Various hospitals are attended by Catholic nursing sisters, who are in great favour with the medical profession and with the patients who are lucky enough to fall under their care.
All this time I am trying hard, by roundabout means, to get back to Bergen, because I wish to fit in, in proper context, a remark which I heard about the town. It seems that I cannot get back there legitimately, though I had hoped that the Sisters of Charity would help me through with their hospitals.
I was listening to the woes of the American Consul in Bergen. He was descanting on the want of entertainment and the absence of all things which make an American's life possible in any country on the globe outside his perfect native land. I sympathised with him, and threw in a little grumble of my own, having relation to the weather. "O, the weather!" said my red-headed friend, very hopelessly and crossly. "Why, sure, if a Bergen horse sees a person without an umbrella, he shies." This seems pretty feeble as I set it down; but at the time the Consul was disconsolate and far from wishing to amuse me, bored and discontented. Thus his remark just happened to tickle me: we both laughed until we cried, and felt very much the better for the diversion.
Frequently, at times of ennui, we found diversion in music, or in information about that art. The lure, though perhaps it can hardly be called a musical instrument, is a primitive means of conveying sound. The herds on the mountains used it to call their cattle together. It is said that no two lures have tones exactly alike, and that the cattle are able to distinguish and place the particular sound of their guardian's lure. It is a wooden trumpet, nearly five feet long, made of two hollow pieces of birchwood, bound together throughout the whole length with strips of willow. Besides being used to call the cattle together, it is often carried by travelling parties to avert the risk of anyone being lost in the wilds. Its notes may be heard at a great distance, and are rather harsh and discordant, possessing none of the musical qualities of the Alp horn used by the Swiss for the same purpose. Grieg composed charming music for a song called "The Princess." The words led me to suppose that the lure is rather a fascinating instrument; and the above description rather disillusioned me, until I decided to allow a good deal for poetic licence.
The Norwegians are exceedingly musical. Their national music gives wonderful expression to their moods. Almost invariably in the gayest pieces one catches here and there a pathetic little droop which gives a very particular character to Norwegian music. In the country the post of fiddler is handed down from generation to generation, together with certain airs which are looked upon as family property; but official fiddlers are by no means the only musicians in the district. These are found in every family, dividing their favours between the violin and the guitar. The organist L. Lindeman did great service to his country by collecting and preserving hundreds of national ballads, dances, and hymns, which had lived only in the ear and the soul of the people, and thus were lost entirely to the outer world. The oldest of these songs are the sagas, sung traditions that have been handed down from immemorial ages. They recount the heroic exploits of the Vikings and warriors of heathen times. Many ballads tell of the beautiful huldre, of the fay who presages the destruction of fishermen, of the water sprite, and of the brownies who, living underground, are covetous of cattle. To gratify their taste, the brownies help themselves to such as graze on the mountains, but only if their guardian's eyes are turned off his charges; they make dwarfs of the beasts to enable them to enter crevices in the ground, in order that they may descend to subterranean passages. Many songs about these malicious fairies do the maidens sing as they keep their eyes carefully fixed on the herds, to prevent their being stolen in like manner. Some of the songs consist of hundreds of four-line verses, which must surely be a hard test to the memory of the singers. Sometimes two singers will have a duet in such a song, singing verse after verse alternately. He whose memory, or, in default of memory, invention, fails him first is loser.
RIVER AT GJORA
The Norwegian national dances have in their melodies and rhythms a bold and natural character which gives them considerable worth. The principal are the halling, a Hardanger solo dance consisting of wild gyrations and vigorous kicks at rafters of the room. He who kicks highest is the champion. The other dance is the springar, which is a dance for two, with no less call for the display of muscular powers.
The two favourite instruments of the people, on which all this music has been played for centuries, are the langelik, which somewhat resembles a zither, and the Hardanger violin. The langelik has a long, flat body, with round holes, and at least seven strings, which are struck with a plectrum. The tone is rather weak, and the sound is somewhat monotonous, as the possibility of producing modulated sounds is almost entirely excluded.