FAROE
“And still the eye may faint resemblance trace
In the blue eye, tall form, proportion fair,
The limbs athletic, and the long light hair,—
(Such was the mien, as Scald and Minstrel sings,
Of fair-haired Harold, first of Norway’s Kings);
But their high deeds to scale these crags confined,
Their only warfare is with wave and wind.”
—_Scott._
Considering the latitude and its isolation in the north Atlantic, the
climate of Faroe is comparatively mild. Fierce storms from the north beat
down upon the islands and the heavy sea often surges for days together
through these narrow channels making it impossible for boats to pass from
shore to shore. Even in calm weather the tide currents often run at ten
knots an hour so that it is necessary for the boatman to have an accurate
knowledge of the currents in order to make progress. The high peaks are
covered with snow frequently throughout the summer, but snow seldom
lingers in the valleys over a fortnight even in the winter.
The temperature is low in summer and correspondingly high in winter.
Heavy fogs cover the islands during the greater portion of the year and a
perfectly clear day is rare. When the sun breaks through the mists, the
effect of the shifting clouds, the areas of snow on the upper peaks and
the myriads of waterfalls form a magnificent picture.
Seventeen of the islands are inhabited with a population of 16,000
people. The largest island is _Strömö_, Stream, which is twenty-seven
miles long. The capital, _Thorshaven_, Harbor-of-Thor, with a population
of 8,000 people, is located on the east coast of _Strömö_. These islands
belong to Denmark and have two representatives in the Danish Parliament.
All local affairs are conducted in the _Lagthing_, Law-Assembly, at
_Thorshaven_. The people are exempt from conscription and of nearly all
customs, duties and taxes. The members of the _Lagthing_ are chosen by
ballot for a term of three years. The President is appointed by the
Danish King for life. The local taxes are collected by native sheriffs,
who canvass their districts four times each year. The sheriffs also have
charge of the division and distribution of the captured whales. Lawyers
are resident at _Thorshaven_ and at no other place in the islands.
Criminal and civil cases are tried before a judge and without a jury. All
petty cases come before the local sheriff. The head man of each village
enforces the sanitary regulations and other local rules. There are no
policemen in the islands and crime, unless committed by foreign sailors,
usually Scotch fishermen, is extremely rare. The _Faroese_ are peaceable
and sensitive of any scandal if it passes beyond the borders of their
own village. It is the duty of every man to see to it that the law is
maintained, and they keep a careful watch of all foreigners when on shore.
There is only one jail in the islands and a Faroeman smilingly declared
to me that it was for the sole benefit of the Shetland fishermen. The
law permits a prisoner to diet only on bread and water. A man serving a
sentence spends three days in jail and then enjoys three days of freedom
alternately until the entire term of the confinement is completed. There
is no danger of his making an escape.
[Illustration: _Cutting up Whale Meat at Thorshavn._
_Heads of the Bottle Nose Whale._]
In _Thorshaven_ and in the larger villages there are schools. There is
also a Teacher’s College in the capital city. The people have local
option in educational matters and many prefer to teach their children at
home. If it is voted to have a school in a given village, then all the
children must attend it, the parents must supply a teacher and provide
sufficient pasturage for one cow for the use of the teacher, but the
government pays the meager salary.
The results of their home education are excellent; the children study
for the sake of knowledge. The most simple ones have a good knowledge
of history and geography. The law requires that the church services,
the village schools and the proceedings of the _Lagthing_ be conducted
in Danish. On all other occasions the Faroeman uses his own language.
They use the Danish only upon compulsion. There is a strong anti-Danish
feeling which is kept alive by the supercilious behavior and affected
superiority of the resident Danes, who, however, in politeness, integrity
and hospitality are inferior to the Faroese. The Danes in Faroe are not
to be confounded by the reader with the Danes resident in Denmark.
The people are stoutly built, with fair complexions, usually handsome,
mostly short in stature, broad shouldered and rugged, descendants of
the ancient Norse Vikings who settled in Faroe prior to the settlement
of Iceland. They have kept the race pure. If asked his nationality, the
Faroeman proudly replies,—“I am a Faroeman.”
The men have a national costume, which is shown in the frontispiece
of this volume. This suit I purchased of Peter Arge in _Thorshaven_.
