The other person who kept at home all day, was a young fellow of thirty, with swarthy face and gleaming eyes. His dark, shaggy head of hair was surmounted by a cap like that worn by the Finns, with a bunch of wild flowers stuck in a red band that encircled it. His dress was a short jacket, skin knee-breeches, and jack-boots. His time was occupied between smearing the boots with reindeer fat, sharpening a knife of formidable dimensions, and casting small bullets; while ever and anon he would repair to a small looking-glass of three inches square, hung against the wall, and contemplate a very forbidding, peculiar set of features therein. There was something uncanny about the look of the fellow which I did not much relish. Presently he takes my pipe from the table, and coolly commences smoking it. Subsequently I find that Joh is not as other men are, and only half in possession of his senses.
Some twenty years ago tame reindeer were introduced upon these mountains from Finmark, and great things were expected from the importation; but the enterprize did not answer; and a couple of years ago the proprietors slaughtered all the deer, and there was a great merry-making at a farm called Norregaard on the occasion. Deep drinking was the order of the day; raw potato brandy was gulped down in profuse quantities. For forty-eight hours without intermission did the bout continue. Like Paddy’s noddle in respect to the shillelagh, most of these mountaineers’ heads are proof against the knock-me-down power of strong alcohol. Not so Joh’s, who was one of the party; in the midst of the festivities he lost his reason, and went stark staring mad. It was long before he quieted down; since then he has never done any work, or shared in the labours of the rest of the family; nothing will persuade him, however, to touch brantviin now. The burnt child dreads the fire—the brandy must formerly have had a fearful fascination for him. I drew a cork from a small flask with me; the moment the sound caught his ear, his face whirled round to where I sat with the rapidity of an automaton, and he glared a look of peculiar meaning at me from underneath his heavy eyebrows, which at the time I could not comprehend.
But though he is averse to all regular work, there is one thing I find on which he spares no pains,—reindeer stalking. This is the occupation on which he starts day after day, without speaking a word to the rest of the household; in season and out of it, he is continually alone on the mountains around. Outside the door are a dozen pairs of antlers, the trophies of his skill. Only last week he shot a female deer, the fifth or sixth this summer, although the season fixed by law has not yet arrived. But he is out of the ken of informers.
Drying on the wall outside is a rein-skin, and in the house are two or three hides which his ingenuity has converted into leather. His boots are of that material—so are his knee-breeches. He is often absent for days on the mountain, not unfrequently sleeping under a rock. If he discovers a flock of deer in a spot where the nature of the ground will not permit of his getting within shot, he bides till they move, dodging about unperceived. Not long since, he killed two specimens of the Fjeld-frass, or glutton, whose scent is said to be incredibly keen, nosing wounded game miles off. One of these wretches he saw track and catch and kill a wounded (skamskudt) deer; and while it was thus occupied he stole upon it unawares, and became possessed of deer and glutton both.
At all events, he showed more gumption on this occasion than an English parson with whom I am acquainted. One day he saw that diminutive British equivalent to the glutton—a weazel—pursuing similar tactics—overtake an unfortunate hare. As usual, poor puss was fascinated, and her legs refused their office in the way of flight; but each time the ferocious little creature tried to fasten upon her, she knocked it over with her paws, jumping at it and pushing it over. Off set the parson, not to smash the brute with his cane, but to tell his Grace’s keeper. It is needless to add, that when he returned with that functionary the vampire quadruped had got on the hare’s neck, and sucked all the blood out of its veins, managing to get clean off to boot.
But to return to Joh. Observing me engaged in frying trout, he suddenly exclaims—the first word he had spoken—“Kann De spise reen?” (can you eat reindeer?) “To be sure.” Upon which he bolted out of the hut, and soon returned with a lump of venison weighing perhaps four pounds, which he silently placed on the board. It was evident to me that Joh was a person of capabilities; and I soon got him to work, repairing my knapsack and gun-case. A few artificial flies, of which he was not slow in comprehending the meaning, rewarded his endeavours in the saddler’s art.
Towards evening the family returned from the sæter,—two strapping maidens, Kari and Gunhild, among the number. The occupation in which some of the party forthwith engaged—the mystery or craft of making flad-brod, the national esculent—soon drove me into the fresh air. At a table sits one of the girls, roller in hand, busily engaged in rolling out huge flat cakes of dough, sprinkling them with water by means of a little brush. The Alfred of the occasion was the father of Joh, who, with a sort of trowel, whips up the cakes, and flaps them down on the girdle-iron, a flat disk, about three-quarters of a yard in diameter. At the proper moment he gives them a turn, and in a minute they are done, and whisked into the hands of the other girl, who piles them on a table. The girdle-iron being large, the smoke is prevented ascending the chimney in its natural way, and becomes dissipated all over the one sitting-room of the house, and this it is that drives me out of it.
This favourite food is sometimes prepared in sufficient quantities for a whole winter’s consumption. I have seen, in a large gaard, nearly a dozen Abigails hard at work kneading, sprinkling, rolling, and baking the cakes. The only time when they are endurable to the palate, in my opinion, is when they are just warm off the fire. When warm, they are flexible, and are then folded up compactly, if wanted for travelling.
Another national cake, something like a pikelet in taste and consistency, is the waffel-kage, which is about half an inch thick, oblong, and moulded into squares; this is by no means to be despised.