CHAPTER VIII
TRONDHJEM AND MOLDE; THE NORWEGIAN FIORDS
Aalesund, Norway,
August 31, 191—
Dear Cynthia:
My last letter to you was posted at Falun. Aalesund is well down the coast of Norway, so you see that I have zig-zagged quite a distance since last I greeted you.
My exit from Sweden’s back door was as pleasant as the entrance at the front. The long journey toward the northwest furnished the familiar—but never monotonous—alternation of grand forests, and tiny hay farms, and lakes and rivers filled with logs on their way to the saw mills. Bräcke is on one of these lakes, with the woods pressing close on the other three sides. Here we waited three hours, during which I breakfasted; and then we began our real climb toward the Swedish border where the mountains were more rugged and were flecked with snow. During the early part of the journey I shared a compartment of the car with a charming Swedish woman who busily knit white linen lace while she chatted with me. She was pleased to learn that I had been at Falun, and spoke with deep pride of Selma Lagerlöf. Strindberg’s best dramas, she hoped, were also known and appreciated in the United States. Some of his writings, it was true, showed traces of insanity; but didn’t I think “Swan-white” charming? The lady was very obviously a conservative, however, for she, as a woman, felt apologetic for Ellen Key, who is, however, I think, better known and appreciated in America than either August Strindberg or Selma Lagerlöf. She seemed inclined to attribute to Miss Key an unhealthy mind and questionable morals, which led me to recall the words the artist had put above Ellen Key’s portrait: “Could I but have represented your purity of soul!”
At Storlien (Great Line), very near the national boundary, we stopped for luncheon, which I obtained in the railroad restaurant all set forth in cafeteria style. The meal was as good as Swedish “home cooking,” and the cost was ridiculously slight as compared with the prices which one must pay in similar places at home.
As I was leaving the restaurant, whom should I see but my North Star lady! When we parted at Stockholm, she had remarked that she meant to cross the mountains to Trondhjem before returning to Gothenburg, but I had thought little about it, as I felt that there was no chance of our plans synchronizing. However, there she was, and I greeted her as an old friend. Her companionship added much to the pleasure of the remainder of my journey, and of my stay in Trondhjem. We secured a comfortable compartment and in a few minutes we had made our entrance into Norway, by Norway’s back door. Fröken Nordstern called my attention to the Great Line as we crossed it; it is a broad strip of deforested territory standing out in sharp contrast with the dark forest line on either side, and extends as far as the eye can reach over hill and dale to the north and south. This simple line separates the land of Sweden from the land of Norway; no blood-thirsty cannon punctuate its length. Preparations are being made to erect upon the boundary instead a fine monument in commemoration of the century of peace which is nearly complete between the two nations.
Soon the Norwegian customs inspector came into the car, but upon our assuring him that our suitcases contained nothing dutiable, he lifted his cap and passed on without asking to see their contents. I do not know whether his action was due to conviction of our honesty or of our poverty. Norwegians, however, like the other Scandinavians, are anything but liars; they generally tell the truth themselves and have a stimulating way of expecting the truth from others, and of getting it.
Do not let my calling the Storlien route Norway’s back door mislead you into the impression that the part of the land which we entered had the appearance of the average American backyard; on the contrary, it was grand. The Scandinavian Alps, which we crossed, remind me of my own Far Western High Sierras. They are not quite so rugged or majestic, but their beauty stirred me deeply, especially glorified as they were by the enchantment of the summer sun. The mountains not only offered the ever-attractive Scandinavian forests of evergreens and delicate birches and rowan with its cheerful bunches of red berries; there were also tender, golden-green ferns, strange sweet wild flowers—so near as almost to be plucked through the car windows—and trickling streams and waterfalls. That is, the streams trickled near their sources at the summit, but as our course descended, they united and widened and became Gudsaaen, which is, being interpreted, God’s Rivulet or River. And if the things of God are of especial beauty, the stream is well named. God’s River flows through Meraker Dal, or Valley, which, in the grip of bleak winter, is, I presume, anything but attractive. That golden afternoon, however, the place reminded me of Björnson’s “Synnove Solbakken,” and appealed so strongly that I wanted to stop off and spend a few weeks in one of the simple, homelike houses upon its sunny green slopes. Had I taken a vacation in Meraker Dal, I should have ridden over the mountain paths upon one of the shaggy little Norse ponies which frisked and played in the pastures. Perhaps I might have experimented upon the democracy of the Norwegian mind by milking one of the sleek cows!
