in sight of Narvik. I was astonished to see what a busy, hustling city
it was. All along the fjord, in fact all the way from Trondhjem, I had
lived in an atmosphere of slow, almost stolid, quiet. No one had been
in a hurry. But here was a busy, noisy little city. Hundreds of bright
electric lights twinkled in the distance, and from miles away I could
hear the clanking of chains, the chugging of machinery, the tooting and
puffing of trains, and a thousand other noises that go to the making
of a commercial town’s wharves. A Baedeker of fifteen years back does
not mention Narvik, for the very good reason that it did not exist; yet
now it is the busiest town north of the arctic circle anywhere in the
world. The iron mines of Kiruna in Swedish Lapland and the new railway
from there to Narvik have made this seaport possible. It is said that
now two and a quarter million tons of iron ore are exported annually
from Narvik to all parts of the world, a large share going to Emden in
Germany. Some of it, strangely enough, finds its way to Philadelphia, and
not so very long ago I read in the paper of a collision of one of these
Narvik iron-ore ships with an American ship in Delaware Bay. At the
time I read the item I had not been to Norway, and I remember wondering
where in the world Narvik was, and why an iron-ore ship from there should
be in Delaware Bay. It is almost unbelievable that little Norway, with
less than three million inhabitants, all told, has the fourth largest
commercial fleet in the world, following Great Britain and the United
States and Germany; yet such is the case. Narvik now contributes very
considerably to this commercial fleet. There are frequently five or six
big ships lying in the harbor, and others are always up at the wharves
being loaded with ore.
As our little boat drew up at the wharf, a number of hotel porters
appeared on the scene, and I tried to judge of them and choose by the
appearance of the porters. Full of dignity, and absorbed in my occupation
of studying the hotels through their representatives, I stepped boldly
off the gangplank. Oh, Judicia! Alas for my dignity. My feet shot out
from under me, and I slid into that nest of porters as a man slides for
second base. My suit case and rug case bounded merrily away, and my derby
rolled off, and just to the edge of the wharf, where it balanced for a
long time and finally fell over, between the wharf and the steamer. Those
hotel porters had never seen anything so humorous. As soon as they found
I was not hurt, they separated into little groups and went off to laugh.
One of them fished for my derby and collected my suit case and rug case,
for which offices I was so grateful that I finally went to his hotel,
which bears the name of Fönix. All Narvik was covered with glare ice,
and it required the greatest skill to navigate the streets at all. It was
raining gently, which made the ice a trifle more treacherous.
Fönix is Norwegian for “Phœnix,” and the hotel is very appropriately
named, because it has risen out of the ashes of a former hotel which was
burned a few years ago. My beloved British author, the inventor of the
word “picturesque,” stopped at this same hotel when he was in Narvik. His
chief items about the town are that there was a pianola in the parlor of
the hotel and that the man in the next room to his made a good deal of
noise. However, Narvik need not feel badly over such neglect, for the
same author’s principal headline about Christiania is that the people
“wear goloshes a good deal,” which he thinks rather a clever idea. His
book is all right in its way, and gives an interesting account of a ski
trip he took, but I cannot see how he could travel through Norway and
apparently find pianolas and goloshes the most interesting attractions.
He finds the Norwegian fishermen a “white-faced, ill-fed, unintelligent
looking lot,” for which condition he believes consumption is largely
responsible. I cannot imagine where he got this idea. I certainly haven’t
noticed the ravages of consumption.
This seems to be lengthening into a very long letter, but I must tell you
something about Narvik. It is a ramshackly, ugly town, architecturally
speaking. There are no fine buildings, and everything gives the
appearance of having been hastily tumbled together, any old way. Of
course it is a mushroom town which sprang up simply to accommodate the
endless stream of iron ore coming from Lapland, so I don’t have any
trouble in forgiving its ugliness. It reminds me very much of the Alaskan
towns that Rex Beach describes so vividly, though there are no evidences
of wickedness here. It all looks temporary, and I should not be surprised
if fifty years from now there should be a fine-looking city in place of
this crude pioneer town.
