SCHOOL AND PLAY
I am not certain whether Norse boys and girls are very good, or
whether they are spoilt. You may travel all day on a steamer with
a well-to-do family from the town, or you may live in a farmhouse
with a peasant's family for a month, and the chances are that you
will never hear the parents say "Don't." One thing I am sure of: the
children who live in the country parts do very much as they please;
in the summer they go to bed when they feel tired, sometimes not
till nearly midnight; and they are not worried about getting their
boots and their clothes wet, because no Norwegian troubles his or her
head about such matters. Moreover, the life is such a simple one that
perhaps there is little opportunity for real naughtiness.
These country children have a very easy time, as for the greater part
of the year they have no school to go to, and they spend all the
summer out in the open air, looking after the ponies, cows, sheep,
or goats, or hay-making, or rowing about, or fishing, or something
of the kind. In the winter they, as well as the town children,
are all obliged to go to school, from the age of seven to fourteen
or fifteen--_i.e.,_ until their Confirmation, and until this takes
place they receive religious instruction from the priest on Sunday
afternoons, for there is no religious teaching in the schools.
There is a great difficulty about the country schools, because in
some districts the farms are miles and miles apart, and it would be
quite impossible for the children to walk to school and back in the
day. In such districts the Government schoolmasters have to go about
from place to place, and teach the children in their own homes. If
there should be two or three farms close together, one of the farmers
provides a schoolroom in his house, and the schoolmaster lives with
him as his guest for a time, and then goes on to another house. But
the schoolmasters must give every child twelve weeks' schooling in
the year. This does not amount to a great deal--only three months of
school in the year!
The wonder is that the children contrive to remember anything that
they have learned, with nine long months in which to forget it. Yet
they work hard while they are about it; they are inspected every
year, and they are required to pass quite difficult examinations at
the end. It is expected, however, that before long the twelve weeks'
compulsory schooling will be increased to fifteen weeks.
In the towns the children are not forced to attend school for more than
the twelve weeks in the year, but there are, of course, numbers of
private schools, high schools, etc., to which parents can send their
children, on payment, for a superior education. And at such schools
the work goes on for a much longer period of the year--in fact, all
through the year, except for two months in the summer and a week at
Christmas and at Easter.
It is all much the same as our own arrangements in England. There
is the Government school, where the education is free, and there are
other schools, where a higher education is paid for. But the compulsory
schooling does not end with the seven years at the Government schools
referred to above, for there are continuation schools, at which the
pupils have to put in a further twenty-four weeks.
In Norway there are no large public schools for boarders, so, in spite
of their long holidays, the children do not have half the fun that
English boys and girls have. There is no cricket, football, hockey,
golf, or any game of that sort, and there is not a racquet-, fives-,
or tennis-court in the land. How then, you will ask, do they manage
to amuse themselves?
It must be remembered that the winter is much longer in Norway than it
is with us, and even if the boys wanted to play football they would not
be able to do so, as the ground is covered with snow. At that season
they have their various winter sports to keep them busy--ski-ing,
skating, tobogganing, and the like, and they do not require any other
games. In the summer, instead of playing cricket, they go for walking
tours into the mountains, or they go fishing in the rivers and lakes,
or sometimes shooting.
Though the Norwegians boast that ball games have been played in the
country since Saga times, such games are of the most elementary kind,
and would be scorned by any English boy. But for all that the Norse
boys are every bit as manly as any other boys, because they enjoy
many forms of sport which make them so; and they are strong, because
they take plenty of exercise, and have physical drill in their schools.
This brings us to other games played by Norwegian children--not the
games which are purchased in the shops in Christiania, Bergen, and
other towns, but the games which are played without any of the bought
things. Of course the girls have dolls and dolls' houses and dolls'
tea-parties, like the girls of every land, and there are toys of
every description in the shops. The peasant children, however, who
live far out in the country, never see a shop, and have to provide
themselves with things to play with; but it is wonderful what an
amount of amusement they can get out of an old bone, or a block of
wood, tied to a yard or two of string.