But the train rolled on at a good speed toward the west, carrying me along. And soon we were near Trondhjem, which, five centuries ago, before Norway went into her four-hundred-years’ bondage to Denmark, was the Norwegian capital. The old saga accounts frequently mention the place as the destination or starting point of Norse chieftains, for Trondhjem Fiord, around which the city curves in a crescent shape, forms an excellent harbor.
Fröken Nordstern and I secured rooms at the same hotel, and were up bright and early the next morning ready for a busy day. We first went to the cathedral, a fine granite building in Gothic style, which was badly damaged by the Swedes in 1814, but is now being gradually restored. The cathedral is noted for the great number of gargoyles decorating its exterior and interior—hideous, grinning, fascinating faces which peer out at one from roof, and wall, and lofty, vaulted ceiling. Far above the high altar is a colored image of Christ. It is very common to see such images in the Scandinavian Lutheran churches; they are simply one of the relics carried over from Roman Catholic days.
Both of us were much interested in the Industrial Museum, to which we went from the cathedral. Like museums in Sweden and Denmark, this one contained rooms furnished in the Norwegian styles of past centuries. There were quaint old utensils, too, hand-carved cheese tubs and painted antique smoothing boards—the remote ancestors of modern electric flatirons. The boards somewhat resemble carpenter’s planes. Round rollers, which were placed under them, evidently took some of the wrinkles out of the clothes. One room which was a real joy to my heart contained a rare display of the most exquisite Scandinavian porcelain. But I was especially attracted to the woven woolen tapestries which are copies of George Munthe’s paintings of the scenes from the sagas. The weaving stitch, as I remarked of the stitch used for hand weaving in Sweden, very much resembles that used by the Navajos in their blankets; but the work is much finer in texture and color.
My look at the artistic contents of the Industrial Museum was as near as my limited time permitted me to get to the fine arts of Trondhjem. I only recently learned that the three famous Sinding brothers, Christian, Otto, and Stephen—the musical composer, the painter, and the sculptor—were born in the ancient capital. I think, however, that most of the paintings and sculptures produced by Otto and Stephen are to be found farther south in Norway.
King Haakon and Queen Maud spend a month or two of every year at Trondhjem, living in the Residential Palace. This palace, which is said to be the largest wooden building in Europe, is painted white, with the coat-of-arms of Norway emblazoned over the doorway, and has numerous Norwegian national flags—red, with a cross of white and blue—flying from the roof. About sixty of the one hundred rooms are furnished, and we saw a large number of them. A nice old Norwegian, with a smooth-shaven face and a fringe of beard under his chin, which reminded me of the sailor in the “life buoy” soap advertisements, showed us around. He took a tremendous pride in every detail of the furnishings, and seemed to love the king and queen as much as if they were his own children.
The palace was really very plainly furnished. Some of the walls, it is true, were covered with silk brocade, which the guard lifted aside the protective hanging to display; but many were merely covered with ordinary paper. The furnishings of most of the rooms were no more elaborate or expensive than those of most middle-class houses in the United States. In the bathrooms, for instance, were plain white enameled tubs of the conventional American type. One unusually dainty and charming apartment was the Queen’s boudoir, which was furnished in pale blue. Here and there, upon the walls and about the room, were pictures of Olaf, the little crown prince, smiling and happy. The old guard called attention to these pictures of the little boy with a delightful grandfatherly air which was truly touching. Some of the pine floors were bare, and remained so, the guard said, even when the royal family was in residence. In fact, the guard appeared to take pride in the simplicity of the palace as well as in its elegance.
