is one of my chief delights. On the average there have been only three
or four hours a day when I could see to read by daylight, but the
twenty-hour nights have been anything but depressing to me. It has been
clear weather nearly all the time, and there have been many substitutes
for Phœbus. Even when there has been no moon and no northern lights,
the starlight has usually been enough to bring out in sharp relief the
changing outline of mountains and rocky headlands. But much of the time
the stars have had assistance. A brand new moon came to the rescue soon
after we left Trondhjem, and as it was not particularly bothered by the
blinding sunlight it had a great chance to make the most of itself. It is
surprising how much light even a very new moon can give when it is not
annoyed or forced out of business by such a light trust as the sun.
Occasionally the aurora borealis has come to lend its very gentle,
wavering quota of illumination. It is extremely timid, and a bright moon
can frighten it into retirement. But when it does appear it is the most
bewitching of phantoms. It is always restless, always timid. It darts
a long, white ray up to the zenith and then snatches it back as if in
terror lest something should seize it and hold it fast. Sometimes it is
as if a dozen streamers of the softest phosphorescent material were blown
out by the action of some huge electric fans at the North Pole. The scene
is never twice alike, even when seen from the same point, and when seen
from the deck of a little steamer, winding its way through a twisting,
cliff-bound channel, the variety is endless.
But the finest illumination of all is “under foot.” All the way from
Trondhjem to Narvik we sailed through a sea of phosphorus. Imagine,
Judicia, the brightest firefly or glowworm that you ever saw, and then
picture several hundred of them together in a compact mass, and you
will have some idea of one of the little floating islands of phosphorus
through which we passed. I saw some of these greenish light globes that
seemed as big as a grapefruit. It was as if green arc lights were strewn
about promiscuously through this whole northern sea. I wish Thomas Edison
had been along to tell me how many candle power one of these arc lights
possessed, but I am sure that one placed in a dark room would give light
enough to read by. This is not a fish story, Judicia. Really you cannot
imagine what a brilliant, watery-green glow these Norwegian phosphorus
lights give.
All this way we have been sailing on an inland sea, so to speak. The
whole coast from Trondhjem to Hammerfest, with the exception of a few
miles, is fringed with a belt of protecting islands, and seasickness is
about as nearly unknown here as it could be anywhere. The boat stopped at
many little fishing stations and gave an opportunity, which the tourist
steamers in summer do not give, to see real Norwegian life.
About eighty miles from Trondhjem we pass the island of Almenningen,
where are situated the quarries from which the blue chlorite was taken
to build the famous Trondhjem Cathedral. From there on we begin to get
into the famous fishing country, though we do not reach the center of
the industry until we get up to the Lofoten Islands. Norway, as every
one knows, is famous for its fisheries. Salmon and cod and herring and
sardines are caught by the billion and sent all over the world. A few
miles beyond Almenningen we see numerous white streaks on the rocks,
which the wily fishermen have painted there, so that the salmon are
fooled into thinking them their favorite waterfalls and are thus lured
into the nets. At Brönö, about a hundred and fifty miles from Trondhjem,
a herring fleet was stationed, waiting for the harvest. This herring
fishery is conducted in a most scientific way. Scouts keep an eye out for
a _sildstim_, or shoal of herring, and as soon as one is located they
send a hurry call by telegram to the nearest fleet, which is immediately
towed to the scene of action by tugboats. Telegrams are also sent in all
directions for the purpose of securing a supply of barrels and salt.
Much more interesting than this are the cod fisheries, which were
increasingly in evidence as we neared the Lofotens; but I will tell you
more about that later.
A most curious rock formation marks the arctic circle, for directly on
this imaginary line is a petrified man riding a petrified horse. A little
to the north is a rock called the “Maiden of Lekö,” and near by are the
“Seven Sisters of Alstahoug”—hard-featured, raw-boned girls, each about
four thousand feet tall. Between the seven sisters and the “Maiden of
Lekö,” Torg’s Hat lies floating on the sea—a stone hat, eight hundred
feet high, pierced by a four-hundred foot tunnel. Perhaps you will be
interested, as I was, to know how, when, and why these various people and
Torg’s headgear got here. It seems that once the devil’s young brother,
who lived in this neighborhood, went to see his seven devilish sisters.
