Frederick Metcalfe

Peculiar livery—Bleke—A hint to Lord Breadalbane—Enormous trout—Trap for timber logs—Exciting scene—Melancholy Jacques in Norway—The new church of Sannes—A clergyman’s Midsummer-day dream—Things in general at Froisnaes—Pleasing intelligence—Luxurious magpies—A church without a congregation—The valley of the shadow of death—Mouse Grange—A tradition of Findal—Fable and feeling—A Highland costume in Norway—Ancestral pride—Grand old names prevalent in SÆtersdal—Ropes made of the bark of the lime-tree—Carraway shrub—Government schools of agriculture—A case for a London magistrate—Trout fishing in the HÖgvand—Cribbed, cabined, and confined—A disappointment—The original outrigger—The cat-lynx—A wealthy Norwegian farmer—Bear-talk—The consequence of taking a drop too much—Story of a Thuss—Cattle conscious of the presence of the hill people—Fairy music.

Taking leave with many thanks of my worthy host and the young lady who is presiding in the absence of his wife, both of whom had shown me no small kindness, I start by boat up the lake. The priest has no less than fourteen Huusmaend (see Oxonian in Norway, p. 8), and one of them, Knut, undertakes to row me up to Froisnaes. His dress is that of the country. Trousers up to the neck-hole of grey wadmel, striped at the sides with a streak of black, and fastened with four buttons at the ankles—the button-holes worked with green worsted ending in red.

As usual, I killed two birds with one stone—advancing northward, and catching trout at the same time. I had flies as well as a minnow trailing behind, and took fish with both, the biggest about a pound weight.

“That’s not a trout; that’s a Bleke,” exclaimed Knut, as I hauled in a fish of about the same weight, but which pulled with a strength beyond his size. They are much fatter and of finer flavour than the trout. By subsequent experience I found Knut to be right. Such a fish at the Trois FrÈres would fetch its weight in silver. The flesh was paler than that of the trout. Externally, it was of a beautiful dark green on the back, while the sides were whitish, but shaded with a light green. The spots were more purple than those of the trout, while the head and extremity of the body before the tail tapered beautifully. It somewhat resembled a herring in shape: Knut compared it to a mackerel. They never, he said, exceed a pound in weight, but are stronger than a trout of equal size. Here, then, was a species of fish totally unknown to Great Britain. Indeed, there are many fish in Scandinavia which it would be worth while to try and naturalize among us. The cross, for instance, between a Jack and a Perch to be found in the Swedish lakes, and better than either; why does not Lord Breadalbane, the second introducer of capercailzie into Scotland, or some other patriot, apply his mind and resources to this subject?

The trout in this lake run to an enormous size. They have been seen two or three ells long. These large fish are seldom visible, generally frequenting the deeps. In all these waters the saying is, “we catch most fish in the autumn” (til HÖsten, ScoticÈ, ha’st): i.e., when the fish approach the shallows to spawn.

The waters of the lake, which were in some places from one to two miles broad, and studded with wooded islands, now contract, and separate into two narrow channels. Advantage is taken of the situation to set up a log-trap below—i.e., a circle of logs fastened end to end with birchen ropes rove through eye-holes. In this pound are caught the timbers that have been floated down from above. Hundreds of prisoners are thus caged without any further fastening; but escape is impossible, unless they leap over the barrier, or dive beneath it, both which are forbidden by the laws of gravity. If they were not thus formed into gangs they would get playing the truant, and lounging in the various bays, or become fixed fast on shore. When the circle is full, advantage is taken of the north wind which prevails, and off the whole convoy is started down south without any human attendants.

Before long we reach a very striking spot. The lake, which had again widened, now narrows suddenly, and the vast body of limpid water rushes with tremendous rapidity through a deep groove, about thirty feet wide, cut by Nature through smooth sloping rocks. Ever and anon a log, which has been floating lazily from above, and has, all on a sudden, found itself in this hurly-burly, comes shooting through in a state of the utmost agitation, occasionally charging, like a battering-ram, at a projecting angle of the wall; while others, with no less impetuous eagerness, race through the passage a dozen abreast; the outsiders, however, get caught in the eternal backstream below, and go bumping, shoving, and jostling each other for hours before they can again escape from the magic eddy.

