Class DL 10 
 
 Book_fill 
 

 
The Flag of Norway. 
 
A LITTLE 
 JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 FOR INTERMEDIATE AND UPPER 
 GRADES 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 MARIAN M. GEORGE 
 
 A. FI, AN AG AN COMPANY 
 CHICAGO NEW YORK 
 

 Copyright 1904 
 By A. FLANAGAN COMPANY 
 
A Little Journey to 
 Norway 
 
 To VISIT the "Land of the Midnight Sun" in any 
 season of the year except summer would be not only 
 to miss the midnight sun itself, but almost to see no 
 sun at all, even in the daytime. With only four hours 
 of dim daylight in some parts of the country, and in 
 other parts a twilight that requires artificial lights 
 all day long, we should find a winter visit very un- 
 satisfactory. 
 
 The latter part of June or the first of July is the 
 best time of all the year for a journey to Norway. At 
 this season thousands of tourists from all over the 
 world visit this country because of its grand and 
 beautiful scenery. 
 
 What shall we take with us to make our journey 
 comfortable and pleasant? Warm clothing, by all 
 means, for in many parts of Norway snow may f^l 
 even in the middle of summer, and some of the immense 
 snow-masses never melt. We shall need our rain- 
 coats, too, for there are portions of this land where 
 it rains a hundred days in the year! We shall take 
 stout clothing for mountain-climbing, but no great 
 amount of luggage, for there are few railways in Nor- 
 way, and the native carriages are not made for carry- 
 ing heavy baggage. 
 
 Consulting our map, we find that Nbrway is the 
 
4 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 northernmost country of Europe, and with its sister- 
 country, Sweden, occupies the Scandinavian Peninsula. 
 It is about 1,100 miles long, and for a third of its 
 length lies within the Arctic Circle. At one point it is 
 only 20 miles wide, while its greatest breadth is only 
 280 miles. But for what it lacks in width it makes 
 up in coast-line. It is estimated that if Norway's 
 coast-line could be stretched out in a straight line it 
 would reach halfway round the globe! 
 
 What gives Norway this great length of coast-line? 
 It has hundreds, if not thousands, of sea-arms called 
 fjords (fe-ordsO running sometimes a hundred or more 
 miles up into the land. The shores of these fjords 
 are mountains rising directly from the water's edge, 
 some to a height of six hundred feet. 
 
 Nowhere else in the world will you find a shore so 
 calm and sheltered as that of Norway, for a fringe of 
 islands, called the Island Rampart, 400 miles in length, 
 skirts it on the west and forms a great breakwater; 
 so that the water of the fjords is like a mirror. 
 
 There are mountains in the interior as well as along 
 the coast. On some of the mountain-tops the snow 
 never melts. The snow masses are pushed down the 
 mountainsides in mighty glacier-streams, which on 
 reaching the warmer valleys melt and form the short, 
 swift rivers which flow into the fjords. There are 
 only seven or eight rivers in the whole country whose 
 length is over a hundred miles. The largest river of 
 Norway is the Glommen, and it is only 350 miles long. 
 Into this river, through a tributary, empty the waters 
 of Lake Miosen (Me-o'zen), the largest lake in Norway. 
 Miosen is 60 miles in length, but, like most Norwegian 
 
Ji„„;,3f..X.«viC,., 25 £„,„,,„ 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 5 
 
 lakes, is narrow— a mere river-expansion. The lakes 
 of the country cover nearly 2,900 square miles. 
 
 Now, before we start on our journey to this remark- 
 able land, let us plan our route so as to visit the great- 
 est possible number of interesting places. We will, 
 then, divide the tour thus: 
 
 I. Post-travel from Christiania, the capita^ , to Molde 
 (Mftl'de) Fjord. This gives us the opportunity to ride 
 over a Norwegian post-road in one of the curious car- 
 riages of the country, and also to see some of the most 
 wonderful scenery of this land of wonderful sights. 
 
 II. A trip from Molde to the North Cape, for a 
 glimpse of the Midnight Sun. 
 
 III. A voyage through the fjord region south of 
 Molde, with short trips into the country. 
 
 NORWAY'S CAPITAL 
 
 So early in the morning does our steamer reach 
 Christiania that we are only just astir. The first 
 glimpse that we catch of the harbor, however, is beauti- 
 ful — blue sky overhead, water of the deepest blue 
 around us, and wonderful pine-clad hills beyond — 
 while the air bears to us the odors of sea and forest 
 and mountain. 
 
 Christiania is at the head of Christiania Fjord, eighty 
 miles from the sea. It has a fine harbor and is the 
 chief trade center of Norway, as well as its capital. 
 Here timber, pitch, matches, pulp, furs, mackerel, 
 herring, cod, cod-liver oil, beer, and many other prod- 
 ucts are brought, to be sent to other countries. To 
 Christiania also come, for distribution throughout the 
 country, those goods that Norway cannot produce for 
 herself. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 7 
 
 The wharves are busy places. Besides the Norwe- 
 gian vessels, there are ships in the harbor from nearly 
 all the European countries, but most from England 
 and Germany. Good need there is of all this busy 
 trade while the season lasts, for the harbor of Christi- 
 ania, having cold land to the north, east and west, 
 and a shallow sea to the south, lies frozen over for 
 four months in the year. Then all vessels have to 
 lie at Drobak, twenty miles to the south. 
 
 Christiania is a city of 260,000 inhabitants. It has 
 many large stone buildings, many parks and public 
 squares, and well-paved streets shaded by beautiful 
 trees. The dwellings are built in the French style, of 
 brick and stucco lined off to look like stone. 
 
 To most tourists the first place of interest is the 
 Royal Palace — a large but plain brick building, painted 
 a dull orange and surrounded by beautiful gardens. 
 There are many fine rooms in the palace, filled with 
 tapestries, curios, and paintings. We are told, how- 
 ever, that this home of the king is neither so grand 
 nor so beautiful as his palace in Stockholm — for we 
 must remember that the King of Norway is also the 
 King of Sweden. 
 
 Aside from having the same king and acting together 
 in foreign affairs, the two countries are quite indepen- 
 dent of each other. Each has its own constitution, 
 parliament, and capital. The king must be crowned 
 in Norway as well as in Sweden; he must live three 
 months of each year in Norway, and must open the 
 Norwegian Parliament in person. He must appoint 
 only Norwegians to office in Norway, and is here al- 
 ways called King of Norway and Sweden, instead of 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 OSCAR II, KING OF NORWAY AND SWEDEN 
 
 King of Sweden and Norway, which is the title given 
 him in the other half of his realm. This is all because 
 Norway is somewhat jealous of her sister-kingdom, 
 and fears being made subject to her. The king must 
 also be a member of the Lutheran Church, for that 
 is the religion adopted by the Government. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 9 
 
 The present king, Oscar II, is one of the most gifted 
 of monarchs. He is a fine musician, and it has been 
 said that if he had been an ordinary man instead of 
 a king, he could have won a fortune by his voice. He 
 is not only a musician, but a poet as well. 
 
 Oscar is a democratic ruler; he does not believe in 
 holding himself aloof from his people. He gives fre- 
 quent receptions to which any one may go, provided 
 only that the visitor records his name in the royal 
 register three days before the reception takes place. 
 At these gatherings may be seen persons of every class 
 and from every section of the country, mingling with 
 those of the court circle. The king and the members 
 of his family often ride in the street-cars, or even walk, 
 instead of rolling through the city in a state carriage. 
 
 King Oscar, although seventy-five years of age, is 
 still one of the handsomest rulers in all Europe. 
 
 We next visit the Parliament House. It is a large 
 building with a wing at each end extending toward 
 the front, and a central wing in the shape of a many- 
 sided polygon. Here the Norwegian Parliament sits 
 each year. It consists, like our Congress, of an upper 
 and a lower house. Its members are chosen by elec- 
 tors, and serve three years. 
 
 Norway is divided into six provinces or dioceses, 
 each called a stift, and having a bishop at its head. 
 The stifts are divided into counties, each county under 
 a civil governor. There are in all eighteen counties. 
 
 Whoever visits Christiania must see the university, 
 for it is one of the most interesting places in the city. 
 It was founded in 1811, and is the only university in 
 Norway. Here the young men and women from all 
 
10 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 parts of the country come, to the number of 1,500. 
 The classes, we are told, are alwaj^s full, for the people 
 of this land prize very highly a good education. The 
 tuition is free to all native Norwegians who succeed 
 in passing the entrance examinations. 
 
 The university includes schools of law, medicine, 
 and theology, and the faculty numbers over sixty 
 professors, who are appointed by the king. Among 
 these is Dr. Fridjof Nansen, the noted Arctic explorer. 
 His department of exploration has an endowment of 
 $150,000 a 3^ear for carrying on the work of exploration 
 on the seas. 
 
 The hospitals of the city are in charge of the medical 
 
 department of 
 the university. 
 Here are also 
 art-galleries, li- 
 bra r i e s, and 
 museums. 
 
 In the market 
 o f Christiania 
 
 fruit, grain, 
 vegetables, hay, 
 wines, and fancy 
 goods are all 
 on sale, but the 
 most interesting 
 part is the fish 
 market. Early 
 morning is the time to visit it. The fishermen and 
 women have brought their boats up close to the 
 pavement, and are shouting out their wares. 
 
 A FISHING BOAT 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 11 
 
 Mackerel, cod, and herring are the chief varieties of fish 
 on sale here, with occasionally fine lobster or salmon. 
 
 Here, seated in one of the boats, is a fish-woman in 
 quaint white cap, dark homespun skirt, and bright 
 bodice. The fish 
 which she sells 
 she takes one by 
 one from the net 
 in the bottom 
 of the boat. 
 
 We must visit 
 some of the 
 shops and buy 
 souvenirs to 
 take away with 
 us. The goods 
 for sale are very 
 tempting. Here 
 are many pieces 
 of the beautiful 
 
 filigree silver which the Norwegians know so well how 
 to make, and tankards and drinking-cups of all kinds. 
 We see some very fine silver mugs, delicately chased, 
 but most of the drinking-cups are of earthenware or 
 china. Those of china, have bands of iron around them, 
 and silver lids. One we notice has a coin set in the 
 cover for an ornament. 
 
 The sweetmeats here are quite unlike those at home. 
 Some, tied up in crepe paper, are intended to be dis- 
 tributed at funerals. We are shown one for a child's 
 funeral — a little candy baby nestling in a big bow of 
 crepe. 
 
 IN THE MARKET 
 
12 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 Christiania, as the capital and the seat of a great 
 university, has attracted many of the iUiistrious men 
 of Norway — statesmen and councilors, musicians and 
 artists, scientists and writers, as well as foreign min- 
 isters and consuls. Its people are highly educated, 
 refined and hospitable. They are fond of parties and 
 balls, of music and the theater. The new opera house 
 is one of the finest buildings in this gay city. 
 
 Let us now take a fjord steamer and visit some of 
 the summer villas. The fjord is dotted with beauti- 
 ful islands, and on these are the summer homes of 
 many wealthy families of Christiania. These people 
 enjoy not only their island-homes, but also the shores 
 and mountain slopes of the mainland. The hills 
 around the city are covered with pine and birch, and 
 here is to be found a variety of wild flowers — blue, 
 red, pink and yellow. Lilies-of -the- valley and sweet 
 violets grow wild here. Christiania has been called 
 ''The Garden of Norway." 
 
 NORWEGIAN INDUSTRIES 
 
 The pulp-factories at Drammen, near Christiania, 
 attract many tourists. The greater part of Drammen's 
 population cff 21,000 finds employment in the manufac- 
 ture of pulp. Although there are nearly two hundred 
 pulp-factories in Norway, this town is the chief center 
 of the industry. It is on an arm of Christiania Fjord, 
 into which empty the waters of many lakes and a 
 number of rivers rising away up in the mountains. 
 Thus there is a chain of waterways down which to 
 float the logs used in the making of pulp. From 
 Drammen, too, the pulp can easily be sent to any 
 country of the world. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 13 
 
 Wood-cutters work, sometimes all the year, in the 
 mountain-forests, cutting the logs and hauling them 
 to the streams. Beautiful Lake Spirillen to the north, 
 and the streams flowing into it, are filled with logs the 
 year round. So full of logs is the lake that every- 
 where our steamer thumps and bumps against them. 
 Think of the logs it must take to make the 1,200 tons 
 of pulp which the mills of Drammen alone grind each 
 day! 
 
 It is feared the pulp industry and the sawmills will 
 be the ruin of Norwegian forests, for the one takes the 
 little trees and the other the big. Some idea may be 
 had of the greatness of these two industries when we 
 learn that there are, besides the 200 pulp-factories, 
 nearly 400 sawmills. It is said that both industries 
 together employ about 45,000 people. Only the 
 fisheries surpass the lumbering business. In this 
 country, where it takes a hundred years for a pine to 
 grow large enough to yield a log twenty-five feet long 
 and ten inches thick, something ought to be done to 
 preserve the forests. 
 
 The logs for the pulp-factory are cut into lengths 
 easy to handle. These are put through a mill and 
 ground into coarse fibers or shreds. They are then 
 ground fine in another mill and mixed with water and 
 chemicals. Only young trees are used for pulp, as 
 the fiber of the old trees is too tough. 
 
 Alongside the factories are wharves where steamers 
 are moored while taking on their cargoes of pulp to 
 be carried to foreign ports — some to the United States 
 but the larger portion to England and France, where 
 it is used chiefly for making paper. So the newspapers 
 
14 
 
 A IJTTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 of London or Paris are very likely to come from the 
 Norwegian forests. Much of the wood pulp, however, 
 is made into coarse wrapping-paper. 
 
 Though so much pulp is sent to other countries, a 
 large amount is made into paper in Christiania. We visit 
 
 a paper-mill, 
 where the pulp is 
 pressed into thin 
 sheets between 
 heavy rollers 
 and carried into 
 a warm place 
 called the dry- 
 ing-room. We 
 visit, also, cot- 
 ton-f actories 
 and machine 
 shops, for al- 
 though Christi- 
 ania has not 
 long been a fac- 
 tory city, her manufactures promise soon to be- 
 come very valuable. 
 
 Barren fegions and mountains form a large part of 
 Norway. Only about 3^ square miles out of every 
 hundred have a soil and climate suitable for tillage 
 or pasture, so there is little grain or stock raised. 
 Then, too, manufacturing prospers under difficulties, 
 for while some iron, silver, and copper is mined, Nor- 
 way has no coal with which to run the furnaces of 
 smelting works and machine shops. 
 
 ''Why not turn the many, many mountain streams 
 
 A MOUNTAIN HOME 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 15 
 
 into water power for factories?" some one asks. This 
 is done to some extent, but the raw materials for manu- 
 facturing are not plentiful. Cotton and silk cannot be 
 produced in this climate, and for some reason there 
 are not many sheep in Norway, although it would 
 seem just the place for them. The small amount of 
 wool produced is woven on hand-looms in the homes. 
 
 Modern farm machinery has only recently come 
 into Norway, and is yet unknown in the remote regions. 
 It seems more profitable to import farming imple- 
 ments from the United States than to carry on their 
 manufacture here. 
 
 There is, however, one important industry in Nor- 
 way which makes use of the water-power of the rivers, 
 and that is lumbering. More than a fifth of the country 
 is covered with forests, mainly of soft wood — pine and 
 fir. The forest regions are for the most part in the 
 interior, along the Keel, or mountain-chain of the 
 Scandinavian Peninsula. 
 
 Wood was once used almost entirely for fuel, but 
 now peat takes its place. Wood is the chief export 
 of Norway to America. It is interesting to know that 
 our word deal comes from the Norse dl)el, or piece, 
 meaning the planks into which timber is sawed, in- 
 stead of the whole trunk; but as nearly all the wood 
 we get from Norway is soft wood, deal has come to 
 mean simply soft wood. 
 
 The life of the Norwegian wood-cutter is very hard. 
 The felling of the timber is done in late autumn and 
 in winter. In some regions the cutter goes far into 
 the forest, taking provisions to last for weeks and 
 even months. He builds himself a little hut and fills 
 
16 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 the cracks with moss to keep out the cold. The door- 
 way is so small that he must crawl on his hands and 
 knees to enter. Indeed, when a heavy snowstorm 
 has piled the drifts over his little hut, it looks like an 
 Eskimo dwelling. 
 
