CAPITALS OF THE NORTHLANDS

THREE DEGREES FROM THE ARCTIC CIRCLE
TRONDHJEM CATHEDRAL

[Frontispiece

CAPITALS OF
THE NORTHLANDS

TALES OF TEN CITIES

BY

IAN C. HANNAH, M.A.

AUTHOR OF "EASTERN ASIA: A HISTORY," "THE SUSSEX COAST," "THE BERWICK AND LOTHIAN COASTS," ETC.

[ILLUSTRATED] BY EDITH BRAND HANNAH

HEATH CRANTON & OUSELEY, LTD.

FLEET LANE, LONDON, E.C.

TO
THE LOVED MEMORY
OF THE BEST OF MOTHERS
WITH WHOM I ONCE MADE A PILGRIMAGE
TO THE SHRINE OF ST. OLAF

PREFACE

Many excellent things have been written about the cities of the South, but little, comparatively speaking, about the cities of the North. True, indeed, they have not moulded kingdoms and shaped the culture of a continent, but England, like Scandinavia, is not a country city-built; she was formed by the dwellers on the land. Yet the less prominent part that they have played does not make our cities less noteworthy than those of the South.

Few and peculiarly interesting are the cities of the North. And, with the exception, perhaps, of St. Petersburg, those spoken of in this book have all the charm that comes because they were built by country-loving folk, to whom deep woods and open fields were lovelier than monumental streets and squares.

I shall not have written in vain if the perusal of this small book leads any one to study larger works on the Northlands, and particularly the matchless sagas, many of them so skilfully Englished by the joint labour of an Englishman and an Icelander, William Morris and Eirîkr Magnússon. In them we may read of all these ten towns, save that Copenhagen and St. Petersburg have risen in Saga Lands after the sagas were penned.

After accuracy I have striven hard, but if any reader should detect any error I should be grateful to have it pointed out for correction in a later edition.

I. C. H.

Fernroyd,

Forest Row.

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

CHAPTER I

THORSHAVN

Loud in Harfur's echoing bay,
Heard ye the din of battle bray,

'Twixt Kiotvi rich, and Harald bold?
Eastward sail the ships of war;
The graven bucklers gleam afar,

And dragon heads adorn the prows of gold.

Glittering shields of purest white,
And swords, and Celtic falchions bright,

And Western chiefs the vessels bring:
Loudly roar the wolfish rout,
And maddening Champions wildly shout,

And long and loud the twisted hauberks ring.

Firm in fight they proudly vie
With him whose might will make them fly,

Of Eastmen kings the warlike head.
Forth his gallant fleet he drew,
Soon as the hope of battle grew,

But many a buckler brake ere Long-chin bled.

Fled the lusty Kiotvi then
Before the Shock-head king of men,

And bade the islands shield his flight.
Warriors wounded in the fray,
Beneath the thwarts all gasping lay,

Where head-long cast they mourned the loss of light.

So does an Icelandic skald describe the most important battle in the annals of the Norse.[1] Harald Shock-head had exalted himself, and said "I will be king" over the whole of Norway. He desired to wed the daughter of the kinglet of Hordaland. She was a maiden exceeding fair and withal somewhat high-minded.

To Harald's messengers she answered in this wise: "I will not waste my maidenhood for the taking to husband of a king who has no more realm to rule over than a few folks. Marvellous it seems to me that there is no king minded to make Norway his own, and be sole lord thereof in such wise as Gorm of Denmark or Eric of Upsala have done."

The messengers came back in wrath and told the king that Gyda (for so the maiden was called) was witless and overbold, but Harald answered that the maid had spoken nought of ill, and done nought worthy of evil reward. Rather he bade her much thank for her word; "For she has brought to my mind that matter which it now seems to me wondrous I have not had in my mind heretofore."

And, moreover, he said: "This oath I make fast, and swear before that god who made me and rules over all things, that never more will I cut my hair nor comb it, till I have gotten to me all Norway, with the scat thereof and the dues, and all rule thereover, or else will I die rather."

And so for ten winters his hair was neither cut nor combed, but during all those days the kinglets were being warred down, and at last, in 872, as monarch of all Norway, Harald took a bath and let his hair be combed. Jarl Rognvald sheared his locks and called him Harald Fairhair; the name by which he is known in history to-day.[2]

Thus he wedded the fair Gyda, but unhappily he also took to wife more other maidens than one may count with ease. Their very numerous sons were soon waxen riotous men in the land and were not at one among themselves. The good work of their father they came near to undoing.

For good work to Norway it very truly was: national unity is a priceless thing. One king was better than a score of kinglets from the nation's point of view. But otherwise thought the jarls (or earls) and the stoutest opponents of Harald embarked on their ships and sailed away. Some turned their prows to the northward and settled in the Faroes or Iceland, or on the more distant American shore. These were, perhaps, the more peaceably disposed; they found lands waiting for settlement that became at once their own. Their descendants are Norsemen to-day, and among the most cultured of mankind. Others fared to the British Isles or the Continent of Europe or to the more distant Mediterranean Sea. These found lands that were richer, but to be gained only at the point of the sword. These set up powerful kingdoms, but none of them are Norse to-day.

The classic sagas of Iceland have disappointingly little to tell us about the Faroe Islands. There are plenty of references to them indeed, but they are exiguous and dull. The Faereyinga Saga is distinctly less vigorous and vivid than the elder sagas of heroic days. It was compiled in Iceland not long after the beginning of the thirteenth century, but older materials were used.

It commences with a somewhat scrappy description of the first settlement of the islands. "There was a man named Grim Camban. He first settled the Faroes in the days of Harald Fairhair. For before the king's overbearing many men fled in those days. Some settled in the Faroes and began to dwell there, and some sought to other waste lands."

Gladly would we have more details of the first settler in the islands with his Irish-sounding name, but they are lost in the abyss of years. With great probability, however, Professor York Powell, who Englished the Faereyinga Saga, supposes that the first place occupied was the present capital, the Harbour of Thor. There at any rate was the chief seat of the Thing or Moot for the Islands, certainly till the thirteenth century.

At Thorshavn, too, was played the first half of the delightfully simple 2-Act drama which changed the faith of the archipelago. The renowned King Olaf Tryggvison of Norway (p. [72]) had treated Sigmund with high regard and caused him to trow in the faith of the White Christ.

"When the spring was coming in, the king fell on a day to talk with Sigmund, and said that he was minded to send him out to the Faroes to christen the folk that dwelt there. Sigmund said that he would rather not do that errand, but at last said he would do the king's will. Then the king made him lord over all the islands, and gave him wise men to baptize the folk and teach them the needful lore. Sigmund sailed when he was bound, and sped well on his way. When he came to the Faroes he summoned the franklins to a Thing in Stromo,[3] and much folk came. And when the Thing was set, Sigmund stood up and set forth his business at length, telling all that had happened since he had gone eastward to Norway to see King Olaf Tryggvison. Moreover, he said that the king had laid all the island under his lordship, and most of the franklins took this very well. Then Sigmund said on, 'I would likewise have you know that I have taken another faith, and am become a Christian man. I have also this errand and bidding from the king, to turn all folk in the island to the true faith.' Thrond answered this speech and said that it was right the franklins should talk over this hard matter among themselves. The franklins said this was well spoken. Then they went to the other side of the Thing-field, and Thrond told the franklins that the right thing clearly was to refuse to fulfil this command, and he brought things so far by his fair speeches that they were all of one mind thereon. But when Sigmund saw that all the folk had crowded over to Thrond's side, so that there was none stood by him save his own men who were christened, he said, 'Too much might have I given Thrond to-day.' And now men began to crowd back to where Sigmund was sitting; they bore their weapons aloft and carried themselves in no peaceful wise. Sigmund and his men sprang up to meet them. Then spake Thrond, 'Let men sit down and carry themselves more quietly. Now I have this to tell thee, kinsman Sigmund; we franklins are all of one mind on this errand thou hast done, namely that we will by no means change our faith, and we will set on here in the Thing and slay thee, unless thou give it up and bind thyself fast never more to carry this bidding to the islands.' And when Sigmund saw that he could not then bring this matter of the faith about, and was not strong enough to deal with all the folk that was come together there by the strong hand, it ended in his bidding himself to what they wished with witnesses and hand-plight. And with that the Thing broke up.

"Sigmund sat at home that winter, and was right ill-pleased that the franklins had cowed him, although he did not let his mind be known."

