It is said that the great lake, Wener, even now the largest in Europe, was once much larger; that it once extended to the falls of Trollhättan; that all the low-lying and marshy shores, which are now the delight of ducks and the glory of musquitoes, were once under water, but that the stream having gradually worked its way over the falls, like a saw, continually wearing away the rock from which it fell, and carrying it off, portion by portion, opened a deeper passage, and that the lake has gradually receded to its present limits.
This of course, happened in Preadamite times, or, to use the language of the allegorical history of creation supplied by the prose Edda—in those days, “before the sons of Bör had slain the giant Ymir.”[48] And certainly the formation of the valley afforded some grounds for the conjecture: two low lines of hills, steep and cliff-shaped, suggested readily the idea of Preadamite banks; while the flat bottom of the valley, in many places irrecoverably marshy, in all liable to be covered with water whenever the river is in flood, looked quite as much like the bottom of a drained pond as it did like the real land. It was not without its beauty, either; if ever it had been a lake, it must have been a lake studded with low islands, and these, as well as much of the marshy ground, were covered with forests, hiding, by the luxuriance of their growth, the numerous cultivated spots which intervened.
It was a very different description of scenery to that of Norway certainly, for the hills of Hunneberg and Halleberg, which bound the view to the east and contain some very valuable limestone quarries, are, what limestone soil invariably is, tame and monotonous. They, however, abound in oak—a very rare tree in the north,—and also in deer and roe-bucks, which are not common either, but this being a royal forest, they were probably better looked after than they are in private lands, and Moodie, who, practically, had the rangership, as he was the only man allowed to shoot there, was scrupulously particular, and would as soon have thought of shooting a keeper as of shooting a deer.
The rapids are formed by a ridge of rock which crosses the river, over which it pours down one or two steps leaving deep broad pools of eddying water between them. The whole of this part of the river is overhung with trees of the largest growth which Sweden affords, and is as beautiful a spot as any they had seen. As the rocks are extremely rugged, the river is of very unequal breadth,—the banks, at one place, approaching so near to each other, that an Alpine bridge is formed of pine trees thrown across it. Four of the longest firs that could be found, with their stems resting on the rocks, are tied together in pairs, at their upper ends, by means of two iron bands, forming a broad Gothic arch. This is the skeleton of the bridge; the horizontal timbers, which were laid for the footways, passed them at about a third of their height, like the cross-bar of the letter A, and formed ties to steady them as well as to support the rest of the structure. It was an exceedingly picturesque affair, and told well for the ingenuity of the architect.
This bridge was their first stage. The keeper’s hut commanded the pools both above and below the bridge, and had establishments of boats for both divisions of the river—for there was considerable difficulty in getting a boat from one to the other.
The salmo ferox, when small, is often caught with a fly, and may be so caught when fourteen or sixteen pounds weight, but this is not a very common occurrence. The usual way of fishing for him is with a large litch of six pairs of hooks and a lip-hook, very heavily loaded and baited with a bleak or a gwinead, of which there are plenty in the river. A boat is absolutely necessary. The fisherman stands in the stern, and runs out some thirty yards of the line heavily loaded, with a short stiff pike-rod; the boat must be kept continually traversing the stream, beginning at the head of it and quartering it down to the foot, while the troller at the stern, with the point of his rod low, keeps his bait spinning in jerks,—the object being to imitate a sick or wounded fish. At each turn of the boat, the line must be gathered in by the hand, or the edges of the rapids, which indeed are the most likely parts, would be untried; four out of five fish are caught while the boats are in the act of turning.
This rather monotonous description of sport had gone on for some time, when the Parson felt the rod nearly taken out of his hand by the rush of a fish. The battle was furious, for the salmo ferox does not belie his name, but it was a mere trial of tackle, without any opportunity for the exercise of skill,—carried on, too, at the bottom of water twenty feet deep; and when, after a quarter of an hour’s boring against the bottom, the Parson succeeded in bringing to the gaff his huge capture, he declared he had done enough for fame, struck up his rod, sought the lower pool in pursuit of gös and id, with which, as well as with trout, it was said to abound.
The Swedes say that gös is a fish very difficult to catch; to an Englishman, by far the most difficult part of the business is to name the fish when he has caught it. Certainly, no one is qualified to do so who speaks of Göthe under his English appellations of Goth and Goaty: the dotted o affects and softens the preceding consonant as well as the vowel, and the name of this fish is pronounced much as if it was spelt “yeus,” in French letters. The difficulty experienced by the Swedes in catching it, arises from the fact of its requiring fine tackle in the clear waters which it frequents, instead of the coarse gimp or wire which is sufficient for the rash and headlong pike; in all other respects the habits of the two fish are very similar, except that the gös is a much smaller fish, and very much more prized. For him, the Parson was content with setting lay-lines with live baits and considerable length of fine gut, while he directed his personal attention to the id.
In every particular, except one, the id is a chub; his haunts, his habits, his food are those of a chub; in looks, too—though certainly not altogether so clumsy, and, so to speak, chubby,—he reminds one forcibly of the chub family. He is something like the half-polished parvenu in his transition state of existence, just admitted into aristocratic circles, but, as yet, unable entirely to lay aside his brandy-and-water habits and feelings. In every particular, except one, the id is a chub, and that is, that he is by far the best eating of any of the cyprinæ; in fact, so far as the pot goes, he is a very respectable prize. The Parson, who, in his youth, had caught many a chub, and was fully aware of the zoological affinity of the two fish, was by no means at a loss for subjects of mutual interest between himself and his new introduction; a fly, resembling, as near as it could be made on the spur of the moment, a humble-bee, was tied on his finest gut, and the boat, anchored in the stern, was by slow degrees permitted to descend within long-cast of a still, over-shaded pool: the fly, thrown from as great a distance as he could command, fell as lightly as so clumsy a combination of fur and feathers could be expected to fall, and was moved very slowly and regularly over, or rather through, the water; for, as it may be supposed, the length of line caused it to sink a few inches below the surface.
His science was not unrewarded, for, before long, a sluggish roll in the waters, and a strong, obstinate, pig-headed pull at his line announced a capture. This was quickly followed by others, for id, though gregarious, are quite as indifferent to the troubles of their neighbours as if they were human creatures; provided you do not show yourself and alarm them for their individual safety, their friend may kick and struggle before their eyes, without causing a single wag of their selfish tails.