 Inside, a flat stone serves as a stove. No fancy 
 cooking could the poor wood-cutter do on this rude 
 stove if he should wish to ; but very simple food serves 
 him. His bed is nothing but logs rolled together and 
 covered with dry hay and moss. Thus he lives, alone, 
 going home only once or twice, perhaps, during the 
 whole season. 
 
 The forests are in the coldest part of Norway. Often 
 the wood-cutter must keep a fire burning all night or 
 freeze. Sometimes he is obliged to drive his horses 
 all night long, for fear of their freezing to death before 
 morning. The horses are fed hay instead of oats, to 
 keep them warm. Their work is to draw the tree- 
 trunks over a prepared road to the nearest mountain- 
 stream. Here the logs are left till spring, when they 
 are floated down to the mills. Should they get jammed, 
 the logger must jump upon them and push them 
 apart with boat-hooks, being careful, however, to 
 spring ashore before the mass dashes upon him. 
 Wherever the falls of the river are very steep, canals 
 are dug through which the logs are guided. 
 
 All along the streams are sawmills and planing-mills, 
 match-factories and paper-mills. In some of the 
 latter not only wood but also birch-bark is made into 
 paper. The wood industries together employ over 
 100,000 men. This is not including those who work 
 at home, making boxes, baskets, wooden trunks, and 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 17 
 
 many other articles. The wood products exported 
 each year are worth many milhons of dollars. 
 
 At the wharves we see logs, lumber, pulp, and 
 various wood-products, as well as other articles, being 
 shipped to other lands. Much of the shipping is done 
 in Norwegian vessels, for the abundance of ship-timber 
 and a love for the sea have led the Norwegians to 
 build ships to transport goods for other countries as 
 well as for themselves. Although her ships are not 
 so large as those of some other countries, Norway has 
 a greater number of vessels in her merchant fleet than 
 any other nation of Europe, except Great Britain. 
 Her vessels go to nearly all the chief foreign ports. 
 
 But Christiania must be left behind, since there are 
 so many delightful things before us. Now for our first 
 post-ride, for we are to travel by post across Norway. 
 POSTING 
 
 We find a pony and cariole waiting for each of us. 
 The cariole is the national vehicle. It is a two- 
 wheeled affair, something like a sulky, except that it 
 has a little platform behind the seat for the luggage — 
 and for the post-boy, who sits on the luggage, for the 
 seat will hold but one. We pay our fare at the rate 
 of six or seven cents a mile to the first post-station. 
 Between slow-stations we shall have to pay but four 
 cents a mile. 
 
 The rope reins are handed us, for each must be his 
 own driver. The post-boy goes along only to bring 
 back the cariole. In response to a groan and a grunt 
 from the post-boy, the pony starts on a slow trot. 
 There is no whip, for Norwegians are very careful of 
 their ponies. 
 
18 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 Like most Norwegian horses, our pony is a stout 
 little cream-colored fellow with thick, short mane, 
 long tail, and a dark stripe down his back. He 
 
 is sure-footed and 
 trusty, but not so 
 swift as he might 
 be. Four miles 
 an hour, the sta- 
 tion-keeper says, 
 is what we may 
 expect of him. 
 Now that we are 
 fairly started, the 
 ponies fall into 
 line, each as close 
 possible to the 
 cariole ahead. 
 
 Along the road- 
 side are big boul- 
 ders, set close together to form a wall, and at one 
 side stretches a telephone wire. Everywhere the road 
 is smooth and fine. The roadbed was first dug down 
 about three feet like a canal, then a foundation of 
 heavy boulders was placed on it to make the road solid 
 and to allow the moisture to drain off. Above this 
 a layer of smaller stones was placed, while on top 
 fine gravel and sand mixed with pounded slate were 
 spread and packed as hard as asphalt. 
 
 The roads of Norway were begun over a thousand 
 years ago and are among the finest in the world, 
 although as difficult to build as were the famous 
 roads over the Alps. We are told it costs $3,000 to 
 
 ii N(_)RWEGIAN 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 19 
 
 build a single mile of road. There are about 18,000 
 miles of roadway in the country, which it costs 
 $1,500,000 a year to keep up. 
 
 Almost before we know it we are at our first post- 
 station, a farmhouse some ten miles from Christiania, 
 where we are to change ponies and carioles. As 
 we drive up to the door, the post-boy cries ''bur-r-r!" 
 in a hoarse tone, and the pony stops. This is a fast 
 station — that is, a station where a certain number 
 of horses and carioles are required by law to be 
 kept in readiness for travelers, so there is no waiting. 
 At the slow stations, however, in the remote parts, 
 we shall have to 
 wait for the horses 
 to be brought in 
 from the field. 
 
 These post- 
 stations are kept 
 by ministers and 
 farmers along 
 the road, who 
 furnish horses, 
 carioles and post- 
 boys, and also 
 meals and lodg- 
 ing to travelers, 
 instead of paying 
 taxes to the Gov- 
 
 A POST HOUSE 
 
 ernment, for the Government owns the roads. In the 
 poorer regions, or where a man's farm is small, he 
 may work his horses until they are needed for 
 posting. 
 
20 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 At each station we must register our names in 
 the Government day-book. We must write, also, 
 our starting point and the place to which we are 
 going, the number of horses we use, and any com- 
 plaints we may 
 have to make. 
 The Government 
 makes it a point 
 to see that tour- 
 ists are w e 11 
 served by those 
 whom it employs. 
 Each farmer 
 along the way 
 has his own strip 
 of road to look 
 after. It is 
 marked by a 
 stone bearing his 
 name. If, then, 
 the road in any 
 particular part is not well cared for, it is at once 
 known who is to blame. In winter, however, it 
 is often impossible for each man alone to keep his 
 road clear, so several land-owners go out together 
 with great snow-plows to clear the way. 
 
 There is no need of snow-plows now, however, 
 for this is the summer season. All along the way 
 are fields of hay, barley, hops, corn, fruit, and vege- 
 tables, for we are still in the rich farming region of 
 Southern Norway. The farms are in the river val- 
 leys. They are not separated by fences or hedges. 
 
 A NORWEGIAN HAY-FIELD 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 21 
 
 but are divided off by landmarks. These are red 
 posts, each bearing the name of the owner and the 
 amount of land he owns. 
 
 The hay-fields are an odd sight. Instead of stack- 
 ing the hay, Norwegian farmers string it along on 
 frames like high fences. They say it dries much 
 better this way, for the sun shines on it and the wind 
 blows through it, while the rain runs off. With as 
 much rain as there is in Norway it is difficult even 
 in this fashion to keep the hay from being spoiled 
 by the dampness. 
 
 Hay is very precious in this bleak country. The 
 mowers in some fields cut very carefully around 
 every tree and 
 rock with a sickle 
 and even with 
 shears, that not 
 a blade may be 
 wasted. The hay 
 frames are useful 
 in winter as well 
 as summer, being 
 placed to break 
 the snow-drifts. 
 
 The Norwegian 
 haj^-wagons are 
 queer things. 
 They seem little 
 larger than a 
 child's express 
 
 wagon, while their wheels, often of solid wood, are even 
 smaller than those of some toy wagons. This brings 
 
 CURING THE HAY 
 
22 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 the carts near the ground, so that they may be drawn 
 over very rough places, for the grass must be cut 
 on the edge of precipices and in deep ravines. 
 
 The corn, Kke the hay, must be carefully looked 
 after. When it is cut in the autumn the shocks 
 will not be allowed to stand on the ground, as is 
 our corn at home, but each shock will be raised on 
 a post to keep it dry, and away from the mice. 
 
 This is a busy country. Even the women do much 
 outdoor work. All along the way we see them cutting 
 hay and stacking it on the frames, hauling logs, 
 drawing carts, rowing boat-loads of garden-stuff, 
 and fishing. In one place a woman is even cutting 
 timber. Often women take their knitting into the 
 fields, to knit while they rest from the field-work. 
 
 A POST-STATION 
 
 A day's cariole ride makes us glad that we may be 
 sure of supper and a bed at the next stopping-place. 
 The station is a pleasant, large farmhouse — or, rather, 
 several houses, for one is the kitchen, one is the living- 
 room, in another are the sleeping-rooms, and so on. 
 Supper is ready, and we sit down with the family. 
 The meal consists of salt herring, potatoes, flat-hrod, 
 fish pudding, coffee, and several kinds of cheese, one 
 of which is made of goat's milk. 
 
 Although fish is one of the chief articles of food in 
 Norway, except at hotels one seldom sees it fresh. 
 The Norwegians always dry their fish. Potatoes are 
 a favorite food, and the bread, called flat-brod, is of 
 rye or oatmeal. It is rolled as thin as a wafer and 
 baked in cakes a foot and a half across. At a distance 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 23 
 
 you might almost mistake a loaf of flat-brod for a 
 piece of wrapping-paper, so thin is it. It is baked so 
 slowly that it is very hard and brittle. Enough is 
 baked at a time to last for months. In fact, in some 
 Norwegian households flat-hrod is baked only two or 
 three times a year. 
 
 Fish-pudding is the national dish, and is made of 
 salmon or cod, or both. The goat's-milk cheese is 
 
 IN A NORWEGIAN FARMHOUSE 
 
 dark brown. It is made into large, square cakes and 
 is served in very thin slices. Ours is in a perforated 
 tissue-paper case, with a ribbon tied around the top. 
 While we eat and chat with our host we notice his 
 appearance and that of his family. The farmer is 
 strongly built and has blue eyes and light hair and 
 
24 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 beard. He talks intelligently and is very polite, never 
 even smiling at our mistakes in trying to speak Nor- 
 wegian. He can speak a little English. His everyday 
 dress is of homespun, but he is sure to have very gay 
 clothes for holiday wear — short jacket and trousers, 
 and bright waistcoat. 
 
 The farmer's wife is pleasant, but not at all pretty. 
 She, too — like most Norwegians — has blue eyes and 
 light hair. Her dress is a short dark skirt, a white 
 waist with a bright embroidered bodice, a striped 
 apron, and silver jewelry. This jewelry has no doubt 
 been in the family for years, handed down from gen- 
 eration to generation. Some of it is fine filigree work 
 and very costly. 
 
 Our bed is built into the wall and we go up two 
 steps to get into it. Like all Norwegian beds, it is 
 much too short. For covering there are nicely dressed 
 sheep and goat skins. The sheets, spun and woven by 
 the housewife, are so small that there is no tucking 
 them in. Every time we waken we find them on the 
 floor. The pillows are either too big or too little. 
 We must choose between a feather bolster nearly as 
 large around as a barrel and a little pillow about four 
 inches square and two thick. But, for all this, we have 
 a fairly comfortable night and are ready to rise early 
 in the morning to see something of farm-life in this 
 region. 
 
 Besides the house, there are barns and stables, and, 
 above all, a storehouse. A Norwegian would rather 
 have no dwelling than no storehouse. It is always 
 a separate building of heavy timber, and is generally 
 set up on posts to keep things dry, while on top of the 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 25 
 
 posts are tin pans, bottom side up, to keep out mice 
 and ants. The second story nearly always projects over 
 the first. The door is very heavy and is strongly 
 barred, for this is the farmer's treasure-house. 
 
 Stored inside these houses are immense sacks of 
 flour and meal, boxes of provisions, strings of flat- 
 brod, and trunks full of clothing and bedding. The 
 trunks are more like huge baskets than anything else. 
 They are made of thin strips of wood woven much 
 like baskets and painted in gay colors. Each girl in 
 the family, when old enough to spin, is given one of 
 these trunks. In it she stores away all the cloth she 
 spins and weaves for bedding, table-linen, and towels, 
 as well as the yarn and embroidery she makes. These 
 she saves till she is married and has a home of her own. 
 
 Little trunks of the same style, with handles, are 
 used instead of suit-cases or valises for traveling, and 
 very quaint they look. 
 
 The barns are large enough for a great number of 
 cattle, but only a few are here. Most have gone to 
 the hill-farm for the summer, where they will stay 
 till cool weather comes again. The son and two of 
 the daughters keep the hill-farm. The boy watches 
 the herd, and the girls make butter and cheese. 
 
 At a little distance from the house is a small build- 
 ing beside a stream. Here is a tiny water-wheel which 
 turns the farmer's mill, so that he is able to grind his 
 own corn. The water turns also the grindstone which 
 sharpens his scythes and sickles. The farmer is his 
 own blacksmith, and shoes the ponies tourists drive 
 over the post-road. The farmer's family forms a little 
 village of itself and must supply all of its own 
 
26 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 needs, for even the nearest neighbor Hves at a con- 
 siderable distance. 
 
 The life of the Norwegian farmer is at best a hard 
 one. Often he works all summer and then loses his 
 whole crop. Indeed, he must count on losing one 
 crop in every five! Then he has to eke out a living 
 for himself and family by joining the fishermen, or by 
 going into the forest to fell trees. While he is away, 
 his wife and daughters must earn something by spin- 
 ning, weaving and knitting. 
 
 The winter is a busy time in the farmer's family. 
 The children must go to school for a part of the year, 
 at least, for the pastor will not confirm them until 
 they have finished certain studies, such as the catechism 
 and church-history. And unless they are confirmed 
 they will not be able to find employment in the cities 
 or towns. 
 
 Now our pony and cariole are waiting- to take 
 us on, and we must say farewell to our kind host. 
 The road is no longer level, but stretches over hills 
 and sometimes along the ver}^ edge of a steep precipice. 
 Here the big boulders have indeed a use. 
 
 Now anS then we see the home of a poor farmer. 
 Let us notice this one. The cottage is made of heavy 
 spruce logs, and perches away up on the hillside. The 
 roof is covered with birch-bark laid over the logs 
 like shingles. On this is placed grass sod, in which 
 bright flowers are now growing. Yes, and there 
 is a goat on the roof, nibbling the grass! Inside 
 there is little furniture, but there are always flowers. 
 Like all Norwegian farms, however poor, it has its 
 name. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 27 
 
 NORWEGIAN FJORDS 
 
 The farther we travel, the more rugged the coun- 
 try becomes, for we are now approaching the fjord 
 region, along the western coast. The mountains 
 rise higher and the valley grows narrower. We 
 are at last in the famous Romsdal, the most beauti- 
 ful valley in Norway. The sides of the mountains 
 
 THE ROMSDALHORN FJORD 
 
 are seamed and scarred, and we see here and there 
 a leaping cascade. These great walls of rock stretch 
 for miles and in some places tower five and six thou- 
 sand feet above us. The mountains press so closely 
 together that the river is penned up- in a narrow 
 
28 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 gorge, where it foams and roars and thunders as though 
 trying to escape from its prison. There is scarcely 
 room enough for the road high along the mountain- 
 side. 
 
 Here is the giant peak, higher than all the rest, 
 called the Romsdalhorn. It is said to be as difficult 
 to ascend as the terrible Matterhorn in the Alps. 
 Years ago an Englishman thought to win fame by 
 climbing to the top, but he found there a heap of stones, 
 telling that some one had been there before him, 
 although no one could remember that the top had 
 ever been reached before. Here, too, is one of the 
 most beautiful of all Norwegian waterfalls. The Seven 
 Sisters. It is so called because it is formed of seven 
 separate falls, although sometimes there are but 
 four streams to be seen. 
 
 High up on these cliffs are perched little farm- 
 houses, where it seems too narrow for a man to stand. 
 There is a cottage two thousand feet up the moun- 
 tainside which can be reached only by a zig-zag path 
 beside the bed of a roaring torrent. Everything 
 needed from below must be hauled up over the edge 
 of the cliff by ropes, and when the farmer and his 
 wife go out on the hill to gather their little crop of 
 barley or hay, they must tether the children, as they 
 do their goats, to the door-post or a tree. When 
 one is to be buried from this mountain home, the 
 coffin must be let down these two thousand feet by 
 ropes. 
 
 And now the beautiful Molde Fjord is before us. 
 These fjords of Norway are somewhat like great river- 
 mouths, or long narrow bays reaching far into the 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 29 
 
 land, but they are really neither of these. They 
 have no single strong current flowing to the sea like 
 rivers, nor have the}^ a sandy beach like bays. They 
 have what a bay has not, an island belt at their out- 
 let. The fjord water is deep — much deeper even 
 than the sea beyond the island chain. 
 
