“By-the-bye,” said the Lehnsman, “our parson has left us, and his successor is not yet arrived; but I think I can get the keys from the clerk, and we will go to the vicarage, and look at the kald-bog (call-book), a sort of record of all the notable things that have ever happened at the kald (living).”
Presently we found ourselves seated in the priest’s chamber, with the said book before us.
The following curious reminiscence of the second priest after the Reformation is interesting:—
“One Sunday, when the priest was just going up into the pulpit (praeke-stol), in strode the Lehnsman Wund (or ond = bad, violent), Osmund Berge. He had on a pair of new boots, which creaked a good deal, much to the scandal of the congregation, who looked upon this sort of foot-covering as an abomination; shoes being the only wear of the valley. The priest, who had a private feud with Osmund, foolishly determined to take the opportunity of telling him a little bit of his mind, and spoke out strongly on the impropriety of his coming in so late, and with creaking boots, forsooth. Bad Osmund sat down, gulping in his wrath, but when the sermon was ended, he waited at the door till the priest came out of church, and in revenge struck him with his knife, after the custom of those days. The priest fell dead, and the congregation, in great wrath at the death of their pastor, set upon the murderer, stoned him to death a few steps from the church, and buried him where he fell. Until a few years ago, a cairn of stones, the very implements, perhaps, of his lapidation, marked the spot of his interment. After this tragical occurrence, the parish was without a clergyman for three years; till at last another pastor was introduced by a rich man of those parts, on the promise of the parishioners that he should be protected from harm.”
I found, in the same book, a curious notice of one Erik Leganger, another clergyman. When he came to the parish, not a person in it could read or write. By his unremitting endeavours he wrought a great change in this respect, and the people progressed in wisdom and knowledge. This drew upon him the animosity of the Father of Evil himself. On one occasion, when the priest was sledging to his other church, the foul fiend met him in the way; a dire contest ensued, which ended in the man of God overpowering his adversary, whom he treated like the witch Sycorax did Ariel, confining him “into a cloven pine.”
A later annotator on this notable entry says, the only way of explaining this affair is by the fact that the priest, although a good man, had a screw loose in his head (skrue los i Hovedet). But this Judæus Apella ought to have remembered the case of Doctor Luther, not to mention Saint Dunstan.
The good Lehnsman, who entered with great enthusiasm into my desire for information on all subjects, now commenced reading an entry made by a former priest, with whom he had been acquainted, of his daily going out and coming in during the period it had pleased God to set him over that parish, with notices of his previous history. His father had been drowned while he was a child, and his widowed mother was left with three children, whom she brought up with great difficulty, owing to her narrow means. Being put to school, he attracted the notice of the master, who encouraged him to persevere in his studies. Finally, by the assistance of friends, he got to the University, earning money for the purpose by acting as tutor in private families during the vacations. At last he passed his theological examination, but only as “baud illaudabilis;” the reason for which meagre commendation he attributes to his time being so taken up with private tuition. At the practical examination he came out “laudabilis,” so that he had retrieved his position. He then mentions how that he was married to the betrothed of his boyhood and became a curate; till at length he was promoted to this place, which he had now left for better preferment, expressing the hope, in his own hand-writing, “that he had worked among his people not without profit. Amen.”
At this moment, the good Lehnsman—whether it was that the heat or his fatigue in my behalf was too much for him, or whether it was that he was overcome by the simple and feeling record of his former pastor’s early struggles—turned pale, and became deadly sick. Eventually he recovered, and, in his politeness, sat down to dinner with me in his own house.
In the evening I took my fly-rod, and went down to the river with a retinue of forty rustics at my heels. The flies, however, having caught hold of one boy’s cap, nearly breaking my rod, the crowd were alarmed for their eyes, and kept a respectful distance, while I pulled out a few trout; an exploit which drew from them many expressions of by no means mute wonder.
After this I sat down on a stone, and had a chat with these fellows. They had evidently got over the feeling so common among the peasantry of being afraid at being laughed at by the stranger and by each other. Many of them blurted out something. Riddles (Gaator or Gaade, allied to our word “guess,”) were all the go. These are a very ancient national pastime. They were, however, of no great merit. Here are specimens:—