Title: The Oxonian in Thelemarken, volume 1 (of 2)
Author: Frederick Metcalfe
Release date: May 30, 2016 [eBook #52195]
Most recently updated: October 23, 2024
Language: English
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“He picked his way, with much circumspection, between the prostrate forms of the tiny people.”
T. G. J. Vol. I., p. 233.
THE OXONIAN
IN
THELEMARKEN;
OR,
NOTES OF TRAVEL IN SOUTH-WESTERN NORWAY
IN THE SUMMERS OF 1856 AND 1857.
WITH GLANCES AT THE LEGENDARY LORE
OF THAT DISTRICT.
BY
THE REV. FREDERICK METCALFE, M.A.,
FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD,
AUTHOR OF
“THE OXONIAN IN NORWAY.”
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1858.
[The right of Translation is reserved.]
LONDON:
SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS, CHANDOS STREET,
COVENT GARDEN
In the neighbourhood of Bayeux, in Normandy, it is said that there still lingers a superstition which most probably came there originally in the same ship as Rollo the Walker. The country folks believe in the existence of a sprite (goubelin) who plagues mankind in various ways. His most favourite method of annoyance is to stand like a horse saddled and bridled by the roadside, inviting the passers-by to mount him. But woe to the unlucky wight who yields to the temptation, for off he sets—“Halloo! halloo! and hark away!” galloping fearfully over stock and stone, and not unfrequently ends by leaving his rider in a bog or horse-pond, at the same time vanishing with a loud peal of mocking laughter. “A heathenish and gross superstition!” exclaims friend Broadbrim. But what if we try to extract a jewel out of this ugly monster; knock some commonsense out of his head. Goethe turned the old fancy of Der getreue Eckart to good account in that way. What if a moral of various application underlies this grotesque legend. Suppose, for the nonce, that the rider typify the writer of a book. Unable to resist a strong temptation to bestride the Pegasus of his imagination—whether prose or verse—he ventures to mount and go forth into the world, and not seldom he gets a fall for his pains amid a loud chorus of scoffs and jeers. Indeed, this is so common a catastrophe, from the days of Bellerophon downwards (everybody knows that he was the author of the Letters[1] that go by his name), so prone is inkshed to lead to disaster, that the ancient wish, “Oh that mine adversary had written a book,” in its usual acceptation (which entirely rests, be it said, on a faulty interpretation of the original language), was really exceedingly natural, as the fulfilment of it was as likely as not to lead to the fullest gratification of human malice.
In defiance, however, of the dangers that threatened him, the writer of these lines did once gratify his whim, and mount the goblin steed, and as good luck would have it, without being spilled or dragged through a horse-pond, or any mischance whatsoever. In other words, instead of cold water being thrown upon his endeavours, The Oxonian in Norway met with so indulgent a handling from that amiable abstraction, the “Benevolus Lector,” that it soon reached a second edition.
So far the author’s lucky star was in the ascendant. But behold his infatuation, he must again mount and tempt his fate, “Ay! and on the same steed, too,” cries Mr. Bowbells, to whom the swarming sound of life with an occasional whiff of the sewers is meat, and drink, and all things; who is bored to death if he sees more of the quiet country than Brighton or Ramsgate presents, and is about as locomotive in his tastes as a London sparrow.
“Norway again, forsooth—nous revenons à nos moutons—that horrid bleak country, where the cold in winter is so intense that when you sneeze, the shower from your olfactories rattles against the earth like dust-shot, and in summer you can’t sleep for the brazen-faced sun staring at you all the twenty-four hours. What rant that is about
and all that sort of thing. Give me Kensington Gardens and Rotten Row!”
Still—in spite of Bowbells—we shall venture on the expedition, and probably with less chance of a fiasco than if we travelled by the express-train through the beaten paths of central Europe. There, all is a dead level. Civilization has smoothed the gradients actually and metaphorically—alike in the Brunellesque and social sense. As people progress in civilization, the more prominent marks of national character are planed off. Individuality is lost. The members of civilized society are as like one another as the counters on a draft-board. “They rub each other’s angles down,” and thus lose “the picturesque of man and man.” The same type keeps repeating itself with sickening monotony, like the patterns of paper-hangings, instead of those delightfully varied arabesques with which the free hand of the painter used to diversify the walls of the antique dwelling.
