Part 1 (1/2)
Peeps at Many Lands: Norway.
by A.F. Mockler-Ferryman.
CHAPTER I
THE LAND OF THE VIKINGS
Who has not heard of the Vikings--the dauntless sea-rovers, who in the days of long ago were the dread of Northern Europe? We English should know something of them, for Viking blood flowed in the veins of many of our ancestors. And these fierce fighting men came in their s.h.i.+ps across the North Sea from Norway on more than one occasion to invade England. But they came once too often, and were thoroughly defeated at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, when, as will be remembered, Harald the Hard, King of Norway, was killed in attempting to turn his namesake, King Harold of England, off his throne.
Norwegian historians, however, do not say very much about this particular invasion. They prefer to dwell on the great deeds of another King Harald, who was called ”Fairhair,” and who began his reign some two hundred years earlier. This Harald was only a boy of ten years of age when he came to the throne, but he determined to increase the size of his kingdom, which was then but a small one, so he trained his men to fight, built grand new s.h.i.+ps, and then began his conquests. Norway was at that time divided up into a number of districts or small kingdoms, each of which was ruled over by an Earl or petty King, and it was these rulers whom Harald set to work to subdue. He intended to make one united kingdom of all Norway, and he eventually succeeded in doing so. But he had many a hard fight; and if the Sagas, as the historical records of the North are called, speak truly, he fought almost continuously during twelve long years before he had accomplished his task, and even then he was only just twenty-one years of age.
They say that he did all these wonderful things because a girl, named Gyda, whom he wanted to marry, refused to have anything to say to him until he had made himself King of a really big kingdom. He made a vow that he would not comb or cut his hair until he had conquered the whole country. He led his men to victory after victory, and at length fought his last great battle at Hafrsfjord (to the south of Stavanger). The sea-fight was desperate and long, but Harald's fleet succeeded in overpowering that of the enemy, and Sulki, King of Rogaland, as well as Erik, King of Hardanger, were slain. Then Harald cut and dressed his hair, the skalds composed poems in honour of the event, and for ever after he was known as Fairhair. He was truly a great Viking, and he did not rest content with the conquest of Norway alone; for he brought his s.h.i.+ps across the North Sea and conquered the Isle of Man, the Hebrides, the Shetlands, and the Orkneys, and he lived to the age of eighty-three.
Then there are the stories of the two Olafs--Olaf Tryggva.s.son and Olaf the Saint, each of whom took part in many a fight on British soil, each of whom was the champion of Christianity in Norway and fought his way to the throne, and each of whom fell in battle under heroic circ.u.mstances, the one at Svold (A.D. 1000), the other at Sticklestad (A.D. 1030). To us it is interesting to know that King Olaf Tryggva.s.son, on one of his early Viking expeditions, was baptized in the Scilly Isles, that as his second wife he married an Irish Princess, and that for some time he lived in Dublin. To the Norwegians he is a Norse hero of the greatest renown, who during his short reign of barely five years never ceased to force Christianity on the heathen population, and who, at the age of thirty-one, came to an untimely end. His fleet was ambuscaded and surrounded, and when his men had made their last stand he refused to surrender. Neither would he suffer the ignominy of capture or death at the hands of his enemies; so, with s.h.i.+eld and sword in hand, and in full armour, he leaped overboard, and immediately sank. For years afterwards his faithful people believed that he would appear again, and many fancied that, on occasions, their hero's spirit visited them.
Everyone knows the old triumphant line, ”London Bridge is broken down,” yet few are aware that the words are translated from an old Norse song, and fewer still could say who broke down the bridge. The story goes that this was accomplished by the other Olaf, afterwards known as St. Olaf. He and his Vikings had allied themselves with Etheldred the Unready against the Danes, who held the Thames above London Bridge. The bridge itself, which in those days was a rough wooden structure, was densely packed with armed men, prepared to resist the advance of the combined fleets. But Olaf drove his stout s.h.i.+ps against it, made them fast to the piers, hoisted all his sail and got out his oars, and succeeded in upsetting the bridge into the river, thus securing victory for Etheldred. But that was before Olaf gained the throne of Norway. What he did as King of that country would take too long to tell here. Every district of Norway possesses legends bearing on his visits when engaged in converting the people to Christianity, and describing his powers of working miracles. Everywhere the name of St. Olaf still remains engraven on the country. His death, however, was that of a soldier--on the battle-field; and the lance which Norway's patron saint carried in his last fight may even now be seen by the altar in Trondhjem Cathedral.
It was St. Olaf's half-brother, Harald the Hard, who fell, as we have said, at Stamford Bridge, when attempting the invasion of England in 1066. But all this is history nearly a thousand years old, and the stirring tales of the Vikings are fully recorded, and may be read in the Sagas. Ten centuries have changed the order of things. To-day we have, in our turn, become the invaders, albeit full of peace and good-will; and over the same seas upon which once danced Long s.h.i.+p, Serpent, and Dragon, our great ugly, smoky steamers now plough their way.
