The Charm of Scandinavia

by Francis E. Clark; Sydney Clark

Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

Bergen, Northeast from Laksevaag.

The German merchants of the league grew more insolent as they grew more powerful, and they used to swagger around the quays, beating and bullying the native Norwegians who chanced to be in their way. It is with peculiar delight that I read of a trick played on them by the notorious pirate, the Norwegian Baron Alf Erlingsson, called “Little Sir Alf.” He was as bold in spirit as he was diminutive in stature, and he became a constant terror to the Hanseatic merchants, because of the depredations he committed upon them. They tried by every means in their power to get him into their hands, but he always outwitted them. As Boyesen says: “It was of no use that the league sent out ships of war to capture him; he outmaneuvered them, deceived them, sent them on a wild-goose chase, and ended by capturing his would-be captors.”

As a final, crowning insult, he one day appeared incognito in an open boat and bargained with them about the price set upon his head. It is a sad fact that later the little pirate’s luck deserted him. He was captured and brought before Queen Agnes of Denmark. On his arrival before this lady, she twitted him mercilessly about his size. He blazed out in return that she would never live to see the day when she could bear such a son, at which the queen furiously ordered him to be put to death by way of the rack and wheel.

There is an old cathedral here, which the Bergeners proudly point out as the home of the Reformation when it first reached Norway. Perhaps you might not think this anything to be very proud of, in view of what I told you in one of my other letters about the introduction of the Reformation from Denmark. But Bergen does have a right to be proud, for it was here that Bishop Gjeble Pedersson lived and finally succeeded in educating a good, native Norwegian clergy, which gradually supplanted the abominable class Denmark sent.

Denmark’s treatment of Norway in matters of religion was only a sample of her treatment of Norway in all matters. King Christian I wished to arrange a marriage between James III of Scotland and his daughter Margaret, but, as he did not happen to have sufficient money in his exchequer to supply the customary dowry, he promptly pawned the Orkneys for fifty thousand gulden, and the Shetland Isles for an additional sum. Thus poor, downtrodden Norway lost her island possessions, which she had colonized and held for ages. It was a cruel blow, and the land mourned as for the loss of her own children.

To the northwest of Bergen is an interesting tower called Sverresborg, named for Sverre Sigurdsson, the most romantic figure in all Norwegian history, and certainly the country’s greatest king, from the point of view of pure genius. For thirty years, at the end of the twelfth century, the history of Norway is the history of Sverre. Bergen is more closely associated with him than any other town in Norway, for it was here that the “Birchlegs” and the “Baglers,” with whom he was so closely identified, fought for a whole summer.

Sverre was born in the Faroe Isles at a time when Norway was absorbed, as usual, in a red-hot dispute over the succession to the throne. Sverre’s father had been King Sigurd Mouth, and his mother, whose name was Gunhild, had been cook in the king’s service, if the saga is true. At any rate, she was a very sharp-witted woman, and kept his royal parentage secret from every one, even from the boy himself. Magnus Erligsson occupied the throne of Norway and made every effort to exterminate the race of Sigurd Mouth. He heard that there was an illegitimate son of old Sigurd in the Faroes, and he sent a spy named Unas to kill the child. Gunhild cleverly averted this danger by inducing Unas to marry her and become the child’s stepfather. She was in the service of Bishop Matthias as a milkmaid, and she brought up her son with the idea that he should become a priest.

It so happened that when Sverre was a young man there was in Norway a pretender named Eystein Little-Girl. He certainly did not earn his nickname through his shyness in pushing his claims. He organized a small rebel band of brave outlaws and robbers, who succeeded in having him proclaimed king. Soon after, however, Eystein Little-Girl was killed, and his miserable band of supporters, who had come to be called “Birchlegs,” because of their dilapidated appearance and their birch-bark shoes, seemed destined to pass out of existence. They sought a new leader, and at this point Sverre appeared on the scene. They invited him to become their leader, and he accepted.