Hardruler in 1051. Oslo was in the heart of the province of Viken, which
had formerly belonged to Denmark and had never been fully amalgamated
with Norway. At the period when Harald ruled, things were in a
particularly precarious state in Viken, owing to the fact that the shrine
of St. Olaf, in Trondhjem, was proving a magnet and drawing prosperity
from Viken to that section of the country. Accordingly the practical
Harald said there ought to be a local saint in Viken—a saint who should
rival Olaf and make Viken as important a center as Tröndelag. He soon
discovered that a cousin of his, named Hallvard, had recently died, and
was said to have been a good man. Harald decided to kill several birds
with one stone. By creating Cousin Hallvard a saint he could bring
prosperity to Viken, and he could greatly hasten the unification of his
kingdom. Therefore he built a shrine for Hallvard, after first canonizing
him (without the aid of the pope), and around the shrine he laid the
foundations of the city of Oslo. As an historical fact, Hallvard was
scarcely worthy of the honor which was thrust upon him. He was probably
rather a good man for those times, but he certainly had done nothing
unusual, and the halo which was thrust about his memory was a masterpiece
of human ingenuity.
I expect soon to go over to the Hanseatic city of Bergen on the west
coast of Norway, and I will write to you from there. Auf wiedersehen.
As ever,
AYLMER.
EIGHTH LETTER
Written on the train crossing the great Christiania-Bergen
route. The prophet of Norway; Nicholas Breakspeare; a
typical Norwegian hotel; the Gogstad ship takes us back a
few centuries; Odin as poet; the practical opening of the
Earlier Frostathing’s Law; the advertising propensities of the
Norwegians; the liquor laws of Norway; the musical Spirit of
the North; Ole Bull and Edvard Grieg.
_En route._ CHRISTIANA to BERGEN, April 3.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
Again I seem to be writing to you from a train. I have traveled all day
over one of the finest railroads, from a sightseeing point of view, in
all Europe. At last darkness is settling down, and I have several hours
yet before I reach Bergen, so I may as well employ my time in writing to
you, not that I write to you on principle only when there is nothing else
to do.
I am traveling on a circular ticket which I bought at Trondhjem of
Bennett, “the traveler’s guide, philosopher, and friend,” as Mr. John
L. Stoddard styles him in one of his lectures on Norway. Bennett is, to
my mind, the final authority on Scandinavian travel. In Norway Thomas
Cook is dwarfed into insignificance by Bennett. The same lecturer whom I
have quoted goes on to say: “And who is Bennett? you perhaps exclaim. My
friends, there is but one Norway, and Bennett is its prophet. Bennett is
the living encyclopædia of Norway! Its walking guide book! Its animated
map! He sketches lengthy tours back and forth as easily as sailors box
the compass! And to still further aid the general public, he has begotten
four young Bennetts who act as courteous agents for their father in
Bergen, Trondhjem and Christiania.”
His most entertaining guide book contains testimonials from various
celebrities. Ex-President Theodore Roosevelt writes a typical letter,
bursting with half-suppressed energy and vehemence, in which he thanks
the prophet of Norway for his courtesy. Other celebrities, such as the
Zemudar of Palavipat (Judicia, don’t tell me you never heard of him!)
write in glowing terms, and one anonymous enthusiast, with a poetic turn
of mind, writes:
“So be you a clerk or a lord of the Senate
You’ll always do well to rely upon Bennett.”
I seem to be using a great amount of stationery in singing the praises
of this tourist agency, but really, Judicia, Bennett is one of the
“institutions” of Norway. Everywhere appears the sign _Benyt Bennett’s
Billetter_, which command I have gladly obeyed.
I should have told you before that in coming from Trondhjem to
Christiania we passed through a very interesting historic region, the
district of which Lake Mjösen is the center. A few miles south of Lake
Mjösen is Eidsvold, where the famous national _thing_ was held on various
occasions.
Christiania is distinctly a city of the modern type. Scarcely anything
venerable remains. I stopped while I was there in a pleasant though
modest hotel on Carl Johan’s Gate. Certainly part of the attraction
lay in the name, for it is called Fru Bye’s Hotel. Right across the
street Fru Bye’s daughters, Fröknerne Bye, keep a _Privat Hotel_. What
a pleasure it must be to the good Fru to have the Fröknerne in business
right across the street. The freedom of Fru Bye’s Hotel is delightful.
