Cousin-hunting in Scandinavia

by Mary Wilhelmine Williams

Rosenkrantz Tower (Right) and Haakon’s Hall (Left), Bergen

Norwegian Mountain Homes

The same King Haakon who built the hall also built the original tower to which at present the name of Rosenkrantz is given. From the square, battlemented top, I obtained a fine view of the city and its environs, and also of the broad wall with soldiers on guard, which connects the tower with Haakon’s Hall. In one of the most innocent-looking walls in the tower the guard showed me a secret door which opened into a secret staircase. Such a staircase in the “brave days of old” occasionally came in handy in enabling one to reach an underground passage and make good one’s escape from one’s warrior neighbors. Beneath the tower is a semi-circular dungeon where these neighbors were at times locked when they were caught. A light was burning in the place when I saw it but this seemed only to burn a small hole in the darkness and to make the intense quality of that darkness visible. There was no provision for light or air from the outside. Again I was grateful to have my turn at living thus late; for though we are not yet so humanitarian as to congratulate ourselves, we have surely progressed a little further toward the recognition of universal human brotherhood than the folk of the time of Haakon Haakonson.

Bergen, you perhaps remember, is the city of the great violinist, Ole Bull. In one of the public squares is a fine bronze statue of him by Stephen Sinding. He is represented as playing upon his instrument, while he stands upon a pile of rough boulders, about which splashes a real fountain. In the water at the base of the statue is a grotesque bronze water sprite which responds to the enchanting call of the violin by strains from a rustic harp. Bull spent many of his later years in the United States but he died in Bergen, where he was buried in the quaint old cemetery under the hill. The ivy-covered tomb is near the entrance. On top of the mound is a bronze urn about four feet high, bearing the simple inscription “Ole Bull 1810-1880.” When I saw it, the urn was wreathed with purple heather tied with the Norwegian national colors like our own, red, white and blue.

I left Bergen by the overland route via Finse. As I before said, it was raining—a discouraging persistent drizzle—when I took my departure. Upon entering my compartment I found a rather frail-looking man, a more frail-looking woman, and a big, fat, rosy-cheeked baby about a year old, whom the man was holding. From their conversation I soon gathered that the mother was on her way to Christiania to visit relatives, that the father was able to accompany her for but a short distance upon the way, and that he was worried lest the long journey and the care of the heavy, active baby would be too much for her. He glanced inquiringly at me several times as we neared the place at which he was to leave the train, and appeared about to speak; but he evidently weakened before my formidable appearance and his request remained unuttered. The minute I had set eyes upon the interesting-looking baby I had determined to borrow her as soon as opportunity offered, and thus pass time on the journey; but as I realized that the father could hardly read my inner thoughts, I proceeded to play with the little Augusta, in order to relieve his mind before he left the train. Greatly encouraged, the man proceeded to tell me what I already knew. I promptly said that I was going directly to Christiania and would take care of the mother and help with the baby all of the way; and that I would not leave them without seeing them safely deposited in the bosom of the Christiania relatives. The relief and gratitude of the man was tremendous. Shortly after that his station was called, so he said good-by, handed little Augusta over to me, and left the train. They had come from Stavanger, the lady told me—the part of Norway where the most interesting peasant costumes of ancient style are still worn. And Herr Larson, her husband, was a pastor there and a teacher in a Lutheran missionary training school.

For a time the road lay along an arm of a fiord, but soon we began a serious climb and presently were again among the rocky, woodsy mountains, with tumbling waterfalls. And in this setting here and there were huts with walls of unhewn stone and roofs of irregular sheets of flat rock laid on in crazy patchwork style, overlapping from the top. Farther on, we passed the timber line, when came the inevitable snow sheds and tunnels, alternating with snowy peaks and great, fantastic, jutting rocks, which in some places overhung the railroad tracks. Near the summit at Finse a peculiar vegetation caught my attention. There were great patches of bright cherry-colored grass, and other plants in bright scarlets and yellows, producing a very pleasing rainbow effect, which was especially welcome in the absence of forests. Beyond the summit, on the descent towards Christiania up among the sunny slopes of the highest mountains, we passed first the saeters, with stone roofs and stone fences, clinging like barnacles to the sheer mountain sides; next came a beautiful farming district suggesting Meraker Dal; and then we stopped at Aal, a small station about which were gathered a number of people in their Sunday clothes—for it was Sunday. The costumes were of the old national style, Fru Larson told me, and were peculiar to the region. The most characteristic garment of the women was a white fringed shawl with borders stamped in bright colors, such as I had also noticed in Dalecarlia, in Sweden. The boys’ and men’s costumes were more unique; they wore short black jackets of the “Eton” cut with a double row of silver buttons in front; a double-breasted waistcoat, also with the two rows of silver buttons; black trousers down to their very heels; and they were topped off with very large black felt hats.

Soon we followed the course of a river again, varied by many beautiful rapids and falls. On this part of the road were also numerous log houses, some weathered and gray, others spick and span in dark red paint which looked as if it had come across the boundary from Sweden. Presently sunset came, followed by twilight and darkness; but occasional lights indicated the vicinity of Norwegian country homes. A little after nine o’clock a great constellation of flickering lights ahead roused my tired traveling companion to remark that this was Christiania. Relatives were at the station to meet her, so after bidding her and little fat, sleepy Augusta good-by, I went directly to a hotel, which was just off Carl Johans Gade.

Carl Johans is decidedly the most important and beautiful street in Christiania. It is wide and clean, and is flanked by handsome buildings and shady parks. At one end, upon a slight eminence, the royal palace stands, surrounded by a fine park. I was told that the palace was open to visitors, so I decided the morning after my arrival to have a look at it; and I planned to go up to the palace on the left hand side of the street and to return on the right. On my way up I passed the building of the Norwegian Storthing, or Parliament, and the imposing National Theatre in Studenten Lund (Students’ Grove). In front of the theatre are bronze statues of Björnson and Ibsen, Norway’s two greatest dramatic writers, by Stephen Sinding. Upon a high pedestal on the hill near the palace is a monument to Niels Henrik Abel, the Norwegian mathematical prodigy, who, with flying hair and an expression of determination on his alert countenance, is represented as treading under foot two figures with ugly, distorted faces, evidently the personifications of Ignorance and Error. Abel was scarcely more than a boy when he died—only twenty-seven—but he left to his credit several mathematical discoveries of first importance.