At Kos-thveit, on the lake Totak, stands a lone farm-house, the proprietor of which procured me a man and a maid to row me over the dreary waters, now rendered drearier by a passing squall which overcast the sky. Pointing to the westward, where the lake narrowed, and receded under the shadows of the approaching mountains, the ferryman told me that yonder lay the famous Urebro Urden,[6] where the god Thor, when disguised by beer, lost his hammer, and cleared a road through the loose rocks while engaged in searching for it. Indeed, with the exception of Nissedal, in another part of Thelemarken, which is reputed as the head quarters of trolls and glamour, this gloomy lake and its vicinity abound, perhaps more than any part of Norway, in tales of Scandinavia’s ancient gods and supernatural beings. The man also mentioned the legend of DyrË Vo, which has been put into verse by Welhaven.

The following version will give some idea of the legend—

“Very deep, sir,” said the boatman, as I let out my spinning tackle, in the faint hopes of a trout for supper.

“Was the depth ever plumbed?” inquired I.

“To be sure, sir. That’s a long, long time ago—leastways, I have heard so. There was an old woman at Kos-thveit yonder, whose husband had the ill-luck to be drowned in the lake. She set people to work to drag for his body, but nowhere on this side of the country could she get a rope sufficiently long for the work. So she had to send to the city for one. At last they reached the bottom, and found the lake as deep as it was broad, with a little to spare, for the rope reached from Kos-thveit to Rauland, just across the water, and then went twice round the church, which you see standing alone, yonder on the shore, three miles off.”

“Who serves that church?” inquired I.

“Vinje’s Priest,” he answered. “That was his boat-house we passed.”

We landed on the eastern shore of the lake, at a spot called Hadeland, where a cluster of farm-houses were to be seen upon a green slope, showing some symptoms of cultivation. Richard Aslackson Berge, the farmer at whose house I put up, a grimy, ill-clad fellow, quite astounded me by the extent of his information. Catching sight of my wooden calendar, he immediately fetched an old almanack, which contained some explanation of the various signs upon the staff. Fancy one of your “alternate ploughboys”—as the Dean of Hereford and other would-be improvers of the clod-hopping mind, if I remember rightly, call them—fancy one of these fellows studying with interest an ancient Anglo-Saxon wooden calendar; and yet this man Berge, besides this, talked of the older and younger Edda, the poem of Gudrun, and, if my memory serves me, of the Nibelungenlied. He had also read the Heimskringla Saga. The promoters of book-hawking and village lending libraries will be interested to hear that this superior enlightenment was due to a small lending library, which had been established by a former clergyman of the district. There was a pithiness and simplicity about this man’s talk which surprised me.

“The wild geese,” says he, “come over here in the spring, and after tarrying a few days make over to the north, in the shape of a snow-plough.” Milton would have said, “Ranged in figure, wedge their way.”

Several old swords and other weapons have been dug up in the vicinity, indicative of rugged manners and deeds quite in keeping with the rugged features of the surrounding nature. On an old beam in the hay-loft is carved, in antique Norsk—“Knut So-and-so was murdered here in 1685”—the simple memorial of a very common incident in those days.

For the moderate sum of four orts (three and fourpence) I hire a horse and a man to the shores of the MiÖsvand. To the left of our route—path there is none—is a place called Falke Riese (Falcon’s Nest), where Richard tells me that his grandfather told him he remembered a party of Dutchmen being located in a log-hut, for the purpose of catching falcons, and that they used duen (tame doves) to attract them. This is interesting, as showing the method pursued by the grandees of Europe, in the days of hawking, to procure the best, or Norwegian breed. At one time, this sport was also practised by the great people of this country. Thus, from Snorro, it appears that Eywind used to keep falcons.

My guide, Ole, has been a soldier, but much prefers the mountain air to that of the town.

“In the town,” says he, “it is so traengt,” (in Lincolnshire, throng,) i.e., no room to stir or breathe.

In the course of conversation he tells me he verily believes I have travelled over the whole earth.

