to the attention of all the great nations, and persuade them to accept
it, you will confer an enormous boon upon every traveler.
During this monetary discussion we have not made much headway along the
Göta Canal. Now I will make up for lost time. A few minutes after our
steamer left the quay at Stockholm we found ourselves among the islands
of beautiful Lake Mälar, famous in Sweden’s story, but before long we
came to the deep cut by which the waters of the lake join a bay of the
Baltic. Lake Mälar covers nearly five hundred square miles, and though
less than a fifth part as large as Lake Venern, it is yet one of the
greatest lakes in Europe. Let me at least make you acquainted with the
names of Sweden’s four inland seas, which ought to be as familiar to a
traveler like yourself, as Lake Como or Maggiore. They are the Venern,
the Vettern, the Hjelmar, and Mälar.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._
The Locks, Borenshult, Göta Canal.]
Mr. Von Heidenstam, in _Swedish Life in Town and Country_, says: “It is a
common saying that you cannot stand on any given spot in these districts
without having a lake in view somewhere, for by the side of the giant
lakes smaller ones abound, spread over the face of the whole country. Of
the hundred and ten millions of acres forming the surface of the country,
over eight and a half millions are covered by lakes. Large and small,
they dot the green earth with blue wherever the eye turns. The peasants
call them the ‘eyes of the earth,’ and limpid and blue they are, like the
eyes of the northern maidens.”
If you will consult the map you will easily understand our tortuous but
delightful course across southern Sweden from Stockholm to Gotenburg.
The deep cut which I have told you about that leads from Lake Mälar to
the Baltic Sea was soon passed (for in order to reach the great canal we
must first get into the Baltic), and we found ourselves sailing among the
beautiful islands and past the charming villas which dot the coast in
this region. A few hours more and we entered another long, narrow gulf or
fjord, until at Norrköping we struck the canal again. Before long we came
to the fifteen steps by which our steamer climbs from little Lake Roxen
to the level of the Vettern.
This is indeed the most delightful hill-climbing that I have ever
enjoyed. From one lock to another the steamer rises, while the passengers
can either stay on deck or they can get off and stroll up on foot.
We had plenty of time to visit Vreta Klosterkyrka, which is celebrated as
the place where Ebba Leijonhufvud spent her widowhood and died in 1549. I
do not know that Ebba was particularly celebrated for her exploits or for
beauty of face or form, but she was the mother-in-law of Gustavus Vasa,
and even that oft-derided relationship adds an interest to the place.
The beautiful church, which is built upon the ruins of the old cloister,
contains the ashes of several kings, but these old forgotten worthies are
not of so much interest as the coffins that we saw in another chapel
of the church. There are five of them, piled one above the other, and
each one contains a Douglas. The most famous Douglas of them all, a
younger son of the head of the great Scottish clan, fought under Gustavus
Adolphus in the Thirty Years’ War. For his bravery he was made a Swedish
count, and many a Swedish noble with Douglas blood in his veins lives in
Sweden to-day.
By the time we had sauntered slowly up the hill and had visited the site
of Gustavus Vasa’s mother-in-law’s cloister, and ruminated sufficiently
on the past, we were ready to take the steamer again for another lovely
sail down an arm of Lake Vettern to Vadstena, and here we had time enough
to go ashore and see another castle of Gustavus Vasa’s, who seems to have
sprinkled his residences all over this part of Sweden. Here, we are told,
“he celebrated his marriage with his third wife, Catarina, a blushing
bride of sixteen, though the bridegroom was almost four times as old, and
this, too, notwithstanding that the girl was already betrothed to a noble
youth, and ran away and hid herself in her father’s garden when the old
king came to court her.”[4]
In Vadstena are two churches, each some five hundred years old, one of
which is famous as the last resting place of St. Bridget, to whom I have
already introduced you, for here she had founded the celebrated nunnery,
whose inmates had to take such strict, ascetic vows.
Across Lake Vettern we sailed through another canal, that led us between
charming pastures, musical with the tinkle of cowbells; past fine farms,
the red farmhouse making a spot of color on the rich green turf; past
gently wooded hills, until we came to magnificent Lake Venern. But we had
to get downhill before we reached the Kattegat, for we were one hundred
and forty-four feet above the sea, and eleven great locks, each of them
one hundred and twelve feet long, is the stairway by which we descended.
