Francis E. Clark

FIRST LETTER

Aylmer explains his purpose in the letters he will write; from Germany to Denmark by ferry; the Danebrog; the wounded soldier; Harald Bluetooth and other characters of the past; Roskilde; the arrival in Copenhagen; certain of the Great Danes; “Bil-Jonen Teatret” and “The Hurricane Girls.”

Copenhagen, December 3.

My dear Judicia,

Here I am in “Merchants’ Harbor,” alias Kopmannaehafn, alias Axelhus, etc., but more anon of it and its names. First I must tell you about the trip here. Please don’t misunderstand my use of the word “trip.” I refuse to write you about “My Trip” as such. In other words, I am not going to personally conduct you by letter through Denmark and Norway. Thomas Cook and Thomas Bennett and James Currie and Mr. Baedeker, and many other good men, will do that for you by book. All I shall do is to keep my mind open to the pleasures and charms of these two countries, and when they cast their spell on me I shall try to make you feel it as I do. In other words, I am not going to be intimidated into having raptures over what the guide book stars, and, if I choose, I am going to like what it does not star. Furthermore, I am not going to take you on any set tour, for I don’t expect to take any such myself but I do expect to see a good many places in these closely united countries, and when anything appeals to me I shall describe it, in the hope that it may appeal equally to you.

Rather a long preamble to my first letter, isn’t it? But I trust it will make my idea plain and that you will not be disappointed if I don’t act in the capacity of courier. I said good-by to Germany and continental Europe yesterday noon at WarnemÜnde. Our train was trundled aboard the Prinz Christian, though I cannot state for which of Denmark’s many royal “Christians” it was named, and we had a two-hour sea voyage, during which it was evident from the pensive demeanor of some of my fellow passengers that seasickness was “not unknown,” as Baedeker would euphoniously say.

During this sea voyage we were supposed to take our noon meal, which I must now begin to call middag, and as I am by nature furnished with a good appetite I didn’t resist the invitation. Most of the ladies were “pensive” and remained on deck gasping, but the men, all wearing a look of conceited amusement, nonchalantly sought the dining cabin. I had heard much about the famous Danish smÖrrebrÖd, and I was keenly anticipating it, but I am sorry to say that Prinz Christian was too much under foreign influence and did not offer the full glories of smÖrrebrÖd, which I found later here in Copenhagen. However, I will keep you for awhile in breathless suspense on that point.

Most of the people on the boat seemed to be Germans or Danes, and one couple opposite me at middag I must describe. This “couple” consisted of a very big father and a very little son. The father was one of the greatest of the Great Danes, physically at least. I have hardly ever seen such a huge man. The son seemed to be ten or twelve years old, but he was as much below the average in size as his father was above it. The Great Dane seemed to think that strong, black coffee was the thing to make his infinitesimal son grow, and he made him drink three big cups of it. Father and son were the most stolid pair I have ever seen, but the little fellow was very miserable and wore a face as though he were taking medicine. He would gulp down all the coffee he could stand, then gasp for breath and look appealingly at his father, who stolidly urged him on. It was very pathetic, but at least I had the comfort of knowing that coffee could never ruin his nerves, for it was plain that he had none.

All this time I would not have yielded so calmly to the demands of the inner man if it had not been that there was nothing to see. Prinz Christian was enveloped in a dense fog, and the limit of the view was a few yards of gray, tossing sea. But in spite of the fog, our noble captain steered straight for the ferry slip. A little jolting and bumping and clanking of chains, and we were on Danish soil.

By a miracle, which I think must have been performed largely for my benefit, the fog immediately rolled away. I refused then and I still refuse to believe those lugubrious writers who characterize Denmark’s winter as long and dreary and muddy. Certainly I couldn’t ask for finer weather than I have had during the thirty-six hours I have been in the country. I am open to conviction on that point, but the pessimist must produce something a good deal worse than the present weather before I will believe him.

I had not been on Danish soil two minutes before I saw the Danish flag, the world-famous Danebrog, waving over a schoolhouse. It was very striking, with its bold white cross on a vivid red background. There is a beautiful legend connected with the origin of this flag. It seems that “once upon a time” King Valdemar, being filled with holy zeal (possibly augmented by unholy greed), made an expedition against the heathen inhabitants of Esthonia. At first they submitted in crowds and were baptized. But when the novelty of being converted began to wear off, they turned against the evangelist king and fought furiously. “At this,” says the chronicle, “like Moses of old, Andres SunesÖn (the archbishop) mounted the hill with his bishops and clerks, that they might lay the sword of prayer in the scales of battle; but when his arms dropped at last through weariness, his people began to fly. Then his brethren supported the old man’s hands, and as long as they were held up the Danes conquered.”

At this point a miracle occurred. The banner of the Danes had been lost in the fray, and to repair the loss “a red banner with the holy cross in white on it came floating gently down through the clouds.” King Valdemar gathered his men under this heavenly banner and had no further trouble in defeating the heathen (and gaining their desirable territory).

This king, by the way, was Valdemar den Seir, or the “Victorious.” Danish history fairly bristles with Valdemars, and even now there is a prince by that name.

The scenery all the way from Gjedser, the haven of the ferry from WarnemÜnde, smiled at us, at least until darkness erased the smile. The Danes have only one hill in their whole country, and that is far away in Jutland, but the flatness of the islands of Laaland and Zealand through which we pass does not make for monotony. Everywhere the landscape smiles cordially, warmly, invitingly. Really the landscape’s invitation was so genuine that I could hardly resist getting off at one of the little stations en route.

Most of the farmhouses are built of plaster with interlacing framework of wooden beams, which would make them Elizabethan, wouldn’t it, if they were a little more pretentious? The windmills are a cross between the ancient kind with four huge wings and the modern kind with many little spokes. They presented the appearance of Ferris wheels one third life size.

At the station of KjÖge a young soldier got on the train and I was shocked to note that he was badly wounded on the head, for he wore there a broad white bandage. I was pouring out my sympathy on the poor wounded soldier lad when he turned around, and it was not until then that I discovered that his “bandage” was a ridiculous blue and white cap, perched far on the off side of his head. I have since seen many of these “wounded” soldiers, and I can never quite control my amusement when I see a great strapping fellow with one of these foolish little caps fastened to the side of his head. In appearance they are like the caps that you find in the snapdragons at a children’s party.

About some other things Denmark seems very naÏve. The smokestacks on all the engines have little bands of red and blue adorning them. Really they are cunning enough to play with. Also some of the railway cars are double-deckers, two-story affairs, while others are absolutely open like an electric car. They remind me of the pictures of the “first train in America—1820.”

Also the language is most delicious at times. A very frequent sign reads: Ikke Spytte Paa Gulvet. When you know that ikke means “not” and that gulvet means the “floor,” Chaucer will come to your aid for the rest. Pronounce that sign phonetically and see if you don’t feel as though you were stroking a kitten.

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

Copenhagen Exchange.

One very historic town we passed through on the way from Gjedser to Copenhagen yesterday—ancient Roskilde. It was once an important city, far more so than the little village on the east coast of the island, which men called Kopmannaehafn. But the Reformation accomplished here, as in so many other cities of the north, its deadly work (of course deadly only from an architectural point of view), and Roskilde is now a busy, commonplace little town, with only the historic cathedral to remind us of the past. Old King Harald Bluetooth built a wooden church here a thousand years ago, and this cathedral was its immediate successor. It is the burial place of many of Denmark’s most famous kings and queens, among them Christian IV, who did perhaps more for the advancement of his country than any other king before or since, and Queen Margaret Valdemarsdatter, who was the only ruler strong enough to unite the three countries of Scandinavia into a single nation. Christian IX, the “father of half of Europe,” lies here, and many other Fredericks and Christians. Danish nobility is not clever at thinking up new names for itself. All who are not Valdemars are either Fredericks or Christians, with here and there a Canute or a Sweyn or a Gorm.

Right here I am tempted to go into a history of some of these old kings, whose names are so attractive, such as Gorm the Old, Canute the Great, Harald Bluetooth, and Sweyn Forkbeard, but Danish history is so closely interwoven with Norwegian that it is impossible to tell one without telling the other. For more than four hundred years they were actually united, and for nearly three hundred they were one and the same country. The language of the two countries has always been and is to-day practically identical. In view of this I think I will wait until I get to Norway and then give you a dissertation on the subject. In all this, Judicia, I am assuming that you don’t know any more about it than I did before I read it up. I hope you are not too much enraged at such an assumption.

It was as dark as Egypt or Pockonocket or any other place that is very, very dark when our train left Roskilde, but it was only a short journey to Copenhagen, and I enjoyed the pleasures of anticipation. A book I read on the train characterized Copenhagen as a dull, prosaic city, but being in an obstinate frame of mind I refused to be prejudiced against it. As the train drew into the huge new Vesterbro station, I felt a thrill of patriotic delight to note that the freight yard was illumined with red, white, and blue arc lights. Perhaps these colors were not very vivid or pronounced, but they were at least suggested, and I feel sure it was done in my honor.

There is much to tell about Copenhagen. It is not dull or prosaic, or, if it is, I like a dull, prosaic city. In this letter I will only describe my arrival in Denmark’s capital, and in a few days, when I have had a chance to see more, I will tell you more about it.

Outside the Vesterbro I found a perfect mob of “taxameters” (you know we have always spelled that word wrong in America). The poor old cabmen have been driven out of business by these swarms of gay, whizzing taxameters. Copenhagen is the breeding place of autos, I verily believe. We have a few in New York and Boston, and I’ve even seen them in other parts of the world, but I never saw what seemed so many in any other city. I dare not look up statistics for fear of having my impression shattered. Perhaps it is partly the audacity and gay colors of these autos that make them seem so omnipresent. They are purple or yellow or white, usually, and they own the city.

Copenhagen is a brilliantly lighted city. Really Broadway must extend itself if it would beat Copenhagen in this respect. There are all sorts of electric signs. In one window I saw a perfect imitation of fire. Paper streamers were blown upward by an electric fan and so lighted by red and orange electric lights that I had to look twice before I decided not to run for the nearest fire box. In another shop window an arctic blizzard raged furiously all the evening, and I suppose only abated when the shopkeeper went to bed. There are many brilliant electric advertisements, among which I am sorry to say certain whisky and cognac signs predominate. I fear there is more drunkenness in Denmark than in Sweden. At any rate a certain rather humorous writer says that the ferry from Helsingborg (Sweden) to HelsingÖr (Denmark) is much patronized by thirsty Swedes escaping from the Gothenburg system. However, I doubt not Phillips is enlarging upon Sweden’s stringent temperance laws as a claim for the superiority of that country, so I will lie low on that point.

To return to my arrival in Copenhagen. The taxameter whizzed me around in no time to Grand Hotel Jensen on ColbjÖrnsensgade, and I was greeted there, much to my surprise, by two very husky and very blonde lady porters, or should I call them “porterettes?” Well, these lady porters took my suitcase and even Jumbo up two flights of stairs to the room which was assigned me. You know something about Jumbo. It is almost as heavy as a trunk, and it takes a strong man to carry it far, but my blonde porterettes flew up the stairs with it, whistling as they went. Oh these Great Danes!

I took a short “twist” along Vesterbrogade and Frederiksberg Alle and back through a lot of other streets, whose names you are of course eager to know. The Danish and Norwegian language has the happy custom of attaching its definite or indefinite article to the end of its noun, and thus a hotel is a hotellet and a theater is a teatret. One sign struck me as particularly interesting. It was no less than “Bil-Jonen Teatret,” which I took to mean the “Bill Jones Theater.” I was convinced of the correctness of my interpretation by seeing that the principal feature of the week’s program was “The Hurricane Girls from Broadway.” I haven’t yet seen the Hurricane Girls, and I doubt if I shall let them know that a fellow countryman is in the city.

It is getting late, even as the Danes reckon lateness, so I think I will say god natt.

As ever sincerely,

Aylmer.