Meals are apparently served at all hours. Supposedly breakfast, or
_frukost_, comes about mid-forenoon; dinner, or _middag_, from two till
four o’clock; and supper, or _aftensmad_, from eight until ten. On
several occasions I got home to the hotel about eleven o’clock and had
a full supper. Everything was spread out for me on the table, including
_mysost_ and _fladbröd_, and no one was hovering around anxiously to
count the number of pieces I ate, or the number of glasses of milk I
drank.
All around the wall are hung huge old copper platters, highly ornamented.
The whole hotel is cozy and typically Norwegian.
[Illustration: The Railroad between Bergen and Christiania.]
Carl Johan’s Gate, on which it is situated, is the most important street
in the city, as it runs straight up to the royal palace. Not far from the
palace are situated the National University, the National Theater, the
Parliament or _Storthing_ building, and various other public buildings
very similar to those of any other European capital. The city has
suffered so frequently from fire that it has given up the picturesque
for the substantial. Among other buildings of particular interest to
Americans is the headquarters of the Nobel Peace Commission.
There is only one place (outside of Fru Bye’s Hotel) in all Christiania
where I felt I was truly in Norway rather than in any other European
city. That was when I was in the presence of the famous Gogstad viking
ship, which is placed in a shed back of the University. This ship was
found near the entrance to the Christiania fjord, buried in blue clay,
where it had lain for a thousand years or so, and it convinced me that
the marvelous tales which the sagas relate are tales of actual heroes;
for certainly the sagas did not invent this Gogstad ship. In the center
is the Death Chamber, where the captain was buried in his beloved ship.
Here one may see just how the viking made his marauding expeditions,
how the oars were arranged sixteen on a side, how the square sail was
attached by means of pulleys to a mast fastened in the center, and
how the rudder was attached on the right side (whence “starboard” or
steerboard). The whole ship is only about eighty feet long and sixteen
feet wide, and how the ancients managed to navigate the North Sea and
the Bay of Biscay and sail far around into the Mediterranean in such
primitive craft I cannot understand.
In this old Gogstad ship were found the bones of a dozen horses, several
dogs, and a peacock. The owners of these bones were to be the chieftain’s
bodyguard during his voyage to the next world. Du Chaillu says of this
ship:
“Very few things in the north have impressed me more than the sight of
this weird mausoleum, the last resting place of a warrior, and as I gazed
on its dark timber I could almost imagine that I could still see the gory
traces of the struggle and the closing scene of burial when he was put
in the mortuary chamber that had been made for him on board the craft he
commanded.”
This same author has written a book of two volumes of some twelve hundred
pages about the vikings, and since I saw the Gogstad ship I have been
intensely interested in reading of their customs. Their Bible was a long
poem called _Hávámal_, supposed to have been written by Odin himself,
containing much worldly wisdom. Odin, it seems, was the precursor of
Horace Fletcher as an advocate of “dietetic righteousness.” He says:
“A greedy man
Unless he has sense
Eats ill-health for himself;
A foolish man’s belly
Often causes laughter
When he is among wise men.
“Herds know
When they shall go home
And then walk off the grass;
But an unwise man
Never knows
The measure of his stomach.”
The same god also poses as an authority on matters of the heart. He says:
“The words of a maiden
Or the talk of a woman
Should no man trust;
For their hearts were shaped
On a whirling wheel,
And fickleness laid in their breasts.”
Many epigrammatic gems of wisdom the poet utters, under the name of Odin.
Most of them have rather a cynical turn, such as the following:
“A day should be praised at night;
A woman when she is burnt;
A sword when tried;
A maiden when she is married;
Ice when crossed;
Ale when drank.”
Many other quotations from the old Norse writers are extremely
entertaining. The first item in the Earlier Frostathing’s Law, Section I,
Article I, begins in a very practical way with the following words:
“Every child which is born into this world shall be raised, baptized,
and carried to the church, except that only—whose heels are in the place
of his toes, whose chin is between his shoulders, the neck on his breast
with the calves on his legs turning forward, his eyes on the back of
his head, and seal’s fins or a dog’s head.—It shall be buried in the
churchyard and its soul shall be prayed for as well as is possible.”
Apparently there used to be considerable doubt whether a deformed
child could be legitimately an object for prayer, but nevertheless the
experiment was to be tried.
