Cousin-hunting in Scandinavia

by Mary Wilhelmine Williams

Christiania has a large art collection, and one which surprised me by the number of works by native artists which it contains. Munthe is well represented; his subjects are always interesting, and his colors are remarkably clear and fresh. Edvard Munch’s pictures, on the other hand, were too sensational to suit me; he is too much of an extreme impressionist, though I must acknowledge that some of his splashes are very effective. Many paintings by Christian Krogh are in the museum. They are mostly of Scandinavian sailors, and are well done, but I was disappointed in Krogh’s conception of Leif Ericsson discovering America. Leif and his men do not look sufficiently adventurous to sail uncharted seas; their faces are lacking in expression. Among the sculptures I cared most for were those of Stephen Sinding who is generally considered the leader in Norwegian plastic art. His bronzes of “A Slave Mother” and “Two People” are very fine.

You have heard of the Gokstad ship, I am sure—the Viking ship which was dug from a burial mound near Christiania in 1880. This ship is on exhibition in a shed back of the University buildings in Christiania. Naturally, I was very much interested in the thousand-year-old vessel and its contents. It is the typical sharp and narrow sea-going craft of the Viking Age, clinker-built, of oak, with seams caulked with yarn made from cow’s hair. The length is about seventy-eight feet, and the width, seventeen. When the wind was favorable, a single, large square sail was hoisted; at other times the vessel was propelled by sixteen pairs of oars. In preparation for its last service as the sepulcher of a Norse chieftain, the ship was festively adorned with a row of circular shields on either side.

It happened that the entombing took place in potter’s clay, which is plentiful near Christiania, and this acted as a perfect preservative for the whole of the vessel, except the ends, which projected above it. In the middle of the ship was the burial chamber with the bed on which the warrior was placed, clad in richly embroidered garments of silk and wool. Beside him were buried various weapons and utensils which might be of use on the voyage to Valhalla, or might prove handy after arrival. With the chieftain were also buried his pet peacock and about a half dozen dogs and a dozen horses, all of the animals undoubtedly being killed at the time of the burial, in order that their spirits might accompany that of their master to the Land of the Hereafter. This was the custom of the ancient Scandinavians.

This expensive equipment of the dead was, to be sure, a great economic waste, but it was not so regarded by the heathen Scandinavians. According to their view point, such provision as they made was merely humanitarian and decent. Only the most heartless or foolhardy would send forth their dead unequipped into the unknown; if pity or a sense of duty did not cause relatives or friends to follow the usual custom, fear of being haunted by the wronged ghost was pretty certain to force them into conformity.

In one of the cases along the walls of the exhibition shed are some of the feathers of the peacock, still showing an iridescent gleam. And in another one are the bones of the warrior, which indicate that he was a man of great size. Physicians who have studied the remains have even discovered that the man was afflicted with a disease of the bones, which may have been the cause of his death.

The Gokstad ship was of special interest to me because it was the model for the Viking which attracted attention at the Columbian exposition at Chicago. The history of the Viking is so interesting that I cannot resist the temptation to tell you about it for fear that you may have somehow missed the story. Before the exposition, when preparations for it were under way, as was quite proper, the whole world—except the land of Scandinavia—was putting tremendous emphasis upon the discovery of Columbus. Naturally, the Scandinavians were not so enthusiastic, for, as every Scandinavian school child will tell you, had not Leif Ericsson discovered America nearly five centuries before Columbus was seized with his bright idea of sailing west to reach the east? Was it the fault of these sea rovers that the world was not yet ready to appreciate their discovery? Or that they themselves did not appreciate it? Had not they discovered it just the same? Did Columbus or his age appreciate his discovery? Thus challenged the children of the Vikings; and a discussion followed.

Some of the members of the Columbian party, interested in the models of the caravels of Columbus which were to be sent to Chicago for the exposition, were so daring as to declare that the Northmen could not possibly have crossed the Atlantic in their little Viking boats; hence, they said, the saga story of Leif Ericsson’s discovery was pure humbug. This helped fix the determination of the Norwegians to “show” the anti-Viking party. For there was the Gokstad ship unearthed but a few years before. And from this vessel was modeled the Viking, exactly like this ship of the ninth century in size and pattern, except that the stern and bow were restored and finished off with a carved wooden dragon’s head and tail, splendidly gilded, after the style of the ancient Scandinavian ships. Manned with a picked crew of Norwegian sailors, the Viking was sailed and rowed over the wide Atlantic. Once the vessel was reported foundering; at times the skeptical captains of passing steamships offered to tow the Viking for the rest of the voyage; but the champions of Leif Ericsson scorned to have their vessel towed across the ocean, as were the “Columbus washtubs,” as the Viking’s crew called the models of the Columbus caravels. Their ancestors had rowed and sailed across the Atlantic in craft of the Viking build, and they proposed to sail and row there in the Viking. And after a long, weary, mediæval sort of voyage of six weeks, they arrived in triumph at New York Harbor. The Viking was propelled up the Hudson, but its captain submitted to be towed through the Erie Canal, after which it was again sailed and rowed the remainder of the distance to the Exposition City. It now stands in a shed behind the Field Columbian Museum in Jackson Park, where I saw it a couple of years ago. And its ancient prototype stands in a similar shed behind the University of Christiania. Thus ended the Norwegian lesson.

But, in itself, the Oseberg ship and its contents interested me much more than did the Gokstad vessel. The Oseberg ship was unearthed only in 1903. It, like the one from Gokstad, was discovered in a stratum of potter’s clay near Christiania. Like the Gokstad vessel, it also had been used as a sepulchral ship. The recently-discovered vessel, however, is of quite a different style; it is flat-bottomed and richly carved and was evidently intended not as a swift-sailing vessel of commerce or war, but as a pleasure barge for use on the fiords.

The Oseberg ship stands in a shed near that from Gokstad; but though the pamphlet which I bought at the door of the shed mentioned a rich treasure of contents as having been discovered in the vessel, I was disappointed not to find any of them near at hand, as were the contents of the other sepulchral vessel.

Later, I went to the Historical Museum, which has a collection from prehistoric days of the same general character as those of Denmark and Sweden, proving conclusively that Danes, Swedes and Norwegians all are brethren.