Many of the farm-houses in this narrow valley are built under the shelter of rocks, so as to be protected from the wind, which sweeps down the valley at times with terrific velocity, chiefly in winter.
Nærödal
Some years ago I spent two October weeks in Gudvangen and Nærödal. Arriving there overland from Vossevangen, and not dreaming but that I was certain of obtaining accommodation at the inn at Gudvangen—it being considerably past the time of tourists—to my intense surprise, I found the place full to overflowing with country folks in holiday attire—a wedding party—and, to the music of the riddle, the younger peasants and girls were dancing the favourite Halling-fling.
Every room at the inn was crowded, cakes and home-brewed ale being everywhere in evidence.
The kind and genial innkeeper, with profuse apologies at being unable to accommodate me in the house, found me, at last, a little room over the bakehouse close by, which I found fairly comfortable under the circumstances—it was at least warm and dry.
The following morning all was bustle and excitement. In the roadway outside the inn rosy-cheeked peasant-girls, in their prim, bright costumes, were exchanging pleasant banter with the boys, while the older men lounged around in groups, with hands in pockets, engaged in talking gossip at intervals between puffs of tobacco-smoke.
The wedding "bryllups" was to be celebrated that morning, and everybody was now ready except the bride, whose friends were engaged in adding the final touches to her maidenly toilet. A start is soon made, first a kind of informal procession along the short stretch of road to the pier, and a scramble into the boats, then out on the fjord, their oars keeping time to the strains of the fiddle. They row along pleasantly for a couple of miles, and then arrive at the small white wooden church, which is situated picturesquely on a rocky mound at Bakke.
There is, from here to Gudvangen, a footpath, but in parts it is somewhat rough. In several places it crosses screes of loose stories, which repeated avalanches have ground down in their career from the overhanging cliffs above to the deep fjord below. Every winter this mountain path across the screes is wiped out of existence, and a new one has to be made when the spring comes.
The wedding service over, the whole party, the clergyman ("presten") now included, return to the inn to partake of the wedding feast, and to drink the healths ("skaal") of bride and groom. The festivities are prolonged with hearty excitement, eating, drinking, and dancing the Halling-fling and Spring-dance day and night for over a week.
During my stay at Gudvangen at that time, an old woman, short in stature and poorly clad, approached me one day by the roadside, and, carefully unwrapping a many-folded parcel, at length produced a few English coins of silver and bronze. These she had earned during the past summer from passing travellers by the sale of flowers from her little garden patch. She begged me to exchange into Norwegian money these coins, which she could not use. It was a pleasure to see her wrinkled face light up with genuine gratitude for this slight service rendered her.