DALECARLIA[5]
[5] Dalarna in Swedish.
I know few parts of Europe where traditions, costumes and customs have
remained so little affected by the levelling process of civilisation
as Dalecarlia, and here amid surroundings that reproduce all the
characteristic features of Swedish scenery, with the exception of
the mountainous regions of Lapland, is found a race of virile and
independent men and women characterised by ready wit, good humour, and
great bodily strength who have contributed more to the shaping of their
country’s history than all the rest of Sweden put together.
To know Dalecarlia is, therefore, almost as good as knowing Sweden, for
not only the scenery but also the characteristics of the population
inhabiting it are typically Swedish.
In the centre of the province are rich smiling pasture and farm-land
alternating with wooded hills and lakes, great pine forests and birch
groves; in the south, mining and industrial districts which are among
the most productive regions of the country. Dalecarlia is intersected
by the Dalälven river, which flows down from the mountains of the
border in two branches, Öster Dalälven, its eastern branch, flowing
through Lake Siljan. Here, and scattered around its pleasantly wooded
shores, are ten little towns which are each the centre of a distinctive
community that possess not only remarkable historical memories, but
individual costumes which their inhabitants have continued to wear
unchanged from the Middle Ages.
Like all independent and liberty-loving races, the Dalecarlians have
never been able to tolerate oppression or the yoke of the foreigner,
and it was this same proud national spirit which has always induced
them to take the lead, whenever the liberties of their country were at
stake.
Manhood, pluck, and hardy men
Still are found in old Dale land.
So runs an old Dale song, and again and again the peasants of the
province have risen to arms to defend the liberties of the Fatherland.
[Illustration: LAKE SILJAN]
In 1435, under the leadership of Engelbrecht, a prominent miner, they
succeeded in temporarily freeing Sweden from the tyranny and misrule
of the successors of Queen Margaret of Denmark, their subsequent
defeat at the hands of their oppressors being more than avenged by
the remarkable success which crowned their efforts at liberating the
country in the years immediately following the accession of King
Christian II. of Denmark to the Swedish crown in 1520. Self-willed and
obstinate, this able but short-sighted monarch signalised his advent to
power by treacherously murdering eighty-two leading Swedish noblemen
who had assembled in the capital for the coronation festivities. This
cold-blooded murder so fired the imagination of Gustavus Vasa, the son
of one of its victims, that breaking away from the prison in which he
had been confined as hostage for Christian’s safe keeping, he dashed
across to Sweden by way of Lübeck, and started on a long 900-mile tramp
northward, with the vague idea of rousing his countrymen to arms. Hotly
pursued by the King of Denmark’s followers, he finally reached the
district of Lake Siljan in Dalecarlia, and on the last Sunday in Advent
proceeded to address the good people of Rättvik after the morning
service, as they were gathering on the shores of the lake. He described
the incidents which had occurred, and laying stress on the many unjust
and tyrannical measures which had been perpetrated by the Danish
monarch, urged them to rally to his standard and free the country from
its oppressors. The Dalecarlians sympathised with the young leader, but
refused to do anything definite until they had received confirmation
of the massacre. Then as Gustavus saw his pursuers closing once again
upon him, he continued his flight towards the Norwegian frontier and
had proceeded some ninety miles when he was overtaken by the swift ski
runners whom the Dalecarlians had sent after him as soon as they had
received tardy confirmation of the news. He then turned back, and after
a succession of marvellous escapes that recall the exploits of Alfred
the Great, succeeded in warding off his pursuers and in organising
armed resistance to the Danish king.
Backed by a numerous army, whose principal mainstay consisted of the
peasantry in the district of Rättvik and the mining population of
the south of Dalecarlia, he declared Sweden independent of Danish
sovereignty, and by a succession of rapid triumphs on the field of
battle converted this declaration into a reality, his coronation in
1528 as King of Sweden inaugurating a new epoch in the history of the
country and consecrating the rule of a dynasty which was destined to
produce some of the ablest rulers in Scandinavia.
The district surrounding Lake Siljan is consequently intimately
associated with the name of Gustavus Vasa, for not only Rättvik, where
a stately monument has been erected to commemorate his memory, but many
other towns and villages, can point to homely farms or other buildings
in which the national hero is supposed to have lain concealed from
his pursuers. I have seen at Ornäs a well-preserved farmstead with
overhanging balconies in which the fugitive is said to have taken
refuge, disguised as a simple labourer, and also the kitchen in which
he was discovered sitting near the hearth by the pursuing Danes. The
story relates that the farmer’s wife, seeing that the suspicions of the
Danes had been awakened, suddenly turned towards Gustavus and, after
rebuking him violently for his laziness, struck him a hard blow on
the back with a shovel, this action having the effect of convincing
the soldiers that the Swedish labourer was not the man whom they were
looking for. Every year a ski Marathon race is held from Mora to
commemorate the athletic feat of the ski runner whom the Dalecarlians
sent post-haste after Gustavus to recall him to Rättvik, and the course
that is followed by the runners of to-day is almost identically the
same as that which was followed by the sixteenth-century ski runner.
