Chapter I: Front Matter

THE OXONIAN
IN
THELEMARKEN;

OR,

NOTES OF TRAVEL IN SOUTH-WESTERN NORWAY
IN THE SUMMERS OF 1856 AND 1857.

WITH GLANCES AT THE LEGENDARY LORE
OF THAT DISTRICT.

BY
THE REV. FREDERICK METCALFE, M.A.,
FELLOW OF LINCOLN COLLEGE, OXFORD,
AUTHOR OF
“THE OXONIAN IN NORWAY.”

“Auf den Bergen ist Freiheit; der Hauch der Grüfte,
Steigt nicht hinauf in die schönen Lüfte,
Die Welt is volkommen überall,
Wo der Mensch nicht hinein kömmt mit seiner Qual.”

“Tu nidum servas: ego laudo ruris amœni
Rivos, et musco circumlita saxa, nemusque.”

IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. II.

LONDON:
HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
SUCCESSORS TO HENRY COLBURN,
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
1858.

[_The right of Translation is reserved._]

LONDON:
SAVILL AND EDWARDS, PRINTERS,
CHANDOS STREET.

CONTENTS TO VOL. II.

CHAPTER I.

Danish custom-house officials--Home sickness--The ladies of
Denmark--Ethnological--Sweden and its forests--Influence
of climate on Peoples--The French court--Norwegian and
Danish pronunciation--The Swiss of the North--An instance of
Norwegian slowness--Ingemann, the Walter Scott of Denmark--Hans
Christian Andersen--Genius in rags--The level plains of
Zealand--Danish cattle--He who moveth his neighbour’s
landmark--Beech groves--The tomb of the great Valdemar--The two
queens--The Probst of Ringstedt--Wicked King Abel--Mormonism
in Jutland--Roeskilde--Its cathedral--The Semiramis of the
North--Frederick IV.--Unfortunate Matilda pp. 1-17

CHAPTER II.

Copenhagen--Children of Amak--Brisk bargaining--Specimens
of horn fish--Unlucky dogs--Thorwaldsen’s museum--The Royal
Assistenz House--Going, gone--The Ethnographic Museum--An
inexorable professor--Lionizes a big-wig--The stone
period in Denmark--England’s want of an ethnographical
collection--A light struck from the flint in the stag’s
head--The gold period--A Scandinavian idol’s cestus--How
dead chieftains cheated fashion--Antiquities in gold--Wooden
almanacks--Bridal crowns--Scandinavian antiquities peculiarly
interesting to Englishmen--Four thousand a year in return
for soft sawder--Street scenes in Copenhagen--Thorwaldsen’s
colossal statues--Blushes for Oxford and Cambridge--A Danish
comedy--Where the warriors rest pp. 18-38

CHAPTER III.

The celebrated Three Crowns Battery--Hamlet’s grave--The Sound
and its dues--To Fredericksborg--Iceland ponies--Denmark
an equine paradise--From Copenhagen to Kiel--Tidemann, the
Norwegian painter--Pictures at Düsseldorf--The boiling
of the porridge--Düsseldorf theatricals--Memorial of
Dutch courage--Young heroes--An attempt to describe the
Dutch language--The Amsterdam canals--Half-and-half in
Holland--Want of elbow-room--A new Jerusalem--A sketch for
Juvenal--The museum of Dutch paintings--Magna Charta of Dutch
independence--Jan Steen’s picture of the _fête_ of Saint
Nicholas--Dutch art in the 17th century--To Zaandam--Traces
of Peter the Great--Easy travelling--What the reeds seemed to
whisper pp. 39-55

CHAPTER IV.

Broek--A Dutchman’s idea of Paradise--A toy house for real
people--Cannon-ball cheeses--An artist’s flirtation--John Bull
abroad--All the fun of the fair--A popular refreshment--Morals
in Amsterdam--The Zoological Gardens--Bed and Breakfast--Paul
Potter’s bull--Rotterdam pp. 56-64

CHAPTER V.

