valiant of the sons of Odin.' He was the offspring of Odin and Frigga,
'the mother of the gods,' and the brother of 'Balder the Beautiful.' As
the defender and avenger of the gods, he was represented as carrying
the hammer with which he destroyed the giants, and which always
returned to his hand when he threw it. He wore iron gauntlets, and had
a girdle which doubled his strength when he put it on. The fifth day
of the week was sacred to Thor, in old Norse Thórsdag, in Swedish and
Danish Torsdag, in English Thursday; in Latin Dies Jovis, for Jupiter,
the God of Thunder, had the same attributes as Thor.
There were three great festivals at Upsala, when multitudes flocked to
the temple to consult its famous oracles or to sacrifice. The first was
the winter festival of 'Mother Night'—saturnalia in honour of Frey,
or the sun, to invoke the blessings of a fruitful year; the second
feast was in honour of the Earth; the third was in honour of Odin, to
propitiate the Father of Battles. Every ninth year, at least, the king
and all persons of distinction were expected to appear before the great
temple, and nine victims were chosen for human sacrifice—captives in
time of war, slaves in time of peace—'I send thee to Odin' being the
consolatory last words spoken to each as he fell. If public calamities
had been caused by any royal mismanagement, the people chose their king
as a sacrifice; thus the first king of the petty province of Vermeland
was burnt to appease Odin during a famine. It is also recorded that
King Aun sacrificed his nine sons to obtain a prolongation of his own
life. The victims were either hewn down or burnt in the temple itself,
or hung in the grove adjoining—'Odin's Grove'—of which every leaf was
sacred. Still, according to the Voluspa, the famous prophecy of Vela,
at the end of the world even Odin, with all the other pagan deities,
will perish in the general chaos, when a new earth of celestial beauty
will arise upon the ruins of the old.
[Illustration: THE CHURCH OF OLD UPSALA.]
One of the most curious little churches in Christendom now stands upon
the site of the ancient temple. The apse is evidently built out of the
pagan sanctuary. The belfry, Swedish-fashion, is detached, built of
massive timbers and painted bright red. There are scarcely any human
habitations near, only the mighty barrows, overgrown with wild thyme
and a thousand other flowers, which rise over the graves of the gods.
In the tomb of Odin the Government still gives the mead, which was the
nectar of Scandinavian heroes, to pilgrim visitors.
Like most of the Swedish towns, Upsala is disappointing, and its mean,
ill-paved streets show few signs of antiquity. At the east end of the
cathedral is the lofty tomb of Gustavus Wasa, the first Protestant
King of Sweden, whose effigy lies between the charming figures of
his two pretty little wives. In 1519 he was carried off as a hostage
by that Christian, King of Denmark, who forcibly made himself King
of Sweden also, and ruled with savage tyranny. Escaping to Lübeck,
he headed a revolutionary party against the tyrant, and, after many
defeats, succeeded in taking Stockholm, where he was made king in 1523.
Soon after, Olaf Petri's translation of the New Testament led to the
Reformation in Sweden, where Gustavus Wasa was another Henry VIII., in
taking the opportunity of seizing two-thirds of the Church revenues,
and depriving all ecclesiastics of their incomes if they refused to
embrace Lutheranism. One of his daughters-in-law was the famous Polish
princess, Queen Catherine Jagellonica, who tried hard to upset the new
religion, and inculcated Catholicism upon her son, King Sigismund, who
was deposed, on religious grounds, in favour of his uncle, Charles IX.,
the father of Gustavus Adolphus. This Queen Catherine Jagellonica has
a fine tomb in a side chapel of Upsala Cathedral.
[Illustration: GRIPSHOLM.]
On a brilliant July morning we embarked at Stockholm in the steamer
which runs twice a week down Lake Malar to Gripsholm. Most lovely were
the long reaches of still water with their fringe of russet rocks,
every crevice tufted with birch and dwarf mountain ash, opening here
and there to show some red timber houses or a wooden spire. It was
several hours of soft diorama, with the music of the pines, before the
great castle of Gripsholm, the Windsor of Sweden, came in sight, with
its many red towers and Eastern-looking domes and cupolas. We were
landed at the little pier of Mariefred, in itself a lovely scene, with
old trees feathering into the water, and a picturesque church rising
in a grove of walnuts on a green hill behind. Hard by is a little inn
where the whole of the passengers in the steamer dined together, at
many little tables, the great staple of food being fresh trout and
salmon of the lake, the bilberries and cloudberries of the rocks, and
the birch brandy and wild strawberries from the woods. After dinner
every one trooped along the meadow paths to the castle, and rambled
in friendly companionship over its numerous rooms, full of interest,
and with many curious royal portraits and pieces of ancient furniture.
