Cousin-hunting in Scandinavia

by Mary Wilhelmine Williams

BERGEN AND CHRISTIANIA

Christiania, Norway,

September 5, 191—

My dear Cynthia:

Last Tuesday I left Aalesund by steamer for Bergen, where I arrived early the following morning. Like practically all of the larger towns of Norway, Bergen is situated upon a fiord and has a very attractive approach from the water. It is the place which is said to have thirteen months of rain per year; and I believe that it deserves the reputation, for did the year contain thirteen months, the Bergen weather clerk would certainly deluge them all. Rain was pouring down when I arrived; it drizzled or poured throughout my stay; and was tapping drearily against the car windows when I departed.

As the Bergen market is particularly famous, I was anxious to see it, and lost no time after my arrival in going there. A great variety of things were being bought and sold:—fruit and flowers—potted and cut—vegetables, dishes, carved trinkets, brushes, brooms; but especially fish; Bergen specializes upon fish. There were dozens and dozens of different kinds of fish; some alive and swimming about in tanks, others dead and sliced. Most of the sellers were from the country and had their goods in hand carts or baskets. The women were kerchiefed and in many cases sat upon small camp stools knitting while waiting for customers. The purchasers were, obviously, mostly town dwellers. Many of them went off with a parcel of “smelly” fish in one hand and a fragrant posy in the other. One chin-whiskered old Norseman strolled off carrying a long fish by the jaws without any wrapping. It was very interesting to watch the bargaining there in the rain. For these people did not mind ordinary rain any more than ducks. When it poured down, the mere onlookers took shelter in neighboring doorways; but the people who had negotiations under way stubbornly stood their ground.

From the market place I went to Haakon’s Hall. This is a restoration and is the lineal descendant of a building erected for festive purposes by King Haakon Haakonson in the thirteenth century, in the days of Norway’s early period of independence. The original hall was soon destroyed by fire, and various new buildings subsequently came to an end in a similar manner; but restorations were always made. The original purpose of the structure was lost sight of, however, and at the close of the seventeenth century Haakon’s banqueting hall had been reduced to the function of a storehouse for grain. Later it became a military prison; and then was elevated to the dignity of a chapel for military prisoners. Finally it reached the nineteenth century—the century of restoration—with a fair fraction of the mediæval architecture still intact; and a little over forty years ago the latest restoration was made. The structure is in the English-Gothic style which characterized it during the Middle Ages. Architecturally it is the only building of its class in the North.

I am very fond of the old Norse sagas, many scenes of which are laid in the ancient banqueting halls, and, consequently, looked forward with pleasure to seeing Haakon’s Hall, though even the original building was constructed after saga days. The vestibule with its ribbed vaulting, at the base of which projected, at right angles to the walls, fish heads in dark carved oak, did much towards exciting my desire to see the main room. Imagine, then, my disappointment upon learning when I reached the hall that it was temporarily closed for repairs. But I did see it after all—or part of it. As I was going down the stairs I met two English women who had been disappointed like myself; and at the bottom of the stairs was a gentleman who formed the third in the party. The gentleman, as I soon found, had explored to great advantage after being turned away from the front door. And I profited by his explorations. “If you want to see the interior of the hall,” said he, “cross that large room on this floor, turn up the stairway to your right, and peek though the keyhole which you will find at the top.” I did as directed, and for the first time in my life realized the possibilities of keyholes as satisfiers of curiosity,—legitimate and otherwise. The keyhole was in a door of the banqueting hall and, like all ancient keyholes, was good and large. Through it I gained a view of the finely vaulted ceiling, the high, dim windows, the guest benches around the walls decorated with massive hand carvings, the dais upon which the seat of the king had stood.

When, in ancient times, the place was the scene of banquets the walls were hung with armor and weapons and with tapestries illustrating the old Norse hero tales; the seats of honor around the walls were occupied by the most distinguished guests; the king sat upon his high seat upon the dais. When the meal was to be served, tables were brought, the white cloth was spread, and upon it were placed in abundance the delicacies of the North—including “clotted milk.” Imagine those doughty old warrior candidates for Valhalla sitting down to partake of anything so meek and mild as clabber milk! But so the sagas tell us they did; and clabber milk, slightly sweetened and spiced, is a favorite dish among Scandinavians even unto the present day. Such feasts also included ample supplies of fish, flesh and fowl. And mead, and wine and ale, dispensed by the hands of the fair hostess and her ladies, flowed mightily.

In the saga period and before it the Scandinavian banquet hall was really very similar to the restoration from the time of Haakon Haakonson. The chief difference was that instead of the great fireplaces along the side walls, which appear in Haakon’s Hall, the fire was simply built on hearths down the middle of the room and the smoke escaped as best it could through a hole above in the roof. Sometimes, when overpowered by the charm of the old sagas, I foolishly look back with wistfulness to those “brave days of old”; but I soon remember the smoky rooms and the flowing drinking horn and then I thank my Stars and Stripes that I am a modern.