During the visit he met a cousin, the “Maiden of Lekö,” and fell in love
with her. Unfortunately she did not reciprocate. The devil’s brother then
smothered his love in rage, mounted his horse, and set out to kill the
maiden. He took his bow and shot an arrow at her. But just at the crucial
moment Torg, the hero of the story, saw the danger and threw his hat at
the arrow, which pierced it through, four hundred feet (I’m afraid Torg
had a big head), and harmlessly buried itself in the land near by. At
this point the sun rose and turned everything and everybody to stone. The
_dramatis personæ_ and the stage properties continue to exist through
all these centuries. The devil’s brother sits on his charger and draws
his bow. The maiden looks longingly for Torg, the seven she-devils look
on, and the arrow is seen sticking into a near-by island after boring
its immense tunnel through Torg’s Hat. This last is a truly wonderful
phenomenon, and I know of no other way to explain it than by the arrow
theory. The tunnel is four hundred feet long, four hundred feet above the
sea, and varies in height from sixty-five to two hundred and forty-five
feet.
We are now unmistakably in the north. I have not seen the sun since I
left the scene of this ancient drama. For a few hours a day all the
southern half of the sky has been illuminated by a soft glow, a cross
between dawn and twilight. The combination produces color schemes much
more beautiful than either could produce alone, and the always changing
and always majestic outline of the mountains adds tremendously to their
effect.
It has been warm enough to permit me to stand on deck quite comfortably
all the time, and that in spite of the fact that it is midwinter and
that I am more than a hundred miles north of the arctic circle. The
temperature has a peculiar tendency to actually rise as you go north
along this western coast. Even as far north as Hammerfest the water up
to the very heads of the still fjords never freezes, while in the Baltic
and the Gulf of Finland, about nine hundred miles due south, it is no
uncommon thing for the big steamers crossing from Stockholm to be frozen
in solid. The mean January temperature of the Lofoten Islands is about
the same as that of Berlin, warmer if anything. Hammerfest is in the same
latitude as the arctic regions of America, where Franklin perished, and
as the uninhabitable regions of northern Siberia, yet the average winter
temperature here is rather warmer than in New York. As I write, here in
Narvik, January 12, a hundred miles north of the arctic circle and about
twenty-nine degrees of latitude north of New York, it is raining, and
there is no snow on the ground. Of course I don’t need to tell you that
the Gulf Stream is responsible for all this.
Another peculiarity about the coast of Norway is that it is rising bodily
out of the ocean. At Trondhjem it is a well-ascertained fact that in the
days of Olaf Tryggvesson, who, as I have told you, was king about nine
hundred years ago, the coast line there was twenty feet higher than it
is now. In Hammerfest there are unmistakable indications of an old coast
line six hundred and twenty feet above the present one. In some parts of
Scandinavia the land is rising at the rate of five feet in a century. At
that rate it will be about ten miles higher a million years from now.
Even with my geologically untrained eye I can easily see in many of the
fjords distinct lines which must formerly have been on the sea level.
Directly in the center of the stage of this old drama, the “Maiden of
Lekö,” is an island called Thjötö or Thjotta, formerly the private
property of an earl named Haarek. This Haarek was a heathen earl who
lived in the time of the aforementioned Olaf Tryggvesson. Olaf was a
Christian king, and consequently he was much distressed that this heathen
earl possessed so much power. He accordingly summoned Haarek to his court
and told him that he must either be baptized or killed. The former course
seemed to Haarek on the whole the more attractive, and in the end he and
all his house were baptized.
Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to tell you something about
the strenuous methods by which Norway was converted to Christianity.
Olaf Tryggvesson was the first great missionary-king, and he attacked
with fiery zeal the problem of converting his realm. He was so strenuous
that he aroused much anger in his subjects, who finally rebelled. At
this, Olaf, who was always equal to any emergency, summoned six of the
ringleaders, and holding an ax over the head of each in turn he offered
them their choice of being killed or baptized. Most of them chose to be
baptized, but one asked the priest where were the old heroes, Harald
Fairhair and Halfdan the Swarthy. The priest replied that they were in
hell, whereupon the courageous chieftain said very well, he would like to
join them, and he was promptly killed. I suspect that in this case the
heathen was nobler than the Christians.