 Fortunately for Molde, the cliffs rise to a great 
 height on the north, shutting off the cold winds. Then, 
 too, the Gulf Stream crosses the ocean from our own 
 southern shores and brings a breath of warm air to 
 this part of the country. Without it the greater 
 part of Norway would not be habitable. To this 
 ocean river the country owes its food-grains, its com- 
 merce, and the ver}^ life of its people. 
 
 The current, flowing along the west coast, keeps 
 the fjords free from ice the whole winter through. 
 While Christiania Fjord, far to the south, lies frozen 
 four months in the year, Molde Fjord is never frozen 
 over. It is warmer the year round, here in Molde 
 (which is in sixty-three degrees north latitude), than 
 in New York city. The temperature this June day 
 is 80° in the shade, and many bathers are enjoying 
 themselves in the fjord. 
 
 Molde is one of the most beautiful of all Norwegian 
 fjords. On one side snow-topped mountains, whose 
 lower sides are covered with forests of pine, maple, 
 birch, ash, and chestnut, stretch for forty miles. 
 Birches here grow five feet in diameter. 
 
 MOLDE 
 
 The town of Molde, a place of 1,700 inhabitants, 
 is beautifully situated on the fjord. Its houses are 
 
30 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 painted yellow and white, with red and dark-tiled 
 roofs. Everywhere at this season on lawns and in 
 gardens are roses, peonies, poppies, and honeysuckle, 
 and ponds are covered with water-lilies. Everywhere 
 in Molde are, also, cherries, the chief fruit of the 
 country. 
 
 What a fine situation Molde has for a summer 
 resort — which, indeed, it is ! It is more easily reached 
 
 from all parts of 
 the country than 
 almost any other 
 town in Norway. 
 The road from 
 Bergen to Molde 
 leads through 
 beautiful scenery. 
 The high-roads 
 from Trondhjem 
 (Tr6nd'yem) and 
 the Swedish bor- 
 der meet the one 
 from Christiania 
 and pass through 
 the wonderful 
 Romsdal. An- 
 other road comes across from Chris tiansund Fjord to 
 the north. Then, too, there are the sea-roads from 
 the north and south. No wonder hundreds of Nor- 
 wegians come to spend a part of the. summer here. 
 Tourists, too, find this a delightful place to stop. 
 One enjoys wandering about Molde's streets and 
 looking at the flowers in the gardens and windows. 
 
 THE RESORT HOTEL 
 
 i 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 31 
 
 for the Norwegians are very fond of flowers. A visit is 
 paid to the shops for carved wood souvenirs, and silver 
 filigree; then a coast steamer takes us into Trondhjem 
 Fjord to the quaint old city of Trondhjem— or Throne's 
 Home, as the name means — a twelve hours' voyage. 
 
 Just out from Trondhjem Fjord lies Hitteren, the 
 largest island along the Norwegian coast south of the 
 Arctic Circle. In the harbor are anchored ships from 
 many countries, and steamers from Christiania, Bergen, 
 Molde, and other Norwegian ports, while ever3rwhere 
 we see the quaint native fishing-boats patterned after 
 the old Viking ships of long ago, with high prow and 
 stern ending in a dragon's head. 
 
 Like Molde, Trondhjem Fjord is never frozen over, 
 although it is several hundred miles farther north than 
 Labrador. Trondhjem's winter climate is as warm as 
 that of Southern England. 
 
 Our hotel is of painted wood with red-tiled roof. 
 The bedrooms have no carpets and no light at night. 
 We can easily do without a light, however, for are we 
 not in the land of the midnight sun? If not exactly 
 a midnight sun, we have at least a very late one, for 
 at this season it does not set here until nearly eleven 
 o'clock in the evening and rises again before two. 
 While the sun itself is thus out of sight for about three 
 hours, yet its rays light up the night so that one can 
 at any time read even the finest print. What beauti- 
 ful colors delight our eyes at sunset ! For a time the 
 sky is red, then it grows pink, then orange, and next 
 purple. Again at sunrise a beautiful pink glow ap- 
 pears; this gradually changes to yellow, then greenish- 
 blue, and then to the blue of a clear day. 
 
32 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 TRONDHJEM 
 
 Trondhjem, a place of 30,000 inhabitants, is the third 
 city in size in Norway. It has wide, well-paved 
 streets. Its two principal streets cross, and from their 
 intersection one may enjoy a grand view: on three 
 sides are high mountains and on the fourth lies the 
 beautiful sea. 
 
 Here, too, is the marketplace. It has rows of stores 
 and two rows of canvas-covered booths, where all the 
 different wares are sold. Let us wait till the market 
 opens. Peasants from the surrounding country come 
 with their little wooden trunks filled with one or another 
 of the dozen kinds of Norwegian cheese, with butter 
 or vegetables, or coarse homespun woolen and linen 
 goods. The women wear colored handkerchiefs tied 
 over their light hair, bright knitted bands which cross 
 over the shoulders, and full plaid skirts. The men 
 wear bright jackets of coarse homespun, and heavy caps. 
 
 The factories, paper-mills, shipyards, and ware- 
 houses of Trondhjem are interesting, and show how 
 its people occupy themselves. Trondhjem has, also, 
 a marine arsenal and an Academy of Science. In the 
 shops are • many pieces of the filigree silver we 
 have seen so often before, enamel silver spoons, scarf- 
 pins bearing the Norwegian flag in enamel, carved 
 tankards, pipes, beautiful furs, cloaks of eiderdown, 
 and reindeer antlers so large that one must saw them 
 in two to get them into a trunk. 
 
 Here in the shops gentlemen always take off their 
 hats until their purchases are made, then shake hands . 
 with the shopkeeper, who thanks them for buying of 
 him. 
 
 I 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 33 
 
 Here is a beautiful cloak of brown eiderdown which 
 the shopkeeper tells us is worth a thousand dollars. 
 He explains that it is so expensive because it is made 
 from the lining of the first nest, which is the finest. 
 
 The eider duck builds her nest on one of the many 
 little islands of the far North, and lines it with the 
 beautiful fine down from her breast, which is light 
 brown. The down is taken by the hunters, to be used 
 for coats and capes. Then the nest has to be rebuilt, 
 and this time the father bird lines it with the white 
 down from his breast. This down is coarser, and is 
 used for pillows and quilts ; it is never so costly as the 
 brown. After being robbed the second time the birds 
 build their third nest, but if this is disturbed, they 
 leave it and go away. The eider eggs are about four 
 inches long, and have a greenish-blue shell. Some 
 people eat them, but they have a strong flavor. 
 
 We must go down to the station and see the train 
 from Christiania come in. Until something over a 
 year ago Trondhjem was the most northerly railway 
 station in the world, but now there is one farther 
 north on the Swedish border. The railroad from 
 Trondhjem to Christiania is 350 miles long, and has 
 done much to unite these two distant parts of 
 Norway. 
 
 As we peep into the sleeper, we cannot help con- 
 trasting it with our sleeping-cars at home. The car 
 itself is not much wider than an omnibus. The berth 
 is formed of the narrow cushion-seats pulled together, 
 with nothing but a tiny pillow as furnishings. There 
 is no mattress, or even a blanket. The upper berth 
 is nothing but a small hammock sagging down to within 
 
34 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 a foot of the lower berth — a difficult bed to chmb into 
 when the train is moving! It is uncomfortable, too, 
 staying in such close quarters, for there seems barely 
 room for a person without his traveling rug, or for the 
 rug without himself! The rug would be a necessity 
 in winter, for there is no way of heating the car. 
 
 Although Trondhjem is not so beautifully situated 
 as Molde, it is the most famous of all Norwegian towns. 
 
 TRONDHJEM CATHEDRAL 
 
 It has stood for a thousand years, and was, long ago, 
 the city of the Norwegian kings. For this reason it 
 is called the "Cradle of the Kingdom." Here still 
 stands the cathedral where, since the days of King 
 Olaf, a thousand years ago, the kings of Norway have 
 been crowned. 
 
 Trondhjem Cathedral is the finest church in Scan- 
 dinavia, and one of the finest in Northern Eurpp^i It 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 35 
 
 is built of blue-gray marble, quarried near by. Long 
 ago it was much damaged by fire and was for years 
 left partly in ruins. Some years ago repairs were 
 begun, and they are still being carried on. A part of 
 the money raised at the lottery which built the Christi- 
 ania opera-house has been given for restoring this 
 beautiful old building. 
 
 We pay our fee and go inside. Here are beautiful 
 stone and wood carvings. At the south end of the 
 altar is a cast of Thorwaldsen's statue of the Saviour. 
 There is a fine organ in the cathedral, and a deep 
 well which is said to be connected with the sea. 
 
 Two miles from Trondhjem is one of the finest 
 falls in Norway, Store Lefos (Sto-ra La-fos), which 
 is one hundred feet high with a great rock halfway 
 up, around which the water dashes. 
 
 A RICH FARM 
 
 Trondhjem, like Christiania, is in one of the fertile 
 regions of Norway. Everywhere around the city 
 are grassy plots and flower-gardens. Off toward 
 the sea stretch fields of rye, pastures, meadows, and 
 forests of grand, dark pines. 
 
 Let us visit one of the richer farms in the vicinity. 
 We drive through avenues of trees to the house, 
 which is 140 feet long and two stories high. Besides 
 this there are the storehouse, the smokehouse, and 
 also a kitchen, which is a separate building, while 
 near by are barns and stables. These buildings are 
 grouped together around a sort of courtyard. Here 
 water is brought by pipes from the mountainside 
 near by. 
 
36 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 We enter the living-room of the house. Here is a 
 bed built in like the one at our first post-station. In 
 fact; this is the kind of bed we shall find almost every- 
 where in Norway. A bench extends around the room, 
 
 but we are care- 
 ful not to sit 
 upon it until in- 
 vited to do so, 
 as this is the 
 seat of honor. 
 A rude table and 
 chair, and hang- 
 ing shelves are 
 about the only 
 furniture, except- 
 ing a loom for 
 weaving the 
 coarse homespun 
 for the family. 
 
 The hay is 
 brought to the 
 barns in an odd way in this region! It comes slid- 
 ing down ijO the barns on heavy wires from the 
 soeter. 
 
 The soeter is the hill-farm, such as nearly every 
 rich farmer has at a distance up the mountainside. 
 It is chiefly hay land and pasture. In early spring 
 the cattle and sheep are taken to the soeter, to stay 
 until late in the autumn. 
 
 A log cabin with sod roof has been built on the 
 mountainside and here some of the family (usually 
 the older daughters and one of the boys) spend the 
 
 THE FARMHOUSE 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 37 
 
 summer. The fireplace is on the ground. There is 
 no chimney — only a hole in the roof to let out the 
 smoke. In cool weather, if the fire does not smoke too 
 badly, even this hole is closed. The kettle is hung 
 over the fire by a chain and pulley suspended 
 from the roof. A bench extends around the 
 room. 
 
 The time of setting out for the soeter is a merry one. 
 All is confus-on and excitement. There are so many 
 things to gather together — churn, milk-pails, kettles, 
 f ry ing-p a n , 
 cheese-moulds, 
 cups, plates, 
 and sp o on s. 
 The flat-bread, 
 coffee, bacon, 
 sugar, and salt 
 must be packed, 
 and the meal to 
 mix with the 
 skim-milk for the 
 calves must not 
 be forgotten. 
 And, too, the 
 woolen yarn for 
 stockings, and 
 materials for embroidery, must find a place, to help 
 fill in the time for busy fingers during the sumnier. 
 
 The soeter is several miles away, but all walk. The 
 father strides ahead, taking with him a long horn of 
 birch-bark, called a lur, with which to call the cattle. 
 Following; close after comes the old horse with the 
 
 WASH DAY 
 
38 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 load, and behind him the sheep, cows, goats, and pigs. 
 The girls bring up the rear, with wooden yokes over 
 their shoulders from which hang swinging pots, and 
 pails of white pine. 
 
 At the soeter the girls are very busy. As soon as 
 the cows are sent to pasture for the day they begin 
 the dairy work. One skims the cream and makes the 
 butter, and another washes the pails and pans at 
 the brook and feeds the calves. Then comes cheese- 
 making. When enough butter and cheese have been 
 made to send to market they are put into pails or 
 done up in packages, and slid down the same wires as 
 the great bundles of hay. Every moment not occupied 
 with the dairy work is spent in knitting and em- 
 broidering. 
 
 If a stranger visits the soeter, one of the girls goes 
 to meet him with a pail of milk. He is expected to 
 say: ^'Do not waste it on me," but she insists and 
 he takes a sip. She urges him to take more; he must 
 drink all he can, or he will be considered impolite. 
 
 At night the cattle, sheep, and horse must be fed. 
 One of the girls puts on a belt from which hangs a horn 
 of salt to fdled them. 
 
 The soeter is very interesting, and so is the farm, 
 but the time has come for us to return to Trondhjem. 
 Our hostess has prepared coffee and smor-brod, a great 
 dainty, which is merely white bread spread thickly 
 with butter and sugar. Norwegian etiquette requires 
 that we must prepare to go without partaking of this 
 feast. Our hostess begs us to stay, and so of course 
 we are persuaded to remain long enough to taste her 
 dainties. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 39 
 
 TOWARD THE MIDNIGHT SUN 
 
 And now the first part of our journey is over, and 
 the second begins. Trondhjem is the port from which 
 steamers start for the voyage to the North Cape. We 
 board our vessel, and are soon on our way to the most 
 northern point of land in Europe. The North Cape 
 is a four days' sail from Trondhjem, but we shall ex- 
 pect to take about two weeks for the voyage to the 
 Cape and back, as we wish to make several stops. 
 Although a long voyage, it will be a calm one, for we 
 shall sail inside the fringe of islands which extends 
 along the whole western coast of Norway. 
 
 The waters inside this Island Rampart, though deeper 
 than the ocean outside, are usually like those of a vast 
 harbor. 
 
 Most of the way we are in sight of the mainland. 
 We sail past snow-capped mountains that seem to rise 
 directly out of the sea, and down whose sides flow huge 
 glaciers, ending in rushing falls which pour into the 
 fjords. 
 
 The day after leaving Trondhjem we come to Torgen 
 (Tor'gen) Islands, where the steamer stops for a couple 
 of hours, that passengers may see the tunnel through 
 the solid rock of Torghattan Mountain. This tunnel 
 is 500 feet up the mountainside and was washed out 
 by the sea when all the lower part of the mountain 
 was covered by the waves. This opening, through 
 which one gets a beautiful view of the sea. is 600 feet 
 long and 200 feet high. 
 
 More fjords, and snow-capped mountains, and gla- 
 ciers, and we come to the Lofoden (Lo-fo'den) Islands, 
 extending 100 miles out into the Atlantic and 130 
 
40 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 miles from north to south. Just southwest of the is- 
 lands is the famous Maelstrom, (Mal'strum) which is 
 formed by the tide pouring through a narrow strait, 
 where the water foams and hisses over deep sunken 
 ledges. Our steamer does not sail near this, however, 
 but keeps well toward the coast, where the scenery is 
 particularly fine. Many tourists think this scenery 
 grander even than that of Switzerland. 
 
 The Lofodens are the center of the greatest cod 
 fisheries in the world, for sea-cod are found only in 
 certain places and at certain seasons. East of the 
 islands are three banks beneath the sea. Here in the 
 shallow water the cod gather from the middle of Janu- 
 ary to the middle of April. Then, indeed, are the 
 islands and the opposite coast a scene of activity! 
 Cod-boats like the old viking boats are everywhere: 
 3,500 boats and 25,000 fishermen come here every 
 year. These fishing voyages are made in the long 
 winter night, when, for part of the time at least, these 
 men have no light except the beautiful northern lights 
 and the bright stars. In spite of all difficulties they 
 carry away 25,000,000 cod each year. 
 
 The nets ^re left in the same place for several days 
 at a time, for the cod pile themselves one above an- 
 other, till they are often more than a hundred feet 
 deep. The fishermen call these enormous schools of 
 fish "cod mountains.'' When they cast the nets they 
 can feel the sinkers touch the fish. The cod are caught 
 in the night, and each morning the nets are emptied, 
 and mended if necessary. Sometimes a thousand fish 
 are caught in a single night. 
 
