Around were ranged well-scoured vessels, full of all the mysterious products of the mountain dairy; were I to recount the names of which, the reader, who knows practically of nothing beyond milk and cream, and cheese and butter, would be astonished that so many things, of which he never heard, could be prepared out of simple cow’s and goat’s milk. The only thing that did not quite square with my notions of the idyllic modesty and simplicity of the scene was the sight of a youth, who had come up from the Hardanger, and was a servant of the farmer to whom the sæter belonged, stretched out asleep on Gunvor’s bed.
Refreshed with a lump of reindeer flesh out of my wallet, together with thick milk and brandy, we followed the path in its circuit round some more rochers montonnées, where the action of former glaciers is visible to perfection in the smoothed inclines and erratic blocks now standing stockstill. After many a toilsome up and down, we at length get the first bird’s-eye view of a darksome piece of water, lying thousands of feet below us in a deep trough of gigantic precipices. My destination is the farm-house of Garatun (tun = town, the original meaning of which was enclosure); but to my utter astonishment I find that we have still fourteen miles of toil between us and the haven of rest.
Before long we overtake a singular cavalcade, which afforded an insight into Norwegian peasant life. There were four light little horses, each loaded with what looked like a pair of enormous milk pails. These are called strumpe, and are full of whey or thick milk, or some product of the mountain dairy. Two men followed the horses, each with a sort of Alpen-stock, only that at the end, grasped by the hand, there stuck out a stump of a branch. This I found is not only used as a walking staff, but is also most useful in another way. Each of the pails has of course to be hung on the straddle separately, and unless there is a second man to hold up the pail, already slung, till the other is also adjusted, the straddle would turn round under the horse’s belly, and the pail upset. This crutched stick, therefore, is used to prop up one side until the counterpoising pail is suspended on the other side the horse. Besides the men, there was a young girl, with her fair hair braided with red tape, her bodice of green cloth, while the stomacher or “bringeklut” was of red cloth, studded as usual with strings of coloured beads. A little boy was also of the party, dressed in the costume of the men, the only characteristic feature of which was a pair of red garters, tied over the trousers below the knee, for the purpose I heard of keeping them out of the dirt.
The descent into Tjelmö-dal was terrific. My horse was lightly loaded; but the others were weighted, as I thought, beyond their powers, and the liquid within was alive, and swayed about, and was therefore more burdensome than dead weight proper. But, as usual, the horses were left to pick their own way, which was in places steeper than the ascent of St. Paul’s, the only assistance given them being a drag on the crupper from behind. The crupper, be it said, was not such as one generally sees, but a pole, about two feet long, curved in the middle for the tail to fit into, with either end fastened by wicker straps to the corresponding pail. This pristine contrivance, which has no doubt been in use for centuries, keeps the weight comparatively steady, and eases the horse.
“Who are you? Where do you come from? Are you an Englishman? Are you a landscape painter?” was a part of the volley of questions which they forthwith discharged at the writer of these lines, as he joined the party at the side of a thundering torrent of some breadth and depth—too deep to ford—where the little boy and girl, I observed, were jumping upon the nags.
“May I mount on that horse?” was the short interrogatory with which I answered them, having an eye to the main chance, and thinking that my tired horse, who was moreover far behind, had little chance of getting safely over with me on his back.
“Be so good! be so good! (vær so godt!)” was the good-natured reply, and I was in a moment astride of the animal, after the fashion for riding donkeys bareback in England, i.e., more aft than forward; and, after a few plunges among the stones, we were safe over the cataract. The two men, by the aid of their poles, crossed just above, leaping from one slippery stone to another, at the risk of flopping into the deep gurgling rapids that rushed between them.
We had scarcely got through when a terrible commotion was raised in front, and a simultaneous burst of “burra burraing” (wohoa-ing) ensued from all the party. In turning an angle of the corkscrew descent one of the pails had caught a projecting rock, and become unhooked, and was rolling away, the horse very nearly doing the same thing, right over the precipice. To stop its course, lift it up, and hook it on the straddle, was a task speedily accomplished by these agile mountaineers.
The fright having subsided, off we started again, and the queries recommenced. A Norwegian is a stubborn fellow, and sticks to his point. Little was to be got out of me but parrying answers, and the peasants guessed me of all the countries of Europe, ultimately fixing on Denmark as my probable native country.
After twisting and turning and passing one or two waterfalls of considerable height, we at length reached the bottom of the chasm, in which the river, which I had left some hours before, had forced its almost subterranean passage from the Fjeld. The gigantic wall of limestone on the opposite side rose, I should say at a rough guess, five times as high as the cliff impending over the Giant’s Causeway, and in more than one spot a force tumbled over the battlements.