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SECOND LETTER

Copenhagen alias Axelhus; the origin of the city; the twin towers of Fjenneslev; the Raadhus and its towers; Christian IV and Brewer Jacobsen; StrÖget; the fountains of Copenhagen; the Tivoli Gardens; smÖrrebrÖd.

Copenhagen, January 12.

My dear Judicia,

It is over a week since I wrote to you, and I have been sightseeing furiously ever since, but I have barely begun to see this interesting old town. It has rained all but two days of that time; but what of that? Personally, I like rain. Think how clean and wet it is. Why shouldn’t a city take a daily showerbath? Anyway, I like Copenhagen.

When I mailed my letter to you last week I went into a tobacco shop to buy a stamp, and also to inquire where the post office was, for I thought there might be something in the poste restante for me. The shopkeeper sold me a stamp, but as for the post office, he said it wasn’t necessary to go there to mail my letter. I could drop it into one of the letter boxes which were everywhere. That remark in its naÏvetÉ reminds me of a sentence which I must quote from a book I have on Scandinavia. The author is very enthusiastic about the ship which carries him from England to Norway, and says: “The provision of the electric light in this noble ship is also a great luxury, enabling you to make light or darkness as you please in your berth, by merely touching a switch within easy reach.”

Think of it! Such luxury is almost effeminate, isn’t it? However, I don’t seem to be telling you much about this city, and there is so much to tell that I am in despair. The city’s original name was Axelhus, named for its original owner, Bishop Absalon, who found it a small fishing village and made it into a fortress against the heathen Wends. Perhaps Axelhus would not seem to bear a very close etymological connection with Absalon, but you see the bishop’s real name was Axel, and when he entered upon his ecclesiastical career he searched the Scriptures for a name which should sound something like “Axel.” As “Absalon” (the Danish form of “Absalom”) was the best he could find, he adopted that.

This Bishop Absalon and his brother EsbjÖrn Snare, who built and fortified Kallundberg on the opposite coast of Zealand, were the mainstays of Denmark eight centuries ago. The brothers were twins, and the sons of a famous warrior name Asker Ryg, who lived at Fjenneslev, in the middle of Zealand. One day Asker Ryg went to battle, leaving a church at Fjenneslev half built. He left word with his wife that should a son be born during his absence she was to have a tower built on this church, so that he might know the good news as soon as he should come in sight of the town. If a daughter should be born, no tower was to be built. Some time later Asker Ryg returned, and as he mounted the hill near Fjenneslev he saw a church with two towers. Axel and EsbjÖrn Snare were the cause, and they later proved worthy of their father’s rejoicing.

To-day Bishop Absalon continues to be the pride of the Copenhageners. In a square facing the island of Slotsholmen, which he made his strongest fortification, he sits in bronze, forever reining in his charger. He also guards the entrance to the new town hall, which of course I must call Raadhuset. I understand that an American architect (perhaps troubled with professional jealousy) says that if he put up a building like that in America his next step would be to pull it down. At any rate it cost the city six million kronor, more than a million and a half dollars, and is fitted out with a marvelous wealth of detail. On the walls of one of the stairways are two very interesting pictures representing the city in 1587 and 1611 respectively. It was about that time that the herring fisheries attracted so many merchants that the name of the town was changed from Axelhus to Kopmannaehafn, or “Merchants’ Haven.” Prominent in each of these pictures is a gallows on which two unfortunates are hanging. Probably they had stolen half a loaf of bread or committed some equally atrocious crime.

The Raadhus has a tower three hundred and forty feet in height, from which you get a fine view and a good idea of the city. On the wall, nearly up to the top, is a diagram, comparing this in height with various other high buildings and towers. Washington Monument and the Eiffel Tower are represented, and St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s, and St. Botolph’s in Boston, England, and the Chicago Masonic Temple, and a motley array of other high buildings. For some strange reason Woolworth’s skyscraper is omitted, as is also the Singer Building. Not one of New York’s skyscrapers is given a place in this hall of fame. I think I shall ask the mayor what he has against New York.

From the top of this tower you may see why Copenhagen is called the “City of Spires”—no, I should have spelled “spires” with a small “s,” as this was not the city where they held the diet. Christian IV is responsible for many of the spires which rise in all directions, for so many in fact that a certain author, in a perfectly vile pun, calls him an “aspiring” monarch. Of late years the old seventeenth-century Christian has had to divide the honors, in this particular, with Brewer Jacobsen. It is astounding to see how greatly the city has profited by the Carlsberg brewer’s generosity. Two fine collections of antiquities and of sculpture this philanthropist has given to the city, the Frederiksborg castle-museum, and the Ny-Glyptothek. Besides these he has made innumerable smaller gifts. Whenever a tower needs to be built or repaired, Brewer Jacobsen comes to the rescue and builds it or repairs it. Even now I understand he is contemplating the erection of a new spire on the famous Frue Kirke, to replace the one destroyed by a former bombardment of the city. At first it seemed rather ridiculous that so much of the city’s architectural splendor is due to beer, but I really believe the brewer has done much for the cause of temperance. His “beer” is something like ginger pop, and is scarcely more intoxicating than milk. It is so light that it is considered by many teetotalers as a temperance drink. If his temperance beer can compete with more harmful productions, he certainly is to be congratulated.

As for the buildings of Christian IV, their name is legion, for they are many. It is curious that so much of his making has lasted for three centuries or more, despite bombardments and innumerable fires. From the tower we see a curious spire formed of the interlacing tails of dragons. This was one of Christian IV’s towers. In other directions we see the spires of his summer palace, Rosenborg, and many other buildings which recall this great architect-king, among them Regenson, the college which he built for poor students; the Round Tower, which he built for the use of his astronomers, and his arsenal. He had the twin spires placed on the cathedral of Roskilde, and he built the famous castle of Frederiksborg, which his modern colleague in philanthropy, Brewer Jacobsen, has transformed into a museum. It is said that with his own hands he built the old tower on the Frue Kirke, and so reliable an authority as Hjalmar Boyesen says: “With level and square in his pocket, he walked about testing the soundness of the work of his carpenters, masons, and architects.”

He must have been a wonderful old king, even if he was not particularly modest about naming cities for himself. He founded the modern Christiania and named it for himself, and also Christianssund, in the south of Norway. Doesn’t he remind you of Alexander the Great in that respect? Boyesen says he was so democratic that he delighted to attend a party at the apothecary’s, where the jolly guests smashed all the windows; which makes me wonder whether, if he were alive to-day, he would join the jolly suffragettes of England in smashing windows.

You poor Judicia! I have kept you standing up in the Raadhus tower a long time, haven’t I? I hope you have not been cold, but if you have you can warm yourself by walking down some three hundred steps. From the Raadhus-Plads there is a series of streets leading to Kongens Nytorv, and here, between these two important squares, you will find echt Copenhagen. It is lovingly called by the Danes StrÖget, or the “Promenade.” Half of Copenhagen must go through here every day, though it is hardly wide enough for two teams to pass. StrÖget is one of the few places in the city where electric cars are prohibited, and only an old-fashioned omnibus plies back and forth. I believe it would create a civil war if any company tried to desecrate this beloved, busy StrÖget with an electric car line. You get jostled and elbowed all the way along, which would strike you as “not quite nice” in the Copenhageners, were it not that they expect to be equally jostled and elbowed. You see, people have elbowed their way through here for centuries, and that is part of the charm of it.

Midway in StrÖget is a most interesting institution called Amagertorv, where for centuries the women of Amager have sold fruit and flowers. These women are the descendants of the Dutch people whom Christian II imported from Holland some four centuries ago. He fell in love with a Dutch girl whom he called Dyveke, or “Little Dove.” Later she became his morganatic wife, and the house which this very bad Christian built for her still stands on the corner of Nielsgade. In order that she might have congenial company he imported several hundred of her compatriots, and it is the descendants of these who still sell fruit and flowers in Amagertorv.

In Kongens Nytorv, the eastern terminus of StrÖget, no less than thirteen streets converge. Here is situated, among other fine buildings, “Kongelige Teatret.” I refuse to interpret such obvious bits of the Danish tongue. It would be an insult to your intelligence. It was here that Holberg, the great dramatist, won his fame. I am sorry to say that his modern compatriot, Asta Nielsen, has won far more fame in certain circles. Perhaps you don’t know, Judicia, that Asta devotes her time and her histrionic talent entirely to moving pictures now. All over Italy and Germany I saw flaming advertisements of her as about to perform through the medium of moving pictures “The Dance of Death” and other equally thrilling dances. Oh, she is undoubtedly very popular with the patrons of the “movies,” but nevertheless I think I should prefer to be Holberg dead than Asta Nielsen alive.

In the middle of Kongens Nytorv is a well-known statue, which the Danes call Hesten or the “Horse.” It represents Christian V riding down a writhing form, but whether that form represents abstract Envy or concrete Sweden no one seems to know. At any rate, Alexander the Great, Artemisia, Minerva, and Hercules are admiringly looking on, though how the Danes managed to corral all these people into Kongens Nytorv I don’t know. It is curious, too, that Hercules and Minerva have also found their way over to Slotsholmen, and there, together with Nemesis and Æsculapius, look up at Frederick VII.

Right here I must tell you something about Copenhagen’s many statues and fountains. In the Raadhus-Plads three of the weirdest dragons that were ever invented spout from their monstrous snouts three foolish little jets of water. The small boys used to play over these and stick corks in the dragons’ snouts, and so the clever authorities built a wide moat all around it, and now those boys have got to swim for it if they want to play practical jokes on the dragons. In Gammeltorv there is an old fountain which spouts golden apples on the king’s birthday and other national holidays. In another part of the city Gefion is represented plowing furiously with four bulls. This Gefion was an ancient goddess who was to have as much territory as she could plow up in a single night. By dint of great energy she plowed all the territory from Skaane, the southernmost province of Sweden, to the southernmost part of Zealand. The island of Zealand then broke off from Sweden and became the perpetual heritage of the Danes.

Another interesting monument represents an old soldier holding a little boy on his shoulder while the boy blows a horn. It is entitled Den lille Hornblaeser. Isn’t that great, and doesn’t the tender, affectionate, kitten-stroking tone get into your voice involuntarily when you say it? On the Holmens-Kanal, which, by the way, is a street, there is a statue to Niels Juel, who led the Danes to a great victory against the Swedes two and a half centuries ago. The statue is made from the guns of Ivar Hvitfeld’s frigate, Danebrog, which Ivar blew up in KjÖge Bay to save the rest of the fleet. It hardly seems fair that Ivar’s guns should have been used to build a statue to Niels, but such is the case.

The most unique statue I have ever seen stands in the museum, and formerly stood in “Gray Brothers’ Square.” It is called SkamstÖtte, or “Pillar of Shame,” and bears the inscription “To the eternal shame and disgrace of Corfitz Ulfeldt, the traitor.”

It would take more stationery than I have in stock to tell you of all the statues and fountains there are in this city. They must number well up into the hundreds. If anybody in Denmark says something clever, or if he is good-looking, or if he can write a readable book, or if he can cure somebody of appendicitis, they put up a monument to him.

The Danes are great lovers of royalty, and intensely loyal to their kings, though some of them have tried their subjects’ loyalty to the utmost. Danish kingship was in the past a “despotism tempered by sentiment,” as F. M. Butlin says. Some centuries ago, during the reign of Frederick V, it was said that “If the citizens of the capital had left off thrusting their heads out of their windows and shouting ‘Skaal Kong Christian,’ our absolute monarch would have felt unhappy.” I hope I shall not be arrested for lÈse majestÉ if I remark that their last king, Frederick VIII, was a very dissipated man. As you doubtless remember, he died mysteriously some time ago while sojourning incognito in Hamburg. However, their present king, Christian X, is an excellent monarch and much beloved by all. It is said that on hearing of his father’s death he immediately took the Holy Communion, as an indication of his desire to be a Christian in fact as well as in name.

