Three generations--Dangers of the Folgo--Murray at
fault--Author takes boat for the entrance of the Bondehus
Valley--The king of the waterfall--More glacier paths--An
extensive ice-house--These glorious palaces--How is the
harvest?--Laxe-stie--Struggle-stone--To Vikör--Östudfoss,
the most picturesque waterfall in Norway--An eternal crystal
palace--How to earn a pot of gold--Information for the
_Morning Post_--A parsonage on the Hardanger--Steamers for
the Fjords--Why living is becoming dearer in Norway--A
rebuke for the travelling English--Sunday morning--Peasants
at church--Female head-dresses--A Norwegian church
service--Christening--Its adumbration in heathen Norway--A
sketch for Washington Irving.
After a very sharp walk of eleven hours in all, we entered a small
farm-house. No less than eighteen persons, from the sucking infant to
the old woman of eighty-four, surrounded us, as we dipped our wooden
spoons into a round tub of sour milk, the only refreshment the place
afforded. Red stockings, and blue caps, with an inner one of white,
and red bodices, were the chief objects that caught my eye. The
ventilation soon became so defective from the crowd, that I got up
and succeeded in pushing open a wooden trap-door in the centre of the
roof by a pole attached to it. The apartment, in fact, was one of the
old “smoke rooms,” described elsewhere, and the orifice, the ancient
chimney and window in one, which had been superseded by a modern window
and chimney in two. “That’s an awkward place to cross, is that Folgo,”
said a big fellow to me. “My grandfather, who lived in Sörfjord, where
you come from, was to marry a lass at Ovrehus here. On the day before
the wedding he started, with thirteen others, to cross Folgo. Night
came, but the party did not arrive. But no harm was done, you see, sir;
for I’m his grandson, and if he had been lost I should not have seen
the light. [This pleasantry seemed to tickle the crowd.] They did,
however, stop all night on the snow, and it was not till next day that
they got down.”
From these people I find that there is no foundation for the statement
in “Murray,” that a band of peasants lost their lives in crossing the
snow. The nearest approach to an accident is that detailed above.
Next morning we take boat for the entrance of the Bondehus valley,
which debouches on the Fjord half a mile from this, and opposite to
which, across the Fjord, is a place called Fladebo, from which Forbes
ascended the Folgefond by a much easier path than that we had taken.
Indeed, as we loll easily in the boat, and look back at the descent
of yesterday, it seems astonishing how we ever could get down at all.
Landing at Bondehus, after an hour’s walk up the valley, which was
occupied for some distance by meadows, in which peasants were at work
making hay, we reached a lake, across which we row. By the stream,
which here shot into the further side of the lake, there were a couple
of water ouzels, bobbing about.
“Ay, that’s an Elv-Konge (river king), or, as some call him, Foss-Konge
(king of the waterfall),” said our guide.
In spite of the apparent proximity of the glacier, it still took us
several minutes’ climb before we reached its foot.
Truth to tell, the bad fare exhibited by Margareta Larsdatter Ovrehus,
was bad travelling on, and made me rather exact in distances to-day.
Passing through a birch-grove, full of blue-berries and cloud-berries
of delicious taste, we found the glacier only about thirty yards in
front of us. The shingly space which intervened was traversed by four
or five breastworks of loose sand and stones, about ten feet in height.
These are the moraines left by the retreating glacier, so that at one
time the ice and the birch-copse must have touched. Indeed, on either
side of the glacier the trees may be seen holding their ground close by
the ice, loth, apparently, to be separated from their opposite brethren
by the intervention of such an unceremonious intruder.
We scrambled over the loose ramparts, and going close under the
glacier where a muddy stream came forth, we discovered a huge cave,
cut out of a blue wall of ice, some sixty feet in height. Some of the
superincumbent mass had evidently just fallen in, causing, perhaps,
the roar which we had heard as we ascended the valley. It was rather
dangerous work entering the cavern, as another fall might take place,
and I had no ambition to be preserved after the manner of the Irish
salmon for the London market. But it was not every day that one is
privileged to enter such a magnificent hall, so in I went alone. It
was lit, too, by a lantern in the roof, in other words, by a perfectly
circular hole, drilled through the crown of the arch, through which I
saw the sky overhead. Nothing could exceed the intense depth of blue in
this cool recess.