Since it took some time for our steamer to go down the hill, we walked
instead, for we get many a glimpse from the shore of some of the most
beautiful rapids I have ever seen. These are the falls of Trollhätten.
Is not that a name that lingers upon your lips and suggests all sorts
of trolls and sprites and water nymphs? A tremendous volume of water
comes rushing down over the falls, for Europe’s largest lake, as I have
before told you, here empties itself, or rather throws itself into the
sea. Except for its one majestic fall, Niagara cannot show us anything
more exciting in the way of cataracts than Trollhätten. There are five of
them, the smallest twenty-five feet high, and the biggest forty-two feet
of steep incline, while the river is lined on either side by jagged rocks
and high cliffs, past which it comes surging and swirling with deafening
roar, hurling its spray high in the air.
I wish the poet-laureate Southey had seen the falls at Trollhätten and
had expended some of his adjectives upon them instead of wasting them all
upon that little streamlet at the end of Derwent Water when he wrote “How
the Waters come down at Lodore.”
At the foot of the falls we took the steamer again for a few hours’ sail
down the Göta River, until we came to Sweden’s greatest commercial city,
Gotenburg, where steamers are waiting to carry Sweden’s products and
Sweden’s emigrants to the ends of the earth.
I fear I may have given you the impression, as I have described the
getting up and downhill across Sweden’s broad southern end, of merely
a holiday waterway, but the Göta Canal is the great artery of Sweden.
Through it, up and down these gigantic steps, pass twelve thousand
vessels every year, some of them steamers capable of making an Atlantic
voyage, some of them full-rigged schooners or brigs.
The charm of the trip, too, is not by any means confined to the scenery
or the ancient castles, for our fellow passengers, by their gentle
politeness, do much to make the journey memorable. If you had been with
us, they would have taken pains to find out any titles which the American
colleges may have incautiously conferred upon your husband, and would
always address you as the “Lady Doctor.” They would not think of using
the word _ni_ (you) in addressing you. We are told about one of the young
lady clerks in a great store in Stockholm who sent word to a gentleman
that his son had insulted her. On asking the girl what the insult was,
she replied: “He addressed me as _ni_.” I am speaking now of the way in
which chance acquaintances or strangers address one another.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._
The Gorge of the Göta at Trölhatten.]
But now and then, as we hear our fellow passengers talking together,
we notice a peculiarly affectionate stress of accent upon the little
word _du_, and we know that the two men who are talking together are
fast friends, or they would never address each other as “thou.” “The
event marks an important stage in their friendship, it is said, and is
accompanied by a little ceremony. The higher in rank, or the elder of the
two, says, ‘Let us lay aside our titles.’ Pouring out bumpers (let us
hope it is always in Sweden’s temperance beverage), they stand erect, and
clinking glasses drink the brothers’ _Skol_. Then, grasping each other
warmly by the hand, they say: ‘Thanks, brother.’ Thereafter they are
‘_du_ brothers’; they always address each other as _du_, or ‘brother.’”
This custom of _fosterbrödralag_, or foster brotherhood, is as old as
Sweden itself, but in olden times the foster brothers instead of clinking
glasses cut gashes in their arms and let their blood mingle together as
it fell to the earth, a too strenuous ceremony for these milder-mannered
days.
Have I not told you enough, Judicia, to prove the proposition with which
I set out: that there is no more charming journey in the world, when we
consider the scenery, the historic associations, our means of conveyance,
and our fellow passengers, than this trip through Sweden’s magnificent
Göta Canal?
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
TENTH LETTER
Describes the ancient city of Visby; the Gotlanders of old;
their wonderful wealth; their defeat by King Valdemar, and the
vats of gold that he demanded for the city’s ransom. Returning
to more modern days, Midsummer’s Day, the great holiday of
Sweden, is described.