Everybody, everywhere, is as honest as the hills, and it is wonderfully
refreshing to find such a condition after traveling in Italy. I went
into a shop to buy a needle and thread (for I am going to attempt to
sew on a button) and the shop girl said she only had a full sewing kit,
which would cost a _kroner_ (twenty-seven cents), and as that was more
than I should want I could probably get a single needle and thread at
the next shop. I went there and succeeded in getting one needle for
three _öre_ and a spool of thread for ten—total expense, thirteen _öre_
(three cents). The Norwegians as a class—hotel keepers, shopkeepers,
cab drivers, and everyone else—would rather starve than keep a quarter
of an _öre_ that didn’t belong to them. Imagine a Neapolitan shopkeeper
who considered it wrong to cheat a customer. He would be considered
mentally unbalanced, almost a dangerous person, if he really indulged in
conscientious scruples in such matters. These genuine, trusty Norwegians
are a positive comfort to one who has lately been robbed in Naples.
Our waitress at the Fönix has one custom in common with all other
waitresses in Norway. As she brings on each course, she says what sounds
like “shuket.” With each course her voice sinks lower and lower, until
at the dessert she barely whispers it. At first when I heard it I though
she was trying to be kittenish. But as I didn’t “rise,” and as she kept
on saying it, I changed my mind. I have only just learned that she
was saying a very much abbreviated _vaer saa god_, which means “be so
good,” and is somewhat equivalent to “if you please,” though much more
universal. I have heard it a thousand times since I came to Norway,
from young and old, high and low. It is never obsequious, the smirking
prerequisite of an expected tip. It is natural politeness, and second
nature to the Norwegians. It would be ill-mannered to omit _vaer saa god_
when serving anyone in any way.
I have recently heard from Phillips that he is reveling in the snow
of Swedish Lapland. He is going to Luleå at the head of the Baltic
to-morrow, and has invited me to join him there. So I am going to leave
here to-morrow morning for Luleå, and go from there by rail to Trondhjem.
It may be some time before I shall write again, in view of which I
hope you have been sensible enough to read this very long letter in
installments.
Auf wiedersehen, then, until Trondhjem.
As ever,
AYLMER.
FIFTH LETTER
Some interesting etymology; from Trondhjem to Hell and return;
Haralds, Haakons, and Olafs; Hasting and his sack of “Rome”;
Harald Fairhair and his matrimonial ventures; Rolf the Walker;
kissing by proxy; the descendants of Harald Fairhair; a
Christian saint on the throne of Norway; Harold Gilchrist,
a miracle of presumption; the blood-curdling bravery of the
Jomsvikings; the troubled times before the accession of Olaf
the Saint.
TRONDHJEM, February 15.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
I think I left you about a month ago in the seaport of Narvik. I want to
give you by way of preamble some etymological information of interest
which I have learned in connection with that name. The ending _vik_,
which appears on the average in about every third name in Norway, means
“creek.” It is the same root as the _vik_ in the word “viking,” and
corresponds to the English “wich” or “wick.” A viking was nothing more
nor less than a “creekling.” A modern resident of Sandwich or Harwich or
even of Battle Creek is no less a viking, etymologically, than the old
Norsemen.
I left Narvik January 13, spent that night in Gellivare, and joined
Phillips next day at Luleå. The ride from Narvik to Riksgränsen, the
first Swedish town, is one of the most beautiful I have ever taken. Right
along the edge of a long arm of the Ofotenfjord the train wound its way,
always climbing and always entering tunnels, only to emerge a little
higher above the fjord. It was just beginning to dawn, with a fresh,
clean light.
We had a great time in Luleå, and I shall have to admit that Sweden has
some attractions after all. I came here to Trondhjem by way of Bräcke and
Ostersund and Storlien, a route you can trace by the map I inclose, if
you care to. Storlien is the border town between the two countries, and
near it a wide path cut through the forest marks the boundary.
From here on we dropped right down to the edge of the fjord, which we
reached at the town with the startling name of Hell. It is a delightful,
smiling little town, and its only misfortune lies in its name. It offers
an endless and irresistible opportunity for questionable puns. One guide
book says: “Ten miles from Trondhjem on the railway to Sweden there is a
station called Hell. The number of return tickets for this quiet rural
spot which are bought by English tourists but never used constitutes
quite a source of revenue.”
You see, even the prosy guide book cannot resist such an opportunity for
a joke. Probably at least two thirds of the English-speaking tourists who
visit this town imagine that they are original when they remark that the
town is paved with good intentions, and that they are going to write a
_Divine Comedy_ like Dante, etc., etc.
Hell is beautifully situated and offers pleasant excursions in all
directions.
