THRONDTJEM FYORD.
On July 25 we left Kristiania for Throndtjem—the whole journey of three hundred and sixty miles being very comfortable, and only costing 30 francs. The route has no great beauty, but endless pleasant variety—rail to Eidswold, with bilberries and strawberries in pretty birch-bark baskets for sale at all the railway stations; a vibrating steamer for several hours on the long, dull Miosen lake; railway again, with some of the carriages open at the sides; then an obligatory night at Koppang, a large station, where accommodation is provided for every one, but where, if there are many passengers, several people, strangers to each other, are expected to share the same room. On the second day the scenery improves, the railway sometimes running along and sometimes over the river Glommen, on a wooden causeway, till the gorge of mountains opens beyond Stören, into a rich country with turfy mounds constantly reminding us of the graves of the hero-gods of Upsala. Towards sunset, beyond the deep cleft in which the river Nid runs between lines of old painted wooden warehouses, rises the burial-place of S. Olaf, the shrine of Scandinavian Christianity, the stumpy-towered cathedral of Throndtjem. The most northern railway station and the most northern cathedral in Europe!
THRONDTJEM CATHEDRAL.
Surely the cradle of Scandinavian Christianity is one of the most beautiful places in the world! No one had ever told us about it, and we went there only because it is the old Throndtjem of sagas and ballads, and expecting a wonderful and beautiful cathedral. But the whole place is a dream of loveliness, so exquisite in the soft silvery morning light on the fyord and delicate mountain ranges, the rich nearer hills covered with bilberries and breaking into steep cliffs—that one remains in a state of transport, which is at a climax while all is engraven upon an opal sunset sky, when an amethystine glow spreads over the mountains, and when ships and buildings meet their double in the still, transparent water. Each wide street of curious low wooden houses displays a new vista of sea, of rocky promontories, of woods dipping into the water; and at the end of the principal street is the grey massive cathedral where S. Olaf is buried, and where northern art and poetry have exhausted their loveliest and most pathetic fancies around the grave of the national hero.
The 'Cathedral Garden,' for so the graveyard is called, is most touching. Acres upon acres of graves are all kept—not by officials, but by the families they belong to—like gardens. The tombs are embowered in roses and honeysuckle, and each little green mound has its own vase for cut flowers daily replenished, and a seat for the survivors, which is daily occupied, so that the link between the dead and the living is never broken.
Christianity was first established in Norway at the end of the tenth century by King Olaf Trygveson, son of Trygve and of the lady Astrida, whose romantic adventures, when sold as a slave after her husband's death, are the subject of a thousand stories. When Olaf succeeded to the throne of Norway after the death of Hako, son of Sigurd, in 996, he proclaimed Christianity throughout his dominions, heard matins daily himself, and sent out missionaries through his dominions. But the duty of the so-called missionaries had little to do with teaching, they were only required to baptize. All who refused baptism were tortured and put to death. When, at one time, the estates of the province of Throndtjem tried to force Olaf back to the old religion, he outwardly assented, but made the condition that the offended pagan deities should in that case be appeased by human sacrifice—the sacrifice of the twelve nobles who were most urgent in compelling him; and upon this the ardour of the chieftains for paganism was cooled, and they allowed Olaf unhindered to demolish the great statue of Thor, covered with gold and jewels, in the centre of the province of Throndtjem, where he founded the city then called Nidaros, upon the river Nid.
No end of stories are narrated of the cruelties of Olaf Trygveson. When Egwind, a northern chieftain, refused to abandon his idols, he first attempted to bribe him, but, when gentler means failed, a chafing-dish of hot coals was placed upon his belly till he died. Raude the magician had a more horrible fate: an adder was forced down a horn into his stomach, and left to eat its way out again!