Frederick Metcalfe

Scandinavian origin of Old English and Border ballads—Nursery rhymes—A sensible reason for saying “No”—Parish books—Osmund’s new boots—A St. Dunstan story—The short and simple annals of a Norwegian pastor—Peasant talk—Riddles—Traditional melodies—A story for William Allingham’s muse—The Tuss people receive notice to quit—The copper horse—Heirlooms—Stories in wood-carving—Morals and match-making.

It is well known that some of the old English and Border ballads, e.g., “King Henrie,” “Kempion,” “the Douglas Tragedy,” the “DÆmon Lover,” are, more or less Scandinavian in their origin. In the same way, “Jack the Giant Killer,” and “Thomas Thumb,” derive many of their features from the Northern Pantheon.

Mr. Halliwell, in his Nursery Rhymes of England, and Popular Rhymes, quotes some Swedish facsimiles of our rhymes of this class, and states, further, on the authority of Mr. Stephens, that the English infants of the nineteenth century “have not deserted the rhymes chanted so many ages since by their mothers in the North.”[18] It struck me, therefore, that in this store-house of antiquities, SÆtersdal, I might be able to pick up some information corroborative of the above hypothesis. It was some time, however, before I could make Solomon understand what I meant by nursery rhymes. At last he hit upon my meaning, and I discovered that the word here for a lullaby or jingle, is “bÖrne-sÜd.” Elsewhere, it is called Tull, or Lull-bÖrn, whence our Lullaby.

“What’s the use of such things?” said Solomon; “they are pure nonsense.”

But, on my entreaty, he and others recited a few, in a sort of simple chant. The reader acquainted with that species of literature in England will be able to trace some resemblance between it and the following specimens, which have been in vogue in this out-of-the-way valley several hundred years. The oldest people in it have inherited the same from their forefathers, and they are in the old dialect, which is, in a great measure, the old Norse. While what is very remarkable, like as is the case with us and our nursery rhymes, the people in many cases recited to me what appeared sheer nonsense, the meaning of which they were themselves unable to explain.

Here is another, which would remind us of a passage in “The Midsummer Night’s Dream,” only that the squirrel is now reaper instead of coach-maker:—

A similar one:—

Another:—

Now and then a different course of treatment is proposed for the fractious baby, as in the following:—

This reminds me of another:—

It being now noon (noni), or Solomon’s meal-time, he left me, promising to give me a call in the evening.

“Yes, and you must take a glass of finkel with me; it will refresh your mind as well as body.”

“Not a drop, thank you. If I begin, I can’t stop.”

“That’s the way with these bonders,” observed the Lehnsman to me, when we were alone; “even the most intelligent of them, if they once get hold of the liquor, go on drinking till they are furiously drunk.”

This then is pre-eminently the country for Father Mathews!

“By-the-bye,” said the Lehnsman, “our parson has left us, and his successor is not yet arrived; but I think I can get the keys from the clerk, and we will go to the vicarage, and look at the kald-bog (call-book), a sort of record of all the notable things that have ever happened at the kald (living).”

Presently we found ourselves seated in the priest’s chamber, with the said book before us.

The following curious reminiscence of the second priest after the Reformation is interesting:—

“One Sunday, when the priest was just going up into the pulpit (praeke-stol), in strode the Lehnsman Wund (or ond = bad, violent), Osmund Berge. He had on a pair of new boots, which creaked a good deal, much to the scandal of the congregation, who looked upon this sort of foot-covering as an abomination; shoes being the only wear of the valley. The priest, who had a private feud with Osmund, foolishly determined to take the opportunity of telling him a little bit of his mind, and spoke out strongly on the impropriety of his coming in so late, and with creaking boots, forsooth. Bad Osmund sat down, gulping in his wrath, but when the sermon was ended, he waited at the door till the priest came out of church, and in revenge struck him with his knife, after the custom of those days. The priest fell dead, and the congregation, in great wrath at the death of their pastor, set upon the murderer, stoned him to death a few steps from the church, and buried him where he fell. Until a few years ago, a cairn of stones, the very implements, perhaps, of his lapidation, marked the spot of his interment. After this tragical occurrence, the parish was without a clergyman for three years; till at last another pastor was introduced by a rich man of those parts, on the promise of the parishioners that he should be protected from harm.”

I found, in the same book, a curious notice of one Erik Leganger, another clergyman. When he came to the parish, not a person in it could read or write. By his unremitting endeavours he wrought a great change in this respect, and the people progressed in wisdom and knowledge. This drew upon him the animosity of the Father of Evil himself. On one occasion, when the priest was sledging to his other church, the foul fiend met him in the way; a dire contest ensued, which ended in the man of God overpowering his adversary, whom he treated like the witch Sycorax did Ariel, confining him “into a cloven pine.”