But it is not so with the population of a primitive country like Norway. Much of the simplicity that characterized our forefathers is still existing there. We are Aladdined to the England of three centuries ago. Do you mean to say that you, a sensible man or woman, prefer putting on company manners at every turn, being everlastingly swaddled in the artificial restraints of society; being always among grand people, or genteel people, or superior people, or people of awful respectability? Do you prefer an aviary full of highly educated song-birds mewed up so closely that they “show off” one against another, filled with petty rivalries and jealousies, to the gay, untutored melody of the woods poured forth for a bird’s own gratification or that of its mate? Do you like to spend your time for ever in trim gardens, among standards and espaliers, and spruce flower-beds, so weeded, and raked, and drilled, and shaped, that you feel positively afraid of looking and walking about for fear of making a faux pas? Oh no! you would like to see a bit of wild rose or native heather. (Interpret this as you list of the flowers of the field, or a fairer flower still.) You prefer climbing a real lichened rock in situ, that has not been placed there by Capability Brown or Sir Joseph Paxton.
Indeed, the avidity with which books of travel in primitive countries—whether in the tropics or under the pole—are now read, shows that the more refined a community is, the greater interest it will take in the occupation, the sentiments, the manners of people still in a primitive state of existence. Our very over-civilization begets in us a taste to beguile oneself of its tedium, its frivolities, its unreality, by mixing in thought, at least, with those who are nearer the state in which nature first made man.
“The manners of a rude people are always founded on fact,” said Sir Walter Scott, “and therefore the feelings of a polished generation immediately sympathize with them.” It is this kind of feeling that has a good deal to do with urging men, who have been educated in all the habits and comforts of improved society, to leave the groove, and carve out for themselves a rough path through dangers and privations in wilder countries.
“You will have none of this sort of thing,” said Dr. Livingstone, in the Sheldonian theatre, while addressing Young Oxford on the fine field for manly, and useful, and Christian enterprise that Africa opens out,—“You will have none of this sort of thing there,” while he uneasily shook the heavy sleeve of his scarlet D.C.L. gown, which he had donned in deference to those who had conferred on him this mark of honour. Yes, less comforts, perhaps, but at the same time less red tape.
“Brown exercise” is better than the stewy, stuffy adipocere state of frame in which the man of “indoors mind” ultimately eventuates. Living on frugal fare, in the sharp, brisk air of the mountain, the lungs of mind and body expand healthfully, and the fire of humanity burns brighter, like the fire in the grate when fanned by a draught of fresh oxygen. Most countries, when we visit them for the first time, turn out “the dwarfs of presage.” Not so Norway. It grows upon you every time you see it. You need not fear, gentle reader, of being taken over beaten ground. “The Oxonian” has never visited Thelemarken and Sætersdal before. So come along with me, in the absence of a better guide, if you wish to cultivate a nearer acquaintance with the roughly forged, “hardware” sort of people of this district, content to forget for a while the eternal willow-pattern crockery of home. Thelemarken is the most primitive part of Norway; it is the real Ultima Thule of the ancients; the very name indicates this, and the Norwegian antiquaries quote our own King Alfred in support of this idea. It is true, that on nearer inspection, its physical geography will not be found to partake of the marvellous peculiarities assigned to Thule by the ancient Greek navigator, Pytheas, who asserts that it possessed neither earth, air, or sea, but a chaotic mixture of all three elements. But that may emphatically be said to be neither here nor there. Inaccessible the country certainly is, and it is this very inaccessibility which has kept out the schoolmaster; so that old times are not yet changed, nor old manners gone, nor the old language unlearned under the auspices of that orthoepic functionary. The fantastic pillars and arches of fairy folk-lore may still be descried in the deep secluded glens of Thelemarken, undefaced with stucco, not propped by unsightly modern buttress. The harp of popular minstrelsy—though it hangs mouldering and mildewed with infrequency of use, its strings unbraced for want of cunning hands that can tune and strike them as the Scalds of Eld—may still now and then be heard sending forth its simple music. Sometimes this assumes the shape of a soothing lullaby to the sleeping babe, or an artless ballad of love-lorn swains, or an arch satire on rustic doings and foibles. Sometimes it swells into a symphony descriptive of the descent of Odin; or, in somewhat of less Pindaric, and more Dibdin strain, it recounts the deeds of the rollicking, death-despising Vikings; while, anon, its numbers rise and fall with mysterious cadence as it strives to give a local habitation and a name to the dimly seen forms and antic pranks of the hollow-backed Huldra crew.