 The cod business is carried on under the direction 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 41 
 
 of the Government. Fishermen are forbidden to go 
 out in stormy weather, and anyone who disobeys this 
 rule is fined heavily. Even in pleasant weather the 
 fishermen must 
 wait until an 
 officer gives the 
 signal to start. 
 But in spite of 
 these precautions 
 cod-fishing is a 
 dangerous busi- 
 ness and many 
 lose their lives at 
 it every season. 
 Boats by the 
 dozen are found 
 bottom up, with 
 knives stuck in 
 them where the 
 men have tried to hold on. Some boats have 
 handles along their keels, that the men may have 
 something to cling to when capsized. 
 
 The fishermen live in little huts along the shore, 
 and here we see millions of codfish spread out, some- 
 times upon the rocks, for the sun to dry, sometimes 
 on wooden frames, where the air and sun both help 
 in drying them. Many are split and salted and sent 
 to France and Spain. In sheds along the beach the 
 dried heads of the cod are hung. These are used for 
 fertilizing the land, or are boiled with seaweed as feed 
 for cattle. The oil made from the liver of the codfish 
 is much used as medicine. 
 
 A MOUNTAIN CAEKIAGE 
 
42 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 The hills on the mainland bear only birches and firs, 
 the winters being too severe for anything else to live. 
 Here tar is made in great quantities from the firs, 
 which contain much resin. Only the roots of trees 
 that have been cut down are used. Sometimes after 
 the firs are felled for timber or pulp, the roots remain 
 in the ground for years. They are finally dug up 
 and split. They are a deep red in color, very hard, 
 and so rich that, when they are burned, the resin 
 flows from them. 
 
 When there are not barrels enough to hold the tar, 
 it is kept for a time in holes in the ground. The 
 barrels, before being sent away, are fastened at both 
 ends to long poles, and then sent down the nearest 
 mountain stream. Some years 100,000 barrels of tar 
 are sent away. 
 
 TROnSOE, THE CITY OF THE LAPPS 
 
 North to Tromsoe (Trom^so-eh), a Lapp town and 
 an important fishing station, is the next stage of our 
 journey. In the harbor the bones of a huge whale 
 are floating. It has been speared and cut into pieces, 
 and its blubber is being boiled in large kettles in a 
 rude factory on the shore. Here are anchored seven 
 more monsters from sixty to sevent}^ feet long. Their 
 jackets have been taken off, and men are busy 
 removing the whalebone and the blubber, which 
 latter will be carried to the factory. When all is 
 done, the big bones of the carcases will be split up 
 like wood. 
 
 Tromsoe carries on a brisk trade with Hamburg 
 and Russia in smoked herrings and other fish, whale 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 43 
 
 meat and oil. Vessels from Russia, German}^ and 
 other countries are in the harbor. Every year the 
 town sends out many ships to hunt the walrus and 
 whale. The whale is found all the way from the 
 Lofodens to the North Cape. 
 
 Here in the harbor is a whaler. To one mast a 
 barrel is fastened for a platform, and in this, on a 
 whaling voyage, a man always stands to watch. 
 When he locates a whale and gives the signal, a har- 
 poon is shot from a cannon. When the harpoon en- 
 ters the whale's body, a cartridge explodes, killing 
 the animal The four points of the harpoon stick 
 into the whale and furnish the means of drawing it 
 ashore. From April to August is the whaling season. 
 
 Let us visit the factory where the whale-oil is pre- 
 pared. The blubber, and the flesh, which is much 
 like pork, are cut up into pieces by machinery and 
 put into boilers, to be tried out. From the boilers 
 the oil is run through pipes into big tanks. Often 
 one whale will yield sixty or seventy casks of refined 
 oil. 
 
 Not all the flesh is tried into oil. The best is canned 
 and marked with French labels and sold as a delicacy. 
 Some is dried and smoked or made into sausage. The 
 scraps left in the boilers are dried and ground into 
 feed for cattle, resembling ground coffee in appear- 
 ance. The bones are used as a fertilizer for the fields. 
 The whalebone — which hangs from the upper part 
 of the mouth in shreds to help the whale hold in his 
 mouth the food he gathers — is trimmed and cut into 
 uniform lengths for the market. It is then washed 
 in a solution of soda and spread out to dry. This 
 
44 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 whalebone (or baleen, as it is called in commerce), 
 is very expensive. It is worth at the present time 
 $15,000 a ton. All the products of the whale render 
 a large one worth from $1,200 to $15,000. 
 
 Tromsoe is often called the "City of the Lapps," 
 not only from the number of these people in the town 
 itself, but also from the Lapp encampment near by. 
 Tromsoe, however, is not the only home of the Lapps. 
 All that part of Norway and Sweden and northwestern 
 Russia which lies within the Arctic Circle is called 
 Lapland. There are in Norway alone nearly 17,000 
 Laplanders. The name Lapp seems to come from 
 Lappu, land^s end folk. What a fitting name! A 
 brave people they must be, to make their home in 
 this land of barren rocks, snow, stunted pines, birches 
 and moss. To the north only birches can grow, 
 and these are little more than shrubs. It is only by 
 keeping their foliage as small as possible that trees 
 or shrubs are enabled to live at all, for the whole 
 year's growth must be finished in a few weeks. 
 
 In the spring when the ice-sheet breaks up, the 
 waters swarm with fish, and the reindeer-moss springs 
 up from the almost barren rock. But for these, the 
 Lapps must either perish or seek a better country, 
 for the fish and moss provide them with nearly all 
 they have. The moss is in some parts almost the 
 only food of the reindeer. This wonderful animal is 
 as dear to the Laplander as is the camel to the Arab. 
 It furnishes milk, from which he makes butter and 
 cheese. Its flesh yields him food and its skin clothing 
 and tent-covering. 
 
 There are two classes of Lapps, the Mountain Lapps 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORAVAY 
 
 45 
 
 LAPLANDERS 
 
 and the Sea Lapps. The mountain dwellers are a 
 roving people, because the reindeer-moss and little 
 patches of grass are so scarce that they are soon eaten 
 up and new pastures must be found. In the summer 
 the deer seek the water, for even in this cold coun- 
 
46 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 try mosquitoes are very annoying. The Sea Lapps, 
 although not wandering hke the Mountain Lapps, 
 have at least two or three homes. In the winter they 
 move to the coast for the sake of the cod-fisheries. 
 In the summer they settle upon the banks of some 
 river or at the head of a fjord. 
 
 Here and there along the streets of Tromsoe we 
 see Lapps, but they mingle little with the Norwegians, 
 preferring to live by themselves. Some have fur 
 clothing, while others have adopted something a 
 step nearer the dress of their neighbors, and wear 
 white woolen jackets with red, blue and yellow stripes. 
 They are, however, very untidy. The fur caps they 
 wear resemble inverted saucepans. 
 
 Some of the Laplanders on the streets of Tromsoe 
 have come from the encampment outside of town, 
 to sell the trinkets they make. We look over the 
 wares of one and find knife-handles and other articles 
 carved from reindeer horns and walrus tusks, white- 
 bear and reindeer skins, and sealskin boots, bags, 
 and purses, as well as the eye-sockets, ears, and sec- 
 tions of the backbone of the whale ! Curious souvenirs 
 some of them are, if not altogether beautiful. 
 
 An hour's brisk walk brings us to the Lapp encamp- 
 ment, and such an odd village as it is! Everything 
 is very rude and simple. Some families live in tents 
 of reindeer skin stretched over poles, with a curtain 
 for a door and a hole in the top to let out the smoke. 
 Others have huts of stone and earth shaped like an 
 Eskimo hut, with a rude wooden door. 
 
 Let us enter one of the latter. It is about twelve 
 feet high and eight or nine feet in diameter. The 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 47 
 
 sods are held in place on the framework by stones. 
 All around the inside there is a raised step of hard 
 mud. This serves for tables, chairs, and beds, for on 
 it the family eat, sit, and sleep. Their covering at 
 night is a reindeer hide. In the middle of the hut is 
 a pile of stones, which, when heated, form the stove. 
 The fire on the stones is made of juniper twigs, and 
 over it hangs a kettle suspended from three sticks set 
 up together. 
 
 We have been told that if we wish a welcome, a few 
 trifling presents are to be taken along. As soon as we 
 show them, the best place in the hut is offered us. This 
 is exactly opposite the door. If there had been no 
 gifts, then we should have been kept near the door, 
 while our host questioned us about our native land. 
 Now coffee and reindeer milk and flesh are offered us 
 by the father, who always divides the meat among the 
 members of the family. 
 
 The Lapps are small people. Four feet and a half 
 for women, and five feet for men, is a good height. 
 Some have dark hair and blue eyes, but many have 
 light brown hair and greenish gray eyes. The nose 
 is flat, the mouth large, and the skin yellow and smoke- 
 dried. 
 
 The Lapps' clothing is chiefly reindeer-skin worn 
 with the hair inside, though some of the people wear 
 coarse homespun woolen shirts. The skin clothing lasts 
 for years, and is often handed down from one genera- 
 tion to another. The deerskin moccasins have sharp- 
 pointed toes and are bound with red. One could 
 scarcely teU a woman's dress from a man's except by 
 the ength of her jacket and sometimes by the head- 
 
48 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 dress she wears, 
 which resem- 
 bles somewhat 
 the old Greek 
 helmets. When 
 the helmet is 
 not worn, she 
 turns her hair 
 up in an odd 
 little knot. 
 
 Here against 
 one side of the 
 hut stand the 
 skis on which 
 the father in 
 winter tracks 
 the elk or 
 bear— one of the 
 few pastimes 
 of these hardy 
 people. If he 
 is so fortunate as to kill a bear, then indeed he is 
 looked upoo as a hero, and besides being feasted for 
 three days by the whole village, he ever after wears 
 as a sort of trophy an odd decoration in his cap. 
 
 The gayest thing in the hut is the baby's cradle, 
 which hangs by a deerskin strap around the mother's 
 neck. The boat-shaped cradle is itself made of skin, 
 with a sort of hood over the baby's head. Into it the 
 little Lapp is fastened by flaps laced together at the 
 middle. His blanket is soft rabbit-fur. 
 
 When the Lapp family goes to church, the father 
 
 LAPLANDER BOY 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 49 
 
 digs a hole in the snow outside the church and into 
 it baby is dropped. Then the snow is piled over him 
 except for a little hole through which he may breathe, 
 and there he sleeps cozily till the father and mother 
 are ready to start for home. 
 
 Outside the hut nets are spread to dry. Here, too, 
 are thrown fish-heads and whatever food the family 
 and dogs have left. The Laplander loves his dogs 
 and always shares his meat and porridge with them. 
 Without these faithful animals he could never keep 
 his herd of reindeer together, for often the deer must 
 go far in search of moss and hay. 
 
 The herd of the Tromsoe encampment numbers be- 
 tween four and five thousand. The dogs must help 
 keep all these animals in one place until all are moved 
 to new pastures, when the dogs must drive them. 
 It is the dogs, also, that keep away the savage wolves 
 always lurking about watching for a chance to kill a deer. 
 
 Most of the deer are now gone with their keepers 
 and the dogs many miles inland, but enough are left 
 to supply the encampment with milk, butter and 
 cheese. The herd has just been driven in, for this 
 is milking day. The reindeer, as you know, are 
 milked but twice a week, and in some cases only once. 
 
 One of the women throws a lasso over one horn 
 of the deer to be milked and fastens it, and the animal 
 stands quite still. A wooden scoop is held in one 
 hand and the milking is done with the other. The 
 scoop seems a very little dish to hold all the milk, but 
 some deer, we must remember, give less than a coffee- 
 cupful of milk. It is so rich, however, that water 
 must be added before it is used. 
 
50 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 The milk is poured into a wooden keg with a cover, 
 and a skin bag is filled for those who are to take the 
 home herd out to pasture to-morrow. Little butter 
 is made, and that little is almost like tallow. The 
 milk is mostly made into cheese, or dried. For dry- 
 ing, the milk is heated and the cream skimmed into 
 a bladder and hung up to dry. The dried cream is 
 called kappa, and is considered a great dainty. Stirred 
 into hot water, it forms a porridge. In winter the 
 milk is frozen into solid blocks and kept for months. 
 For the cheese, rennet is added to the milk. When 
 curded and dried it is packed in round wooden boxes 
 and hung up in the smoke of the hut to be kept for 
 winter. It, too, is considered a delicacy. 
 
 The Lapps have but few table articles ; the most 
 important are their spoons, which are either of silver 
 or carved reindeer horn. Each member of the family 
 carries his spoon in a little sack, and at meal time 
 takes it out with care. When the meal is over all the 
 washing it gets is given it with the owner's tongue, 
 after which it is slipped back into its bag until the next 
 meal. What an easy way of washing dishes! The 
 plates are treated in quite as novel a way, being wiped 
 with the fingers. 
 
 The short summer is a very busy time for the Lapps. 
 The hay for the deer must be cut and dried. It is 
 placed in little stacks ten or twelve feet high with 
 poles run through it to prevent its being blown away. 
 All the wood must be cut in the summer, and the 
 reindeer moss gathered before the heavy snows fall. 
 The fish, too, must be caught and salted for winter 
 use, and the shoe-grass dried. This shoe-grass the 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 51 
 
 Lapps put into their deerskin moccasins when obUged 
 to travel over rough, stony ground, and also n winter 
 to keep out the cold. 
 
 Besides all this, the pine-bark salt must be prepared 
 while a hole can be dug in the ground. These people 
 
 go south and 
 gather the inner 
 bark of the pine- 
 tree, separate it 
 into several thin 
 layers, and dry 
 it in the sun. It 
 is then put into 
 boxes made of 
 the fresh outer 
 bark of the pine 
 and buried for 
 a da 3^ in the 
 earth while afire 
 is made over it. 
 When dug up the 
 bark has turned a bright red, and tastes sweet. It 
 is used like salt, to season food. 
 
 The Lapps raise a few vegetables and fruits, but 
 these cannot be depended upon. In the gardens 
 here we notice rhubarb, currants and blackberries, 
 radishes, small potatoes and barley. Fruit bears 
 only one year in three, and often the barley does not 
 get ripe, so short is the summer. The ice breaks up in 
 May or June and freezes again in September. Nine 
 or ten weeks must see the rye, oats, and barley both 
 planted and harvested. 
 
 A BURDEN BEARER 
 
52 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 When the Laplander moves, as he does so often, 
 the re'ndeer must carry what tents the encamp- 
 ment possesses. It is harder to move in summer 
 than :"n winter, for then the deer must carry the 
 loads on the r backs instead of drawing them in sledges. 
 On curious pack-saddles, made of two pieces of wood 
 rounded to fit the deer's back, the load is balanced. 
 Several loaded deer are then tied together. Before 
 setting out, the master whispers in the leader's ear 
 the place to which they are going, and the stops to 
 be made on the way, firmly believing the animal un- 
 derstands it all. 
 
 The reindeer draws his master from place to place 
 on a low, boat-shaped sledge. It is lined with furs 
 and is usually large enough only for one, or at most 
 two. The harness is of deerskin and is very simple. 
 Sometimes it is merely a skin strap fastened to one 
 horn for a rein, and a collar with straps which fasten 
 to the sledge. In spite of its awkward appearance, 
 the reindeer is a swift and sturdy traveler, often 
 going a hundred miles a day. How fortunate this 
 is for the Laplanders, for their winter home is far 
 south, in ^^weden, where moss is more plentiful. They 
 once went to Russia, but there the deer were taken 
 from them, and had to be bought back at auction. 
 In Sweden, as in Norway, these poor people are more 
 kindly treated. 
 
 But Tromsoe, with its Lapps, is only one of the 
 interesting points of this Norwegian tour, and Ham- 
 merfest, the most northern town of the world, awaits 
 us, From Tromsoe to Hammerfest is almost a day's 
 journey by steamer. The coast is very dreary and 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 53 
 
 desolate. Glaciers appear often, and the trees have 
 become 'ewer and smaller Only small birches and 
 junipers are to be seen. The grass grows in patches 
 little bigger than a newspaper; yet these plots are 
 called meadows. Does anyone wonder that every 
 blade of grass is so carefully gathered? 
 
