AN INTRODUCTION TO SWEDEN: LUND, HELSINGBORG, GOTHENBURG
GOTHENBURG, SWEDEN,
August 15, 191—
_My dear Cynthia_:
As you see, I am at last in the land of the Swede,—a land even less
known to Americans than is Denmark,—which is saying considerable. The
sum total of information which most Americans possess about Sweden
seems to be that Swedish girls make good cooks. Consequently, they
appear to look upon all Swedish women as potential American “servant
girls.” To be sure, in view of the fact that my ancestral roots sink
deep in Swedish soil, I deserve no credit for such knowledge of things
Swedish as I have; and I claim none. But since my arrival here I have
been acquiring more knowledge, and I propose to thrust some of it upon
you; for I have no reason to believe that you possess any superfluous
information upon the subject; and, besides, it is impossible to write
_from_ Sweden without writing _about_ Sweden.
Though Lund was my first definite goal in the Swedish land, I went
there via Malmö, a commercial town on the sea coast, which I reached
after about an hour’s sailing from Copenhagen. So far as I have been
able to learn, Malmö’s chief claim to historic glory is the fact
that it was here, in 1533, that Christian Petersen, the “Father of
Danish literature,” set up the first printing press in Denmark. For
the province in which Malmö and Lund are situated, as well as other
provinces in southern Sweden, was at that time a possession of Denmark,
which had ruled over it since the days of Canute the Great. But in the
middle of the seventeenth century, by the treaty of Roskilde, the whole
southern end of the peninsula again came under control of Sweden, which
has possessed it ever since. And this is well, for, geographically
and geologically, the territory is Swedish. However, its long exile
under Danish dominion has prevented it from fully acquiring Swedish
characteristics—in so far as Sweden has characteristics different
from the other Scandinavian lands. Hence, in spite of the customs
inspection, and in spite of the fact that a blue flag with a yellow
cross was in evidence instead of Dannebrog, it was difficult for me to
realize that I was in a new land.
To me, Lund is an attractive place; the house of Tegnér, Sweden’s
greatest poet is there; and there also are one of the two Swedish
universities, and a fine old cathedral. Tegnér, you should remember
as the author of “The Children of the Lord’s Supper,” so beautifully
translated by our own Longfellow. “Fritjof’s Saga,” Tegnér’s greatest
work, is not so well known in America, though a large number of English
translations exist; but I have been fond of it for years. From it,
Longfellow got many a valuable hint for his “Evangeline.” Just read the
following description of Fritjof’s banqueting hall from the saga, and
then tell me whether it does not forcibly remind you of Longfellow’s
poem.
“Covered with straw was the floor, and upon a walled hearth in
the center,
Constantly burned, warm and cheerful, a fire, while down the
wide chimney
Twinkling stars, heavenly friends, glanced upon guest and hall,
quite unforbidden.
Studded with nails were the walls, and upon them were hanging
Helmets and coats-of-mail closely together; also between them
Here and there flashed a sword, like a meteor shooting at evening.
“Brighter than helmet or sword were the sparkling shields ranged
round the chamber;
Bright as the face of the sun were they, clear as the moon’s disc
of silver.
Oft as the horns needed filling there passed round the table a
maiden;
Modestly blushing she cast down her eyes, her beautiful image
Mirrored appeared in the shields, and gladdened the heart of
each warrior.”
In one of Lund’s narrow streets, squeezed tightly between other
buildings, is the box-shaped house with German windows and tiled roof
in which Tegnér lived from 1813 to 1826, while he was professor in the
university. Two of the rooms formerly occupied by him and his family
are now preserved as a museum in his memory. And these rooms presented
a real Tegnér personality to me, for many of the quaint belongings
within are things which came under the poet’s actual touch and eye, and
which preserve still some fragment of individuality, though crowded
together now in museum fashion. In the old family dining room are many
busts and portraits of Tegnér; also a screen made by his children; and
two show cases, one of which contains many letters and manuscripts
left by him, and the other, his spectacles and paper knife, and other
objects which he once owned. A large book-case displays the many
editions in which his writings have been given to the world. The walls
of the other room are pretty well covered with portraits of celebrated
contemporaries of the poet: men in plain lay clothes, men in clerical
frocks, men with military stars and bars. In the second room are also
the desk, study lamp and chairs which Tegnér used; and a queer old
“bridal stool” somewhat resembling a sofa—from the receptacle under
the seat of which the woman in charge pulled a bridal quilt, covered
with embroidered silk.
In Tegnér Place, a square shaded by great, characterful old trees, is
also a pleasing memorial of the professor-poet. It is a fine bronze
statue which represents him—very appropriately, since in his greatest
writings he sings of Scandinavia’s pagan past—as leaning against a
large rune stone. The square adjoins the university.