The race is the most important sporting event of the year.
Apart from these many historical memories and legends, the district of
Lake Siljan possesses an appeal which is quite its own and which lies
not only in the loveliness of its scenery and light salubrious air, but
in the faithful observance of ancient tradition and the old-world style
of dress that have ever characterised its people.
Nowhere in Dalecarlia are these characteristics so strongly marked as
in Siljansdalen, the district surrounding the lake.
Of the ten little towns that lie on its verdant shores the three
largest and perhaps the most beautiful are Rättvik, Leksand, and Mora.
Rättvik, which lies on an inlet of the most eastern portion of the
lake, has an exceptionally beautiful situation on the slopes of
wooded ridges that command a splendid view, its sixteenth-century
white church being finely placed on a point projecting in the lake and
being surrounded by so-called ‘Kyrkstallar,’ _i.e._ a number of
makeshift buildings built of timbers placed roughly one above the other
which possess no windows but are usually provided with a stove for
making coffee. These structures, it is interesting to note, are largely
used as rest-houses on Sundays by those church-goers who have had to
come many miles by foot, cycle, or horse, in order to attend divine
service. No visitor to Rättvik should fail to attend one of these
celebrations, for the opportunities that it will provide him of seeing
the farmers and townsfolk of the locality coming to worship apparelled
in their picturesquely becoming national dress. On week-days you may
occasionally come across workers in the fields or even housewives
wearing the costume of their forefathers, but on Sundays and feast days
you will see thousands of men and women each in the costume peculiar to
his or her own district. These dresses are made by the women themselves
or are often heirlooms to which each successive generation has afforded
its quota and, if substantially the same, differ slightly in details,
certain fixed variations depending on whether the wearer is married or
single, or on the particular feast day that is being commemorated. In
imagery of colour and beauty of design, the level of excellence reached
by these peasant artists often approaches that attained by the Slovaks
and Roumanians, though they evince less concern for effect and bold
colouring than either of these two races.
The characteristic dress of the Rättvik peasant women consists of
a lofty, pointed conical bonnet, a corseted skirt which is usually
flowered, and a horizontally striped and rainbow-coloured strip that,
sewn in the front of the skirt, recalls the gaily striped aprons that
are found in Ragusa, while a flowered kerchief held in front by a
brooch is fastened around the neck. Extremely fair of complexion and
with hair that is usually straw-coloured, the good-looking women of
Rättvik are among the finest specimens of the Swedish race which I have
seen, and are so strong and energetic that even the hardest manual
labour presents no difficulty to them.
The costume of the Rättvik men consists of a very long blue coat that
is very similar to an old-fashioned frock-coat, only that it is cut
high in the neck and single-breasted; a waistcoat, with two rows of
brass buttons, of the same colour; yellow leather knee-breeches that
reach half-way up the waistcoat, and a blue soft felt hat recalling a
harlequin. Only the older men continue, however, to wear the attractive
apparel of their ancestors, the younger men preferring the more drab
fashions of to-day.
Apart from its lovely scenery, its many historical memories, and
its quaint peasant costumes, Rättvik possesses many attractions.
Its beautiful pine forests, high bracing situation and invigorating
air, combine to make it an ideal spot for those who need rest and
recuperation, while its position half-way down the lake renders it the
best starting-point for the various excursions which can be made in any
direction.
Lying at the very northernmost point of Siljan and easily accessible
from Rättvik by rail or water, the village of Mora is not as famous as
Rättvik for the beauty of its costumes, but has played as distinguished
a part in the history of the country. It was the men of Mora who
were the first to flock to the standard of Gustavus Vasa as soon as
confirmation of the Swedish massacre had arrived, and it is from here
that Sweden’s national ski race, the Vasaloppet, is run every year to
commemorate the stirring athletic feat which undoubtedly started the
War of Liberation. In Mora church-yard, moreover, can be seen the
tomb of Anders Zorn, the great Swedish painter, sculptor, and pioneer
of old Swedish peasant culture, even more than Ankarcrona, who not
only enriched his native town, and especially its parish church, by
presenting it with a statue of Gustavus Vasa that is representative
of the best Swedish sculpture of to-day, but has founded a People’s
High School which contains a collection of paintings by Prince Eugen,
Liljefors, Tiren, and other famous Swedish masters that is in every
respect a notable one.