The ballroom was rather richly furnished. Gleaming crystal chandeliers hung from the ceiling; the walls were covered with brocade; and against them were arranged chairs and sofas upholstered in crimson silk plush. At one end of the room were the seats of the king and the queen, of the same general style as the others, but larger, and embroidered with gold. When we reached the royal seats, the friendly old guard said, “Now you may be queen for a while.” So Miss North Star and I took turns at sitting in the Queen’s chair. Queen Maud would not have objected, I am sure.
In the evening, over a final cup of coffee, we discussed the sterling qualities and the widening future of the Norwegians. Then Fröken Nordstern went down to see me off on the Haakon Adelstein, which was to leave for Molde at eight o’clock. As she waved good-by from the pier, I knew that I was parting from one of the finest souls in the whole Scandinavian land. It is through the efforts of my Lady of the North Star, and others like her, that these lands of the far north are coming to be the greatest in Europe. And when true greatness—that of superiority of character and intellect—shall be made the test of national worth, instead of political power gained through commercial control and militarism, Scandinavia will come to her own. I say this, Cynthia, not as a descendant of the Scandinavians, but as an American of the Americans, born and bred—one who has had opportunity in her own land as well as in theirs to become acquainted with the Scandinavians.
The sun sank behind the mountains just as the Haakon Adelstein left its moorings. There followed a succession of glory and gray in the sky, and of wonderful blues and purples in the mountain shadows. Darkness seemed to advance slowly and reluctantly; the mystical, silvery twilight lingered long; I could read ordinary print, as I sat on deck, until past nine o’clock.
When darkness had finally closed around, I went down to the women’s salon, where I found four women and a man—all Norwegians. One of the women was a Roman Catholic nun, and one of the others was traveling with her. The two other women were mother and daughter; the young man was evidently aspiring to become the husband of the daughter. All were so frank and friendly that we were soon acquainted. Though the man was a true son of the Vikings—tall and straight and fair, with strong features—I noticed what I must call, for want of something more descriptive, an “American” expression on his face; so I was not at all surprised when he told me that he had spent several years in Washington State.
“Do you like the United States?” I asked in English.
“You just bet I do,” he replied, in first-class American slang.
He expected to go back to the Far West, he said; and it was quite evident that he had no intention of returning alone.
After leaving Trondhjem Fiord, we followed the coast of Norway pretty closely. Norway’s shores, you will remember, are mountains which stand with their feet in the sea. And near the shores are detached mountains which rose as islands on our right hand. Before retiring I went on deck to take a good-night look at sea and sky, expecting to find sea and sky only; and I was surprised and given “quite a turn” by the effect of the huge, weird, black, shadowy-looking mountain masses to right and left, with the lapping, gleaming ocean waves between. There was something about the scene which suggested bats and owls in forsaken houses at night.
The next morning the fiords were still there, but before the glory of the summer sunshine the “spooky” aspect had fled, and the mountains stretched away green and purple and wholesome and living and real.
We reached Molde, which is on Molde Fiord, in time for a late breakfast, of which I partook at a charming “pensionat,” set both picturesquely and precariously upon the dewy, green hillside. Here was served a genuine Scandinavian breakfast, Smörgåsbord and all. But here I met also a new delicacy—goats’ milk cheese. It looks like brown laundry soap—only more opaque and inedible—but it is fit fare for the divinities of Asgard. At least, so thinks one who likes Scandinavian cookery.
Breakfast over, I explored Molde, which is called “the City of Roses,” and it is appropriately named, for roses as well as other flowers were blooming in great abundance. From the natural park far up on the hillside—rocky and woodsy, with an abundance of ferns and flowers—I gained a beautiful panoramic view. At my feet lay the little town, peeping forth from its setting of tender green, bright with blossoms; beyond lay the fiord, dotted with woodsy islands; and, blending with the wonderful colors of the fiord, were the rugged, encircling mountains, shading from greens and purples, flecked with snow, in the foreground, to misty violet, or dazzling white, marblelike peaks outlined against the summer sky.
