But the finest illumination of all is “under foot.” All the way from Trondhjem to Narvik we sailed through a sea of phosphorus. Imagine, Judicia, the brightest firefly or glowworm that you ever saw, and then picture several hundred of them together in a compact mass, and you will have some idea of one of the little floating islands of phosphorus through which we passed. I saw some of these greenish light globes that seemed as big as a grapefruit. It was as if green arc lights were strewn about promiscuously through this whole northern sea. I wish Thomas Edison had been along to tell me how many candle power one of these arc lights possessed, but I am sure that one placed in a dark room would give light enough to read by. This is not a fish story, Judicia. Really you cannot imagine what a brilliant, watery-green glow these Norwegian phosphorus lights give.
All this way we have been sailing on an inland sea, so to speak. The whole coast from Trondhjem to Hammerfest, with the exception of a few miles, is fringed with a belt of protecting islands, and seasickness is about as nearly unknown here as it could be anywhere. The boat stopped at many little fishing stations and gave an opportunity, which the tourist steamers in summer do not give, to see real Norwegian life.
About eighty miles from Trondhjem we pass the island of Almenningen, where are situated the quarries from which the blue chlorite was taken to build the famous Trondhjem Cathedral. From there on we begin to get into the famous fishing country, though we do not reach the center of the industry until we get up to the Lofoten Islands. Norway, as every one knows, is famous for its fisheries. Salmon and cod and herring and sardines are caught by the billion and sent all over the world. A few miles beyond Almenningen we see numerous white streaks on the rocks, which the wily fishermen have painted there, so that the salmon are fooled into thinking them their favorite waterfalls and are thus lured into the nets. At Brönö, about a hundred and fifty miles from Trondhjem, a herring fleet was stationed, waiting for the harvest. This herring fishery is conducted in a most scientific way. Scouts keep an eye out for a sildstim, or shoal of herring, and as soon as one is located they send a hurry call by telegram to the nearest fleet, which is immediately towed to the scene of action by tugboats. Telegrams are also sent in all directions for the purpose of securing a supply of barrels and salt.
Much more interesting than this are the cod fisheries, which were increasingly in evidence as we neared the Lofotens; but I will tell you more about that later.
A most curious rock formation marks the arctic circle, for directly on this imaginary line is a petrified man riding a petrified horse. A little to the north is a rock called the “Maiden of Lekö,” and near by are the “Seven Sisters of Alstahoug”—hard-featured, raw-boned girls, each about four thousand feet tall. Between the seven sisters and the “Maiden of Lekö,” Torg’s Hat lies floating on the sea—a stone hat, eight hundred feet high, pierced by a four-hundred foot tunnel. Perhaps you will be interested, as I was, to know how, when, and why these various people and Torg’s headgear got here. It seems that once the devil’s young brother, who lived in this neighborhood, went to see his seven devilish sisters. During the visit he met a cousin, the “Maiden of Lekö,” and fell in love with her. Unfortunately she did not reciprocate. The devil’s brother then smothered his love in rage, mounted his horse, and set out to kill the maiden. He took his bow and shot an arrow at her. But just at the crucial moment Torg, the hero of the story, saw the danger and threw his hat at the arrow, which pierced it through, four hundred feet (I’m afraid Torg had a big head), and harmlessly buried itself in the land near by. At this point the sun rose and turned everything and everybody to stone. The dramatis personæ and the stage properties continue to exist through all these centuries. The devil’s brother sits on his charger and draws his bow. The maiden looks longingly for Torg, the seven she-devils look on, and the arrow is seen sticking into a near-by island after boring its immense tunnel through Torg’s Hat. This last is a truly wonderful phenomenon, and I know of no other way to explain it than by the arrow theory. The tunnel is four hundred feet long, four hundred feet above the sea, and varies in height from sixty-five to two hundred and forty-five feet.
We are now unmistakably in the north. I have not seen the sun since I left the scene of this ancient drama. For a few hours a day all the southern half of the sky has been illuminated by a soft glow, a cross between dawn and twilight. The combination produces color schemes much more beautiful than either could produce alone, and the always changing and always majestic outline of the mountains adds tremendously to their effect.
It has been warm enough to permit me to stand on deck quite comfortably all the time, and that in spite of the fact that it is midwinter and that I am more than a hundred miles north of the arctic circle. The temperature has a peculiar tendency to actually rise as you go north along this western coast. Even as far north as Hammerfest the water up to the very heads of the still fjords never freezes, while in the Baltic and the Gulf of Finland, about nine hundred miles due south, it is no uncommon thing for the big steamers crossing from Stockholm to be frozen in solid. The mean January temperature of the Lofoten Islands is about the same as that of Berlin, warmer if anything. Hammerfest is in the same latitude as the arctic regions of America, where Franklin perished, and as the uninhabitable regions of northern Siberia, yet the average winter temperature here is rather warmer than in New York. As I write, here in Narvik, January 12, a hundred miles north of the arctic circle and about twenty-nine degrees of latitude north of New York, it is raining, and there is no snow on the ground. Of course I don’t need to tell you that the Gulf Stream is responsible for all this.
Another peculiarity about the coast of Norway is that it is rising bodily out of the ocean. At Trondhjem it is a well-ascertained fact that in the days of Olaf Tryggvesson, who, as I have told you, was king about nine hundred years ago, the coast line there was twenty feet higher than it is now. In Hammerfest there are unmistakable indications of an old coast line six hundred and twenty feet above the present one. In some parts of Scandinavia the land is rising at the rate of five feet in a century. At that rate it will be about ten miles higher a million years from now. Even with my geologically untrained eye I can easily see in many of the fjords distinct lines which must formerly have been on the sea level.
Directly in the center of the stage of this old drama, the “Maiden of Lekö,” is an island called Thjötö or Thjotta, formerly the private property of an earl named Haarek. This Haarek was a heathen earl who lived in the time of the aforementioned Olaf Tryggvesson. Olaf was a Christian king, and consequently he was much distressed that this heathen earl possessed so much power. He accordingly summoned Haarek to his court and told him that he must either be baptized or killed. The former course seemed to Haarek on the whole the more attractive, and in the end he and all his house were baptized.
Perhaps this would be an appropriate time to tell you something about the strenuous methods by which Norway was converted to Christianity. Olaf Tryggvesson was the first great missionary-king, and he attacked with fiery zeal the problem of converting his realm. He was so strenuous that he aroused much anger in his subjects, who finally rebelled. At this, Olaf, who was always equal to any emergency, summoned six of the ringleaders, and holding an ax over the head of each in turn he offered them their choice of being killed or baptized. Most of them chose to be baptized, but one asked the priest where were the old heroes, Harald Fairhair and Halfdan the Swarthy. The priest replied that they were in hell, whereupon the courageous chieftain said very well, he would like to join them, and he was promptly killed. I suspect that in this case the heathen was nobler than the Christians.