I asked him where I could obtain one of these suits and he took me to
the little bed room at the top of his house and asked me to try on his
best suit. I did it and found that it fitted closely, and so it was in
style in _Thorshaven_. He willingly sold it saying that he could make
another during the winter when there was no work. A brief description
of this costume is not out of place at this point. It consists of
knickerbockers, slashed at the knee and secured with four silver buttons
and a broad, double-hinged silver buckle. The waistcoat is scarlet,
fastened with six silver buttons. A continuous spray of forget-me-nots,
daintily worked with colored silk, extends down each edge of the
waistcoat and across the two diminutive pockets. A tightly fitting jersey
of homespun, with twenty-four silver buttons, twelve on a side, is put
over the waistcoat and over this, in cold weather, is worn a short heavy
jacket fastened with silver buttons of large size. This is used much as
we use an overcoat. The cap is of closely woven material in fine stripes
of red and blue; it has no visor, is cylindrical in shape and gathered at
the top in the form of a rosette, which is pulled down on the right hand
side and fastened at the edge of the cap. Thick, homespun stockings of
soft wool and sheepskin slippers,—or sometimes a Danish shoe with silver
buckles,—fastened around the ankles with red or white cord complete the
costume. No,—the Faroeman is not fully “dressed” without his beautifully
inlaid knife in a highly ornamented sheath fastened to his belt with a
twisted cord. This knife, as well as scores of similar knives from Faroe,
was made by Mr. Arge, who is expert at inlaying shell, silver and wood.
The suit was made in his own family and his daughter embroidered the
waistcoat. The Faroese women, like the Icelandic men, have no national
costume.
The people are very seclusive. Many families claim descent from the
ancient Kings of Norway and Scotland, and will marry only among
themselves. They are so clannish that the people on one island rarely
marry with those of another island. To illustrate,—A woman born on Strömö
married a man from _Nalsö_. The result was that she was boycotted by all
the _Nalsö_ people. Contrary to the dogma of the medical fraternity this
inbreeding has not produced extremely abnormal offspring. Mental, moral
and physical degeneration has not resulted from this long series of close
inbreeding.
The language of the Faroese must be classed as a dialect. Although
having the same origin as the Icelandic tongue, it differs strongly in
pronunciation. In the Viking days the same speech was employed in Norway,
Faroe and in Iceland. Icelandic has remained nearly pure but Faroe, being
in close contact with Shetland, Orkney and with the numerous fishermen,
its language has been much adulterated. Faroe has its Sagas as well as
Iceland, Norway and Orkney, but there were no Sagamen or historians as
in Iceland. The modern Faroese dialect has been written less than eighty
years. The ballads, folklore and traditions are now being reduced to
writing by the scholars and many French, English, Danish and Icelandic
works have been translated.
The Faroese have escaped the demoralizing influences of the continent
and for centuries have lived simply and quietly along the lines of
their ancient customs. Their hospitality is generous, their courtesy to
strangers extensive, their inborn honesty is perfect. The people, when
not engaged in fish curing or in whale dissection, are clean and their
homes are models of tidiness. Their centuries of isolation and peaceful
living have eradicated every trace of the cruelty, piracy and murderous
tendencies of their Viking progenitors. They have some vices,—what nation
has none? They lack originality, their ambition and energy is at a low
ebb, they take life as a matter of fact and do not worry. They surpass
all other people in their love of gossip and in sarcasm. There is a lack
of gaiety and a tendency towards melancholy. If climate has any effect
upon the spirits of a race, surely the heavy fogs, that hang over these
islands for weeks and saturate everything with chilling moisture, are
responsible for the melancholy. The long, dark winters, the continuous
roar of ocean through these ancient fiords is also responsible for the
mental cast of the race. But, they have a peculiar humor and are fond of
joking each other. This is a trait inherited from their Viking ancestors
and this trait is strong in Iceland. The people dislike very much to be
laughed at or to pose as objects of curiosity before the gaze of the
foreigner. It was with the greatest difficulty that I obtained my series
of one hundred photographs of these people and their homes.
Conservatism is their prevailing characteristic. Some European method
or idea may be better than their own, but they cling to their ancient
customs as their bird catchers to the cliffs. They build their houses as
did their grandfathers _because_ their grandfathers constructed their
dwellings after the designs of more remote generations. Birch bark is
still imported from Norway to cover the drift-wood rafters and over this
is placed a layer of turf where the grass grows throughout the year and
the flowers bloom in profusion in the long summer. The ancient wooden
weighing beam, the quaint antique iron lamp for train oil, the implements
of the forge, the fishing tackle, the boats and their rigging,—all are
constructed according to ancestral specifications. Modern ideas are
scoffed at, the old ways are the best. The Faroese are happy in their own
seclusion and they live in the shadowy paths between the superstitions
of ancient Scandinavia and the vigorous, pulsing life of western
civilization. They care little for the outside world and its problems.
A local newspaper, in spite of the submarine cable, gives only a fourth
of a column to news of the outside world; the remainder is filled with
gossip which every one knew before the sheet issued from the press.
The streets of _Thorshaven_ are narrow, uneven, crooked and crowded. The
houses are built mostly of wood on high stone foundations, the walls are
frequently coated with tar and in the summer time festoons of fish are
suspended from the gables to dry. Within the home everything is neat and
clean, the Norway spruce is sanded, colored by time and untarnished with
paint and has become a beautiful chestnut brown.
