lifts one in a few minutes from the streets to the heart of the spruce woods that cover the rock sides of Hollmenkollen. Among granite boulders and such wild flowers as Scotland knows, under the close shade of the pines—the woods untouched, save here and there, as if miles from a dwelling of man—one looks down on the streets of a city that lies among the mountains and yet borders upon the rippling sea. Still closer to the streets of Stockholm the forests come, but there the hills stand back. In being both girdled by mountains and splashed by the sea Christiania is almost alone among the capitals of the world.
Norway is almost always seen by visitors under summer skies, unless it chances that they come for winter sports; it is well somewhat to correct the impressions received by recalling Björnson's holding description of his own country: "There is something in Nature here which challenges whatever is extraordinary in us. Nature herself here goes beyond all ordinary measure. We have night nearly all the winter; we have day nearly all the summer, with the sun by day and by night above the horizon. You have seen it at night half-veiled by the mists from the sea; it often looks three, even four times larger than usual. And then the play of colours on sky, sea and rock, from the most glowing red to the softest and most delicate yellow and white. And then the colours of the Northern Lights on the winter sky, with their more suppressed kind of wild pictures, yet full of unrest and for ever changing. Then the other wonders of Nature! These millions of sea-birds, and the wandering processions of fish, stretching for miles! These perpendicular cliffs that rise directly out of the sea! They are not like other mountains, and the Atlantic roars round their feet. And the ideas of the people are correspondingly unmeasured. Listen to their legends and stories."