A lone farm-house--A scandal against the God Thor--The
headquarters of Scandinavian fairy lore--The legend of Dyrë
Vo--A deep pool--A hint for alternate ploughboys--Wild
goose geometry--A memorial of the good old times--Dutch
falconers--Rough game afoot--Author hits two birds with one
stone--Crosses the lake Totak--A slough of despond--An honest
guide--A Norwegian militiaman--Rough lodgings--A night with the
swallows--A trick of authorship--Yea or Nay.
At Kos-thveit, on the lake Totak, stands a lone farm-house, the
proprietor of which procured me a man and a maid to row me over the
dreary waters, now rendered drearier by a passing squall which overcast
the sky. Pointing to the westward, where the lake narrowed, and
receded under the shadows of the approaching mountains, the ferryman
told me that yonder lay the famous Urebro Urden,[6] where the god
Thor, when disguised by beer, lost his hammer, and cleared a road
through the loose rocks while engaged in searching for it. Indeed,
with the exception of Nissedal, in another part of Thelemarken, which
is reputed as the head quarters of trolls and glamour, this gloomy
lake and its vicinity abound, perhaps more than any part of Norway, in
tales of Scandinavia’s ancient gods and supernatural beings. The man
also mentioned the legend of Dyrë Vo, which has been put into verse by
Welhaven.
The following version will give some idea of the legend--
The bonniest lad all Vinje thro’
Was Dyrë of Vo by name,
Firm as a rock the strength, I trow,
Of twelve men he could claim.
“Well Dyrë,” quoth a neighbour bold,
“With trolls and sprites, like Thor of old,
To have a bout now fear ye?”
“Not a bit, were it mirk,” said Dyrë.
Full soon, they tell, it did befal
That in the merry Yule-tide,
When cups went round, and beards wagg’d all,
And the ale was briskly plied:
All in a trice the mirth grew still:
Hark! what a sound came from the hill,
As a hundred steers lowed near ye.
“Well, now its right mirk,” quoth Dyrë.
Then straightway he hied to Totak-vand,
And loosened his boat so snell;
But as he drew near to the other strand
He heard an eldritch yell.
“Who’s fumbling in the churn? What ho!”
“But who art thou?--I’m Dyrë Vo,--
All in the moor, so weary;
And so dark as it is?” asked Dyrë.
“I’m from Ashowe, and must away
To Glomshowe to my lady;
Bring the boat alongside, and do not stay,
And put out your strength: so; steady.”
“You must shrink a bit first,” was Vo’s reply,
“My boat is so little, and you so high;
Your body’s as long as a tall fir-tree,
And, remember, its dark,” said Dyrë.
The Troll he shrunk up, quite funny to see,
Ere the boat could be made to fit him,
Then Dyrë--the devil a pin cared he
For Trolls--began to twit him.
“Now tell me, good sir, what giant you are.”
“No nonsense--you’ll rue it--of joking beware,”
Growled the Troll, so dark and dreary.
“Besides, it is mirk,” laughed Dyrë.
But the Troll by degrees more friendly grew,
And said, when he over was ferried,
“In your _trough_ I’ll leave a token, to shew
The measure of him you’ve wherried.
Look under the thwarts when darkness wanes,
And something you’ll find in return for your pains;
A trifle wherewith to make merry.”
“For now it is mirk,” said Dyrë.
When daylight appeared, a glove-finger of wool
He found in the boat--such a treasure--
Four skeps it did take to fill it full,
Dyrë uses it for a meal-measure.
Then straight it became a proverb or saw,
Dyrë Vo is the lad to go like Thor
’Gainst Trolls, and such like Feerie.
“Best of all when it’s mirk,” thought Dyrë.
“Very deep, sir,” said the boatman, as I let out my spinning tackle, in
the faint hopes of a trout for supper.
“Was the depth ever plumbed?” inquired I.