The author thinks that no apology is needed for working in some of the legendary interludes which the natives repeated to him, so curious and interesting, most of which he believes never appeared before in an English dress, and several of them in no print whatever. Legends are an article much in request just now; neither can they be considered trifling when viewed in the light thrown upon the origin of this branch of popular belief and pastime by the foremost men of their time, e.g., Scott, and more especially Jacob Grimm. Frivolous, indeed! not half so frivolous as the hollow-hearted, false-fronted absurdities of the “great and small vulgar,” is the hollow-backed elf, with the grand mythological background reaching into the twilight of the earth’s history, nor so trifling the simple outspoken peasant, grave, yet cheery, who speaks as he thinks, and actually sometimes laughs a good guffaw, as the stuck-up ladies and gentlemen of a section of the artificial world, with their heartless glitter, crocodile tears, their solemn pretence, their sham raptures.
I must not omit to say that the admirable troll-drawing, which forms the frontispiece of the first volume, is one selected from a set of similar sketches by my friend, T. G. Jackson, Esq., of Wadham College, Oxford. It evinces such an intimate acquaintance with the looks of those small gentry that it is lucky for him that he did not live in the days when warlocks were done to death.
F. M.
Lincoln College, Oxford,
May, 1858.
| CHAPTER I. | |
| The glamour of Norwegian scenery—A gentle angler in a passion—The stirring of the blood—A bachelor’s wild scream of liberty—What marriage brings a salmon-fisher to—Away, for the land of the mountain and the flood—“Little” circle sailing—The Arctic shark—Advantages of gold lace—A lesson for laughers—Norwegian coast scenery—Nature’s grey friars—In the steps of the Vikings—The Norwegian character—How the Elves left Jutland—Christiansand harbour | pp. 1-15 |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| Disappointed fishermen—A formidable diver—Arendal, the Norwegian Venice—A vocabulary at fault—Ship-building—The Norwegian Seaboard—Sandefjord, the Norwegian Brighton—A complicated costume—Flora’s own bonnet—Bruin at large—Skien and its saw-mills—Norway cutting its sticks—Wooden walls—Christopher Hansen Blum—The Norwegian phase of religious dissent—A confession of faith—The Norsk Church the offspring of that of Great Britain | pp. 16-28 |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| A poet in full uniform—The young lady in gauntlet gloves again—Church in a cave—Muscular Christianity in the sixteenth century—A miracle of light and melody—A romance of bigotry—How Lutheranism came in like a lion—The Last of the Barons—Author makes him bite the dust—Brief burial-service in use in South-western Norway—The Sörenskriver—Norwegian substitute for Doctors’ Commons—Grave ale—A priestly Samson—Olaf’s ship—A silent woman—Norwegian dialects—Artificial salmon-breeding—A piscatorial prevision | pp. 29-47 |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| Mine host at Dal—Bernadotte’s prudent benignity—Taxing the bill of costs—Hurrah for the mountains—Whetstones—Antique wooden church—A wild country—“Raven depth”—How the English like to do fine scenery—Ancient wood-carving—A Norwegian peasant’s witticism—A rural rectory—Share and chair alike—Ivory knife-handles—Historical pictures—An old Runic Calendar—The heathen leaven still exists in Norway—Washing-day—Old names of the Norsk months—Peasant songs—Rustic reserve—A Norsk ballad | pp. 48-68 |
| CHAPTER V. | |
| A lone farm-house—A scandal against the God Thor—The headquarters of Scandinavian fairy-lore—The legend of Dyrë Vo—A deep pool—A hint for alternate ploughboys—Wild goose geometry—A memorial of the good old times—Dutch falconers—Rough game afoot—Author hits two birds with one stone—Crosses the lake Totak—A Slough of Despond—An honest guide—A Norwegian militiaman—Rough lodgings—A night with the swallows—A trick of authorship—Yea or Nay | pp. 69-81 |
