Skoal! Skoal! For Norway Skoal!
Sing ye the song of the Vand-dam troll.
When I am hiding
Norway's luck
On a White Storbuk
Comes riding, riding.
Bleak, black, deep, and cold is Utrovand, a long pocket of glacial
water, a crack in the globe, a wrinkle in the high Norwegian mountains,
blocked with another mountain, and flooded with a frigid flood, three
thousand feet above its Mother Sea, and yet no closer to its Father Sun.
Around its cheerless shore is a belt of stunted trees, that sends a
long tail up the high valley, till it dwindles away to sticks and moss,
as it also does some half-way up the granite hills that rise a thousand
feet, encompassing the lake. This is the limit of trees, the end of the
growth of wood. The birch and willow are the last to drop out of the
long fight with frost. Their miniature thickets are noisy with the
cries of Fieldfare, Pipit, and Ptarmigan, but these are left behind on
nearing the upper plateau, where shade of rock and sough of wind are
all that take their place. The chilly Hoifjeld rolls away, a rugged,
rocky plain, with great patches of snow in all the deeper hollows, and
the distance blocked by snowy peaks that rise and roll and whiter
gleam, till, dim and dazzling in the north, uplifts the Jotunheim, the
home of spirits, of glaciers, and of the lasting snow.
The treeless stretch is one vast attest to the force of heat. Each
failure of the sun by one degree is marked by a lower realm of life.
The northern slope of each hollow is less boreal than its southern
side. The pine and spruce have given out long ago; the mountain-ash
went next; the birch and willow climbed up half the slope. Here,
nothing grows but creeping plants and moss. The plain itself is pale
grayish green, one vast expanse of reindeer-moss, but warmed at spots
into orange by great beds of polytrichum, and, in sunnier nooks,
deepened to a herbal green. The rocks that are scattered everywhere are
of a delicate lilac, but each is variegated with spreading frill-edged
plasters of gray-green lichen or orange powder-streaks and beauty-spots
of black. These rocks have great power to hold the heat, so that each
of them is surrounded by a little belt of heat-loving plants that could
not otherwise live so high. Dwarfed representatives of the birch and
willow both are here, hugging the genial rock, as an old French
habitant hugs his stove in winter-time, spreading their branches over
it, instead of in the frigid air. A foot away is seen a chillier belt
of heath, and farther off, colder, where none else can grow, is the
omnipresent gray-green reindeer-moss that gives its color to the
upland. The hollows are still filled with snow, though now it is June.
But each of these white expanses is shrinking, spending itself in
ice-cold streams that somehow reach the lake. These snö-flaks show no
sign of life, not even the 'red-snow' tinge, and around each is a belt
of barren earth, to testify that life and warmth can never be divorced.
Birdless and lifeless, the gray-green snow-pied waste extends over all
the stretch that is here between the timber-line and the snow-line,
above which winter never quits its hold. Farther north both come lower,
till the timber-line is at the level of the sea; and all the land is in
that treeless belt called Tundra in the Old World, and Barrens in the
New, and that everywhere is the Home of the Reindeer--the Realm of the
Reindeer-moss.
I
In and out it flew, in and out, over the water and under, as the
Varsimle', the leader doe of the Reindeer herd, walked past on the
vernal banks, and it sang:--
"Skoal! Skoal! Gamle Norge Skoal!" and more about "a White Reindeer and
Norway's good luck," as though the singer were gifted with special
insight.
When old Sveggum built the Vand-dam on the Lower Hoifjeld, just above
the Utrovand, and set his ribesten a-going, he supposed that he was the
owner of it all. But some one was there before him. And in and out of
the spouting stream this some one dashed, and sang songs that he made
up to fit the place and the time. He skipped from skjaeke to skjaeke of
the wheel, and did many things which Sveggum could set down only to
luck--whatever that is; and some said that Sveggum's luck was a
Wheel-troll, a Water-fairy, with a brown coat and a white beard, one
that lived on land or in water, as he pleased.
But most of Sveggum's neighbors saw only a Fossekal, the little
Waterfall Bird that came each year and danced in the stream, or dived
where the pool is deep. And maybe both were right, for some of the very
oldest peasants will tell you that a Fairy-troll may take the form of a
man or the form of a bird. Only this bird lived a life no bird can
live, and sang songs that men never had sung in Norway. Wonderful
vision had he, and sights he saw that man never saw. For the Fieldfare
would build before him, and the Lemming fed its brood under his very
eyes. Eyes were they to see; for the dark speck on Suletind that man
could barely glimpse was a Reindeer, with half-shed coat, to him and
the green slime on the Vandren was beautiful green pasture with a
banquet spread.
Oh, Man is so blind, and makes himself so hated! But Fossekal harmed
none, so none were afraid of him. Only he sang, and his songs were
sometimes mixed with fun and prophecy, or perhaps a little scorn.