“To be sure, sir. That’s a long, long time ago--leastways, I have heard
so. There was an old woman at Kos-thveit yonder, whose husband had the
ill-luck to be drowned in the lake. She set people to work to drag for
his body, but nowhere on this side of the country could she get a rope
sufficiently long for the work. So she had to send to the city for one.
At last they reached the bottom, and found the lake as deep as it was
broad, with a little to spare, for the rope reached from Kos-thveit to
Rauland, just across the water, and then went twice round the church,
which you see standing alone, yonder on the shore, three miles off.”
“Who serves that church?” inquired I.
“Vinje’s Priest,” he answered. “That was his boat-house we passed.”
We landed on the eastern shore of the lake, at a spot called Hadeland,
where a cluster of farm-houses were to be seen upon a green slope,
showing some symptoms of cultivation. Richard Aslackson Berge, the
farmer at whose house I put up, a grimy, ill-clad fellow, quite
astounded me by the extent of his information. Catching sight of
my wooden calendar, he immediately fetched an old almanack, which
contained some explanation of the various signs upon the staff. Fancy
one of your “alternate ploughboys”--as the Dean of Hereford and other
would-be improvers of the clod-hopping mind, if I remember rightly,
call them--fancy one of these fellows studying with interest an
ancient Anglo-Saxon wooden calendar; and yet this man Berge, besides
this, talked of the older and younger Edda, the poem of Gudrun, and,
if my memory serves me, of the Nibelungenlied. He had also read the
Heimskringla Saga. The promoters of book-hawking and village lending
libraries will be interested to hear that this superior enlightenment
was due to a small lending library, which had been established by a
former clergyman of the district. There was a pithiness and simplicity
about this man’s talk which surprised me.
“The wild geese,” says he, “come over here in the spring, and after
tarrying a few days make over to the north, in the shape of a
snow-plough.” Milton would have said, “Ranged in figure, wedge their
way.”
Several old swords and other weapons have been dug up in the vicinity,
indicative of rugged manners and deeds quite in keeping with the rugged
features of the surrounding nature. On an old beam in the hay-loft
is carved, in antique Norsk--“Knut So-and-so was murdered here in
1685”--the simple memorial of a very common incident in those days.
For the moderate sum of four orts (three and fourpence) I hire a horse
and a man to the shores of the Miösvand. To the left of our route--path
there is none--is a place called Falke Riese (Falcon’s Nest), where
Richard tells me that his grandfather told him he remembered a party
of Dutchmen being located in a log-hut, for the purpose of catching
falcons, and that they used duen (tame doves) to attract them. This is
interesting, as showing the method pursued by the grandees of Europe,
in the days of hawking, to procure the best, or Norwegian breed. At
one time, this sport was also practised by the great people of this
country. Thus, from Snorro, it appears that Eywind used to keep falcons.
My guide, Ole, has been a soldier, but much prefers the mountain air to
that of the town.
“In the town,” says he, “it is so traengt,” (in Lincolnshire, throng,)
_i.e._, no room to stir or breathe.
In the course of conversation he tells me he verily believes I have
travelled over the whole earth.
While the horse is stopping to rest and browse on a spot which afforded
a scanty pasturage, a likely-looking lake attracted my observation, and
I was speedily on its rocky banks, throwing for a trout--but the trout
were too wary and the water too still. While thus engaged, a distant
horn sounds from a mountain on the right, sufficiently startling
in such a desolate region. Was game afoot this morning, and was I
presently to hear--
The deep-mouthed blood-hound’s heavy bay,
Resounding up the hollow way.
Game was afoot, but not of the kind usually the object of the chase.