But let us come and look a little more at the stupendous scene above.
Far up skyward, at a distance of perhaps six English miles, though
it looks about one, is the pure cold level snow of the Folgefond,
glistening between two mighty horns of shivered rock, that soar still
higher heavenward.
These two portals contract the passage through which pours the great
ice ocean; so that the monstrous billows are upheaved on the backs of
one another in their struggle onward, and tower up into various forms.
“By Jove,” said one of my companions, “it looks just like a city on a
hill side, Lyons, for instance. Look yonder, there are regular church
towers and domes, and pinnacles and spires, and castellated buildings,
only somehow etherialized. Why, there’s the arch of a bridge, you can
see right under it at the buildings beyond.”
“If Macaulay’s New Zealander were there,” remarked I, “he would behold
a grander sight than ever he will on London Bridge when the metropolis
of the world is in ruin.”
“Ruin!” rejoined the poetical son of Erin, “that’s already at work
here. Look at this hall of ice which has come down to-day. Ah!
it’s quite melancholy to think how all this splendid vision, these
cloud-capped towers, these glorious palaces of silver and aquamarine,
are moving on insensibly, day by day, to their destruction, and will
melt away, not into air, but into dirty water, by the time they reach
the spot where we’re standing.”
We had some hours of boating before night-fall, so that we were forced
to tear ourselves from the scene, not forgetting to have a good look
first at a feature in it not yet mentioned--a magnificent waterfall,
which descended from the cliffs on the left. So now adieu to the
mountains. I shall climb no more this year. Positively I feel as
downcast as the hot-brained youth of Macedon when no more worlds were
left for him to conquer.
We were soon at the farm-house near the sea, where Ragnhild Bondehus,
with her red stockings, blue polka-jacket and red boddice, looking
quite captivating, albeit threescore-and-ten, put before us porridge
and goat’s milk, which we devoured with keen glacial appetite.
“How is the harvest looking where you came from?” asked she, with
anxious looks. This was a question that had been frequently asked me
this summer.
“Very good all over Europe.”
“To God be praise and thanks!” she ejaculated. “We shan’t have corn
then too dear to buy. We did hear that there was no grain sown in
Denmark this year; that’s not true, is it?”
The old lady derived no small comfort from my assurance that this must
be a fabrication of some interested person.
Our boatmen landing with their great provision boxes to dine at the
rocky point where we reach the main Hardanger, we land and examine one
of those singular “fixings” for catching salmon, called a laxe-stie,
or salmon ladder. It consists of a high stage, projecting on a light
scaffolding into the water. In front of this, under the water, is an
oblong square of planks, painted white, from twenty to thirty feet long
and six broad. This is kept at the bottom by great stones. Beyond this,
and parallel with the shore, several yards out, is a fixed wall-net,
to guide the fish into a drag-net, one end of which is fastened to the
shore, the other sloped out to seaward. The dark-backed salmon, which
in certain places are fond of hugging the shore, as they make for the
rivers to spawn, swim over the white board, and are at once seen by the
watcher perched on the stage above, and he speedily drags in the net
set at right angles to the shore, with the fish secure in the bag. In
some places the rock close by is also painted white[31] to attract the
fish, who take it for a waterfall. The man lodges in a little den close
by, his only escape from hence being most likely his boat, drawn into a
crevice of the sheer rocks around him. Sometimes from twelve to twenty
fish are taken in this manner in a day. St. Johann’s-tid (Midsummer) is
the best time for taking them. The season is now over, and the solitary
sentinel off to some other occupation.
According to the boatmen’s account, who, however, are very lazy
fellows, the stream is hard against us; indeed, it always sets out in
the Hardanger from the quantity of river water that comes into it.
“Ah!” said Ole, “that’s called Streit-Steen (Struggle-Stone). Satan
once undertook to tow a Jagt from Bergen up the Hardanger. He had tough
work of it, but he got on till he reached that stone; then he was
dead beat, and banned and cursed dreadfully. It was he who called it
Streit-Steen.”
The less said about the poisonous beer and bad food at Jondal, where we
slept that night, the better.