 The air becomes colder, and here and there we 
 see blocks of ice floating in the water. Soon we 
 pass genuine icebergs, and after a little are able to 
 see whence they 
 come. Down one 
 of these dreary 
 mountains flows 
 a glacier, such 
 as we have often 
 seen since leav- 
 ing the Lofodens. 
 But in this high 
 latitude the air is 
 not warm enough 
 to melt it before 
 it reaches the 
 foot of the 
 mountain, so it 
 slowly slides ^^^'^'^^ ™^ mountains 
 
 down into the sea and there breaks up into icebergs. 
 This is the Jokel (Yo'kel) glacier, and the onty one 
 in Norway which reaches the ocean before melting. 
 
 Away up here in this region of perpetual snow, 
 of glaciers, and dreary mountains, is a copper mine. 
 It is the most northern one in the world successfully 
 worked. Five hundred men are employed here. 
 
 
 
 
 - .-■'* 
 
 ^^%^^ 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 ■^^^^^ 
 
 ^1 
 
 
 
 .j^^H 
 
 w 
 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 ■m^^ShI 
 
 
54 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 THE NORTHERNMOST TOWN IN THE WORLD 
 
 And now we steam into the harbor of Hammerfest, 
 the most northern town in the world. How different 
 from reading about it 'n our geographies is the actual 
 be'ng here ! There are ful y fifty vessels in the har- 
 bor, flying English, German, Russian, Swedish, and 
 American flags, as well as Norwegian craft of every 
 description. Here is an -English vessel unloading 
 coal, there a Russian one from Archangel which 
 has bravely plowed its way through the stormy Arctic 
 seas with its cargo of flour. I will return laden 
 with cod-liver oil. Hammerfest has a thriving oil 
 trade with Spitzbergen and Russia. 
 
 Here are other vessels taking on cargoes of dried 
 or salted cod, cod-liver oil, sealskins or whale oil, 
 for Hammerfest is one of the chief fish-markets of 
 the world. Here are brought not only the cod, whale, 
 and other fish caught by Hammerfest fishermen, 
 but also a goodly number of those caught much 
 farther south. Everywhere along the shore here, as 
 in Tromsoe and the Lofodens, are fish hung up on 
 frames to dry. Indeed, there are fish everywhere! 
 The beach' is covered w th them, and even the air 
 smells fishy. In Hammerfest one eats fish, drinks 
 fish, smells fish, and breathes fish. If there were no 
 fish, there would be no Hammerfest. 
 
 While Hammerfest is only about sixty miles from 
 the North Cape, yet its harbor is sheltered and its 
 shipping safe. Although a thousand miles north 
 of Christiania — whose harbor, we found, "s frozen 
 four months in the year — the port of Hammerfest 
 is never frozen, for even hor3 the warmth of the Gu.f 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 55 
 
 Stream is felt. This, however, is about the hmit of 
 its influence, for not far to the north it is lost amid 
 the Arctic ice. This ocean current brings these 
 northern dwellers a gift from southern lands in the 
 driftwood it bears upon its bosom — trunks of palm 
 trees and giant ferns. 
 
 Away up here is a town of 3,000 people, yet after 
 all not so far remote from the rest of the world, for 
 a telegraph line gives direct communication with 
 Christiania, and so with foreign countries. Here, 
 too, are schools, a church, and a weekly newspaper. 
 On the streets we see fishermen, sailors, Russian 
 captains with long beards, and Finns and Norwegians 
 in the dress of other lands. 
 
 The spot on which the town is built, however, 
 is barren. There are no trees — only bare rock. The 
 streets are narrow. The principal one winds to suit 
 the curve of the shore. There are many warehouses 
 and a few fine houses, though most of them are of 
 wood. 
 
 Hammerfest has a hospital with fifteen beds. This 
 is especially for fishermen, whose dangerous calling 
 takes them out in the severest season of the year. 
 Nuns, who have given their lives to this good work, 
 are the nurses. Sometimes, too, the hospital ship 
 of the British Missionary Society comes into the 
 harbor. Its cost was $50,000, and it is used solely 
 in the great fishing region which stretches for six 
 hundred miles around the North Cape and the west 
 coast of Norway. Last year over eleven thousand 
 patients were treated, and forty-five tons of good 
 books were distributed among: them. 
 
56 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 In this most northern town is the meridian shaft 
 which tells the number of degrees between it and 
 that other meridian shaft at the mouth of the Danube 
 River. It is a round granite column with a globe 
 resting above its capital. 
 
 We must, of course, catch a glimpse of the midnight 
 sun, which does not once set from May 13th to July 
 29th, and which, when once he hides his face, does 
 not appear from November 21st to Januar}^ 21st. 
 But this long night is relieved in Hammerfest by the 
 electric light, which is kept constantly burning during 
 this season, although, as at Tromsoe, the sky is no 
 darker than ours at twilight. The beautiful Aurora 
 Borealis, too, lights up the winter sky with its stream- 
 ers of rosy light. 
 
 Directions here are quite as confusing as the time 
 of day. To see the sun in the north at midnight, 
 watch it ascend without . having dipped out of sight, 
 and circle about in the heavens through the day, is 
 bewildering to one accustomed to see it rise in the 
 east and set in the west. 
 
 When this summer sun. does smile upon the North- 
 land, all Me quickly responds. Plants sometimes 
 grow three inches in a single day. Vegetables and 
 fruits mature in six weeks. Flowers do not close 
 in sleep. The sea-gulls and other birds fly all night 
 upon their way. We have even seen a gentleman light 
 his cigar by the sun's rays with the aid of a sun glass. 
 
 It is three o'clock when our steamer leaves Ham- 
 merfest, for it is a seven-hour voyage to the North 
 Cape, and we must be there in time to row ashore 
 from the vessel before midnight. We wish to stay 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 57 
 
 only long enough to see the midnight sun from this 
 most northern rim of Europe, for the Cape and its 
 island are uninhabited except for the sea-fowl that 
 make it their home. 
 
 The waters of the Arctic Ocean are clear and of a 
 beautiful blue. The air is pure, and we are always 
 within sight of glaciers. The wind is very strong, 
 so that it is difficult to walk from stern to prow of our 
 ship. Regularly, even during the winter, freight steam- 
 ers make the trip around the Cape to Vladso, on the 
 Arctic Coast. It seems wonderful that their crews 
 can endure the terrible cold and storms of the winter 
 night off this dreary shore. 
 
 The North Cape is on the Mageroe (Ma'ger-6-eh), 
 the last island of Norway's Rampart. It is washed by 
 the long, sweeping waves of the Atlantic, and by the 
 stormy waters of the Arctic. The Cape is a mass 
 of bluish-gray slate rock 1,000 feet high, with sides 
 deeply cleft and sloping directly down into the sea. 
 Down its side slowly moves a glacier. 
 
 There is no wharf at which the steamer may tie up, 
 so we are rowed ashore in a small boat, and clamber 
 over the rocks till we come to the foot of the cliff on 
 the east side. Here is a path to the top beside which 
 a strong rope is passed through iron rings fastened 
 to the rock by heavy staples. The first part of the 
 way is easy climbing, but soon it becomes very steep 
 and difficult. The last part of the ascent is over a 
 mossy slope. The way to the summit is marked by 
 a line of white posts joined by a wire. 
 
 Off to the east is Bird Island, with its cliff more 
 than a thousand feet high. Here the sea-gulls and 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 59 
 
 other birds gather by thousands on the rocky cliffs, 
 and utter the most deafening cries when disturbed. 
 To the north Hes the dark Polar Sea which seems to 
 have such a charm for explorers. This is about as 
 far north as any but these brave men ever attempt 
 to go. 
 
 Although the Cape is only about eighteen degrees 
 from the North Pole, we find here a few bluebells, for- 
 get-me-nots, and bright yellow Arctic poppies, along 
 with the dwarf-birch, which, though a hundred years 
 old, seldom grows more than a foot in height. We 
 must remember, however, that it is now the summer 
 season and this is the coast where still a tiny breath 
 of the Gulf Stream's warmth reaches, brought by the 
 sea winds. In winter the north of Norway, especially 
 at a distance from the coast, is a most desolate region. 
 
 On the top of the cliff is a brown granite column 
 to mark King Oscar's visit here many years ago, 
 and a beacon to commemorate the German Emperor's 
 visit a number of years later. 
 
 Now a rocket is fired from the steamer, to tell us 
 that if we wish to see the midnight sun from this far 
 northern spot we must be watchful. As we turn to 
 the north, there, seemingty about twenty feet above 
 the horizon, the sun rests for a few moments, then 
 slowly rises to begin another dsij. We hasten down, 
 the cliff and back to the steamer. 
 
 Before we know it the four days of the return voyage 
 are at an end, and our vessel again enters Trondhjem 
 Harbor. We have finished the second part of our 
 Norwegian tour. The beautiful fjord land, the his- 
 toric groimd of Norway, now awaits us. Molde 
 
60 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 Fjord comes again into view, and here the steamer 
 is about ready to start for the south. 
 
 QEIRANQER 
 
 To the south of Molde Hes Geiranger Fjord, one 
 of the grandest in Norway. The fjord is not so 
 long as many, and is yery narrow, being nowhere 
 more than a few yards wide; yet its sides rise almost 
 perpendicularly to a height of 5,000 feet. So steep 
 are their gray granite slopes that seemingly a cat 
 could scarcely climb them. At certain points a stone 
 
 dropped from the 
 top of the preci- 
 pice must fall 
 directty into the 
 fjord. 
 
 Thmk of sailing 
 for miles through 
 this awful chasm! 
 
 Geiranger 
 abounds in water- 
 falls — eyen in this 
 land of falls the 
 fjord is famed for 
 its great number. 
 We are seldom 
 out of sight of 
 them, and often several are to be seen at once. 
 Some are lost in spray before they reach the 
 fjord, while others seem to drop directly from 
 the clouds. Here is a beautiful one. Its streams 
 cross and recross, separate and unite many times, 
 
 WATERFALLS EVERYWHERE 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 61 
 
 forming a network of silver threads lijke a bit 
 of rare lacework spread on the side of the dark 
 precipice. On the opposite wall is Pulpit Rock, 
 and very much like an old-fashioned pulpit it looks. 
 Here and there, on a little ledge of these steep 
 mountainsides, some brave Norseman has built his 
 home. A wearisome climb it must be up the path 
 for two thousand feet or more; yet the farmer is 
 obliged, we are sure, to come down this steep cliff 
 often, for here at its foot is his boathouse, while just 
 outside is moored a neat boat with quaint red 
 sails. His boat Is as necessary to him as his log hut, 
 for his poor little farm alone will not support his 
 family, and he must eke out a living by fishing. 
 
 HERRING FISHERIES 
 
 From Geiranger Fjord to the southern coast of 
 Norway stretches the great herring ground. This 
 fjord region is as famed for herring as the Lofodens 
 for cod. The herring, like the cod, is mostly sent 
 to other countries, while the mackerel arid haddock 
 are kept for home use. 
 
 There are three herring seasons — spring, summer, 
 and winter. The winter is the most important season. 
 The herring do not stay in the same place throughout 
 the season. When a shoal appears, word is sent to 
 the fishermen. To discover their presence in the 
 daytime a submarine telescope four or five feet long 
 is placed in the water. At night a piece of lead is 
 fastened to a cord and let down into the sea. The 
 fish can be felt moving it as they swim about. Then 
 boats are launched, and the herring season begins. 
 
62 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 Thousands of men and hundreds upon hundreds of 
 fishing boats are engaged each year, and each year 
 milhons of herring are sent to other countries. Quanti- 
 ties of the herring exported are pickled. 
 
 Salmon also is found in abundance in the fjord- 
 country, chiefly in the rivers. The salmon fishing 
 is largely in the hands of foreigners. These fish are 
 very shy and hard to catch. To decoy them, white 
 marks and stripes are painted on the rocks along the 
 fjords and rivers, and planks painted white are floated 
 in the water, to imitate waterfalls ; for the waters near 
 the falls are the favorite haunt of the salmon. They 
 are then caught in nets. 
 
 Salmon is a favorite dainty in Norway, where it is 
 called lax. On the steamers and in the hotels of the 
 larger towns salmon is served in all sorts of ways — 
 boiled, fried, broiled, smoked, in salad, jelly, and 
 pudding. 
 
 THE LARGEST GLACIER IN THE WORLD 
 
 To the south of Geiranger lies another wonderful re- 
 gion, a region of fjord and mountain and glacier. Af- 
 ter sailing to the head of beautiful Eid Fjord we leave 
 the . steamer and visit Justedal (Yoos'teh-dal), a 
 mountain nearly 8,000 feet in height which bears 
 upon its summit the greatest snow-mantle of all 
 Europe. Think of 600 square miles of snow that 
 never melts! From this vast snow mass — called 
 the Justedalsbrae — several huge glacier streams flow 
 down the mountainsides in diiTerent directions. 
 
 This glacier of Justedalsbrae is six times as large as 
 the largest Swiss glacier. Like most Norwegian gla- 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 63 
 
 ciers, it lies lower than the Swiss glaciers, and so is 
 easier to reach, for there is less mountain-climbing 
 necessary. The reason for this is easily seen. The 
 climate of Norwegian valleys is so much colder than 
 that of the Swiss that the glaciers flow m.uch farther 
 
 IN A NORWEGIAN FJORD 
 
 down the mountainsides before melting. The ice 
 of this glacier almost reaches the sea. 
 
 There is a constant groaning sound made by the 
 glacier, caused by the breaking apart of huge 
 blocks of ice in its slow decent. What seems at a 
 distance like a little bank of snow is probably a wall 
 of ice eighty or a hundred feet high. What look like 
 wrinkles to us are crevasses or chasms hundreds of feet 
 
64 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 deep, and the seeming puff of smoke which now and 
 then comes from it is really an avalanche of snow and 
 ice. Along its edge are rocks and boulders which it 
 has torn from the solid rock wall of the mountain 
 on its way down. We have no wish to venture over 
 this dangerous ice-river with its yawning gaps and 
 falling ice masses. Some travelers do venture, how- 
 ever. There are men who act as guides, and who seem 
 utterly fearless in these dangerous places. 
 
 SOGNE (SOQ'NEH) 
 
 To one who loves grand and awful scenery, Sogne 
 Fjord, to the south of Eid, is the gem of all Norwegian 
 fjords. It is the longest and deepest fjord in Nor- 
 way, and sends off the greatest number of arms. The 
 depth of the fjord is in some parts 4,000 feet. Then 
 think of sailing for a hundred miles between per- 
 pendicular cliffs in many places 5,000 feet high! 
 The barrenness of Sogne's rocky shores adds much 
 to their solemnity and grandeur. 
 
 Everywhere are deep gorges filled with masses 
 of snow, or with mighty glaciers which almost reach 
 the fjord before melting. Often there is no sign of 
 life anywhere upon the steep shore. The mountains 
 rise silent, grim, and forbidding! The stillness op- 
 presses one. Seldom do we see pasture lands, orchards, 
 or cornfields. 
 
 Now we enter one of the finger-tips of this arm 
 of the sea, which ends in the famous Laerdal Gorge. 
 We leave the steamer and ride up this ravine. Here 
 the Laerdal River has cut its way amid cliffs which 
 rise on either side to a height of nearly 5,000 feet. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 65 
 
 The space between these mountainsides is scarcely 
 wide enough for the river as it dashes and foams 
 along, almost deafening one with its roar. The only 
 place for a road through this narrow valley is on the 
 brow of the steep precipice. Here a roadway has 
 been cut out of the solid rock and flanked by boulders. 
 
 When this roadway was laid out, the engineers 
 had to be lowered over the cliffs by ropes. It is 
 enough to take one's breath away to be whirled 
 around the sharp turns of the river while driving. 
 On one side are towering cliffs, on the other the preci- 
 pice at the foot of which the Laerdal seethes and 
 foams. 
 
 Upon emerging from this valley, on our return, 
 we are glad to stop for a rest at the little village where 
 the river empties into the fjord, for this scenery, so 
 grand and awful, causes a terrible strain upon one's 
 nerves. And there is grander to come. 
 
 A few more hours on Sogne bring us to that 
 branch called Naerofjord, counted the most sublime 
 of all these ocean arms. Here we sail beneath 
 towering cliffs where a deep twdlight surrounds us. 
 The captain tells us that for most of the year the 
 sun never shines down into these awful depths. On 
 looking up we can see only a narrow rift of sky like 
 a ribbon floating far above us. To gain some idea 
 of the vastness of these mountains one must com- 
 pare them with objects upon their sides. Cattle 
 grazing here seem to the naked eye like mice, while 
 a church steeple appears no more than a foot high. 
 