| CHAPTER VI. | |
| No cream—The valley of the Maan—The Riukan foss—German students—A bridge of dread—The course of true love never did run smooth—Fine misty weather for trout—Salted provisions—Midsummer-night revels—The Tindsö—The priest’s hole—Treacherous ice—A case for Professor Holloway—The realms of cloud-land—Superannuated—An ornithological guess—Field-fares out of reach of “Tom Brown”—The best kind of physic—Undemonstrative affection—Everywhere the same—Clever little horses | pp. 82-96 |
| CHAPTER VII. | |
| An oasis—Unkempt waiters—Improving an opportunity—The church in the wilderness—Household words—A sudden squall—The pools of the Quenna—Airy lodgings—Weather-bound—A Norwegian grandpapa—Unwashed agriculturists—An uncanny companion—A fiery ordeal—The idiot’s idiosyncrasy—The punctilious parson—A pleasant query—The mystery of making flad-brod—National cakes—The exclusively English phase of existence—Author makes a vain attempt to be “hyggelig”—Rather queer | pp. 97-113 |
| CHAPTER VIII. | |
| Northwards—Social colts—The horse shepherd—The tired traveller’s sweet restorer, tea—Troll-work—Snow Macadam—Otter hunting in Norway—Normaends Laagen—A vision of reindeer—The fisherman’s hut—My lodging is on the cold ground—Making a night of it—National songs—Shaking down—A slight touch of nightmare | pp. 114-128 |
| CHAPTER IX. | |
| The way to cure a cold—Author shoots some dotterel—Pit-fall for reindeer—How mountains look in mountain air—A natural terrace—The meeting of the waters—A phantom of delight—Proves to be a clever dairymaid—A singular cavalcade—Terrific descent into Tjelmö-dal—A volley of questions—Crossing a cataract—A tale of a tub—Author reaches Garatun—Futile attempt to drive a bargain | pp. 129-141 |
| CHAPTER X. | |
| The young Prince of Orange—A crazy bridge—At the foot of the mighty Vöring Foss—A horse coming downstairs—Mountain greetings—The smoke-barometer—The Vöring waterfall—National characteristics—Paddy’s estimate of the Giant’s Causeway—Meteoric water—New illustrations of old slanders—How the Prince of Orange did homage to the glories of nature—Author crosses the lake Eidsfjord—Falls in with an English yacht and Oxonians—An innkeeper’s story about the Prince of Orange—Salmonia—General aspect of a Norwegian Fjord—Author arrives at Utne—Finds himself in pleasant quarters—No charge for wax-lights—Christian names in Thelemarken—Female attire—A query for Sir Bulwer Lytton—Physiognomy of the Thelemarken peasants—Roving Englishmen—Christiania newspapers—The Crown Prince—Historical associations of Utne—The obsequies of Sea Kings—Norwegian gipsies | pp. 142-160 |
| CHAPTER XI. | |
| From Fairy-lore to Nature-lore—Charming idea for stout folk—Action and reaction—Election-day at Bergen—A laxstie—A careless pilot—Discourse about opera-glasses—Paulsen Vellavik and the bears—The natural character of bears—Poor Bruin in a dilemma—An intelligent Polar bear—Family plate—What is fame?—A simple Simon—Limestone fantasia—The paradise of botanists—Strength and beauty knit together—Mountain hay-making—A garden in the wilderness—Footprints of a celebrated botanist—Crevasses—Dutiful snow streams—Swerre’s sok—The Rachels of Eternity—A Cockney’s dream of desolation—Curds-and-whey—The setting-in of misfortunes—Author’s powder-flask has a cold bath—The shadows of the mountains—The blind leading the blind—On into the night—The old familiar music—Holloa—Welcome intelligence | pp. 161-187 |
| CHAPTER XII. | |