This king and many of his relatives now live in the four palaces on Amalienborg-Plads. I had the luck to be in this plads the other day at just twelve o’clock when the guard changed. It was a very pompous ceremony. The Danebrog was much in evidence, and the immense, black-plumed helmets of the soldiers added greatly to the solemnity of the occasion.

Perhaps you are weary enough of sightseeing by this time to come back with me and sample Danish smÖrrebrÖd at Wivel’s restaurant, which is the most famous in the city. This is a sort of attachment to Tivoli, and while your mouth is watering for smÖrrebrÖd I must describe Tivoli. It is considered the finest amusement park in Europe. It is not nearly as big as some others, but it is a model of its kind. The Copenhageners are not an idle people, but they love to amuse themselves. Amusement and relaxation, sheer and simple, Tivoli offers them. On holidays and anniversaries there is a most wonderful illumination.

In “Economics 1” at college I remember learning with great struggles some horrible fabrications called Jevons’ Criteria. Well, the author of that outrage, Professor Stanley Jevons himself, writes this about Tivoli in his “Essays on Social Reform”:

“The Tivoli pleasure gardens form the best possible model of popular recreation. Englishmen think of Denmark only as a very little nation. But though small in quantity Denmark shames us in quality.… But my Danish friends, when questioned on the subject [of their country’s superiority], attributed a high civilizing influence to the Thorvaldsen Museum and the Tivoli Gardens at Copenhagen. Of course our magistrates could not permit so demoralizing a spectacle as ballet-dancing in the open air, but I wish they could see Froeken Leontine and Fanny Carey dance their pas de deux. They would then learn that among a truly cultured and well-governed people dancing may be as chaste as it is a beautiful performance. Compared with our Crystal Palace or Alexandra Palace, Tivoli is a very minor affair; but civilization is not a question of magnitude, and in spite of its comparatively small size Tivoli is a model of good taste and decency, and indicates the way in which, under good regulations, all classes may be induced to mingle.”

Butlin, in quoting the same passage, says:

“It must not be supposed that Tivoli is a kind of garden ‘settlement,’ where classes mix with the conscious intention of civilizing and being civilized. We are rather inclined to suspect that Professor Jevons’ Danish friends were wily Danes who knew that civilizing influence was the right kind of bait with which to lure a social reformer within the Tivoli walls, and that the Professor, having enjoyed his evening there, as he evidently did, felt called upon to justify his enjoyment by an analysis of its civilizing influence.”

Well, Judicia, I have kept you waiting for that smÖrrebrÖd for some time while I quoted the authorities on Tivoli. When the smÖrrebrÖd finally arrives, it looks like the most vivid of patchwork quilts. It consists of various pieces of bread and butter “smeared” with all sorts of substances of all sorts of colors. There are slabs of ultramarine and ultraviolet, lake, mauve, puce, yellow ochre, carmine, buff, drab, gray-green, black, orange, scarlet, and everything else. In smÖrrebrÖd you find all the colors of the rainbow, and many others which have not yet been catalogued. These colors, when analyzed, are found to consist of all sorts of meats, fish, hard-boiled eggs, and parti-colored salads. If you have a grain of progressive originality in you, you will like smÖrrebrÖd. SmÖr actually means “butter,” but I am sure that our word “smear” is a lineal descendant, and I prefer to translate smÖrrebrÖd into “smeared bread.”

The Danes are famous for their dairy products and particularly for their butter. Don’t you remember in far-off Sidon in Syria we had for dinner one day, as a special treat, a little can of Danish butter? While I am on the subject of food, let me tell you of one custom Copenhagen has which New York ought to copy. The fishermen bring in their fish, alive, in great tanks inside the ship, and when they reach the city these fish are transferred, still alive, to portable tanks, and peddlers then wheel them all over the city. The customer picks out his fish and the victim is harpooned and killed and delivered on the spot. There is no doubt that the Copenhageners have fresh fish.

I have scarcely begun to tell you about this city yet, but I think I will give you a rest. When I get time to write again I shall tell you something about some of Denmark’s celebrities, such as Thorvaldsen, and Hans Christian Andersen, and Hamlet. I am afraid this last gentleman is an invention of Saxo Grammaticus and Shakespeare, but he is interesting nevertheless. Alors, au revoir.

Yours as ever,

Aylmer.

THIRD LETTER

En route. HelsingÖr to Christiania, December 24.

My dear Judicia,

I am in Sweden now, and in spite of a troubled conscience I am enjoying my view from the car window. I suppose I ought not to allow myself to enjoy Sweden, as that is Phillips’ country, and honor should compel me to find fault with it. The country is really beautiful, with its long, rolling expanse of snow-covered land on one side and the Kattegat and Skager-Rack shaking hands on the other. However, I comfort myself and soothe my conscience by remembering that this part of Sweden is between Norway and Denmark, and with two such neighbors it could hardly be entirely without charm. The train was ferried across from HelsingÖr to Helsingborg, and we are now speeding along close to the Kattegat.

I am not forgetting that I left you in my last letter with the promise to tell you something about Denmark’s celebrities, but first I must treat you as a schoolgirl and tell you about the geography of this little country. Tell me, Judicia, how many principal islands are there in Denmark, and what are their names? What is Jutland? What is the difference between the Kattegat and the Skager-Rack? I am so sure that you don’t exactly know the answers to these abstruse problems (any more than I did two months ago) that I am going to take the liberty of telling you.

Jutland has earned its name, for it juts out into the North Sea and separates the Skager-Rack on the northwest from the Kattegat on the southeast, and it also looks like a sort of wedge thrust into the crevice between the two halves of the dividing Scandinavian peninsula. I am afraid the etymologist would say that it earned its name more from being the home of the Jutes than from its geographical propensity of “jutting.” It is a sandy peninsula, and boasts only one hill, which is made much of by the Danes. Schleswig-Holstein, as of course you know, should properly belong to Jutland and to the Danes. It is unmistakably a part of Denmark geographically and ethnographically, but the great and greedy Bismarck thought it would be a choice morsel to add to Germany, and, not being troubled by a very tender diplomatic conscience, he contrived to snatch it from poor little helpless Denmark. That was long ago, but the Danes still bristle at the name of Bismarck.

East of Jutland lie Denmark’s three large islands—Fyen, Zealand, and Lapland—and her countless smaller ones. If you will take the trouble to look at the map I suppose you can picture Denmark’s geography in your mind even more clearly than by reading my lucid and detailed description.

At this minute I am sure you are thinking of Bertel Thorvalsden, for he is sure to come first into your mind when you begin to inquire who’s who. You remember I quoted Professor Jevons as ranking the Thorvaldsen Museum even as high as Tivoli, as a civilizing influence. That is rather hard though on the museum, for this is really one of the world’s famous monuments. It stands in the very front rank of museums. Moreover it is unique in being the work of and the monument to one single man, the greatest artist-genius of the north. Really I am amazed at the greatness of Thorvaldsen. I have heard about him since I was in kindergarten, but I was struck anew by the greatness of his genius when I visited Copenhagen. He was the son of an Iceland ship’s carpenter, and the poorest of the poor. He was born at sea between Iceland and Copenhagen, and through all the early years of his life he assisted his father in his business. Those who know declare him the greatest classical sculptor of modern times.

The museum has the appearance of a huge tomb, and is anything but attractive from the outside. Inside is a mighty collection of the sculptor’s work. Many of the originals are here, and plaster models represent the rest. Among these models are two of his greatest works, the Lion of Lucerne, and the statue of Christ, which stands in the Frue Kirke. As I had seen the originals of both of these, I was not so thrilled by the plaster models. Inside, in a courtyard, is the sculptor’s grave, and it must be comforting to him to have his own beloved creations looking down upon his grave. Outside, all around the wall, are frescoes representing Thorvaldsen’s triumphant return from Rome in 1838. Hans Christian Andersen says of this home-coming: “It was a national festival; boats, decorated with flowers and flags, passed backward and forward between Langelinie and Trekoner. Joyous shouts were heard from the shore, where the people harnessed themselves to Thorvaldsen’s carriage and dragged it through Amalienborg to his dwelling.”

Thorvaldsen did not achieve this distinction, however, without a hard, discouraging, up-hill climb. He went to Rome to study first in 1796, and he labored so obscurely that even his friends lost faith in his talent. He could not afford to buy plaster of Paris, so he made from clay a model of Jason, which quickly fell to pieces. A second model failed to find a purchaser, and discouraged and heartbroken he prepared to sail for Denmark, when Thomas Hope, a wealthy English banker, justified nature in the bestowal of his surname by asking Thorvaldsen to reproduce in marble his statue of Jason. From this point the sculptor’s ambition revived, and in a few years he was hailed far and wide as the greatest living master of his profession.

Andersen’s autobiography contains many interesting bits about his friend Thorvaldsen. On his seventy-third birthday, and his last, the sculptor was greeted very early in the morning by a throng of friends who were celebrating the day by the use of “gongs, fire tongs, flasks, knives,” and other noisy implements. The old man threw on a dressing gown and slippers, and thus attired danced out of his bedroom and joined the hilarity. A few months later he died, and the news caused a whole nation to go into mourning.

But Hans Christian Andersen, the children’s poet, survived him. Andersen is to-day one of the best beloved writers in the world, as you will not hesitate to admit, Judicia. I am positive that Phillips can’t refer you to any Swedish author who is half as much loved, at least by people outside of his own land. One writer whose book I have recently read refers to this author as “H. C. Andersen.” Doesn’t that strike you as almost a sacrilege? Hans Christian Andersen is in a class by himself, and he ought to be called Hans Christian and not H. C. His fairy tales lose half their charm if we discover that the author is only H. C. Andersen. Hans Christian Andersen by any other name would not—well, he would not be as fragrant—I am getting involved here.

He was born in Odense, on the island of Fyen. Right here let me say that this town of Odense is not named for the much-advertised five-cent cigar, but for Odin, the same old god who gave us our name for the fourth day in the week. Hans was the son of a cobbler, and he spent the earliest years of his life, or parts of them, in a crib fashioned from a nobleman’s coffin, on which tatters of black cloth continued to hang. His mother wanted him to become a tailor, and he would perhaps have fulfilled her wish if a gypsy wise-woman had not chanced to cross his path and prophesy that Hans would some day become a great man. His parents believed the prophecy, and later their faith in the gypsy woman was justified.

Even as a boy Hans was in love with the drama. He could scrape up money enough to go to the theater only once a year, but the rest of the time he would get hold of the bill and imagine the whole play for himself. His introduction to dramatic society was most pathetic. An old bookseller in Odense gave him an introduction to a danseuse at the Royal Theater at Copenhagen. Poor little Hans was frightened almost out of his wits when he met the lady dancer. He was “candidating,” as it were, and the meeting was very critical. He was so nervous that everything went wrong. His hat was too big for him, and, as he forgot to take it off, it fell over his ears. His new, confirmation shoes creaked, and he was forced to “ask his hostess’ permission to remove them, that he might be able to dance with more grace.” The peculiarity of this request, combined with the strange gestures he made, frightened the poor danseuse. She thought he was mad, and escaped under a pretext. Poor Hans, with tears in his eyes, and as utterly miserable as possible, hurried away. Yet he had inborn genius, and, like a city that is set on a hill, it could not be hid. A few years later he was received in his native town as a hero. The city was illuminated; the bishop met him at the station; the school children had a whole holiday; he received a congratulatory telegram from the king, and the man whom all Denmark delighted to honor says: “I felt as humble and small as if I stood before my God. It was as if every weakness, fault, and sin in thought, word, and deed was brought home to me.” As a matter of fact he had about as few faults and sins as it would be possible to have and still be human, and his one weakness was a too great sensitiveness.