On the way down the slope I crossed the cemetery, filled with neatly-kept graves covered with smooth, rank grass and flowers as delicate as maiden hair, with the morning dew still upon them. Near the walk down which I passed was a neatly-dressed old woman with a white kerchief upon her head, working among the flowers. The country cemeteries of Scandinavia seem never to fail of gray-haired, white-kerchiefed old women with characterful, dignified faces who work among the flowers in loving memory of their dead.
While in Molde, I learned that the original of Axel Ender’s “He Is Risen” was an altar piece in the Lutheran church there; so I went to see it. But it happened that a wedding ceremony had just begun in the church when I arrived, and the sexton did not want to admit me. I was immediately fired with a desire to see the wedding, however, and after some coaxing he good-naturedly said that I might take a seat in the rear of the church. The service had just begun, I found. The white-ruffed, black-gowned clergyman was launched upon a sermon rich with good advice to the contracting parties, and calculated to impress them with the solemnity of the step which they were about to take. The sermon was followed by the conventional questions and replies and the exchange of rings; the priest offered prayer; the clerk sang a chantlike song; hand shakes and congratulations came next; and then the bridal party made their exit.
For its very usualness the bridal party deserves special mention. When I asked permission to see the wedding, I had visions of a bridal pair in native costume; but what I saw possessed no element of the picturesque. The couple looked just like the figures one sees on wedding cakes in third rate baker’s windows in the United States. The groom was in the conventional black suit and had very waxed mustaches and very shiny shoes; the bride wore the orthodox silk dress and tulle veil, and carried the usual bride’s bouquet of white blossoms. The only witnesses to the ceremony, besides the interloper in the back seat, were four young men and a young woman who looked as if they might be relatives of the bride. They wandered out in the wake of the bride and groom. It was a very tame, uninteresting wedding.
Speaking of weddings calls to my mind a mystery which my North Star lady cleared up for me. I had been constantly surprised since reaching Scandinavia at the unhesitating way in which people to whom I was an utter stranger addressed me as “Fröken” (Miss) rather than as “Fru” (Mrs.) and had been roused to deep admiration at the perspicacity which enabled those people to decide after a mere glance that I was a bachelor woman. But when I expressed to Fröken Nordstern my appreciation for this evidence of the superior quality of the Scandinavian mind, she swept aside the delusion with: “Why, they look at your hands; all married women here wear wedding rings.”
In my disappointment over the conventional quality of the wedding, however, I did not forget what I went to the church for. The “He Is Risen” was in a good light, and I enjoyed seeing it. The facial expressions of the three women are fine I think; but I do not care for the angel. I am very particular about angels. You know the picture very well, I am sure, for copies are common in American homes. But you will be surprised to learn that the artist is a Norwegian and that the original is in little old Molde, high up along the fiord-indented coast. Ender did a work on the same subject for one of the churches of Christiania, but the Molde altar piece is generally considered much the finer of the two.
Outside the church were three little booths on wheels in which Norwegian girls with “ratted” hair sold tinted and plain photographic copies of Ender’s painting. Farther along, on the main street of the village, were several curio shops, in the windows of which were displayed objects calculated to attract the tourist:—tiny copies of Viking ships in silver; silver jewelry in imitation of old Norse handiwork; genuine Norse antiquities; Lapp slippers of reindeer skin; ancient furniture upholstered in the richly decorated Jutland leather; carved wooden bridal spoons joined in pairs with carved wooden chains, in imitation of the spoons with which in times past bridal couples ate their “wedding breakfast”; beautiful Scandinavian porcelain; and hideous mugs and other trinkets, made to sell to souvenir-collecting fiends—bearing the legend, “Hilsen fra Molde” (Greetings from Molde). All were jumbled in the windows together.