| The lonely châlet—The Spirit of the hills—Bauta-stones—Battlefields older than history—Sand-falls—Thorsten Fretum’s hospitality—Norwegian roads—The good wife—Author executes strict justice—Urland—Crown Prince buys a red nightcap—A melancholy spectacle—The trick of royalty—Author receives a visit from the Lehnsman—Skiff voyage to Leirdalsören—Limestone cliffs—Becalmed—A peasant lord of the forest—Inexplicable natural phenomena—National education—A real postboy—A disciple for Braham—The Hemsedal’s fjeld—The land of desolation—A passing belle—The change-house of Bjöberg—“With twenty ballads stuck upon the wall”—A story about hill folk—Sivardson’s joke—Little trolls—The way to cast out wicked fairies—The people in the valley—Pastor Engelstrup—Economy of a Norwegian change-house—The Halling dance—Tame reindeer—A region of horrors | pp. 188-214 |
| CHAPTER XIII. | |
| Fairy-lore—A wrestle for a drinking-horn—Merry time is Yule time—Head-dresses at Haga—Old church at Naes—Good trout-fishing country—A wealthy milkmaid—Horses subject to influenza—A change-house library—An historical calculation—The great national festival—Author threatens, but relents—A field-day among the ducks—Gulsvig—Family plate—A nurse of ninety years—The Sölje—The little fat grey man—A capital scene for a picture—An amazing story—As true as I sit here—The goat mother—Are there no Tusser now-a-days?—Uninvited guests—An amicable conversation about things in general—Hans saves his shirt—The cosmopolitan spirit of fairy-lore—Adam of Bremen | pp. 215-241 |
| CHAPTER XIV. | |
| A port-wine pilgrimage—The perfection of a landlady—Old superstitious customs—Levelling effects of unlevelled roads—A blank day—Sketch of an interior after Ostade—A would-be resurrectionist foiled—The voices of the woods—Valuable timber—A stingy old fellow—Unmistakeable symptoms of civilization—Topographical memoranda—Timber-logs on their travels—The advantages of a short cut—A rock-gorge swallows a river—Ferry talk—Welcome—What four years can do for the stay-at-homes—A Thelemarken manse—Spæwives—An important day for the millers—How a tailor kept watch—The mischievous cats—Similarity in proverbs—“The postman’s knock”—Government patronage of humble talent—Superannuated clergymen in Norway—Perpetual curates—Christiania University examination—Norwegian students—The Bernadotte dynasty—Scandinavian unity—Religious parties—Papal propagandists at Tromsö—From fanaticism to field-sports—The Linnæa Borealis | pp. 242-276 |
| CHAPTER XV. | |
| Papa’s birthday—A Fellow’s sigh—To Kongsberg—A word for waterproofs—Dram Elv—A relic of the shooting season—How precipitous roads are formed in Norway—The author does something eccentric—The river Lauven—Pathetic cruelty—The silver mine at Kongsberg—A short life and not a merry one—The silver mine on fire—A leaf out of Hannibal’s book—A vein of pure silver—Commercial history of the Kongsberg silver mines—Kongsberg—The silver refining works—Silver showers—That horrid English | pp. 277-296 |
| CHAPTER XVI. | |
| A grumble about roads—Mr. Dahl’s caravansary—“You’ve waked me too early”—St. Halvard—Professor Munck—Book-keeping by copper kettles—Norwegian society—Fresh milk—Talk about the great ship—Horten the chief naval station of Norway—The Russian Admiral—Conchology—Tönsberg the most ancient town in Norway—Historical reminiscences—A search for local literature—An old Norsk Patriot—Nobility at a discount—Passport passages—Salmonia—A tale for talkers—Agreeable meeting—The Roman Catholics in Finmark—A deep design—Ship wrecked against a lighthouse—The courtier check-mated | pp. 297-317 |
The glamour of Norwegian scenery—A gentle angler in a passion—The stirring of the blood—A bachelor’s wild scream of liberty—What marriage brings a salmon-fisher to—Away, for the land of the mountain and the flood—“Little” circle sailing—The Arctic shark—Advantages of gold lace—A lesson for laughers—Norwegian coast scenery—Nature’s grey friars—In the steps of the Vikings—The Norwegian character—How the Elves left Jutland—Christiansand harbour.