The Norwegians are great advertisers. I have never seen in any other
country such a complete utilization of every inch of available space.
Inside the electric cars layers of “ads,” three deep, line the car above
the windows. A clock in the middle of the car is surrounded by them;
the electric lights and windows have advertisements wrought into their
very being. Every available inch and much that we should not consider
available is used to instruct the passenger as to his needs, which range
from insurance companies and banks all the way through cash registers and
skates and lamp chimneys to bananas and margarine and Mellin’s Food.
The one thing which it is difficult to get in Christiania is liquor—not
that I have personally tried to get any, but I have learned through
my oft-quoted British author that he found it very difficult. He was
considerably annoyed at finding himself unable to buy whisky anywhere
in Christiania from 1 P.M. on Saturday until Monday morning. The liquor
laws of Norway are very strict indeed, and cause annoyance to many
tourists, who find themselves deprived of their “nip.” However, I hope
they remember that these laws, which have been enacted in the last thirty
or forty years, have, in a great degree, reduced drunkenness, poverty,
crime, and disease. It would seem that a tourist who has a spark of
unselfishness in him, however much he may long for his cocktail, would
not grudge Norway the laws that have proved such a blessing to the whole
country.
Besides forbidding the sale of liquor on Sundays and holidays, and on
the eve of festivals, many districts, under government permission, have
absolutely prohibited it. There is not a saloon in Norway, but in the
larger towns a few of the hotels and restaurants are allowed to sell
liquor under certain restrictions. All profits from its sale, with the
exception of the company’s expenses and five per cent interest, must be
devoted to public and philanthropic purposes. Consequently the trade
does not offer great inducements to ambitious merchants.
My train has already passed Voss and is rapidly nearing old Hanseatic
Bergen, and I have not even begun to tell you of the glories of this
day’s ride. We left Christiania soon after daylight, and in a little less
than three hours reached the town of Hönefos, which is one of the centers
of the Norwegian wood-pulp industry. There is a great mill here which
receives trees in its capacious maw and turns them out again in the form
of pulp. Gigantic letters on the side of a barn announce that from here
comes the pulp which eventually is made into _Lloyd’s Weekly_ and the
London _Daily Chronicle_.
A little farther on we catch a glimpse of some lofty pine forests which
inevitably bring to mind Milton’s lines:
“His spear, to equal which the tallest pine
Grown on Norwegian hills, to be the mast
Of some great admiral, were but a wand,
He walked with.”
Soon after leaving Hönefos, we begin to climb and leave the tall,
Norwegian pine and even the scrubby, Norwegian birch far below. This is
the only regular railway in Europe which travels above the tree line. To
get beyond the tree line in Switzerland, the railway would have to reach
an altitude of at least seven thousand feet, but here of course the line
is much lower. The resort of Finse has not a single wild tree to its
name, though it is only four thousand feet above sea level. Finse is the
most unique sporting center in the world, for its winter season lasts
from August 1 to July 31, inclusive. Every year there is held a Midsummer
Skiing Contest, which attracts people from all over Europe. Here one may
ski at midnight by daylight on soft, feathery snow. Of course it is too
far south to afford a midnight sun, but it is not too far south to afford
midnight daylight.
To-day our train started out in a light rain, ran through a terrific
blizzard, and into a bright, sunlit afternoon. I have never seen such
concentrated essence of winter as I saw at Finse. The snow must have been
four or five feet deep on the average, and in drifts it was ten or twelve
feet deep. Finse’s freight house was buried; a big white mound showed
where it ought to be, and where it might some day appear if the sun, by
its heat, or men, by their shovels, ever attained energy enough to remove
the white shroud. Giant snow plows kept the track clear, and our train
ignored the blizzard. We “skirted” several invisible valleys, absolutely
shut out by the driving snow, and, as Baedeker would say, “threaded”
several tunnels, and to my infinite surprise emerged from one of them
into a bright, sunny afternoon at Myrdal. We had passed the highest point
of the line and had left our blizzard on the other side of the watershed.
From Myrdal I could look far, far down the Flaam Valley, which is one
of the finest in Norway. Here and there, clinging to the rocky sides of
the valley, were _sæter_ huts. It would be easy enough for one of the
milkmaids to “fall out of her _sæter_,” as the peasant of Mark Twain fame
once “fell out of his farm.”
