Fairy lore--A wrestle for a drinking horn--Merry time is
Yule time--Head-dresses at Haga--Old church at Naes--Good
trout-fishing country--A wealthy milkmaid--Horses subject
to influenza--A change-house library--An historical
calculation--The great national festival--Author threatens,
but relents--A field-day among the ducks--Gulsvig--Family
plate--A nurse of ninety years--The Sölje--The little fat
grey man--A capital scene for a picture--An amazing story--As
true as I sit here--The goat mother--Are there no Tusser
now-a-days--Uninvited guests--An amicable conversation about
things in general--Hans saves his shirt--The cosmopolitan
spirit of fairy lore--Adam of Bremen.
Next morning I found my schuss-karl was brimful of tales, which he
firmly believed, about the trolls.
“You see that Fjeld,” said he, pointing to a magnificent abrupt
mountain behind us. “A friend of mine was taken in there on Yule night,
and feasted with the hill people.”
I hummed to myself, as I thought of _Young Tamlane_--
The queen of fairies keppit him
In yon green hill to dwell.
“They wanted,” continued he, “to keep him altogether, but he got away
notwithstanding. Cari Olsdatter, my sister, was changed in the cradle
too when my mother had gone out one evening; but she came back just in
time to see an old woman carrying off the baby, and made her give it
up. There was a bag of stones left in the cradle instead.
“Torkil Hermandson, too, who lived among the hills, they say he was
married to a troll-qvind (‘elf-quean,’ as a Lowlander would say),
called Turi Hougedatter. She was to have for her dowry his fold, as
full as it would hold, of fat troll-cattle. So he set to work the
night before, and wattled in twice as much ground as his fold usually
covered. Sly fellow was Hermandson.”
“Yes, indeed,” thought I, “it seemed almost as if he was taking a leaf
out of dame Dido’s book, when she over-reached the simple aborigines of
Africa with her ox-hide _double entendre_.”
My attendant has got in his harvest, so he has comparatively little for
the horse to do, and offers to schuss me all the way to Naes, which
offer I accept. Presently we descend the hill at Gool, the former
residence of the Samsonian Gielstrup.
“You see that hillock yonder, covered with firs,” said my guide,
pointing to a spot lying at the confluence of the Hemsedals Elv and
that of Hallingdal. “There it was where Arne Hafthorn wrestled with
a troll one Christmas Eve, and got from him the great drinking horn,
which has been in the family ever since. But it brought him no good.
There has always been one of the family stumm (dumb) or halv-vittig
(half-witted); and it is not so many years ago that Arne was found dead
close by the hill there. This horn is still to be seen at a farm-house
a little way up Hallingdal. It is made of ox-horn, and mounted with
some unknown metal, and rests on a stand. Ah! you smile, but it is all
virkelig sant (actually true).”[19]
“And what do you do for the fairies at Yule?” said I.
“Oh! we always place some cake and ale on the board when we go to bed
at night.”
“Well, and what then? Do they partake of it?”
“To be sure! It’s always gone in the morning. No doubt it is taken by
the ‘hill people.’ Merry time is Yule. We brew ale for the occasion,
and bake a large cake, which we keep till Twelfth Night. Everybody
stops at home on Christmas Day; but on the day after everybody goes out
to visit everybody, and if you meet a person you always say, ‘Glaedelig
Jule’ (a happy Yule to you).”
At Haga a different sort of head-dress begins to prevail among the male
peasants, being a skull-cap of red cloth, like that worn by the Kirghis
chiefs, as sketched by Atkinson, with stripes of black velvet radiating
from the crown to the edge. Instead of the usual jacket, a green frock
is worn, with stand-up collar, and an epaulet of the same coloured
cloth on the shoulders.
A grove of beautiful birches here overhangs the two streams, now
joined in one fine river, which abounds with trout, some of which
reach the weight of six pounds and upwards. The fly and bait are both
used, I understand. At Naes there is very good accommodation at the
“Merchant’s,” including excellent wine and fresh meat. Part of the
church here is seven hundred years old, and there are one or two old
pillars and a trefoil arch at the east end worth observing. The altar
piece, representing the crucifixion, is by no means contemptible.
