[1] According to Worsaae, the “stone” period in Denmark preceded the Celts, who possessed settled abodes in Europe 2000 years ago, by about a thousand years. The “bronze” period must have prevailed in the early part of the Christian era, when the Goths were inhabitants of the country. The “iron” period can first be traced in Norway and Sweden with any certainty in the fourth and fifth centuries. In Denmark the use of iron superseded the use of bronze altogether about 700 A.D. But it is hardly necessary to observe, that there is still much controversy among antiquarians on this difficult subject.

[2] There must have been an air of barbaric grandeur about these heathen temples. On the door of that at Lade, near Trondjem, was a massive gold ring. Olaf Trygveson, when wooing Sigrid the Haughty, made her a present of it. Having an eye to the main chance, she put it in the hands of the Swedish goldsmiths to be tested (Becky Sharp would not have done worse). They grinned knowingly. The weight was due in a great measure to a copper lining. No wonder after this that she flatly refused to be baptized, the condition Olaf had laid down for wedding her. Upon this he called her a heathen ——, and struck her on the cheek with his glove. “One day this shall be thy death,” she exclaimed. She kept her word. Through her influence Sweyne was induced to war with Olaf, who lost his life in the memorable battle of the Baltic.

[3] These tolls, as is well known, have since been redeemed.

[4] Foster-children are as common in Norway at the present day as they used to be in Ireland, where it was proverbially a stronger alliance than that of blood. The old sign of adoption mentioned in the Sagas was knaesetning, placing the child on the knee.

[5] In this part of Norway the wolf is known by no other name. Like graa-been (grey-legs) elsewhere in Norway, so here skrÜb is a euphemism for wolf. The word is evidently derived from skrÜbba, to scrub, and alludes to the rough dressing or scrubbing to be expected at the claws of that beast. This disinclination to use the real name “ulv,” is no doubt due to the ancient superstition of the “varulf” (wer-wolf).

See Grimm. Deutsche Mythologie, 1047. In the war of 1808 it was commonly believed in Sweden that those of their countrymen who were made prisoners by the Russians were changed by them into wer or were-wolves, and sent home to plague their country. The classical reader will remember the Scythian people mentioned by Herodotus, who all and several used to turn wolves for a few days in every year. The Swedes go still further in their reluctance to call certain animals by their real names. Not only do they call the bear the old one, or grandfather, and the wolf grey-foot, but the fox is blue-foot, or he that goes in the forest; the seal is brother Lars, while such small deer as rats and mice are known respectively as the long-bodied and the small-grey.

[6] Still the mountain chÂlet is now no longer known here by the name of “sÆter,” but by that of “stÖl.” “SÆter” is most probably derived from the word “sitte,” to sit = to dwell; the technical phrase for a person being at the mountain dairy being “sitte paa stÖlen.”

[7] I asked this same question of the intelligent and obliging curator of the Bergen Museum. He replied that it was generally believed to be the case, though bear-stories, unless well authenticated, must be taken cum grano.

The following statistics of the amount of wild animals destroyed in Norway in three years may be interesting—

[8] Dusk, in Norsk, “Tus-mÖrk:” that being the hour when the Tus, or Thus (sprite), loves to be abroad.

[9] Like the Daoineshi of the Scotch Highlands, the Neck of Scandinavia shines in a talent for music. Poor creatures! the peasantry may well fancy they are fallen angels, who hope some day for forgiveness; for was not one heard, near Hornbogabro, in West Gotland, singing, to a sweet melody, “I know, and I know, and I know that my Redeemer liveth?” And did not a Neck, when some boys once said to him “What good is it for you to be sitting here and playing, for you will never enjoy eternal happiness,” begin to weep bitterly?

[10] In Border-ballad language, “maik.”

[11] So, in old English, “Church-ale” was the festival on the anniversary of the consecration of a church: while “grave-ale” was the “wake” at an interment.

[12] I must not quit the subject without mentioning the Danish remedy. In Holberg’s facetious poem, Peder Paars, we read:—

[13] Landstad is a Norwegian clergyman, who has lately edited a collection of Norsk minstrelsy, gathered from the mouths of the people. Bugge is a student, who is travelling about the remote valleys, at the expense of the Government, to collect all the metrical tales and traditions that still linger there. It is very unfortunate that this was not done earlier. The last few years have made great inroads on these reminiscences of days gone by.

[14] A Manx gentleman assured Waldren that he had lost three or four hunters by these nocturnal excursions, as the fairies would not condescend to ride Manx ponies. In Norway, however, they have no choice.