Here in Trondhjem I am in the heart and soul of Norway. The town was
founded under the original name of Nidaros by our old friend Olaf
Tryggvesson. Century after century the Haakons and the Olafs and Haralds
and Eriks and all the other kings and warriors fought for Norway here.
Many of the streets are named for the old heroes. The cathedral, which
dominates the whole town, is a perpetual memorial to Olaf the Saint. I
could not find a more appropriate spot from which to write you something
about the history of Norway. There is so much that is interesting that
I feel hopeless about trying to really make you acquainted with it.
Hjalmar Boyesen has written five hundred and twenty-eight pages of
vividly, dramatically interesting history on the subject, yet he does not
pretend to write exhaustively. All I shall do is to skim over a thousand
years or so and here and there pick out an incident or a character that
particularly interested me.
The old Norsemen, the vikings, were the most terrible of roving
marauders, terrible at least to the rest of the world. Tacitus says:
“They deem it a disgrace to acquire by sweat what they might obtain by
blood.” The chieftains were venerated in almost direct proportion to the
number of marauding expeditions they had made and the number of towns
they had plundered. For the sake of glory they made countless sallies
in all directions, over the Baltic, to Finland and Germany, across to
England and Ireland, to France, to Spain, and even to Italy. A marauder
named Hasting is said to have gone as far as Italy and to have sought to
conquer the Eternal City of Rome.
Unfortunately for this desire, Hasting was not good at geography. He
arrived with his fleet at the city of Luna, near Carrara, and, thinking
it was Rome, he concocted a wily scheme. He sent word to the bishop there
that he was dying and wished to be baptized into the Christian faith
before he passed away. The simple priest was in ecstasy at the thought of
the heavenly glory he would win by converting such a notorious robber.
He made great preparations for the reception of the Norseman. On the
day when the ceremony of baptism was to be held, messengers came to the
bishop saying that Hasting had suddenly died. A pompous funeral was held,
and the bishop prepared to say masses for the welfare of the viking’s
soul. As all were assembled for this purpose, Hasting suddenly burst from
his coffin, called to his men, and fell savagely upon the bishop and the
priests. It is reported that “blood flowed in torrents through the sacred
aisles.” The whole city was captured amid a scene of wholesale slaughter.
Some time after Hasting discovered that it was not Rome he had captured
after all.
For many years various chieftains with picturesque names kept up this
marauding life, interspersing their piratical raids with occasional
attacks upon each other.
Finally an Yngling chief named Harald arose from obscurity and conceived
the brilliant idea of conquering all Norway and uniting it into a single
nation. The idea was presented to him very forcibly by a maiden named
Princess Gyda, to whom he sent messengers asking her to become his wife.
Like Sigrid the Haughty, Gyda was furious. She vowed that she would
teach little kings the risks of proposing to her. She scorned Harald’s
overtures, sending word that when he was king over all Norway she would
consider his offer. The idea appealed to Harald, and he wondered why he
had not thought of it before. Accordingly he vowed that he would not
cut his hair until he had conquered all Norway. He eventually succeeded
in his undertaking, but the process was long, and his hair, being of
decidedly blond “persuasion,” waved like a bright banner wherever he
went. He had always been called Harald Frowsly-Headed, but now he came
to be called Harald Fairhair, and he founded a race of kings that ruled
Norway for centuries. Also he married the proud Gyda, and lived happily
ever after. Gyda seems to have been not even annoyed by the fact that
during the interval in which he had been conquering Norway and letting
his hair grow he had married a maiden named Aasa and had three sons.
Harald was a jealous tyrant, and made life in Norway so uncomfortable
that many of the earls and nobles fled and founded settlements in the
Hebrides and the Orkneys, and even in Iceland. Rolf the Walker (so called
because he was so huge that no horse could carry him) embarked for France
and made terrible ravages there. King Charles the Simple, however,
succeeded in making a peace with him whereby Rolf was to be baptized and
receive large fiefs. As token of his fealty to Charles the Simple he was
to kiss the king’s foot. The haughty Rolf snorted at such an idea and
sent one of his servants to perform the osculation. The proxy stalked
stiffly to King Charles, seized his foot, and kissed it so violently
that the simple Charles tumbled from his horse. Charles was frightened
out of what wits he had, and instead of punishing such insolence gave
Rolf the hand of his daughter in marriage, and also gave him half of
his kingdom. This territory came to be called Normandy, and about two
centuries later Rolf’s descendant, William the Conqueror, achieved fame.