Lund University was founded about two hundred and fifty years ago;
but the present building, in handsome classical-Renaissance style,
is quite new. Inside, also, everything is spick and span, cosy, and
generally harmonious. The ceiling of the entrance hall is supported by
fine marble pillars, the walls are pleasingly tinted, and here and
there in the class rooms are paintings by Scandinavian artists. The
student body consists of about a thousand men and women. As in the
other Scandinavian universities, the women as well as the men wear a
black and white cap, with a button of the national colors in front.
The common emblem worn by the students may be taken as symbolizing
the equality of opportunity enjoyed at the universities by the women
and men alike. The women of Lund University, unlike the women in many
co-educational institutions in other parts of Europe, are not merely
_tolerated_; they _belong_; they have equal rights there with their
brothers; they attend classes, receive degrees, and come and go with a
quiet air of independence and dignity which carries with it no apology
for existence.
The cathedral of Lund is a grand old romanesque pile—the finest of
the sort in Scandinavia—dating from the twelfth century. The old gray
stone walls and the great square twin towers give it an appearance
both venerable and majestic, which attracted me very much. A crowd of
tourists had gathered to view the building; and presently a wide-awake
looking woman, shirt-waisted and straw-sailor-hatted, came and showed
us through it. On the restored brick and plaster walls are many
tablets—some more than three centuries old—erected to the memory of
past and gone Scandinavians. The pulpit dates from 1592, and is of
black marble and alabaster, beautifully worked—but suggestive of death
and mourning. Surrounding the pulpit are arranged the coats-of-arms
of the nobles who gave it to the cathedral. The choir stalls, or monk
stools, as our guide called them, are more ancient than the pulpit.
They are very quaint, with grotesque, grinning faces carved on the
arms. Above the backs of the stools are scenes from the Bible: in one
Jehovah is represented as a very round-faced young man in the act of
creating the earth; in another, he is bringing the sun into being; in a
third, he is creating the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air.
Surely the mediæval wood-workers did not pursue their labors with very
deep seriousness or reverence; they _must_ have given their sense of
humor play while they wrought the funny clumsy figures.
But the cathedral is especially famous for its crypt. This is more
than one hundred and twenty feet long and is about one-fourth as wide.
Twenty three heavy pillars support the round arches, which in turn bear
up the ceiling. This great space is dimly lighted by ten small windows.
In the right arm of the crypt is an old well with a circular stone
curbing, upon which, long centuries ago, some humorist cut quaint,
satirical figures and inscriptions. Down in the crypt, long before the
Reformation, Roman Catholic monks said their prayers and kept their
fasts. Their cells are still in the walls. Down there, too, under the
floor, are buried many ecclesiastical worthies, including the bishops
of Lund who once held under their dominion all of the churches of
Sweden. Also, and finally, the giant Finn and his family are prisoners
in the ancient room beneath the cathedral—in bas-relief on the
everlasting stone. And I must confess that I was more interested in the
frivolous story of the ill-fated Finn than in all of the holy monks and
domineering bishops.
Our cicerone told us the story, about in this wise: In the year 1080
the good Saint Lawrence set the giant Finn to work to construct the
cathedral. Since it was to be a mighty building, a giant’s labor was
needed to construct it. St. Lawrence, however, lacked foresight, and
failed to have a contract signed before the work began. Consequently,
the giant had him at his mercy when the task was completed. Finn
demanded an exorbitant price for his services—the sun and the moon, or
the eyes of the impractical saint. The only chance of escape which St.
Lawrence had was to guess the name of the builder; failing to do that,
out would go his eyes, for, obviously, the sun and the moon were beyond
his reach. But giants, as you know, are stupid, and the Finn family was
no exception. When the price was almost within their grasp, Mrs. Finn,
while crooning her baby to sleep, from force of habit mentioned her
husband’s name in the song.—Presumably the lullaby was the ancestor of
the “Father-will-come-to-thee-soon” one.—That minute the game was up;
all was lost. For St. Lawrence, who was snooping around, overheard the
builder’s name.
In the despair and rage consequent upon their failure, the Finns tried
to pull down the church, evidently—like Samson at Gaza—welcoming
suicide in the general destruction. However, St. Lawrence, who now had
the upper hand, prevented, and disposed of them for good by turning
them into stone. There they are even unto this day, a part of the
pillars supporting the great vault of the crypt. But, in my opinion, a
dastardly crime is also recorded against St. Lawrence by the carvings
on the two pillars; for the innocent was made to suffer with the
guilty; the little Finn baby was petrified with its parents. There is
the poor, helpless infant on the column with his mother, flattened out
in pitiless bas-relief, to the eternal disgrace of the Church. Here
endeth the story of the bas-reliefs on the pillars of the crypt. He
that hath credulity to believe let him believe.