He tells of how on one occasion he was anxious to obtain a traveling scholarship, and he also had a book of poems which he wished to present to the king, Frederick VI. His friends, being versed in the ways of the world, advised him to present his book at the same time he made his request for the scholarship. The same principle was of course involved as that which to-day implies that the giver of compliments has a request to follow. Well, such a proceeding seemed to the sensitive Hans as verging on dishonesty, and he was troubled to know what to do. He thus describes his interview with the king:

“I must have looked to the king extremely funny as I entered the room, for my heart was beating fast with anxiety. When the king came toward me in the quick way he had, and asked me what kind of a book I had brought him, I answered: ‘A cycle of poems, your Majesty.’ ‘Cycle, Cycle! what do you mean?’ Then I lost heart and said: ‘It is some verses on Denmark.’ He smiled. ‘Well, well, that is all right; thanks, thanks,’ and he bowed a dismissal. But I, who had not even begun my real errand, explained that I had much still to say, and then I told him about my studies, and how I had got through them. ‘That is very praiseworthy,’ said the king, and when I came to the point of my wish for a scholarship he answered, as they had told me he would: ‘Very well, then bring an application.’ ‘Yes, your Majesty,’ I burst out, all my self-consciousness gone, ‘I have it here with me, and it seems so dreadful to me that I should bring it with the book. I have been told to do so, as it is the custom, but I think it is horrid. I do hate it so.’ My eyes were full of tears. The good king laughed right out, nodded kindly, and took the application form.”

This bashful, timid Hans was really a wonderful man. He could take an old bottle or a piece of string or a barnyard hen and make a story out of it that the world, particularly the child’s world, will not willingly let die. Did you know that he invented the mission of the stork, and that every time Life or Judge gets off a joke in which a stork figures they have Hans Christian Andersen to thank for the idea?

Part of Andersen’s life was spent as a student at Elsinore or HelsingÖr, and so I think I will tear myself away from Copenhagen and go up to see the sights of northern Zealand. Before I tell you about HelsingÖr I must mention some of these castles of North Zealand. The island swarms with them, but the most interesting are Kronborg, Fredensborg, and Frederiksborg. In Kronborg, Holger Danske sits in confinement, and must remain there until the end of time. “He is clad in iron and steel, and rests his head upon his strong arms; his long beard hangs out over the marble table where it has grown fast. He sleeps and dreams in his dreams that he sees all that is happening above in Denmark. Every Christmas evening one of God’s angels comes to tell him that it is right what he has dreamt, and that he may sleep again, for no danger out of the ordinary is threatening Denmark.”

Fredensborg Castle, a few miles south, is the place where the clans gather for the annual Thanksgiving dinner. Perhaps they don’t call it by that name, and perhaps the gathering isn’t annual, but at least it is true that now and then the whole royal family of Denmark gathers together here in Fredensborg. As you know, the royal family of Denmark includes the King of Greece, Queen Alexandra, the Czarina of Russia, the King of Norway, and numerous princes and princesses. The name Fredensborg means “Castle of Peace” and the castle was built a century ago to commemorate the peace between Denmark and Sweden.

Frederiksborg I am sure I have mentioned before as the joint product of Christian IV and Brewer Jacobsen, who have given us one of the most interesting and valuable historical museums in the world. Here are all the old heroes and heroines of Denmark, as well as all the sculptors and story-tellers and doctors and inventors and philosophers and musicians and merchants. Here, in short, you can find a collection of who’s who in Denmark, or rather of who has been who in the past. You could spend a week here studying these different celebrities and the stories connected with them. In the room called the Council Chamber is a colossal portrait of all the Danish royalties who were alive in 1886. There are no less than thirty-two persons in the picture, and the artist thought nothing of tucking away eight or ten royal children in one corner.

In another room the most celebrated of the ancients are collected, among them Gorm the Old, Canute the Great, who as you know was the king that could not be flattered, and Thyra Danebod. This Thyra is not so well known as the other two, but she was an interesting old shrew. I am not positive of her identity, as names were repeated so much in the old days, but I think she was sister of Sweyn Forkbeard, king of Denmark at the end of the tenth century. Whether or not my guess is correct, I want to tell you a little about this Thyra. She was a spoiled child, and wanted to be married to as many kings as possible. At least two kings, Burislav the Wend and Olaf Tryggvesson the Norwegian, claimed her at the same time as lawful wife, or rather she claimed them. She positively bullied Olaf into marrying her because she had had a tiff with Burislav. But Olaf could not please her. One day, a Palm Sunday, he bought her some spring vegetables as a special treat. She threw them in his face, remarking that her father, Harald Bluetooth, had given her a better present than that when she got her first tooth; what she wanted was land and revenue. She pestered him so continually that finally, for the sake of domestic peace, he started on a piratical expedition. He gained no land and lost his life, whereupon Thyra retrieved herself somewhat by dying nine days later of a broken heart.

In another room there are many pictures of different events of Danish history. One portrays the foul murder of Erik Glipping, son of Erik Plowpenny. His only fault was that he happened to be king of Denmark. Another picture shows the great Valdemar Atterdag, whose mission in life was to regain the territory which his father had pawned. This Valdemar Atterdag, by the way, was not particularly gentle in his estimate of human life.

However, killing people, particularly sons or defenceless children, was the favorite sport of some of the old kings and queens. Christina, mistress of Haakon Galen, an aspirant to the throne of Norway, one day took in her lap a little boy named Guttorm Siggurdsson, who happened to be the legitimate heir to the throne. She stroked the child lovingly over his whole body, and soon after little Guttorm complained that needles were sticking into him all over. After a few minutes he died in great agony. Haakon Galen was immensely amused. He kissed his mistress and soon after rewarded her by actually making her his wife.

I seem to be getting into a morbid strain, but fortunately there are many noble and cheerful tales which the history of Denmark and Norway affords. When I get time I will write you more about these. We are fast approaching KornsjÖ, where, since it is on Norwegian soil, I can lawfully begin to take an interest in the scenery. But before we get there I must tell you something about HelsingÖr, for that is as well known to foreigners, thanks to Mr. Shakespeare, as any spot in Denmark. The statue of Saxo Grammaticus, who originally wrote of “Prince Amleth,” is made to wear an amused smile, as if he did not take himself or the story of Hamlet quite seriously. The following quotation from Horace Marryat will show you the source of some doubts:

“Hans Andersen assured me that it [Hamlet’s grave] did not exist. In the good old times, when Sound duties still were, and myriads of ships stopped at Elsinore to pay their dues and be plundered by the inhabitants, each fresh English sailor, on his first arrival, demanded to be conducted to the tomb of Hamlet. Now, on the outside of the town, by the Strandvej, in the garden of a resident merchant, stood or still stands a hoi or barrow, one of the twenty thousand which are scattered so plentifully over the Danish domains. This barrow, to the great annoyance of its owner, was settled upon as a fitting resting place for Shakespeare’s hero. Worried and tormented by the numerous visitors who allowed him no peace, he, at his own expense, erected this monument in the public garden of Marienlyst, caused it to be surmounted by a cross and a half-erased inscription, fixing the date of Hamlet’s death the 32d of October, Old Style, the year a blank. Admirably, too, it succeeded. The British public was content, and the worthy merchant was allowed to smoke his pipe in peace under the grateful shade of his veranda.”

Butlin says of his first visit to Denmark that on inquiring for Hamlet’s grave he was told by a sarcastic Dane—the time being early autumn—that it was not usually built up before the spring, in time for English and American tourists to carry it away in chopped-off morsels during the summer.

As to Elsinore, that is an interesting place, with or without the actual grave of Hamlet. It is the scene of more historical events, connected with Norway, than almost any other place in Denmark. You remember that Marryat refers to the fact that it collected tolls from all the ships that passed through the Sound; and think of the nerve of it—it continued to do so even after Sweden had won the opposite coast of Skaane. All the nations concerned finally clubbed together and gave little Elsinore an immense ransom as token of future exemption from duty.

I have just discovered by referring to my Norges Communicationer that we are due in KornsjÖ in twenty minutes, so I shall soon be taking in the delights of Norway. As to this Norges Communicationer, let me tell you what an absurd system of time-tables they have here. This foolish Communicationer is published every week and costs thirty Öre (about eight cents). This week’s edition has one hundred and eighty-four big pages, and a whole year’s edition takes up actually almost as much room as the new EncyclopÆdia Britannica. By subscribing to this very interesting weekly magazine you can get it for about a dollar per quarter, and less than two dollars and a half for the entire year. Think of that! The price includes postage, too. Oh, it’s a shame to pay so little; therefore I think I won’t subscribe.

I don’t know when I shall have time to write again. I am planning to go to Bergen in a few days and take from there one of the Bergenske and Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab boats up along the coast. Every one has taken this trip in summer, when the country is looking for tourists all along the line, but I want to see the country out of season, and so I am planning to visit it in winter, regardless of warnings about the gloomy, perpetual night.

I shall write to you from somewhere, sometime.

As always,

Aylmer.

FOURTH LETTER

Narvik, Norwegian Lapland, January 12.

N. Lat. 68° 30´: E. Long. 17° 30´ (circa).

My dear Judicia,

I would just as soon wager that you never heard of Narvik before, and that you don’t know any more of its whereabouts than the heading of this letter tells you. I am basing my wager on the assumption that your knowledge of Norway is just about as extensive as mine was before I came here. Well, I cannot blame you much for your ignorance (if ignorant you are), for Narvik is a very young thing. It was born on January 1, 1902, but it is fast getting to be one of the important towns of this country, thanks to the iron hills of Lapland. However, I mustn’t tell you about Narvik before you get there. First I will ask you to go up along the coast with me by steamer and get something of the unconscious spell of northern Norway in winter, when it doesn’t suspect that it is showing off.

I decided to come to Trondhjem by rail instead of by steamer, so I hunted things up in my Norges Communicationer and found that I could go direct from Christiania to Trondhjem in sixteen hours and there take one of the mail boats of that Dampskibsselskab (I love to pronounce that word) up to Narvik. I have several thousand things to tell you about Christiania and Trondhjem, but these must wait until later, as I am planning to visit these cities again. In this letter I shall simply tell you about northern Norway in the cold, gloomy winter, which is really neither cold nor gloomy. It is wonderful, this Norwegian winter. The whole country does not realize that there is an American tourist north of Trondhjem, and if it did realize, it wouldn’t care, for it is attending to its own business. I get the same pleasure out of seeing this tourist-ridden country out of season that I got from seeing Oberammergau in the winter of 1905, when the natives had forgotten the previous decennial Passion Play and had not begun to think seriously of the next.

This “awful, uncanny darkness” that seems to frighten so many people is one of my chief delights. On the average there have been only three or four hours a day when I could see to read by daylight, but the twenty-hour nights have been anything but depressing to me. It has been clear weather nearly all the time, and there have been many substitutes for Phoebus. Even when there has been no moon and no northern lights, the starlight has usually been enough to bring out in sharp relief the changing outline of mountains and rocky headlands. But much of the time the stars have had assistance. A brand new moon came to the rescue soon after we left Trondhjem, and as it was not particularly bothered by the blinding sunlight it had a great chance to make the most of itself. It is surprising how much light even a very new moon can give when it is not annoyed or forced out of business by such a light trust as the sun.

Occasionally the aurora borealis has come to lend its very gentle, wavering quota of illumination. It is extremely timid, and a bright moon can frighten it into retirement. But when it does appear it is the most bewitching of phantoms. It is always restless, always timid. It darts a long, white ray up to the zenith and then snatches it back as if in terror lest something should seize it and hold it fast. Sometimes it is as if a dozen streamers of the softest phosphorescent material were blown out by the action of some huge electric fans at the North Pole. The scene is never twice alike, even when seen from the same point, and when seen from the deck of a little steamer, winding its way through a twisting, cliff-bound channel, the variety is endless.

But the finest illumination of all is “under foot.” All the way from Trondhjem to Narvik we sailed through a sea of phosphorus. Imagine, Judicia, the brightest firefly or glowworm that you ever saw, and then picture several hundred of them together in a compact mass, and you will have some idea of one of the little floating islands of phosphorus through which we passed. I saw some of these greenish light globes that seemed as big as a grapefruit. It was as if green arc lights were strewn about promiscuously through this whole northern sea. I wish Thomas Edison had been along to tell me how many candle power one of these arc lights possessed, but I am sure that one placed in a dark room would give light enough to read by. This is not a fish story, Judicia. Really you cannot imagine what a brilliant, watery-green glow these Norwegian phosphorus lights give.