The stream being too strong to admit of our getting the parson’s boat up this defile—let alone the perfect certainty of a smash if we attempt to run the gauntlet through this band of Malays running amuck—the boatman starts off with some of my luggage on his shoulders to engage a boat at the ferryman’s, lying through the pine grove.

While he is gone, I amuse myself with watching the logs; and had I been gifted with the moralizing powers of the melancholy Jacques, I might easily have set down in the journal some apt comparisons about the people of this world racing each other in the battle of life, pushing, scrambling, dashing other people out of their road. “If a man gets in your way, stamp on him,” says one of Thackeray’s people; and some of them suddenly brought up all of a heap in the dark inexorable round of one of life’s backstreams. The Storthing has, I hear, at length decided that there shall be a bridge thrown across this gully; the only wonder is that it has not been done long ago, as it might be built at a very trifling expense, and the foundations are all ready to hand.

Above the lone hut of the ferryman, who is a famous wood-carver, lies the new church of Sannes, rising on some flat meadow land. What a contrast that pure white image of it, reflected athwart the waters, presents to the huge, dreary, threatening shadows projected by yonder dark, weather-stained masses of everlasting mountains. And yet, when the rocks and mountains shall fall in universal ruin from their lofty estate, that humble spire,—although, perhaps, originally suggested by the towering Igdrasil of Scandinavian Pagan mythology,—shall rise still higher and higher, and pierce the clouds, and the small, and seemingly perishable fane, expand into the vast imperishable temple of the God above.

From its various associations, such a sight as that is very pleasing to the traveller in a lone country like this, where Nature’s brow is almost always contracted, frowning in gloomy, uncompromising grandeur. No larks carolling blithely up aloft; but instead, the scream of some bird of prey, the grating croak of the raven, the demon screech of the lom, or the hoarse murmur of the angry waterfall.

At Froisnaes I spend the night, intending next day to cross the lake, and walk over the mountains opposite to another lake, called the HÖgvand, the trout of which are renowned throughout the valley. After undergoing the usual artillery of questions and staring, I fall to discussing my frugal meal of trout and potatoes, while the good woman fills the bedstead with fresh straw. In this she is assisted by one of her sons, whose trousers rise up to his gullet, and are actually kept up by the silver studs of his shirt collar. These, with a brooch, are the lad’s own handiwork, he having learned the art of the silversmith from a travelling descendant of Tubal Cain. He is very anxious to buy a gold coin from me, and brings half an old gold piece, and asks the value of it. By poising it in the balance against half a sovereign, I am enabled to guide him respecting its true worth.

“Now then,” said the landlady, “the bed is quite clear of fleas, though I won’t say there are not some on the floor.”

Having no cream, she brings me her only egg, which, after a sound drubbing, I force to do duty as cream to my coffee. She laments that she has no more eggs. All the family has been away at the StÖl, and have only just returned, and the thieving magpies took the opportunity, in lieu, I suppose of the good luck which they bring to the household, to suck the eggs as fast as the hen laid them. Guardian angels of this description come expensive.

The gude-man of the house, whose hair is cut as short as Oliver Twist’s—probably for similar reasons—with the exception of a scalping lock on his forehead, now comes up the steep, unbanistered stair to have a chat. The trout, he says, bite best a week after St. Johann’s tid (June 21), that being, no doubt, the time when the first flies appear.

Among other things, he tells me that about four miles to the west of this, in a mountain valley called Skomedal, there are the remains of an ancient church, at a spot named MorstÖl, i.e., the chalÊt on the moors. Underneath it is a sort of crypt. The graves, too, are plain to see. According to the country side tradition, which is no doubt true (for there never was such a country as this for preserving traditions, as well as customs, unimpaired), all the church-goers were exterminated by the black death in the middle of the fourteenth century. The people have not dared, says the man, to build any fixed habitation there since, and the place is only used as a summer pasture. More courage has been shown elsewhere, as the following story will show; but perhaps the real reason is, that in this valley it would not pay to build a gaard, the site being very elevated and cold.