"One day in the spring, what time the races ran faster and men thought no ship could live on the main or between the islands, Sigmund set out from home with thirty men and two ships, saying that he would run the risk and carry out the king's errand or else die. They ran for Ostero and made the island; they got there at nightfall without being seen, made a ring round the homestead at Gate, drove a trunk of wood at the door of the house where Thrond slept, and broke it down, then laid hands on Thrond and led him out. Then said Sigmund, 'It happens now, as it often does, Thrond, that things go by turns. Thou didst cow me last harvest-tide, and gave me two hard things to choose between; and now I will give thee two very unlike things to choose between: the one is good—that thou take the true faith and let thyself be baptized, or else thou shalt be slain here on the spot; and that is a bad choice for thee to make, for thereby thou shalt swiftly lose thy wealth and earthly bliss in this world, and get instead woe and the everlasting torments of hell in the other world.' But Thrond said, 'I will not fail my old friends.' Then Sigmund sent a man to kill Thrond, and put a great axe in his hand; but as he went up to Thrond with his axe on high, Thrond looked at him and said, 'Strike me not so quickly. I have something to say first. Where is thy kinsman Sigmund?' 'Here am I,' said he. 'Thou alone shalt settle between me and thee, and I will take thy faith as thou wilt.' Then said Thore, 'Hew at him, man.' But Sigmund said, 'He shall not be cut down this time.' 'It will be thy bane and thy friends' as well if Thrond get off to-day,' said Thore. But Sigmund said that he would risk that. Then Thrond was baptized of the priest and all his household. Sigmund made Thrond come with him when he was baptized. And then he went through all the Faroes and stayed not till the whole people was christened."[4]

King Olaf, called the Thick in life and the Holy in death—with whom we shall be much concerned later on—also sought to make his influence felt in the Faroe Islands. Thither he sent to look after the royal interests Karl o' Mere, who had been a viking and the greatest of lifters, but "was a man of great kin, a man of mickle stir, a man of prowess and doughty in many matters." Him King Olaf took "into his peace, and thereafter into his good love, and let array his journey in the best wise. Nigh twenty men they were on board the ship. The king made word to his friends in the Faroes, and sent Karl for trust and troth to Leif, son of Ozur, and Gilli the Speaker-at-law, and to that end he sent his tokens. Karl fared forthwith when he was ready, and a fair wind they had, and came to Faroe, and hove into Thorshavn in Stream-isle. Then a Thing was summoned there, and folk came thronging thereto. Thither came Thrand o' Gate with a mickle flock, and thereto came Leif and Gilli, and had with them a multitude of people. Now when they set up their tilts and dight them their booths there, they went to see Karl o' Mere, and the greetings there were good."

It need hardly be said that one object the king had at heart was to collect his scat (or taxes) from the islands, and when the subject was mentioned to Thrand he amiably replied that "it was due and welcome that he should give that much furtherance to the king's errand."

When the time came round for the next Thing, Thrand duly fared to Thorshavn and, because he had pains in the eyes and other ailments besides, he let hang the inner part of his tent with black cloth so that the daylight might be less dazzling. Here the purse containing the scat was duly delivered to Leif, who "bore it further out into the booth, where it was light, and poured the silver down upon his shield, and stirred it about with his hand, and said that Karl should look at the silver.

"They looked on it for awhile, and Karl asked Leif how the silver seemed to him. He answered: 'Methinks that every bad penny to be found in the North isles is here come together.' Thrand heard this and said: 'Seemeth the silver nought well to thee, Leif?' 'Even so,' says he. Said Thrand: 'Forsooth, those my kinsmen are no middling dastards, whereas one may trust them in nought. I sent them in the spring north into the islands to gather up the scat, because last spring I was good for nothing myself; but they will have taken bribes of the bonders to take this false coin which is not deemed fit to pass. Thou hadst better, Leif, look at this silver wherewith my rents have been paid.'

"So Leif took back to him that silver, and took from him another purse, and bore it to Karl, and they ransacked it, and Karl asked what Leif thought of this money. He said he deemed it bad, but not so bad as that it might not be taken in payment for debts carelessly bespoken,'but on behalf of the king I will have nought of this money.'"

At last Thrand "bade Leif hand him that silver back: 'And take thou here this purse which my tenants have fetched me home last spring, and dim of sight though I be, still, 'Self hand the safest hand.'"

"Leif took the purse and once more bore it to Karl, and they looked at the money, and Leif spoke: 'No need to look long at this silver; every penny here is better than the other, and this money will we have.'"

The payment of taxes has seldom proved the most soothing thing for doubtful tempers. While the money was being weighed there appeared on the scene a man "with a cudgel in his hand and a slouch-hat on his head, and a green cloak; barefoot, in linen breeches strait-laced to the bone." There followed a scrimmage, in the course of which Karl got an axe-hammer in his brain, nor was his the only death. "But it came never to pass that King Olaf might avenge this on Thrand or his kinsmen, because of the unpeace which now befell in Norway.... And hereby leaves the tale to tell of the tidings which sprung out of King Olaf's claiming scat of the Faroes. Yet later on strifes arose in the Faroes out of the slaying of Karl o'Mere, and the kinsmen of Thrand o' Gate and Leif, the son of Ozur, had to do herein, and great tales are told thereof."[5]

The haven of Thor is a little rocky bay; a small island, called Nolsö, protects its broad mouth. Streams trickle into it over the volcanic rocks, intersecting the town and justifying the name of the island upon whose shore it stands. One stream is fairly large, the rest are very small. The well-kept gardens are bright with flowers and stocked with currant bushes; a few are shaded by plane trees of the most diminutive size. The wooden houses, mostly Stockholm-tarred, some painted different shades, rest on rude foundations of boulders; some buildings are wholly of rough stone. Most of the roofs are covered with grass—amidst which wild flowers grow—so green that they are not to be distinguished from the hill-sides just behind, and the first impression is almost that of a ruined, roofless town.

A few houses are creeper-covered: almost all have fish hanging out to dry and the passer-by is more conscious of their presence than of that of the flowers. Through the grassy roofs rise chimneys which in many cases are of wood. The main streets are wide and breezy, the byways are but three feet broad; the pavement for the most part is living rock. A mere fishing village indeed is Thorshavn, but there is much of the character of the capital of a little state. The culture of Scandinavia is displayed in the existence of a library, well used.

THORSHAVN

Face page 22

The Amtmand, or Governor, dwells in a quite imposing house of stone; school, church and Lagthinghuus are merely framed of wood. Of the Mother of Parliaments Cowper once wrote, and some are making much the same remark to-day,

Where flails of oratory thresh the floor,
That yields them chaff and dust and nothing more.

But of the legislature that meets in the Lagthinghuus no man can say anything so rude. However barren of other results the deliberations of the assembly may be, the community is at least benefited by the value of the hay that grows upon the roof. It may be the sluggard that lets the grass grow under his feet, but no stigma can attach to the man who lets it grow over his head. Besides possessing this venerable local Thing, the islanders send their own representatives to the Rigsdag, or Diet, at Copenhagen, for which qualified voters must have reached their thirtieth year. The Danish dominions have not yet followed Norway and Sweden in granting votes to women, but this will shortly come to pass.

The mediæval bishop for the Faroes had his stool at Kirkebö, on the same island as Thorshavn but a few miles further south. There was a house of Benedictine monks, the ruins of which still remain. In the haven named from Thor the church[6] of the White Christ is conspicuous, though modern of date and unbeautiful of form. An ancient coffin-slab, however, is incised with an ornate and flowery cross, that shows a mediæval structure occupied the site. The tower vane bears the date 1788, pierced in the Scandinavian way. The effect within is rather quaint. On the altar two great candles stand; hanging from the roof are a large ship-model and some chandeliers of brass, one dated 1682, adorned with metal flowers; on the walls a picture of the Last Supper that was painted on wood in 1647, and several monuments in timber and stone to the dead who passed from earth two hundred years ago.

On a promontory overlooking the town and the rocks covered with shells and pink and dark green sea-weed, there frowns a picturesque old fort; more interesting to the antiquary than formidable to the soldier. What higher praise than that could any place of strength deserve? The two lines of defence are each formed of boulders and earth. Though Thorshavn in the past has known unpeace, many an empire has risen to high power or crumbled to decay since these grass-grown ramparts were stained with human gore.

The stony country round the town is partly enclosed by strange frail transparent dykes, which, though as in Scotland mortarless, display surprisingly wide openings between the stones. Hay grown on the rocky soil is much the commonest crop; ragged robin, white clover, and, in swampy parts, marsh marigolds, diversify the grass. Men capped and stockinged, women shawled, also tend the tiniest patches of oats and potatoes: here and there peat is cut. The older cottages are frequently half floored above, half open to the ridge, and most conspicuous still are the sooty rafters of which the sagas so often tell. Some faint breath from the atmosphere that filled such dwellings long ago is wafted to us by the complaint of Cetil to his son in the Vatzdaela Saga, that, when he was a boy, men yearned to do some daring deed, "But now young men have become stay-at-homes, sitting over the baking fires, and stuffing their bellies with mead and ale, and all manhood and hardihood is waning away." Gone to museums are the ancient looms weighted with stones from the beach, but old carved chests and solid furniture of wood worked in the northern way are still by no means rare.