[Illustration: MORA CHURCH]
Across the lake, and at its most southernmost point, lies Leksand,
which with Rättvik and Floda shares the distinction of being a centre
of old mediæval Swedish peasant folklore and costume. The excursion to
it is particularly interesting on a Sunday morning, if one travels to
it by the special church boat. On these occasions the steamer calls
in at various localities on the way to Leksand to collect the more
distant parishioners, all clothed in their most becoming costumes, and
her deck soon presents a very picturesque and animated appearance.
On arrival at Leksand the crowd makes its way to the fine birch-tree
avenue leading to the quaint Russian-looking steepled church in which
the service is to be held, and here the visitor should follow them and
either join the worshippers inside the building, or await them as they
come out after service. Of the two alternatives I found the second
infinitely the more agreeable, as a Swedish Protestant service is an
interminable affair, and sermons of thirty minutes’ duration appear to
be lasting hours when one does not understand a word of what is being
spoken. Nowhere, except perhaps in Slovakia and Roumania, have I seen
such an array of picturesque and colourful costumes as those which are
to be seen in Leksand on these occasions; and the scene that the people
present in church as they troop down the nave preliminary to leaving
it, or the kaleidoscope of colour which they make as they emerge into
the avenue and stroll about or talk in groups, forms an unforgettable
picture.
The bodices of the women are mostly fashioned of flowered and
gaily-coloured velvet or are embroidered with many colours, while the
apron-looking material which is sewn in the front of the plain cloth
black or white skirt is often beautifully embroidered, but more
usually attractively striped in either red, black, or white, there
appearing to be endless variations of these colours and of the size and
direction of the stripes; the caps or bonnets are sometimes conical
with striped trimming, or very similar to a Breton _coiffe_, and
held together by a black or white embroidered ribbon which is fastened
with a bow at the back of the head; at other times plain white like
a hospital nurse’s cap or the same colour but beautifully edged with
lace. And if the women’s dress is picturesque that of the men wearing
national costume is almost equally so; blue or plum-coloured is the
old-fashioned single or double-breasted tunic or frock-coat that is
cut high in the neck and sometimes reaches to the knee, while yellow
buckskin knee breeches, blue or red stockings with the most attractive
red tassels imaginable peering merrily from the turned-up tops, and a
hat which when not large-brimmed and of felt is red or of an equally
vivid colour strongly reminiscent of a romantic opera, complete the
costume. As for the children, they are an exact replica of their elders.
Leksand Church, which was originally built in the Middle Ages and
given its present form and bulb-shaped dome after a fire in 1709,
is distinctly Russian in character, its tower having been rebuilt by
Russian prisoners of war according to a model which Lars Siljeström,
a military chaplain and the architect who had been entrusted with
the rebuilding of the church, had brought back from Russia, after
accompanying Charles XII. to that country.
Dalecarlian peasant art as revealed in the attractive costumes which
the peasants continue to wear on all festive occasions reveals an
innate artistic talent and a striving after beauty that mark it out
among all peasant artistic productions, while it proves how easy it is
to acquire technique if one only seeks to give faithful expression to
one’s inspiration. And just as in the peasant art of other countries,
this striving after beauty shows itself, not only in the painstaking
and loving care that is lavished in the making and adorning of the
peasant costumes, but in the equally unstinting thought and labour that
is devoted to the embellishing of the home and to making life beautiful
even for the poorest. I visited several small farms and cottages
and found in even the humblest abode walls that had been adorned
with peasant drawings and paintings. Produced with house-painter’s
colours and obviously intended to decorate in conjunction with woven
material, these quaint and artless paintings often convey an original
and pleasing effect, while they depict Biblical personages and events
whose general colour scheme, like those of the costumes, are dictated
by district and devised with surprising skill.
If Dalecarlia is therefore an ideal land for tourists during every
season of the year, with its many beautiful excursions and fascinating
peasant costumes and cottages, the quaintly picturesque customs of its
people and the opportunities that it offers in winter for every kind
of winter sports, it is also the home of industries which have long
been famous in the history of Sweden. There is an old legend which
relates that about 700 years ago a goat-herd, while tending his goats
on a mountain in Dalecarlia south of Lake Siljan, noticed that one of
his flock had suddenly become dyed red, and that the only plausible
explanation that he could find of the phenomenon lay in the fact that
the surrounding rock contained quantities of copper which had become
oxidised by the atmosphere and converted into red ochre by the action
of a forest fire.