In the afternoon I left Molde by a little boat for Naes, on Romsdal Fiord. The beauty of the fiords will dwell with me always, for they are by far the most impressive scenery which I have viewed in Europe. Assuredly, the Swiss and Austrian Alps are grandly beautiful, but to one reared among the mountains of the Far West they seem little more than beloved old friends with slightly changed faces. Fiords, on the other hand, were something new in my experience, and I was tremendously impressed and delighted. The Romsdal I consider the most beautiful fiord that I saw, and, therefore, I will try to convey to you something of what it was like. You must bear in mind that, as our old geographies pointed out, fiords are “drowned valleys”; and the mountains rimming the valleys are frequently very sheer and high. Even upon the steepest of them, though, some vegetation manages to find a foot-hold. In many places I noticed trees growing out of what looked like solid rock.
Have you read that most charming first chapter in Björnson’s “Arne” on “How the Cliff Was Clad”? Repeatedly, when gazing admiringly up at some particularly daring tree clinging sturdily to the steep, rocky walls, I thought of this chapter—of the conference between the Juniper, the Fir, the Oak, and the Birch, which ends in the plucky little Birch’s exclaiming: “In God’s name, let us clothe it!”
Much of the pleasure of my fiord voyage came from the shifting of color. As the boat neared one shore the other receded, and golden green turned to blue-black in the deep shadows, and royal purple where there were high lights; and where the sun shone through the rifts in the mountains the slopes were transfigured into deep amethyst and rosy gold; and beyond these, near the high horizon, rose still loftier crests, of the faintest violet, misty and uncertain against the gray sky—like haunting ghosts of pre-glacial ranges. Waterfalls there were in abundance, tumbling over the dark, shadowy walls and sparkling where the sun found them out; perhaps dashed utterly into spray by the sharp ledges, but reuniting into torrents again before reaching the bottom. The deep water of the fiord, too, was beautiful, showing great patches of blues and greens, purples and blacks, and occasionally silver grays. Near the shore were brilliantly-colored jelly fishes, large as breakfast plates, tumbling about. I was sorely torn between my desire to watch these marine blossoms and the wonderful colors of the water, and my wish to absorb the beauty of the mountains. I will not presume to describe the sunset on the fiord; such an undertaking is too rash even for one with my daring.
Gargoyle on Trondhjem Cathedral
Romsdal Fiord, Showing the Horn
I spent the night at Naes, a little village on Romsdal Fiord, but rose early and resumed my zig-zag voyage. As we steamed away from Naes, I secured a fine view of Romsdal Horn, a horn-shaped, snow-crowned peak with veils of mist festooned about its purple slopes, rising far above the other mountains at the head of the fiord. At Vesternaes I left the boat in order to cross by team the neck of the peninsula which separates Stor Fiord from Romsdal. This method of travel is called in Norway, journeying by “skyds.” The vehicle in which I rode is called a “cariole.” This is a rather clumsy two-wheeled cart, with room for one passenger. Sticking out at the back of the vehicle is a saddle-like seat for the driver, who is generally a boy. The conventional cariole seems to be drawn by a fat little Norwegian pony, cream colored with brown trimmings. My pony was correct as to color, but it was very thin, and its harness was so large that it rattled like castanets when the little animal raced down hill.
As soon as I had taken my seat the skyds boy tucked the rubber storm robe around me, snapped it fast, leaped into his saddle, uttered the queer whirring sound which all over Scandinavia means “Git up,” and we were off. The road was smooth, but it ran either up hill or down all of the distance. Where the way was steep the boy dropped from his seat and walked until we reached the top of the hill, when he sprang into the saddle again without slowing up the pony. If the other side of the hill was a gradual decline, the pony trotted; if it was steep, he galloped.