All this way we have been sailing on an inland sea, so to speak. The whole coast from Trondhjem to Hammerfest, with the exception of a few miles, is fringed with a belt of protecting islands, and seasickness is about as nearly unknown here as it could be anywhere. The boat stopped at many little fishing stations and gave an opportunity, which the tourist steamers in summer do not give, to see real Norwegian life.

About eighty miles from Trondhjem we pass the island of Almenningen, where are situated the quarries from which the blue chlorite was taken to build the famous Trondhjem Cathedral. From there on we begin to get into the famous fishing country, though we do not reach the center of the industry until we get up to the Lofoten Islands. Norway, as every one knows, is famous for its fisheries. Salmon and cod and herring and sardines are caught by the billion and sent all over the world. A few miles beyond Almenningen we see numerous white streaks on the rocks, which the wily fishermen have painted there, so that the salmon are fooled into thinking them their favorite waterfalls and are thus lured into the nets. At BrÖnÖ, about a hundred and fifty miles from Trondhjem, a herring fleet was stationed, waiting for the harvest. This herring fishery is conducted in a most scientific way. Scouts keep an eye out for a sildstim, or shoal of herring, and as soon as one is located they send a hurry call by telegram to the nearest fleet, which is immediately towed to the scene of action by tugboats. Telegrams are also sent in all directions for the purpose of securing a supply of barrels and salt.

Much more interesting than this are the cod fisheries, which were increasingly in evidence as we neared the Lofotens; but I will tell you more about that later.

A most curious rock formation marks the arctic circle, for directly on this imaginary line is a petrified man riding a petrified horse. A little to the north is a rock called the “Maiden of LekÖ,” and near by are the “Seven Sisters of Alstahoug”—hard-featured, raw-boned girls, each about four thousand feet tall. Between the seven sisters and the “Maiden of LekÖ,” Torg’s Hat lies floating on the sea—a stone hat, eight hundred feet high, pierced by a four-hundred foot tunnel. Perhaps you will be interested, as I was, to know how, when, and why these various people and Torg’s headgear got here. It seems that once the devil’s young brother, who lived in this neighborhood, went to see his seven devilish sisters. During the visit he met a cousin, the “Maiden of LekÖ,” and fell in love with her. Unfortunately she did not reciprocate. The devil’s brother then smothered his love in rage, mounted his horse, and set out to kill the maiden. He took his bow and shot an arrow at her. But just at the crucial moment Torg, the hero of the story, saw the danger and threw his hat at the arrow, which pierced it through, four hundred feet (I’m afraid Torg had a big head), and harmlessly buried itself in the land near by. At this point the sun rose and turned everything and everybody to stone. The dramatis personÆ and the stage properties continue to exist through all these centuries. The devil’s brother sits on his charger and draws his bow. The maiden looks longingly for Torg, the seven she-devils look on, and the arrow is seen sticking into a near-by island after boring its immense tunnel through Torg’s Hat. This last is a truly wonderful phenomenon, and I know of no other way to explain it than by the arrow theory. The tunnel is four hundred feet long, four hundred feet above the sea, and varies in height from sixty-five to two hundred and forty-five feet.

We are now unmistakably in the north. I have not seen the sun since I left the scene of this ancient drama. For a few hours a day all the southern half of the sky has been illuminated by a soft glow, a cross between dawn and twilight. The combination produces color schemes much more beautiful than either could produce alone, and the always changing and always majestic outline of the mountains adds tremendously to their effect.

It has been warm enough to permit me to stand on deck quite comfortably all the time, and that in spite of the fact that it is midwinter and that I am more than a hundred miles north of the arctic circle. The temperature has a peculiar tendency to actually rise as you go north along this western coast. Even as far north as Hammerfest the water up to the very heads of the still fjords never freezes, while in the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, about nine hundred miles due south, it is no uncommon thing for the big steamers crossing from Stockholm to be frozen in solid. The mean January temperature of the Lofoten Islands is about the same as that of Berlin, warmer if anything. Hammerfest is in the same latitude as the arctic regions of America, where Franklin perished, and as the uninhabitable regions of northern Siberia, yet the average winter temperature here is rather warmer than in New York. As I write, here in Narvik, January 12, a hundred miles north of the arctic circle and about twenty-nine degrees of latitude north of New York, it is raining, and there is no snow on the ground. Of course I don’t need to tell you that the Gulf Stream is responsible for all this.

Another peculiarity about the coast of Norway is that it is rising bodily out of the ocean. At Trondhjem it is a well-ascertained fact that in the days of Olaf Tryggvesson, who, as I have told you, was king about nine hundred years ago, the coast line there was twenty feet higher than it is now. In Hammerfest there are unmistakable indications of an old coast line six hundred and twenty feet above the present one. In some parts of Scandinavia the land is rising at the rate of five feet in a century. At that rate it will be about ten miles higher a million years from now. Even with my geologically untrained eye I can easily see in many of the fjords distinct lines which must formerly have been on the sea level.

Directly in the center of the stage of this old drama, the “Maiden of LekÖ,” is an island called ThjÖtÖ or Thjotta, formerly the private property of an earl named Haarek. This Haarek was a heathen earl who lived in the time of the aforementioned Olaf Tryggvesson. Olaf was a Christian king, and consequently he was much distressed that this heathen earl possessed so much power. He accordingly summoned Haarek to his court and told him that he must either be baptized or killed. The former course seemed to Haarek on the whole the more attractive, and in the end he and all his house were baptized.

Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to tell you something about the strenuous methods by which Norway was converted to Christianity. Olaf Tryggvesson was the first great missionary-king, and he attacked with fiery zeal the problem of converting his realm. He was so strenuous that he aroused much anger in his subjects, who finally rebelled. At this, Olaf, who was always equal to any emergency, summoned six of the ringleaders, and holding an ax over the head of each in turn he offered them their choice of being killed or baptized. Most of them chose to be baptized, but one asked the priest where were the old heroes, Harald Fairhair and Halfdan the Swarthy. The priest replied that they were in hell, whereupon the courageous chieftain said very well, he would like to join them, and he was promptly killed. I suspect that in this case the heathen was nobler than the Christians.

King Olaf had a crony in his court, chaplain Thangbrand, the Saxon priest. Thangbrand was a perfectly ferocious man, whose insincerity as a missionary of the gospel of peace must have been most evident. Some years before he had visited Bishop Siric of Canterbury, who had presented him with a valuable and unique shield, on which was wrought the image of the crucified Christ. As Boyesen says:

“Shortly after this occurrence, Thangbrand made the acquaintance of Olaf Tryggvesson, who admired the shield greatly and desired to buy it. The priest received a munificent compensation, and, finding himself suddenly rich, went and bought a beautiful Irish girl, whose charms had beguiled him. A German warrior who saw the girl claimed her, and when his demand was scornfully refused challenged the priest. A duel was fought, and the German was killed. Some ill feeling was aroused against Thangbrand by this incident, and he fled to his friend, Olaf Tryggvesson, and became his court chaplain.”

Needless to say, King Olaf had no idea what Christianity really meant. To him it was merely a substitution of one polytheism for another. The Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and numberless saints took the place of Odin, Thor, Frey, and the rest of the old gods. The one difference which in time permeated the viking consciousness was that, while Odin and his colleagues rejoiced in bloodshed and cruelty, Christ the “White” advocated “Peace on earth, good will to men.” Thirty years later King Olaf Haroldsson earned by his life, and still more by his death, the title of Olaf the Saint. He took the Norse imagination captive, and by his truly saintly life and death won his country to real Christianity.

The first Olaf Tryggvesson resorted at times to the most cruel measures in his efforts to convert his subjects. Raud the Strong, who refused to accept the new faith, he tortured most horribly, finally, it is said, forcing an adder down his throat, which cut its way through his side and killed him with its poison. Eyvind Kinriva, another chieftain who refused to be baptized, “had glowing coals put upon his stomach at the king’s command, and expired under horrible tortures.”

In all this, however, Olaf verily thought that he did God’s service. He was so burning with zeal for the new faith, without at the same time having the slightest conception of what the new faith meant, that he subjected everything to this one idea of fierce missionary enthusiasm.

The case was quite otherwise with the vicious priest, Thangbrand. It is certain that he recognized himself for a charlatan who was interested in the new religion only for what he could get out of it. He had a parish at one time at Moster in Norway, but, as he found it inconvenient to live and support his Irish beauty on his slender income, he “formed the habit of making forays into the neighboring shires, replenishing his stores at the expense of the heathen.” King Olaf was incensed at this, and as a penance he made the Saxon priest go on a missionary journey to Iceland. Here Thangbrand killed nearly as many men as he converted, and he was finally outlawed and compelled to leave the island. But it is strangely enough a fact that about a year after his enforced flight Iceland did legally adopt the new faith at the Althing of June in the year 1000.

I will tell you more about Olaf the Saint and some of the other Olafs and Haakons and Haralds when I come back to Trondhjem. If I run on any more now about history I shall never get you to Narvik. Not far from Thjotta is the great “Svartisen” glacier, which is, being interpreted, “Swarthy Ice,” or “Black Ice.” This is the only glacier in Europe which sends branches down to the edge of the sea.

Fifty miles or so north of the arctic circle there is a town called BodÖ, which the tourist steamers utterly ignore, but our good mail skib of the Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab does not scorn it, and afforded us a most interesting stop of two or three hours. Like all these arctic towns, BodÖ is built entirely of wood, and offers a good opportunity for fires, which opportunity is seldom neglected for a very long time. There is a church parsonage near the town, which once sheltered no less a celebrity than Louis Philippe, when he was traveling incognito as “Herr MÜller.” There is one old room in this house which is still called Louis Philippe’s chamber.

From a hill above BodÖ I got my first glimpse of the Lofotens, and I could hardly wait to get among these islands. Directly east of BodÖ is a fjord with the unpronouncable name of Skjerstadfjord, which opens out to the main sea through three very narrow openings. The fjord is so large and the openings are so small that a tremendous torrent is formed four times daily by the two incoming and the two outgoing tides. The tide only rises and falls six or at most eight feet, but you can see that to cover a fjord thirty miles long and six or eight miles wide with six feet of water, and to accomplish the inundation in a few hours through a tiny opening, requires a violent torrent. At the GodÖstrÖm or SaltstrÖm, the narrowest of the openings, the tide is so violent that only for an hour at ebb and full tide do the steamers dare to go through.

As we approached the Lofotens, we passed the famous MaelstrÖm on the left. This MaelstrÖm is a feeble little current which passes around the edge of the southernmost island of the group. Compared with the SaltstrÖm it is a calm mill pond, yet some poet had the nerve to fool all the world into thinking that some horrible, yawning cavity in the sea existed somewhere along the Norwegian coast. I have learned that two poets and a bishop are largely responsible for this idea. The poets are Campbell and Poe, and the bishop bore the name of Pontoppidan. Campbell writes:

Campbell could not have seen the MaelstrÖm, or he would not have written so ridiculously about it. I doubt, too, if he was ever frightened by the “roar” of a whale. A minnow or a tadpole could swim through the MaelstrÖm without realizing that he was in it, and as for a whale being “whirled to death”—well, perhaps a poet has a right to say such things. The good Bishop Pontoppidan, in the same work in which he dilates upon the horrors of the MaelstrÖm, tells of a sea serpent or kraken: “Its back or upper part,” he says, “which seems to be in appearance about an English mile and a half in circumference (some say more, but I choose the least for greater certainty) looks at first like a number of small islands surrounded with something that floats and fluctuates like seaweed.”

You may imagine, Judicia, how I was comforted by a certain guide book’s reassurance that “there is no doubt that this dreaded monster is a purely optical illusion.” So there isn’t any sea serpent with a back an English mile and a half in circumference, and there isn’t any yawning chasm.