From here boats may be procured right down the stream to Green, on the
Krören Fjord, some fifty miles. Every now and then the stream widens
into a lake, and at times narrows into a cataract, so that a skilful
boatman is required. This is by far the best way of proceeding; but
the peasants are not bound by law to forward you otherwise than on the
high road; so, finding there was some difficulty, I took horse and
gig, thereby missing some excellent shooting and fishing. Trout of ten
pounds are taken here, and there are numbers of ducks. Oats begin now
to be cultivated instead of the hardier barley.
The plump, red-faced damsel who routed me out of bed in the morning,
at the wretched station of Sevre, had actually a row of five silver
brooches confining the shirt over her exuberant bust. But this is
nothing to the jacket with fifty silver clasps, which one of the
ancient Scalds is narrated to have worn.
As I journeyed along, on a most lovely quiet autumn morning, the road
would every now and then pierce into a thick pine wood, and then emerge
upon the banks of the stream. More tempting spots for trout-fishing I
never saw. All the horses about here, I find, come from the north of
the Fjeld, few being bred in the valley. They almost invariably get a
kind of influenza on coming south. The horse I am driving, which was
bought at Leirdalsören for fifty dollars in the spring, is only just
recovering from an attack of this kind.
At Trostem I find a bear has been seen five or six times, but there is
no shooter about.
While I wait for the horse, I eat breakfast, and look about me.
Wonderful to relate, I find on a shelf--what do you suppose, reader?--a
Bible! yes, that was there, but there was another volume, a cookery
book, printed at Copenhagen, 1799. One might as well expect to meet
with a book of Paris fashions among the squaws of the Ojibbeways.
Eating, it is true, forms the main part of a Norwegian’s daily
thoughts. The word mad (meat, food) is everlastingly in their mouths,
and the thing itself almost as frequently, six meals a day not being
uncommon. But then, what food! No cookery book surely required for
that. So that no doubt this book got here by mistake.
The little almanac, edited by Professor Handsteen, of Christiania, who
is known in England as the author of “Travels in Siberia,” also lay
on the table. A little note I found in it is very significant of the
simple-minded superstition that still lingers among the peasantry, of
which I have been giving indications above. It is to this effect:--
“The orbit of the moon (maane-bane), has the same position with regard
to the equator every nineteenth year, and it possibly may influence
the atmosphere. It has been supposed, in consequence, that there is
some similarity in the weather on any day to that of the corresponding
day nineteen years ago. For this reason, in one column under the
heading ‘veirliget,’ the weather is given as observed at Christiania,
nineteen years ago. This, however, must not be looked on as divination
(ingen spædom), but only as an historical calculation.” This veirliget
(weather) column having, notwithstanding the above caution, been
turned by the peasants to superstitious uses, was, I hear, omitted
for a time, but it had to be restored, as the bonders would not buy
the almanac without it. I may here mention that the old dispute about
the exact day on which St. Olaf fell at Stikklestad has been recently
revived with great vigour. This great national festival has hitherto
been kept on the 29th of July, “Olsok.” Hakon Hakonson was crowned king
on that day in 1247, and ever since it has been the coronation day of
Norway. But the national mind was some time ago disagreeably disturbed
by the discovery that the 29th could not after all have been the day
of St. Olaf’s death; for although tradition and Snorro assert that
there was an eclipse of the sun on that day, it has been ascertained
by astronomical calculation, that this eclipse did not take place on
the 29th July, but on the 31st of August. One party, therefore, is
contending for the observance of the festival on the actual day (31st
of August), while another insists upon adhering to the former date.
Upon the whole, it would seem preferable to observe the day hallowed
by the traditional recollections of the people. If we may be permitted
such a comparison, who would like to see the festival of the Nativity
altered from December 25th to some other day in the calendar?
Meantime, after an unusual delay, the fresh relay arrives; a fine black
stallion, dripping wet.
“I must write a complaint in the book for this,” said I. “You are long
after your time. I shall never get to the end of my journey at this
rate. You’ll be fined a dollar, and serve you right.”
“Oh! pray don’t, sir; it’s not my fault; the landlord’s son is to
blame; he never comes straight to tell us. And then the horse was over
the river. I’ve had to swim him across, and the water is bad just now
for swimming. He shall go fast, and make up for lost time.”
Somewhat mollified, I did not put my threat in execution, much to the
satisfaction of Svend.