There are endless historic recollections connected with Gripsholm,
but they centre for the most part around the sons of Gustavus Wasa.
Of these, John was immured here by Eric XIV., with his wife Catherine
Jagellonica, who, during her imprisonment, gave birth to her son
Sigismund (afterwards Sigismund III. of Poland), in a box-bed which
still remains. Eric intended to have put his brother to death, but
when he entered his cell for the purpose was so overcome by fraternal
feeling that he begged his pardon instead. That pardon was not granted,
for when John got the upper hand he imprisoned Eric in a small chamber
at the top of the castle, where he languished for ten years, during
which he wrote a treatise on military art, and translated the history
of Johannes Magnus, and where—in the end—he was poisoned.
_IN NORWAY._
The weather changed to a cloudless sunshine, which hatched all the
mosquitoes, as we entered Norway in the second week in July, and the
heat was so intense that, in the long railway journey from Stockholm,
we were very thankful for the little tank of iced water with which
each railway carriage is provided. We were disappointed in Kristiania,
which is a very dull place. The town was built by Christian IV. of
Denmark, and has a good central church of his time, but it is utterly
unpicturesque. In the picture gallery are several noble works of
Tidemann, the special painter of expression and pathos. As a companion
for life is the memory of a picture which represents the administration
of the last sacrament to an old peasant, whose wife's grief is turned
to resignation, which ceases even to have a wish for his retention, as
she beholds the heaven-born comfort with which he is looking into an
unknown future. Another of the finest works of the artist represents
the reception of the sacrament by a convict, young and deeply
repentant, before his execution.
There is no striking scenery in the environs of Kristiania, but they
are wonderfully pretty. From the avenues upon the ramparts you look
down over the broad expanse of the fyord, with low blue mountain
distances. Little steamers dart backwards and forwards, and convey
visitors in a few minutes across the bay to Oscars Halle, a tower and
small country villa of the king on a wooded knoll.
We went by the railway which winds high amongst the hills to Kongsberg,
a mining village in a lofty situation. Here, in a garden of white
roses, there is a most comfortable small hotel kept by a Dane, which
is a capital starting-point for all expeditions in Telemarken. There
is a pretty waterfall near the village, and the church should be
visited, for the sake of its curious pulpit hour-glass—indeed, four
glasses—quarter, half-hour, three-quarters, hour—and the top of a
stool let into the wall with an inscription saying that Mr. Jacobus
Stuart, King of Scotland (James I. of England), sate upon it, Nov. 25,
1589, to hear a sermon preached by Mr. David Lentz, 'between 11 and
12,' on 'The Lord is my Shepherd.'
We engaged a carriage at Kongsberg for the excursion to Tinoset, whence
we arranged to go on to the Ryukan Foss, said to be the highest
waterfall in Europe. We do not advise future travellers without
unlimited time to follow us in the latter part of the expedition by
the lake, but the carriage excursion is quite enchanting. What an
exquisite drive it is through the forest—the deep ever-varying woods
of noble pines and firs springing from luxuriant thickets of junipers,
bilberries, and cranberries! The loveliest mountain flowers grow in
these woods—huge larkspurs of rank luxuriant foliage and flowers
of faint dead blue; pinks and blue lungworts and orchids; stagmoss
wreathing itself round the grey rocks, and delicate, lovely soldanella
drooping in the still recesses.