Men of great mark, by no means few, have had the Faroe Isles for home. In this remote and quiet capital there was born in 1860 Dr. N. R. Finsen, one of the great benefactors of mankind, widely known in medical circles from his study of the laws of light-rays, and the foundation of the Medical Light Institute at Copenhagen. A monument in the streets of the Danish metropolis bears his name, and it is possible that to the next generation he may be as well known as he would have been to his own, had he only invented some potent engine of destruction, instead of mere antidotes to wasting disease.

A little like the Scottish highlands here and there, with mountain tarn and trickling stream and rock hill-side and distant sea, a little, yet not very like, for the most striking feature of this delightful group of islands is its lack of resemblance to any other part of earth. Vast mountains rising from the very sea, and never destitute of whitest clouds, fold upon fold of country devoid of trees and yet so fertile and kept so moist by shower and mist that the grass grows over house-top as well as ground, the close proximity of fjord and hay-field and fish and flowers, give a combined impression so individual that the widest wanderer will but faintly be reminded of any other part of the world.

The surpassing stateliness of much of the coast declines to be expressed in ink or paint. Even the Naerofjord of Norway, most justly famed throughout the earth, is distanced in wild and rugged grandeur by some of the lonely channels among the north isles of the group, restricted in extent though they be. The largest steamer seems like a little toy between the towering mountains that rise on either side, carved into cliffs here and there, worn into caves now and then. The mountain sides are marked by waterfalls, like little silver threads. Wherever there is grass on the steep volcanic rocks, appearing like insects, there climb about white sheep and black; such gave the archipelago its name—far, the Norse word for sheep.[7] Everywhere hang white mists, clinging to the summits of the hills or streaming away like pennons in sharpest contrast with the coal-black sea of the sagas.

CHAPTER II

REYKJAVIK

Hail, Isle! with mist and snow-storms girt around,
Where fire and earthquake rend the shattered ground,—
Here once o'er furthest ocean's icy path
The Northmen fled a tyrant monarch's wrath:
Here, cheered by song and story, dwelt they free,
And held unscathed their laws and liberty.

Robert Lowe.

A faint idea of Icelandic scenery may perhaps be gained by taking a journey on the moon by the aid of a good telescope. Nowhere else is to be found the same weird impression of vastness and of magnificent desolation!

Not infrequently, particularly in a land of hills, do the works of man seem puny beside the works of God, but as in Iceland nowhere else. Only rarely, here and there, are signs of cultivation, and that is on the tiniest scale. Wild stretches of jagged lava and volcanic rock spread into space like "the ruins of an elder world." The great rugged mountains, capped by snow, and the numerous hot springs suggest the eternal battle-ground of elements, and give to the landscape a weird, almost unearthly effect. As Gudbrand Thorlac (Bishop of Holar, quoted by Hakluyt) expresses it: "There be in this Iland mountaines lift up to the skies, whose tops being white with perpetuall snowe, their roots boile with everlasting fire." The prevailing colours, including every shade of brown and yellow, are relieved only where appears the deep blue-black of the sea; save that here and there a tiny waterfall by stunted trees and a carpet of wild flowers, such as heather or grass of Parnassus, rather faintly suggest the glories of more southern lands.

The Great Pyramid and the Chinese Wall themselves would be lost, St. Peter's would appear a mere pebble, amid those gigantic stretches of lonely mountain. And during the very darkest days of early mediæval times a small handful of men in these remote solitudes were to play a part in history that is perfectly unique, to endow humanity with something it could ill afford to put away.

Here, on the dark winter nights of a region only just without the Arctic Circle, were written and enjoyed those sagas that are true history and very human, while nothing but dry chronicles were being composed in all Europe besides. Far less we should know of the early story of the British Isles and of North America had the Icelanders been dumb. Worthily appears the name of their Republic among those of other famous Commonwealths of earth in the hub of the universe, the State House at Boston, Massachusetts!

Interest in Iceland and her sagas has been greatly revived of recent years. In these days it seems strange to read what P. H. Mallet (p. [152]) wrote about 1755: "Such was the constitution of a republic, which is at present quite forgotten in the North, and utterly unknown through the rest of Europe even to men of much reading, notwithstanding the great number of poets and historians which that republic produced."

The stories of the early settlers, as related in the sagas, slightly recall the conditions that even to-day exist in such places as Rhodesia and newly-opened districts of the Western States. The details are as different as they could well be, but there is something of the same overflowing youthful vitality, the same grim sort of humour and vigorous enjoyment of life. This tale, for instance, from the Liosvetninga Saga, shows a rather indirect and possibly somewhat modern method of leading up to an extremely simple point: "When the table was set there Ufey put his fist on the board, and spake, 'How big dost think that fist is, Gudmund?' He spake, 'Very big!' Ufey spake, 'Thou wouldst think that there would be strength in it.' Gudmund spake, 'Indeed I would.' Ufey answers, 'A heavy blow thou wouldst think it would give?' Gudmund spake, 'Mighty heavy.' Ufey spake, 'What harm wouldst think it would do?' Gudmund spake, 'Breaking of bones or death.' Ufey spake, 'How wouldst like that way of death?' Gudmund spake, 'Very ill, and I should not wish it to happen to me.' Ufey spake, 'Then do not thou sit in my seat.'"

The settlement of Iceland was part of the happy movement that first carried Norsemen to the Faroe Islands and far beyond. There was a man named Gard-here, a Swede, and he journeyed to Sodor, or the Southern Islands[8] on the very common quest of getting in the inheritance of his wife's father, who had died. A gale broke his moorings. He was driven westward into the sea, and the eventual result was that he reached the island with which we are concerned. He praised the land much, and desired that it should be called by his own name.

But he did not discover the island. That glory belongs to dreamy mystics of the ancient Irish Church in the days when her rays lit up the whole of Western Europe, and her missionaries went out into all lands.[9] Where he heard no other sound than the thud of the storm waves on the lonely rocks, and the shrill cry of the sea-gulls, quite alone with his God, there the Celtic monk could best say his prayers. And the Libellus Islandorum expressly says of the first days of settlement: "There were then here Christian men, whom the Northmen call 'papa.' But soon they went away because they could not dwell with pagan hordes, and they left behind them Irish books and bells and crooks." A little cross of theirs is in the Museum at Reykjavik to-day.

Again there were certain men who needed to journey out of Norway to the Faroes, some say that Naddodh was of their number, and they also were driven to the same country, which they named Snowland. They walked up a high mountain in the East-friths, and looked far and wide to see if they could discover any smoke or other token of the presence of mankind, but they saw none. They went back to the Faroes at harvest-time and they praised the new country very much.

The third party of Norsemen that reached Iceland had decorously made a great sacrifice before setting forth, and three ravens had been hallowed. In the Faroe Islands, Floki, their leader, got his daughter very satisfactorily married, and then he sailed out into the sea and let loose the three ravens. The first feebly flew to the bows of the vessel; the second with little more adventure soared into the air and then came back to the ship; but the third flew forth from the bows and led the way to the island. And when they sailed past Reek-ness, or Smoky Cape, and entered the great mountain-walled fjord, Faxe said, "This must be a big country which we have found; here are great rivers." And, though his surmise as to the rivers was mistaken, the inlet received his name; as Faxefjoth men know it to this day. The whole frith was full of fish, including seals and whales, and the party became so absorbed in catching them that they imprudently took no heed to make hay—with the result that they lost all their stock in the winter. As to the climate there were many different views, but Thorwolf said that butter dripped out of every blade of grass in the country that they had found. Wherefore he was called Thorwolf Butter.

It was nevertheless so cold that the party originated the unfortunate designation of Iceland, a name that has probably done more than anything else to spread through the world undoubtedly exaggerated notions as to the coldness of the island. Sometimes for weeks together Reykjavik has been warmer than London. The famous Icelandic explorer, Eric the Red, seems to have realised that a mistake had been made, and with much discretion he gave another land "a name, and called it Greenland, and said that men would be ready to go thither if the land had a good name."[10]

The Icelanders are as sensitive as the Canadians about the climate of their country, and as early as the sixteenth century we find the Bishop of Holar, already mentioned (p. [29]), whose observations are quoted by Hakluyt, growling thus about one whose strictures on the island did not however stop with criticisms of the climate. "There came to light about the yeare of Christ 1561, a very deformed impe, begotten by a certain Pedlar of Germany; namely, a booke of German rimes, of al that ever were read the most filthy and most slanderous against the nation of Island. Neither did it suffice the base printer once to send abroad that base brat, but he must publish it also thrise or foure times over; that he might thereby, what lay in him, more deepely disgrace our innocent nation among the Germans, and Danes, and other neighbour countries, with shamefull, and everlasting ignomine. So great was the malice of this printer, and his desire so greedy to get lucre, by a thing unlawfull. And this he did without controlment, even in that citie, which these many yeares hath trafficked with Island to the great gaine, and commodity of the citizens. His name is Ioachimus Leo, a man worthy to become lion's foode."