Regardless of whirlpools and sea serpents, the approach to the Lofotens gave one of the most interesting views I have seen anywhere. It was high noon when we left BodÖ, and, as it did not get dark until nearly three o’clock, we had a good view. Dear old Baedeker, for whom I am coming to feel a genuine affection, states that these islands form a chain which has “not inaptly been likened to a backbone, tapering away to the smaller vertebrÆ of the tail at the south end.” Whoever said that originally had a good command over similes, for it does have very much that form. The jagged outline of the mountains as we sailed over the “darkling” expanse of water was something for poets to write about.

One very prosy author describes the scene as “picturesque.” What a fine, expressive, original word it is, and incidentally how faithful and obliging! It will attach itself to a Neapolitan beggar, or a Damascus rag fair or a Nile dahabiyeh, or anything else in the wide world, and I do think the Lofotens might have a word of their own. Without any directly applied adjective, Campbell makes you see the Lofotens and feel their spell by these two lines:

After these lines, can’t you see the wind swirling around the sheer, rocky mountains?

It began to get dark as we approached the islands, and we had to feel our way through a big fishing fleet, which was just beginning operations. This fishing fleet was only a small section of the entire squadron. An average annual catch mounts up to nearly thirty million cod, and the record is thirty-seven million. Thirty million cod livers are taken out and boiled into cod-liver oil. Thirty million cod heads are burned and pulverized and made into fertilizer, and thirty million cod carcasses are hung up to dry, eventually to be sent all over the world.

This very useful fish formerly waged a mortal warfare with the herring in the region of Stavanger, very much farther south. The herring were the aborigines in that region, but in 1784 a battle resulted in a complete cod victory. For twenty-four years the cod held the fort. In 1808 a herring Napoleon arose and led his forces to victory. The cod were completely routed, and for sixty-one years the herring rejoiced in their native stamping ground, and the fishermen did not catch a single cod. In 1869 the cod again “came back” and have held their place ever since. However, there is no knowing when another Napoleon herring may arise. Perhaps fishes as well as men need a Hague Tribunal, and a Carnegie Foundation, and a Nobel Peace Prize.

These fishermen live a precarious and a dangerous life. Violent storms often spring up suddenly and toss their little smacks in all directions. In 1848, on February 11, five hundred fishermen were drowned in such a storm.

On one of the southern islands is a natural trap called “Whale Creek,” into which whales occasionally swim at high tide, and, being unable to turn around, find themselves stranded when the tide goes out. There is sea “life” all around these Lofoten Islands. There are eider ducks by the million, whose down is so valuable. These little ducks are said to have the power of diving one hundred and twenty feet for the crabs which form their daily bread. Lobsters and seals also bring a handsome revenue into the coffers of the natives. Of course sea gulls and porpoises are everywhere. Also there is a whole tribe of birds called “skua,” who live entirely by brigandage and highway robbery. Through laziness or inability, they will not or cannot earn their own “keep,” and they lie in wait and rob the sea gulls of their prey. If a Norwegian sea gull wishes to have any peace he must seek some secluded spot where he may dive and seize his prey unmolested by these skua thieves.

The most important stopping place in the Lofoten Islands is the town of Svolvaer. The same author who thinks that the Lofotens in general are “picturesque” finds Svolvaer “most picturesque.” Well, whatever adjective you do use to characterize the islands in general, you must, in all fairness, apply in the superlative degree to Svolvaer. The great, raw cliffs, two thousand feet high, come so close to the water’s edge and rise so sheer that the little town gives the appearance of one flattening himself against the rock and clinging by his finger nails and eyebrows. The ships in the harbor look like discarded peanut shells beside these towering walls of rock.

The shape of these boats, particularly of the small rowboats, gives away their pedigree instantly. They are unmistakably descendants of the vikings. They have high prows and high sterns, and these are adorned with various viking ornamentations.

At Svolvaer several Sea-Lapps came to the wharf to meet our steamer. They are rather poor specimens of Laplanders. They have given up their old, wandering reindeer life and are making a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to be Norwegian fishermen. Being between hay and grass, or rather between reindeer and cod, they are a very scraggly, unkempt lot.

At LÖdingen, about a hundred and forty miles from Svolvaer by the steamer’s winding course, I had to change to a little boat, which took me on an eight-hour trip through the long Ofotenfjord to Narvik. This Ofotenfjord is one of the very finest in Norway, and yet it is seldom visited by Americans, as the summer tourist steamers all sail by. We got to LÖdingen early in the morning, about seven o’clock, hours before dawn, and were soon chugging over the quiet Ofoten in a little boat of almost steam-launch diminutiveness. About half-past nine there began to be very faint signs that there might be a sun somewhere, and by eleven o’clock it had gotten near enough to the horizon to flood half the sky with a soft glow of changing and indescribable color. I saw many familiar mountains on this trip. Two Matterhorns, a Dent du Midi, a Gramont, and a Fujiyama were unmistakable. Fujiyama was absolutely perfect except that a little part of the top of the cone had been clipped off as though with a giant egg-decapitator. Dent du Midi was perfect, too, only Chillon being absent.

At one of the ports of call on the way to Narvik, a port which apparently consisted of three houses, a small viking boat came out and contributed two persons to our passenger list. After our boat had started again and was well on its way, a little boy appeared from somewhere and suddenly remembered that he had meant to get off at that station. Obligingly, and as a matter of course, the captain signaled to his engineer, the engines were reversed, and the boat chugged back a long way; someone called to the viking rowboat, which came out and got the belated passenger. There is no hurry about anything in this part of Norway, no confusion and no yelling. The people seem to make a point of not talking at all unless they have something that must be said. At several of the stops passengers were transferred back and forth without the assistance of a single spoken word by anybody. The Norwegians, at least in the quieter parts of the country, are as simple and genuine and honest as any people in the world. Truly I believe that it is a certain stolid honesty that makes them often so silent. I think they feel that it would not be quite genuine to say something that did not seem to be worth saying.

About four o’clock in the afternoon, when it had long been night, we came in sight of Narvik. I was astonished to see what a busy, hustling city it was. All along the fjord, in fact all the way from Trondhjem, I had lived in an atmosphere of slow, almost stolid, quiet. No one had been in a hurry. But here was a busy, noisy little city. Hundreds of bright electric lights twinkled in the distance, and from miles away I could hear the clanking of chains, the chugging of machinery, the tooting and puffing of trains, and a thousand other noises that go to the making of a commercial town’s wharves. A Baedeker of fifteen years back does not mention Narvik, for the very good reason that it did not exist; yet now it is the busiest town north of the arctic circle anywhere in the world. The iron mines of Kiruna in Swedish Lapland and the new railway from there to Narvik have made this seaport possible. It is said that now two and a quarter million tons of iron ore are exported annually from Narvik to all parts of the world, a large share going to Emden in Germany. Some of it, strangely enough, finds its way to Philadelphia, and not so very long ago I read in the paper of a collision of one of these Narvik iron-ore ships with an American ship in Delaware Bay. At the time I read the item I had not been to Norway, and I remember wondering where in the world Narvik was, and why an iron-ore ship from there should be in Delaware Bay. It is almost unbelievable that little Norway, with less than three million inhabitants, all told, has the fourth largest commercial fleet in the world, following Great Britain and the United States and Germany; yet such is the case. Narvik now contributes very considerably to this commercial fleet. There are frequently five or six big ships lying in the harbor, and others are always up at the wharves being loaded with ore.

As our little boat drew up at the wharf, a number of hotel porters appeared on the scene, and I tried to judge of them and choose by the appearance of the porters. Full of dignity, and absorbed in my occupation of studying the hotels through their representatives, I stepped boldly off the gangplank. Oh, Judicia! Alas for my dignity. My feet shot out from under me, and I slid into that nest of porters as a man slides for second base. My suit case and rug case bounded merrily away, and my derby rolled off, and just to the edge of the wharf, where it balanced for a long time and finally fell over, between the wharf and the steamer. Those hotel porters had never seen anything so humorous. As soon as they found I was not hurt, they separated into little groups and went off to laugh. One of them fished for my derby and collected my suit case and rug case, for which offices I was so grateful that I finally went to his hotel, which bears the name of FÖnix. All Narvik was covered with glare ice, and it required the greatest skill to navigate the streets at all. It was raining gently, which made the ice a trifle more treacherous.

FÖnix is Norwegian for “Phoenix,” and the hotel is very appropriately named, because it has risen out of the ashes of a former hotel which was burned a few years ago. My beloved British author, the inventor of the word “picturesque,” stopped at this same hotel when he was in Narvik. His chief items about the town are that there was a pianola in the parlor of the hotel and that the man in the next room to his made a good deal of noise. However, Narvik need not feel badly over such neglect, for the same author’s principal headline about Christiania is that the people “wear goloshes a good deal,” which he thinks rather a clever idea. His book is all right in its way, and gives an interesting account of a ski trip he took, but I cannot see how he could travel through Norway and apparently find pianolas and goloshes the most interesting attractions. He finds the Norwegian fishermen a “white-faced, ill-fed, unintelligent looking lot,” for which condition he believes consumption is largely responsible. I cannot imagine where he got this idea. I certainly haven’t noticed the ravages of consumption.

This seems to be lengthening into a very long letter, but I must tell you something about Narvik. It is a ramshackly, ugly town, architecturally speaking. There are no fine buildings, and everything gives the appearance of having been hastily tumbled together, any old way. Of course it is a mushroom town which sprang up simply to accommodate the endless stream of iron ore coming from Lapland, so I don’t have any trouble in forgiving its ugliness. It reminds me very much of the Alaskan towns that Rex Beach describes so vividly, though there are no evidences of wickedness here. It all looks temporary, and I should not be surprised if fifty years from now there should be a fine-looking city in place of this crude pioneer town.

Everybody, everywhere, is as honest as the hills, and it is wonderfully refreshing to find such a condition after traveling in Italy. I went into a shop to buy a needle and thread (for I am going to attempt to sew on a button) and the shop girl said she only had a full sewing kit, which would cost a kroner (twenty-seven cents), and as that was more than I should want I could probably get a single needle and thread at the next shop. I went there and succeeded in getting one needle for three Öre and a spool of thread for ten—total expense, thirteen Öre (three cents). The Norwegians as a class—hotel keepers, shopkeepers, cab drivers, and everyone else—would rather starve than keep a quarter of an Öre that didn’t belong to them. Imagine a Neapolitan shopkeeper who considered it wrong to cheat a customer. He would be considered mentally unbalanced, almost a dangerous person, if he really indulged in conscientious scruples in such matters. These genuine, trusty Norwegians are a positive comfort to one who has lately been robbed in Naples.

Our waitress at the FÖnix has one custom in common with all other waitresses in Norway. As she brings on each course, she says what sounds like “shuket.” With each course her voice sinks lower and lower, until at the dessert she barely whispers it. At first when I heard it I though she was trying to be kittenish. But as I didn’t “rise,” and as she kept on saying it, I changed my mind. I have only just learned that she was saying a very much abbreviated vaer saa god, which means “be so good,” and is somewhat equivalent to “if you please,” though much more universal. I have heard it a thousand times since I came to Norway, from young and old, high and low. It is never obsequious, the smirking prerequisite of an expected tip. It is natural politeness, and second nature to the Norwegians. It would be ill-mannered to omit vaer saa god when serving anyone in any way.

I have recently heard from Phillips that he is reveling in the snow of Swedish Lapland. He is going to LuleÅ at the head of the Baltic to-morrow, and has invited me to join him there. So I am going to leave here to-morrow morning for LuleÅ, and go from there by rail to Trondhjem.

It may be some time before I shall write again, in view of which I hope you have been sensible enough to read this very long letter in installments.

Auf wiedersehen, then, until Trondhjem.

As ever,

Aylmer.

FIFTH LETTER

Trondhjem, February 15.