The drive covered about twelve English miles and was interesting or beautiful all of the way. Shortly after we started, we passed a Norwegian country school house, which resembled the plain district school houses in the United States. It was the recess period, and the children were outside. There were several large girls all of whom wore small, black-fringed shawls around their heads. About half of the children had little books, which looked like catechisms, in their hands and were studying. The Lutheran religion is taught in all of the common schools of Scandinavia.
Farther on was a hay field which looked like merely an overgrown lawn. An old man had cut part of it and was putting handfuls of the short grass upon a wire “clothes line” to dry. In another place I noticed grass hay drying upon a rack or tray arrangement made from the slender branches of trees. Surely it is but little exaggeration to say that the Norwegians do not let a single blade of grass go to waste.
As the pony was slowly climbing a hill, he surprised a roly-poly little boy and a roly-poly girl, mere infants, who were playing on the road. As the children tried to scurry out of the way, the little sister, who was the smaller and chubbier of the two, fell down upon the road. The little brother, fearful for her safety, did not stop to help her to her feet but rolled her, as if she were a little barrel, out of danger’s way. He worked like an expert and was a plucky infant, considering his very evident fear; but the spectacle was so funny that the skyds boy and I both laughed heartily. At this the infant cavalier pulled from his pocket a battered tin horn and blew a loud blast of triumph and defiance at us; whereupon we laughed again. I am persuaded that the little knight of the tin horn is no common child.
For a time we followed an arm of the fiord, but soon we began to climb more directly towards the summit. Though the mountains were rugged, we were seldom out of sight of houses. In fact, houses and mountains seem inseparable in Norway. Upon perfectly impossible hillsides clung Norwegian homes, near which were tiny scraps of hayfields with hay hung out to dry, or with shaggy ponies grazing upon the stubble, lifting their heads now and then to neigh friendly greetings to their fellow doing service in the cariole. The houses were generally plain buildings, sometimes painted red or yellow, but frequently unpainted. Tiles or slate or shingles formed the roofs of the better houses, but the poorer were often thatched, or roofed with sod which quite frequently bore a pretty crop of moss and grass, ferns and flowers. And, as in Sweden and Denmark, the windows of even the humblest homes were as a rule made cheerful by rows of blooming plants.
Presently we passed the timber line in our upward climb, and the mountains took on a desolate look; but soon purple heather relieved the desolation; and some blue-colored berries caught my eye, growing in profusion by the roadside. My skyds boy helped himself to them and gathered some for me.
After a climb of about two and a half miles we came to a high valley rimmed with mountains. Near the roadside were a half dozen buildings, all except one of which were cow barns. The one exception bore over the doorway in crooked letters the words “Turist Hytten—1000 Fod over Havet”—tourist cottage, one thousand feet above sea-level. In Scandinavia the foot is longer than in the United States so we were really quite high up. Here we stopped to rest the pony and I went into the “hyt” to get some coffee. This was served by a woman with dangling silver rings in her ears, in a plain little room, upon the wall of which were large prints of King Haakon and Queen Maud. In a half hour we were on the way again, and after skirting a heath-bordered lake and climbing another hill the boy announced that we were at the summit.
The other, or southern, side of the hill was sunny and green; and here were about a dozen cow barns with sod roofs, surrounded by stone fences within which were contented little Norwegian cows grazing upon the sweet grass. Close beside was a house, hardly distinguishable from the barns except for the larger size and the curtained glass windows. The establishment like the turist hyt, was a “saeter,” or summer pasture. As soon as the grass is high enough in the summer the cows are taken to the pastures high up among the mountains where they remain until the grass is gone and winter approaches. At the saeter, butter and cheese are made, to be stored away for winter use or to be marketed.
The summit past, the road ran down hill for almost all of the remainder of the journey, so the pony galloped headlong down the smooth road and we were soon in the fishing port of Söholt. After having luncheon at the Söholt hotel, I wandered around until it was time for my boat. On my walk I smiled at two rosy-cheeked little girls whom I passed on the road. To my astonishment, they responded by deep, simultaneous courtesies, and quietly went their way. An American child, I fear, would have merely stared, called out “Hello” or responded in a ruder manner still.