A later annotator on this notable entry says, the only way of explaining this affair is by the fact that the priest, although a good man, had a screw loose in his head (skrue los i Hovedet). But this JudÆus Apella ought to have remembered the case of Doctor Luther, not to mention Saint Dunstan.

The good Lehnsman, who entered with great enthusiasm into my desire for information on all subjects, now commenced reading an entry made by a former priest, with whom he had been acquainted, of his daily going out and coming in during the period it had pleased God to set him over that parish, with notices of his previous history. His father had been drowned while he was a child, and his widowed mother was left with three children, whom she brought up with great difficulty, owing to her narrow means. Being put to school, he attracted the notice of the master, who encouraged him to persevere in his studies. Finally, by the assistance of friends, he got to the University, earning money for the purpose by acting as tutor in private families during the vacations. At last he passed his theological examination, but only as “baud illaudabilis;” the reason for which meagre commendation he attributes to his time being so taken up with private tuition. At the practical examination he came out “laudabilis,” so that he had retrieved his position. He then mentions how that he was married to the betrothed of his boyhood and became a curate; till at length he was promoted to this place, which he had now left for better preferment, expressing the hope, in his own hand-writing, “that he had worked among his people not without profit. Amen.”

At this moment, the good Lehnsman—whether it was that the heat or his fatigue in my behalf was too much for him, or whether it was that he was overcome by the simple and feeling record of his former pastor’s early struggles—turned pale, and became deadly sick. Eventually he recovered, and, in his politeness, sat down to dinner with me in his own house.

In the evening I took my fly-rod, and went down to the river with a retinue of forty rustics at my heels. The flies, however, having caught hold of one boy’s cap, nearly breaking my rod, the crowd were alarmed for their eyes, and kept a respectful distance, while I pulled out a few trout; an exploit which drew from them many expressions of by no means mute wonder.

After this I sat down on a stone, and had a chat with these fellows. They had evidently got over the feeling so common among the peasantry of being afraid at being laughed at by the stranger and by each other. Many of them blurted out something. Riddles (Gaator or Gaade, allied to our word “guess,”) were all the go. These are a very ancient national pastime. They were, however, of no great merit. Here are specimens:—

These country-people are not deficient in proverbs—e.g.,

Much of what they said was spoken in an outlandish dialect, and what made it worse, when I asked for an explanation, they all cried out together, like the boys in a Government school in India. Indeed, when they were once fairly afloat it was difficult to curb the general excitement.

Moe, a Norwegian writer, who has penetrated into many of the out-of-the-way valleys of this part of the country and Thelemarken, states that the peasants are provided with a large budget of traditional melodies; but more than this, these genuine and only representatives of the ancient “smoothers and polishers of language” (scalds), not only use the very strophe of those ancient improvisatores, but have also a knack of improvising songs on the spur of the moment, or, at all events, of grafting bits of local colouring into old catches.

The peasants around tipped me one or two of these staves. When the company are all assembled, one sings a verse, and challenging another to contend with him in song, another answers, and, after a few alternate verses, the two voices chime in together. What I heard was not extempore, but traditional in the valley.

One young fellow commenced a stave which seemed to be a great favourite, for directly he began it, the others said, “To be sure, we all know that; sing it, Thorkil.”

In the evening, true to his promise, old Solomon appeared. He had called to mind a tale that would perhaps please me.

“There was once on a time a shooter looking for fowl on the heights (heio) above SÆtersdal. Well, on he went, doing nothing but looking up into the tree-tops for the fowl, when, all of a sudden, he found himself in a house he had never seen before. There were large chambers all round, and long corridors, and so many doors he could not number them. He went seeking about all over till he was tired. Folk he could see none, nor could he find his way out. At last he came to one chamber where he thought he could hear people, so he opened the door and looked in; and there sat a lassie alone (eisemo); so he spoke to her, and asked who lived there. So she answered they were Tuss folk, and that the house was so placed that nobody could see it till they got into it, and then one could not get out again. ‘That’s the way it went with me,’ said she, mournfully; ‘I have been here a long time now, but don’t think I shall ever get out again.’ The shooter on this got very frightened, and asked her if she could not tell him some way of escape. ‘Well,’ answered the girl, ‘I’ll tell you how you can do it, but you must first promise me to come back to the gaard and take me away.’ This he promised at once to do without fail. ‘Now, then, follow me, and open the door I point out. They are sitting at the board and eating (aa eta), and he who sits at the top is the king, and he’s bigger and brawer than all the others, so that you’ll know him directly. You must take your rifle, and aim at the king—only aim, you mustn’t shoot. They’ll be in such a fright they’ll drive you out directly you heave up the gun; so you’ll be all safe, and then you must think of me. You must come here next Thursday evening[21] as ever is, and the next, and the third; and then I’ll follow you home—of that you may be certain.’ So she went and showed him the door, and he opened it and went in, and saw them all eating and drinking, and he up with his gun and pointed it at the one at the top of the table. Up they all jumped in alarm; he sprung out, they after him, and so he got clean out and safe home. On the first Thursday evening away he went to the Fell, and the second, and talked each time with the girl; but the third Thursday, on which all depended, he didn’t come. I don’t know why it was he did not keep his promise. Perhaps he thought if he took her home he should have to marry her. Anyhow it was base ingratitude. Some three or four years after the shooter was on the heights again, when he heard a girl’s voice greet (gret), and lament that she was so dowie (dauv) and lonely, and could not get away to her home. He knew the voice at once—it was the girl he had deserted. He looked round and round, and about on all sides, but could see nothing but rocks and trees, and so nothing could be done for the poor lassie.”