Our midday halt was at Bolkesjö, where the forest opens to green
lawns, hill-set, with a charming view down the smooth declivities to
a many-bayed lake, with mountain distances. Here, amid a group of old
brown farm-buildings covered with rude paintings and sculpture, is a
farmhouse, inhabited by the same family through many generations. It
is one of the 'stations' where it is part of the duty of the farmer
or 'bonder' who is owner of the soil to find horses for the use of
travellers. These horses are supplied at a very trifling charge, and
are brought back by a boy who sits behind the carriole or carriage
upon the portmanteau: but as the horses, when not called for, are
turned loose or used by the bonder in his own farm or field work,
travellers generally have to wait a long time while they are caught
or sent for. They order their horses '_strax_'—directly—one of the
first words an Englishman learns to use on entering Norway, yet they
scarcely ever appear before half an hour, so that Norwegians repeat
with amusement the story of an Englishman who, when he wished to spend
an hour at a station, ordered his horses 'after two strax's.' These
halts are not always congenial to English impatience, yet they give
opportunities of becoming acquainted with Norwegian life and people
which can be obtained in no other way, and recollection will oftener
go back to the quiet time spent in waiting for horses amid the grey
rocks above some foaming streamlet, in the green oases surrounded by
forest, or in clean-boarded rooms strewn with fresh fir foliage, than
to the more established sights of Norway. Most delicious indeed were
the two hours which we passed at Bolkesjö, in the high pastures where
the peasants were mowing the tall grass ablaze with flowers, and the
mountains were throwing long purple shadows over the forest, and the
wind blowing freshly from the gleaming lake—and then, most delicious
was the well-earned meal of eggs and bacon, strawberries and cream, and
other homely dainties in the farmhouse where the beams and furniture
were all painted and carved with mottoes and texts, and the primitive
box-beds had crimson satin quilts. Portraits sent by well-pleased royal
visitors hung on the walls side by side with common-coloured scripture
prints, like those which are found in English cottages. The cellar
is under a bed, beneath which it was funny to see the old farmeress
disappear as she went down to fetch up for us her home-brewed ale.
[Illustration: BOLKESJÖ.]
With the cordial 'likkelie reise' of our old hostess in our ears, we
left Bolkesjö full of pleasant thoughts. But what roads, or rather what
want of roads, lead to Tinoset!—there were banks of glassy rock, up
which our horses scrambled like cats; there were awful moments when
everything seemed to come to an end, and when they gathered up their
legs, and seemed to fling themselves down headlong with the carriage on
the top of them, and yet we reached the bottom of the abyss buried in
dust, to rise gasping and gulping and wondering we were alive, to begin
the same pantomime over again.
Late in the evening, long after the sunlight had faded, and when the
forests seemed to have gone to sleep and all sounds were silent, we
reached Tinoset. The inn is a wooden châlet on the banks of a lake with
a single great pine-tree close to the door. It was terribly crowded,
and the little wooden cells were the smallest apology for bedrooms,
where all through the night we heard the winds howling among the
mountains, and the waves lashing the shore under the windows. In the
morning the lake was covered with huge blue waves crested with foam,
and we were almost sorry when the steamer came and we felt obliged to
embark, because, as it was not the regular day for its passage, we
had summoned it at some expense from the other end of the lake. We
were thoroughly wet with the spray before we reached the little inn
at Strand, with a pier where we disembarked, and occupied the rest
of the afternoon in drawing the purple hills, and the road winding
towards them through the old birch-trees. An excursion to the Ryukan
Foss occupied the next day; a dull drive through the plain, and then
an exciting skirting of horrible precipices, followed by a clamber
up a mountain pathlet to a châlet, where we were thankful for our
well-earned dinner of trout and ale before proceeding to the Foss,
the 560-feet-high fall of a mountain torrent into a black rift in the
hills—a boiling, roaring abyss of water, with drifts of spray which
are visible for miles before it can be seen itself.
[Illustration: OLD CHURCH OF HITTERDAL.]
In returning from Tinoset, we took the way by Hitterdal, the
date-forgotten old wooden church so familiar from picture-books. It
had been our principal object in coming to Norway, yet the long drive
had made us so ravenous in search of food that we could only endure
to stay there half an hour. The church, however, is most intensely
picturesque, rising with an infinity of quaintest domes and spires,
all built of timber, out of a rude cloister painted red, the whole
having the appearance of a very tall Chinese pagoda, yet only measuring
altogether 84 feet by 57. The belfry, Norwegian-wise, stands alone
on the other side of the churchyard, which is overgrown with pink
willow-herb. When we reached the inn, as famished as wolves in winter,
we were told by our landlady that she could not give us any dinner.