Where the great Gaard (Garth) of Mustad now stands, there used, once on a time, to be a farmstead called Framstad, the finest property in all Vardal. But when “the great manqueller” visited these parts, all the inhabitants of the valley, those of Framstad among the number, were swept away, and a century later it was only known in tradition that the westernmost part of the valley had ever been inhabited. One day a hunter lost himself in the interminable forest which covered the district. In vain he looked for any symptom of human dwellings. After wandering about for a length of time in a state of hopeless bewilderment, he suddenly descried what looked like a house through the trees, which were of immense age. All around was so dreary and deserted that it was not without a secret shudder he ventured into the building. A strange sight met his eyes as he entered. On the hearth was a kettle, half consumed by rust, and some pieces of charcoal. On one of the heavy benches which surrounded the fireplace lay a distaff, and some balls of rotten thread, with other traces of female industry. Against the wall hung a cross-bow, and some other weapons; but everything was covered with the dust of centuries. Surely there must be some more vestiges of the former occupants, thought he, as he clambered up into the loft by the steep ladder. And sure enough there were two great bedsteads, the solid timbers of which were let into the end walls of the room. In each of these were the mouldering skeletons of two or more human beings.

Over these a number of mice were running, who, frightened at his approach, hurried off in all directions.

He now remembered the tradition of the black death. This must have been the dwelling of some of the victims, left just in the state it was when the hand of the Destroyer was suddenly laid upon them. Being a shrewd fellow, he at once perceived the value of his discovery, and with his axe marked his name and the day of the month on the wall of the building. As the day was far spent, he kept watch and ward in the weird abode, and next day started eastward, where he knew his home must lie, taking care to blaze the trees on his road, as a clue to the spot. He managed to get home safely, and before long returning to the place with others, he soon cleared the forest, and brought the old enclosures into cultivation. In memory of his discovery he called his new abode Mustad (Mouse Grange), the very name by which it still goes; nay, his descendants are said to be its present occupiers. In the eastern and western walls of the garret the mortice holes of the old bed-timbers are still visible. The date is also distinguishable on one of the outside fir-timbers, which are so intensely hard as almost to defy the stroke of an axe.

A little higher up the main valley along which I am travelling, and a little to the east of it, there is another, called Findal, which is the scene of the following curious legend. The plague only spared two persons in this sequestered spot, a man and his wife, Knut and Thore by name. They were frightfully lonely, but still years rolled on, and they never thought of quitting their ancient habitation. The only thing that plagued them was, how to count time, and at last they lost their reckoning, and did not feel certain when the great winter festival of Yule came round. It was agreed, therefore, when the winter was at hand, and the days rapidly shortening, that the old lady should start off on foot, and go straight forward until she found people to tell her the day of the month. She went some distance, but the snow was so deep that her knees got quite tired, and she sat down on the Fond (snow-field), when suddenly, to her astonishment, she heard the following words sung in a clear quaint tone, by a voice under the snow.

The old lady hurried back at once to her John Anderson, and they kept the festival on the day signified, which they felt sure was the right one, as it afterwards turned out to be.

Bishop Ullathorne and the other miracle-mongers will, no doubt, fasten upon this legend as one to be embodied in their next catalogue of supernatural interventions in support of the Romish faith, alongside of “Our Lady of Sallette,” and other pretty stories. One might as well religiously believe in those charming inventions of Ovid, to which the imagination clings with such fondness, so thoroughly are they intertwined with human sympathies.

But let us get nearer our own time. Four years ago, I hear, the people of the valley were terrified by the apparition of a Scotchman, who had taken it into his head to walk through Norway in full Highland costume, armed with a hanger and a pair of pistols. A man who saw him close to this took him for the foul fiend, and made off into the wood. Others, who were less alarmed, considered him to be mad (gal). After a good deal of difficulty he brought the folks to a parley, and not knowing a word of Norsk, but being thirsty, he asked for grog. The sailors on board the Reine Hortense might have understood these four letters, when signalled in Arctic waters by the aristocratic owner of The Foam. Not so the SÆtersdal people. They thought he said “grÖd,” and brought him a lump of porridge. He then asked for “water,” when they brought him a pair of large worsted gloves (vanter), here pronounced vorter. This reminds me of a friend of mine who arrived at a station-house in a great state of hunger. He could speak enough of the language to inquire for provisions. “Porridge,” was the reply. “Anything else?” “Beeren?” “Yes, by all means,” exclaimed he, revelling in imagination on bear-collops. The dame presently entered with a dish of beeren, which consisted of—wild strawberries!—a nice dessert, but not fitted for a piÈce de rÉsistance.