King Olaf had a crony in his court, chaplain Thangbrand, the Saxon
priest. Thangbrand was a perfectly ferocious man, whose insincerity as a
missionary of the gospel of peace must have been most evident. Some years
before he had visited Bishop Siric of Canterbury, who had presented him
with a valuable and unique shield, on which was wrought the image of the
crucified Christ. As Boyesen says:
“Shortly after this occurrence, Thangbrand made the acquaintance of Olaf
Tryggvesson, who admired the shield greatly and desired to buy it. The
priest received a munificent compensation, and, finding himself suddenly
rich, went and bought a beautiful Irish girl, whose charms had beguiled
him. A German warrior who saw the girl claimed her, and when his demand
was scornfully refused challenged the priest. A duel was fought, and the
German was killed. Some ill feeling was aroused against Thangbrand by
this incident, and he fled to his friend, Olaf Tryggvesson, and became
his court chaplain.”
Needless to say, King Olaf had no idea what Christianity really meant.
To him it was merely a substitution of one polytheism for another. The
Trinity, the Virgin Mary, and numberless saints took the place of Odin,
Thor, Frey, and the rest of the old gods. The one difference which
in time permeated the viking consciousness was that, while Odin and
his colleagues rejoiced in bloodshed and cruelty, Christ the “White”
advocated “Peace on earth, good will to men.” Thirty years later King
Olaf Haroldsson earned by his life, and still more by his death, the
title of Olaf the Saint. He took the Norse imagination captive, and by
his truly saintly life and death won his country to real Christianity.
The first Olaf Tryggvesson resorted at times to the most cruel measures
in his efforts to convert his subjects. Raud the Strong, who refused to
accept the new faith, he tortured most horribly, finally, it is said,
forcing an adder down his throat, which cut its way through his side and
killed him with its poison. Eyvind Kinriva, another chieftain who refused
to be baptized, “had glowing coals put upon his stomach at the king’s
command, and expired under horrible tortures.”
In all this, however, Olaf verily thought that he did God’s service. He
was so burning with zeal for the new faith, without at the same time
having the slightest conception of what the new faith meant, that he
subjected everything to this one idea of fierce missionary enthusiasm.
The case was quite otherwise with the vicious priest, Thangbrand. It is
certain that he recognized himself for a charlatan who was interested in
the new religion only for what he could get out of it. He had a parish at
one time at Moster in Norway, but, as he found it inconvenient to live
and support his Irish beauty on his slender income, he “formed the habit
of making forays into the neighboring shires, replenishing his stores at
the expense of the heathen.” King Olaf was incensed at this, and as a
penance he made the Saxon priest go on a missionary journey to Iceland.
Here Thangbrand killed nearly as many men as he converted, and he was
finally outlawed and compelled to leave the island. But it is strangely
enough a fact that about a year after his enforced flight Iceland did
legally adopt the new faith at the Althing of June in the year 1000.
I will tell you more about Olaf the Saint and some of the other Olafs and
Haakons and Haralds when I come back to Trondhjem. If I run on any more
now about history I shall never get you to Narvik. Not far from Thjotta
is the great “Svartisen” glacier, which is, being interpreted, “Swarthy
Ice,” or “Black Ice.” This is the only glacier in Europe which sends
branches down to the edge of the sea.
Fifty miles or so north of the arctic circle there is a town called Bodö,
which the tourist steamers utterly ignore, but our good mail _skib_ of
the Nordenfjeldske Dampskibsselskab does not scorn it, and afforded us
a most interesting stop of two or three hours. Like all these arctic
towns, Bodö is built entirely of wood, and offers a good opportunity
for fires, which opportunity is seldom neglected for a very long time.
There is a church parsonage near the town, which once sheltered no less a
celebrity than Louis Philippe, when he was traveling incognito as “Herr
Müller.” There is one old room in this house which is still called Louis
Philippe’s chamber.