 So winding is the Naerofjord that often the cliffs 
 seem to close before us and we imagine the head of 
 
66 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 the fjord is reached, but a sudden turn in our course 
 opens up vast distances beyond. The waters are 
 a ])eautiful green. It is not known to what the color 
 is due — whether to their great depth or to the clear- 
 ness of the air. 
 Even the breasts 
 of the white sea- 
 gulls seem thited 
 with green when 
 they fly near the 
 surface of the 
 water. 
 
 After a few 
 hours on Naero- 
 fjord we come to 
 its head, where 
 the fjord chasm 
 is continued in 
 N a e r o d a 1, or 
 Naero Valley. 
 This valley, also, is so deep that the sun reaches it 
 for only a few hours even on the longest day of 
 summer, 'and most of the year not at all. 
 
 The valley is really a part of the fjord, only with- 
 out water. Once the ocean must have entered it, 
 as now it enters the fjord. In places the mountains 
 rise five thousand feet without a tree or blade of 
 grass upon their sides. One curious mountain is 
 called the Jordalsnut. It is shaped like a giant 
 thimble, and glitters in the sunlight, for here the 
 valley widens a little. Up the valley winds a road- 
 way, blasted out of the solid rock in places, and built 
 
 THE VALLEY 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 67 
 
 up everywhere with masonry. This road is so steep 
 for horses that tourists, if able to do so, are required 
 to chmb it on foot. 
 
 There is a mighty waterfall on each side of the 
 road here, and although the valley winds and turns 
 constantly, one or the other fall is in sight for a great 
 distance. These two waterfalls are the most beauti- 
 ful of the nineteen that we have counted in the Naero- 
 fjord. Though surpassing even the celebrated Giess- 
 bach in Switzerland, they are not looked upon as 
 equal to several others in Norway. 
 
 Not far from the Naerodal is a road with nearly 
 as interesting scenery as this valley itself. The 
 drive has twenty-seven turns in only a short dis- 
 tance, and at each turn some new and beautiful 
 picture comes into view. 
 
 BERGEN 
 
 From Sogne we pass on to Bergen, the "Rainy 
 City." It is said that out of the 365 days in the 
 year, Bergen has 134 rainy days, 26 snowy days, 
 and 40 or more foggy ones! For this reason the 
 neighborhood is sometimes laughingly called "The 
 Fatherland of Drizzle." 
 
 There are many amusing stories told about Ber- 
 gen's rainy weather. A Bergen seaman once came 
 into his native port when the sun was shining, and, 
 never having seen it shine there before, thought he 
 must be in the wrong place, and immediately sailed 
 out again. Bergen horses, it is claimed, shy at a 
 person who does not carry an umbrella. It is said, 
 too, that a rain-coat and umbrella are the first presents 
 given to a child born in this ^'weeping city." 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 69 
 
 The town is built upon a hill sloping directly from 
 the harbor. The locality is quite different from the 
 hills around Sogne, for it has green meadows and 
 orchards. A lake on this hillside supplies the city 
 with water, through pipes. 
 
 Bergen harbor is long and narrow and has a line 
 of wharves and warehouses for nearty its whole length. 
 Bergen is the second city of Norway in population 
 and is Norway's chief fish-market for all the world. 
 
 The boats which bring the fish from Lofoden Islands 
 and other points at the north have very high bows, 
 so that when the fish is piled high about the mast the 
 helmsman can still see the bows to steer by. They 
 usually have a large square sail, gaily colored. This 
 is soaked in a preparation of oil and tar, to prevent 
 mildew. 
 
 Ships from nearly every country in the world are 
 loading or unloading at the wharves. The cargo 
 they bring may be flour, grain, coal, machinery, 
 cotton, or livestock, but the cargo they take away 
 is sure to be herring, dried or salted cod, cod-liver 
 oil, or whale-oil. Hundreds of thousands of barrels 
 of pickled herring are exported each year. 
 
 The warehouses in which the fish are stored stand 
 very close together. They have sharp-pointed, red- 
 tiled roofs, and are very old and quaint. The first 
 warehouses in Bergen were built hundreds of years 
 ago by the Germans. Merchants of the famous 
 Hanseatic League came here and gained control of 
 all the wood and fish trade of Norwa}^, compelling 
 all Norwegians to send their fish first to Bergen. 
 Thousands of German traders from Hamburg, Lubeck 
 
70 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 and Cologne came to Bergen to exchange their wares 
 for fish and wood. 
 
 The Hanseatic League, let us remember, was in 
 those days very powerful. Although the League 
 has not existed for centuries, yet the fish-trade still 
 centers in this quaint old city. Germany still car- 
 ries on a rich trade with Bergen and supplies Norway 
 with most of its foreign goods. 
 
 Here stands one of the old Hanse houses of the 
 fourteenth century. Its second story contains curios 
 of those olden times. The scales and weights are 
 of two kinds — one kind for buying and one for selling. 
 Here also are ancient German clocks and watches 
 patterned after the ^'Nuremberg eggs," lanterns, 
 snuff-boxes, candlesticks, drinking cups and tankards, 
 machines for cutting cabbage, and lamps in which cod- 
 liver oil was burned. The third story has offices 
 and bedrooms. These beds are even more curious 
 than the Dutch beds. They are like the berths of 
 a ship, closed on one side with hinged or sliding doors. 
 On the other side they have shutters opening to a 
 passage beyond, so that the maids could make the 
 beds without going into the rooms. 
 
 Early each Saturday morning the fish-market opens. 
 Let us visit it. On the shore 150 or 200 fishing- 
 boats are drawn up, and there the owners cry their 
 wares. All Bergen must be out to buy fish, judging 
 by the crowd around the railing. There seems to 
 be more cod than anything else, but we see some 
 fine large halibut. Some must surely weigh 150 
 pounds. These are cut in large slices, as steak is 
 cut in our home markets. Besides the cod and 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 71 
 
 halibut; there are herrings, flounders, and haddocks. 
 And what wrangling there is over prices! The 
 buyers try to beat down the fishermen, and the fisher- 
 men put up their prices so they may be beaten down 
 and still sell for a good price. The two even come 
 to angry words sometimes, but they do not lay it 
 up against each other. The prices really are ridicu- 
 lously low; for a small sum one can buy fish enough 
 to last a family a week. 
 
 But fish is not the only thing sold on fish-market 
 day. Here are long tables of vegetables, fruit and 
 flowers. Here 
 and there are 
 rosy girls with 
 firkins of butter 
 swinging from a 
 wooden yoke 
 over the shoul- 
 der. A pint of 
 berries, a bunch 
 of flowers, a 
 string of onions, 
 is often all one 
 person will bring, 
 yet nothing is too 
 small to be sold 
 at market. There 
 is no time wasted waiting to sell these trifles, for 
 while the good women wait for a customer, they sit 
 and knit stockings or darn old ones. They seem 
 almost as busy as the German women of the Black 
 Forest, who plait straw as they walk along the streets. 
 
 GOING TO MABKET 
 
tZ A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 Such quaint dress as one sees here! Wooden 
 shoes, with no heel and only a little toe, are worn by 
 the peasants. In front of us is a young man in knee- 
 breeches, a jacket with open rolling collar, and a 
 quaint hat. Over there we see a group of girls in 
 gay scarlet petticoats and black jackets. But here 
 is the queerest dress of all. It is the Saeterdal cos- 
 tume of trousers that reach to the arm-pits, and a 
 short waistcoat trimmed with rows and rows of 
 silver buttons. The fish-women wear blue woolen 
 gowns, gaudy handkerchiefs, thick mufflers, and a 
 round cap with a white band around the forehead. 
 
 Bergen is a busy city. It has churches, banks, 
 hotels, shops, museums, art-galleries, theaters and 
 parks. Its streets are noisy with the many drays, 
 wagons, and carriages rattling over the stony streets. 
 People are hurrying this way and that. Children 
 are on their way to school with books in knapsacks 
 thrown over their backs. 
 
 Bergen has excellent schools. In the common 
 schools church-history and the catechism are taught. 
 Besides the common branches, the boys have athletics 
 and milit§,ry drill to prepare them for the army. 
 School-hours are from nine to twelve and from three 
 to five. The industrial school is for girls between 
 the ages of seven and sixteen. One half the time is 
 given to study, and the other half to needlework. 
 It is interesting indeed to see five hundred girls 
 hemming, darning, cutting garments, and knitting! 
 They are very ambitious to learn, and very pains- 
 taking with their work. 
 
 After a day of sight-seeing we are glad to get back 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 73 
 
 to our rooms and rest. Our hotel is a roomy two- 
 story building with a steep red-tiled roof, and dia- 
 mond-paned windows which open out and have boxes 
 of flowers in them. The room given us is clean, but 
 very plain. The chief thing in it is the bed. And 
 such an array of pillows and coverings we have never 
 seen before. The bed itself is small — very small. 
 There is first a mattress, while on that, at the 
 head, is a wedge-shaped pillow sloping from eight 
 or nine inches in thickness to one inch. On top of 
 this is a broad, square pillow and over all a sheet too 
 small to tuck in (Norwegian sheets never tuck in), 
 another pillow, loose blankets ready at any moment 
 to slip off, and finally a fourth pillow, a coverlet and 
 an eider-down puff! What work it must be to make 
 a Bergen bed and be sure that each pillow is in its 
 proper place! 
 
 For dinner there are ten kinds of cheese and nine 
 kinds of sausages on the table, besides smoked reindeer 
 tongue, sardines, smoked salmon, and flat-bread. 
 In addition to all this, beef is brought in. It has 
 been finely chopped and mixed with suet, eggs, milk, 
 cracker-crumbs and spice, and fried in balls. For 
 dessert we have a dish altogether new to us. It is 
 thick sour milk mixed with sweetened bread-crumbs 
 and fruit syrup, and served with sweet cream. 
 
 Our breakfast is equall}^ hearty. It consists of 
 boiled and fried salmon, hacked steak, omelet, four 
 kinds of cheese, flat-bread, pickled herring and coffee. 
 Luncheon brings hot and cold fish, chopped meat 
 rolled into balls with rich gravy, white and brown 
 
74 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 bread, red cheese in large balls, and our choice of 
 tea or coffee. 
 
 The shops of Bergen are among the finest in Nor- 
 way; that is, they contain just the things tourists 
 wish to buy as souvenirs. The shopkeepers, too, 
 are very polite and honest. Indeed, so honest are 
 the Norwegian people that one noted traveler, who 
 could not speak the language, used to hold out a 
 handful of money in payment for lodging or souvenirs 
 and let the people take their own pay. He felt sure 
 he would never be cheated. 
 
 Let us enter this shop. If our purses were only 
 twice as full, we might perhaps go away satisfied. 
 The most prominent articles of sale in this, as in 
 all Bergen shops, are umbrellas and rain-coats, for 
 nothing is so popular as these, not only for birthday 
 gifts, but also for confirmation presents. But as 
 we are well supplied, we turn from them to what in- 
 terests us more. 
 
 Here are quaint old tankards, beautiful enamel 
 silver brooches, filigree- chains and bracelets, and 
 costly eiderdown cloaks, rugs, and quilts. We see 
 a great deal of the colored embroidery used on girdles 
 and bodices, and curious knives carved from wood 
 or made of steel- many of these latter are etched with 
 Norwegian flags. This tray is full of beautiful carved 
 ivories, while over in the corner are dolls in native 
 costume. ' 'Almost as many different costumes as 
 there are in the Black Forest," we cry, and imme- 
 diately decide that dolls must be among the souvenirs 
 we buy. 
 
 Bergen is a gay as well as a busy town. It is the 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 75 
 
 starting point for tourists to Hardanger and Sogne; 
 so through all the tourist season its streets are gay 
 with the costumes of people from other countries. 
 The band plays on Sunday afternoons after church, 
 and then all the best people promenade. There is 
 much merry chatting and happy laughter, but never 
 any disorder. 
 
 Although Bergen is much visited by people from 
 other countries, yet here are still found many quaint 
 and ancient customs. One of them is Flytledager, or 
 Change-day. Change-day is the time servants change 
 their places, and comes the middle of April and the 
 middle of October, since servants here are hired for 
 six months. 
 
 On these days servants leave their old places at 
 two in the afternoon and go to the new at nine in the 
 evening. The few hours between are made use of, 
 you may be sure. The maids all put on their best 
 clothes and spend the afternoon and early evening 
 promenading the streets, where they are joined b}^ 
 their friends. At no other season are Bergen streets 
 gayer than on Change-day. 
 
 Norway has had many illustrious men, but none 
 has given to the world more joy than Bergen's 
 famous son, Ole Bull, the great violinist. Let us 
 visit the cemetery where he lies. A bronze urn five 
 feet high marks the spot where he rests. On it are 
 these words: 
 
 ALL HAIL, THOU BLESSEDEST BARD OF SONG 
 DIVINE THY BOW 
 
 His grave looks out over the beautiful Bergen Bay 
 he loved so well. 
 
OLE BULL, THE FAMOUS VIOLINIST 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 77 
 
 A visit must be paid to his island home, which is 
 still owned by his family. It is not far from the 
 city, and is called Lysoe, or ^^Isle of Light." The 
 old monks gave it this name seven hundred years 
 ago. Lichen-covered boulders and low hills cov- 
 ered with birch, spruce and pine make up the six 
 hundred acres which constitute this beautiful home. 
 
 The house consists of a hall and two or three ser- 
 vants' cottages. The hall itself is yellow with a 
 tower at one corner and a portico in front. Winding 
 stairs lead to the music-room on the second floor. 
 Here the great musician lived on the happiest terms 
 with his peasants and poorer neighbors. Every year 
 he gave them a feast and dance. One of the dainties 
 of the feast was always smbrbrod. The guests always 
 brought their own fiddler. Ole Bull dearly loved 
 to make these people happy. 
 
 We make a special trip to the old church of Bor- 
 gund, wliich, although a good distance away, well 
 repays us. 
 
 It is a wooden building, black with age and also 
 from the coats of tar which have been put upon it 
 to preserve it. In shape it is a little like a Chinese 
 pagoda, its six tiers of roofs being very sloping and 
 its gables tipped with crosses or with the beaks of 
 ancient Viking ships. 
 
 The church was built eight hundred years ago, 
 and is the oldest complete building in Norway. Its 
 width is only twenty feet, while its length is forty 
 feet. The roofs and sides are covered with long 
 shingles having rounded lower edges. Inside, it is 
 open to the roof. The only light which enters is 
 
78 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 through a kind of cloister around its base. There is 
 no longer any service held in this quaint old 
 building. 
 
 AN ENQINEERINQ FEAT 
 
 And now let us see what railroad engineering in 
 Norway is like. Nowhere else can we understand 
 this better than on the road from Bergen to Vos- 
 sevangen, a distance of sixty-seven miles. We learn 
 
 that the trip will 
 take four hours. 
 It seems as 
 though we have 
 only nicely start- 
 ed when suddenly 
 we find ourselves 
 in one of the 
 tunnels for which 
 this road is fa- 
 mous. Another 
 and another — 
 and still another ! 
 In such quick suc- 
 cession do they 
 come that we 
 have to give all our time to counting them. We fear no 
 one will believe us when we say that in the sixty- 
 seven miles we have counted fifty-five tunnels; yet 
 this is actually true! Two trains each way a day 
 are run between these two places. 
 
 The hotel of Vossevangen is rather a pretentious 
 three-story building of modern style with many 
 
 CARRYING BERRIES TO MARKET 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 79 
 
 gables, and a piazza overlooking a pretty lake. To 
 the back rises the wooded slope of a hill. 
 
 Vossevangen is a prosperous place, for it is the 
 market-garden of Bergen. Most of the fruits and 
 vegetables in the Bergen markets came from this 
 little town. As we walk up and down the streets, 
 waiting for the train to Bergen, we see load after load 
 of potatoes, peas, beans, and strawberries and other 
 fruits on their way to the station to be shipped to 
 the Rain}^ City. 
 
 A regiment of soldiers, too, is being sent through 
 Vossevangen. The men wear helmets, and silver- 
 colored ornaments on their gray uniforms, while the 
 officers are dressed in blue and gold. A very jolly 
 company they are, as, like ourselves, they walk up 
 and down the streets. 
 