While the horse is stopping to rest and browse on a spot which afforded a scanty pasturage, a likely-looking lake attracted my observation, and I was speedily on its rocky banks, throwing for a trout—but the trout were too wary and the water too still. While thus engaged, a distant horn sounds from a mountain on the right, sufficiently startling in such a desolate region. Was game afoot this morning, and was I presently to hear—

Game was afoot, but not of the kind usually the object of the chase. The Alpine horn was blown by a sÆter-lad to keep off the wolves, as I was informed. As nothing was to be done with the rod, I tried the gun, and as we slope down through the stunted willows and birch copses that patch the banks of the MiÖsvand, I fall in with plenty of golden plover and brown ptarmigan, and manage to kill two birds with one stone. In other words, the shots that serve to replenish the provision-bag arouse a peasant on the further side, who puts over to us in his boat, and thus saves us a detour of some miles round the southern arm of the lake. As we cross over, I perceive far to the westward the snow-covered mountains of the Hardanger Fjeld, which I hope to cross. The westernmost end of the lake is, I understand, twenty-four English miles from this. To the eastward, towering above its brother mountains, is the cockscombed Gausta, which lies close by the Riukan Foss, while all around the scenery is as gaunt and savage as possible. At Schinderland, where we land, after some palaver I procure a horse to Erlands-gaard, a cabin which lies on the hither side of the northern fork of the MiÖsen, said to be seven miles distant. But the many detours we had to make to avoid the dangerous bogs, made the transit a long affair. In one place, when the poor nag, encumbered with my effects, sank up to his belly, I expected every moment to see the hungry bog swallow him up entirely. With admirable presence of mind he kept quite still, instead of exhausting himself in struggling, and then by an agile fling and peculiar sleight of foot, got well out of the mess.

The delay caused by these difficulties enabled me to bring down some more ptarmigan, and have a bang at an eagle, who swept off with a sound which to my ears seemed very like “don’t you wish you may get it.” But perhaps it was only the wind driving down the rocks and over the savage moorland.

The modest charge of one ort (tenpence), made by my guide for horse and man, not a little surprised me. I did not permit him to lose by his honesty.

Unfortunately, the boat at Erlands-gaard is away; so meanwhile I cook some plover and chat with the occupants of the cabin. Sigur Ketilson, one of the sons, is a Konge-man, (one of “the king’s men,” or soldiers, mentioned in the ballad of “Humpty-dumpty.”) He has been out exercising this year at TÖnsberg, one hundred and forty English miles off. The mere getting thither to join his corps is quite a campaign in itself. On his road to headquarters he receives fourteen skillings per diem as viaticum, and one skilling and a half for “logiment.” A bed for three farthings! He is not forced to march more than two Norsk (fourteen English) miles a day. The time of serving is now cut down one-half, being five instead of ten years, and by the same law every able-bodied person must present himself for service, though instead of the final selection being made by lot, it is left to the discretion of one officer—a regulation liable to abuse.

At last the boat returns, and embarking in it by ten o’clock P.M., when it is quite dark, I arrive at the lone farm-house at Holvig. Mrs. Anna Holvig is reposing with her three children, her husband being from home. There being only one bed on the premises, I find that the hay this night must be my couch. The neighbouring loft where I slept was a building with its four ends resting, as usual, on huge stones. At intervals during the night I am awoke by noises close to my ear, which I thought must be from infantine rats, whose organs of speech were not fully developed. In the morning I discover that my nocturnal disturbers were not rats, but swallows, who had constructed their mud habitations just under the flooring where I slept. “The swallow twittering from its straw-built nest” may gratify persons of an elegiac turn; but under the circumstances the noise was anything but agreeable.

“The breezy call of incense breathing morn,” in which the same poet revels, was much more to my liking; indeed, one sniff of it made me as fresh as a lark, and I picked my way to the house by the lake side, and enjoyed my coffee. The little boy, Oiesteen Torkilson, though only eight years of age, has not been idle, and has procured a man and horse from a distant sÆter. The price asked is out of all reason, as I don’t hesitate to tell the owner. Before the bargain is struck, I jot down a few remarks in my journal. With the inquisitiveness of her nation, the woman asks what I am writing. “Notices of what I see and think of the people; who is good, and who not.” Out bolts the lady, to apprise the man of her discovery that “there’s a chield amang ye taking notes, and faith he’ll print it.” My device succeeded. Presently she finished her confab with the peasant, and returned to say that he would take a more moderate payment.

I observed here, for the first time, the difference between the two words “ja” and “jo.”

Have you seen a bear?—“Ja.” Haven’t you seen a bear?—“Jo.” I have met educated Norwegians who had failed to observe the distinction. A perfectly similar distinction was formerly made in England between “yes” and “yea.”[7]