Helsingborg was my second stop in the land of the Swede. You will
find Helsingborg on the map where southwestern Sweden almost touches
Denmark. Indeed, here the Sound is only a little more than two miles
wide, so it is not at all difficult to understand why in centuries past
Swede and Dane fought so many and such bloody battles over the control
of the commerce which passed through this important gateway. The town
has only about thirty thousand inhabitants, but it offered me a number
of objects of interest. On the quay was a tablet commemorating the
landing of the Frenchman, Marshal Bernadotte, on October 22, 1810, when
he came to Sweden as heir of the childless Charles XIII, and founder
of the present royal Swedish house. Farther on was a statue of Count
Stenbock, the warrior who saved southern Sweden from recapture by the
Danes during the Swedish reverses suffered under Charles XII.
But of all the attractions offered by Helsingborg the palm should go
either to Swedish hard bread or to Kärnan—preferably, I suppose, to
the latter; for Sweden has only one Kärnan while hard bread may be
obtained anywhere within her borders. It happened, however, that I
had somehow missed my chance at hard bread in Lund, so I shall always
associate the gustatory pleasure obtained from it with this particular
Swedish town. As its name implies, the bread is hard; it is also
dry and brittle and brown, for it is made of rye meal and is baked
in thin, round cakes about as large as a dinner plate. On the tables
in the open-air café where I had luncheon were great piles of this
delectable morsel. This bread, spread with slightly-salted Swedish
butter and partaken of with coffee such as the Scandinavians know how
to make, supplies a luncheon fit for the gods of Scandinavia. Nectar
and ambrosia, I am persuaded, would take only second prize in any
international exposition. Frankly, however, Cynthia, I fear that you
would vote for the fare of the Greek gods, in preference.
Since the café in which I first partook of Swedish hard bread was
very near to Kärnan, where I went immediately afterward, I also
associate the bread with Kärnan. This latter is not edible, though from
association and sound it may seem so. Yet Kärnan is a “kernel”—the
kernel or core of a Swedish fortress built something like six hundred
years ago. Its actual date of foundation is lost in the past. Around
it were once heavy battlemented walls and towers, all of which played
a part in the bloody struggles of the centuries. But to modern times
there descended only the great square central building, dismantled
and falling into ruins—until recently restored. The restoration has
transformed the fragment of the ancient fortress into a handsome red
brick observation tower, the newest of the new, from the top of which
floats the flag of Sweden. The approach up the hill to Kärnan is a
right royal one, and is very fitly named for the good King Oscar. After
ascending a series of broad, shallow staircases and passing under three
arches, each more majestic than the preceding, I reached the door of
the tower. Then there were nearly one hundred and fifty steps of a
spiral staircase to climb before reaching the platform under the sky
blue flag with its golden cross. But the view from there was well worth
a much harder climb. Do not miss it if ever the _Wanderlust_ should
carry you to the land of the Swede.
Helsingborg, itself, as I learned as a result of my climb, is a very
pretty town with bright, clean buildings, magnificently situated upon
the shores of the Sound through which many ships were passing. Below
me, up and down the clean, well-paved streets moved the busy Swedes,
intent upon their daily tasks. But as it was a clear day I also
secured a fine sweep of the surrounding Swedish landscape, and—most
interesting of all—had a clear view of the nearest corner of Denmark,
Helsingör, as the Danes call it, but the Elsinore of Hamlet to all
English-speaking peoples. Helsingör looked less than a good stone’s
throw away. Its largest buildings were plainly visible; and Kronborg
Castle, which guards the Sound in behalf of the Danes, loomed up in the
foreground, grand and majestic. I shall be certain to see it nearer on
my return to Denmark.
After a day and a night in Helsingborg I left by rail for
Gothenburg—or Göteborg, as known to the Swedes. The landscape through
which I journeyed is more rolling than that around Lund; and it is
exceedingly stony. In one little valley which we crossed the stones
were piled up into walls, evidently not so much for the purpose of
forming fences as to clear the soil. Indeed, as it was, these fences
covered a large portion of the ground. It was harvest time in Sweden;
and kerchiefed women were working with the men in the fields, binding
and piling the sheaves. The farm houses here were quite different from
those in Denmark, both as regards material and style of architecture.
The gaard arrangement was exceptional; instead, the buildings, which
are generally of wood, painted dark red, with white trimmings, were
unconnected, and frequently arranged parallel to each other.