From the top of the tassel-birch he could mark the course of the
Vand-dam stream past the Nystuen hamlet to lose itself in the gloomy
waters of Utrovand or by a higher flight he could see across the barren
upland that rolled to Jotunheim in the north.
The great awakening was on now. The springtime had already reached the
woods; the valleys were a-throb with life; new birds coming from the
south, winter sleepers reappearing, and the Reindeer that had wintered
in the lower woods should soon again be seen on the uplands.
Not without a fight do the Frost Giants give up the place so long their
own; a great battle was in progress; but the Sun was slowly, surely
winning, and driving them back to their Jotunheim. At every hollow and
shady place they made another stand, or sneaked back by night, only to
suffer another defeat. Hard hitters these, as they are stubborn
fighters; many a granite rock was split and shattered by their blows in
reckless fight, so that its inner fleshy tints were shown and warmly
gleamed among the gray-green rocks that dotted the plain, like the
countless flocks of Thor. More or less of these may be found at every
place of battle-brunt, and straggled along the slope of Suletind was a
host that reached for half a mile. But stay! these moved. Not rocks
were they, but living creatures.
They drifted along erratically, yet one way, all up the wind. They
swept out of sight in a hollow, to reappear on a ridge much nearer, and
serried there against the sky, we marked their branching horns, and
knew them for the Reindeer in their home.
The band came drifting our way, feeding like Sheep, grunting like only
themselves. Each one found a grazing-spot, stood there till it was
cleared off, then trotted on crackling hoofs to the front in search of
another. So the band was ever changing in rank and form. But one there
was that was always at or near the van--a large and well-favored
Simle', or Hind. However much the band might change and spread, she was
in the forefront, and the observant would soon have seen signs that she
had an influence over the general movement--that she, indeed, was the
leader. Even the big Bucks, in their huge velvet-clad antlers, admitted
this untitular control; and if one, in a spirit of independence,
evinced a disposition to lead elsewhere, he soon found himself
uncomfortably alone.
The Varsimle', or leading Hind, had kept the band hovering, for the
last week or two, along the timber-line, going higher each day to the
baring uplands, where the snow was clearing and the deer-flies were
blown away. As the pasture zone had climbed she had followed in her
daily foraging, returning to the sheltered woods at sundown, for the
wild things fear the cold night wind even as man does. But now the
deer-flies were rife in the woods, and the rocky hillside nooks warm
enough for the nightly bivouac, so the woodland was deserted.
Probably the leader of a band of animals does not consciously pride
itself on leadership, yet has an uncomfortable sensation when not
followed. But there are times with all when solitude is sought. The
Varsimle' had been fat and well through the winter, yet now was
listless, and lingered with drooping head as the grazing herd moved
past her.
Sometimes she stood gazing blankly while the unchewed bunch of moss
hung from her mouth, then roused to go on to the front as before; but
the spells of vacant stare and the hankering to be alone grew stronger.
She turned downward to seek the birch woods, but the whole band turned
with her. She stood stock-still, with head down. They grazed and
grunted past, leaving her like a statue against the hillside. When all
had gone on, she slunk quietly away; walked a few steps, looked about,
made a pretense of grazing, snuffed the ground, looked after the herd,
and scanned the hills; then downward fared toward the sheltering woods.
Once as she peered over a bank she sighted another Simle', a doe
Reindeer, uneasily wandering by itself. But the Varsimle' wished not
for company. She did not know why, but she felt that she must hide away
somewhere.
She stood still until the other had passed on, then turned aside, and
went with faster steps and less wavering, till she came in view of
Utrovand, away down by the little stream that turns old Sveggum's
ribesten. Up above the dam she waded across the limpid stream, for
deep-laid and sure is the instinct of a wild animal to put running
water between itself and those it shuns. Then, on the farther bank, now
bare and slightly green, she turned, and passing in and out among the
twisted trunks, she left the noisy Vand-dam. On the higher ground
beyond she paused, looked this way and that, went on a little, but
returned; and here, completely shut in by softly painted rocks, and
birches wearing little springtime hangers, she seemed inclined to rest;
yet not to rest, for she stood uneasily this way and that, driving away
the flies that settled on her legs, heeding not at all the growing
grass, and thinking she was hid from all the world.
But nothing escapes the Fossekal. He had seen her leave the herd, and
now he sat on a gorgeous rock that overhung, and sang as though he had
waited for this and knew that the fate of the nation might turn on what
passed in this far glen. He sang:
Skoal! Skoal! For Norway Skoal!
Sing ye the song of the Vand-dam troll.
When I am hiding
Norway's luck
On a White Storbuk
Comes riding, riding.
