[27] Hence evidently comes our “dapple,” i.e., mottled like an apple.
[28] Names of goats.
[29] In the district of Lom, where the climate is said to be the driest in Norway, there are the remains of a house in which Saint Olaf is said to have lodged. There was, not long ago, a house at Naes, in Hallingdal, where the timbers were so huge that two sufficed to reach to the top of the doorway from the ground. This old wood often gets so hard that it will turn the edge of the axe.
[30] It is singular that two peasants in different parts of the country should have made this statement, which seems after all to be based on error: for the plant was nothing but our Rock-brake, or parsley fern (Allosurus crispus), which is not generally supposed to possess any noxious qualities.
[31] The Chinese have a somewhat similar device. “A strip of white canvas is stretched slanting in the water, which allures or alarms the fish, and has the strange effect (but they were Chinese fish) of inducing them to leap over the boat. But a net placed over the boat from stem to stern intersects their progress, and they are caught.”—Fortune’s Travels in China.
[32] Ström, in his description of Söndmör, relates that in the hard winter of 1755, of thirty children born in the parish of Volden not one lived, solely because they were brought to church directly they were born. But even in the present day in the register books (kirke-bog) notices may be found, such as “Died from being brought too early to church.”
[33] What a curious custom that was of the heathen Norwegian gentle-folk to select a friend to sprinkle their child with water, and give it a name. Thus Sigurd Jarl baptized the infant of Thora, the wife of Harald Harfager, and called it Hacon, although this had nothing to do with Christianity, for this child was afterwards baptized by Athelstan, king of England. The heathen Vikings often pretended to take up Christianity, to renounce it again on the first opportunity. Some of them allowed themselves to be baptized over and over again, merely for the sake of the white garments. Others, who visited Christian lands for the sake of traffic or as mercenary soldiers, used to let themselves be primsegnet (marked with the sign of the cross) without being baptized. Thus they were on a good footing with the foreign Christians, and also with their heathen brethren at home. Many of those who were baptized in all sincerity quite misunderstood the meaning of the rite, thinking that it would release them from evil spirits and gramary.
[34] According to the newspapers, a great part of the capital itself has just met with a like fate.