In the wide street which leads from the sea to the cathedral is the 'Coronation House,' the wooden palace in which the Kings and Queens of Sweden and Norway stay when they come hither to be crowned. Hither the present beloved Queen, Sophie of Nassau, came in 1873, driving herself in her own carriole from the Romsdal, in graceful compliance with the popular mode of Norwegian travel. It is because even the finest buildings in Norway are generally built of wood that there are so few of any real antiquity. Near the shore of the fyord, the custom-house occupies the site of the Orething, where the elections of twenty kings have taken place. It is sacred ground to a King of Norway, who passes it bareheaded. The familiar affection with which the Norwegians regard their sovereigns can scarcely be comprehended in any other country. To their people they are 'the father and mother of the land.' The broken Norse is remembered at Throndtjem in which King Carl Johann begged people 'to make room for their old father' when they pressed too closely upon him. When the present so beloved Queen drove herself to her coronation, the people met her with flowers at all the 'stations' where the horses were changed. 'Are you the mother of the land?' they said. 'You look nice, but you must do more than look nice; that is not the essential.' One old woman begged the lady in waiting to beg her majesty to get upon the roof of the house. 'Then we should all see her.' At Throndtjem the peasants touchingly and affectionately always addressed her as 'Du.'
In returning from Throndtjem we left the railway at Stören, where we engaged a double carriole, and a carriage for four with a pleasant boy called Johann as its driver, for the return journey. It was difficult to obtain definite information about anything, English books being almost useless from their incorrectness, and we set off with a sort of sense of exploring an unknown country. At every 'station' we changed horses, which were sent back by the boy, who perched upon the luggage behind, and we marked our distances by calling our horses after the Kings of England. Thus, setting off from Stören with William the Conqueror, we drove into the Romsdal with Edward VI. After a drive with Lady Jane Grey, we set off again with Mary. But the Kings of England failed us long before our driving days were over, and we used up all the Kings of Rome also. As we were coming down a steep hill into Lillehammer with Tarquinius Superbus, something gave way and he quietly walked out of the harness, leaving us to run briskly down-hill and subside into the hedge. We captured Tarquinius, but how to put him in again was a mystery, as we had never harnessed a horse before. However, by trying every strap in turn we got him in somehow, and escaped the fate of Red Riding Hood amid the lonely hills.
For a great distance after leaving Stören there is little especially striking in the scenery, except one gorge of old weird pine-trees in a rift of purple mountains. After you emerge upon the high Dovre-Fyeld, the huge ranges of Sneehatten rise snowy, gleaming, and glorious, above the wide yellow-grey expanse, hoary with reindeer moss, though, as the Dovre-Fyeld is itself three thousand feet high, and Sneehatten only seven thousand three hundred, it does not look so high as it really is. Next to Throndtjem itself, the old ballads and songs of Norway gather most thickly around the Dovre-Fyeld. It is here that the witches are supposed to hold their secret meetings at their Blokulla, or black hill. Across these yellow hills of the Jerkin-Fyeld the prose Edda describes Thor striding to his conflict with the dragon Jormangandur 'by Sneehatten's peak of snow,' where 'the tall pines cracked like a field of stubble under his feet;' and here, according to the ancient fragment called the ballad of 'The Twelve Wizards,' as given in Prior's 'Ancient Danish Ballads'—
At Dovrefeld, over on Norway's reef,
Were heroes who never knew pain or grief.
There dwelt there many a warrior keen,
The twelve bold brothers of Ingeborg queen.
The first with his hand the storm could hush
The second could stop the torrent's rush.
The third could dive in the sea as a fish;