Two Englishmen were on board the Lindesnaes, who had been fishing a week in the Torrisdal Elv, and had had two rises and caught nothing; so they are moving along the coast to try another river. But it is too late for this part of Norway. These are early rivers, and the fish have been too long up to afford sport with the fly.

The proverb, “never too old to learn,” was practically brought to my mind in an old Norwegian gentleman on board.

“My son, sir, has served in the English navy. I am seventy years old, and can speak some English. I will talk in that language and you in Norwegian, and so we shall both learn. You see, sir, we are now going into Arendal. This is a bad entrance when the wind is south-west, so we are clearing out that other passage there to the eastward. There is a diver at work there always. Oh, sir, he’s frightful to behold! First, he has a great helmet, and lumps of lead on his shoulders, and lead on his thighs, and lead on his feet. All lead, sir! And then he has a dagger in his belt.”

“A dagger!” said I; “what’s that for?”

“Oh! to keep off the amphibia and sea-monsters; they swarm upon this coast.”

As he spoke, the old gentleman contorted his countenance in such a manner that he, at all events, let alone the diver, was frightful to behold. Such was the effect of the mere thought of the amphibia and sea-monsters. Fortunately, his head was covered, or I can’t answer for it that each particular hair would not have stood on end like to the quills of the fretful porcupine. It struck me that he must have been reading of Beowulf, the Anglo-Saxon hero, and his friend Breca, and how they had naked swords in their hands to defend them against the sea-monsters, and how Beowulf served the creatures out near the bottom of the sea (sae-grunde nÉah).

At Arendal, where the vessel stops for some hours, I take a stroll with a Norwegian schoolboy. Abundance of sycamore and horse-chesnut, arrayed in foliage of the most vivid hue, grow in the pretty little ravines about this Norwegian Venice, as it is called.

“What is the name of that tree in Norsk,” I asked of my companion, pointing to a sycamore.

“Ask, i.e. ash.”

“And of that?” inquired I, pointing to a horse-chesnut.

“Ask,” was again the reply.

Close to the church was the dead-house, where corpses are placed in winter, when the snow prevents the corpse being carried to the distant cemetery. In the little land-locked harbour I see a quantity of small skiffs, here called “pram,” which are to be had new for the small price of three dollars, or thirteen shillings and sixpence English. The vicinity of this place is the most famous in Norway for mineralogical specimens. Arendal has, I believe, the most tonnage and largest-sized vessels of any port in Norway. Ship-building is going forward very briskly all along the coast since the alteration in the English navigation laws. At Grimstead, which we passed, I observed eight vessels on the stocks: at Stavanger there are twenty.

The reader is perhaps not aware that, reckoning the fjords, there is a sea-board of no less than eight thousand English miles in Norway—i.e., there is to every two and a half square miles of country a proportion of about one mile of sea-coast. This superfluity of brine will become more apparent by comparing the state of things in other countries. According to Humboldt, the proportion in Africa is one mile of sea-coast to one hundred and forty-two square miles of land. In Asia, one to one hundred. In North America, one to fifty-seven. In Europe, one to thirty-one.

With such an abundance of “water, water everywhere”—I mean salt, not fresh—one would hardly expect to meet with persons travelling from home for the sake of sea-bathing. And yet such is the case. On board is a lady going to the sea-baths of Sandefjord. She tells me there is quite a gathering of fashionables there at times. Last year, the wife of the Crown Prince, a Dutch woman by birth, was among the company. She spent most of her time, I understood, in sea-fishing. Besides salt-water baths, there are also baths of rotten seaweed, which are considered quite as efficacious for certain complaints as the mud-baths of Germany. Landing at Langesund, I start for Skien on board the little steamer Traffic.

A bonder of Thelemark is on board, whose costume, in point of ugliness, reminds one of the dress of some of the peasants of Bavaria. Its chief characteristics were its short waist and plethora of buttons. The jacket is of grey flannel, with curious gussets or folds behind. The Quaker collar and wristbands are braided with purple. Instead of the coat and waistcoat meeting the knee-breeches halfway, after the usual fashion, the latter have to ascend nearly up to the arm-pits before an intimacy between these two articles of dress is effected. Worsted stockings of blue and white, worked into stars and stripes, are joined at the foot by low shoes, broad-toed, like those of Bavaria, while the other end of the man—I mean his head—is surmounted by a hat, something like an hourglass in shape.

The fondness of these people for silver ornaments is manifest in the thickly-set buttons of the jacket, on which I see is stamped the intelligent physiognomy of that king of England whose equestrian statue adorns Pig-tail-place; his breeches and shoes also are each provided with a pair of buckles, likewise of silver.

Contrasting with this odd-looking monster is a Norwegian young lady, with neat modern costume, and pair of English gauntlet kid gloves. Her bouquet is somewhat peculiar; white lilies, mignionette, asparagus-flower, dahlias, and roses. Her carpet-bag is in a cover, like a white pillowcase.

Bears, I see by a newspaper on board, are terribly destructive this year in Norway. One bruin has done more than his share. He has killed two cows, and wounded three more; not to mention sheep, which he appears to take by way of hors d’oeuvres. Lastly, he has killed two horses; and the peasants about Vaasen, where all this happened, have offered eight dollars (thirty-six shillings) for his apprehension, dead or alive.