Söholt is a typical fiord village. There are the tourist hotels, the steepled Lutheran church, the scattered houses clinging to the hillsides, the wooden pier, the sod-covered boathouses along the water, the nets spread on the sand to dry, boats pulled up on the sand, other boats with fishermen setting nets out on the fiord, and people working with fish on the beach.
The proprietor of the hotel at which I had taken luncheon was at the pier waiting for the fiord steamboat, and from him I learned much about the fishing industry. Several men were busy barreling and boxing up fresh-looking fish. Those were small or thin herrings, I was told, and were merely to be shipped to other fishing stations to be used as bait for cod. Much of the cod which I saw around on the beach was from Iceland;—the large boat at anchor in the harbor had recently come from there with a cod cargo—but great quantities of cod were also caught in Stor Fiord. The Iceland cod is freed from its surplus salt by washing in the sea; dried by spreading on the rocks along the shore; then packed away in great cylindrical-shaped piles on the sand—heads in and tails out—to cure. The sides of the cylinder are covered with canvas and the tops with cone-shaped wooden roofs, painted red. Near the pier a man and two little girls, their hands covered with thick woolen mittens, were building one of those cod cylinders; and scattered over the beach were dozens of the covered piles of codfish, looking like little huts. A boat with a man and a woman in it, both rowing, was making its way to the Iceland vessel for a new load of salt cod.
By the time I had acquired the practical information which I have just retailed to you, the fiord boat Geiranger, on which I was to embark, arrived. A number of men and about three times as many hunting dogs landed from the boat; but when I went aboard I found a goodly supply of hunters remaining, and about twenty dogs—barking, whining and fighting—on the deck. However, to my relief, these also landed in a short time.
At Merok on Stor Fiord, a pleasant, wide-awake-looking woman boarded the boat, and I soon fell into conversation with her. She was a merchant in Aalesund, she told me. The foundation of my Scandinavian conversational medium, as you know, is very bad Danish. In Sweden I stuck in a few Swedish words for flavoring and the intelligent Swedes understood my utterances and called my jargon “bra Svensk”; in Norway I remembered to pronounce m-e-g-e-t (much) phonetically instead of “myet” as the Danes do, and the Aalesund merchant lady declared that what I spoke was not Danish at all, but Norwegian. I seem to possess a variety of “three-in-one” Scandinavian linguistic equipment. Fortunately, it works, and is very convenient when one is traveling. The Aalesund lady, however, recognized that there was abundant room for improvement, and kindly supplied corrections as the need rose.
The lady, I soon learned, was an enthusiastic voter. It was due to the fair-mindedness of the “Venstre,” or Liberal party, she said, that Norwegian women had been granted the right of suffrage; now the “Höire,” or Conservative faction, acknowledged that the women should have been given the vote long ago, since they have demonstrated that they are capable of making good use of it. The Norwegian women, she told me, are at present working for total prohibition and for just labor laws for women. Their slogan is “The same pay for the same work, regardless of sex.” May they win speedily!
A Norwegian “Maud Muller”
Piling Cod Fish in Söholt
We spoke of the independence of Norway from Sweden, and the lady said that the Norwegians rejoiced in their freedom. I asked whether there was no regret in Norway over the separation from Sweden, because of the increase of taxation—as some Swedes had told me that there was. “No; we have no regrets,” she said; “we are free; we have our own king, and, besides, our taxes are no higher.” That was the sort of reply I had received to similar queries all the way down the Norwegian coast. I felt that it was representative of the Norwegian people as a whole; and I rejoiced with them that they had at last gained the freedom for which they had so long waited.