The people retain some of their ancient superstitions and believe that
the result of a day’s fishing, or success in bird-netting, will depend
upon some chance of minor importance. The _trolls_, underground people
of diminutive stature, elves and fairies live largely in the imagination
and the folk stories relative to these phantoms have a strong influence
upon the children. Where the cliffs rise directly out of the sea, there
are many isolated columns, like the “Old Man of Hoy” in Orkney, which
have been left standing by erosion of the waves. The water surges around
them and they stand erect in the mists, solitary and unpressed by human
foot. The Faroese call them the “Fingers of the Norns” and the fishermen
hold them in deep superstition. This northern superstition, the control
of mortals by unseen powers, has been made use of by Sir Walter Scott in
that mysterious character in the _Pirate_, Norna of the Fitful Head.
The people are chiefly occupied in fishing, sheep raising and bird
catching. The codfish abound in these cool northern waters, especially
on the Faroe Bank. They not only secure enough of them for their own
consumption but export large quantities to the Catholic countries of the
Mediterranean. As in Labrador and in Iceland, so in Faroe, the fishing is
done by the men, while the splitting, cleaning, curing and packing is the
work of the women.
The one time in the year when the Faroese are moved from the even tenor
of their way is during the whale drive. This is a yearly affair that
takes place during the latter part of July or early in August. It is
the one great sport of the country and upon its success depends the
condition of the larder during the long winter. This is the bottle-nose
whale, _Hyperoodon rostratum_, a small species from fifteen to twenty-two
feet in length. They frequent the north Atlantic in large schools. The
Faroese are constantly on the look out for them and when the whales enter
the channels the summons by signals and telephone is rapidly passed
from island to island. In an incredibly short time the school is nearly
surrounded by the boats of the excited fishermen with harpoons and
spears. Because of the great shouting and the closing together of the
boats, the whales become frightened and frantically rush to the shore
where most of them are stranded, few ever escape. From the boats, from
the shore, and in the water, the slender harpoon is hurled with deadly
aim. The whale once struck is securely anchored and the harpooner hastens
to secure another victim. When the slaughter is over, the heads are cut
off and numbered, the bodies cut up and distributed under the direction
of the sheriffs and an equitable distribution of the flesh and fat is
made according to law. Not only do the people actually present at the
whale slaughter receive their portion but all the people in the district
receive their just share. The flesh of these whales is similar to dark
colored coarse grained beef, but when nicely broiled is a palatable and
nutritious dish. The body is enveloped with two to six inches of fat,
which has the consistency of hard fat pork. This is salted and used by
the people as we use salt pork. The flesh is smoked, dried or salted.
Owing to the scarcity of grass the Faroese cows sometimes subsist upon
dried whale meat in the winter and often eat dried fish heads.
The third occupation of the people is bird catching. This is followed
by a restricted portion of the population. The great cliffs of Faroe,
ranking with the finest in the world, are the homes of myriads of sea
birds. Bird catching is an art as well as an occupation and has descended
from father to son through many generations. The skua, puffin, guillemot
and eider duck are among the more numerous birds. They are taken for
their flesh, oil and feathers. Many of the birds are captured in nets
similar to a butterfly net, except that the net is flat and spread
between two forks at the end of a long pole. I measured one of these nets
and found the handle to be eighteen feet long and each of the Y-shaped
prongs was six feet. Between the arms of the Y is stretched the net. In
use the fowler sits upon a rock and when he sees a puffin flying directly
towards him he elevates the net, the bird is clumsy, unable to quickly
change his direction and flying into the net becomes entangled. I sat by
one of the fowlers in Iceland one day who was working with one of these
nets and in thirty minutes he secured forty birds. Often times the record
of two or more a minute is made, when the birds are flying well. The
puffin burrows in the ground like a rabbit and there rears its young.
During the day they haunt the sea, collect small fish and then fly in
great companies in long files to their nests.
The fowler is also an expert cragsman and whether he creeps along the
narrow shelf hundreds of feet above the sea and works his way from point
to point on the overhanging cliffs, or is suspended like a pendulum on
a rope four to five hundred feet, he is cool, collected, skillful, and
always successful. In fact he is the best cragsman in the world.
There are a few domestic arts that have reached perfection, as far
as their purpose is concerned, such as spinning, weaving, fulling,
embroidering, boat-building and metal decorating. The Faroeman is an
expert at wood and bone carving and at metal inlaying. My Faroese sheath
knife, made by Peter Arge, is a model of skillful construction, deftly
inlaid with the mother of pearl and silver. The sheath is of ebony,
inlaid with silver in the form of a whale boat, harpoon and fish hooks.