'Nei, nei,' nothing would induce her—she had too much work on her
hands already—perhaps, however, the woman at the house with the flag
would give us some. So, hungry and faint, we walked forth again to a
house which had a flag flying in front of it, where all was silent and
deserted, except for a dog who received us furiously. Having pacified
him, and finding the front door locked, we made good our entrance at
the back, examined the kitchen, peeped into all the cupboards, lifted
up the lids of all the saucepans, and not till we had searched every
corner for food ineffectually, were met by the pretty, pleasant-looking
young lady of the house, who informed us in excellent English, and
with no small surprise at our conduct, that we had been committing a
raid upon her private residence. Afterwards we discovered a lonely
farmhouse, where there had once been a flag, and where they gave
us a very good dinner, ending in a great bowl of cloudberries—in
which we were joined by two pleasant young ladies and their father,
an old gentleman smoking an enormous long pipe, who turned out
to be the Bishop of Christiansand. The house of the landamann of
Hitterdal contains a relic connected with a picturesque story quaintly
illustrative of ancient Scandinavian life. It is an axe, with a handle
projecting beyond the blade, and curved, so that it can be used as a
walking-stick. Formerly it belonged to an ancient descendant of the
Kongen, or chieftains of the district, who insisted upon carrying it to
church with him in accordance with an old privilege. The priest forbade
the bearing of the warlike weapon into church, which so much affected
the old man that he died. His son, who thought it necessary to avenge
his father's death, went to the priest with the axe in his hands,
and demanded the most precious thing he possessed—when the priest
brought his Bible and gave it to him, open upon a passage exhorting to
forgiveness of injuries.
[Illustration: THRONDTJEM FYORD.]
On July 25 we left Kristiania for Throndtjem—the whole journey
of three hundred and sixty miles being very comfortable, and only
costing 30 francs. The route has no great beauty, but endless pleasant
variety—rail to Eidswold, with bilberries and strawberries in pretty
birch-bark baskets for sale at all the railway stations; a vibrating
steamer for several hours on the long, dull Miosen lake; railway again,
with some of the carriages open at the sides; then an obligatory night
at Koppang, a large station, where accommodation is provided for every
one, but where, if there are many passengers, several people, strangers
to each other, are expected to share the same room. On the second day
the scenery improves, the railway sometimes running along and sometimes
over the river Glommen, on a wooden causeway, till the gorge of
mountains opens beyond Stören, into a rich country with turfy mounds
constantly reminding us of the graves of the hero-gods of Upsala.
Towards sunset, beyond the deep cleft in which the river Nid runs
between lines of old painted wooden warehouses, rises the burial-place
of S. Olaf, the shrine of Scandinavian Christianity, the stumpy-towered
cathedral of Throndtjem. The most northern railway station and the most
northern cathedral in Europe!
[Illustration: THRONDTJEM CATHEDRAL.]
Surely the cradle of Scandinavian Christianity is one of the most
beautiful places in the world! No one had ever told us about it, and we
went there only because it is the old Throndtjem of sagas and ballads,
and expecting a wonderful and beautiful cathedral. But the whole place
is a dream of loveliness, so exquisite in the soft silvery morning
light on the fyord and delicate mountain ranges, the rich nearer hills
covered with bilberries and breaking into steep cliffs—that one
remains in a state of transport, which is at a climax while all is
engraven upon an opal sunset sky, when an amethystine glow spreads over
the mountains, and when ships and buildings meet their double in the
still, transparent water. Each wide street of curious low wooden houses
displays a new vista of sea, of rocky promontories, of woods dipping
into the water; and at the end of the principal street is the grey
massive cathedral where S. Olaf is buried, and where northern art and
poetry have exhausted their loveliest and most pathetic fancies around
the grave of the national hero.
The 'Cathedral Garden,' for so the graveyard is called, is most
touching. Acres upon acres of graves are all kept—not by officials,
but by the families they belong to—like gardens. The tombs are
embowered in roses and honeysuckle, and each little green mound has
its own vase for cut flowers daily replenished, and a seat for the
survivors, which is daily occupied, so that the link between the dead
and the living is never broken.
Christianity was first established in Norway at the end of the tenth
century by King Olaf Trygveson, son of Trygve and of the lady Astrida,
whose romantic adventures, when sold as a slave after her husband's
death, are the subject of a thousand stories. When Olaf succeeded to
the throne of Norway after the death of Hako, son of Sigurd, in 996, he
proclaimed Christianity throughout his dominions, heard matins daily
himself, and sent out missionaries through his dominions. But the duty
of the so-called missionaries had little to do with teaching, they were
only required to baptize. All who refused baptism were tortured and put
to death. When, at one time, the estates of the province of Throndtjem
tried to force Olaf back to the old religion, he outwardly assented,
but made the condition that the offended pagan deities should in that
case be appeased by human sacrifice—the sacrifice of the twelve nobles
who were most urgent in compelling him; and upon this the ardour of the
chieftains for paganism was cooled, and they allowed Olaf unhindered to
demolish the great statue of Thor, covered with gold and jewels, in the
centre of the province of Throndtjem, where he founded the city then
called Nidaros, upon the river Nid.
