He long the crown of Norway wore.
His admirers narrated that when he was absently cutting chips from
a stick with his knife on a Sunday, a servant passed him with the
reproof, 'Sir, it is Monday to-morrow,' when he placed the sinful chips
in his hand, and, setting them on fire, bore the pain till they were
all consumed. It was remembered that as he walked to the church which
Olaf Trygveson had founded at Nidaros, he 'wore a glory in his yellow
hair.' And gradually he became the most popular saint of Scandinavia.
His shirt was an object of pilgrimage in the Church of S. Victor
at Paris, and many churches were dedicated to him in England, and
especially in London, where Tooley Street still records his familiar
appellation of S. Tooley.
It was when the devotion to S. Olaf was just beginning that Earl Godwin
and his sons were banished from England for a time. Two of these,
Harold and Tosti, became vikings, and, in a great battle, they vowed
that, if they were victorious, they would give half the spoil to the
shrine of S. Olaf; and a huge silver statue, which they actually gave,
existed at Throndtjem till 1500, and if it existed still would be one
of the most important relics in archæology. The old Kings of Norway
used to dig up the saint from time to time and cut his nails. When
Harold Hardrada was going to England, he declared that he must see S.
Olaf once again. 'I must see my brother once more,' he said, and he
also cut the saint's nails. But he also thought that from that time it
would be better that no one should see his brother any more—it would
not be for the good of the Church—so he took the keys of the shrine
and threw them into the fyord; at the same time however, he said it
would be good for men in after-ages to know what a great king was like,
so he caused S. Olaf's measure to be engraved upon the wall in the
church at Throndtjem—his measure of seven feet—and there it is still.
[Illustration: S. OLAF'S WELL.]
Around the shrine of Olaf in Throndtjem, in which, in spite of Harold
Hardrada, his 'incorrupt body' was seen more than five hundred years
after his death, has arisen the most beautiful of northern cathedrals,
originating in a small chapel built over his grave within ten years
after his death. The exquisite colour of its green-grey stone adds
greatly to the general effect of the interior, and to the delicate
sculpture of its interlacing arches. From the ambulatory behind the
choir opens a tiny chamber containing the Well of S. Olaf, of rugged
yellow stone, with the holes remaining in the pavement through which
the dripping water ran away when the buckets were set down. Amongst the
many famous Bishops of Throndtjem, perhaps the most celebrated has been
Anders Arrebo, 'the father of Danish poetry' (1587-1637), who wrote
the 'Hexameron,' an extraordinarily long poem on the Creation, which
nobody reads now. The cathedral is given up to Lutheran worship, but
its ancient relics are kindly tended and cared for, and the building
is being beautifully restored. Its beautiful Chapter House is lent for
English service on Sundays.
In the wide street which leads from the sea to the cathedral is the
'Coronation House,' the wooden palace in which the Kings and Queens of
Sweden and Norway stay when they come hither to be crowned. Hither the
present beloved Queen, Sophie of Nassau, came in 1873, driving herself
in her own carriole from the Romsdal, in graceful compliance with
the popular mode of Norwegian travel. It is because even the finest
buildings in Norway are generally built of wood that there are so few
of any real antiquity. Near the shore of the fyord, the custom-house
occupies the site of the Orething, where the elections of twenty kings
have taken place. It is sacred ground to a King of Norway, who passes
it bareheaded. The familiar affection with which the Norwegians regard
their sovereigns can scarcely be comprehended in any other country.
To their people they are 'the father and mother of the land.' The
broken Norse is remembered at Throndtjem in which King Carl Johann
begged people 'to make room for their old father' when they pressed too
closely upon him. When the present so beloved Queen drove herself to
her coronation, the people met her with flowers at all the 'stations'
where the horses were changed. 'Are you the mother of the land?' they
said. 'You look nice, but you must do more than look nice; that is not
the essential.' One old woman begged the lady in waiting to beg her
majesty to get upon the roof of the house. 'Then we should all see
her.' At Throndtjem the peasants touchingly and affectionately always
addressed her as 'Du.'
In returning from Throndtjem we left the railway at Stören, where we
engaged a double carriole, and a carriage for four with a pleasant boy
called Johann as its driver, for the return journey. It was difficult
to obtain definite information about anything, English books being
almost useless from their incorrectness, and we set off with a sort of
sense of exploring an unknown country. At every 'station' we changed
horses, which were sent back by the boy, who perched upon the luggage
behind, and we marked our distances by calling our horses after the
Kings of England. Thus, setting off from Stören with William the
Conqueror, we drove into the Romsdal with Edward VI. After a drive
with Lady Jane Grey, we set off again with Mary. But the Kings of
England failed us long before our driving days were over, and we used
up all the Kings of Rome also. As we were coming down a steep hill into
Lillehammer with Tarquinius Superbus, something gave way and he quietly
walked out of the harness, leaving us to run briskly down-hill and
subside into the hedge. We captured Tarquinius, but how to put him in
again was a mystery, as we had never harnessed a horse before. However,
by trying every strap in turn we got him in somehow, and escaped the
fate of Red Riding Hood amid the lonely hills.
For a great distance after leaving Stören there is little especially
striking in the scenery, except one gorge of old weird pine-trees in a
rift of purple mountains. After you emerge upon the high Dovre-Fyeld,
the huge ranges of Sneehatten rise snowy, gleaming, and glorious, above
the wide yellow-grey expanse, hoary with reindeer moss, though, as the
Dovre-Fyeld is itself three thousand feet high, and Sneehatten only
seven thousand three hundred, it does not look so high as it really is.