As late as 1846 "Sylvanus" (p. [202]) wrote, "Iceland, a dreary, storm-beaten isle, nearly deprived of all communication with its fatherland. It is the abode of all but ceaseless winter, in which the sun, rarely for more than a few months out of the twelve, is ever seen."

It is possible to suffer very much from heat in Iceland, but there seems to be good ground for believing that the climate has changed for the severer in the course of a thousand years. Forests are frequently mentioned in the earlier sagas—the Libellus Islandorum expressly says that in the first days of settlement the country "was grown with wood between fell and foreshore." But to-day there is nothing much bigger than a Japanese dwarf tree.

The first permanent settler was Ingwolf Arnerson (or Erneson) and he was told to go thither by an oracle while he sacrificed. And at that time Harald of the Fairhair had for twelve years been king in Norway, and since the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 874 winters had passed away. He sailed to Iceland with Heor-leif, his sworn brother and the husband of his sister; a man who refused to sacrifice. They kept company till they saw Iceland and then they parted. And as soon as Ingwolf noticed the land he pitched his porch-pillars overboard to get an omen. For it was the pious custom of those days to let the site for a new settlement be fixed, not by the caprice of man, but by the decision of the gods, who made it known by causing the currents of ocean to cast up the porch-pillars on the shore where they would have the dwelling to be.

Before their emigration to Iceland Leif and Ingwolf had made a foray in Ireland. There they had gained riches and thralls, and Leif was called Heor, or Sword, from an encounter with an Irishman, from whom he gained such a weapon. Driven westward off the land, Leif and his men ran short of water, and the thralls, with the readiness that ever marks their race, took to the plan of kneading meal and butter together, and they declared that this was a thirst-slake. But as soon as it was ready there fell a great rain and water was caught in the awnings.

Eventually they reached land in safety, and there was only one ox, so the thralls had to drag the plow. And they plotted together to kill the ox, and to say that a bear had devoured it; then while Leif and his Norsemen were seeking to punish the non-existent bear, and were scattered through the shaw, the thralls should slay every one his man, and so should murder them all. And everything fell out just as the Irish had plotted.

The dead body of Heor-leif was found by Ingwolf's thralls, who had been sent to search for the porch-pillars, and when they told their master he was very angry. And when he saw his brother dead he said, "It was a pitiful death for a brave man that thralls should slay him, but I see how it goes with those who will never perform sacrifice."

"Then Ingwolf went up to the headland and saw islands lying in the sea to the south-west. It came into his mind that the thralls must have run away thither, for the boat had disappeared. So he and his men went to seek the thralls, and found them there at a place called Eith (the Tarbet) in the islands. They were sitting at their meat when Ingwolf fell upon them. They became fearful, and every man of them ran off his own way. Ingwolf slew them all. The place is called Duf-thac's Scaur, where he lost his life. Many of them leaped over the rock, which was afterwards called by their name. The islands were afterwards called the Westmen Isles whereon they were slain, for they were Westmen" (or Irish).

Heimaey (or Home Isle), the largest of these Westmen Isles, consists of two great jagged masses of igneous rock, presenting wild cliffs to the ocean and a wild fretted outline to the sky. Between the two mountains is a rolling stretch of grass-land, and upon it stands the scattered little town of Kaupstadr. The cliffs are covered with sea-birds' nests, most of them filthy fulmars. And some of the other islands of the group, among which modern cruising steamers thread their way, are sea-worn into caves and caverns by the much contorted rocks along the shore.

At last, in the third winter, Ingwolf's thralls, Weevil and Carle, found the porch-pillars, and at the spot where they came to land he made for himself a homestead. He dwelt in Reek-wick, and the Land-nama-bok, or Icelandic Domesday, from which nearly all the above facts are taken,[11] says that the pillars are still to be seen in his fire-house, or temple.

In the Eyrbyggja Saga we read of the building of another temple that stood on the north side of Faxefjoth. Somewhat similar, no doubt, was the shrine that incorporated the porch-pillars at Reykjavik. "There he let build a temple, and a mighty house it was. There was a door in the side-wall, and nearer to one end thereof. Within the door stood the porch-pillars and nails were therein; they were called the Gods' nails. There within was a great frith-place. But of the inmost house was there another house, of the fashion whereof now is the quire of a church, and there stood a stall in the midst of the floor in the fashion of an altar, and thereon lay a ring without a join that weighed twenty ounces, and on that must men swear all oaths; and that ring must the chief have on his arm at all man-motes."

A gold ring that Olaf Tryggvison took from the Temple of Lade (p. [69]), and presented to a lady whom he admired, turned out to be only plated copper, and much trouble resulted from that gift. The gods had in all probability never discovered the fraud, for, like the Chinese to-day, the pagan Norse had a most mean opinion of the intelligence of the objects of their worship (p. [106]). Some of the temples of Iceland were of considerable dimensions: in the Vatzdaela Saga we read of one at Thordisholt a hundred feet in length.

Ingwolf, the founder of Reykjavik, was the most famous of all the fathers of Iceland, for he came to a desolate country, and was the first to build a house and to cultivate the ground. His son "was Thorstan, who let set the Thing at Keel-ness, before the Allthing was established. His son was Thor-kell Moon, the Law-speaker, who was one of the best conversation of any heathen men in Iceland, of those whom men have records of. He had himself carried out into the rays of the sun in his death-sickness, and commended himself to that God which had made the sun. Moreover, he had lived as cleanly as those Christian men who were of the best conversation or way of life." (Landnama-bok.)

A fair broad bay, an arm of the Faxefjoth, rocky islands rising from the water and low hills all around, the heights of Esja straight in front of the ship that sails in, was the site chosen by the pagan gods. The city of Reykjavik stands on low hills at whose foot the porch-pillars were found. At the head of the little reeking bay is the white steam of the hot springs; away to the north, just visible across the choppy waves of Faxefjoth, towers, four thousand seven hundred feet above the sea, the huge volcanic mass of Snaefells Jökull.

Thus Reykjavik, the present capital of Iceland, bordered landward by a little lake, is more than a thousand years old, yet it does not look fifteen! No new settlement in the American West has a rawer or more recent appearance. The building materials are wood, brick, cement, felt and galvanized iron. There are a few fair gardens with very stunted trees, and in the rough grass square is a metal statue to Thorwaldsen (p. [138]). For ugly commonplaceness the broad and dusty streets are hardly rivalled even on the North American continent, and that is saying a good deal. Yet the glorious views of wild mountain and ever-changing sea, with air as fresh and pure as in mid-ocean, make it attractive in spite of all.

The Norse settlement of the island, having prosperously begun on the grassy plains at the edge of which the city stands, soon spread all round the shore. At wide intervals were built, or dug, the half underground turf-covered dwellings where men sat under their smoky rafters by the fire, drinking wine or mead, telling or hearing the saga tales. Old buildings that still remain, including a few in the vicinity of Reykjavik, give a fair idea of what these primitive dwellings were like; sometimes they were partly excavated in the side of a hill. Their interiors are much more cosy and homelike than would be suspected from their desolate-looking outsides. Hangings round the walls must have greatly improved the appearance as a rule, though the Laxdaela Saga says that the hall which Thurid Olaf built in Herd-holt, whose sides and roof were lined with noble histories carved on wainscotting, looked better when the hangings were down. Each large householder was chief and priest, lord of all within sight of his dwelling.

The same (Laxdaela) saga describes one of them, in fact the husband of this same Olaf's daughter. "Garmund was generally a reserved man, and surly to most folks, and he was always dressed the same; he used to wear a red-scarlet kirtle and a grey cloak over it, and a bear-skin hood on his head, a sword in his hand that was a great and good weapon with hilt of walrus-tooth, and there was no silver inlaid on it, but the blade was sharp and no rust to be found on it. This sword he called Leg-biter, and he never let it pass out of his hand." This man contrived to win Thurid, the daughter of Olaf, only by "giving no small sum of money" to her mamma. As not infrequently happens in such cases, husband and wife "did not get on very well, and this was felt by both of them." So Garmund sailed away from Iceland, and, to the great displeasure of his wife and mother-in-law, he left no chattels behind him. However Olaf's daughter pursued and, finding her husband asleep in his vessel, she took away the sword Leg-biter and left the baby in its place! As soon as the disgusted father awoke from its crying and discovered the unwelcome exchange, he sent a boat in pursuit of wife and sword. Thurid had, however, foreseen that manœuvre and the boat, being riddled with holes, had in haste to put back to the ship. "Then Garmund called to Thurid and bade her turn back and give him the sword Leg-biter, and take the girl back, 'and as much money or chattels with her as thou wilt.' Thurid says, 'Dost think it better to get back the sword or not?' Garmund answered her, 'I would sooner lose great monies than lose the sword.' She spake, 'Then thou shalt never get it; thou hast in many ways treated me unjustly, and we will now part.'"