CHAPTER II
MODERN NORWAY
”Norroway over the Foam,” as it used to be called, is a good land to go to and a beautiful land to look upon. It lies less than two days'
journey from our sh.o.r.es, so it is easy enough to reach. Away from the towns--and they are not many--everything is picturesque, grand, and majestic, and the country indeed looks (as the people firmly believed of it long ago) as if it might have been the playground of countless giants, who amused themselves by pulling up acres of land, letting the sea into the valleys, and pelting each other with mountains and islands. Thank goodness the giants have disappeared! But if they really did have a hand in fas.h.i.+oning Norway, they are to be congratulated on the result.
One of the first things one likes to know about a foreign country is its size. Well, Norway is just a little larger than the British Isles, and that part of it which forms the usual holiday touring ground of British and other people--_i.e._, from Trondhjem to the south--is no larger than England. The remainder of the country consists of a long, narrow strip running up into the Arctic Circle, and ending in Lapland in the Far North.
On three sides Norway is washed by the sea; on the other side she has two neighbours--Sweden from the south right away up to Lapland, and then Russia.
Now let us see what sort of a land it is. First, there are the fjords, stretching often a hundred miles or more inland from the sea-coast, sometimes with delightful fertile sh.o.r.es, at other times hemmed in on either hand by rocky cliffs rising two or three thousand feet sheer from the water. Then there are the mountains, which are everywhere; for, with the exception of Spain, Norway is the most mountainous country in Europe. And on their summits lie vast fields of eternal snow, with glaciers pus.h.i.+ng down into the green valleys, or even into the ocean itself. Again, from these mountains flow down rivers and streams, now forming magnificent waterfalls as they leap over the edge of the lofty plateau, now rus.h.i.+ng wildly over their rock-strewn torrent beds, until they reach the lake, which, thus gathering the waters, send them on again in one wide river to the fjord.
Such things lend themselves to create scenery which cannot fail to charm, and in one day in Norway you may see them all. Take, for instance, the famous view of the Naerodal from Stalheim, a place which every visitor to Western Norway knows well. Probably nowhere in the world is there anything to approach it in grandeur, for not only are there the great mountains forming the sides of the actual valley in the foreground, but away beyond appears a succession of other mountains, stretching far across the Sogne Fjord, even to the snowy peaks of Jotunheim.
People who live in such a land must needs be proud of it, and the descendants of the Vikings believe that there exists in the world no fairer country than their beloved Norge. [1] Maybe they are not far wrong. But these Northern people are not numerous, and they are not forced, for want of s.p.a.ce, to spoil their landscapes by studding the country-side with little red-brick cottages, for all Norway contains not one-half the number of inhabitants found in London. Under such circ.u.mstances the feeling of freedom is great, and the Norwegians claim that, as a nation, they are the freest of the free. Recent events would seem to justify the claim. Only the other day Norway dissolved the Union with Sweden with little difficulty, and of her own free-will cast herself loose from the light fetters with which, for nearly a century, she considered that she had been bound.
With Norway time has dealt kindly. In modern ages war has not ravaged her lands. The oldest living Norseman was born too late to fight for his country, and it is to be hoped that his grandsons and great-grandsons may continue to live in ignorance of the horrors which war entails. Yet are they all prepared to take up arms in defence of hearth and home, for each able-bodied man serves his time as a soldier, and doubtless, if occasion should arise, would prove to the world that the old Viking spirit within him was still alive.
It is, however, the sense of restfulness pervading everything that is Norway's charm, and even the ordinary bustle of life is unknown outside the towns. In the summer the beaten tracks of the country are practically in the hands of the foreign visitors, whose money helps not a little to support many a Norse family. In the winter things are different, as, except perhaps in Christiania, very few foreigners are to be met with, and the Norwegians live their own lives.
The towns are neither numerous nor large, and, with a few exceptions, are situated on the sea-coast. Perhaps a quarter of the whole population of Norway is to be found in the towns, the remainder consisting of country-folk, who live on their farms. What we term villages barely exist, and the nearest approach to them is a group of farms with a church in the neighbourhood.
Christiania, the capital of the country, is the largest town, and other towns of importance are Bergen, Trondhjem, Stavanger, Frederikstad, Tonsberg, and Christiansand, all busy seaports and picturesquely situated. But the interest of a country such as Norway does not lie in the towns, which, with their wide streets, stately buildings, well-stocked shops, hotels, restaurants, places of amus.e.m.e.nt, and crowded dwellings, do not differ very greatly from other European towns, and a townsman's life in his town is much the same all over the civilized world.