VISBY, June 24.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
Please refer to the map once more, and you will see in the blue water,
nearly halfway between the Swedish coast and the Baltic province of
Russia, a long, scraggly island, with many capes and indentations. You
will see that it is called Gotland, and on its western shore you will see
that there is a city called Visby. I do not know that I can give such a
traveler and geographer as yourself any real information about Gotland,
but I will at least venture to refresh your memory concerning this most
interesting island, for a very considerable part of the world’s history
for a good many scores of years centered in this piece of sea-washed
land, which contains barely twelve hundred square miles of surface.
At one time Visby, which has now dwindled to a somewhat obscure tourist
resort, was the London of northern Europe. The East and the West paid
their tribute to it. Russia sent her timber and her furs, and England and
Germany and Flanders their precious stuffs, which were here exchanged
for other precious stuffs and then went their several ways to all parts
of Europe.
One of their old ballads tells us:
“The Gotlanders weigh their gold with twenty pound weights,
And play with choicest jewels,
The pigs eat out of silver troughs,
And the women spin with golden distaffs.”
That the old ballad had some foundation in fact is shown us by the
splendid ruins that tell us of Visby’s former greatness.
Throughout Gotland there are no less than ninety great Gothic churches,
most of them in ruins, while in Visby alone were sixteen of these
churches, some of them among the largest in Europe. So much has the city
dwindled that in only one of these churches is heard the voice of prayer
and praise to-day. The walls of ten others can still be seen, but they
are merely magnificent ruins.
That the ancient Gotlanders were proud of their splendid isolation, in
the middle of the Baltic, and were not inclined to bend the supple knee
to any potentate, is indicated by a tradition that has come down to us,
of the ambassador whom these island people sent to the king of Sweden
to seek an alliance for mutual offense and defense. This ambassador was
named Strabagn, which being interpreted means “Long Legs.”
When he reached Upsala, where was then the royal palace, he found the
king and queen dining in their great banquet hall. The king had a grudge
against the Gotlanders, whom he considered too toplofty and independent,
and so Mr. Longfellow was kept standing in the hall while the royal pair
continued their sumptuous meal. At last the king condescended to ask
gruffly, “What’s the news from Gotland?” “Nothing” replied Strabagn,
“except that a mare on the island has foaled three colts at a birth.”
“Ah,” said the king, “and what does the third colt do when the other two
are sucking?” “He does as I do,” answered Long Legs; “he stands and looks
on.” This stroke of wit pleased the king and queen so much that they
invited the ambassador to make a third at their table, and were finally
willing to conclude a treaty which was as much to the advantage of Sweden
as of Gotland.
The thirteenth century was the Golden Age of Gotland. In this century the
great warehouses were built, and it became the commercial metropolis of
northern Europe. There were few stronger fortresses in the world, for an
enormous stone wall thirty feet high surrounded the city, and from the
wall no less than forty-eight huge towers arose.
It does not take much imagination to reproduce ancient Visby, for
thirty-eight of the forty-eight towers are still standing. They are more
than sixty feet high, and one can see in each of the five stories the
holes through which the archers fired their arrows, doubtless winged with
death for many a foe, while from the battlemented top of the towers huge
stones were thrown from the catapults.
But in spite of Visby’s isolation, and in spite of her mighty
fortifications, she was not impregnable as she supposed, for in
1361 Denmark, which in those early days seems to have always been
the evil genius of Sweden, sent an army under the command of King
Valdemar Atterdag to capture the city. The people behind their strong
fortifications at first laughed at him and mustered all their troops to
defend the city, but Valdemar was victorious, nearly two thousand of
Visby’s noblest defenders were slain, and the city was at the mercy of
the Dane.
He would not accept its surrender and accord it the honors of war, even
after it had capitulated, but tore down a part of the wall to prove his
ruthless might and marched as a conqueror to the center of the city.
One is reminded by Valdemar’s conquest of the hard terms that Pizarro
made when he conquered the Peruvians. You remember that for the ransom of
King Atahualpa he went into a great room, and drawing a red mark on the
wall as high as he could reach he told the Peruvians that they must fill
that room with gold as high as the red mark if they would release their
king from bondage and save him from death.
King Valdemar did something of the same sort to the Visbyites, for he
took the three biggest ale vats that he found in the city and commanded
the people to fill them with gold and silver within three hours. So
frightened were the inhabitants by his bloodthirsty cruelty that they
obeyed, stripping themselves of their golden ornaments, rifling their
churches and their treasure-houses, until the big vats were full to the
brim.