Even less careful of his personal appearance than Garmund must have been Anlaf of Black-fen, whose deeds are recorded in the Havardz Saga (II., 1). Men say that he had bear's warmth, for "there never was frost or cold so great that Anlaf would not go about in no more clothes than his breeches and a shirt tucked into the breeches. And he never went abroad off the farm with more clothes on him than these." He was, however, a good man, and somewhat before midwinter he walked over the hill pasture and all over the fell seeking men's sheep, and he found many and drove them home, and brought every man his own, so that every one wished him well.

Iceland is perhaps the least mixed nation to be found on the surface of the globe. Among the fathers of her settlement there were indeed a few of other than Norse blood, particularly ubiquitous Irish, some of whom were men very well thought of, but all except a few individuals here and there were of pure Scandinavian stock. The Landnama-bok expressly tells us: "Men of knowledge say that the country was wholly settled and taken up in sixty winters, so that it hath never after been settled any more."

As the community grew older it became apparent that something more than local chiefs and Things were imperatively needed if any sort of peace was to be preserved and some kind of order to be established. And thus there was called into being in a.d. 930 the most famous parliament of the North—the Allthing, that assembled every year under the clear sky, by the banks of a little stream where the horizon was formed by the wild rocky hills of Thingvellir. From all over the island men came for practically every purpose for which human beings can gainfully meet. Laws were made and declared, law cases were decided; tales were recited and much was bought and sold. But the only official of the Republic was the Speaker of the Law, the jurisdiction was purely moral. Administrative machinery, civil service, navy or army there were none. He who refused to obey could but be outlawed.[12]

No doubt this essentially Teutonic reform brought vast improvement on the lawless violence of earlier days, but the respect entertained for law still left very much to be desired. The famous Saga of the Burnt Njal gives a truly Homeric account of proceedings at the Allthing itself.

Flosi and certain others who were on trial for arson and manslaughter were on the point of getting off by the kind of legal quibble in which Dickens was interested so much. Gizur, one of the plaintiffs, said, "What counsel shall we now take, kinsman Asgrim?" Then Asgrim said, "Now will we send a man to my son Thorhall, and know what counsel he will give us."

"Now the messenger comes to Thorhall, Asgrim's son, and tells him how things stood, and how Mord Volgard's son and his friends would all be made outlaws, and the suits for manslaughter be brought to nought.

"But when he heard that, he was so shocked at it that he could not utter a word. He jumped up then from his bed, and clutched with both hands his spear, Skarphedinn's gift, and drove it through his foot.... Now he went out of the booth unhalting and walked so hard that the messenger could not keep up with him, and so he goes until he came to the Fifth Court. There he met Grim the Red, Flosi's kinsman, and as soon as they were met, Thorhall thrust at him with the spear, and smote him on the shield and clove it in twain, but the spear passed right through him, so that the point came out between his shoulders. Then there was a mighty cry all over the host, and then they shouted their war-cries.

"Flosi and his friends then turned against their foes, and both sides egged on their men fast.

"Kari Solmund's son turned now thither where Arni (Kol's son) and Hallbjorn the Strong were in front, and as soon as ever Hallbjorn saw Kari, he made a blow at him, and aimed at his leg, but Kari leaped up into the air, and Hallbjorn missed him. Kari turned on Arni (Kol's son) and cut at him, and smote him on the shoulder, and cut asunder the shoulder blade and collar bone, and the blow went right down into his breast, and Arni (Kol's son) fell down dead at once to earth.

"After that he hewed at Hallbjorn and caught him on the shield, and the blow passed through the shield, and so down and cut off his great toe. Holmstein hurled a spear at Kari, but he caught it in the air, and sent it back, and it was a man's death in Flosi's band....

"Then there was a little lull in the battle, and Snorri the priest came up with his band, and Skapti was there in his company, and they ran in between them, and so they could not get at one another to fight.... So a truce was set, and was to be kept throughout the Thing, and then the bodies were laid out and borne to the church, and the wounds of those men were bound up who were hurt."

The day after men went to the Hill of Laws. A skald opportunely sang some verses with the result that now men burst out in great fits of laughter. And eventually "in this way the atonement came about, and then hands were shaken on it, and twelve men were to utter the award, and Snorri the priest was the chief man in this award, and others with him. Then the manslaughters were set off the one against the other, and those men who were over and above were paid for in fines. They also made an award in the suit about the Burning."[13]

The Allthing still meets, but no longer amid mountain wilds. A very substantial stone structure, two storeys and an attic high, faces the square at Reykjavik; it bears date 1881. Below is a library; above the chamber, from a gallery in the attic, the public may look on. It is impossible to visit this humble structure without emotion, for it is the seat of one of the ancientest moots upon the earth. Had it only a continuous history from its first institution it would be older by, at any rate, a century or two than the very Mother of Parliaments, for the French-named body that sits at St. Stephen's can hardly claim historic continuity with the Saxon Witanagemot. But the well-fitted Althinghuus is an unromantic substitute for the vast and desolate wildness of the Thingvellir. It is with a shock, too, that one notices on the walls great pictures of Egypt and of Greece. Are not Ellidaar and Hvita, salmon rivers of Iceland, to this assembly at any rate better than all the waters of Nile and Cephissus?[14]

The Cathedral of Reykjavik, next to the Althinghuus, is a small whitewashed structure with saddle roof tower, whose vane is dated 1847. It is entirely destitute of the slightest interest, save for the lovely font by Thorwaldsen (p. [138]), a cube of white marble. Round the top is a garland of flowers to support the metal bowl; on the four sides are bas-reliefs representing the Baptism of Christ, a mother and her children, cherubs, and Christ blessing the children. The Bishop, or Lutheran superintendent, has charge of the whole island, which in the middle ages formed two dioceses.

The Christianising of Iceland was a less violent process than that of the other northern lands. The building of the earliest church was owing to the gentle influence of the great Scottish apostle of Ireland. "Aur-lyg was the name of a son of Hrapp, the son of Beorn Buna. He was in fosterage with Bishop Patrec, the saint in the Southreys. A yearning came upon him to go to Iceland, and prayed Bishop Patrec that he would give him an outfit. The bishop gave him timber for a church and asked him to take it with him, and a plenarium, and an iron church-bell, and a gold penny, and consecrated earth to lay under the corner-posts instead of hallowing the church, and prelates to dedicate the church to Columcella."[15] And the church was built at Esia-rock, looking out over the ocean. Close by in the sea-weed the iron bell had been found, for it was cast into the sea that, like the heathen porch-pillars, it might point out the exact site that was the best.

The passing from the old faith to the new was on the whole remarkably destitute of bigotry. One, Helge, for example, "put his trust in Christ, and named his homestead after him, but yet would he pray to Thor on sea voyage and in hard stress, and in all those things that he deemed really of most account."[16] While the Landnama-bok itself ends with the remark: "Some held their Christendom well till their death-day, but it did not often go on in the family, because that of their sons, some reared temples and sacrificed, and the land was heathen nearly a hundred and twenty winters."

Then at a notable Allthing, about the year 1000, one Thor-gar spoke to the people at the Rock of the Laws. He told them a story about two kings who formerly ruled in Norway and Denmark respectively. "They had long kept up strife between them, till at last the people of both countries took the matter into their own hands, and made peace between them, although they themselves did not wish it; but this plan was so successful that the kings after a few winters' space were sending gifts to each other, and their friendship endured as long as they both did live. 'And this seems to me the best not to let them have their will that are most out and out on each side, but let us so umpire the matter between them that each side may gain somewhat of his case, but let us all have one law and one faith. For this saying shall be proved true, If the Constitution be broken the peace will be broken.'

"Thor-gar ended his speech in such a way that each side agreed to hold those laws which he should think best to declare.

"This was the declaration of Thor-gar, that all men in Iceland should be baptized and believe in one God, but as to the exposure of children, and the eating of horse-flesh, the old law should hold; men might sacrifice in secret if they would, but should fall under the lesser outlawry if witnesses came forward against them. This heathendom was taken away some years later."[17]

The final establishment of the faith was chiefly owing to Bishop Gizor, who was, we are told, "better beloved by all the people of the land than any other man whom we know to have been on the land."[18] Such, indeed, was the devotion men felt for him, so much did they appreciate his speeches, that the Icelanders voluntarily agreed to a complete valuation of all that they possessed in order that they might have the privilege of paying tithes! Greater proof of love than that no people ever showed! It would stagger humanity indeed were anything of the sort to be recorded to-day. Gizor it was who fixed the seat of the Bishopric at Skalholt, for before it was nowhere; he, too, set up the northern Bishop's stool at Holar, giving more than the fourth part of his income to endow it. This Gizor was surnamed the White, and he kept such peace in the land that there were no great feuds between the chiefs, and the carrying of arms was almost laid aside. And he sent his son Islaf to school in Saxland; he also became a Bishop and took to wife Dalla, the daughter of Thorwald.