Svend was a simple-minded individual in shooting matters, as I
presently had occasion to see. On the sedgy shallows of a lake, just
before the river began again to contract into rapids, a score of ducks
were assembled; some motionless, others busily employed in standing
on their heads in the water. Leaving the carriole, I stole with much
circumspection towards them, managing to keep some bushes between me
and the birds, until I got within shot. Bang went one barrel, and
then another, and four ducks were _hors de combat_. When I returned
to the vehicle with my prize, Svend expressed great astonishment that
I had fired the barrels separately, as he thought they both went off
at once.[20] He had never seen a double-barrelled gun before. Another
peasant who was by, speedily cut some birch twigs with his toll-knife,
and packed up the birds, taking care to stick the bills inside, that
the flies might not get into the gape (Gapë).
At length we descend upon Gulsvig, at the head of the Krören Fjord. I
at once perceived, from a glance at the interior of the house, that the
station-keeper was a man of some importance. In fact, he turned out to
be the Lehnsman of the district. In the inner room there were a large
quantity of silver spoons, and a huge tankard of solid silver, pegged
inside, and of great weight, which at once bespoke the owners to be
people of substance.
“Ah! that was left me by my grandfather,” said the landlord. “It has
been a very long time in the family.”
“Have you got any curious remains about here?” inquired I; “any
bauta-stones, for instance, or do you know any legends?”
“There is a bauta-stone up yonder in the field; but as for legends, old
Moer can tell you a lot of stories about the hill-folk, but she is not
always in the humour.”
Gamle Moer (old mother), as he called her, Anna Olsdatter Gulsvig, just
then entered the room with a pipe in her mouth. An excellent portrait
of her, by a Norwegian artist, hung against the wall. Her tall figure
was still erect, her eye undimmed, while her face, the complexion
of which years had failed to sear, preserved traces of much former
beauty. A neat white cap, bound tight round with a red silk kerchief,
confined her grey locks. On her bosom were two or three pairs of
silver studs, and the national ornament, the sölje. The one which she
wore was of the size and shape of a small saucer. It was of silver
filigree-work, with a quantity of silver saucers (or bracteates), each
about half an inch in diameter, hung to it. Similar ornaments have been
found, I believe, in barrows; the pattern of them having probably been
imported hither by the Varangian guard from Byzantium and the East; in
the same way that these Northern mercenaries probably gave the first
idea of the Scandinavian-looking trinkets which have been recently
discovered in the tombs at Kertch.
“How do you do, Mrs. Anna?” so I accosted the old lady, propitiating
her by the offer of some tobacco. “I hear you have some old stories;
will you tell me one?”
“I can’t awhile now; besides, I’ve forgotten them.”
“Oh! but now do, Moer,” supplicated a little boy, her grandson. But
the old lady left the room. Presently, however, she came in again.
There was a look of inspiration in her clear grey eye, which seemed to
betoken that my desire would be granted.
“It’s some Huldra stories ye were wanting to hear?” said she in an
odd dialect; “well, I’ll just tell you one before I go and cook your
dinner; you must be hungry. Let me see; yes, I once did see one of the
Houge-folk.”
“Indeed! how was that?”
“Well, you see, it’s many years ago. I am an old woman now, over
seventy. Then I was a lass of eighteen. It was one Thursday evening
in September, and I was up at the sæter. Two other girls had come in,
and we thought we would have a dance--and so we danced up and down the
floor. The door was open, when suddenly I saw outside, staring fixedly
at us, a little man, with brown breeches, grey coat, and a red cap on
his head. He was very fat, and his face, it looked so dark, so dark.
What a fright I was in to be sure, and the other girls too. As soon as
we saw him, we left off dancing, you may depend upon it, directly. The
next moment he was gone, but the other girls durst not go to their
sæters, though they were only a few yards off. We all sat crouching
over the fire for the rest of the night.” Rapt into days of old, the
intelligent eye of the old lady gleamed like a Sibyl’s, as she told
her story, with much animation. At the same time, she placed her hand,
half unconsciously, as it seemed, on mine, the little boy all the while
drinking in the tale with suspended breath and timid looks; reminding
me of the awful eagerness with which Béranger, I think, describes the
grandchildren listening to some old world story of grandmamma’s. A
capital scene it was for a picture--the group is still before me.
“You must have been mistaken,” said I.
“Not at all. That’s not the only time I’ve seen a Tuss.”
“Indeed! How was that?”