A strange attraction has Norway for one who has once become acquainted with it: with its weird rocks and mountains—its dark cavernous fjords—its transparent skies—its quaint gulf-stream warming apparatus—its “Borealis race”—its fabulous Maelstrom—its “Leviathan slumbering on the Norway foam”—its sagas, so graphically portraying the manners and thoughts of an ancient race—its sturdy population, descendants of that northern hive which poured from the frozen loins of the north, and, as Montesquieu says, “left their native climes to destroy tyrants and slaves, and were, a thousand years ago, the upholders of European liberty.”
“Very attractive, no doubt,” interrupts Piscator. “In short, the country beats that loadstone island in the East hollow, which extracted the bolts out of the ships’ bottoms; drawing the tin out of one’s pockets, and oneself thither every summer without the possibility of resistance. But a truce to your dithyrambs on scenery, and sagas, and liberty. Talk about the salmon-fishing. I suppose you’re coming to that last—the best at the end, like the postscript of a young lady’s letter.”
Well, then, the salmon-fishing. A man who has once enjoyed the thrill of that won’t so easily forget it. Here, for instance, is the month of June approaching. Observe the antics of that “old Norwegian,” the Rev. Christian Muscular, who has taken a College living, and become a sober family man. See how he snorts and tosses up his head, like an old hunter in a paddock as the chase sweeps by. He keeps writing to his friends, inquiring what salmon rivers are to be let, and what time they start, and all that sort of thing, although he knows perfectly well he can’t possibly go; not even if he might have the priest’s water on the Namsen. But no wonder Mr. Muscular is growing uneasy. The air of Tadpole-in-the-Marsh becomes unhealthy at that season, and he feels quite suffocated in the house, and prostrated by repose; and as he reads Schiller’s fresh ‘Berglied,’ he sighs for the mountain air and the music of the gurgling river.
But there are mamma and the pledges; so he must resign all hope of visiting his old haunts. Instead of going there himself, in body, he must do it in spirit—by reading, for instance, these pages about the country, pretty much in the same way as the Irish peasant children, who couldn’t get a taste of the bacon, pointed their potatoes at it, and had a taste in imagination. Behold, then, Mr. Muscular, with all the family party, and the band-boxes and bonnet-boxes, and umbrellas and parasols numbered up to twenty; and last, not least, the dog “Ole” (he delights to call the live things about him by Norsk names), bound for the little watering-place of Lobster-cum-Crab. Behold him at the “Great Babel junction,” not far from his destination, trying to collect his scattered thoughts—which are far away—and to do the same by his luggage, two articles of which—Harold’s rocking-horse and Sigfrid’s pap-bottle—are lost already. Shall I tell you what Mr. Muscular is thinking of? Of “the Long,” when he shut up shop without a single care; feeling satisfied that his rooms and properties would be in the same place when he came back, without being entrusted to servants who gave “swarries” above-stairs during his absence.
Leaving him, then, to dredge for the marine monstrosities which abound at Lobster-cum-Crab, or to catch congers and sea-perch at the sunken wreck in the Bay—we shall start with our one wooden box, and various other useful articles, for the land of the mountain and the flood—pick up its wild legends and wild flowers, scale its mountains, revel in the desolation of its snowfields, thread its sequestered valleys—catching fish and shooting fowl as occasion offers; though we give fair notice that on this occasion we shall bestow less attention on the wild sports than on other matters.
On board the steamer that bore us away over a sea as smooth as a mirror, was a stout English lady, provided with a brown wig, and who used the dredging-box most unsparingly to stop up the gaps in her complexion.
“A wild country is Norway, isn’t it?” inquired she, with a sentimental air; “you will, no doubt, have to take a Lazaroni with you to show you the way?” (? Cicerone).
“The scenery,” continued she, “isn’t equal, I suppose, to that of Hoban. Do you know, I was a great climber until I became subject to palpitations. You wouldn’t think it, so robust as I am; but I’m very delicate. My two families have been too much for me.”
I imagined she had been married twice, or had married a widower.
“You know,” continued she, confidentially, “I had three children, and then I stopped for some years, and began again, and had two more. Children are such a plague. I went with them to the sea, and would you believe it, every one of them took the measles.”
