In my disappointment over the conventional quality of the wedding, however, I did not forget what I went to the church for. The “He Is Risen” was in a good light, and I enjoyed seeing it. The facial expressions of the three women are fine I think; but I do not care for the angel. I am very particular about angels. You know the picture very well, I am sure, for copies are common in American homes. But you will be surprised to learn that the artist is a Norwegian and that the original is in little old Molde, high up along the fiord-indented coast. Ender did a work on the same subject for one of the churches of Christiania, but the Molde altar piece is generally considered much the finer of the two.
Outside the church were three little booths on wheels in which Norwegian girls with “ratted” hair sold tinted and plain photographic copies of Ender’s painting. Farther along, on the main street of the village, were several curio shops, in the windows of which were displayed objects calculated to attract the tourist:—tiny copies of Viking ships in silver; silver jewelry in imitation of old Norse handiwork; genuine Norse antiquities; Lapp slippers of reindeer skin; ancient furniture upholstered in the richly decorated Jutland leather; carved wooden bridal spoons joined in pairs with carved wooden chains, in imitation of the spoons with which in times past bridal couples ate their “wedding breakfast”; beautiful Scandinavian porcelain; and hideous mugs and other trinkets, made to sell to souvenir-collecting fiends—bearing the legend, “Hilsen fra Molde” (Greetings from Molde). All were jumbled in the windows together.
In the afternoon I left Molde by a little boat for Naes, on Romsdal Fiord. The beauty of the fiords will dwell with me always, for they are by far the most impressive scenery which I have viewed in Europe. Assuredly, the Swiss and Austrian Alps are grandly beautiful, but to one reared among the mountains of the Far West they seem little more than beloved old friends with slightly changed faces. Fiords, on the other hand, were something new in my experience, and I was tremendously impressed and delighted. The Romsdal I consider the most beautiful fiord that I saw, and, therefore, I will try to convey to you something of what it was like. You must bear in mind that, as our old geographies pointed out, fiords are “drowned valleys”; and the mountains rimming the valleys are frequently very sheer and high. Even upon the steepest of them, though, some vegetation manages to find a foot-hold. In many places I noticed trees growing out of what looked like solid rock.
Have you read that most charming first chapter in Björnson’s “Arne” on “How the Cliff Was Clad”? Repeatedly, when gazing admiringly up at some particularly daring tree clinging sturdily to the steep, rocky walls, I thought of this chapter—of the conference between the Juniper, the Fir, the Oak, and the Birch, which ends in the plucky little Birch’s exclaiming: “In God’s name, let us clothe it!”
Much of the pleasure of my fiord voyage came from the shifting of color. As the boat neared one shore the other receded, and golden green turned to blue-black in the deep shadows, and royal purple where there were high lights; and where the sun shone through the rifts in the mountains the slopes were transfigured into deep amethyst and rosy gold; and beyond these, near the high horizon, rose still loftier crests, of the faintest violet, misty and uncertain against the gray sky—like haunting ghosts of pre-glacial ranges. Waterfalls there were in abundance, tumbling over the dark, shadowy walls and sparkling where the sun found them out; perhaps dashed utterly into spray by the sharp ledges, but reuniting into torrents again before reaching the bottom. The deep water of the fiord, too, was beautiful, showing great patches of blues and greens, purples and blacks, and occasionally silver grays. Near the shore were brilliantly-colored jelly fishes, large as breakfast plates, tumbling about. I was sorely torn between my desire to watch these marine blossoms and the wonderful colors of the water, and my wish to absorb the beauty of the mountains. I will not presume to describe the sunset on the fiord; such an undertaking is too rash even for one with my daring.
Gargoyle on Trondhjem Cathedral
Romsdal Fiord, Showing the Horn
I spent the night at Naes, a little village on Romsdal Fiord, but rose early and resumed my zig-zag voyage. As we steamed away from Naes, I secured a fine view of Romsdal Horn, a horn-shaped, snow-crowned peak with veils of mist festooned about its purple slopes, rising far above the other mountains at the head of the fiord. At Vesternaes I left the boat in order to cross by team the neck of the peninsula which separates Stor Fiord from Romsdal. This method of travel is called in Norway, journeying by “skyds.” The vehicle in which I rode is called a “cariole.” This is a rather clumsy two-wheeled cart, with room for one passenger. Sticking out at the back of the vehicle is a saddle-like seat for the driver, who is generally a boy. The conventional cariole seems to be drawn by a fat little Norwegian pony, cream colored with brown trimmings. My pony was correct as to color, but it was very thin, and its harness was so large that it rattled like castanets when the little animal raced down hill.