[Illustration: LEKSAND CHURCH] This incident, it is alleged, led to
the discovery of important copper deposits in the neighbourhood of
Falun and ultimately to the formation of the Stora Kopparberget, or
Falun copper mine, one of the most remarkable mining undertakings in
the world and probably the oldest. Whether this explanation is correct
or not, the fact remains that the Falun Mine Company was certainly
founded in 1284, as a purchase deed recording the sale of the mine to
its present owners has been in existence from that year. And from that
day it has never changed ownership in spite of the many vicissitudes
through which it has passed. The first owners floated a company in
which not only the greatest nobles of the age, but even the miners
actually employed in the mine, were represented, and very soon the mine
became the richest copper-producing concern in the world, the industry
being at its height in the seventeenth century, when it constituted
Gustavus Adolphus’s principal source of revenue during the Thirty
Years’ War.
The Falun Mine has been very productive in the past, and up to the year
1900 there has been mined in it some 35 million tons of copper ore,
while its extensive galleries are more than twelve miles in length and
nearly a mile in depth in its deepest part. Its present copper output
is insignificant, however, as it is no longer copper ore which is mined
but principally pyrites, this ore constituting raw material for the
manufacture of sulphuric acid and the other chemical products of the
company or being utilised in its extensive sulphite pulp industry.
It is only on the strength of its glorious historical traditions,
therefore, that one should visit the mine, or for the insight that a
visit paid to it will afford of the pump-houses, hoisting machinery,
and other obsolete contrivances that satisfied our ancestors’
requirements, though an hour spent in the interesting museum of the
company could be employed far more profitably.
The Stora Kopparberg’s principal activities being only indirectly
concerned with the Falun mine, we must look elsewhere for an
explanation of the prominent position which it continues to hold among
Swedish industrial concerns of this century. Already before the copper
ore was running short owing to excessive mining, it had started those
fields of activity which now constitute its principal strength, such as
iron and steel, forestry and wood, all these industries being located
in the basin of the river Dalälven.
In 1735 the company built its first ironworks, and by 1870 it possessed
no less than twenty furnaces and ironworks in different parts of the
province. The company then established the Domnarvet Iron and Steel
Works on the Dalälven river south of Falun, and closed down the smaller
works, with the exception of the Korsa works, which still continued
to manufacture hammered Lancashire iron. In addition to these works
the Stora Kopparberg Company owns the Dannemora and over half the
Grängesberg iron-ore mines in Central Sweden, from which raw material
is obtained for the iron industry, and enormous forest tracts which
provide its large sulphate and sulphite pulp mills at Skutskär and
paper mill at Kvarnsveden with the necessary timber.
Falun itself is a clean and tidy little town which has gradually
grown up around the mine, in which many attractive-looking workmen’s
cottages, painted with the red ochre produced from the mine, can be
seen. It boasts two interesting churches, those of Christine and
Kopparberg, this last dating from the early Middle Ages, and a Town
Hall dating from the seventeenth century, but possesses little else of
interest apart from the collection that is housed in the Head Office
buildings of the Stora Kopparberg Company in the eastern corner of the
Market Square, and the museum of the same company, “Stora Gruvstugan”,
one of the finest industrial museums of its kind to be found in Sweden.
The first contains many notable portraits of Swedish monarchs or of
distinguished Swedes who at one time or another have been connected
with the general management of the company; the second, not only a
number of tools that were used at various times in mining operations
and a very interesting selection of the copper coins formerly used
in Sweden (all manufactured from the copper of the Falun mine), and
among them the huge 10-daler silver coin, the largest in the world and
weighing over 50 lb., but also many valuable pictures, prints, plans,
and models illustrating the history of the Stora Kopparberg Company
from its birth and the subsequent development of the Swedish iron,
timber, paper, pulp, and water-power industries. The workmen of this
immense undertaking, which is splendidly organised, possess their own
club, libraries, wash-houses, technical and evening schools and sport
grounds, while their wives are trained in house-keeping and children
management, and the young receive the best education available. I have
never seen any institution run more efficiently than the Falun Copper
Company.
[Illustration: SUNDSVALL, A GREAT BALTIC TIMBER PORT]
The surrounding country is fertile and in places almost pretty, except
in the district immediately surrounding the mine-fields. Here are
numerous slag-fields, in which the copper ore used to be worked by
repeated processes of roasting and smelting, the sulphurous fumes that
were thus generated soon killing off all vegetation and giving the
neighbouring houses a very scorched appearance.