But even this did not avail to save them from further rapine, for
Valdemar made a clean sweep of all that was left and poor Visby was
plundered by the rapacious troops of all her riches.
I should like to be able to tell you that I saw the bones of Valdemar
Attardag safely encoffined where he could do no more harm, but the next
best thing was to see the _Jungfrutornet_, or the “Maiden’s Tower,”
where, according to tradition, the noble maid who opened the gates of
Visby to the Danish king, whom she loved, was walled up alive. You need
not waste much sympathy on this maiden, however, for I am told on good
authority that she is a strictly mythical girl, and that her story was
invented by the people of Visby to account for what many believed was a
somewhat cowardly capitulation of the city to the Danes.
King Valdemar, however, must have had one or two redeeming traits of
character, for he erected a great stone cross on the battlefield to
commemorate the death of the eighteen hundred citizens whom he slew. The
cross can still be seen, scarcely marred by the passage of these five
hundred years, and the inscription on it is not a record of triumph so
much as a memorial to the dead.
You have noticed, perhaps, that this letter is dated “June 24.” This date
may not have any great significance for you, but it is a high day in
Sweden, perhaps the most joyous of all the year, for it is Midsummer’s
Day, the day without a night in many parts of this northern land.
In almost every village in Sweden you will see to-day a _Majstang_.
Perhaps you can guess that a _Majstang_ is a Maypole, though I think
I hear you say, “Why have a Maypole in June?” The Swedish word for
May, _Maj_, is an ancient term meaning “green leaf,” and June 24 is
preëminently the Feast of the Green Leaf.
It is not the somber evergreens, however, that decorate the windows
at Christmas time and that stand dressed with Christmas candles and
Christmas gifts; the Midsummer Tree is the birch. If it should ever be
put to a vote in Sweden, I think the Swedes would decide that the birch
is their most beloved tree. It is equally beautiful in summer and in
winter. In the former its delicate drooping branches are covered with
green, and in the latter with white. There is nothing quite so lovely in
the northern latitudes as the birch trees silvered with a thick coating
of frost in midwinter, unless it be these same birch trees in their glad
green livery in midsummer.
On June 23, in preparation for Midsummer’s Day, all the lads and lassies
that you see in the country will have a load of birch boughs on their
shoulders. In Stockholm hundreds of wagons and little steamers bring
tens of thousands of young birch trees to the city, and every window and
doorway is decorated with its delicate green. Even the dray horses are
decked out in green, and “the wearing of the green” is more popular in
Sweden on June 24 than in Ireland on March 17.
This is the out-of-door festival of the country. At Luleå in the far
north the people all flock on Midsummer’s Eve to a mountain near by
called Mjaolkudds Berget. Here each family builds a small bonfire and
over it makes their coffee, which is supposed to have a peculiar flavor
and potency on Midsummer’s Eve. The midnight sun cannot quite be seen
from Mjaolkudds Berget, but according to the ancient custom the coffeepot
must be placed on the hot coals just as the last rim of his upper disk
disappears. Before the coffee is brewed, the upper disk is again visible
above the horizon, and then the coffee can be drunk by every member of
the family, from the great-grandmother to the youngest scion.
This of all days is a day of life and color in Sweden. Let us not stay
in little Visby, with its mournful ruins reminding us of the golden days
of Gotland, but go out into the country, for nature is ever fresh and
new. She knows nothing about ruins, or, if she does allow some giant tree
to totter and fall in the forest, she soon covers up his decaying form
with moss and creepers. The colors that we see are not all green by any
means, for this is the day when Swedish maidens adopt the bright, ancient
costumes of their country, the Crown Princess herself having set the
example. The Maypole is set up on every village green, and the children
first are given the right of way. Hand in hand they romp around the
Maypole, singing the folk songs and the glees which Sweden’s children for
many a generation have sung on Midsummer’s Day. Then the older ones take
their place, and all is motion and gladness and color and song.
If we should find ourselves in the woods after the day’s festivities are
over, we should very likely see some silent, solitary maidens wandering
through the fields, in the long twilight which here lasts till midnight.