“One time I was up at the sæter with Turi, another girl. We were just
going to bed, when a stave was put through the little window-pane
(gluggen), and moved gently backwards and forwards. We were frightened
at first, but we heard a titter outside, and then we knew directly what
it meant. It was two Friers (lovers) come, so we got up and let them
in, and we were soon all four in bed together.”
“What!” exclaimed I, in amazement.
“Oh, that’s the way we have here. Of course, you know we were dressed.”
“And were you married to the man afterwards?”
“No; I married quite another person.”
“I did just the same,” put in her son, the Lehnsman, who had just
entered. “We see no harm in that. A young farmer’s son often sleeps
with a companion in this way, but she must be of the same rank of life
as he is. If it was with a servant girl, it would be considered a
disgrace.”
“Well, but go on with your story,” said I to the narrator.
“Where was I? Let me see. Yes, we were in bed all snug, chatting
away, when suddenly I heard a noise at the window. ‘Hush!’ whispered
I--‘what’s that? Listen.’
“We saw at this moment a pole put through the window, just like before.
What a fright we were in. But we lay quite still. Presently the pole
was drawn back, and a minute after there was a terrible noise in the
fiös among the cattle--a loud lowing and bellowing, just as if one
of them was being killed. Up we all got in a trice, and rushed out,
and I saw a tuss stroking a black cow. It was in a muck sweat; this is
as true as I sit here. It was at Nor-sæter, a mile from the farm in
Signedal, where I lived before I was gift (married) up here.”
“What is that tale about the goat, mother?”
“Oh, ah! At Fagerlid, in Eggedal, a woman came one evening with a
white female goat, and begged the master to change it for a buck. He
declined. She came again three Thursday evenings running, till at last
he consented. They knew pretty well who she must be, for they saw
something like the end of a tail behind her. So, when she went away,
they cast a toll-knife after her, to prevent any evil consequences.
They never repented the change; the female goat she left gave such an
astonishing quantity of milk. As for the person who brought her, they
never saw her again.”
“But there are no tusser now-a-days?” inquired I.
With a mysterious look the old lady took a pinch of snuff, and started
off talking again, to the great delight of the small urchin; and so
fast did she talk, that it was only by extraordinary attention, and
stopping her now and then for an explanation of her antique dialect,
that I succeeded in mastering the story.
“To be sure there are; people are seeing them constantly. It is only
ten years ago, that on the evening after Christmas, Hans Östenson, of
Melbraten-gaard, three-quarters of a mile above Trostem, which you
passed, heard a terrible noise in the fiös (byre). He thought that the
cows and sheep must have got together. So he lit a torch, and went
out to see; but directly he came into the byre all was quiet in a
moment, and the cattle were in their right places. The man, suspecting
glamour, took effectual means to put a stop to it, by immediately
striking his axe into the beam over the door of the cattle-shed.[21]
Meantime Hans’ wife, who was sick in bed, observed a crowd of little
people hustle into the house as soon as her husband was out of it,
and lay dunen (bedding of eider-down) for themselves on the floor,
and betake themselves to repose. She kept quite still. Presently the
master returned with the news that ‘It’s all right; no harm done;’ at
the same moment he claps his eyes on the little people stretched on
the floor. ‘Holloa, my masters! What now?’ said he, in a jovial tone,
having drunk a tolerable quantity of Yule ale that evening. ‘Who are
you, and whither bound?’ ‘We’ve had a long journey of it,’ replied one
of the little people, rousing up, in somewhat shrill tones. ‘We’ve
come all the way from Kongsberg town. We’ve been to the doctor there.’
‘Why so?’ ‘Why, Mars Hulte (the servant of the gaard), when he was
pouring the ale from the vat into the barrel, the other evening, let
the cullender drop on the leg of one of our people, who happened to
be near, though Hulte did not see him, and hurt it sorely. We want to
stop here to-night; besides which, we wish to have a talk with you.’
‘Very good,’ said Hans, not a whit disconcerted; ‘make yourselves at
home; you seem to be acquainted with the house already. Just look out
there, while I step into bed!’ And forthwith he picked his way, with
much circumspection, between the prostrate forms of the tiny people.
This was no easy matter, as they lay so close together upon the floor.
But he gained the bed, fortunately without doing any more damage than
treading on the tip of one oldish fellow’s toe, who set up a sharp
scream.