I am moved by the remembrance of the lady merchant’s politeness to a digressive dissertation upon Scandinavian manners; for the more I have seen of Scandinavia the more I am convinced that the manners here are superior to our own. My comparison is between the rank and file of people in both lands; I know little about the socially élite in either country. In Sweden, especially in the cities, because of the French influence which came with the Bernadotte line of kings, one finds greater elegance and polish (I believe that I mentioned to you the grand bows of my Söderhamn cousins); and in Norway one notices greater simplicity and directness, for Norway is the most democratic of the Scandinavian lands. Nevertheless, the code of manners is very similar all over Scandinavia; the people are everywhere courteous, and their courtesy reflects their national characteristics—reserve, sincerity, and kindness.
I was particularly struck with the pleasant way in which the people “speak each other in passing.” Upon entering a compartment in a railroad train a passenger quietly greets the occupants already there, and upon leaving he utters a comprehensive farewell. The same courtesy is observed in Scandinavia among strangers wherever the daily round of life brings them into contact. For instance, a shopper does not think of making a purchase without first greeting the salesman; or of departing from a shop without a courteous word of leave-taking. Scandinavians are not too busy thus to recognize our common humanity. I like the custom well.
“Vaer saa god” is a polite expression which one hears everywhere in Scandinavia. The words as I have given them are Danish, but they are the same in Sweden or Norway, except for slight variation in spelling and, consequently, in pronunciation. We have no single equivalent in English for the expression, which literally means “Be so good”; but its use is very similar to the German “Bitte.” These versatile words are employed where we would use “Please,” “I beg your pardon,” “Permit me,” and the like—and in some cases where we would say nothing at all.
The handshake is an important institution in Scandinavia; the American handshake would appear to be but a very degenerate vestige of it. People here not only shake hands more commonly than we do at meeting and parting, and upon offering congratulations, but they also give the hand upon offering thanks for a gift; and to seal a business transaction; and, most interesting of all, at the close of a meal.
This last usage seems especially quaint and formal, but it is still very common among country people. Upon rising from the table at the conclusion of a meal a guest offers his hand to his host and hostess and says: “Tak for mad”—Thanks for the meal. (This is the Danish spelling; the Swedish differs slightly.) And in old-fashioned Scandinavian households the little children are trained to offer thanks to their parents in the same formal manner for the food of which they have partaken.
In his essay on “Grace before Meat,” Charles Lamb suggests that the custom of offering a prayer of thanksgiving before meals originated in the “early times of the world, and the hunter state of man, when dinners were precarious things and a full meal was something more than a common blessing.” The practice of saying “Tak for mad” after the meal to those to whom one is most directly indebted for it, I suggest, may have an equally venerable origin.
The customary reply to an expression of thanks is “Vaelkommen” or “Sel tak,” which, literally translated, is “Thanks yourself”; but it is really the equivalent of our phrase, “The pleasure is all mine.”
I have mentioned merely the most noticeable courteous usages of the Scandinavians, and now I must close my dissertation. But in doing so I wish to suggest the reason why the Scandinavian in the United States seems frequently so lacking in manners. To the average American he is a “damned foreigner”; he even acknowledges himself a “greenhorn”; and in his eager attempt to bridge the chasm between himself and the native American, he quickly drops all polite usages peculiar to his home land—for they rouse only ill-concealed amusement—and adopts the more obvious American polite forms such as get his attention. In consequence, the fine-mannered Scandinavian becomes the rude Scandinavian-American. I have repeatedly seen this unfortunate transformation take place in newly-arrived Scandinavians in the United States.
Now I am back at Aalesund again, mentally, as I have been physically, the whole evening. It is to be my point of departure from the fiords. And I am glad to depart, for Aalesund is devoted almost completely to fish industries. Fish or skeletons of fish everywhere! For instance, this evening as we slipped into the harbor, I noticed incredibly large stacks of fish bones outside of some mills, waiting to be ground up, after which they begin another career of usefulness as guano, or fertilizer, for impoverished soil. And think of the mountains of fish which contribute the bones!
The place is very fishy indeed. And lest you begin to taste cod-liver oil I will break off now and bid you good-by until I reach Christiania, whither I am bound, via Bergen.