The Alpine horn was blown by a sæter-lad to keep off the wolves, as I
was informed. As nothing was to be done with the rod, I tried the gun,
and as we slope down through the stunted willows and birch copses that
patch the banks of the Miösvand, I fall in with plenty of golden plover
and brown ptarmigan, and manage to kill two birds with one stone. In
other words, the shots that serve to replenish the provision-bag arouse
a peasant on the further side, who puts over to us in his boat, and
thus saves us a detour of some miles round the southern arm of the
lake. As we cross over, I perceive far to the westward the snow-covered
mountains of the Hardanger Fjeld, which I hope to cross. The
westernmost end of the lake is, I understand, twenty-four English miles
from this. To the eastward, towering above its brother mountains, is
the cockscombed Gausta, which lies close by the Riukan Foss, while all
around the scenery is as gaunt and savage as possible. At Schinderland,
where we land, after some palaver I procure a horse to Erlands-gaard, a
cabin which lies on the hither side of the northern fork of the Miösen,
said to be seven miles distant. But the many detours we had to make
to avoid the dangerous bogs, made the transit a long affair. In one
place, when the poor nag, encumbered with my effects, sank up to his
belly, I expected every moment to see the hungry bog swallow him up
entirely. With admirable presence of mind he kept quite still, instead
of exhausting himself in struggling, and then by an agile fling and
peculiar sleight of foot, got well out of the mess.
The delay caused by these difficulties enabled me to bring down some
more ptarmigan, and have a bang at an eagle, who swept off with a sound
which to my ears seemed very like “don’t you wish you may get it.” But
perhaps it was only the wind driving down the rocks and over the savage
moorland.
The modest charge of one ort (tenpence), made by my guide for horse and
man, not a little surprised me. I did not permit him to lose by his
honesty.
Unfortunately, the boat at Erlands-gaard is away; so meanwhile I cook
some plover and chat with the occupants of the cabin. Sigur Ketilson,
one of the sons, is a Konge-man, (one of “the king’s men,” or
soldiers, mentioned in the ballad of “Humpty-dumpty.”) He has been out
exercising this year at Tönsberg, one hundred and forty English miles
off. The mere getting thither to join his corps is quite a campaign in
itself. On his road to headquarters he receives fourteen skillings per
diem as _viaticum_, and one skilling and a half for “_logiment_.” A
bed for three farthings! He is not forced to march more than two Norsk
(fourteen English) miles a day. The time of serving is now cut down
one-half, being five instead of ten years, and by the same law every
able-bodied person must present himself for service, though instead of
the final selection being made by lot, it is left to the discretion of
one officer--a regulation liable to abuse.
At last the boat returns, and embarking in it by ten o’clock P.M., when
it is quite dark, I arrive at the lone farm-house at Holvig. Mrs. Anna
Holvig is reposing with her three children, her husband being from
home. There being only one bed on the premises, I find that the hay
this night must be my couch. The neighbouring loft where I slept was
a building with its four ends resting, as usual, on huge stones. At
intervals during the night I am awoke by noises close to my ear, which
I thought must be from infantine rats, whose organs of speech were not
fully developed. In the morning I discover that my nocturnal disturbers
were not rats, but swallows, who had constructed their mud habitations
just under the flooring where I slept. “The swallow twittering from its
straw-built nest” may gratify persons of an elegiac turn; but under the
circumstances the noise was anything but agreeable.
“The breezy call of incense breathing morn,” in which the same poet
revels, was much more to my liking; indeed, one sniff of it made me as
fresh as a lark, and I picked my way to the house by the lake side,
and enjoyed my coffee. The little boy, Oiesteen Torkilson, though only
eight years of age, has not been idle, and has procured a man and horse
from a distant sæter. The price asked is out of all reason, as I don’t
hesitate to tell the owner. Before the bargain is struck, I jot down a
few remarks in my journal. With the inquisitiveness of her nation, the
woman asks what I am writing. “Notices of what I see and think of the
people; who is good, and who not.” Out bolts the lady, to apprise the
man of her discovery that “there’s a chield amang ye taking notes, and
faith he’ll print it.” My device succeeded. Presently she finished her
confab with the peasant, and returned to say that he would take a more
moderate payment.
I observed here, for the first time, the difference between the two
words “ja” and “jo.”
Have you seen a bear?--“Ja.” Haven’t you seen a bear?--“Jo.” I have
met educated Norwegians who had failed to observe the distinction. A
perfectly similar distinction was formerly made in England between
“yes” and “yea.”[7]