No end of stories are narrated of the cruelties of Olaf Trygveson.
When Egwind, a northern chieftain, refused to abandon his idols,
he first attempted to bribe him, but, when gentler means failed, a
chafing-dish of hot coals was placed upon his belly till he died. Raude
the magician had a more horrible fate: an adder was forced down a horn
into his stomach, and left to eat its way out again!
The first Christian king of Norway was an habitual drunkard, and, by
twofold adultery, he, the husband of Godruna, married Thyra of Denmark,
the wife of Duke Borislaf of Pomerania. This led to a war with Denmark
and Sweden, whose united fleets surrounded him near Stralsund. As much
mystery enshrouds the story of his death as is connected with that of
Arthur, Barbarossa, or Harold: as his royal vessel, the _Long Serpent_,
was boarded by the enemy, he plunged into the sea and was no more seen,
though some chroniclers say that he swam to the shore in safety and
died afterwards at Rome, whither he went on pilgrimage.
Olaf Trygveson had a godson Olaf, son of Harald Grenske and Asta,
who had the nominal title of king given to all sea captains of royal
descent. From his twelfth year, Olaf Haraldsen was a pirate, and he
headed the band of Danes who destroyed Canterbury and murdered S.
Elphege—a strange feature in the life of one who has been himself
regarded as a saint since his death. By one of the strange freaks of
fortune common in those times, this Olaf Haraldsen gained a great
victory over the chieftain Sweyn, who then ruled at Nidaros, and,
chiefly through the influence of Sigurd Syr, a great northern landowner
who had become the second husband of his mother, he became seated in
1016 upon the throne of Norway. His first care was for the restoration
of Christianity, which had fallen into decadence in the sixteen years
which had elapsed since the defeat of Olaf Trygveson. The second Olaf
imitated the violence and cruelty of his predecessor. Whenever the new
religion was rejected, he beheaded or hung the delinquents. In his
most merciful moments he mutilated and blinded them: 'he did not spare
one who refused to serve God.' After fourteen years of unparalleled
cruelties in the name of religion, he fell in battle with Canute the
Great at Sticklestadt. He had abducted and married Astrida, daughter
of the King of Sweden, but by her he had no children. By his concubine
Alfhilda he left an only son, who lived to become Magnus the Good,
King of Norway. There is a very fine story of the way in which Magnus
obtained his name. Olaf had said, 'I very seldom sleep, and if I ever
do it will be the worse for any one who awakens me.' Whilst he was
asleep Alfhilda's child was born. Then the King's scald or poet and
Siegfried the mass priest debated together as to whether they should
awaken him. At first they thought they would; then the poet said, 'No;
I know him better than that: he must not be awakened.' 'That is all
very well,' said the priest, 'but the child must be baptised at once.
What shall we call him?' 'Oh,' said the scald, 'I know that the King
said that the child should be named after the greatest monarch that
ever lived, and his name was Magnus,' for he only remembered one part
of the name. So they called him Magnus.
When the King woke up he was furious. 'Who can have dared to do this
thing—to christen the child without consulting me, and to give him
this outlandish name, which is no name at all—who can have dared to do
it?'
Then the mass priest was terrified and shrank into his shoes, but the
scald answered boldly, 'I did it, and I did it because it was better to
send two souls to God than one soul to the devil; for if the child had
died unbaptised it would have been lost, but if you kill Siegfried and
me we shall go straight to heaven.'
And then King Olaf thought he would say no more about it.
However terrible the cruelties of Olaf Haraldsen were in his lifetime,
they were soon dazzled out of sight amid the halo of miracles with
which his memory was encircled by the Roman Catholic Church. It was
only recollected that when, according to the legend, he raced for the
kingdom with his half-brother Harald, in his good ship the _Ox_,
Saint Olaf, who on God relied,
Three days the first his house descried;
after which
Harald so fierce with anger burned
He to a lothely dragon turned;
but because