So the faith in Iceland grew, not by bigotry but by conciliation, and men were apt to prefer prime-signing to baptism, for so could they have full intercourse with Christian men and with heathen too, and they could hold to the faith of their liking.[19] But good arguments had a very-powerful effect, and "this made men very eager in church-building, which was promised by the clergy, that a man should have room in the Kingdom of Heaven for as many as could stand in the church that he had built."[20]

Things being thus comfortably and happily settled by the Icelanders, it was not to be expected that the sledge-hammer methods of the mainland would find much favour among them. St. Olaf (p. [79]) sent a priest, one Thangbrand, to hasten the triumph of the faith in Iceland, but he soon made that cool country a great deal too hot to hold him. And, as the Cristne Saga puts it: "At that very time Thangbrand the priest came to the king from Iceland, and told him what enmity men had shown him there, and said there was no hope of Christendom being received there. Then the king was so angry that he had many of the Icelanders taken prisoners and set in irons. Some he ordered to be slain, and some maimed, and some were plundered, for he said that he would pay them for the unworthy way their fathers had received his message in Iceland. But Sholto and Gizor spoke for them, saying that the king had promised that no man should have done such ill, but that he would give them his peace if they would be baptized.... Moreover Gizor said that he thought there was hope that Christendom would succeed in Iceland if it were wisely forwarded. 'But Thangbrand hath carried himself there, as he did here, rather lawlessly in slaying certain men there, and men thought it hard to brook such behaviour in a stranger.'"

Longfellow (The Saga of King Olaf) sums up this troublesome missionary in the following verse:—

He was quarrelsome and loud,
And impatient of control,

Boisterous in the market crowd,
Boisterous at the wassail-bowl,

Everywhere
Would drink and swear,

Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.

So firm a hold did Christianity take on the land that the sagas of early Christian days are largely concerned with bishops' lives. The Church was as powerful as in Italy, and the two prelates were much honoured in the land. Thus we read in the book called Hungrvaca, or Hunger-Waker, because many uninformed men, wise though they be, that have gone through it have wished to know much more concerning those notable persons of whom it speaks. "Bishop Cetil was now well seventy years of age; he went to the Allthing and commended himself to the prayers of all the clerks in the synod of priests. And then Bishop Magnus asked him to come home with him to Skalholt to keep the dedication feast of the church and a bridal that was to be there. The feast was so very splendid that it was a pattern after in Iceland; there was much mead mixed, and all other stores of the best that might be. But the Friday evening both bishops went to bathe at Bathridge after supper. And then it came to pass that Bishop Cetil died there, and men thought this great news (July 6, 1145). There was great grief at this feast among many of the guests till the bishop was buried and service done for him. But by the comforting speeches of Bishop Magnus and the noble drink that was provided, men got their sorrow the sooner out of mind than they would otherwise have done."

The bathing of the bishops was in Iceland by no means exceptional. While in the rest of Europe personal cleanliness was inconspicuous between the destruction of the buildings of Rome and comparatively recent days, in Iceland, even during the tenth century, men could not get on without washing. One householder is specially distinguished in the Landnama-bok as Leot the Unwashed. Thus the Eyrbyggja Saga describes a bath: "Stir let build a hot bath at his house at Lava, and it was dug down in the ground, and there was a window over the furnace, so that it might be fed from without, and wondrous hot was that place." Many such are mentioned in the sagas, and one of the few mediæval ruins in Iceland is that of the bath-house of Snorri Sturluson, author of the Heimskringla, one who adorned history by his writings, but not by his actions; for the discreditable collapse of the Republic and the annexation of Iceland to Norway was largely owing to him. On his own estate and by his own son-in-law he was murdered in 1241.

Two Icelandic bishops were placed among the Saints. Bishop Thorlak of Skalholt "never spoke a word that did not tend to some good purpose when he was asked anything. He was so wary of his words that he never blamed the weather as many do, or any of those things that are not blameworthy, but which he perceived went according to God's will. He did not look forward to any day above the rest." And most deservedly he was called that precious friend of God, the Beam and Gem of Saints, both in Iceland and other lands.[21]

A still greater reputation was, however, gained by the other Icelandic saint, the holy bishop, John of Holar, widely famed for the beauty of his voice. His peculiar holiness very early in his life attracted the attention of the devout. "When John was yet a child his father and mother broke up housekeeping and went abroad together. They came to Denmark and went to King Swein, and the king received them worshipfully, and Thorgerd (John's mother) was made to sit by the queen herself, the mother of King Swein. Thorgerd had her son, the holy John, at the table with her, and when many kinds of precious dainties with good drink came to the king's table, then it happened with the boy John, as is ever the way with children, that he stretched out his hands to the things he wished to have. But his mother would have chidden him, and smote his hands. But when Queen Estrith saw this, she spake to Thorgerd, 'Not so, not so, Thorgerd mine; do not strike those hands, for they are bishop's hands!"[22]

John not only survived this spoiling, but fulfilled the prophecy of the kindly queen. In due course, bearing a letter from Bishop Gizor, he sailed to Denmark for his consecration; "the Archbishop was at church at evensong, and when John, the holy bishop-elect, got to the church (presumably the Cathedral at Lund), evensong was well-nigh over. He took his place outside the quire, and began to sing evensong with his clerks. The Archbishop had forbidden all his clerks, old and young alike, to look out of the quire while the hours were being sung, and he set a penalty to be taken if his command were broken. But as soon as the Archbishop heard the chanting of the holy John, he looked out down the church, trying to see who the man was that had such a voice. But when evensong was over, the Archbishop's clerks said to him, 'How now, my lord bishop, have ye not yourself broken the rules ye made?' The Archbishop answered, 'I confess that it is true as ye say, but yet I have not done it for nought, for a voice was borne into my ears such as I have never heard before, and it may rather be likened to the voice of an angel than of a man.'"[23]

The Primate perceived that his very dear brother had all the qualities desirable in a bishop, and so favourable was the impression made that the canonical difficulty to the consecration—that John had been twice married—was surmounted with little trouble.[24]

Well did the new bishop regulate the affairs of the church on his arrival at Holar, where he rebuilt the Cathedral, and at the bishopstead, west of the church door, set up a school. A master he chose from Gothland and he paid him a great wage, both to teach the priestlings and to give such support to holy Christendom along with the bishop himself as he could manage in his teachings and addresses. By this time the days of transition in Iceland were over, and John felt strong enough not only to destroy the material relics of paganism, but also to anticipate George Fox in objecting to pagan names for the days of the week. "He also forbade all omens, which the men of old had been wont to take from the coming of the moon and observance of days, and dedicating days to heathen men or gods—as it is when they are called Tew's day, Woden's day, or Thor's, and so of all the week-days; but he bade men to keep the reckoning which the holy fathers have set in the Scriptures, and call them the Second Day of the week, and the Third Day, and so on—and all other things beside, which he thought sprung from ill roots."[25] At last, in 1121, on April 23, he departed out of this world into everlasting bliss.

As might perhaps be expected, by far the most interesting object in Reykjavik is the National Museum, into which is gathered, Scandinavian fashion, much choice carved work from many an Icelandic church. For their inability to raise great fabrics like those of southern lands, the disciples of the White Christ in Iceland, much as in Ireland, resolved as far as possible to atone by wealth of detail. Here accordingly are quaint or beautiful works of art whose composition beguiled many a long winter night of old. Even Mallet (p. [151]) most patronisingly remarks: "Nor is this sculpture so bad as might be expected." The sagas here and there refer to the use of timber from the Icelandic forests for purposes of building, but soft drift-wood is by far the commonest material used for carving figures of saints, many of which are extremely crude and some grotesque. The ornate "Kirkjustodir" are rather like the totem poles of North American Indians. Many things there are of post-Reformation date, as pulpits, bas-reliefs and fonts. Runic inscriptions survive into the eighteenth century. The finest feature is the magnificent retable in alabaster and wood, representing scenes from the Passion, that came from Holar Cathedral.[26] Carving of similar kind, though much earlier in date, for Skalholt Cathedral is described in the Pols Saga.[27] Margaret was the most cunning carver of all folk in Iceland, and she was surnamed the Skilful. "Bishop Paul had put in hand, and had her begin a tabula for the altar before he died, and had meant to spend on it much money, both gold and silver, and Margaret carved it most nobly out of tusk-ivory, and this would have been the greatest jewel or masterpiece if, according to his plan, both Thorstan the shrine-maker and Margaret had wrought it out with their craft. But his death was a big black blow, and such things had to be put off for the sake of many other things that had to be done."