From a hill above Bodö I got my first glimpse of the Lofotens, and I
could hardly wait to get among these islands. Directly east of Bodö is a
fjord with the unpronouncable name of Skjerstadfjord, which opens out to
the main sea through three very narrow openings. The fjord is so large
and the openings are so small that a tremendous torrent is formed four
times daily by the two incoming and the two outgoing tides. The tide only
rises and falls six or at most eight feet, but you can see that to cover
a fjord thirty miles long and six or eight miles wide with six feet of
water, and to accomplish the inundation in a few hours through a tiny
opening, requires a violent torrent. At the Godöström or Saltström, the
narrowest of the openings, the tide is so violent that only for an hour
at ebb and full tide do the steamers dare to go through.
As we approached the Lofotens, we passed the famous Maelström on the
left. This Maelström is a feeble little current which passes around the
edge of the southernmost island of the group. Compared with the Saltström
it is a calm mill pond, yet some poet had the nerve to fool all the world
into thinking that some horrible, yawning cavity in the sea existed
somewhere along the Norwegian coast. I have learned that two poets and a
bishop are largely responsible for this idea. The poets are Campbell and
Poe, and the bishop bore the name of Pontoppidan. Campbell writes:
“Round the isle where loud Lofoden
Whirls to death the roaring whale,” etc.
Campbell _could_ not have seen the Maelström, or he would not have
written so ridiculously about it. I doubt, too, if he was ever frightened
by the “roar” of a whale. A minnow or a tadpole could swim through the
Maelström without realizing that he was in it, and as for a whale being
“whirled to death”—well, perhaps a poet has a right to say such things.
The good Bishop Pontoppidan, in the same work in which he dilates upon
the horrors of the Maelström, tells of a sea serpent or _kraken_: “Its
back or upper part,” he says, “which seems to be in appearance about an
English mile and a half in circumference (some say more, but I choose
the least for greater certainty) looks at first like a number of small
islands surrounded with something that floats and fluctuates like
seaweed.”
You may imagine, Judicia, how I was comforted by a certain guide book’s
reassurance that “there is no doubt that this dreaded monster is a purely
optical illusion.” So there isn’t any sea serpent with a back an English
mile and a half in circumference, and there isn’t any yawning chasm.
Regardless of whirlpools and sea serpents, the approach to the Lofotens
gave one of the most interesting views I have seen anywhere. It was high
noon when we left Bodö, and, as it did not get dark until nearly three
o’clock, we had a good view. Dear old Baedeker, for whom I am coming to
feel a genuine affection, states that these islands form a chain which
has “not inaptly been likened to a backbone, tapering away to the smaller
vertebræ of the tail at the south end.” Whoever said that originally had
a good command over similes, for it does have very much that form. The
jagged outline of the mountains as we sailed over the “darkling” expanse
of water was something for poets to write about.
One very prosy author describes the scene as “picturesque.” What a
fine, expressive, original word it is, and incidentally how faithful and
obliging! It will attach itself to a Neapolitan beggar, or a Damascus rag
fair or a Nile dahabiyeh, or anything else in the wide world, and I do
think the Lofotens might have a word of their own. Without any directly
applied adjective, Campbell makes you see the Lofotens and feel their
spell by these two lines:
“Round the shores where runic Odin
Howls his war-song to the gale.”
After these lines, can’t you see the wind swirling around the sheer,
rocky mountains?
It began to get dark as we approached the islands, and we had to feel our
way through a big fishing fleet, which was just beginning operations.
This fishing fleet was only a small section of the entire squadron. An
average annual catch mounts up to nearly thirty million cod, and the
record is thirty-seven million. Thirty million cod livers are taken out
and boiled into cod-liver oil. Thirty million cod heads are burned and
pulverized and made into fertilizer, and thirty million cod carcasses are
hung up to dry, eventually to be sent all over the world.
This very useful fish formerly waged a mortal warfare with the herring in
the region of Stavanger, very much farther south. The herring were the
aborigines in that region, but in 1784 a battle resulted in a complete
cod victory. For twenty-four years the cod held the fort. In 1808 a
herring Napoleon arose and led his forces to victory. The cod were
completely routed, and for sixty-one years the herring rejoiced in their
native stamping ground, and the fishermen did not catch a single cod.
In 1869 the cod again “came back” and have held their place ever since.
However, there is no knowing when another Napoleon herring may arise.