As we neared Gothenburg the scenery improved; the rolling territory
with its stones and stone walls gave place to a more hilly landscape
with great rugged rocks and beautiful trees. On entering the town
we passed Göta Lejon Fort, which stands on the summit of a hill. It
is a large, round tower—very old but recently restored—built with
exceedingly thick stone walls. It is surmounted by a rampant bronze
lion wearing a golden crown and bearing a sword; hence the name. The
mate of this fortress, Kronan, which is now a military museum, is
topped off with a golden crown. Kronan is on a hill nearer the heart of
the city, and is reached by a stairway of about two hundred steps.
[Illustration: Ezias Tegnér]
[Illustration: Statue of Gustav Adolf, Gothenburg]
A large bronze statue of Gustav Adolf—no true Swede would use the
Latin form in these days—has the place of honor in the main public
square. This Protestant warrior king was the founder of the town;—or,
more strictly speaking, the inviter of the founders. Under his
direction and at his invitation it was settled by Dutch people who
were commercially inclined and saw great possibilities in a city built
at the mouth of the Gotha River. Gothenburg has prospered since its
foundation and now ranks second in size to Stockholm; but it still
bears traces of its origin, in the form of the broad streets and the
canals suggestive of Holland. Another peculiarity of the town is the
numerous staircases for ascending and descending the granite hills.
These staired streets are a great boon to pedestrians, who have the
complete monopoly of them.
Slottsskogen, Gothenburg’s natural park, is on high ground outside
of the city. It is a large woodsy stretch, with here and there great
patches of purple heather, through which granite boulders peep. In the
pretty, tree-rimmed lakes black and white swans were sailing, and in an
inclosure were soft-eyed deer. From a cream-colored stone observation
tower on the highest point in the park I secured a fine view. To the
west was the broad mouth of the Gotha into which were steaming European
merchant ships; for this burg on the Gotha is far-famed for its
manufactures and its commerce. On to the northeast, like a silver-blue
ribbon, the river curved, bearing other vessels bound for Stockholm,
via the Gotha Canal.
I cannot leave Gothenburg without telling you about the “automat”
and its possibilities. In Copenhagen I had noticed tempting-looking
buildings conspicuously labeled “Automat,” but, fearing that they
might be a new variety of “gilded halls of sin,” carefully avoided
them. In Gothenburg yesterday, however, I saw a tremendously
respectable-appearing woman, accompanied by a little girl, come out of
an automat, and, thoroughly convinced that there was nothing immoral
about the place, I went in to explore. An automat, Cynthia, is an
_automatic restaurant_, non-alcoholic and immaculately respectable;
it is the cafeteria idea carried to its logical conclusion. I have
never seen automats in our own land; but they are wonderfully
convenient, and do away with that survival of mediæval highway robbery
called “tipping.” They are operated on the money-in-the-slot and
the touch-the-button principle. Taking a meal in one of them is an
interesting performance, partaking somewhat of the qualities of an
adventure.
In one wall of the dining room are various slots and electric buttons,
slides and faucet-like spouts, all properly labeled. Perhaps you would
like a cup of cocoa. If so, place a cup and saucer, from the table
near at hand, under the proper spout, drop a five-öre piece into the
neighboring slot, and immediately cocoa will gush forth into your cup,
stopping at just the right degree of fullness. The cocoa will be as
good as the best and will cost less than two cents in American money.
You will want a sandwich to eat with your cocoa, I am sure. There are
almost as many kinds of sandwiches in Scandinavia as there are foods;
and all are good. A veritable rainbow array of them is on exhibition
in a round glass case divided into compartments. Rotate the case until
the dish containing the variety which you would like most to sample
is before the little metal door, drop your five-öre piece into the
slot, and the door will open and out will slide the desired dish. You
can supply yourself with the most delicious little cakes and tarts in
the same way. Should you want something hot, roast beef and browned
potatoes, for instance, or lamb stew, you will have to return to the
wall. Put your money in the slot, press the button, and as soon as ever
it can be dished up your order will come out through the side, piping
hot and mighty good. Carry your spoils to one of the little tables,
which are set as in a cafeteria, but supplied with hard bread in
addition; help yourself to knife, fork and spoon and paper napkin from
the side table; and—fall to.
You are convinced by this time, I presume, that I have become a
perfect gourmand. Perhaps I have; but you would be too, under the same
circumstances. I marvel no longer that the Scandinavians eat five times
a day. And I hope that Stockholm for which I depart this morning is
well supplied with automats. I shall write you from there. Meanwhile,
as the Swedes say, “Adjö! Adjö!”