“Are you cold, Björn?” said the student.
“No; the Björn is never chilly,” was the facetious reply. The nearest approach to a witticism I had ever heard escape the mouth of a Norwegian peasant.
Two or three miles to the right we descry the river descending by a huge cataract from its birthplace among the rocky mountains of Upper Thelemarken. Presently we join what professes to be the high road from Christiania, which is carried some twenty miles further westward, and then suddenly ceases.
Long after midnight, we arrived at the Rectory House at ——, where I was to sleep. Mr. —— was an intelligent sort of person, very quiet and affable, and dressed in homespun from head to foot. After breakfast, the staple of which was trout from the large lake close by, I offered him a weed, which he declined, with the remark, “Ieg tygge,” I chew. The ladies, as usual, are kind and unassuming, with none of the female arts to be found in cities. A friend of mine, proud of his fancied skill in talking Norsk, was once stopping at a clergyman’s in Norway, when he apologised to the ladies for his deficiencies in their language. He was evidently fishing for compliments, and was considerably taken aback when one of them, in the most unsophisticated manner, observed, taking him quite at his word, “Oh yes, strangers, you know, often confound the words, and say one for another, which makes it very difficult to comprehend them.”
Ludicrous mistakes are sometimes made by the Norwegians also. An English gentleman arrived at a change-house in Österdal late one evening, and was lucky in obtaining the only spare bed. Presently, when he was on the point of retiring to rest, a Norwegian lady also arrived, intending to spend the night there. What was to be done? Like a gallant Englishman as he was, with that true, unselfish courtesy which is not, as in France, confined to mere speeches, he immediately offered to give up his bed to the “unprotected female,” who was mistress of a little English. “Many thanks; but what will you do, sir?” “Oh! I will take a chair for the night.” At this answer the lady blushed, and darted out of the room, and in a few minutes her carriole was driving off in the darkness. What could be the meaning of it? The peasant’s wife soon after looked into the room, with a knowing sort of look at the Englishman. He subsequently discovered the key to the enigma. The lady thought he said “he would take a share,” and was, of course, mightily offended. So much for a smattering of a foreign language. Doubtless, from that day forward, she would quote this incident to her female friends as an instance of the natural depravity of Englishmen; and this scapegrace would be looked upon as a type of his nation.
The priest has some knives, the handles of which are of ivory, and exquisitely carved in a flowing pattern. They cost as much as three dollars apiece, a great sum. But the artificer, who lives near, is the best in Thelemarken, the part of Norway most celebrated for this art. The patterns used are, I hear, of very ancient date; being, in some instances, identical with those on various metal articles discovered from time to time in the barrows and cromlechs.
The walls of the sitting-room are hung with some engravings on national subjects, e.g., “Anna Kolbjörnsdatter og de Svenske,” “Olaf, killed at Sticklestad,” and “Konrad Adeler, at Tenedos.” Kort Adeler, whose name lives in a popular song by Ingemann, was born at Brevik, in 1622, but took service under the Venetians, and on one occasion fought and slew Ibrahim, the Turkish admiral. Ibrahim’s sword and banner are still to be seen at Copenhagen. Adeler’s successor, as Norwegian Admiral, was the renowned Niels Juel, the Nelson of the North.
I saw tossing about the Manse an old Runic Calendar, which nobody seemed to care anything about. It was found in the house when the parson came there, and appeared occasionally to have been used for stirring the fire, as one end was quite charred. Without much difficulty I succeeded in rescuing it from impending destruction, and possess it at this moment. Some of these calendars are shaped like a circle, others like an ellipse. They were of two kinds. Messedag’s stav (mass-day stave) and Primstav. But the latter term properly applies to a much more complex sort of calendar than the other. It contained not only runes for festivals and other days, but also the Sunday letter or quarters of the moon for every golden number. Its name is derived from prima luna, i.e., the first full moon after the vernal equinox. The primstav proper was generally four feet long. The almanack I here obtained is flat, and figured on two sides, not as some of the old Anglo-Saxon calendars were, square, and figured on four sides. It is shaped like a flat sword, an inch and a half broad and half an inch thick, and is provided with a handle. The owner of it appears to have been born on the 6th June, as his monogram which is on the handle occurs again on that day. On the broad sides the days of the week are notched, and on the narrow sides there is a notch for every seventh day; i.e., the narrow sides mark the weeks, the broad sides the days.
The day-marks or signs do not go from January to July, and from July to December. On the one side, which was called the Vetr-leid, winter side, they begin with the 14th of October, or “winter night,” and reach to the 13th of April. On the other side, which was called the summer side, they begin with the 14th of April “summer night,” and go to the 13th of October. The runes, or marks distinguishing the days, are derived from a variety of circumstances: sometimes from the weather, or farming operations, or from legends of saints. But it must be observed that hardly two calendars can be found corresponding to each other. Some are simpler, others more complex. In some, one saint’s day is distinguished, in others another. Winter then began with the old Norwegians on the 14th of October; Midwinter was ninety days after—i.e., on the 11th January, and Midsummer ninety-four days from the 14th of April.
The great winter festival in honour of Thor, on 20th January, was called Höggenät, i.e.—slaughter-night.[4] This word is derived from högge (to cut or hew), on account of the number of animals slaughtered in honour of Thor. The word still survives in Scotland, in Hogmanáy (the last night of the old year).