My dear Judicia,

I think I left you about a month ago in the seaport of Narvik. I want to give you by way of preamble some etymological information of interest which I have learned in connection with that name. The ending vik, which appears on the average in about every third name in Norway, means “creek.” It is the same root as the vik in the word “viking,” and corresponds to the English “wich” or “wick.” A viking was nothing more nor less than a “creekling.” A modern resident of Sandwich or Harwich or even of Battle Creek is no less a viking, etymologically, than the old Norsemen.

I left Narvik January 13, spent that night in Gellivare, and joined Phillips next day at LuleÅ. The ride from Narvik to RiksgrÄnsen, the first Swedish town, is one of the most beautiful I have ever taken. Right along the edge of a long arm of the Ofotenfjord the train wound its way, always climbing and always entering tunnels, only to emerge a little higher above the fjord. It was just beginning to dawn, with a fresh, clean light.

We had a great time in LuleÅ, and I shall have to admit that Sweden has some attractions after all. I came here to Trondhjem by way of BrÄcke and Ostersund and Storlien, a route you can trace by the map I inclose, if you care to. Storlien is the border town between the two countries, and near it a wide path cut through the forest marks the boundary.

From here on we dropped right down to the edge of the fjord, which we reached at the town with the startling name of Hell. It is a delightful, smiling little town, and its only misfortune lies in its name. It offers an endless and irresistible opportunity for questionable puns. One guide book says: “Ten miles from Trondhjem on the railway to Sweden there is a station called Hell. The number of return tickets for this quiet rural spot which are bought by English tourists but never used constitutes quite a source of revenue.”

You see, even the prosy guide book cannot resist such an opportunity for a joke. Probably at least two thirds of the English-speaking tourists who visit this town imagine that they are original when they remark that the town is paved with good intentions, and that they are going to write a Divine Comedy like Dante, etc., etc.

Hell is beautifully situated and offers pleasant excursions in all directions.

Here in Trondhjem I am in the heart and soul of Norway. The town was founded under the original name of Nidaros by our old friend Olaf Tryggvesson. Century after century the Haakons and the Olafs and Haralds and Eriks and all the other kings and warriors fought for Norway here. Many of the streets are named for the old heroes. The cathedral, which dominates the whole town, is a perpetual memorial to Olaf the Saint. I could not find a more appropriate spot from which to write you something about the history of Norway. There is so much that is interesting that I feel hopeless about trying to really make you acquainted with it. Hjalmar Boyesen has written five hundred and twenty-eight pages of vividly, dramatically interesting history on the subject, yet he does not pretend to write exhaustively. All I shall do is to skim over a thousand years or so and here and there pick out an incident or a character that particularly interested me.

The old Norsemen, the vikings, were the most terrible of roving marauders, terrible at least to the rest of the world. Tacitus says: “They deem it a disgrace to acquire by sweat what they might obtain by blood.” The chieftains were venerated in almost direct proportion to the number of marauding expeditions they had made and the number of towns they had plundered. For the sake of glory they made countless sallies in all directions, over the Baltic, to Finland and Germany, across to England and Ireland, to France, to Spain, and even to Italy. A marauder named Hasting is said to have gone as far as Italy and to have sought to conquer the Eternal City of Rome.

Unfortunately for this desire, Hasting was not good at geography. He arrived with his fleet at the city of Luna, near Carrara, and, thinking it was Rome, he concocted a wily scheme. He sent word to the bishop there that he was dying and wished to be baptized into the Christian faith before he passed away. The simple priest was in ecstasy at the thought of the heavenly glory he would win by converting such a notorious robber. He made great preparations for the reception of the Norseman. On the day when the ceremony of baptism was to be held, messengers came to the bishop saying that Hasting had suddenly died. A pompous funeral was held, and the bishop prepared to say masses for the welfare of the viking’s soul. As all were assembled for this purpose, Hasting suddenly burst from his coffin, called to his men, and fell savagely upon the bishop and the priests. It is reported that “blood flowed in torrents through the sacred aisles.” The whole city was captured amid a scene of wholesale slaughter. Some time after Hasting discovered that it was not Rome he had captured after all.

For many years various chieftains with picturesque names kept up this marauding life, interspersing their piratical raids with occasional attacks upon each other.

Finally an Yngling chief named Harald arose from obscurity and conceived the brilliant idea of conquering all Norway and uniting it into a single nation. The idea was presented to him very forcibly by a maiden named Princess Gyda, to whom he sent messengers asking her to become his wife. Like Sigrid the Haughty, Gyda was furious. She vowed that she would teach little kings the risks of proposing to her. She scorned Harald’s overtures, sending word that when he was king over all Norway she would consider his offer. The idea appealed to Harald, and he wondered why he had not thought of it before. Accordingly he vowed that he would not cut his hair until he had conquered all Norway. He eventually succeeded in his undertaking, but the process was long, and his hair, being of decidedly blond “persuasion,” waved like a bright banner wherever he went. He had always been called Harald Frowsly-Headed, but now he came to be called Harald Fairhair, and he founded a race of kings that ruled Norway for centuries. Also he married the proud Gyda, and lived happily ever after. Gyda seems to have been not even annoyed by the fact that during the interval in which he had been conquering Norway and letting his hair grow he had married a maiden named Aasa and had three sons.

Harald was a jealous tyrant, and made life in Norway so uncomfortable that many of the earls and nobles fled and founded settlements in the Hebrides and the Orkneys, and even in Iceland. Rolf the Walker (so called because he was so huge that no horse could carry him) embarked for France and made terrible ravages there. King Charles the Simple, however, succeeded in making a peace with him whereby Rolf was to be baptized and receive large fiefs. As token of his fealty to Charles the Simple he was to kiss the king’s foot. The haughty Rolf snorted at such an idea and sent one of his servants to perform the osculation. The proxy stalked stiffly to King Charles, seized his foot, and kissed it so violently that the simple Charles tumbled from his horse. Charles was frightened out of what wits he had, and instead of punishing such insolence gave Rolf the hand of his daughter in marriage, and also gave him half of his kingdom. This territory came to be called Normandy, and about two centuries later Rolf’s descendant, William the Conqueror, achieved fame.

Harald had countless matrimonial ventures. Besides Aasa and Gyda, he married half a dozen other wives. One of them, Snefrid by name, was a sorceress. For several years the king forgot everything but his passion for her, forgot even his other wives. She bore him five sons and then died, and the king was almost insane with grief until he discovered that she had been a sorceress. He was then thoroughly angry, and to save his face he married right and left in all directions. Among others he wooed Ragnhild, daughter of King Erik of Jutland. Ragnhild was a girl of some spirit. She said she would not put up with one thirtieth part of the king’s affection, and he could give her the whole or none. He accordingly deserted his other wives and devoted himself to Ragnhild. She bore him a son, who later became King Erik Blood-Axe.

When Harald was seventy years old he married his servant-girl, Thora, who was so tall that she was known as the “Pole.” She bore him a son, who became King Haakon the Good.

I should not dwell so much on Harald’s matrimonial adventures except they that form indirectly an important link in the long chain of Norwegian history. He had a small army of children, and he was foolish enough to stipulate at his death that each child, whether legitimate or illegitimate, should inherit a province, but that all should owe allegiance to his favorite son, Erik Blood-Axe.

For centuries there was a ceaseless squabbling among the numerous descendants. Every one who had any ambition asserted that he was a son or a descendant of Harald, and claimed the throne. As it was of course impossible to disprove such a claim, might became the only right. Two centuries later a vicious Irishman, named Harold Gilchrist, landed in Norway and claimed to be a son of King Magnus Barefoot and consequently a descendant of Harald Fairhair. He had no proof whatever of his claim, but no one could disprove it, and, as Gilchrist was a cruel and unscrupulous man, he actually succeeded in gaining the throne. He learned a smattering of the Norwegian language and ruled cruelly, leaving a monstrous name behind him, and a long line of vicious children who helped to complicate matters.

After all this it is a pleasure to come to a king who thoroughly earned the name of Haakon the Good. This king was the image of his father in face and figure, but exactly opposite to him in character. It is difficult to guess how he came by his wonderful qualities of soul and mind. His father was a faithless, polygamous rouÉ, and his mother’s only claim to distinction lay in the fact that she was a servant-girl of gigantic stature. Haakon was almost a saint. He seems to have possessed every good quality in the category. He was gentle and lovable and mild, yet he was a model of manly strength and courage. He was beautiful to look at, and the bitterest enemy could not be in his presence for even a few minutes without falling under the spell of his powerful personality. With heart and soul and the tenderest conscience, he sought only for the good of his people. It was a new thing for a king to use his office for any purpose other than the gratification of selfish ambition. No wonder the people almost worshiped him.

He had spent his boyhood in England and had been baptized, and now the one desire of his heart was to bring his country to accept the Christian faith. He was so mild, and he loved mankind so devotedly, that he could not bring himself to use the militant methods of conversion which his successor, Olaf Tryggvesson, employed. He was too gentle to be a successful propagandist in a country fanatically devoted to Odin, but he did win a great many true converts in his quiet way. At one time he was forced much against his will to attend a popular feast in honor of Odin, but he quieted his conscience by making the sign of the cross over Odin’s horn. In battle he was almost invincible. At one time the sons of Gunhild attacked him with a force six times his own in strength, but so great was the zeal which Haakon’s followers displayed that his little handful of men won a great victory.

His enemies on this occasion were the sons of Erik Blood-Axe’s queen, Gunhild. She was as near a devil as Haakon a saint, and never has a queen been more heartily or more deservedly hated. Her sons inherited her devilish disposition with interest. This wicked queen brought troublous times to Norway after the death of Haakon the Good. One man, Tryggve, a grandson of Harald Fairhair and consequently a rival claimant to the throne, Gunhild particularly hated. She tricked him into her power and murdered him, but Tryggve’s widow fled to a tiny islet in the Randsfjord and there gave birth to Olaf Tryggvesson, later to be one of the greatest of Norway’s kings, the violent but successful propagandist of Christianity.

The name of little Olaf’s mother was Aastrid, and with fine courage she roamed for years with her little baby, a starving outcast, in continual terror of Gunhild. Her foster-father, Thorolf Lousy-Beard, joined her and her child, and for long they lived a hunted, precarious life. Fortunately for Norway, all Gunhild’s efforts proved in vain. Once one of her spies almost had the child, when a half-witted peasant appeared on the scene, rushed at the spy with a pitchfork, and saved Olaf’s life.

Earl Haakon was another of Harald Fairhair’s descendants who somehow escaped Gunhild’s murderous tentacles. He joined King Harald Bluetooth of Denmark, and as a reward for murdering Gold-Harald, an aspirant to the Danish throne, Bluetooth generously offered to accompany him on an expedition against Gunhild. On their arrival in Norway they took everything without striking a blow. “So great was the hatred of Gunhild and her sons,” says Boyesen, “that not a man drew his sword in their defense.” Gunhild fled in terror to the Orkneys, but, according to Saga report, was later enticed to Denmark by Harald Bluetooth, under promise of marriage, and drowned, at his command, in a swamp.

Earl Haakon now became King Haakon of Norway. He was a powerful and great king, and a sincere heathen. Harald Bluetooth was an insincere Christian. With ulterior and decidedly questionable motives he sent for Haakon to come and be baptized. For some reason Haakon appeared to obey, visited Bluetooth, and with a shipload of priests set sail from Denmark; but whether because of twinges of conscience or for less worthy reasons, he repented, hustled the priests ashore, and made an enormous sacrifice to Odin. Two ravens, messengers of Odin, immediately alighted on his ship and croaked loud approval, whereat Haakon was highly encouraged. The Christian Bluetooth was enraged. He sought the alliance of a powerful company of pirates called Jomsvikings.

These, under the influence of the flowing bowl, made most extravagant vows of vengeance (on Bluetooth’s account) against King Haakon. On the morning after things seemed different to them, but nevertheless, for their vows’ sake, they set out for Norway. Earl Erik, an illegitimate son of Haakon, born, it is said, when the king was fifteen years old, heard news of the Jomsvikings, and he and his father prepared to give them a warm reception. When the two fleets met, there ensued one of the wildest and most ferocious battles in all history. The phenomenal courage of these old heroes is almost unbelievable. One of the Jomsvikings, by name Haavard the Hewer, had both his legs cut off at the knees, but he fought on furiously, standing on the stumps of his knees. Bue the Big received a blow from one of Erik’s men which completely struck off his nose. Bue never stopped to mourn such a trifle as the loss of a nose. He jokingly remarked to one of his companions: “Now I fear the Danish maidens will no more kiss me.”

