“The winter solstice has come, and the sun is at its lowest; but still at midday we can just see a faint glimmer of it over the ridges in the south. Now it is again beginning to mount northward; day by day it will grow lighter and lighter, and the time will pass rapidly. Oh, how well I can now understand our forefathers’ old custom of holding an uproarious sacrificial banquet in the middle of winter, when the power of the winter darkness was broken. We would hold an uproarious feast here if we had anything to feast with; but we have nothing. What need is there, either? We shall hold our silent festival in the spirit, and think of the spring.
“In my walk I look at Jupiter over there above the crest of the mountain—Jupiter, the planet of the home; it seems to smile at us, and I recognize my good attendant spirit. Am I superstitious? This life and this scenery might well make one so; and, in fact, is not every one superstitious, each in his own way? Have not I a firm belief in my star, and that we shall meet again? It has scarcely forsaken me for a day. Death, I believe, can never approach before one’s mission is accomplished—never comes without one feeling its proximity; and yet a cold fate may one day cut the thread without warning.
“Tuesday, December 24th. At 2 P.M. to-day -24° C. (11.2° below zero, Fahr.). And this is Christmas-eve—cold and windy out-of-doors, and cold and draughty indoors. How desolate it is! Never before have we had such a Christmas-eve.
“At home the bells are now ringing Christmas in. I can hear their sound as it swings through the air from the church tower. How beautiful it is!
“Now the candles are being lighted on the Christmas-trees, the children are let in and dance round in joyous delight. I must have a Christmas party for children when I get home. This is the time of rejoicing, and there is feasting in every cottage at home. And we are keeping the festival in our little way. Johansen has turned his shirt and put the outside shirt next him; I have done the same, and then I have changed my drawers, and put on the others that I had wrung out in warm water. And I have washed myself, too, in a quarter of a cup of warm water, with the discarded drawers as sponge and towel. Now I feel quite another being; my clothes do not stick to my body as much as they did. Then for supper we had ‘fiskegratin,’ made of powdered fish and maize-meal, with train-oil to it instead of butter, both fried and boiled (one as dry as the other), and for dessert we had bread fried in train-oil. To-morrow morning we are going to have chocolate and bread.”[25]
“Wednesday, December 25th. We have got lovely Christmas weather, hardly any wind, and such bright, beautiful moonlight. It gives one quite a solemn feeling. It is the peace of thousands of years. In the afternoon the northern lights were exceptionally beautiful. When I came out at 6 o’clock there was a bright, pale-yellow bow in the southern sky. It remained for a long time almost unchanged, and then began to grow much brighter at the upper margin of the bow behind the mountain crests in the east. It smouldered for some time, and then all at once light darted out westward along the bow; streamers shot up all along it towards the zenith, and in an instant the whole of the southern sky from the arc to the zenith was aflame. It flickered and blazed, it whirled round like a whirlwind (moving with the sun), rays darted backward and forward, now red and reddish-violet, now yellow, green, and dazzling white; now the rays were red at the bottom and yellow and green farther up, and then again this order was inverted. Higher and higher it rose; now it came on the north side of the zenith too; for a moment there was a splendid corona, and then it all became one whirling mass of fire up there; it was like a whirlpool of fire in red, yellow, and green, and the eye was dazzled with looking at it. It then drew across to the northern sky, where it remained a long time, but not in such brilliancy. The arc from which it had sprung in the south was still visible, but soon disappeared. The movement of the rays was chiefly from west to east, but sometimes the reverse. It afterwards flared up brightly several times in the northern sky; I counted as many as six parallel bands at one time, but they did not attain to the brightness of the former ones.
Our Winter Hut. December 31, 1895
(By Lars Jorde, from a photograph)
“And this is Christmas-day! There are family dinners going on at home. I can see the dignified old father standing smiling and happy in the doorway to welcome children and grandchildren. Out-of-doors the snow is falling softly and silently in big flakes; the young folk come rushing in fresh and rosy, stamp the snow off their feet in the passage, shake their things and hang them up, and then enter the drawing-room, where the fire is crackling comfortably and cozily in the stove, and they can see the snowflakes falling outside and covering the Christmas corn-sheaf. A delicious smell of roasting comes from the kitchen, and in the dining-room the long table is laid for a good, old-fashioned dinner with good old wine. How nice and comfortable everything is! One might fall ill with longing to be home. But wait, wait; when summer comes....