Oxford in the long vacation--The rats make such a
strife--A case for Lesbia--Interview between a hermit and
a novice--The ruling passion--Blighted hopes--Norwegian
windows--Tortoise-shell soup--After dinner--Christiansand
again--Ferry on the Torrisdal river--Plain records of
English travellers--Salmonia--The bridal crown--A bridal
procession--Hymen, O Hymenæe!--A ripe Ogress--The head cook at
a Norwegian marriage--God-fearing people--To Sætersdal--Neck or
nothing--Lilies and lilies--The Dutch myrtle pp. 65-81

CHAPTER VI.

A dreary station--Strange bed-fellows--Broadsides--Comfortable
proverb--Skarp England--Interesting particulars--A hospitable
Norwegian Foged--Foster-children--The great bear-hunter--A
terrible Bruin--Forty winks--The great Vennefoss--A temperance
lamentation--More bear talk--Grey legs--Monosyllabic
conversation--Trout fished from the briny deep--A warning to
the beaux of St. James’s-street--Thieves’ cave--A novelette for
the Adelphi pp. 82-100

CHAPTER VII.

A wolf-trap--The heather--Game and game-preserves--An
optical delusion--Sumptuous entertainment--Visit to a
Norwegian store-room--Petticoats--Curious picture of
the Crucifixion--Fjord scenery--How the priest Brun was
lost--A Sætersdal manse--Frightfully hospitable--Eider-down
quilts--Costume of a Norwegian waiting-maid--The tartan in
Norway--An ethnological inquiry--Personal characteristics--The
sect of the Haugians--Nomad life in the far Norwegian
valleys--Trug--Memorials of the Vikings--Female Bruin in a
rage--How bears dispose of intruders--Mercantile marine of
Norway--The Bad-hus--How to cook brigands--Winter clothing pp. 101-124

CHAPTER VIII.

Peculiar livery--Bleke--A hint to Lord Breadalbane--Enormous
trout--Trap for timber logs--Exciting scene--Melancholy
Jacques in Norway--The new church of Sannes--A clergyman’s
midsummer-day dream--Things in general at Froisnaes--Pleasing
intelligence--Luxurious magpies--A church without a
congregation--The valley of the shadow of death--Mouse
Grange--A tradition of Findal--Fable and feeling--A Highland
costume in Norway--Ancestral pride--Grand old names prevalent
in Sætersdal--Ropes made of the bark of the lime-tree--Carraway
shrub--Government schools of agriculture--A case for a London
magistrate--Trout fishing in the Högvand--Cribbed, cabined,
and confined--A disappointment--The original outrigger--The
cat-lynx--A wealthy Norwegian farmer--Bear-talk--The
consequence of taking a drop too much--Story of a Thuss--Cattle
conscious of the presence of the hill people--Fairy music pp. 125-148

CHAPTER IX.

Langeid--Up the mountain--Vanity of vanity--Forest
perfumes--The glad thrill of adventure--An ancient
beacon--Rough fellows--Daring pine-trees--Quaint old
powder-horn--Curiosities for sale--Sketch of a group of
giants--Information for _Le Follet_--Rather cool--Rural
dainties and delights--The great miracle--An odd name--The
wedding garment--Ivar Aasen--The study of words--Philological
lucubrations--A slagsmal--Nice subject for a spasmodic
poet--Smoking rooms--The lady of the house--A Simon Svipu--A
professional story-teller--Always about Yule-tide--The
supernatural turns out to be very natural--What happened to an
old woman--Killing the whirlwind--Hearing is believing--Mr.
Parsonage corroborates Mr. Salomon--The grey horse at
Roysland--There can be no doubt about it--Theological argument
between a fairy and a clergyman--Adam’s first wife, Lileth pp. 149-178

CHAPTER X.

Scandinavian origin of old English and Border ballads--Nursery
rhymes--A sensible reason for saying “No”--Parish
books--Osmund’s new boots--A St. Dunstan story--The
short and simple annals of a Norwegian pastor--Peasant
talk--Riddles--Traditional melodies--A story for William
Allingham’s muse--The Tuss people receive notice to quit--The
copper horse--Heirlooms--Stories in wood-carving--Morals and
match-making pp. 179-199