 The Norwegian army is small, but able to do much 
 brave fighting because of its careful training. There 
 has, however, been no opportunity to try its real 
 strength for many years, for Norway has long en- 
 joyed peace. Norwegian boys receive military drill 
 in many of the schools. Later, the life of a soldier 
 is followed as earnestly as a Norwegian youth fol- 
 lows any calling he chooses. The king is the com- 
 mander-in-chief of the army. 
 
 There is in the Norwegian army a corps of skaters, 
 or skiers. They are armed with repeating rifles. 
 It is said they can move as rapidly as the best trained 
 cavalry, and have astonished the officers of other 
 nations in their practice contests. They can travel 
 on the ice a distance of eighty miles a day, carrying 
 ail their equipments. 
 
80 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 Every able-bodied young man when he reaches 
 the age fixed by law must serve in the army. The 
 only exception made is in the case of the men of 
 Finnmark, the northernmost province of Norway. 
 The Government considers that the Finnmarkers 
 have enough to do to wrest their living from the 
 frozen soil of that Arctic land, so they are exempted 
 from the long service required of others. 
 
 HARDANQER 
 
 One day's journey from Bergen brings us to the 
 last fjord we shall visit — beautiful Hardanger, the 
 fjord most visited by tourists. The captain of our 
 steamer tells us it is 68 miles long, but with all its 
 arms it measures 140 miles. 
 
 From an island outside the fjord a little boat brings 
 our Norwegian pilot, who climbs the rope ladder 
 like a cat. Steering a vessel between these many 
 islands is a difficult task, but he takes the helm as 
 though it were the simplest thing in the world. 
 
 And now it is lunch time; but in order that we may 
 not miss too much of the beautiful scenery, the steamer 
 slows up until we are on deck again. Partly by 
 islands and partly by points of land locked together, 
 Hardanger is divided into a number of sections which 
 seem much like lakes. 
 
 ''How different from Sogne!" all exclaim, as the 
 beautiful view opens out before us. The scenery 
 of Hardanger is famed not only for its grandeur, 
 but for its beauty and variety as well. Countless 
 little islands of green like the one we have passed 
 fill the entrance, while upon Hardanger's highest 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 81 
 
 mountain-top is the snow-mantle of the Folgefond. 
 From this snow-mass descend several glaciers which 
 terminate in leaping, sparkling waterfalls. Lower 
 on the mountainside grow grass and firs, alders and 
 birches, making this fjord much less drear than Sogne. 
 Hardanger has 
 many farms and 
 red- tiled peas- 
 ant cottages 
 upon its lower 
 slopes. Fields of 
 golden grain 
 wave in the sun- 
 light. The water 
 is a beautiful 
 azure, and the 
 sky is bright. 
 Even the faces 
 of the Hardan- 
 ger people are 
 in marked con- 
 trast to those 
 
 of the people of Sogne. Here the peasants seem con- 
 tented and happy, while there they were haggard 
 and worn. 
 
 The Hardanger costume is the gayest and most 
 picturesque of all Norway. The women wear a 
 dark but bright short skirt bordered with bright 
 velvet and tinsel, over which is a long apron, often 
 with gay stripes running crosswise or a border of 
 the Hardanger embroidery now seen in the stores 
 at home. The bright red bodice is cut low and 
 
 MAKING HAY 
 
82 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 heavily beaded in a design looking much like a breast- 
 plate, with dangling disks and ornaments. Under- 
 neath the bodice is a full-sleeved white waist. 
 
 Married women wear a peculiar winged head-dress 
 of white, with crimped cambric fastened close around 
 the face and rolled over a wooden frame. It flares 
 very broadl}^ at the sides, and hangs far down the 
 back. The women often have fancy pockets hang- 
 ing at the side from which they take their knitting 
 as they walk along. The hair of the Hardanger 
 girls is braided with ribbons, and sometimes a little 
 beaded cap is worn. The men of Hardanger wear 
 very wide trousers of coarse homespun, and slouch 
 hats. Their jackets have many silver buttons. The 
 quaint silver jewelry worn by the peasants of this 
 region has many pendent disks 'and crosses. 
 
 As our steamer glides up this long arm of Har- 
 danger, the shores press close together. Steep moun- 
 tains rise on either side. At the head of the fjord 
 nestles the little village of Odde, well-known to 
 tourists. 
 
 In the distance are a number of glaciers, which 
 end in waterfalls, for this valley is an outlet of the 
 Folgefonden glacier, an immense perpetual snow- 
 mass measuring 108 square miles. One of its streams 
 is called the Buarbrae. It flows through a valley so 
 narrow that the glacier fills it completely and stands 
 a wall of ice four or five hundred feet high. At the 
 foot of the glacier are a number of grottoes, out of 
 which the melted glacier flows as a sparkling, dash- 
 ing, foaming waterfall. Over this stream is a wicker 
 bridge which looks too frail to be trusted. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 83 
 
 This is surely the region of waterfalls! Besides 
 the Buarbrae stream there is the Laatefos, one of 
 the grandest falls in Norway, while within sight of 
 Odde is also the Espelandsfos, almost as beautiful 
 as Laatefos. Besides these, only a good day's journey 
 away, we are told, is what some judges hold to be 
 the finest fall in all the country, the Skaeggedalfos. 
 Then, for one who is not afraid of hard climbing, 
 there is the Round Valley Fall to be visited. From 
 the foot of the cataract one can look up and see the 
 water leap over the ledge, over eight hundred feet 
 above, in one great mass, and then dash to spray 
 below. The noise is deafening. The black and frown- 
 ing cliff hangs over one. 
 
 On account of the beautiful scenery surrounding 
 it, the little town of Odde has become famous. It 
 is famous, also, for its violins, the finest being the 
 ''Hardanger." These have six under strings and four 
 upper, the upper tuned either in unison or harmony. 
 
 One would think that so near the great snow-cap 
 of the I^olgefond strawberries would never grow, 
 yet grow they do in surprising quantities. We meet 
 children on the road selling them in green leaf-baskets. 
 
 THE NORWEGIAN PEOPLE 
 
 The men of Norway are rather thickly and strongly 
 built, though not very tall. Both men and women 
 have fair complexions, light, silky hair, and the very 
 bluest of eyes. First cousins, indeed, they must be 
 to the ancient Angles of whom St. Gregory said when 
 he beheld them, "Not Angles but angels!" 
 
 The Norwegians are absolutely honest. If any 
 
84 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 article of our baggage is mislaid we need have no 
 
 fear. It may be a little slow in being returned to 
 
 us, but returned it will surely be, and in good condi- 
 tion. Then, too, 
 
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^m Norwegian shop- 
 
 ^^^^^^^I^^^^^^^^^^^H keepers do 
 
 ^^^^^^r^^^^^^^H^^^H try to take 
 
 ^^^^^ ^^H^^^H vantage 
 
 H^^B#k ^ ^I^^B^I ist- customers, 
 
 ^^^K ^^^ ^^^^^H either in prices 
 
 |^^B%%?^^^^ ^^^H ^^ ^^ making 
 
 I^bF ij^i^l ^^1 change. 
 
 ■j^Ht ^B. ^^ These people 
 
 ^^^W ^.«pM|^ Mli%|r'''''''""'- — "i are courteous, 
 
 ^^^H^^^HpP^i^b I kind ' - hearted, 
 
 i^^P^^ z*^' '* inH^L M ^^^ hospitable. 
 
 W^^g 4' J^^K^^^ m '^^^^ questions 
 
 W m SBm ^^m ^onc e rning 
 
 f JL^ ^^^E ^H routes, historical 
 
 yP|^H|KH^E H places, beautiful 
 
 V?fB|^^H^V ■ scenery, or Nor- 
 
 '^^M^^^^^^V I wegian life are 
 
 ^ — answered po- 
 
 NORWEGiAN WOMAN htely, aud a real 
 
 interest is taken 
 in those who come from other lands. Often the 
 Norwegians put themselves out a great deal to serve 
 travelers. They always set before their guests the 
 best fare at their disposal, though it may be plain. 
 The cordial custom of shaking hands with strangers 
 is followed here in so hearty a way as to make one 
 from another land feel quite at home. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 85 
 
 These descendants of the Vikings show as much 
 perseverance and bravery in batthng with their 
 poor soil and frost-locked lands as did the old sea 
 kings in battling with the waves. Norway stands 
 abreast of the leading countries of the world in cul- 
 ture, education and general advancement, if not in 
 material wealth. No other nation, however, keeps 
 its position with so terrible an effort as Norway, so 
 we should honor and admire the Norwegians for 
 what they have accomplished. 
 
 Although the Norwegian people come much in 
 contact with other nations, they cling to their sim- 
 ple ways, quaint dress, and interesting customs. 
 Even their names are distinctive. If the father's 
 name is Ole Johnson, his oldest son's name will be 
 Ole Oleson, and all the rest of his sons will have Oleson 
 for their surname, and the daughters will bear the 
 name of Olesdatter (Die's daughter). The first grand- 
 son, however, will be named after his grandfather. 
 
 It is not surprising that Norway has produced a 
 long list of noted men, for the disadvantages of soil 
 and climate in this Northland have served to make 
 the people not only brave and hardy, but perserver- 
 ing and thoughtful. These qualities, added to the 
 excellent schools of Norway, give the Norwegians as 
 a nation a very high degree of intelligence. 
 
 NORWEGIAN SCHOOLS 
 
 The schools, although far apart in the thinly settled 
 regions, are excellent. Every child is compelled 
 to attend school, and there are few Norwegians who 
 cannot read and write. German and English are 
 
S6 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 spoken by many of the people. These languages 
 are taught in a number of the schools. There is 
 throughout the land a great respect for education. 
 The handsomest building in a town or village is usually 
 the schoolhouse, and teachers, governesses, and tutors 
 are looked up to with the utmost respect and esteem. 
 
 In the common schools reading, writing, arithmetic, 
 geography, history, Bible history and the catechism 
 are taught. In many schools the boys have gym- 
 nastics and military drill. Once a year all the boys 
 of the public schools unite for a military parade. 
 This is made a gala-day. Some of the schools have 
 bands, which furnish the music, and after the parade 
 the boys are given a grand feast. 
 
 Another great day, though a trying one, in the 
 life of a Norwegian boy or girl is that of the public 
 examination before the parish pastor and the other 
 members of the school committee. Every child over 
 nine must take this examination. In Norway the 
 Church and the schools are very closely connected. 
 Not only the Church but the law forbids any boy or 
 girl being confirmed who has not been sent to school 
 to receive religious teaching, and who cannot read 
 the Bible. 
 
 In many of the wild and remote parts of the coun- 
 try the people are too scattered to maintain a school. 
 In such regions teachers are sent from farm to farm, 
 living with each family for a time in order to teach 
 the children. These home schools are called ^'Am- 
 bulatory Schools." 
 
 In a number of towns industrial schools similar 
 to that of Bergen have been started. Here boys 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 87 
 
 learn the different trades and girls the household 
 arts. Besides these there are agricultural schools, 
 schools of forestry, a military and naval school, an 
 art school, six schools of navigation, and at the head 
 of all the famous University of Norway at Christiania, 
 which has drawn 
 its pupils from 
 nearly all the 
 countries of 
 Europe as well as 
 from the home 
 land. 
 
 Indeed, Norway 
 may justly be 
 proud of her 
 school system, 
 and it is largely 
 to the opportu- 
 nities afforded 
 them for learn- 
 ing that the Nor- 
 wegians owe the self-respect and self-reliance for 
 which they are noted the world over. 
 
 The little folks of Norway are very carefully reared. 
 They are taught to revere the aged, and to look upon 
 the grandfather's blessing as something very serious 
 and important. They respect highly their pastor 
 and teacher, and show them great deference. 
 
 Norwegian babies are rolled up in bandages much 
 like German babies. A Norwegian mother often 
 ties her little one up in a shawl and carries it on her 
 back to the hayfield, but once there the baby is 
 
 NORWEGIAN CniLDREK 
 
88 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 hung to the hmb of a birch or spruce for the wmd to 
 rock to sleep. At home its cradle is often only a 
 box hung from the ceiling by stout cords fastened 
 to the corners. 
 
 As soon as a Norwegian child is old enough to use 
 his little hands at all he is taught to do some useful 
 work. The girls learn to knit, spin and weave upon 
 the large hand-looms still found in many homes. 
 While still very young they learn the simpler pat- 
 terns of the home-made embroidery, lace and bead- 
 ing. They are also taught to make butter and cheese, 
 to cook, and care for the household clothing and pro- 
 visions. Norwegian boys early begin their lessons 
 in gardening, tool-making, and wood-carving. 
 
 The girls dress much like their mothers, with the 
 exception of the head-dress, which is lacking in the 
 girls' costume. The boys' costume closely resembles 
 that of their fathers. Even the very poorest chil- 
 dren have neat clothes to wear to school, for in this 
 the parents take much pride. 
 
 SPORTS AND AMUSEMENTS 
 
 It would almost seem that the Norwegians, with 
 the hard work they are obliged to do, and the dreari- 
 ness of the country, especially in winter, would have 
 few amusements, but such is not the case. These 
 people seem to get much enjoyment out of simple 
 pastimes. The long dark winter is the principal 
 season for pleasure, though the summer has its share. 
 
 The summer season is longer than one would sup- 
 pose. When winter does break up, it vanishes 
 as though by magic, and summer comes with a bound. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 89 
 
 By Ma}^ city people move to their summer homes and 
 a round of pleasure begins. Picnics, fishing, boating, 
 and all kinds of outdoor games make the fjords at 
 this season almost as gay as in the winter. Bathing 
 is always a popular sport, though somewhat 'dangerous 
 for any but good swimmers. The fjords are very 
 deep and the shores ver}^ steep. Sometimes, too, 
 there are jelly-fish about with a poison which stings 
 the skin of the bather. Many of the villas have bath- 
 houses with cages to keep the jelly-fish out. 
 
 In winter and spring the men go in small parties 
 up the steep, snow-covered' mountainsides to hunt 
 bears in the dense forests. In the north and west 
 wild reindeer and the giant elk also are tracked over 
 the snow. Sometimes a Norway elk stands 6^^ feet 
 high and weighs 1,500 pounds. In Norway the elk 
 are more numerous during severe winters than at 
 any other time. It is said they are driven to seek 
 shelter from Russian wolves. The wolf is afraid to 
 cross the metal rails of the Trondhjem-Christiania 
 railway, and the elk is not, so it seeks safety by cross- 
 ing the line. The elk is hvmted with dogs trained for 
 the purpose. 
 
 The fjords, lakes and rivers are very gay in win- 
 ter. Then men, women, and children go out on the 
 ice to skate. They practive fancy figures and high 
 speed skating and often hold contests for prizes. 
 A very pretty sight it must be to see hundreds of 
 people on the ice at night, each carrying his torch. 
 
 One would think that everyone is out for a good 
 time; yet the fishermen come to ply their trade in 
 sober earnest. They appear, however, to have as 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 91 
 
 much fun as anyone. They may be seen pigging 
 almost any day in winter. Pigging is sitting on a 
 sled and pushing it along with two spiked sticks. 
 Over rough ice these fishermen can go faster on a 
 sled than on skates, and can also carry their fishing 
 tackle more easily. They cut holes in the ice through 
 which to fish. This makes skating exceedingly dan- 
 gerous, but danger seems only to make the sport more 
 attractive. 
 
 Sleighing is another favorite pastime in Norway. 
 At Christmas sleighing parties are often formed to 
 ride even the long distance from Christiania to one 
 of the western fjords. Such a ride takes four or five 
 days. Women as well as men enjoy these long sleigh 
 rides in midwinter. 
 
 Great interest is taken in racing, and there are 
 trotting clubs all over the country. Instead of the 
 races being held in mild weather on a ground track, 
 they take place in the winter, on ice. The races 
 usually meet during the second week of February. 
 Then not only do all the villagers go down to the 
 lake to witness the gay scene, but people from all 
 parts come, by rail, by post-road, on foot, and on 
 skis. Norwegian races are as gay as the Derby in 
 England. The quaint, bright dress of both men and 
 women make the scene a festive one, for here are 
 usually to be seen the picturesque peasant costumes 
 from many sections. 
 
 Coasting is another Norwegian amusement. The 
 sled may be long enough only for one, or it may seat 
 eight. Usually it holds only two. The steering is 
 done with a pole fifteen or twenty feet long, held at 
 
92 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 one end in the hand and gripped between the arm 
 and the side. The other end of the pole trails off 
 
 behind over the 
 snow and serves 
 the same purpose 
 as the rudder of 
 a boat. 
 