Do not think that they are lovelorn lasses deserted by their swains, for
they are simply seeking to know their own fortunes, which Midsummer’s
Night reveals to them. In one of the provinces the maiden must pick
three flowers each, of three different kinds, and must speak to no one
until the next morning. These flowers she puts under her pillow when she
goes to bed, and if she has been conscientiously tongue-tied, and has
been quite alone when she picked the flowers, and has replied to every
question which teasing suitors would put to her only by signs, she will
dream of her future husband, and the next morning will know who he is to
be.
In other provinces she has to pick nine different kinds of flowers from
as many different farms, and this bouquet is even more efficacious than a
smaller one. Why should we not have such a midsummer holiday in America?
It is true that we have our Fourth of July, which is not very far from
the right date, but, however “safe and sane” we may make it, the Fourth
of July can never be anything but a patriotic holiday, nor should it be.
Thanksgiving Day is too late in the year for an out-of-door holiday, and
the thirtieth of May is dedicated to a sacred celebration all its own.
But why should we not have one genuine out-of-door day, a day when we
shall see to it that every city child may romp and play in God’s green
fields, and when we may make it a joyous duty to thank the Giver of all,
not only for the harvests and for the full granaries as on Thanksgiving
Day, but for the sun and the green trees and the flowers and grass and
everything that makes us glad to be alive? What day could be so good for
such a celebration in America as well as in Sweden as Midsummer’s Day?
Before we bid good-by to Gotland and Visby, let us climb in the late
evening twilight the ruined towers of the church of St. Nikolaus. From
the old wall we can look out to sea, and if our imagination is strong
enough, supplemented by a sufficient knowledge of old traditions, perhaps
we shall see an eerie, reddish light on the calm waters of the Baltic.
This light comes from two great carbuncles in the bottom of the Baltic.
These carbuncles once adorned the western gable of the church of St.
Nikolaus, where, according to the tradition, “these carbuncles shone with
the brightness of the sun at noonday, throughout the night, and served
as guiding lights to storm-tossed mariners far out on the Baltic wave.
Twenty-four soldiers stood constantly on guard to watch these ruddy gems,
the most precious possessions of the church, and no one, on pain of
death, might approach the sanctuary after the going down of the sun.”
[Illustration: Ruins of St. Nikolaus Cathedral, Visby, Gotland.]
King Valdemar could not leave such priceless jewels to St. Nikolaus,
and so he snatched them from the rose windows which they adorned, put
them on his biggest ship, and sailed away to Denmark. But justice
followed the sacrilegious freebooter; his ship was wrecked on one of the
little islands which line the coast of Gotland, and the king himself
barely escaped with his life. The carbuncles sank to the bottom of the
sea, which accounts for that strange glow which any one with a vivid
imagination can see from the ruined tower of St. Nikolaus as he looks off
on the peaceful Baltic.
Faithfully yours,
PHILLIPS.
ELEVENTH LETTER
Wherein something is told of Sweden’s art and artists; the
ancient rock-cutting of Bohus; the art treasures collected by
the heroes of the Thirty Years’ War; Cederstrom’s picture of
Charles XII; Carl Larsson’s pictures of the home; the mural
paintings of the schoolhouses; also something about Sweden’s
great authors and singers.
STOCKHOLM, June 30.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
With your love for libraries and picture galleries I should not dare
to send you this last letter from Sweden without telling you something
about the Swedes who have contributed to literature and art, though, if
I should attempt to go into the subject exhaustively, I fear that many
names of Swedish artists and authors would be unfamiliar even to you.
Sweden’s first and original art gallery is a strange one indeed, for it
is unroofed except by the blue dome of heaven, and not a canvas hangs
upon its walls. Nevertheless it is one of the most interesting galleries
in all Europe. It is found in the province of Bohus, on the west coast
of Sweden, north of Gotenburg. Shall we call these old artists sculptors
or painters? The material that they used was the solid rock, the face of
the cliffs that slopes up gently from level fields. They did not chisel
out a statue, but with some bronze tools in lieu of brushes they cut the
figures which they would portray in the rock, not making them stand out
as does the Lion of Lucerne, but cutting them like solid intaglios in the
face of the rock itself.