At the top of the fjord, fourteen English miles from the sea, lies Skien. The source of its prosperity and bustle are its saw-mills. Like Shakspeare’s Justice, it is full of saws. The vast water-power caused by the descent of the contents of the Nord-SÖ is here turned to good account: setting going a great number of wheels. Two hundred and fifty dozen logs are sawn into planks per week; and the vessels lie close by, with square holes in their bows for the admission of the said planks into their holds. All the population seems to be occupied in the timber trade. Saws creaking and fizzing, men dashing out in little shallops after timbers that have just descended the foss, others fastening them to the endless chain which is to drag them up to the place of execution; while the wind flaunts saw-dust into your face, and the water is like the floor of a menagerie. That unfortunate salmon, which has just sprung into the air at the bottom of the foss, near the old Roman Catholic monastery, must be rather disgusted at the mouthful he got as he plunged into the stream again.

But we must return to the modern Skien. This timber-built city was nearly half burnt down not long ago; but as a matter of course the place is being rebuilt of the old material. Catch a Norwegian, if he can help it, building his house of stone. Stone-houses are so cold and comfortless, he says. Since the fire, cigar-smoking has been forbidden in the streets under a penalty of four orts, or three shillings and fourpence sterling, for each offence.

The great man of Skien appears to be one Christopher Hansen Blum.

“Whose rope-walk is that?”

“Christopher Hansen Blum’s.”

“And that great saw-mill?”

“Christopher Hansen Blum’s.”

“And those warehouses?”

“Christopher Hansen Blum’s.”

“And that fine lady?”

“Christopher Hansen Blum’s wife.”

“And the other fine lady, my fair travelling companion with the gauntlet kid gloves?”

“Christopher Hansen Blum’s niece.”

This modern Marquis of Carabas (vide Puss in Boots) is also, I understand, one of the chief promoters of the canal which is being quarried out of the solid rock between Skien and the Nord-SÖ; the completion of which will admit of an uninterrupted steam traffic from this place to Hitterdal, at the northern end of that lake, and deep in the bowels of Thelemarken.

A great stir has been lately caused at Skien by the secession from the establishment of Gustav Adolph Lammers, the vicar of the place. The history of this gentleman is one of the many indications to be met with of this country having arrived at that period in the history of its civilization which the other countries of Europe have passed many years ago;—we mean the phase of the first development of religious dissent and a spirit of insubordination to the established traditions of the Church as by law established. We are transported to the days of Whitfield and Wesley. Lammers, who appears to be a sincere person, in spite of the variety of tales in circulation about him, commenced by inculcating greater strictness of conduct. He next declined to baptize children. This brought him necessarily into conflict with the church authorities, and the upshot was that he has seceded from the Church; together with a number of the fair sex, with whom he is a great favourite. The most remarkable part of the matter, however, is that he will apply, it is said, for a Government pension, like other retiring clergy. Whether the Storthing, within whose province all such questions come, will listen to any such thing remains to be seen.[2]

A tract in my possession professes to be the Confession of Faith of this “New Apostolic Church.” In the preamble they state that they wish to make proper use of God’s Word and Sacraments. But as they don’t see how they can do this in the State Church, in which the Word is not properly preached, nor the Sacraments duly administered, they have determined to leave it, and form a separate community, in conformity with the Norwegian Dissenter Law of July 16, 1845. The baptism of infants they consider opposed to Holy Writ. All that the Bible teaches is to bring young children to Christ, with prayer and laying on of hands, and to baptize them when they can believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God, and will promise to obey his Gospel. Hence the elders lay hands upon young children, and at the same time read Mark x., verses 13-17. At a later period, these children are baptized by immersion. The Holy Communion is taken once a month, each person helping himself to the elements; confession or absolution, previously, are not required.

The community are not bound to days and high-tides, but it is quite willing to accept the days of rest established by law, on which they meet and read the Scriptures.

Marriage is a civil contract, performed before a notarius publicus.

The dead are buried in silence, being borne to the grave by some of the brethren; after the grave is filled up a psalm is sung.

All the members of the community agree to submit, if necessary, to brotherly correction; and if this is of no avail, to expulsion. Temporary exclusion from the communion is the correction to be preferred. These rules were accepted by ten men and twenty-eight women, on the 4th July, 1856—giving each other their right hand, and promising, by God’s help,

We have given the following particulars, because the state of the Christian religion in Norway must for ever be deeply interesting to England, if on no other account, for this reason, that in this respect she is the spiritual offspring of Great Britain. Charlemagne tried to convert Scandinavia, but he failed to reach Norway. The Benedictine monk, Ansgar of Picardy, went to Sweden, but never penetrated hither; in fact, the Norsk Christian Church is entirely a daughter of the English. The first missionaries came over with Hacon the Good, the foster son of our King Athelstan; and though this attempt failed, through the tenacity of the people for heathenesse, yet the second did not, when Olaf Trygveson brought over missionaries from the north of England—Norwegian in blood and speech—and christianized the whole coast, from Sweden to Trondjem, in the course of one year—996-997.[3]