The men come up from the home farm at the week-ends with necessary provisions, and take back with them the produce of the "sæter."
Bracing is the rarified air of these high lands; and although the sun's heat is great, it is tempered by the breezes which come from snow-field or glacier on the higher mountains around.
When the wild berries are ripe, the younger girls climb the heathery slopes and fill their wooden pails with the cranberries, bilberries, and cloudberries ("multebær"), which abound in great profusion.
Fagesi, Levros, Pentekol, Buskin: to these and other quaintly sounding names the cattle answer, the goats also being known individually by such names as Skjomos, Blegeros, Kvideben, etc.
The cattle have their chosen leader, who wears a bell attached to a leathern collar around the neck; they are led by its sound, and keep within hearing distance as they graze. The sheep and goats also wear bells, nearly all of them, but the sound of these is quite distinct from the cattle-bells.
At a certain time every evening the cows may be seen slowly making their way of their own accord to the "sæter" house, where they quietly wait to be milked.
When it is necessary to call them from a distance, they answer to the sound of the "lur," a kind of alpine horn. This is made of birch, and is about four feet long. When blown lustily it gives out notes clear and sweet, in sound not unlike those of a cornet.
On the "lur" the "sæter" girls are expert performers, and during the long summer evenings they love to make the mountain crags echo with delicious airs, which they produce from this primitive instrument.