Harald had countless matrimonial ventures. Besides Aasa and Gyda, he
married half a dozen other wives. One of them, Snefrid by name, was a
sorceress. For several years the king forgot everything but his passion
for her, forgot even his other wives. She bore him five sons and then
died, and the king was almost insane with grief until he discovered that
she had been a sorceress. He was then thoroughly angry, and to save his
face he married right and left in all directions. Among others he wooed
Ragnhild, daughter of King Erik of Jutland. Ragnhild was a girl of some
spirit. She said she would not put up with one thirtieth part of the
king’s affection, and he could give her the whole or none. He accordingly
deserted his other wives and devoted himself to Ragnhild. She bore him a
son, who later became King Erik Blood-Axe.
When Harald was seventy years old he married his servant-girl, Thora, who
was so tall that she was known as the “Pole.” She bore him a son, who
became King Haakon the Good.
I should not dwell so much on Harald’s matrimonial adventures except
they that form indirectly an important link in the long chain of
Norwegian history. He had a small army of children, and he was foolish
enough to stipulate at his death that each child, whether legitimate
or illegitimate, should inherit a province, but that all should owe
allegiance to his favorite son, Erik Blood-Axe.
For centuries there was a ceaseless squabbling among the numerous
descendants. Every one who had any ambition asserted that he was a son
or a descendant of Harald, and claimed the throne. As it was of course
impossible to disprove such a claim, might became the only right. Two
centuries later a vicious Irishman, named Harold Gilchrist, landed in
Norway and claimed to be a son of King Magnus Barefoot and consequently a
descendant of Harald Fairhair. He had no proof whatever of his claim, but
no one could disprove it, and, as Gilchrist was a cruel and unscrupulous
man, he actually succeeded in gaining the throne. He learned a smattering
of the Norwegian language and ruled cruelly, leaving a monstrous name
behind him, and a long line of vicious children who helped to complicate
matters.
After all this it is a pleasure to come to a king who thoroughly earned
the name of Haakon the Good. This king was the image of his father
in face and figure, but exactly opposite to him in character. It is
difficult to guess how he came by his wonderful qualities of soul and
mind. His father was a faithless, polygamous roué, and his mother’s only
claim to distinction lay in the fact that she was a servant-girl of
gigantic stature. Haakon was almost a saint. He seems to have possessed
every good quality in the category. He was gentle and lovable and mild,
yet he was a model of manly strength and courage. He was beautiful to
look at, and the bitterest enemy could not be in his presence for even a
few minutes without falling under the spell of his powerful personality.
With heart and soul and the tenderest conscience, he sought only for the
good of his people. It was a new thing for a king to use his office for
any purpose other than the gratification of selfish ambition. No wonder
the people almost worshiped him.
He had spent his boyhood in England and had been baptized, and now the
one desire of his heart was to bring his country to accept the Christian
faith. He was so mild, and he loved mankind so devotedly, that he could
not bring himself to use the militant methods of conversion which
his successor, Olaf Tryggvesson, employed. He was too gentle to be a
successful propagandist in a country fanatically devoted to Odin, but he
did win a great many true converts in his quiet way. At one time he was
forced much against his will to attend a popular feast in honor of Odin,
but he quieted his conscience by making the sign of the cross over Odin’s
horn. In battle he was almost invincible. At one time the sons of Gunhild
attacked him with a force six times his own in strength, but so great was
the zeal which Haakon’s followers displayed that his little handful of
men won a great victory.
His enemies on this occasion were the sons of Erik Blood-Axe’s queen,
Gunhild. She was as near a devil as Haakon a saint, and never has a queen
been more heartily or more deservedly hated. Her sons inherited her
devilish disposition with interest. This wicked queen brought troublous
times to Norway after the death of Haakon the Good. One man, Tryggve,
a grandson of Harald Fairhair and consequently a rival claimant to the
throne, Gunhild particularly hated. She tricked him into her power and
murdered him, but Tryggve’s widow fled to a tiny islet in the Randsfjord
and there gave birth to Olaf Tryggvesson, later to be one of the
greatest of Norway’s kings, the violent but successful propagandist of
Christianity.