Perhaps the reader will not object to be introduced to some of the folks here nominally. Many of the grand old names current in SÆtersdal don’t exist elsewhere in Norway, but are to be found in the Sagas; and this is another proof of the tenacity with which this part of the country adheres to everything belonging to its forefathers. Instead of such names as Jacob or Peder, we have Bjorgulv, Torgrim, Torkil, Tallak, Gunstein, Herjus, TjÖstolf, Tarjei, Osuf, Aamund, Aanund, Grunde; while the women answer to such Christian names as Durdei, Gjellaug, Svalaug, Aslaug (feminine of Aslack), Asbjorg (feminine of AsbjÖrn), Sigrid (feminine of Sigur), and Gunvor. The dog, even, who comes up into the loft, and seems anxious to make my acquaintance, is called Storm.

As the next morning is rainy, I look about the premises for anything noteworthy. In one corner is a bundle of thin strips of bark. These are taken from the branches of the linden-tree, and steeped in water from spring to autumn. They are then separated into shreds, and woven by the peasants into ropes, which are not so durable, however, as those of hemp. A bunch of carraway shrub is hanging up to dry. It grows all about here. The seeds are mixed with all kinds of food.

“Friske smag har det,” remarks the old lady. “It has a fresh taste with it.”

Outside the house there are two or three lysters, and some split pine-roots for “burning the water.” In the dark, still nights of autumn, the trout and bleke which approach the shore are speared by the men.

In the passage is suspended a notice to the effect that instruction in agriculture is offered by the Government gratis, at a school down the valley, to all young men who bring a certificate of baptism, vaccination, and also a testimonial of good moral conduct from the clergyman.

While I am reading this notice, a desolate-looking young female, with dishevelled black hair, comes staring at me through the open door, with a most wobegone aspect. Her husband, I find, is a drinker of brantviin. On one occasion he went down to Christiansand, drank tremendously, and returned quite rabid. For some time he was chained leg to leg. He is better now, but beats the unfortunate creature, his wife, who does not complain. I recommended the people, the next time he did it, to chain him again, and pay the bully back in some of his own coin—hard knocks.

Hearing so much of the trouts of the HÖgvand, i.e., High-water (the people here call it HÖgvatn, reminding me of the Crummack-waters, and Derwent-waters, of the North of England), I take Tallak, one of the sons, across the lake. On the further shore stood a man, with his young wife and child. They had a small boat, but it could not have lived in the swell now on the loch; so they borrowed ours for the transit. Threading our way through some birch scrub, we emerge upon the old smelting-house, where the copper-ore brought from the Valle copper-mine used to be prepared. But it is now at a stand-still, and the beck close by rushes down with useless and unemployed energy. This stream comes down from the lake to which we are going.

On the way we pass a small shanty, of about eight feet square. I peep in through the open door. On the floor sits a young woman, with her three children. Their sleeping berths are just overhead, let into the wall. After a stiff ascent, we reach the High-water. Launched on the lake, I expected great things, as the rain, which still poured when we started, had ceased, and a fine ripple curled the waters, which glistened smilingly as they caught sight of the sun’s cheerful countenance emerging from behind the heavy clouds. But my hopes were doomed to disappointment. Tallak said it was torden-veir (thunder-weather), and unpropitious. Nevertheless, a banging fish took one of my flies, but carried the whole tackle away.