“‘Well, and where do you live?’ said Hans, resuming his place under
the skin (fell) by the side of his better half, who was perfectly
astonished at her good man’s boldness. ‘We live just below here, under
Melbraten Hatte; but we are a good deal annoyed by one of your horses,
that stables near there. The sewage leaks through, and drops on our
table. The request we have to make is, that you’ll be so good as to
move his quarters.’ ‘Besides which,’ said a Huldre, larger than the
rest, who, at this moment, came from a corner, and stood bolt-upright
by the bed-side, ‘one good turn deserves another. You were making
a coat for the lad, just before Yule--you remember?’ At this Hans
started. ‘And you thought you should not have enough cloth, but you
had. Do you know why? It was I who stretched out the cloth, so that you
had enough, and to spare. There was a bit left for me too. Look here,
this coat I have on was made of it!’
“On this, Hans said he should have no objection to comply with their
request. The conversation then dropped, and from odd noises, a sort
of miniature snore, which Hans heard about, he perceived that the
little men in grey were dropping off to sleep again. It would never do,
however, for the master of the house to follow their example, with such
outlandish guests in the house. So he took care to keep his eyes well
open. Before long, by the flickering embers of the fire, he saw the
tallest gentleman take his (Hans’s) shirt, which his wife had put out
for the morrow, and begin tearing it into shreds. ‘Hold hard there!’
exclaimed Hans, whose wife, overcoming her fears, had jogged him, when
she saw the produce of her industry thus impudently destroyed. ‘Hold
hard! I say.’ ‘We’re short of linen,’ answered the Huldra, soothingly,
‘and this shirt of yours will make up into a great many shirts for us.’
‘Hold hard!’ again screamed Hans, whose mettle was thoroughly roused,
his spouse also being in a great state of pucker, ‘or I’ll cock the
rifle, by the rood!’
“Whether it was his gesture to reach down the rifle, or whether the
name of Cors (Rood or Cross) did it, Hans could not say; but they were
all off in a moment. It was quite a treat to see them bundling out,
helter-skelter, as hard as ever they could get out,” added the ancient
dame, whose upraised eyebrows, and a twitch at the corner of her mouth,
showed that she was no foe to mirth, and enjoyed the rapid exit of the
Trolls extremely.
“Such lots of them,” continued she, excitedly, as if she saw them
there and then, “he could not count them. He hurried after them to the
doorway, and got a sight of them, by the light of the snow and the
stars, mounting on their horses, and riding away as fast as they could
lay legs to ground. On examining his shirt, he found it was quite whole
again. So no damage was done after all. He took care, however, to move
the horse, in order to abate the nuisance complained of, and the animal
throve remarkably well in his new quarters. But I must get your dinner
ready.”
And so out the old lady went, in due time returning with some pancakes
and fried siek, a sort of fresh-water herring, which, with perch and
trout, abounds in the lake close by.
While the repast was digesting, I began to ruminate on these stories,
and the remarkable likeness, nay, even identity, some of them exhibit
to the superstitions of that part of Great Britain where the Northern
invaders mostly frequented. Fairy lore is traced by some authors to
the Pagan superstitions of Greece and Rome, and to the superstitions
of the East. But we prefer to regard these supernatural beings in
Scandinavia rather as in the main of home-growth than as exotics; the
creations of a primitive people, who, living among wonderful natural
phenomena, and being ignorant of their cause, with the proverbial
boldness and curiosity of ignorance, were fond of deriving an origin
for them of their own manufacture, and one stamped with the impress of
their own untutored imaginations. And what a country they live in for
the purpose![22] None fitter could have been devised for the residence
and operations of mysterious and frightful beings. Plod along the
calm, friendly landscape of England, dotted thickly with houses and
steeples, with the church bells ringing merrily, or the station bell
clanging imperatively (bells are the _bête noire_ of Trolls), and the
scene alive with people,--a chaw-bacon, with no speculation in his
eye, driving along the heavy wain, or a matter-of-fact “commercial”
labouring along with his loaded four-wheel over the dusty _strata
viarum_,--and I’ll defy you to be otherwise than common-place and
unimaginative. But let even a highly-educated man wander alone through
the tingling silentness of the mighty pine-woods of the North, broken
at one time by the rumble of an earthslip, at another by the roar of
a waterfall, seething in some weird chasm. Let him roam over the grey
fjeld, and see through the morning mist a vast head bent threateningly
