MAKING "FLAD-BROD"—A COTTAGE INTERIOR
I have not been able to discover how far this account of the marriage customs of Norway may be applied to the present day; but I am assured by the Norwegian friend who kindly helped me with the translation that in the isolated country districts such affairs still follow the course I have described.
At funerals there are celebrations of much the same kind. Although there is no actual dancing until after the return from the burial, drink passes freely. I am told by an acquaintance, who assisted at the funeral of one of his tenants, that the whole party were overcome by drink to such an extent that at the churchyard it was discovered that the corpse had been forgotten. The pastor was naturally indignant. He and the mourners had to wait in the snow-covered cemetery until the coffin containing the remains could be fetched. In districts far removed from a town the food and drink for a funeral party are generally ordered while the funeral subject is still alive. A friend, calling to offer condolences, was served with cakes, which she was begged to partake of on the plea that "the corpse herself made them." Many of the rich farmers order their own coffins and keep them in the stabur. In winter the ground is frozen so hard that it has to be blasted.
FORESTRY: REINDEER:
LAND TENURES
FORESTRY: REINDEER: LAND TENURES
During my long walks while Nico was painting, I was refreshed and delighted by the abundance of wild fruit which I found everywhere, delicious little strawberries and large raspberries. Once, while I was greedily stripping a bush of raspberries, sitting at my ease on a rock beside the shrub, a large snake glided from under my skirt, and hid itself beneath the stone on which my feet were resting. I had a terrible fright for a moment. I have never discovered whether there are poisonous snakes in Norway. Every four or five years certain districts are infested by animals about the size and form of a guinea-pig. They swarm all over the country, and do a good deal of damage. Immense numbers are killed, and the race seems to die out, until, when a period of four or five years has elapsed, they appear again. I was told this by an English inhabitant, who could give me no reason for this intermittent character of their presence.
The Norwegian horses take their pleasures sadly. When they are not working, and are set at liberty to feed along the strip of herbage, they are either attached by a short chain round one leg to a staple fixed in the ground, or, what is worse, their forefeet are linked closely together by an arrangement like handcuffs. To see the poor things trying to be frisky amid these circumstances is quite painful. Nico describes the movement which results as "hirpling." It is a cross word, I suppose, between hopping and limping, and is extremely expressive of what it is intended to represent. In the towns the horse's forefoot is tied to the wheel of the cart when the driver is obliged to leave it. What would happen if wandering musicians were to strike up an equine cake-walk, I tremble to think!