I then tried the triangles, and a four-pounder, at least, golden and plump, dashed at me, but by a clever plunge out of his own element, he managed to get clear again. After this I had not another chance; but I have no doubt, that if I had given a day to the lake, instead of an hour or two, I should have succeeded in developing its capabilities. The boat, or pram as it is called in these parts, is flat-bottomed and oblong. The rowing appliances are very peculiar. Two narrow boards, about three feet apart, were placed about midships, at right angles to the boat’s length, and extending over the gunwale about a foot; two more similar pieces of wood were laid parallel to each other over the ends of the first two pieces, to which they were tied by birchen thongs, so as to form a square framework lying on the boat’s gunwale. Two thole-pins were stuck into each of the side pieces. Here, then, in the mountains of Thelemarken, we find the original outrigger, centuries old, the predecessor of the Claspers’ invention, now so commonly used in England. On one of the cross-boards I sat, on the other the rower, thus keeping the frame firm by our own weight, it being secured to the body of the boat by birch-ties only. There was not a particle of iron about the whole affair; it was the simplest contrivance for crossing water I ever saw.

On our walk homeward Tallak tells me that he has seen the cat-lynx down in the valley, but that they generally keep up among the broken rocks (Urden). The wind was now so high that the passage of the Fjord was somewhat difficult. At times, I hear, it is so lashed by sudden tempests from the storm-engendering mountains, that the water leaves its bed, and fills the air with spray and foam.

Old Mr. Skomedal, who schusses me up this evening to Langeid, is a rich man in his way, owning three farms, not to mention a quantity of “arvegods” (heirlooms) on his wife’s side, in the shape of halberds, helmets, swords, apostle-spoons, and “oldtids aeld-gammle sager” (ancient curiosities).

He asked if I knew a cure for his gicht (rheumatism). Many years ago he was at a bryllup (wedding), when he got fuul (ScoticÈ fou = drunk); indeed everybody was fuul. But unfortunately he got wet outside as well as in, and fell asleep in his wet clothes, since when he has been troubled with aching pains.

The bears have killed two of his horses. The one he is driving he bought out of a drove from the Hardanger. It is only two years old, and shies alarmingly in the dusk[8] at some huge stones which have been placed by the roadside at intervals, battlement fashion, to keep travellers from going over the precipice, though the embrasures are like an act of parliament, and would admit of a coach and four being driven between them. “I thought it was a bear,” said Skomedal, as he made out the stones.

Becoming quite conversational and familiar, he offers me a pinch of snuff (snuus), whence the Scotch, “sneeshing.” It was excellent “high dried,” and, to my astonishment, of home manufacture, he buying the tobacco-leaf and the necessary flavouring fluid at the town. The rain having been very heavy, the valley is alive with falling waters. We pass a splendid fall close by the road, the white rage of which gleamed distinctly through the darkness, rendering that part of the road lighter than the rest. Imagine the way being lighted with cascades. Who would care for a row of gas-lamps under such circumstances?

This fall, Skomedal tells me, was once drawn by a Frenchman; but I doubt much one of that nation ever venturing into these parts. “Well, Skomedal, can’t you tell me some tales about the trolls?” said I, thinking the hour and the scene were admirably adapted for that sort of amusement.

“Let me see, ah! yes. There was a woman up at my stÖl in Skomedal—that’s where the tomt (site) of the old church is to be seen. She was all alone one Thorsdags qveld (Thursday evening), her companion having come down to the gaard for mad (food). Looking out she sees what she supposes is Sigrid coming back up the mountain with a great box of provisions. But when the figure gets alongside of an abrupt rock just below, it suddenly disappears. Gunvor knew then that it was a Thus.”

“Nonsense,” replied I.

“Oh! it’s all very well to say nonsense, but why do the cattle always get shy and urolig (unruly), when they pass that spot. We never could make out before why this was, but it was plain now, they could tell by their instinct there was something uncanny close by.”

“Very good; do you know another tale?” said I, our pace well admitting of this diversion, as it was very slow in the dark wood, into which our road had now entered.

“Yes, that same woman, Gunvor’s husband, was the best fiddler in the valley. One day, when she was all alone, she heard near her a beautiful tune (vaene slot) played on a violin. She could see nobody, though she looked all over. That must have been a Troll underground. She remembered the tune, and taught it her husband. It was called (the name has slipped my recollection.) Nothing so beautiful as that slot was ever heard in the valley.

“But he is dead now, and there is nobody who can play as he did.”[9]