We cross over, early next morning, to Vikör. The elder boatman,
seventy-nine years old, was a strange little, dried-up creature,
dressed in a suit of dark-green, the ancient costume of Jondal. One of
the party told him if he were to see him in the gloaming he should take
him for a Tuss. Anyhow he had a great aversion to the priest, against
whose profits he declaimed loudly.
“Only to think,” said he, “the parson got tithe of butter and
calf-skins--yes, actually got a hundred and fifteen calf-skins every
year, worth half-a-crown each, from Jondal alone!”
How beautiful the placid Fjord looked as we pulled up the smiling
little estuary to Vikör, and gradually opened behind us the end of the
great Folgefond peninsula!
Near Vikör is the famed Östudfoss, said to be the most picturesque
waterfall in Norway. At all events, it is a very eccentric one. The
stream, which at times is of immense volume, shooting from the well
shrubbed cliff above, which projects considerably, makes a clear jump
over a plot of green turf, on which a dozen people or more could stand
without being wetted; in fact, right inside the fall. While I stood
within this crystal palace, one of my Hibernian friends, who had
approached the spot by another route, clambering up the rocks, mounted
on to the platform,--
“Faith, and I’ve earned the pot of gold!” exclaimed he, breathless with
exertion.
“How so?”
“Why, did ye never hear the proverb--‘If you catch hold of the rainbow
you will get a pot of gold?’ Ye never saw such a thing; just below
there, where the stream makes a shoot, I put me hand right into a
rainbow--yes, clean into it.”
On our return we overtook a number of women, dressed in their best. The
inventory is as follows: A lily-white, curiously-plaited head-dress,
the “getting-up” of which must take an infinity of time and trouble;
red or parti-coloured bodice, black gown, and stockings of the same
colour, cut off at the ankle, while on the foot were white socks with
red edging, and shoes with high leather insteps, such as were worn in
the days of the Cavaliers. By their side were a lot of children, also
in their best attire.
“Where are you all going to this fine day?”
“It’s vaccination (bole, an Icelandic word) day, and we are all going
to meet the doctor, who will be here from Strandebarm by two o’clock.
We must all of us get a bolen-attest (certificate of vaccination).
That’s the King’s order.”
The merchant’s establishment supplied us with some tolerable Madeira
wherewith to drink to our next merry meeting, and my Irish friends, who
were pressed for time, took boat that afternoon for Graven.
That evening and the next day (Sunday) I spent under the hospitable
roof of the parson of the district. His house is beautifully situate on
a nook of the Hardanger, with a distant view of the Folgefond.
“Ah!” said he, “it won’t be so difficult to explore the beauties of our
Fjords for the future. Our Storthing, I see, by the last Christiania
papers, has voted several thousand dollars for setting up steamers on
this and the Romsdal Fjord, which are to stop at the chief places.
The abrogation of Cromwell’s Navigation Act has done great things for
Norge’s commerce, and brought much money into the country.”
“Norway is getting richer,” said I, “no doubt, if one is to judge from
the increase in the price of living.”
“That may be caused in some measure by the increase of capital, but the
chief cause is another, though it, too, lies at England’s door. We used
to get a great deal of butter, cheese, meal, and meat from Jutland, but
now, since the English steamers run regularly thither, and carry off
all the surplus provisions, that source of supply is stopped, and the
articles of food are dearer.”
“That would not affect us much up here,” put in the Frua (priest’s
lady); “No, no; it is the travelling English that do the mischief.
Last year, sir, when I and my husband went up to see the Vöring foss,
everything was so dreadfully dear, we said we must never venture out on
another summer trip. And then, only think, there was an English lord
there with his yacht, who saw a pig running on the shore, and said he
would have the pig for dinner cost what it might. It was quite a small
one, and they charged him six dollars. Yes, it positively makes us
tremble, for you know we parson’s wives have not a great deal of money,
though we have good farms.”
“At all events, I can’t be charged with this sort of folly,” said I;
“for I resisted the extortions of the merchant at Jondal.”
“What, he! he is one of the Lesere, and is considered a very
respectable man.”
“But will play the rogue when he thinks it won’t be talked of,” rejoined
I. “Shams and realities are wonderfully alike. Do you know, even that
black-coated biped, the ostrich, can make a roar just like a lion’s?”