As a rule their fathers are good hands at carving wood, so toys are
easily made for the smaller children, and one finds everywhere such
simple toys as wooden dolls, animals, miniature boats, sleighs,
and carts.
But the real enjoyment of the Norwegian children--at any rate of the
girls--is the outdoor game, played when the weather is fine, both
in the town and in the country, wherever there are enough children
to make a game. To see a bevy of these quaint little girls throwing
heart and soul into their games is delightful, and they have scores
and scores of different ones. In most of them dancing and singing play
a great part, and the most popular form of game is what is called a
"Ring Dance," in which, as the name implies, the players join hands
and dance round in a circle.
Many of these ring dances have their counterpart in English games,
and the tunes and words sung to them are almost similar. Whether we
adopted them from the Norwegians, or they adopted them from us, is a
matter which will probably never be decided, but several games of this
kind are common to all Europe. "Blind Man's Buff," "Hunt the Slipper,"
and "Forfeits," for instance, are found nearly everywhere. Here
is the Norse version of "Round and round the Mulberry Bush," which
in some parts is called "The Washing-Maids' Dance," and in others
"Round the Juniper Bush":
"So we go round the juniper bush, the juniper bush, the juniper
bush,
So we go round the juniper bush early on Monday morning.
This is the way we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, wash
our clothes,
This is the way we wash our clothes early on Monday morning.
"So we go round the juniper bush, the juniper bush, the juniper
bush,
So we go round the juniper bush early on Tuesday morning.
This is the way we ring out our clothes, ring out our clothes,
ring out our clothes,
This is the way we ring out our clothes early on Tuesday morning."
The washing operations proceed through the next three days of the week,
with a verse to each day. Thus on Wednesday they hang up the clothes,
on Thursday they mangle them, and on Friday iron them. Then on Saturday
they scrub the floor, and on Sunday go to church.
With each verse the children dance hand in hand round the imaginary
juniper bush, singing lustily, and illustrating the different actions
of the washing operations. Finally, two and two and arm in arm,
they promenade round, as if going to church, and generally prolong
the walk while they sing the last verse a second time.
Another very favourite game is _Slængkompas_, which is perhaps best
translated almost literally as Scatter-Compass. It is a rapid game,
and full of excitement. The players grasp hands in a circle and gallop
round, singing the refrain as they go:
"Those who would join in _Slængkompas_ must be tolerably quick!
One--two--three--and four--and five.
So comes _Slængkompas_ again."
When the counting begins the players let go hands, and, clapping to
the tune, spin round separately until the word "five" is reached,
when they should be in position ready to join hands again and continue
to gallop round in the original circle.
The aim of the game is to keep things going until the verse has been
sung three times, but, of course, the players often become giddy and
lose their places.
There is not space to describe more of these ring dances here, but
there are many of them, and a great many which our English children
would do well to adopt.
Our good old street game of "Hop-scotch" you may see played
almost anywhere in Norway under the somewhat curious name of
"Hop-in-Paradise," while in some parts "Cat's Cradle," though a milder
form of amusement, is quite popular, and a large variety of figures
is known.
Then the girls are very fond of dressing up as brides, with crowns
and all, and having a mock wedding, with its accompanying procession
and dancing. Above all things they love dancing, and their fathers and
grandfathers play the fiddle for them for many an hour of a winter's
evening, while the mothers sing nursery rhymes to the smaller
children. And, as with the games, these jingles are more or less
the same as our own. They have "This is the house that Jack built,"
with the malt, and the rat, and everything, only that they prefer
the name Jacob to Jack. They have "Fly away, Peter, fly away, Paul";
and the baby on his mother's knee has the joy of being shaken about to
"This is the way the farmer rides, bumpety-bumpety-bump."