“Now I think of it,” continued Solomon, “there is a tuss story I’ve heard about this Rigegaard where you are stopping.”

“Delightful!” thought I; “I never did yet sleep in a haunted house—it will be a capital adventure for the journal.”

“It’s a long time ago since, though. The ‘hill-folks’ used to come and take up their quarters here at Yule. It was every Yule the same; they never missed. They did keep it up, I believe you, in grand style, eating, and drinking, and clattering till they made the old house ring again. At last, Arne—he lived here in those days—gave the underground people notice to quit; he would not put up with it any longer. So off they went. In the hurry of departure they left some of their chattels, and, among others, a little copper horse, which Arne put out of sight, though he had no idea what it was used for. Next day, a Troll came down from the hill above yonder, into which the whole pack had retired for the present, and claimed the property. Arne, however, had taken a fancy to the horse, and would not give it up. They might have that little drinking-beaker of strange workmanship, but the copper horse he was determined to keep. ‘Well,’ said the Troll, ‘keep it then; but, mind this, never you part with it. If ever you do, this house will never be free from poverty and bad luck to the end of the present race.’[22] ‘Good!’ replied Arne, ‘I’ll take care of that, and my son will keep the horse after me, and hand it down as an heir-loom.’

“After this, the house went on prosperously, and no more was heard of the Trolls. Many years after, when Arne and his son were dead, the grandson parted with the horse. He had heard of the story, but he did not care; he did not want such trash—not he. After this, nothing went well with him. Poverty overtook him, and the family fell into the utmost distress.”

“But,” interposed I, “the people seem very well-to-do. I see no symptoms of poverty. The woman is a filthy creature, and that towel is disgusting [all travellers in Norway, mind and take a towel with you], and the food she gives me is uneatable; but I hear they are rich.”

“Yes,” said Solomon, “but this is quite another branch of the family. The other one died quite out, and then the destiny altered. The present people have risen again in the world.”

Talking of heirlooms, there is no copper horse now, of course, but there are several quaint things about the gaard, mementos of ancient days. Among the rest were two curious old hand-axes, used, as above-mentioned, by the Norwegians as walking sticks, when not applied to more desperate service, the iron being then used as a handle. The door-jambs of an out-house, moreover, are of singularly beautiful carving. These are a couple of feet in width, and formerly adorned the entrance to the old church of Hyllenstad, and give an idea of the great taste displayed by these people in ecclesiastical ornament in the Roman Catholic days. A tale is told here in wood, which I could not make out. It is most likely connected with the building of the church. Sundry figures appear with bellows and hammers, and the implements of the carpenter. But these are afterwards exchanged for weapons of a more deadly nature. A man with a sword drives it right through another, while on the corresponding jamb a gentleman is seen in hot contest with a dragon, whose tail is artfully mingled with the arabesques around. All these figures are carved in bold relief. The work was no doubt by Norwegian artists, for the interlacing foliage is in that peculiarly graceful and broad style (mentioned by Mallet and Pontoppidan), which always seems to have been at home in this country. These beautiful panels, together with the slender pillars joined to them, sold at the auction of the old materials for one dollar!

So little has this valley been modernized, that I find in almost every house specimens of the Primstav, or old Runic calendar, handed down from father to son for centuries. “It is the same with those tales you have heard,” said the Lehnsman; “the oldest people in the valley got them from the oldest people before them, though not in writing, but by oral tradition.”

“And what is the state of morals up here?”

“The Nattefrieri is very much in vogue, but the evil consequences are not so great as may be imagined.”

I must own that the revelations of the Lehnsman stripped those people, in my eyes, of a good deal of the romance with which their literary tastes had invested them. Nor was my idea of the artless and unsophisticated simplicity of these rustic Mirandas enhanced, when I was told that match-making was not uncommon among the seniors, and the juniors consented to be thus bought and sold. Hear this, ye manoeuvring mammas!

Yes! marriage here, as among the grand folks elsewhere, turns upon a question of lots of money—a handsome establishment. Perhaps, too, the jilts of refined and polished society will rejoice, to hear that they are kept in countenance by the doings in SÆtersdal. It sometimes, though rarely, happens that a girl is engaged to a young fellow, who means truly by her, the wedding guests are bidden, and she—bolts with another man.