 The national 
 sport, however, is 
 not skating or 
 racing or coast- 
 ing, but skiing. 
 Skis ^re long, 
 narrow skates 
 turned up at the 
 front end like a 
 toboggan and 
 fastened to the 
 feet by straps. Think of wearing skates ten feet 
 long! It requires infinite skill, too, to use them. 
 They must be kept exactly parallel, or the ends are 
 sure to hit together and trip one up. 
 
 Skis were first used, and are still used, as a means 
 of travel in districts where there are no highways or 
 where the roads are buried under deep snow. On 
 skis one can travel where it would be impossible for 
 a horse or man to walk. Few sports give such op- 
 portunity of showing presence of mind and courage 
 as this. 
 
 A great skiing contest is held near Christiania^ 
 about the middle of February. There are really 
 two contests— a time-race thirteen miles' across coun- 
 
 IN HOLIDAY ATTIRE 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 93 
 
 try, and a leaping race on the slope of a hill, with a 
 lake at its foot. 
 
 Early in the morning of the day on which the leap- 
 ing race occurs, the roads are thronged with people 
 come to witness the leap, or hoprend, as they call it. 
 The slope is 190 yards in length, and the starting- 
 point is 160 feet above the lake, while the terrace from 
 which the leap is made is two-thirds of the way down. 
 The whole descent takes only from seven to nine 
 seconds. The leap here is 90 feet, but 100 in some 
 places is not uncommon, and even 120 was once made. 
 
 Dancing is popular in Norway, and in some parts 
 forms almost the only entertainment at the long 
 winter evening parties, at fairs, and at weddings. 
 There are few Norwegians who cannot dance, and 
 many are very pretty dancers, though the Norwegian 
 dances are very unlike ours. 
 
 HOLIDAYS 
 
 Norway seems to have its share of holidays. Na- 
 tional Independence Day, the day corresponding to 
 our Fourth of July, comes on May 17th. It celebrates 
 the freeing of Norway from Danish rule, and is ob- 
 served much as is our Fourth, with cannons, fire- 
 works, and big parades, but without the fire-crackers. 
 
 Everywhere on Independence Day flags are seen, 
 as in fact they are on nearly all fete-days and even 
 on birthdays. The Norwegians make more of their 
 flag than even we make of our Stars and Stripes. 
 They seem to think that people of other lands must 
 love it, too, for everywhere it is displayed in the shops, 
 among souvenirs for foreigners. 
 
 In this interesting country there are two Christ- 
 
94 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 mases — one on the 25th of December, as with us, 
 and another on the 21st of June — only neither is 
 called Christmas. The winter holiday is Jule, or 
 
 Yule, and the 
 summer, St. 
 Han's or St. 
 John's Day. St. 
 John's marks the 
 longest day in the 
 year. Balefires 
 are lighted to 
 celebrate the 
 triumph of light 
 over darkness, 
 the victory of the 
 summer sun over 
 the long winter 
 night. In some 
 localities every 
 family lights its fire and some people set their boats 
 ablaze, letting them drift out upon the waters of 
 the fjord as a funeral-rite for the death of darkness 
 at the hand of the summer sun. 
 
 On St. John's Day everything is decked in green, 
 but the greens are not the same as those of Yule- 
 tide. On this midsummer holiday principalh^ beech 
 and birch are used for decorations. Carts, wagons, 
 carriages and even railway locomotives are trimmed, 
 and nearly every window of every house has a branch 
 of green sticking out of it. City people go into the 
 country, and country people go into the city. All 
 feast and have a jolly time. 
 
 A CHURCH YARD 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORAVAY 95 
 
 The Norwegians have one pretty custom both on St. 
 Han's Day and at Yule-tide. They put out sheaves 
 of rye or barley on a pole as a feast for the birds. 
 This is so regular a practice that many people keep 
 their pole alwa3^s standing near the house or fastened 
 to the roof of the barn. 
 
 Of all the holidays in this Northland Christmas is 
 the most joyous. The Scandinavians used to believe 
 that Jule was the giant of darkness and that Baldur 
 (or some sa}^ Thor), was the god of light. These two 
 had a battle twice a year. In December the sun-god 
 got the worst of it, but at midsummer he conquered 
 Jule. A Jule, or Yule log was burned in December 
 as a prophecy that in the next battle the god of light 
 would again win. 
 
 The Yule decorations are of pine, spruce, and fir. 
 Everything is trimmed as on St. John's Day. The 
 good housewife goes to the storehouse and takes down 
 a part of the flat-bread from where the big round cakes 
 are hanging by a string passed through a hole in their 
 center. This is to be given to the poor to make their 
 Christmas happier. 
 
 The Yule-tide celebration, however, really begins 
 two weeks before. The house is carefully SAvept, 
 the tables are scrubbed, and the greens are gathered. 
 These are not merely hung on the wall, as with us, but 
 are also sprinkled over the floor. The women bake 
 sweet-cakes and a fresh supply of flat-bread, while the 
 men hunt the deer or fish. A sheep is killed and 
 made into sausage, which takes the place of our Christ- 
 mas turkey. The tree is brought into the hall and 
 hung with candles. The greens are placed on wall 
 
96 
 
 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 and floor, and all the fine dishes and old tankards are 
 brought out. 
 
 When all is ready the family hold prayers, and then 
 the children light candles and hang them around 
 the room; after this is finished all look with happy 
 eyes toward the beautiful tree. 
 
 The Christmas dinner-table is long and narrow. 
 In the middle is a big pile of flat-bread, while around 
 it are dishes of cheese, a large roll of butter, 
 
 o f t e n weighing 
 twenty or thirty 
 pounds, and 
 brown bread of 
 r3^e or barley, 
 with prunes, cara- 
 way, and spice 
 in it. When this 
 course is finished, 
 the family sings 
 songs. Then 
 come fish and 
 sausage, potatoes 
 and onions, and 
 lastly the cakes 
 are brought on. 
 When the meal is ended all say, ''Thank you," to 
 the mother and lead her into the next room while 
 they sing carols. 
 
 Yule lasts till January 6th. After the first day, 
 which is generally spent at home or with relatives, 
 there is much visiting among neighboring families, and 
 at these gatherings dancing is the usual entertainment. 
 
 
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A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 97 
 
 Of holiday sports the children have their full share. 
 At Yule-tide they are given many pleasures. They 
 are allowed to wear their prettiest clothes, which 
 for the girls are dresses of ga}^ homespun, and for 
 the boys garments of bright colors, especially red 
 and blue. On Chrstimas Eve it is the children who 
 -light the candles on the tree as well as those which 
 are placed around the room. 
 
 Later, on the same evening, each child takes a 
 lighted torch to guide him on his way to church. It 
 is really beautiful to see all these lights moving tow- 
 ard the same place. The children carry with them 
 gifts for the poor, for they are taught while young 
 to sympathize with those in need. After the ser- 
 vice the pastor stands at the front of the church 
 with his back to them, to receive their gifts. And 
 then what a race there is for home! for the one who 
 gets there first is supposed to be the happiest child 
 for the whole year to come. 
 
 The children are sure to be up bright and early on 
 Christmas morning, for this is the time they are al- 
 lowed to play their little pranks. Sometimes the 
 boys tie their sister in bed, or steal her shoes, or lock 
 her into her room. But these jokes are all taken 
 good-naturedly. 
 
 Often it is . the children who gather the grain in 
 the autumn for the birds' Christmas dinner, or save 
 their pennies to buy it with. On Chirstmas, too, the 
 dog has his chain taken off and the cows are fed twice 
 as much as usual. In all this the children delight 
 to take part. 
 
 On Christmas night there is a sudden rap at the 
 
98 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 
 
 door and in rush a number of maskers, who make 
 jokes and sing songs until the ale is passed, when 
 they disappear as suddenly as they came. Finally 
 the time comes for the children to form a procession 
 and march around the tree, singing carols as they 
 march. Before the presents are distributed, however, 
 they sit down, each child being allowed to go to the 
 tree for his gift when his name is called. 
 
 Norway has a kind of Santa Claus — though not 
 one like ours — who gives presents. Nys is his name, 
 and he is a sort of brownie, though he is often rep- 
 resented as having a long white beard and white 
 hair, a jolly face and dress of fur. Nys is a cheery 
 old fellow, if only he can have his own way, but one 
 must be careful not to cross him. Christmas Eve 
 is his very own, so special pains are taken to please 
 him by setting his favorite dishes outside the door 
 for him. These are pudding and Yule cakes. Of 
 course he can pass through a door though it be barred, 
 but he wishes to find his food waiting for him out- 
 side. If it is not there, woe be to that household! 
 The farm animals, perhaps, will all be tired the next 
 day because Nys has been playing tricks upon them 
 and keeping them awake; or perhaps everything 
 around the barn will be in confusion.- 
 
 If, however, Nys finds his Yule dish outside, often 
 the chores are all done when the father goes to the 
 barn in the morning. The horses have been curried 
 the wood spHt, and the cows milked, having given 
 two or three times the usual amount of milk. One 
 must never speak of Nys above a whisper, as that is 
 particularly displeasing to him. 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY \)\) 
 
 A NORWEGIAN WEDDING 
 
 And now most happily for us we have been invited 
 to a Hardanger wedding, for at a Hardanger wedding 
 we shall see the gayest of all Norwegian bridal cos- 
 tumes. Our good landlady knows how interested we 
 are, and has asked the privilege of taking us with her 
 to see a young friend of hers married. 
 
 We set out early for the fjord, for the wedding party 
 are to come by boat, and we are anxious that no 
 part of this interesting ceremony escape us. Soon 
 they come around a turn in the fjord. The boat 
 ahead contains the bride and groom, and is tiimmed 
 with flags and garlands of bright flowers, and gay 
 streamers at the mast-head. It is a twenty-oared 
 boat and holds nearly all the party, though three or 
 four small boats follow^ at a little distance. 
 
 The bride and groom sit on a raised seat in the 
 stern, and look very happy and gay in their bridal 
 costumes. The bride wears a white waist, with full 
 sleeves gathered into a band at the wrist and over 
 this a bright red gold-embroidered bodice with straps 
 over the shoulder and trimming of gold lace. It is 
 something the shape of the bib of a kitchen apron. 
 The girdle is embroidered to match the bodice. Three 
 stripes of embroidery down the front trim the white 
 apron, which is worn over a full dark-green skirt. 
 
 The bride also wears the quaint old silver brooches, 
 rings, and pendants, and the rich silver crow^n that 
 have all been in her family for generations, perhaps 
 for centuries. The crown is of filigree with little 
 bars topped with silver balls standing high and flar- 
 
100 A LITTLE JOURNEl TO NORWAY 
 
 ing at the top. From these hang little chains with 
 scalloped ornaments at the ends, which dangle back 
 and forth with very move of the head. 
 
 A short round jacket fastened with one button 
 below the neck, but having rows of silver buttons at 
 the side, is a part of the bridegroom's costume. His 
 waistcoat has the same kind of buttons, only smaller, 
 while etiquette seems to prescribe trousers of home- 
 spun ending at the knee, and shoes with buckles. 
 A tall felt hat completes his costume. 
 
 The church floor is strewn with juniper twigs. A 
 long black gown and big white ruff is the costume 
 worn by the minister. His sober dress sets off well 
 the gay costume of the bride and groom. Although 
 we do not understand all the ceremony, it seems very 
 solemn and impressive. 
 
 The bridal party go home as they came, in their 
 boats, the rowers singing native songs as they row. 
 
 When they return to the bride's home there will be 
 great doings, with a big feast, firing of guns, and danc- 
 ing. Besides flat-bread, man}^ kinds of meat, fish, 
 and cheese, salads, and desserts, one of the great 
 dainties will be smbrbrod. This is above all a wedding 
 dish. In olden times the wedding festival used to 
 last a whole week. 
 
 It is the custom here in Norway for the groom 
 to carve the beautiful family treasure chest, and also 
 to cut mottoes over the doors and on the bed-posts. 
 These carvings are long treasured in the family, like 
 the silver crowns and brooches. Over a doorway is 
 sometimes carved this motto: "God save this house; 
 bless also all who go in and all who go out here." 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORWAY 101 
 
 NORSE VIKINGS 
 
 The ancient Vikings furnish the most interesting 
 chapter in all Norwegian history. Every one has 
 heard or read of them. Some of us, indeed, saw the 
 Viking ship which Norway sent to the Columbian 
 Exposition. In the museum of the University of 
 Christiania is the vessel — more than a thousand 
 years old — after which the Columbian ship was 
 modeled. 
 
 The Vikings, as we know, lived long ago. They 
 were bold Scandinavian seamen who sailed in their 
 quaint boats to the shores of other countries, first 
 to plunder, and finally to settle. The word vik in 
 Old Norse meant creek, so the Vikings were lords 
 of the creeks and the fjords. 
 
 The old Viking ships were long and narrow, with 
 a high prow and stern terminating in a carved figure, 
 usually a dragon's head. These figure-heads were 
 nearly always painted in bright colors, as were, also, 
 the great round wooden shields along the side of 
 the ship. Red, white and black were favorite shield- 
 colors. These old vessels were often large enough 
 to carry a hundred or more men. 
 
 At the end of the eighth century the Norsemen 
 learned the use of sails from the Romans, and very 
 picturesque their ships then looked. Sometimes the 
 sails were white, but usually they were of bright colors, 
 and often gayly striped. A preparation of oil and 
 tar was smeared over them, as the sails of fishing 
 boats to-day are sometimes treated, to prevent mil- 
 dew. 
 
 With the Norsemen's adoption of sails began the 
 
102 A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NORAVAY 
 
 great Viking Age. The men of the north ventured 
 across the sea and ravaged the coast of England, 
 Scotland, Ireland, France, and even the Mediter- 
 ranean countries. For a thousand years one of the 
 titles of the Norwegian ruler has been ^'King of the 
 Goths," and King Oscar includes it in his title to-day. 
 
 The ancient Viking boat was not only the bold 
 Norseman's home on the ocean wave, but his sepulcher 
 as well. When a Viking died, he was laid in his 
 ship (which had been drawn up on shore), his war- 
 gear and drinking horn beside him, while near him 
 were placed his faithful dog and war-steed. The 
 vessel was headed toward the sea, so that when called 
 once more into life by Odin, the chieftain might be 
 ready to start upon another voyage over the waves 
 he loved. The boat was covered with birch-bark, 
 then with blue-clay and buried deep, with a mound 
 of earth and stones to mark the spot. 
 
 In earlier times a Viking's burial was still more 
 imposing. His beloved ship was anchored upon the 
 shore and his body laid within. Not only were his 
 jewels and weapons, and favorite steed placed beside 
 him, but even his servants and members of his family 
 took their stand upon the ship to meet death by the 
 hero's side, for this was his funeral pyre. The vessel 
 was set on fire and the anchor loosed. Then the 
 ship, all aflame, drifted out into the sunset. 
 
 Not only did these bold Vikings plunder and sub- 
 due countries of Europe, but they even crossed the 
 Atlantic in their high-prowed ships to Iceland, Green- 
 land, and the mainland of America. To-day their 
 descendants are coming by the thousands to America 
 
A LITTLE JOURNEY TO NOLWAY 103 
 
 and finding homes, chiefly in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, 
 Minnesota and Dakota. 
 
 Not only have the Norsemen made their own coun- 
 try great, but they have added much to our land. 
 The home farms are so small and scanty, fishing so 
 dangerous, and other occupations so crowded that 
 many of the younger people have been forced to seek 
 in America the opportunities they long for. Spring 
 is the favorite season for emigration. Then the 
 wharves of Norwegian ports are lined with those 
 who are going to try their fortunes in other lands. 
 Good Friday is the favorite sailing day, since these 
 pious people believe that this holy day signifies the 
 burial of all their past troubles and that the future 
 will be like a glad Easter morning, when new life 
 shall come to them. 
 
 But how can we leave this wonderful land — this 
 land of mountains and ice-fields, of waterfalls and 
 fjords, this land of the midnight sun — which has re- 
 paid us so many times over, for what seemed perhaps 
 at times difficult traveling? Yet other lands await 
 us and we must say farewell. 
 
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