Some objects illustrate things other than ecclesiastical, but, comparatively speaking, they are few. Among them are old Icelandic chair-saddles with huge and unwieldy stirrups, and guns of wood with iron rings.

The country surrounding the city seems dreary enough until the intense fascination of the wildly desolate land and the extreme purity of the air grows more and more upon the mind. The jagged rock-hills all round are never quite free from snow, but they were thrown up by the earth fires too late to be planed down by ice. The well-known little ponies of Iceland in considerable numbers wander at will over the rough rolling pasture land, save that some are ridden by tourists from the south, and some by radiant Icelandic girls. These come jogging in from the country on their curious flat side-saddles, both feet resting on a wide hanging step. They wear their hair in four plaits, the ends of which are looped up under a little flat cap of black cloth. From the centre of the cap there hangs through a little silver cylinder a long black tassel which reaches to the shoulder.

The ground is largely dug into hummocks so as to increase the area available for grass. A good road, fringed by telegraph poles each side and patronised by a fair number of cyclists, leads out of the town, and after a mile or two crosses the Ellidaar, which has cut a broad winding channel through the hard volcanic rock, and is famous for fishing.

Nearer the sea are the hot springs whose waters send up steam that is visible from far, and gave the capital its name. The ponies are kept from burning their noses by stretches of barbed wire. In water heated by the fires that burn far down, beyond the reach of man, the people of Reykjavik have long been wont to wash their linen and their clothes. A constant procession of women bear soiled things to the spring and clean things to the town.

Many Icelanders speak English, and they are often surprisingly well-informed, both concerning their own history and the affairs of foreign lands. Still read are the sagas in the land of their birth, and they were Englished largely by Icelandic minds. There are very good secondary schools in the towns, and a College at Reykjavik itself. Though no elementary schools exist, almost every one can read and write from the excellent teaching in the homes. Reykjavik, Akureyri and Isafjordr are fair-sized towns, the former has a population of about ten thousand souls, but the loneliness of life in many parts is evident from the fact that the rest of the nation, about fifty or sixty thousand in number, tending cattle and ponies, and fishing for whale and cod, is thinly sprinkled through some two hundred and eighty parishes.

HOT SPRINGS NEAR REYKJAVIK

[Face page 60

Of the rocky islands in Reykjavik Harbour by far the most interesting is Videy, the resort to-day of ptarmigan and eider duck, in past years the seat of one of the chief religious houses of Iceland, a Priory of the Benedictine order. The founder and the first Prior (1226-35) was one Thorvald, son of a Speaker of the Law, who was fifth in descent from Gizor the White. He was succeeded by Styrmir, surnamed hinn fródi or the Wise, who was one of the editors of the Landnama-bok, and died in 1245. The chapel in which he worshipped still exists, a rude early thirteenth century structure, plain oblong with gables, built roughly of volcanic stone. The sole original features are the very plainest of windows under segmental arches. It is still used for service, and has plain eighteenth century fittings with tall screen, and pulpit rising behind the altar, all painted green and blue and red. Three bells are dated 1735, 1752 and 1785. In the loft under the roof is a collection of old spinning wheels. The absence of surnames, which is still a characteristic of the unchanged Norse tradition of Iceland, appears on a gravestone of 1820, to Viefus Scheving and his wife, Aunnu Stephansdóttur.

This little chapel appears to have been almost the only stone church in mediæval Iceland; even the famous Cathedral at Skalholt, which was in every way glorious above any other building in Iceland, the finest and most precious in the island, was merely a structure of wood.

From the highest point of the island of Videy there is a really superb view over the plantless mountains and the steepleless city across a few miles of blue-black, white-crested sea. The island pastures support fifty head of cattle and slope right down to the shore, where the waves have carved arches and caverns in the yielding rocks. The farmhouse by the chapel is a long stone building, whose weathering by the storms of some two hundred winters is concealed by a coat of whitewash, while the rooms are comfortably panelled within. The outhouses seem in some cases to be on foundations that were laid by the monks, for the monastic buildings were evidently detached in the Celtic fashion; there was no attempt to reproduce the conventional plan of a monastery that is so unvaried in southern lands.

Iceland belongs geographically rather to America than to Europe, a much wider stretch of ocean divides her from Norway than from Greenland. But so close are the lands in the Far North that a present-day steamer might sail with ease from London to New York, permitting her passengers to go ashore for some part of every day.[28]

Five hundred years before Columbus crossed the Western Ocean Icelandic barks had plowed their way, first to Greenland, then to the American mainland. The latter their crews called Vinland from its vines and surnamed from its character "the Good." In the Saga of Olaf Tryggvison we read: "That same spring also King Olaf sent Leif Ericson to Greenland to bid christening there; so that same summer he went thither. He took up a ship's crew on the sea who had come to nought, and were lying on the wreck of the ship; and in that journey found he Vinland the Good, and came back in harvest-tide to Greenland." In the Vinland Voyages, commonly called the Saga of Eric the Red, the North American coast is described with great accuracy, but unfortunately still greater brevity, "The land seemed to them fair and thick wooded, and but a short space between the woods and the sea, and white sands. There were many islands and great shallows." Many Icelanders in these latter days have emigrated to the United States or Canada, and the son of one of them is V. Stefansson, who, in the service of the American Museum of Natural History, discovered the blond Eskimo of Victoria Land known as Akuliakattamiut, just possibly descended from the ancient Norse settlers in Greenland. To-day (1913), in the service of the Government of Canada, he is exploring the polar ocean to the north of that wide land.

Sturdy independence and passionate attachment to their weirdly beautiful island have always marked the Icelanders, and though since the fall of the Republic more than six and a half centuries have worn away, the spirit of the nation has not decayed. Even by the great Margaret (p. [120]) they would not consent to be taxed. In 1393 it is recorded[29]: "The Stadholder brought forward the Queen's demand at the meeting, when all the chief men promised to give sixteen feet of vadmal (cloth used for barter) for Vigfus' sake—he was very much beloved in Iceland; but on this condition, that it should not be called a tax, and should not be demanded again. But the inhabitants of Eyafjordr refused to give anything."

And about the year 1000, while other Europeans were trembling for the end of the world or wondering why it had not come, Icelandic sailors, who knew not fear, were wandering admiringly through the woods of the North American Continent, were warring with the Scraelings or Indians, were eating the grapes of the New World, were planning settlements, possibly building churches,[30] in what became New England more than six centuries later. What boundless possibilities were before them had they only realised the value of that land! How different the history of mankind if any considerable number of their countrymen, sprinkled through all lands from the ice-fields of Greenland to the Russian steppes, and from the North Cape to Constantinople, had been summoned from their widely-scattered stations for the settlement of Vinland the Good!

CHAPTER III

TRONDHJEM

Wild the Runic faith,

And wild the realms where Scandinavian chiefs
And Skalds arose, and hence the Skald's strong verse
Partook the savage wildness. And methinks
Amid such scenes as these the Poet's soul
Might best attain full growth; pine-cover'd rocks,
And mountain forests of eternal shade,
And glens and vales, on whose green quietness
The lingering eye reposes, and fair lakes
That image the light foliage of the beach.

Southey.

There would not be much to see in the Low Countries if they were deprived of their historical associations, their ancient buildings and their superb paintings. Most parts of Europe owe very much of their interest and their beauty to the long-continued presence of mankind.

But the delights of Norway are of another sort, and a yachting trip among her fjords and islands would lose little of its attraction to many, had they as few associations as those of Alaska. The chief charm of this northern country must always be found in the fact that a large steamer may sail far into the heart of her lofty mountains through winding valleys, enclosed by towering rock sides, over which fall streams with courses so steep that they sometimes reach the surface of ocean only in the form of spray. In Norway one may proceed up a wild Highland glen with scenery grander than anything even in Scotland, without leaving the surface of the sea. Here and there such river gorges as that of the Hudson near West Point are somewhat recalled to one's mind, but on the whole the scenery of Norway is not at all like anything else. The overpowering vastness of it all is perfectly unique.[31]

But, even if one has not realised the fact amid the romantic scenery of those fjords where the works of man are confined to tiny fields like handkerchiefs scantily stretched upon the mountain sides, and settlements of wooden huts which are lost among the towering mountains of God, in Trondhjem Fjord one can hardly ignore the fact that this northern land has a history and a mythology of no mean kind, and one that is her very own. Though they have added less to the general sum of human action than have the thoughts of Greece and the achievements of Rome, the mythology of the North is more robust, its history is more virile, its literature is less voluptuous, its feelings more stern and deep. As the Swedish poet and bishop, Esaias Tegnér, expresses it: "Go to Greece for beauty of form, but to the North for depth of feeling and thought."

