CHAPTER VIII.
Peculiar livery—Bleke—A hint to Lord Breadalbane—Enormous trout—Trap for timber logs—Exciting scene—Melancholy Jacques in Norway—The new church of Sannes—A clergyman’s Midsummer-day dream—Things in general at Froisnaes—Pleasing intelligence—Luxurious magpies—A church without a congregation—The valley of the shadow of death—Mouse Grange—A tradition of Findal—Fable and feeling—A Highland costume in Norway—Ancestral pride—Grand old names prevalent in Sætersdal—Ropes made of the bark of the lime-tree—Carraway shrub—Government schools of agriculture—A case for a London magistrate—Trout fishing in the Högvand—Cribbed, cabined, and confined—A disappointment—The original outrigger—The cat-lynx—A wealthy Norwegian farmer—Bear-talk—The consequence of taking a drop too much—Story of a Thuss—Cattle conscious of the presence of the hill people—Fairy music.
Taking leave with many thanks of my worthy host and the young lady who is presiding in the absence of his wife, both of whom had shown me no small kindness, I start by boat up the lake. The priest has no less than fourteen Huusmaend (see Oxonian in Norway, p. 8), and one of them, Knut, undertakes to row me up to Froisnaes. His dress is that of the country. Trousers up to the neck-hole of grey wadmel, striped at the sides with a streak of black, and fastened with four buttons at the ankles—the button-holes worked with green worsted ending in red.
As usual, I killed two birds with one stone—advancing northward, and catching trout at the same time. I had flies as well as a minnow trailing behind, and took fish with both, the biggest about a pound weight.
“That’s not a trout; that’s a Bleke,” exclaimed Knut, as I hauled in a fish of about the same weight, but which pulled with a strength beyond his size. They are much fatter and of finer flavour than the trout. By subsequent experience I found Knut to be right. Such a fish at the Trois Frères would fetch its weight in silver. The flesh was paler than that of the trout. Externally, it was of a beautiful dark green on the back, while the sides were whitish, but shaded with a light green. The spots were more purple than those of the trout, while the head and extremity of the body before the tail tapered beautifully. It somewhat resembled a herring in shape: Knut compared it to a mackerel. They never, he said, exceed a pound in weight, but are stronger than a trout of equal size. Here, then, was a species of fish totally unknown to Great Britain. Indeed, there are many fish in Scandinavia which it would be worth while to try and naturalize among us. The cross, for instance, between a Jack and a Perch to be found in the Swedish lakes, and better than either; why does not Lord Breadalbane, the second introducer of capercailzie into Scotland, or some other patriot, apply his mind and resources to this subject?
The trout in this lake run to an enormous size. They have been seen two or three ells long. These large fish are seldom visible, generally frequenting the deeps. In all these waters the saying is, “we catch most fish in the autumn” (til Hösten, Scoticè, ha’st): i.e., when the fish approach the shallows to spawn.
The waters of the lake, which were in some places from one to two miles broad, and studded with wooded islands, now contract, and separate into two narrow channels. Advantage is taken of the situation to set up a log-trap below—i.e., a circle of logs fastened end to end with birchen ropes rove through eye-holes. In this pound are caught the timbers that have been floated down from above. Hundreds of prisoners are thus caged without any further fastening; but escape is impossible, unless they leap over the barrier, or dive beneath it, both which are forbidden by the laws of gravity. If they were not thus formed into gangs they would get playing the truant, and lounging in the various bays, or become fixed fast on shore. When the circle is full, advantage is taken of the north wind which prevails, and off the whole convoy is started down south without any human attendants.
Before long we reach a very striking spot. The lake, which had again widened, now narrows suddenly, and the vast body of limpid water rushes with tremendous rapidity through a deep groove, about thirty feet wide, cut by Nature through smooth sloping rocks. Ever and anon a log, which has been floating lazily from above, and has, all on a sudden, found itself in this hurly-burly, comes shooting through in a state of the utmost agitation, occasionally charging, like a battering-ram, at a projecting angle of the wall; while others, with no less impetuous eagerness, race through the passage a dozen abreast; the outsiders, however, get caught in the eternal backstream below, and go bumping, shoving, and jostling each other for hours before they can again escape from the magic eddy.
The stream being too strong to admit of our getting the parson’s boat up this defile—let alone the perfect certainty of a smash if we attempt to run the gauntlet through this band of Malays running amuck—the boatman starts off with some of my luggage on his shoulders to engage a boat at the ferryman’s, lying through the pine grove.