“Ah! that’s spraengehesten (horse burster),” said Jörgen. “If a horse eats of this a stoppage of the bowels immediately takes place. A horse at Berge, below there, was burst in this way not long ago.”
[The reader may remember that a similar account was given me last year on the Sogne-fjeld].[30]
We had now emerged from the thickets, and, after crossing a mauvais pas of slippery rock, touched the snow after four hours’ hard walking. The glare of the sun on the snow was rather trying to the eyes, I congratulated myself that I was not shadowless, like Peter Schlemil, as it was a great relief to me to cast my vision on my own lateral shadow as we proceeded. It was first-rate weather, and the air being northerly, the snow was not very slushy. The German painter ought to be here. He told me his forte is winter landscape.
“Now,” said the grave-faced Jörgen, who was at bottom a very good sort of intelligent fellow, “look due east, sir, over where the Sör fjord lies. Yonder is the Foss (waterfall) of Skeggedal, or Tussedal, as some folks call it.”
As I cast my eyes eastward, I saw the highest top of the Hardanger Fjeld, which I traversed last year; my old friend Harteigen very conspicuous with his quaint square head rising to the height of 5400 feet, while his grey sides contrasted with the Storfond to the south and the dazzling white Tresfond and Jöklen to the north.
Straight in a line between myself and Harteigen I now discerned a perpendicular strip of gleaming white chalked upon a stupendous wall of dark rock. That is Skeggedals foss. It falls several hundred feet perpendicularly, but no wonder it looks a mere thread from here, for it is more than fourteen miles off as the crow flies.
“There are three falls at the head of the valley,” continued Jörgen. “Two of them cross each other at an angle quite wonderful to see. They are called Tusse-straenge (Fairy strings).”
Wonderful music, thought I, must be given forth by those fairy strings, mayhap akin to
“The unmeasured notes