MAKING NATIVE TAPESTRY
Working a design by Gerard Munthe, the well-known decorative artist
As for Norwegian wood-carving, words fail me to express my admiration for the bold and strong effects produced with wonderful skill and by very primitive methods. During the long winters the peasants labour, often with no other tool than penknives. Their broadly carved furniture, with the invariable circular design which is so prominent in their embroidery also, has a charm that I miss in the wonderful and delicate carving of the East. I tried hard to possess myself of a few such pieces of furniture—a very tall grandfather clock, a carved and coloured cradle, a sideboard, and a cupboard—but in vain. The peasant owners refused to sell—wisely indeed, for surely these things are more appropriate in their big yellow-painted log-built rooms than anywhere else. Other objects which I sought to obtain from various antiquaries were absolutely beyond the reach of my purse: charming as they were, the prices asked were ridiculously high. I suppose that the sums asked are special during the tourist season, and that Norwegians get what they want at much reduced figures during the winter months. The explanation of this is obviously the absence of any competition. Two or three big shops have a corner in such things.
In all our travels we did not come across any little shop of the type one meets so frequently in most towns in England and on the Continent. It must be admitted that in such a country as Norway to buy such things as the peasants may be willing to dispose of necessitates a considerable outlay. For the joy of buying give me Italy, or Spain, or Belgium, of which countries swarm with small antiquaries to whom the chance of a sale is too precious to be allowed to slide for such a slight reason as a difference between the price asked and the price the would-be purchaser feels inclined to pay.
BIRDS-EYE VIEW OF CHRISTIANIA
FARM-HOUSES: WEDDING
FESTIVITIES
FARM-HOUSES: WEDDING FESTIVITIES
The climatic conditions of Norway necessitate much expenditure in the building of a farm. On account of the intense cold of the winter, warm houses must be provided for the live-stock, and dry storage also is necessary. As a rule, nowadays the buildings on a farm are four, though in former times there were often many small buildings—notably the charmingly carved storehouses one still sees here and there on the farms, standing on round stones and piles some three or four feet from the ground, for fear of rats as well as for dryness. Of the four buildings usual on an ordinary farm, the main house is, of course, the dwelling-place, the size of which varies. A cellar the size of the whole area of the house is generally built under this for storage of potatoes and other necessaries. The buildings are almost invariably of logs dovetailed together at the corners, painted inside and out. Near this living place is another erection which contains the rooms for the farm hands, the laundry, and the winter supply of wood and peat. The third building is chiefly for the animals, and is divided into different compartments, of which some are devoted to the storage of farming implements, grains, etc. These outhouses are often built with two stories connected by an inclined plane of logs, up which the various vehicles of the farm are pulled to be housed during the winter months. The fourth building is the storehouse, built from the ground, in which are kept the household provisions and sometimes bedding and clothes not in actual use. Many of the most elaborate and ancient of these stabur have been bought by the State or by private persons for presentation to the various museums which devote themselves to the collection of relics of old Norway and try to reproduce both houses and churches of old times with as many of their original belongings and fittings as possible.