It is difficult to become accustomed to the long twilights in Norway. One can read and write at a window as late as ten o'clock without difficulty, and during the months of June, July, and August few artificial lights are used, either in the streets or in the shops or in the residences. A candle is usually kept handy for an emergency, but it is light enough to dress and undress at any hour of the night, and it seems childish to go to bed before dark. The hours for meals are awkward to those accustomed to American ways. Breakfast is usually served from seven till nine o'clock. Four o'clock is the fashionable dinner hour, without luncheon. After dinner men return to their business and keep open their shops and offices until a nine or ten o'clock supper during the long days.
No one will ever starve to death in Norway. American palates may not always crave the food, but they can not complain of its abundance. The table is usually loaded with all sorts of fish and cold meats, both fresh and preserved, that foreigners are usually afraid of. The Norwegians are fond of things with a pronounced flavor, the more pronounced the better, and cheese is one of the chief articles of diet. A Norwegian housewife would not consider a meal complete without five or six different kinds of cheese of all degrees of pungency in taste and odor upon the table. At breakfast you are served sardines, anchovies, smoked salmon, dried herring and five or six other kinds of fish and an equal variety of cheese before they think of offering you coffee and meat and potatoes. You get seven or eight kinds of bread also, but it is all cold. The national bread, which is made of flour, water and a little salt, with a sprinkling of caraway seed, rolled very thin and punctured with holes like a cracker, is baked only once or twice a year, and then in large quantities, as New England women bake mince pies and put them on the top shelf to season. It is called grovboröd, and tastes like a water cracker.
The servant-girl problem has been solved in Norway to the satisfaction of all concerned, although it is doubtful whether a similar solution would be accepted by domestic servants in the United States. In large cities like Bergen and Christiania, there is a central employment bureau under the direction of the municipal government, and twice a year—one week before New Year's day and one week before St. John's day, the 24th of June—there is a general change of servants by those who are dissatisfied with existing conditions, and engagements are made for the ensuing six months of the year. Families who want servants, fill out blanks setting forth what is required and the wages they are willing to pay. These are filed at the employment office and are noted in a conspicuous manner upon a blackboard. Women or men in search of employment go to this bureau during the weeks named, examine the blackboard, and apply to the clerk in charge for further information.
If they desire to apply for a particular position, they submit their recommendations to the clerk, and if he is satisfied, he gives them a card to the lady of the house. That card is good for the day only, and must be returned by the lady of the house before the close of office hours. If the girl is engaged, the blanks upon the card are filled out with a general statement as to her duties, the term of service, and the wages agreed upon, and the card is filed away for reference if necessary. If the lady of the house is not satisfied with the applicant, she sends her away and returns the card marked "not satisfactory," with the request that other applicants be sent her. If the applicant is satisfactory, the lady of the house pays her a bonus of one krone or two kroner called "hand money"—that is, she crosses her hand with silver as an evidence of good faith—and the girl agrees to report for duty within one week after New Year's or Midsummer's day, as the case may be. That is to allow her present employer to fill her place. In some of the smaller towns the dates for changing servants are April 14 and October 14.
The law protects both the employer and the employed. The employer guarantees to give the servant a comfortable room, wholesome food, take care of her if sick, and pay her wages regularly as agreed upon during good behavior; while the girl agrees to perform her duties faithfully during the term for which she is engaged. If there is any complaint upon either side, it must be made to a magistrate, who investigates and decides between them. A family can not get rid of a servant during her term of employment without official intervention. On the other hand, the girl's wages are a first lien upon their property for the entire term, although judgment must be rendered and made a matter of record. If a servant runs away from her employer, she can be arrested and fined. Cooks are paid from $4 to $7 a month; housemaids from $3 to $6 a month; men butlers from $10 to $15; coachmen from $12 to $16 a month; scullery maids and men of all work receive corresponding wages.
Nearly all of these domestic customs here related apply to Sweden as well as Norway, and there are many interesting additional ones. In Sweden the state dinners at the palace are always at six o'clock. At nearly all the other courts of Europe it is customary to dine at eight o'clock. The king's dinners are short, his guests seldom remaining more than an hour at the table, after which the ladies adjourn to one of the drawing rooms, the gentlemen to the smoking room, and later all are entertained by musicians from the opera house or the royal conservatory. Carriages are usually ordered at ten o'clock. This seems old-fashioned, but for people who like to go to bed early and those who are occupied with business all day it is much more sensible than the custom followed in some cities, where social festivities do not begin until the hour when the king of Sweden's guests are bidding him good night.
But everybody complains that the Swedes are drifting away from old customs and are becoming modernized. The French influence seems to prevail, and modern Swedish life is becoming an imitation of that of Paris.
Another of the old customs is for people to indicate their business upon their visiting cards. You will receive the card of Lawyer Jones, or Banker Smith, or Music Professor Smith, and so on; and these titles are also used in addressing them. It would seem rather queer for any one in the United States to ask, "Wholesale Merchant MacVeigh, will you kindly pass the butter?" or "Banker Hutchinson, will you escort Fru Board of Trade Operator Jones to the table?" But that is the custom in Sweden and it is observed by children as well as grown people. A lisping child will approach a guest, make a pretty little bob-courtesy, and say, "Good morning, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Fuller," or "Good night, Representative in Congress Boutell." It is customary for ladies to print their maiden names upon their visiting cards in smaller type, under their married names, particularly if they have a pride of family and want people to know their ancestry.
To see the old Swedish customs that have almost entirely disappeared from the country, one must go to the hill districts of Dalecarlia, where the people are so unlike the rest of the Swedes in their dress, their customs and habits, and in many other respects as to almost seem another race.
The Dalecarlians are great dancers, and the social gatherings at their homes during the winter are always accompanied by that form of amusement. During the summer they dance in the open air. On St. John's Day the entire population, old and young, dance around a May-pole erected at some convenient place, and at harvest time, whenever the last sheaf in a field is pitched upon the cart or the stack, it is customary for somebody to produce a musical instrument, a violin, a nyckleharpa, a harmonicum, or perhaps only a mouth organ, and everybody—for the boys and girls of the family all work together in the hay and harvest fields—join in a dance before returning home.