Bears and wolves are still found in Norway and add a decided thrill to the life of the adventurous hunter. There is a single island off the mouth of the Trondhjem Fjord which has an almost complete monopoly of the red deer. For some strange reason the red deer has disappeared throughout the length and breadth of peninsular Norway, but still abounds on this island of Hitteren.
I confess, Judicia, that I have not shot or caught a single bird, beast, or fish during all these past months, but I have seen a good many of them, and I have been much interested in reading the accounts of those who are initiated. One sportsman has amused himself and others by making a collection of the names by which different groups of animals are designated in the sporting world. He does not confine himself to Norway, but goes far afield and finds no less than thirty-one different names, all meaning “group.” Besides the common and well-known designations, he speaks of a “nide” of pheasants, a “wisp” of snipe, a “muster” of peacocks, a “siege” of herons, a “cast” of hawks, a “pride” of lions, a “sleuth” of bears, and several others equally fantastic and unfamiliar.
The most peculiarly national animal in Norway, whether he is designated collectively as a “pride” or a “muster” or a “siege” or otherwise, is the lemming. The lemming is a fierce little brute, about the size of a rat, but when brought to bay he is a most dangerous enemy. Ordinarily he is a rather harmless, useless beast, but once in awhile he becomes a national scourge. Such occasions are called “Lemming Years.” For some unaccountable reason swarms of lemmings are born, and they come sweeping over Norway in great waves. For days a ceaseless army of them marches seaward, and nothing can stop them. They eat all that lies in their path, and leave a track of devastation behind them like a plundering army of soldiers. They look neither right nor left, but travel straight on until they reach the open sea. They plunge down the mountain sides into the fjords, blindly and madly, and are soon drowned. It would be well for Norway if they all reached the sea, but alas, thousands fall by the wayside. Wells are choked up with their bodies, and the water is poisoned, so that “lemming fever” is the inevitable sequel to a lemming raid. I believe there has not been a big raid since 1902, but every summer the farmers expect them again and are filled with dread.
Returning to Domaas, we jog along in our carriole down to Otta in the Gudbrandsdal. Between Domaas and Otta, at a place called Kringen, the road “runs like a narrow ribbon between the steep cliff on the one side and the foaming river on the other.” Here, in 1612, six hundred Scottish mercenaries, hired by Gustavus Adolphus, landed at what is now Næs and prepared to walk to Sweden by way of the Romsdal and Gudbrandsdal valleys. At Kringen the Norwegians collected big boulders at the top of the cliff. A peasant girl named Pillar Guri stood on the opposite side and blew a horn to let her compatriots know just when the Scottish soldiers were passing below. At the signal the fatal shower descended, and it is said that not one of the six hundred escaped. Truly “into the valley of death rode the six hundred.” A monument has been placed on the spot to commemorate the event.
Now, Judicia, will you be an obliging chessman? If so, take two jumps backward and one to the right and land at Loen on the Nordfjord. There is an excursion from here to Lake Loen which offers something unique to the weariest and most blasé globe-trotter. Lake Loen is buried in the midst of the wildest, glacier-surmounted hills, and it almost seems an intrusion for prying eyes to visit it, yet it must submit not only to this indignity but to the positive disgrace of having a little steamer, by name the Lodölen, chug through its quiet waters. In some places great, jagged masses of glacial ice actually overhang the lake, hundreds of feet in air, and at times fragments break off and plunge down into the water.
Our little steamer Lodölen is rather a curiosity, for its engine was taken from the wreck of a former ship. Some years ago the Lodölen’s predecessor was quietly making its way along the eastern end of the lake when without warning a whole mountain, or at least a large part of a mountain, tumbled bodily into the lake. A tidal wave was created which caught the steamer and carried it far up the mountain side. To-day, from the deck of the Lodölen, we can see the wreck of the old ship whose engine is propelling the new. Perhaps the guardians of the lake rebelled at the indignity of having a steamer invade its quietness, and took this means of showing their displeasure; but persistent humanity seems to be unwilling to be thwarted. Perhaps some day the Lodölen will meet with a similar fate and another steamer take its place.
The Sognefjord south of the Nordfjord is not only the deepest, but also the largest. For a hundred and thirty miles it stretches its branches into the heart of Norway. Indeed, it is shaped like a tree, the trunk being the main fjord. The great boughs which come out from this mighty trunk twist and taper into the most delicate twigs, and here and there diminutive dals and hamlets present the appearance of leaves and buds, if you will permit your fancy to roam so far. Many authors are tempted into the most fanciful descriptions of Sogne’s grandeur. If you could see the dramatic audacity of nature here I am sure you would forgive even the extravagant imagination of the following description, which I quote from O. F. W.:
“Ever since the dawn of time these mighty graystone giants of the Sognefjord have sat there gloomy and stanch. Age has set deep marks on them. Their visages are now furrowed and weather-beaten, and their crowns snowy white. But their sight is still keen. When the storms of winter come sweeping in with the wild sagas of the sea, there is a blaze under those shaggy brows. They roar with hoarse voice across to one another when the rains of spring set in. In the dark autumn nights they shake their mighty limbs with such a crash and roar that huge masses scour down the slopes to the fjord, sweeping away all the human vermin that has crawled up and fastened itself upon them. Only during the light, warm, summer nights, when the wild breezes play about them and all the glories of the earth are sprinkled over them, when islands and holms rise out of the trembling sea and swim about like light, downy birds, when the birch is decked in green and the bird cherry is blossoming, the seaweed purling and the sea murmuring—then the deep wrinkles are smoothed out, then there falls a gleam of youth over the austere faces.”
Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.