But there was a little countrywoman of ours on board whose vivacity and freshness made up for the insipidity of the “Hoban lady.” She can’t bear to think that she is doing no good in the world, and spends much of her time in district visiting in one of the largest parishes of the metropolis. Not that she had a particle of the acid said to belong to some of the so-called sisters of mercy—reckless craft that, borne along by the gale of triumphant vanity, have in mere wantonness run down many an unsuspecting vessel—I mean trifled with honest fellows’ affections, and then suddenly finding themselves beached, in a matrimonial sense, irretrievably pronounce all men, without exception, monsters. And, thus, she whose true mission it was to be “the Angel in the House,” presiding, ministering, soothing, curdles up into a sour, uneasy devotee.
At sea, a wise traveller will be determined to gather amusement from trifles; nay, even rather than get put out by any delay or misadventure, set about performing the difficult task of constructing a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. For instance, our vessel, being overburdened, steered excessively ill, as might be seen from her wake, which, for the most part, assumed the shape of zigzags or arcs of circles. This disconcerted one grumpy fellow uncommonly. But we endeavoured to restore his good humour by telling him that we were not practising the “great” but the “little” circle sailing. His mantling sulkiness seemed to evaporate at this pleasantry; and, subsequently, when, on the coal lessening, and lightening our craft astern, she steered straighter, he facetiously apostrophized the man at the wheel—
“You’re the man to take the kinks out of her course; we must have you at the wheel all night, and as much grog as you like, at my expense, afterwards.”
The captain, who was taken prisoner on returning from the Davis’ Straits fishery, during the French wars, and was detained seven years in France, gives me some information about the Arctic shark (Squalus Arcticus), which is now beginning to reappear on the coast of Norway.
“We used to call them the blind shark, sir—more by token they would rush in among the nets and seize our fish, paying no more attention to us than nothing at all. They used to bite pieces out of our fish just like a plate, and no mistake, as clean as a whistle, sir. I’ve often stuck my knife into ’em, but they did not wince in the least—they did not appear to have no feeling whatsomdever. I don’t think they had any blood in ’em; I never saw any. I’ve put my hand in their body, and it was as cold as ice.”
“By-the-bye, captain,” said I, to our commander, who was a fubsy, little round red-faced man, with a cheery blue eye, “how’s this? Why, you are in uniform!”
“To be sure I am. Th’ Cumpany said it must be done. Those furriners think more of you with a bit of gowd lace on your cap and coat. An order came from our governor to wear this here coat and cap—so I put ’em on. What a guy I did look—just like a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”
“Or a daw in borrowed plumes,” suggested I.
“But I put a bould face on’t, and came a-board, and walked about just as if I had the old brown coat on, and now I’ve got quite used to the change.”
Now this little fellow is as clever as he is modest—every inch a seaman. I’ve seen him calm and collected in very difficult circumstances on this treacherous old North Sea.
Last year, in the autumn, the captain tells me he was approaching the Norwegian coast in the grey of the morning when he descried what he took to be a quantity of nets floating on the water, and several boats hovering about them. He eased the engine for fear of entangling the screw. Some Cockneys on board, who wore nautical dresses, and sported gilt buttons on which were engraved R. T. Y. C., laughed at the captain for his excessive carefulness. Presently it turned out that what had seemed to be floating nets were the furniture and hencoops of the ill-fated steamer Norge, which had just been run down by another steamer, and sunk with a loss of some half a hundred lives. A grave Norwegian on board now lectured the young men for their ignorance and bravado.
“They just did look queer, I’ll a-warrant ye,” continued our north-country captain. “They laughed on t’other side of their mouths, and were mum for the rest of the voyage.”
“What vessel’s that?” asked I.
“Oh! that’s the opposition—the Kangaroo.”
This was the captain’s pronunciation of Gangr Rolf (Anglicè, Rollo, the Walker), the Norwegian screw, which I hear rolls terribly in a sea-way.
