The Troltinderne by Moonlight.

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The previous woodcut shows the north side of the house and farm-buildings. The stabur, or provision-house, is there, with the bell above. This bell is rung regularly for the farm labourers to come in, as they are always fed by the bönder, and the meals, though very simple, seem frequent. It was at this good hostelry that Lady Di Beauclerc stopped and described the French count who was in search of good “chase” of reindeer there, and the lady whose pursuit was le saumon, and who had a fly of the same colour as her costume. One becomes imperceptibly very curiously impressed by an association of ideas. Several people have mentioned that they felt rather surprised that they had never seen the count with his French hunting horn, nor the lady. There is still an idea that their ghosts linger about the spot, waiting, we suppose, for the reindeer and the salmon to come to them. The friend who was so kindly received here some twenty years ago was offered a little fishing by Herr Landmark. A portion of the river Rauma runs in front under the house, and the good sport made the happy fisherman rabid for life on salmon: he has been to Norway almost every year since, and taken many with him.

A few miles above Aak, leaving the sand plateau behind, we enter the Romsdal valley proper, with the Romsdal Horn rearing its grand peak on the left. The Troltinderne, or the Witches, is one of the most remarkable groups of fantastically jagged rocks in Norway, ever varying in effect, the mist wreathing and most delicately veiling or throwing a film over them, which makes them more gigantic and weird than ever. The outline of the peaks when clear is very serrated indeed, and with the Northern people a fair share of superstition attaches to them. These two elements have brought about the tradition that the series of aiguilles represent a wedding party going to the church. First, the spilleman (fiddler), then the kanderman (best man) with a tankard; the next large peak is the priest; then come two peaks, turning away as it were one from another: these were the unhappy bride and bridegroom, who foolishly and injudiciously quarrelled. Next come the father and mother. But the most curious character yet remains. By the side of a sharp point is a mass of rock, which certainly does look very much like a figure: this is the disconsolate lover, who, seeing that the bride and bridegroom had already quarrelled, makes a frantic rush to cut in and carry off the lady. This must have been the precise moment when they were all turned into stone, and so they remain, a warning to all frequenters of the valley. That the peasants believe in spirits and “little people” living on the fjeld, even in this year of grace, cannot be denied, as they say they do; but why they should think that these little people have blue heads I cannot imagine.

Meal House: Fiva, Romsdal.

Exactly opposite to the Romsdal Horn, on the other side of the valley, is an immense couloir, originally an enormous landslip, leaving the perpendicular sides of the Troltinderne to gradually crumble and fall down, the finer stuff and débris filling up the interstices between the bigger rocks. After frost the thunder of the falling rocks and stones into this terrific shoot will last as long as thirty seconds, and the nightfalls create constant alarm to new-corners; whereas the elve-wakker, or river-keeper, merely remarks, “The old ladies are quarrelling,” or “The old ladies have finished aftenmad and are throwing out the bones.” Still, this brings about a new range of thought to a person who has never observed portions of the earth’s surface in motion. After seeing a huge rock, the size of a stucco-faced villa, hop down the side of a mountain, there arise a certain impressiveness and grandeur unknown before. About once a year there is an important landslip in Norway—hardly more. Most of the loose rocks have their regular grooves, and the peasants know how to avoid them; still, as the vast country is so sparsely inhabited, many must occur which do not “get into the papers.” A curious instance of the effect of a small landslip occurred in this valley to an old man personally known to us. A slip came down behind his house, of good timber stuff, and fortunately stopped just short of it. He and his wife decided to leave, and go to live at a place called Aalesund; they did so for a twelvemonth, after which time they became home-sick, and, chancing all further damage, returned to the old house, where they were living very happily last year. In another part a description will be given of an important steen-skreed—a scene of terrible destruction and considerable interest.

The Laave at Fiva: Romsdal.

The centre of the valley has two or three good farms, highly productive for Norway, and presenting a very curious appearance to a foreigner when the corn is cut, as the sheaves are stuck upon a pole, sometimes five, sometimes ten, with the head facing the sun, and, as the sun works round, the heads of corn are kept turned to it, so as to get the greatest amount of heat, which is an advantage when the peasants arrive at the happy time for carrying their corn, as they have only to pull up the stakes with the five or ten sheaves on them, and they are easily carried. Whilst on the subject of corn-drying, it is a most remarkable thing that during the fine weather of the short Norwegian summer the wind helps materially by blowing what the natives call a sol-gang: the wind goes round with the sun all day, beginning to blow from the east in the morning, clue south at mid-day, and north-west in the evening.