[15] “Upon a time, when he (Lord Duffus) was walking abroad in the fields, near his own house, he was suddenly carried away, and found next day at Paris, in the French king’s cellar, with a silver cup in his hand. Being brought into the king’s presence, and questioned who he was, and how he came thither, he told his name, country, and place of residence; and that, on such a day of the month (which proved to be the day immediately preceding), being in the fields, he heard a noise of a whirlwind, and of voices crying, ‘Horse and Hattock!’ (this is the word the fairies are said to use when they remove from any place); whereupon he cried, ‘Horse and Hattock’ also, and was immediately caught up, and transported through the air by the fairies to that place; where, after he had drank heartily, he fell asleep; and, before he awakened, the rest of the company were gone.”—Letter from Scotland to Aubrey, quoted by W. Scott. I could not learn what the mot of the fairy pack is in SÆtersdal, or that there was any at all. Still the Norsk superstition is clearly the parent of the Scotch one.

[16] The word is written with or without h.

[17] “Some of the Highland seers, even in our day, have boasted of their intimacy with elves as an innocent and advantageous connexion.”—Walter Scott, Border Minstrelsy.

[18] Mr. Bellenden Kerr’s theory of a political and much less ancient origin for these rhymes is surely more ingenious than correct.

[19] This alludes to the custom of sprinkling the girdle-cake with a brush during the baking.

[20] Like our “Rompty idity, row, row, row.”

[21] The day on which Thor is on his rounds; and when, therefore, the little people are forced to sing small.

[22]

That goblet was said to have been seized by a Musgrave at an elf-banquet.—See Longfellow.

[23] So the old French proverb:—

[24] Sunniva was an Irish king’s daughter. In order to escape compulsory marriage with a heathen, she took ship, and was driven by tempests on the Isle of Selia, near Stad, in Norway, and, with her attendants, found shelter in a cave. The heathens on the mainland, on the look-out for windfalls, observed that there were people on the desert island, and immediately put off to it. At this juncture, through the prayers of Sunniva and her friends, the rocks split, the cave became blocked up, and the savages drew the island blank. In 1014, when Olaf Trygveson landed here from Northumberland, breathing slaughter against the pagans, he discovered the bones of Sunniva, and she was at once canonized.

[25] The similarity between vetr, the old word for winter, and vÖttr, the old word for vante (glove), most likely suggested the use of this symbol.

[26] Much of the above explanations of the Runes has been thrown together by Professor T. A. Munck, in the Norsk Folke Kalender for 1848.

[27] Hence evidently comes our “dapple,” i.e., mottled like an apple.

[28] Names of goats.

[29] In the district of Lom, where the climate is said to be the driest in Norway, there are the remains of a house in which Saint Olaf is said to have lodged. There was, not long ago, a house at Naes, in Hallingdal, where the timbers were so huge that two sufficed to reach to the top of the doorway from the ground. This old wood often gets so hard that it will turn the edge of the axe.

[30] It is singular that two peasants in different parts of the country should have made this statement, which seems after all to be based on error: for the plant was nothing but our Rock-brake, or parsley fern (Allosurus crispus), which is not generally supposed to possess any noxious qualities.

[31] The Chinese have a somewhat similar device. “A strip of white canvas is stretched slanting in the water, which allures or alarms the fish, and has the strange effect (but they were Chinese fish) of inducing them to leap over the boat. But a net placed over the boat from stem to stern intersects their progress, and they are caught.”—Fortune’s Travels in China.

[32] StrÖm, in his description of SÖndmÖr, relates that in the hard winter of 1755, of thirty children born in the parish of Volden not one lived, solely because they were brought to church directly they were born. But even in the present day in the register books (kirke-bog) notices may be found, such as “Died from being brought too early to church.”

[33] What a curious custom that was of the heathen Norwegian gentle-folk to select a friend to sprinkle their child with water, and give it a name. Thus Sigurd Jarl baptized the infant of Thora, the wife of Harald Harfager, and called it Hacon, although this had nothing to do with Christianity, for this child was afterwards baptized by Athelstan, king of England. The heathen Vikings often pretended to take up Christianity, to renounce it again on the first opportunity. Some of them allowed themselves to be baptized over and over again, merely for the sake of the white garments. Others, who visited Christian lands for the sake of traffic or as mercenary soldiers, used to let themselves be primsegnet (marked with the sign of the cross) without being baptized. Thus they were on a good footing with the foreign Christians, and also with their heathen brethren at home. Many of those who were baptized in all sincerity quite misunderstood the meaning of the rite, thinking that it would release them from evil spirits and gramary.

[34] According to the newspapers, a great part of the capital itself has just met with a like fate.