“Hurrah!” I exclaimed. “Saall for Gamle Norge,” as we sighted the loom of the land. How different it is from the English coast. The eye will in vain look for the white perpendicular cliffs, such as hedge so much of old Albion, their glistening fronts relieved at intervals by streaks of darker hue, where the retreating angle of the wall-like rock does not catch the sun’s rays; while behind lie the downs rising gently inland, with their waving fields of corn or old pastures dotted with sheep. Quite as vainly will you cast about for the low shores of other parts of our island—diversified, it may be, by yellow dunes, with the sprinkling of shaggy flag-like grass, or, elsewhere, the flat fields terminating imperceptibly in flatter sands, the fattening ground of oysters.
As far as I can judge at this distance, instead of the coast forming one sober businesslike line of demarcation, with no nonsense about it, showing exactly the limits of land and ocean, as in other countries, here it is quite impossible to say where water ends and land begins. It is neither fish nor fowl. Those low, bare gneiss-rocks, for instance, tumbled, as it were, into a lot of billows. One would almost think they had got a footing among the waves by putting on the shape and aspect of water. Well, if you scan them accurately you find they are unmistakeably bits of islands. But as we approach nearer, look further inland to those low hills covered with pine-trees, which somehow or other have managed to wax and pick up a livelihood in the clefts and crannies of the rocks, or sometimes even on the bare scarps. While ever and anon a bald-topped rock protruding from the dark green masses stands like a solitary Friar of Orders Grey, with his well shaven tonsure, amid a crowd of black cowled Dominicans.
“Surely that,” you’ll say, “is the coast line proper?”
“Wrong again, sir. It is a case of wheels within wheels; or, to be plain, islands within islands. Behind those wooded heights there are all sorts of labyrinths of salt water, some ending in a cul-de-sac, others coming out, when you least expect it, into the open sea again, and forming an inland passage for many miles. If that myth about King Canute bidding the waves not come any further, had been told of this country, there would have been some sense in it, and he might have appeared to play the wave-compeller to some purpose. For really, in some places, it is only by a nice examination one can say how far the sea’s rule does extend.”
The whole of the coast is like this, except between the Naze and Stavanger, rising at times, as up the West Coast, into magnificent precipices, but still beaded with islands from the size of a pipe of port to that of an English county. Hence there are two ways of sailing along the coast, “indenskjærs,” i.e., within the “skerries,” and “udenskjærs,” or outside of the “skerries,” i.e., in the open sea. The inner route has been followed by coasters from the days of the Vikings. Those pilots on the Norwegian Government steam-vessels whom you see relieving each other alternately on the bridge, spitting thoughtfully a brown fluid into a wooden box, and gently moving their hand when we thread the watery Thermopylæ, are men bred up from boyhood on the coast, and know its intricacies by heart. The captain is, in fact, a mere cypher, as far as the navigation is concerned.
“You’ve never been in Norway before?” I inquired of the fair Samaritan.
“No; this is my first visit. I hope I shall like it.”
“I can imagine you will. If you are a lover of fashion and formality, you will not be at ease in Norway. The good folks are simple-minded and sincere. If they invite you to an entertainment, it is because they are glad to see you. Not to fill up a place at the table, or because they are obliged to do the civil, at the same time hoping sincerely you won’t come. Their forefathers were men of great self-denial, and intensely fond of liberty. When it was not to be had at home, they did what those birds were doing that rested on our mast during the voyage, migrated to a more congenial clime—in their case to Iceland. The present Norwegians have a good deal of the same sturdy independence about them; some travellers say, to an unpleasant degree. It’s true they are rather rough and uncouth; but, like their forefathers, when they came in contact with old Roman civilization in France and Normandy, they will progress and improve by intercourse with the other peoples of Europe.
“Their old mythology is grand in the extreme. Look at that rainbow, yonder. In their eyes, the bow in the cloud was the bridge over which lay the road to Valhalla. Then their legends. Do you know, I think that much of our fairy lore came over to us from Norway, just as the seeds of the mountain-flowers in Scotland are thought by Forbes to have come over from Scandinavia on the ice-floes during the glacial period. If I had time, I could tell you a lot of sprite-stories; among others, one how the elves all left Jutland one night in an old wreck, lying on the shore, and got safe to Norway. To this country, at all events, those lines won’t yet apply:—