Faroe is the stepping stone to Iceland. I have visited it on seven
different occasions, have passed through nearly every one of its numerous
channels, wandered through the villages, attended a country auction much
like that held in the rural districts of New England, climbed the lower
slopes of its hills which overlook the fiords, witnessed the marvelous
bird life and learned a little about the quaint inhabitants and my
experience has been such that I can cordially recommend these lofty
islands as a delightful spot for a summer’s holiday. The tourist will
be given all necessary assistance and information, whether he desires
to paint, fish in the little lakes of the glacial valleys, accompany
the fowler in his dangerous occupation upon the cliffs or journey from
island to island through the wonderful channels with the fishermen. He
will obtain homely but clean and nutritious food, and when the crust of
conservatism is broken and the confidence of the host is secured, he will
pass many an hour in delightful conversation which will store his mind
with quaint anecdotes and ancient myths. He will leave the islands with
regret and in after years will sometimes long for the serene and peaceful
life of the Faroese, where worry, care and social duties do not intrude
and he will count among his warmest friends the stoical Faroese.
With the ever changing mood of sea and sky these isles present a
kaleidoscopic picture. The frowning cliffs alive with sea birds, where
“clouds on clouds arise,” the higher pinnacles obscured or banded with
drifting cloud ribbons, the patches of pristine snow high up in the
mountain clefts from which numerous waterfalls leap the cliffs to fall
in silver spray upon the sea, the quaintly garbed Faroese swinging like
pendulums from the projecting lava to net the birds, or, bobbing in their
boats upon the waves, the tiny homes set in a bit of emerald vegetation
in an angle of the mountain wall, the changing panorama of sea, cliff and
sky as the boat raced with the current through the tortuous channels and
turned the last rockspire into the northern ocean and the fading of the
mighty headlands in the purple haze of a midnight twilight,—these were
the elements of a picture well worth ten thousand miles of travel. Faroe
with the quaintness of twelve centuries of isolation dropped below the
horizon and the next land to delight the eye was to be Iceland.
I was with the mate on the bridge at five the next morning and as anxious
as was _Ingölfr_ and his foster brother, _Hjörleifr_, eleven centuries
before, to discover what secrets these northern waters held,—when the dim
outline of land was seen through the shifting fog. An enthusiastic Dane,
an Icelandic maiden and her Swedish lover started the national anthem of
Iceland.
“Eldgamla Ísafold,
Ástkaera fósturmold,
Fjallkonan fríð,
Mögum pín muntu kaer,
Meðan lönd gyrðir saer,
Og gumar girnast maer,
Gljár sól á hlíð.”
At that time I did not distinguish the Icelandic from the Danish but I
knew the tune, _America_, and I mingled the good English words of Dr.
Smith with the lisping gutturals of the Scandinavian. Norse and Yankee
are well met in this Icelandic sea and I doff my cap to the descendants
of those sturdy mariners who discovered Iceland, Greenland and America
before Columbus was born, who Anglicised Celt and Britain and eventually
made possible our own dear New England.
The morning vapors are scattered. The ocean is a thing of life. It rolls
in all the wild freedom of the north, rich in livid shades of blue and
green in the nearer circle of our vision while on the far horizon it
is a sparkling amethyst beneath the deeper azure of the bending sky.
To the north, the circle is broken by the abrupt basaltic towers of
_Ingölfshofði_. Beyond these rise the red and brown fragments of extinct
craters, and yet beyond and towering far above them are the glaciated
_Jökulls_ down whose sides rush mighty torrents to dash in uncounted
waterfalls into the impatient sea. It was at this point that the foster
brothers cast overboard the temple pillars of _Ingölfr_, who vowed by
_Odin_, that upon whatever coast they were cast, there would he found his
colony. _Hjörleifr_ went to the neighboring islands, the Westmans, where
he was soon afterwards murdered by his Irish serfs. _Ingölfr_ tarried
here for about three years and sent parties along the coast to search for
the lost pillars.
This bold promontory is also noted in the Saga of _Burnt Njal_ as
being the place where Kari, the blood-avenger of Njal was wrecked when
returning from his exile. Near here stood the house of Flosi, the
lifelong enemy of Kari. The incident shows the sacredness of hospitality
among these savage people. Kari went boldly to Flosi and asked for succor
from the storm. The Burner, in spite of the sworn enmity to Kari, granted
his request, welcomed him with a Scandinavian welcome and afterwards they
became lifelong friends.
We came close in under the bare black walls of _Eyjafjalla_,
Island-Mountain, and gazed up to _Skogafoss_, Forest Waterfall,
tumbling one hundred and eighty feet of unbroken water into the breakers
which boiled with the black volcanic sand. At length we came to
_Vestmannaeyjar_, Westman Isles, which, like the fingers of the Norns had
been beckoning to us all the morning.