Next to Throndtjem itself, the old ballads and songs of Norway gather
most thickly around the Dovre-Fyeld. It is here that the witches are
supposed to hold their secret meetings at their Blokulla, or black
hill. Across these yellow hills of the Jerkin-Fyeld the prose Edda
describes Thor striding to his conflict with the dragon Jormangandur
'by Sneehatten's peak of snow,' where 'the tall pines cracked like a
field of stubble under his feet;' and here, according to the ancient
fragment called the ballad of 'The Twelve Wizards,' as given in Prior's
'Ancient Danish Ballads'—
At Dovrefeld, over on Norway's reef,
Were heroes who never knew pain or grief.
There dwelt there many a warrior keen,
The twelve bold brothers of Ingeborg queen.
The first with his hand the storm could hush
The second could stop the torrent's rush.
The third could dive in the sea as a fish;
The fourth never wanted meat on dish.
The fifth he would strike the golden lyre,
And young and old to the dancing fire.
The sixth on the horn would blow a blast,
Who heard it would shudder and stand aghast.
The seventh go under the earth could he;
The eighth he could dance on the rolling sea.
The ninth tamed all that in greenwood crept;
The tenth not a nap had ever slept.
The eleventh the grisly lindworm bound,
And will what he would, the means he found.
The twelfth he could all things understand,
Though done in a nook of the farthest land.
Their equals were never seen there in the North,
Nor anywhere else on the face of the earth.
In spite of great fatigue from the distances to be accomplished, each
day's journey in carriage or carriole has its peculiar charms, the
going on and on into an unknown land, meeting no one, sleeping in odd,
primitive, but always clean rooms, setting off again at half-past five
or six, and halting at comfortable stations, with their ever-moderate
prices and their cheery farm-servants, who kissed our hands all
round on receiving the very smallest gratuity—a coin meaning
twopence-halfpenny being a source of ecstatic bliss.
The 'bonders,' who keep the stations, generally themselves represent
the gentry of the country, the real gentry filling the position of the
English aristocracy. The bonders are generally very well off, having
small tithes, good houses, boundless fuel, a great variety of food,
and continual change of labour on their own small properties. Their
wives, who never walk, have a sledge for winter, and a carriole and
horse to take them to church in summer. In the many months of snow,
when the cows and horses are all stabled in the 'laave,' and when
out-of-door occupations fail, they occupy the time with household
pursuits—carpentering, tailoring, or brewing. When a bonder dies, his
wife succeeds to his property until her second marriage; then it is
divided amongst his children.
The 'stations' or farmhouses are almost entirely built of wood, but
those of a superior class have a single room of stone, used only in
bridals or births, a custom handed down from old times when a place of
special safety was required at those seasons.
Nine-tenths of the country are covered with pine-forests, but the trees
are always cut down before they grow old. We did not see a single old
tree in Norway. The pines are of two kinds only—the _Furu_, our pine,
_Pinus silvestris_; and the _Gran_, our fir, _Pinus abies_.
Wolves seldom appear except in winter, when those who travel in sledges
are often pursued by them. Then hunger makes them so bold that they
will often snatch a dog from between the knees of a driver.
From the station of Dombaas (where there is a telegraph station and a
shop of old silver) we turned aside down the Romsdal, which soon became
beautiful, as the road wound above the chrysoprase river Rauma, broken
by many rocky islets and swirling into many waterfalls, but always
equally radiant, equally transparent, till its colour is washed out by
the melting snow in a ghastly narrow valley, which we called the Valley
of Death.
The little inn at Aak, in Romsdal, with a large garden stretching
along the hillside, disappointed us at first, as the clouds hid the
mountain-tops, but morning revealed how glorious they are—purple
pinnacles of rock or pathless fields of snow embossed upon a sky which
is delicately blue above but melts into the clearest opal. Grander,
we thought, than any single peak in Switzerland is the tremendous
peak of the Romsdalhorn, and the walks in all directions are most
exquisite—into deep glades filled with columbines and the giant
larkspurs, which are such a feature of Norway: into tremendous mountain
gorges: or to Waeblungsnaes, along the banks of the lovely fyord,
with its marvellously quaint forms of mountain distance. Aak is a
place where a month may be spent most delightfully, as well as most
comfortably and economically.
[Illustration: IN THE ROMSDAL, NORWAY.]
We had heard a great deal before we went to Norway about the difficulty
of getting proper food, but our own experience is that we were never
fed more luxuriously. Perhaps very late in the season the provisions
at the country 'stations' may be somewhat used up, but when we were
there in July only those who could not live without a great deal of
meat could have any cause for complaint, and once a week we generally
had reindeer for a treat. When we arrived in the evenings, we always
found an excellent meal prepared—the most delicious coffee, tea,
and cream; baskets of bread, rusks, cakes and biscuits of various
descriptions; fresh salmon and trout; cloudberries, bilberries,
raspberries, mountain strawberries and cream; and for all this about a
franc and a half is the payment required.
My companions lingered at Kristiania whilst I paid a visit, which is
one of the most delightful recollections of my tour, to a native family
near Moss, at the mouth of the fyord; then we came back to Denmark,
travelling in the same train with the beloved Prince Imperial, who
was then in the height of health and happiness, and received at every
station with the enthusiastic 'Hochs!' which in Scandinavia supply the
place of the English hurrah.
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