In one of the deepest fjord-valleys on the western coast of Norway
there lives, even to this day, a legend which may be worth relating.
Several hundred years ago, a peasant dwelt there in the parish who had
two sons, both born on the same day. During their infancy they looked
so much alike that even the father himself could not always tell one
from the other; and as the mother had died soon after their birth,
there was no one to settle the question of primogeniture. At last the
father, too, died, and each son, feeling sure that he was the elder,
laid claim to the farm. For well nigh a year they kept wrangling and
fighting, each threatening to burn the house over the other's head if
he dared to take possession of it. The matter was finally adjusted by
the opportune intervention of a neighbor who stood in high repute for
wisdom. At his suggestion, they should each plant side by side a twig
or sprout of some tree or herb, and he to whose plant God gave growth
should be the owner of the farm. This advice was accepted; for God,
both thought, was a safer arbiter than man. One of the brothers, Arne,
chose a fern (_Ormgrass_), and the other, Ulf, a sweet-brier. A week
later, they went with the wise man and two other neighbors to the
remote pasture at the edge of the glacier where, by common consent,
they had made their appeal to the judgment of heaven. Arne's fern
stood waving in dewy freshness in the morning breeze; but Ulf's
sweet-brier lay prostrate upon the ground, as if uprooted by some
hostile hand. The eyes of the brothers met in a long, ill-boding
glance.
"This is not heaven's judgment," muttered Ulf, under his breath.
"Methinks I know the hand that has wrought this dastardly deed."
The umpires, unmindful of the charge, examined the uprooted twig, and
decided that some wild animal must have trodden upon it. Accordingly
they awarded the farm to Arne. Then swifter than thought Ulf's knife
flew from its sheath; Arne turned pale as death and quivered like an
aspen leaf. The umpires rushed forward to shield him. There was a
moment of breathless suspense. Then Ulf with a wild shout hurled his
knife away, and leaped over the brink of the precipice down into the
icy gulf below. A remote hollow rumbling rose from the abyss, followed
by a deeper stillness. The men peered out over the edge of the rock;
the glacier lay vast and serene, with its cold, glittering surface
glaring against the sky, and a thousand minute rivulets filled the air
with their melodious tinkling.
"God be his judge and yours," said the men to Arne, and hastened away.
From that day Arne received the surname Ormgrass (literally Wormgrass,
Fern), and his farm was called the Ormgrass farm. And the name has
clung to his descendants until this day. Somehow, since the death of
Ulf, the family had never been well liked, and in their proud
seclusion, up under the eternal ice-fields, they sought their
neighbors even less than they were themselves sought. They were indeed
a remarkably handsome race, of a light build, with well-knit frames,
and with a touch of that wild grace which makes a beast of prey seem
beautiful and dangerous.
In the beginning of the present century Arne's grandson, Gudmund
Ormgrass, was the bearer of the family name and the possessor of the
estate. As ill luck would have it, his two sons, Arne and Tharald,
both wooed the same maiden,--the fairest and proudest maiden in all
the parish. After long wavering she at last was betrothed to Arne, as
some thought, because he, being the elder, was the heir to the farm.
But in less than a year, some two weeks before the wedding was to be,
she bore a child; and Arne was not its father.
That same night the brothers met in an evil hour; from words they
came to blows, knives were drawn, and after midnight Tharald was
carried up to the farm with a deep wound in his shoulder and quite
unconscious. He hovered for a week on the brink of death; then the
wound began to heal and he recovered rapidly. Arne was nowhere to be
found; rumor reported that he had been seen the day after the affray,
on board a brig bound for Hull with lumber. At the end of a year
Tharald married his brother's bride and took possession of the farm.