Whenever I think of a _sæter_, my mind invariably jumps to the romantic
figure of Norway’s greatest violinist, Ole Bull. Are you acquainted with
a plaintive Norwegian air called _Sæterjentens Söndag_? You must have
heard it, even though you may not recognize it by name. Well, that was
written by the great Ole Bull, and it is unquestionably the most familiar
and the most beloved of Norway’s national melodies. Ole Bull was born at
Bergen, so I am less than a half-hour’s journey from the place which this
musician, whose tones thrilled all Europe and America, called home.
He is not the only musician who achieved world-wide fame, with Norway as
a starting point. Every one who loves music knows Grieg’s famous _Peer
Gynt Suite_, with its _Anitra’s Dance_, which seems to reflect the wild,
free spirit of the north. Nordraak and Kjerulf and many other lesser
musical lights have made all the world familiar with the music of the
northland.
I must “pack up” now, as we are fast nearing Bergen. I shall be in an
atmosphere there almost as historical as that of Trondhjem, so if some
history creeps into my next letter I hope you will forgive me. I shall
write you soon from there.
As ever yours,
AYLMER.
NINTH LETTER
Bergen, a Hanseatic city; an interesting museum; “Little
Sir Alf”; the greatest military genius Norway ever had; the
struggle between “Birchlegs” and “Baglers”; further historical
connections of Bergen; Haakon Haakonsson.
BERGEN, May 1.
MY DEAR JUDICIA,
I am comfortably situated in Hotel Norge, on Ole-Bulls-Plads. Directly
beneath my window stands Ole Bull himself, continually though silently
playing his violin, through rain and hail and snow and vapor and stormy
wind. Bergen is a thoroughly old-world city. To be sure, it has a
modern section, but the whole flavor of the place is ancient. Like all
other towns in Norway, it has suffered time after time from fire, but,
strangely enough, it has been built up on the old lines. Another thing
that lends a flavor of antiquity is the fact that it is surrounded
(supposedly) by seven hills, like the seven hills of Rome, though it is
an unfortunate geographical fact that there are not seven but four in the
case of Bergen. Of course there are countless little unevennesses in the
ground, some of which might even be called hillocks. With more romance
than accuracy the citizens have selected three of these mounds, added
them to their four real hills, and put seven on their armorial bearings.
There is a wide street, which assumes the proportions and name of a
square, which separates the old town from the new and also serves in
the capacity of fire road. When we cross this square, which bears the
name of Torv-Almenning, we are in fairyland—a dirty, medieval, Hanseatic
fairyland. The streets are very narrow, and the white timber houses with
their red-tiled roofs certainly lay claim, along with the Lofoten Islands
and the Damascus rag fair and the Nile dahabiyeh, to the right of being
called picturesque. The _vaagen_, or harbor, is inclosed on all sides
by ancient warehouses, suggesting fish. At the end of the harbor is a
market, where fish are sold with considerable bargaining.
A great part of Norway’s fish trade passes through Bergen, though the
principal reason for this seems to lie in the fact that it always has
been so. Formerly it was compulsory. The German merchants settled in
Bergen and succeeded in gaining an absolute monopoly on the trade,
which they maintained for nearly three centuries. At one end of the
market lies the Hanseatic House, now made into a museum. It is the only
genuine house of its kind now in existence, anywhere, and gives a good
idea of the manner in which these selfish old merchants conducted their
business. Here we find the merchant’s office and his manager’s bureau,
the clerk’s apartments, and even the common bedroom. An old ledger is
exhibited, which, as Goodman says, “contains, no doubt, the record of
many a fraudulent transaction.” The whole house, inside and out, is
profusely ornamented and painted in lurid colors, which make not the
slightest pretense of harmonizing. All sorts of articles are exhibited,
which formerly made up the merchant’s office and household property,
“such as their scales and weights, the latter [here a little sidelight
on Hanseatic methods] being of two sorts, for buying and selling; their
cloaks, lanterns, candlesticks, fire engines, snuff boxes, washing bowls,
drinking cups and tankards, machines for chopping cabbage, and staves
with bags for making collections in church.”
The arms of the leaguers were half an eagle and half a codfish, or a
cornucopia with a cod supplanting the usual fruit or flowers.
The merchants trusted each other no more than they trusted outsiders,
and their strong-box is fitted with three locks, the keys to which were
possessed by three different members of the league.