As I crossed over from my bed-room next morning to the main building,
I found the grass-plot in front of the house thronged by peasants who
had come to church, while in the centre of them was the priest in his
Lutheran cloak and elaborate frill. The washing and starching of one of
these ruffs costs a shilling. The widow of a clergyman in Bergen is a
great adept in getting them up, and it is no uncommon thing for them to
come to her by steamer from a distance of one hundred and forty English
miles.
The congregation were in church when I entered with the ladies. We
sat altogether in a square pew on a level with the chancel dais. This
mingling of the sexes, however, was not permitted, of course, among
the primitive bonders: the men being on one side of the interior,
the women on the other, reminding me of the evening parties in a
famous University town. The former wore most of them short seamen’s
jackets, though a few old peasants adhered to the antique green coat of
singular cut, while their grey locks, which were parted in the centre
of the forehead, streamed patriarchally over their shoulders, shading
their strongly-marked countenances. The female side was really very
picturesque. The head-dress is a white kerchief, elaborately crimped
or plaited, but by some ingenious contrivance shaped in front somewhat
like the ladies’ small bonnets of the present day, with one corner
falling gracefully down behind, like the topping of the Carolina ducks
on the water in St. James’s Park. Another part of this complicated
piece of linen, which is not plaited, covers the forehead like a
frontlet, almost close down to the eyebrows, so that at a distance they
looked just like so many nuns. Nevertheless, they were the married
women of the audience. The spinsters’ head-dress was more simple. They
wore no cap at all. The back hair, which is braided in two bands or
tails with an intermixture of red tape, is brought forward on either
side of the head and round the temples just on a level with the front
hair. For my part, I much admired the clean and classic cut which some
of their heads exhibited in consequence. Most of the females wore
tight-fitting scarlet bodices edged with green.
On either side of their bosom were six silver hooks, to hold a cross
chain of the same metal. The snow-white sleeves of the chemise formed
a conspicuous feature in the sparkling parterre. One woman wore a
different cap from the rest: its upper part was shaped just like a
glory, or nimbus; this is done by inserting within a light piece of
wood of that shape. Her ornaments, too, were not plain silver, but
gilt. She was from Strandebarm, which I passed yesterday on the Fjord,
the scene of a celebrated national song--“Bonde i Bryllups Gaarden.”
Much psalm-singing prevailed out of Bishop Kingo, of Funen’s,
psalm-book. The priest then read the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, with
the traditional, I suppose, but what sounded to me very frightful,
intonation. The sermon was not extempore.
“He is a tolerable preacher,” said a peasant, with quite the “Habitans
in sicco” tone of criticism, “but it is out of a book, and not out of
his hoved (head), like priest So-and-so, on the other side of the
Fjord.”
Very small and very red babies, not many hours old,[32] I
believe--such is the almost superstitious eagerness with which these
good folk rush to have that sacred rite administered--were now brought
to be christened. No font was visible; there was, however, an angel
suspended by a cord from the roof, with deep, flesh-coloured legs and
arms, and a gilt robe. In its right hand was a bowl, in its left a
book. The glocker, or clerk, a little man in a blue sailor’s jacket,
here dispatched a girl for some water, which was brought, and poured
into the bowl, and the ceremony proceeded; which being concluded, the
angel was pulled up again midway to the ceiling.[33]
The priest then examined some young men and women, who stood on either
side of the aisle, he walking up and down in the intervals of the
questions.
As we left the church a characteristic sight presented itself. The
churchyard was just the spot in which one would like to be buried--a
beautiful freshly-mown sward, sloping down to the sea, and intersected
by a couple of brooks brawling down from the hills, extended upwards
to the copse of hazel, aspen, ash, and rowan trees that fringed the
heights. Under some of these trees sat two or three maidens, looking
as stiff as Norwegian peasant girls only can, when busked in their
best, and before a crowd of people. Nor was a view of the placid fjord
wanting. Look, some of the church-goers are already in their boats, the
red bodices and white sleeves conspicuous from afar, while the dripping
oars flash in the sun.
Before I took leave of my host and his agreeable family, I presented
one of them, who was studying English, with a volume of Bulwer’s.
The parting glass, of course, past round--a sacred institution, the
Afskedsöl of the Sagas.