There are no Storks in Norway, and yet an hour later there was a
wonderful little Reindeer lying beside the Varsimle'. She was brushing
his coat, licking and mothering him, proud and happy as though this was
the first little Renskalv ever born. There might be hundreds born in
the herd that month, but probably no more like this one, for he was
snowy white, and the song of the singer on the painted rock was about
Good luck, good luck,
And a White Storbuk,
as though he foresaw clearly the part that the White Calf was to play
when he grew to be a Storbuk.
But another wonder now came to pass. Before an hour, there was a second
little Calf--a brown one this time. Strange things happen, and hard
things are done when they needs must. Two hours later, when the
Varsimle' led the White Calf away from the place, there was no Brown
Calf, only some flattened rags with calf-hair on them.
The mother was wise: better one strongling than two weaklings. Within a
few days the Simle' once more led the band, and running by her side was
the White Calf. The Varsimle' considered him in all things, so that he
really set the pace for the band, which suited very well all the
mothers that now had Calves with them. Big, strong, and wise was the
Varsimle', in the pride of her strength, and this White Calf was the
flower of her prime. He often ran ahead of his mother as she led the
herd, and Rol, coming on them one day, laughed aloud at the sight as
they passed, old and young, fat Simle' and antlered Storbuk, a great
brown herd, all led, as it seemed, by a little White Calf.
So they drifted away to the high mountains, to be gone all summer.
"Gone to be taught by the spirits who dwell where the Black Loon
laughs on the ice," said Lief of the Lower Dale; but Sveggum, who had
always been among the Reindeer, said: "Their mothers are the teachers,
even as ours are."
When the autumn came, old Sveggum saw a moving sno-flack far off on the
brown moor-land; but the Troll saw a white yearling, a Nekbuk; and when
they ranged alongside of Utrovand to drink, the still sheet seemed
fully to reflect the White One, though it barely sketched in the
others, with the dark hills behind.
Many a little Calf had come that spring, and had drifted away on the
moss-barrens, to come back no more; for some were weaklings and some
were fools; some fell by the way, for that is law; and some would not
learn the rules, and so died. But the White Calf was strongest of them
all, and he was wise, so he learned of his mother, who was wisest of
them all. He learned that the grass on the sun side of a rock is sweet,
and though it looks the same in the dark hollows, it is there
worthless. He learned that when his mother's hoofs crackled he must be
up and moving, and when all the herd's hoofs crackled there was danger,
and he must keep by his mother's side. For this crackling is like the
whistling of a Whistler Duck's wings: it is to keep the kinds together.
He learned that where the little Bomuldblomster hangs its Cotton tufts
is dangerous bog; that the harsh cackle of the Ptarmigan means that
close at hand are Eagles, as dangerous for Fawn as for Bird. He learned
that the little troll-berries are deadly, that when the verra-flies
come stinging he must take refuge on a snow-patch, and that of all
animal smells only that of his mother was to be fully trusted. He
learned that he was growing. His flat calf sides and big joints were
changing to the full barrel and clean limbs of the Yearling, and the
little bumps which began to show on his head when he was only a
fortnight old were now sharp, hard spikes that could win in fight.
More than once they had smelt that dreaded destroyer of the north that
men call the Gjerv or Wolverene; and one day, as this danger-scent came
suddenly and in great strength, a huge blot of dark brown sprang
rumbling from a rocky ledge, and straight for the foremost--the White
Calf. His eye caught the flash of a whirling, shaggy mass, with
gleaming teeth and eyes, hot-breathed and ferocious. Blank horror set
his hair on end; his nostrils flared in fear: but before he fled there
rose within another feeling--one of anger at the breaker of his peace,
a sense that swept all fear away, braced his legs, and set his horns at
charge. The brown brute landed with a deep-chested growl, to be
received on the young one's spikes. They pierced him deeply, but the
shock was overmuch; it bore the White One down, and he might yet have
been killed but that his mother, alert and ever near, now charged the
attacking monster, and heavier, better armed, she hurled and speared
him to the ground. And the White Calf, with a very demon glare in his
once mild eyes, charged too; and even after the Wolverene was a mere
hairy mass, and his mother had retired to feed, he came, snorting out
his rage, to drive his spikes into the hateful thing, till his snowy
head was stained with his adversary's blood.
Thus he showed that below the ox-like calm exterior was the fighting
beast; that he was like the men of the north, rugged, square-built,
calm, slow to wrath, but when aroused "seeing red."
When they ranked together by the lake that fall, the Fossekal sang his
old song:
When I am hiding
Norway's luck
On a White Storbuk
Comes riding, riding,
as though this was something he had awaited, then disappeared no one
knew where. Old Sveggum had seen it flying through the stream, as birds
fly through the air, walking in the bottom of a deep pond as a
Ptarmigan walks on the rocks, living as no bird can live; and now the
old man said it had simply gone southward for the winter. But old
Sveggum could neither read nor write: how should he know?