Cousin-hunting in Scandinavia

by Mary Wilhelmine Williams

Gamla Uppsala church is of such substantial construction as to suggest that in ancient times its functions, like those of the rotundas of Bornholm, were military as well as religious. Its walls are very thick and are of rough, irregular stone, built up with cement which gives them the appearance of conglomerate. The church is very old; in fact, its origin is lost in the mists of the dawn of Swedish history. But this history states that Uppsala was made a diocese early in the twelfth century, and it is believed that the church was established nearly a hundred years before that. Some parts of the present building certainly date well back toward the eleventh century.

A note on the church door informed me that admission could be gained by applying to the schoolmaster or organist, so I went around the parliament mound to the white wooden school building. The schoolmaster’s family lived on the upper floor, and the schoolmaster’s wife responded to my knock, and called her boy—a little chap of nine or ten years, barefooted and close-cropped—who went forth with me, carrying two mighty keys. The smaller of these was about as large as that regularly and conspicuously carried by Saint Peter, and the larger was ponderous indeed. My little boy was, of course, accompanied by another little boy—one about two sizes larger. The ponderous key belonged to the outside door of the church, which was of dark oak, very worm-eaten and old and possessed of decorative wrought-iron hinges with handsome scrolls spreading over its venerable oaken surface. But the key was so large and the boy so small that he had difficulty in turning it in the lock, even though he caught his toes in the scrolls of the hinges and climbed up the side of the door, monkey fashion, to get a purchase upon the key. Through our united efforts, however, the door was finally opened. It admitted us into a tunnel-like, white-plastered vestibule at the end of which was the door for which the smaller key was designed. This key being more nearly the boy’s size, the inner door was opened without difficulty.

The walls of the main room were plastered white, and the altar and pulpit looked quite new; but the church contained many ancient relics. The small boy was evidently the regular exhibitor of these; and he recited his explanation of them with a perfectly expressionless face, and in the mechanical tone of an unimaginative book-agent. “That,” said the infant (in Swedish), “is a Christus from the twelfth century. Those”—pointing to a hideous row of carved and painted wooden saints—“are from the fourteenth century. There is a bridal stool from the Middle Ages.” Back against a wall was a chest which looked many centuries old, made from an unhewn tree trunk, iron bound. When I asked what it contained, he opened the little door or lid on top and fished out a wooden Christus, which consisted only of a very rudely carved body and head. The limbs had been broken or worn off. The figure, the boy announced, dated from the eleventh century. In a little room off the main one were portraits of ancient Swedish clergymen, and censers and other ecclesiastical utensils dating from Roman Catholic times. There was also a copy of the first Bible printed in Swedish. Our round of the church being completed, I paid the boy the fifty-öre fee at the outside door. He uttered the customary “Tack så mycke” (Many thanks), grabbed off his cap with a crisp, business-like “Adjö,” and scampered off, the larger-sized boy close at his heels.

Gamla Uppsala Church

Choir of Gamla Uppsala Church

Late in the afternoon I returned to the new Uppsala; and just before sunset I left for Gefle, which is farther to the north, and is the port and metropolis of Norrland. In Gefle nearly four score years ago my father was born; and some Swedish relatives still live there. These were the attractions which brought me there. From the ordinary tourist point of view the place has little of interest. It is a clean, pretty city, however, with a population of about thirty-five thousand. Gefle is really the oldest town in Norrland, as the northern part of Sweden is called, but it looks very new and modern with its broad tree-planted boulevards and its handsome stone theatre and school and municipal buildings. This is because it has been almost completely rebuilt since 1869, when it was swept by a fire which destroyed all of the landmarks of my father’s boyhood days.

Gefle has one possession of which she is very proud, and justly so. This is her park—one of the finest of the sort in Sweden. It has all of the features which characterize the Swedish park—thick clumps of evergreens and birches, with velvety stretches of grass between, blazing flower beds, graceful fountains playing here and there, artistically bridged mirrorlike streams upon which the lilies grow—and in addition it has a palm garden. There they were growing, evidently in perfect contentment—a large number and variety of palm trees. Gefle, you should know, is north of the latitude of the southern extremity of Greenland; therefore, I marveled greatly and could scarcely believe my eyes. But it was no miracle, as my cousin who was walking through the park with me explained. Those enterprising Swedes set out the palms every spring and dig them up and return them to the greenhouse every autumn.

As time pressed, my visit in Gefle was very short. Early last Wednesday morning I left there to the accompaniment of Swedish cousinly bows and cordial “Adjös” and “Hälsa hemms.” My destination was Söderhamn (South Haven), my present address, which, like Gefle, is on the Gulf of Bothnia, but still farther north. For my journey here, through a mistake, I selected a freight train which carries lumber, instead of an express. But it was really a very fortunate blunder, for the trip was much more interesting than one in the orthodox express would have been. To the north of Gefle is Sweden’s great lumbering district, which we soon entered. It is a rugged region covered with magnificent evergreen forests, dotted here and there by small clearings brightened by the typical red-painted houses with white trimmings. The oat and clover hay grown on the cleared patches was hung on wire clothes-line-like racks to dry. Occasionally I noticed farmers hauling hay in long, very low-wheeled wagons. These vehicles, as compared with the American hay racks, have a decidedly Dachshund appearance. The object of the small wheels is evidently to lower the centre of gravity, and thus prevent the wagons from upsetting upon the steep hillsides. The little barns in which the hay is stored are queer cage-like structures with walls sloping outward from the floors. They are apparently so built to guard against damp weather.