over him, and, unless he be a very Quaker, his imagination will turn
artist or conjuror, and people the landscape with the half-hidden forms
of beings more or less than human. And so it was with the old heathen
Norskman, living all alone in the wilderness. When he heard the tempest
howl through the ravine, and saw the whirlwind crumple up the trees, it
must be the spirits of Asgaard sweeping by with irresistible force. If
in autumn evenings strange gabblings were heard aloft, caused by the
birds of passage moving southward, it must be troll-wives on their airy
ride. If lights were seen on the stream at night, they were “corpse
lights,” though in reality only caused by some fellow burning the water
for salmon. If the ice split with sudden and fearful sound, engulphing
the hopeless wayfarer, it was an evil spirit, requiring a human
sacrifice. Those pot-looking holes and finger-marks in the rocks--those
mysterious foot-marks, whence were they? Those strange, grotesque
figures, as like as they can be to human forms and faces--they must
once have been evil beings or demons, now turned to stone by some
superior power--a power that at one time revealed itself in the hissing
race aloft of the Borealis; at another time blasted and shivered the
rocks in thunder and lightning. The sea naturally would be a special
locality for these sprites. Did not they often see phantom-ships, which
a modern would explain by the natural phenomenon of the mirage? Did not
sea-monsters from time to time show themselves to the lone fisherman?
Did not they often see strange sights at the bottom of the transparent
deep? Did not the calm surface suddenly rise into ruffian, crested
billows, while dismal shrieks would echo at the same time from the
rock-piercing caverns?
But other causes were at work. The more ancient inhabitants of
Scandinavia, some of them of giant size and prodigious strength, others
small of stature but very agile, like the Fins or Laps, were driven
into the mountains by Odin and his Asiatics. From these hiding-places
they would at times emerge--the former to do deeds of ferocity and
violence, the latter to practise some of their well-known tricks, such
as thieving, changing children, kidnapping people away with them. And
this would, in process of time, give rise to the fancy of the existence
of supernatural beings, gigantic Jotuls and tiny Trolls (in the Edda
Finnr is the name for dwarfs), endued with peculiar powers. In the same
way the vulgar Scotch ascribed superhuman attributes to the Picts, or
Pechts.
Adam of Bremen, in the eleventh century, says that Sweyne Estridson,
King of Denmark, told him that in Sweden people used to come from the
hills and do great damage, and then disappear. The same author relates
that in Norway there were wild women and men, who lived in the woods,
and were something between men and beasts. The existence of these
creatures, by whatever name called, being once assumed, all sorts of
explanations were given of their origin. Thus, there is an odd Swedish
superstition, that when God hurled down Lucifer and his host from
heaven, they did not all fall into the burning lake, but that some fell
into the sea, others upon the earth, and became the various spirits
proper to those places. Another not less quaint Danish legend is to
this effect:--When Eve was washing her bairns one day in a spring,
the Almighty suddenly called to her. Alarmed, she threw those of her
bairns that she had not washed aside, when God asked her whether all
her children were there. She replied, “Yes.” Whereupon he said, “What
thou hast tried to hide from God shall be hidden from men.” In a moment
the unwashed children were separated from the others, and disappeared.
Before the flood, God put them all into a hole, the entrance of which
he fastened. From them all the underground people spring. Others
again, say that they descend from Adam, by his first wife, Lileth,
while others pronounce them to be a mixed race of the sons of God and
daughters of men. Even Hermann Ruge, the pastor of Slidre, in Norway,
in 1754, gravely talked of underground people who were something
between men and beasts. While that strange compound of superstition and
enthusiasm, Luther himself, speaks of changelings as a matter of course.
But it is time to think of another sort of changeling, I mean the fresh
horse, which, after a long delay, has arrived at the door. “Good bye,
Mrs. Anna, many thanks.”
“Farvel, farvel! if you meet with Tidemann on your travels, say Anna
Gulsvig sends him her greeting. Bless you, sir, we knew him well; he
was at my son’s wedding, and pictured us all.”
She was alluding to the celebrated painter of that name, who resides
in Düsseldorf, but visits his native country, Norway, every summer,
returning home rich with pictorial spoils, gained in scenes like these.
Professor Gude, the eminent painter, also of Düsseldorf, is the son of
a gentleman who held a government office in this neighbourhood.