Perhaps fishes as well as men need a Hague Tribunal, and a Carnegie
Foundation, and a Nobel Peace Prize.
These fishermen live a precarious and a dangerous life. Violent storms
often spring up suddenly and toss their little smacks in all directions.
In 1848, on February 11, five hundred fishermen were drowned in such a
storm.
On one of the southern islands is a natural trap called “Whale Creek,”
into which whales occasionally swim at high tide, and, being unable to
turn around, find themselves stranded when the tide goes out. There is
sea “life” all around these Lofoten Islands. There are eider ducks by
the million, whose down is so valuable. These little ducks are said to
have the power of diving one hundred and twenty feet for the crabs which
form their daily bread. Lobsters and seals also bring a handsome revenue
into the coffers of the natives. Of course sea gulls and porpoises are
everywhere. Also there is a whole tribe of birds called “skua,” who
live entirely by brigandage and highway robbery. Through laziness or
inability, they will not or cannot earn their own “keep,” and they lie in
wait and rob the sea gulls of their prey. If a Norwegian sea gull wishes
to have any peace he must seek some secluded spot where he may dive and
seize his prey unmolested by these skua thieves.
The most important stopping place in the Lofoten Islands is the town of
Svolvaer. The same author who thinks that the Lofotens in general are
“picturesque” finds Svolvaer “most picturesque.” Well, whatever adjective
you do use to characterize the islands in general, you must, in all
fairness, apply in the superlative degree to Svolvaer. The great, raw
cliffs, two thousand feet high, come so close to the water’s edge and
rise so sheer that the little town gives the appearance of one flattening
himself against the rock and clinging by his finger nails and eyebrows.
The ships in the harbor look like discarded peanut shells beside these
towering walls of rock.
The shape of these boats, particularly of the small rowboats, gives
away their pedigree instantly. They are unmistakably descendants of the
vikings. They have high prows and high sterns, and these are adorned with
various viking ornamentations.
At Svolvaer several Sea-Lapps came to the wharf to meet our steamer. They
are rather poor specimens of Laplanders. They have given up their old,
wandering reindeer life and are making a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to
be Norwegian fishermen. Being between hay and grass, or rather between
reindeer and cod, they are a very scraggly, unkempt lot.
At Lödingen, about a hundred and forty miles from Svolvaer by the
steamer’s winding course, I had to change to a little boat, which took
me on an eight-hour trip through the long Ofotenfjord to Narvik. This
Ofotenfjord is one of the very finest in Norway, and yet it is seldom
visited by Americans, as the summer tourist steamers all sail by. We got
to Lödingen early in the morning, about seven o’clock, hours before dawn,
and were soon chugging over the quiet Ofoten in a little boat of almost
steam-launch diminutiveness. About half-past nine there began to be very
faint signs that there might be a sun somewhere, and by eleven o’clock it
had gotten near enough to the horizon to flood half the sky with a soft
glow of changing and indescribable color. I saw many familiar mountains
on this trip. Two Matterhorns, a Dent du Midi, a Gramont, and a Fujiyama
were unmistakable. Fujiyama was absolutely perfect except that a little
part of the top of the cone had been clipped off as though with a giant
egg-decapitator. Dent du Midi was perfect, too, only Chillon being absent.
At one of the ports of call on the way to Narvik, a port which apparently
consisted of three houses, a small viking boat came out and contributed
two persons to our passenger list. After our boat had started again and
was well on its way, a little boy appeared from somewhere and suddenly
remembered that he had meant to get off at that station. Obligingly, and
as a matter of course, the captain signaled to his engineer, the engines
were reversed, and the boat chugged back a long way; someone called to
the viking rowboat, which came out and got the belated passenger. There
is no hurry about anything in this part of Norway, no confusion and no
yelling. The people seem to make a point of not talking at all unless
they have something that must be said. At several of the stops passengers
were transferred back and forth without the assistance of a single spoken
word by anybody. The Norwegians, at least in the quieter parts of the
country, are as simple and genuine and honest as any people in the world.
Truly I believe that it is a certain stolid honesty that makes them often
so silent. I think they feel that it would not be quite genuine to say
something that did not seem to be worth saying.