These “crooks” were very modest about some things. Their bedrooms were
arranged in a peculiar way, with the beds along the side of the wall,
each bed opening out through a sort of lattice work to a main corridor.
This was to enable the female domestic to make the gentleman’s bed
without having to enter his room.
[Illustration: _Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y._
Bergen, Northeast from Laksevaag.]
The German merchants of the league grew more insolent as they grew
more powerful, and they used to swagger around the quays, beating and
bullying the native Norwegians who chanced to be in their way. It is with
peculiar delight that I read of a trick played on them by the notorious
pirate, the Norwegian Baron Alf Erlingsson, called “Little Sir Alf.” He
was as bold in spirit as he was diminutive in stature, and he became a
constant terror to the Hanseatic merchants, because of the depredations
he committed upon them. They tried by every means in their power to get
him into their hands, but he always outwitted them. As Boyesen says: “It
was of no use that the league sent out ships of war to capture him; he
outmaneuvered them, deceived them, sent them on a wild-goose chase, and
ended by capturing his would-be captors.”
As a final, crowning insult, he one day appeared incognito in an open
boat and bargained with them about the price set upon his head. It is
a sad fact that later the little pirate’s luck deserted him. He was
captured and brought before Queen Agnes of Denmark. On his arrival before
this lady, she twitted him mercilessly about his size. He blazed out in
return that she would never live to see the day when she could bear such
a son, at which the queen furiously ordered him to be put to death by way
of the rack and wheel.
There is an old cathedral here, which the Bergeners proudly point out as
the home of the Reformation when it first reached Norway. Perhaps you
might not think this anything to be very proud of, in view of what I told
you in one of my other letters about the introduction of the Reformation
from Denmark. But Bergen does have a right to be proud, for it was here
that Bishop Gjeble Pedersson lived and finally succeeded in educating a
good, native Norwegian clergy, which gradually supplanted the abominable
class Denmark sent.
Denmark’s treatment of Norway in matters of religion was only a sample
of her treatment of Norway in all matters. King Christian I wished
to arrange a marriage between James III of Scotland and his daughter
Margaret, but, as he did not happen to have sufficient money in his
exchequer to supply the customary dowry, he promptly pawned the Orkneys
for fifty thousand _gulden_, and the Shetland Isles for an additional
sum. Thus poor, downtrodden Norway lost her island possessions, which
she had colonized and held for ages. It was a cruel blow, and the land
mourned as for the loss of her own children.
To the northwest of Bergen is an interesting tower called Sverresborg,
named for Sverre Sigurdsson, the most romantic figure in all Norwegian
history, and certainly the country’s greatest king, from the point
of view of pure genius. For thirty years, at the end of the twelfth
century, the history of Norway is the history of Sverre. Bergen is more
closely associated with him than any other town in Norway, for it was
here that the “Birchlegs” and the “Baglers,” with whom he was so closely
identified, fought for a whole summer.
Sverre was born in the Faroe Isles at a time when Norway was absorbed,
as usual, in a red-hot dispute over the succession to the throne.
Sverre’s father had been King Sigurd Mouth, and his mother, whose name
was Gunhild, had been cook in the king’s service, if the saga is true. At
any rate, she was a very sharp-witted woman, and kept his royal parentage
secret from every one, even from the boy himself. Magnus Erligsson
occupied the throne of Norway and made every effort to exterminate the
race of Sigurd Mouth. He heard that there was an illegitimate son of old
Sigurd in the Faroes, and he sent a spy named Unas to kill the child.
Gunhild cleverly averted this danger by inducing Unas to marry her and
become the child’s stepfather. She was in the service of Bishop Matthias
as a milkmaid, and she brought up her son with the idea that he should
become a priest.
It so happened that when Sverre was a young man there was in Norway
a pretender named Eystein Little-Girl. He certainly did not earn his
nickname through his shyness in pushing his claims. He organized a small
rebel band of brave outlaws and robbers, who succeeded in having him
proclaimed king. Soon after, however, Eystein Little-Girl was killed, and
his miserable band of supporters, who had come to be called “Birchlegs,”
because of their dilapidated appearance and their birch-bark shoes,
seemed destined to pass out of existence. They sought a new leader, and
at this point Sverre appeared on the scene. They invited him to become
their leader, and he accepted.