To-day our train started out in a light rain, ran through a terrific blizzard, and into a bright, sunlit afternoon. I have never seen such concentrated essence of winter as I saw at Finse. The snow must have been four or five feet deep on the average, and in drifts it was ten or twelve feet deep. Finse’s freight house was buried; a big white mound showed where it ought to be, and where it might some day appear if the sun, by its heat, or men, by their shovels, ever attained energy enough to remove the white shroud. Giant snow plows kept the track clear, and our train ignored the blizzard. We “skirted” several invisible valleys, absolutely shut out by the driving snow, and, as Baedeker would say, “threaded” several tunnels, and to my infinite surprise emerged from one of them into a bright, sunny afternoon at Myrdal. We had passed the highest point of the line and had left our blizzard on the other side of the watershed.
From Myrdal I could look far, far down the Flaam Valley, which is one of the finest in Norway. Here and there, clinging to the rocky sides of the valley, were sæter huts. It would be easy enough for one of the milkmaids to “fall out of her sæter,” as the peasant of Mark Twain fame once “fell out of his farm.”
Whenever I think of a sæter, my mind invariably jumps to the romantic figure of Norway’s greatest violinist, Ole Bull. Are you acquainted with a plaintive Norwegian air called Sæterjentens Söndag? You must have heard it, even though you may not recognize it by name. Well, that was written by the great Ole Bull, and it is unquestionably the most familiar and the most beloved of Norway’s national melodies. Ole Bull was born at Bergen, so I am less than a half-hour’s journey from the place which this musician, whose tones thrilled all Europe and America, called home.
He is not the only musician who achieved world-wide fame, with Norway as a starting point. Every one who loves music knows Grieg’s famous Peer Gynt Suite, with its Anitra’s Dance, which seems to reflect the wild, free spirit of the north. Nordraak and Kjerulf and many other lesser musical lights have made all the world familiar with the music of the northland.
I must “pack up” now, as we are fast nearing Bergen. I shall be in an atmosphere there almost as historical as that of Trondhjem, so if some history creeps into my next letter I hope you will forgive me. I shall write you soon from there.
As ever yours,
Aylmer.