The name of little Olaf’s mother was Aastrid, and with fine courage she
roamed for years with her little baby, a starving outcast, in continual
terror of Gunhild. Her foster-father, Thorolf Lousy-Beard, joined her and
her child, and for long they lived a hunted, precarious life. Fortunately
for Norway, all Gunhild’s efforts proved in vain. Once one of her spies
almost had the child, when a half-witted peasant appeared on the scene,
rushed at the spy with a pitchfork, and saved Olaf’s life.
Earl Haakon was another of Harald Fairhair’s descendants who somehow
escaped Gunhild’s murderous tentacles. He joined King Harald Bluetooth
of Denmark, and as a reward for murdering Gold-Harald, an aspirant to
the Danish throne, Bluetooth generously offered to accompany him on
an expedition against Gunhild. On their arrival in Norway they took
everything without striking a blow. “So great was the hatred of Gunhild
and her sons,” says Boyesen, “that not a man drew his sword in their
defense.” Gunhild fled in terror to the Orkneys, but, according to Saga
report, was later enticed to Denmark by Harald Bluetooth, under promise
of marriage, and drowned, at his command, in a swamp.
Earl Haakon now became King Haakon of Norway. He was a powerful and great
king, and a sincere heathen. Harald Bluetooth was an insincere Christian.
With ulterior and decidedly questionable motives he sent for Haakon to
come and be baptized. For some reason Haakon appeared to obey, visited
Bluetooth, and with a shipload of priests set sail from Denmark; but
whether because of twinges of conscience or for less worthy reasons, he
repented, hustled the priests ashore, and made an enormous sacrifice to
Odin. Two ravens, messengers of Odin, immediately alighted on his ship
and croaked loud approval, whereat Haakon was highly encouraged. The
Christian Bluetooth was enraged. He sought the alliance of a powerful
company of pirates called Jomsvikings.
These, under the influence of the flowing bowl, made most extravagant
vows of vengeance (on Bluetooth’s account) against King Haakon. On the
morning after things seemed different to them, but nevertheless, for
their vows’ sake, they set out for Norway. Earl Erik, an illegitimate son
of Haakon, born, it is said, when the king was fifteen years old, heard
news of the Jomsvikings, and he and his father prepared to give them a
warm reception. When the two fleets met, there ensued one of the wildest
and most ferocious battles in all history. The phenomenal courage of
these old heroes is almost unbelievable. One of the Jomsvikings, by name
Haavard the Hewer, had both his legs cut off at the knees, but he fought
on furiously, standing on the stumps of his knees. Bue the Big received
a blow from one of Erik’s men which completely struck off his nose. Bue
never stopped to mourn such a trifle as the loss of a nose. He jokingly
remarked to one of his companions: “Now I fear the Danish maidens will no
more kiss me.”
At length Haakon and Erik were victorious. Vagn Aakeson, the leader of
the Jomsvikings, was bravely and hopelessly fighting on. “When all but
thirty of his men were dead, he at last surrendered. The captives were
brought ashore and ordered to sit down in a row upon a log. Their feet
were tied together with a rope, while their hands remained free. One
of Erik’s men, Thorkell Leira, whom Vagn at that memorable feast had
promised to kill, was granted the privilege of reciprocating the intended
favor toward Vagn. With his ax uplifted, he rushed at the captives, and,
beginning at one end of the log, struck off one head after another. He
meant to keep Vagn until the last, in order to increase his agony. But
Vagn sat chatting merrily with his men; and there was much joking and
laughter.
“‘We have often disputed,’ said one, ‘as to whether a man knows of
anything when his head is cut off. That we can now test, for if I am
conscious after having lost my head, I will stick my knife into the
earth.’
“When his turn came, all sat watching with interest. But his knife fell
from his nerveless grasp, and there was no trace of consciousness. One
of the vikings on the log seemed in particularly excellent spirits. He
laughed and sang as he saw the bloody heads of his comrades rolling
about his feet.”
The next cracked a clever pun at the executioner’s expense, and Erik,
who was superintending the job, was so pleased at his audacity that
he pardoned him. The next of the doomed men had long flaxen hair, and
humorously requested the executioner not to soil his hair with the blood.
Accordingly an assistant was delegated to hold out of harm’s way the
glorious flaxen locks. Just as the ax was descending, the Jomsviking
jerked his head in such a way that the hands of the assistant were struck
off at the wrists. He laughed derisively, and Erik, who was particularly
partial to such cleverness, pardoned him.