At length Haakon and Erik were victorious. Vagn Aakeson, the leader of the Jomsvikings, was bravely and hopelessly fighting on. “When all but thirty of his men were dead, he at last surrendered. The captives were brought ashore and ordered to sit down in a row upon a log. Their feet were tied together with a rope, while their hands remained free. One of Erik’s men, Thorkell Leira, whom Vagn at that memorable feast had promised to kill, was granted the privilege of reciprocating the intended favor toward Vagn. With his ax uplifted, he rushed at the captives, and, beginning at one end of the log, struck off one head after another. He meant to keep Vagn until the last, in order to increase his agony. But Vagn sat chatting merrily with his men; and there was much joking and laughter.

“‘We have often disputed,’ said one, ‘as to whether a man knows of anything when his head is cut off. That we can now test, for if I am conscious after having lost my head, I will stick my knife into the earth.’

“When his turn came, all sat watching with interest. But his knife fell from his nerveless grasp, and there was no trace of consciousness. One of the vikings on the log seemed in particularly excellent spirits. He laughed and sang as he saw the bloody heads of his comrades rolling about his feet.”

The next cracked a clever pun at the executioner’s expense, and Erik, who was superintending the job, was so pleased at his audacity that he pardoned him. The next of the doomed men had long flaxen hair, and humorously requested the executioner not to soil his hair with the blood. Accordingly an assistant was delegated to hold out of harm’s way the glorious flaxen locks. Just as the ax was descending, the Jomsviking jerked his head in such a way that the hands of the assistant were struck off at the wrists. He laughed derisively, and Erik, who was particularly partial to such cleverness, pardoned him.

At this point Gissur the White was suddenly shot dead by an arrow coming from nowhere in particular. It seemed that Haavard the Hewer, whom everybody had forgotten, was still alive and still standing on the bloody stumps of his knees. With his last dying gasp of strength he had shot this arrow.

During the battle King Haakon sacrificed one of his sons, and this horrible action did much to hasten the king’s overthrow. His name became a nightmare to his subjects. It was a name to scare bad boys with. In the most abominable manner he insulted several of his most powerful nobles, and finally they rose in revolt. In terror Haakon fled with a single thrall, named Kark, to Rimul, the home of his mistress Thora. She hid the two in a pigsty, and there they spent a horrible night. A searching party, under the leadership of Olaf Tryggvesson, who had lately returned to Norway from Russia, where he had spent his youth, walked all about, within hearing of the miserable king in his hiding place. Olaf mounted a stone close to the sty and said in a loud tone, which the two miserable men could hear, that he offered a great reward to whoever should find Haakon. This of course added to Haakon’s terrors the fear of treachery on the part of his thrall.

All night king and thrall sat in their noisome den, eyeing each other in awful, mutual distrust. Toward morning the king was overpowered by sleep. “But the terrors of his vigil pursued him sleeping. His soul seemed to be tossed on a sea of anguish. He screamed in wild distress, rolled about, rose upon his knees and elbows, and his face was horrible to behold.” Kark then stabbed his master, cut off his head, and took it to Olaf, claiming his reward. Olaf, on the dead king’s account, took vengeance on the traitor by killing him.

Longfellow has immortalized this event, and I lately came across these lines of his, commemorating Olaf’s celebration:

These were hard old times. But the influence of a few noble kings like Haakon the Good and Olaf the Saint wrought in time a great change on these brave Norsemen. They were of too fine a stock to be permanently satisfied with a god who delighted in bloodshed and deceit. Christianity eventually gave them higher ideals without robbing them of their indomitable courage.

I will tell you in my next letter a little about the better days of Norway, particularly in connection with this old city. Of course I can only skim along, picking out a bit here and there. The reading of Boyesen’s Story of Norway has left me with a tremendous respect for the caliber of the Norwegians, from the days of Hasting the Pirate to the days of King Haakon VII, who was crowned in Trondhjem Cathedral in 1905.

Good-by. As ever,

Aylmer.

SIXTH LETTER

Trondhjem, February 23.

My dear Judicia,

I have spent over a month now in Trondhjem, and I like it better and better every day. It bristles so with memories of the past, and yet it is such a wide-awake, modern city. Our old friend, Olaf Tryggvesson, founded it in 996, and ever since then the Norwegians have considered it the heart of their nation, even though Christiania is now the nominal capital. If Trondhjem is the nucleus of Norway, then the cathedral is the nucleolus. The Norwegians appropriately call it their national thermometer. It has been burned in whole or in part no less than seven times, and once it was struck by lightning and partly destroyed. It was built originally by King Olaf the Quiet in the eleventh century, and after every catastrophe some succeeding king has rebuilt it. If it happen that the cathedral has not been destroyed for several decades, the people occupy themselves with making additions. If hard times come to Norway, the cathedral is left as it may chance to be. If times are prosperous, money is given by state and private subscription to enlarge or beautify it. Just now times are prosperous, and strangely enough there has been no fire for over a century. Consequently there are now to be seen dozens of the most hideous gargoyles reposing in one part of the church, waiting to be put up.

I don’t suppose you have any idea of the beauty and grandeur of this historic Domkirke. I never dreamed of finding anything like it way up here near the arctic circle. We Americans get into the habit of thinking that Cologne and Milan and Rome and Florence and one or two other places of continental Europe have all that is worth looking at in the line of cathedrals. But this Trondhjem Dom is as fine as any of them, though much smaller than most. It is built entirely of a bluish, slaty stone, except for the marble pillars, which contrast beautifully with the blue. It is a masterpiece of Gothic architecture, and the entire church is as delicately fashioned as any in Europe.

My British author, before quoted, says of it: “This is supposed to be the grandest church in the whole of Scandinavia. It is built largely of bluish soapstone and white marble, and it is mostly Gothic in architecture. A service, apparently for children, was in progress, so we were not able to walk around the interior.” I am forced to think that the gentleman did not possess quite the average amount of ingenuity, or he might have somehow obviated the difficulty and seen the interior in spite of the service “apparently for children.” Well, this is supposed to be the grandest church in the whole of Scandinavia, and it bears out the supposition.

To me its greatest interest lies in its history. The one great king particularly associated with this cathedral was Olaf the Saint. He was the king who finally achieved the conversion of his country to Christianity, and because of his devoted life and heroic death at Sticklestad he has been made the patron saint of Norway. Cold, relentless history reveals the fact that he was not in reality as near sainthood as Harald the Good, but his saintliness was of a more romantic character and appealed to the imagination of the people. After spending many years at the court of the Russian king, Jaroslav, he believed that he was called by a vision to go back to Norway and attempt to complete the conversion of his native land. He went to Sweden and collected all the men he could. They might be robbers and outlaws, but they must be baptized Christians, and he was courageous and consistent enough to dismiss a great many brave soldiers who refused to be baptized. At Sticklestad, in Norway, he met the opposing forces, but was beaten and finally killed, fighting bravely to the last. At the very moment when he was slain, there occurred a total eclipse of the sun. “The sun grew blood-red, and a strange red sheen spread over the landscape. Darkness fell upon the fighting hosts, and the sun grew black.”

Of course nothing more than this was needed to convince the people that Olaf’s god was angry with them. Stricken with terror, they did their utmost to atone for their guilt. They later built a great cathedral in his honor. They made him the national saint, and they laid his bones in a costly silver reliquary in the cathedral, where for six centuries devout pilgrims visited his shrine.

Better times did indeed come to Norway with the introduction of Christianity, but some centuries later, when the countless claimants to the throne had ruined the nation’s unity, and Denmark had taken possession of Norway virtually as a province, Christianity suffered a horrible relapse. Denmark introduced into Norway the Reformation, but the Danes considered their Norwegian subjects scarcely worth salvation. They sent to Norway the very lowest scum of their clergy. As Boyesen says, “Ex-soldiers, ex-sailors, bankrupt traders, all sorts of vagabonds, who were in some way disqualified for making a living, were thought to be good enough to preach the word of God in Norway.” Just as England once sent its criminal class to Australia, so Denmark in the Middle Ages sent its vagabond class to Norway in the form of Protestant pastors. For a long time physical strength was the Norwegian pastor’s only requisite. As a general rule he could scarcely read, and cared little or nothing for the religion he taught except as a means of keeping the wolf from his door; but if only he could thrash the strongest ruffian in his parish he was sure of success.

I am staying at the Hospitset, which corresponds somewhat to the hospitzes or Christian hotels in Switzerland and Germany. When I arrived here I had to sign a sort of register that seemed to me unwarrantably inquisitive. It must know my name, my destination, my last previous address, my permanent address, my age, my occupation, and I don’t know what other items of gossip. Some of the guests have used the opportunity to exercise their native wit. Exempli gratia. Michael O’Shaughnessy writes that his permanent address is care of the king of Siam; his occupation, plumber; his age, thirty-two; his destination, heaven. Many other humorists, mostly signing themselves under obvious noms-de-plume, have thought fit to enliven the dull pages for future readers. This register is a government institution, at least in many places, and the hotel keeper must not be blamed for such inquisitiveness.

The food in this Hospitset is excellent, both as to quality and quantity. One Norwegian feature of the meals is the cheese. You know Norway is famous for its sÆters, or mountain dairies, where butter and cheese are made. The most delicious, to my mind, and certainly the most typically Norwegian, is a brown cheese called mysost. It looks like brown Windsor soap, as English authors never fail to remark, and it is sweetish. It is made from goat’s milk, and tastes as though all the cheese part had been extracted. That does not sound particularly attractive, perhaps, but honestly I like it immensely. A great cube of it, measuring something less than a foot on all sides, is put on the table, and each guest is supposed to pare off as many thin slivers of it as he can eat. It is most delicious when taken with Norwegian fladbrÖd. This is a sort of oat cake, and when well made is as crisp and delicious as anything I know of in that line.

I admit that both the mysost and the fladbrÖd are somewhat unique. There is nothing like either of them in England or America, or anywhere except in Scandinavia, and unless you are something of an adventurer you may not like them at first. Several very conservative authors write most disparagingly of it: of course they do, for mysost and fladbrÖd are new to them. Mysost they liken to brown soap, “which however will not lather.” FladbrÖd, they say, “resembles in appearance and consistency old boot-leather.” I, personally, have never tasted old boot-leather or brown soap, but if it is really true that they taste like fladbrÖd and mysost, then I shall begin cultivating my appetite for them as soon as I get home.

I have met a good many of the Norwegians. Most of them speak English, at least here in Trondhjem. Particularly I am impressed with the stateliness and nobility of the old men. You have seen pictures, haven’t you, of BjÖrnstjerne BjÖrnson, and Grieg, and some of the others. Well, they are typical. I have talked with several of these old, patriarchal Norwegians, and they are the finest, truest gentlemen you can imagine. Benevolence and good will seem to radiate from them.

Doctor J. D. Forbes calls the Norwegians “a free, intelligent, and fine-hearted people,” and certainly he is right. Another author finds that “sincerity, honesty, and freedom from conventional cant are the chief national virtues.” If you combine these two opinions you will come near to describing the Norwegian of to-day.

The other day I hired a very good violin at a shop here, and had to pay the exorbitant sum of one kroner. I didn’t have to make any deposit, and the shopkeeper asked me no questions. When I was going out he inquired at what hotel I was staying. I told him, and he said in English: “Never mind, then, about returning the violin. I’ll come around to the hotel some time and get it.” Can you imagine such confidence in any other country? The Norwegians expect you to trust them, and in return they trust you.

I intend to go to Christiania in a few days and will write to you from there.

As always,

Aylmer.

On the Sognefjord.