Doubtless the difference is largely geographical, as is well set forth in a thought-provoking passage of Sir Archibald Geikie's Romanes Lecture, delivered at Oxford in 1898. "Who can doubt that the legends and superstitions of ancient Greece took their form and colour in no small measure from the mingled climates, varied scenery and rocky structure of that mountainous land, or that the grim, litanic mythology of Scandinavia bears witness to its birth in a region of rugged snowy uplands under gloomy and tempestuous skies." And to those of English speech at least the history of the North should mean much more, because it was not merely our teachers and civilisers, but our very selves that first launched dragon-prowed vessels on these clear waters and first heard the eddas recited by the Skalds.

Just to the right of the spot where the broad river Nid pours its rather muddy waters into the Trondhjem Fjord, there rises a low hill, and there, commanding a glorious prospect far over the brown-green mountains and the slate-blue waters of the sea, once stood a great Temple for the worship of the Gods whose names are hourly on our lips, whenever we need to distinguish the days. A mighty line of Earls once had their seat in Ladir or Lade—for such are the ancient and modern names of the village where the Temple stood—and widely their authority was known. The greatest of them ruled over all the Norse for a quarter of a century (970-995), but so proud was he of his ancestral stock that he preferred to be known as the Earl of Ladir rather than as King of Norway. Sixteen earls recognised his sway, and he trowed in the old Gods.

Thus the Heimskringla describes his sway. "Whiles Earl Hakon ruled in Norway was the year's increase good in the land. And good peace there was betwixt man and man among the bonders.

"Well beloved of the bonders was the earl the more part of his life, but as his years wore, it was much noted of the earl that he was mannerless in dealing with women.... Whereof he won great hatred from the kin of such women, and the bonders fell a-murmuring sore against it, even as they of Thrandheim are wont to do when aught goeth against their pleasure."

Now a mysterious person named Oli was at Dublin, at that time a great settlement of Norsemen. Concerning him the earl heard rumours that he found exceedingly disquieting. He had a great friend called Thorir Klakka, "who was long whiles at viking work, but whiles would go cheaping voyages, and was of good knowledge of lands. Him Earl Hakon sent West-over-sea, bidding him go a cheaping voyage to Dublin, as many folk were wont, and look into it closely what this man Oli was; and if he found that he verily was Olaf Tryggvison, or any other offspring of the kingly stem of the North, then was Thorir to entangle him with guile if he might bring it to pass."

Thorir had no difficulty in getting into conversation with Oli, and in reply to his questions about the conditions in Norway, he told how the earl was so mighty a man that none durst speak but as he would. Yet he admitted that many mighty men, yea, all the people, would be most fain and eager to have a king for the land come of the blood of Harald Fairhair.

"Now when they had oft talked in this wise, Olaf bringeth to light before Thorir his name and kin, and asked his rede, what he thought of it, if Olaf should fare to Norway, whether the bonders would take him for king. But Thorir egged him on full fast to the journey, and praised him much and his prowess. So Olaf fell a-longing sorely to fare to the land of his fathers: and he saileth from the west with five ships, first to the South-Isles, and Thorir was in company with him."

So Olaf got back eventually to the kingdom of his fathers, and "when he came north to Agdaness he heard that Earl Hakon was in the firth, and withal that he was at strife with the bonders. And when Thorir heard tell of these things, then were matters gone a far other way than he had been deeming; for after the battle with the Jomsburg vikings (notable pirates whose stronghold was in Pomerania) were all men of Norway utterly friendly to Earl Hakon for the victory he had gotten, and the deliverance of all the land from war; but now so ill had things turned out that here was the earl at strife with the bonders, and a great lord come into the land."

There was a man named Worm Lyrgia, a wealthy bonder, and he had to wife one who was known as the Sun of Lund, where her father dwelt; she was the fairest among women. Thralls came from the Earl of Ladir to carry her away by force, but Worm (despite his name) was a man of spirit and fire. He "let the war-arrow fare four ways through the countryside with this bidding withal, that all men should fall with weapons on Earl Hakon to slay him." This incident, which was far from being an isolated case, proved very unfortunate for the government of the earl; in fact, he soon became a fugitive with a single thrall, named Kark.

"Then he arose, and they went to the stead of Rimul, and the earl sent Kark to Thora, bidding her come privily to him. So did she, and welcomed the earl kindly, and he prayed her to hide him for certain nights till the gathering of the bonders went to pieces. Said she: 'They will be seeking thee here about my stead both within and without; for many wot that I would fain help thee all I may, but one place there is about my stead where I deem that I would not think of seeking for such a man as thou, a certain swine-sty to wit.'

"So they went thither: and the earl said: 'Make we ready here; for we must take heed to our lives first of all.' Then dug the thrall a deep hole therein, and bore away the mould, and then laid wood over it. Thora told the earl the tidings how Olaf Tryggvison was come into the mouth of the firth, and had slain Erland his son.

"Then went the earl into the hole and Kark with him, and Thora did it over with wood, and strawed over it mould and muck and drave the swine thereover. And this swine-sty was under a certain big stone."

So the bonders and Olaf fell straightway into good friendship, and the son of Tryggvi ascended the throne of his fathers. He was one of the greatest of the kings of the Norse, superior in many respects to his namesake, who is distinguished as the saint. The chief secret of his power is opened to us by the following passage from the Faereyinga Saga, for popularity in the viking age was gained by much the same qualities that secure it in an English Public School to-day. "Once in the spring King Olaf said to Sigmund. 'We will amuse ourselves to-day, and prove our feats of skill.' 'I am not the man for that, lord,' said Sigmund, 'but thou shalt have thy way in this as in all other things that are in my hands.' Then they tried their might in swimming and shooting and other feats of skill and strength, and men say that Sigmund came very nigh the king in many feats, albeit he came short of him in all, as did every other man that was then living in Norway."

To return to the swine-sty in the Heimskringla. Olaf came to seek the earl at Thora's stead as she had said he would. Then he "held a House-Thing out in the garth, and himself stood up on that same big stone that was beside the swine-sty.

"There spake Olaf to his men, and some deal of his speaking was that he would with wealth and worth further him who should bring Earl Hakon to harm.

"Now this talk heard the earl, and Kark, and they had a light there with them; and the earl said: 'Why art thou so pale, or whiles as black as earth? Is it not so that thou wilt bewray me?'

"'Nay,' said Kark.

"'We were born both on one and the same night, said the earl, 'nor shall we be far apart in our deaths.

"Then fared King Olaf away as the eve came on, but in the night the earl kept himself waking, but Kark slept and went on evilly in his sleep. Then the earl waked him and asked what he dreamed: and he said, 'I was e'en now at Ladir and King Olaf laid a gold necklace on the neck of me.'

"The earl answered: 'A blood-red necklace shall Olaf do about thy neck whenso ye meet. See thou to it; but from me shalt thou have but good even as hath been aforetime; so bewray me not.'

"So thereafter they both waked, as men waking one over the other.

"But against the daybreak the earl fell asleep, and speedily his sleep waxed troubled, till to such a pitch it came that he drew under him his heels and his head as if he would rise up, and cried out high and awfully.

"Then waxed Kark adrad and full of horror, and gripped a big knife from out his belt, and thrust it through the earl's throat and sheared it right out. That was the bane of Earl Hakon.

"Then Kark cut the head from the earl, and ran away thence with it; and he came the next day to Ladir, and brought the earl's head to King Olaf, and told him all these things that had befallen in the going of him and Earl Hakon, even as is here written.

"Then let King Olaf lead him away thence, and smite the head from him."

At Ladir thereafter King Olaf made a feast and bade to it lords and other great bonders. "But when the feast was arrayed, and the guests were come, the first eve was the feast full fair and the cheer most glorious, and men were very drunk; and that night slept all men in peace there.

"But on the morrow morn when the king was clad he let sing mass before him, and when the mass was ended the king let blow for a House-Thing. And all his men went from the ships" (a "goodly host and great" of them were laid in the Nid) "therewith, and came to the Thing. But when the Thing was established the king stood up and spake in these words: 'A Thing we held up at Frosta, and thereat I bade the bonders be christened; and they bade me back again turn me to offering with them.... But look ye, if I turn me to offering with you, then will I make the greatest blood-offering that is, and will offer up men; yea, and neither will I choose hereto thralls and evil-doers; but rather will I choose gifts for the gods the noblest of men.'"

He proceeded to name some of the chief men present. This was a convincing argument, and when the bonders saw that they lacked might to meet the king, they professed their willingness to trow in the faith of the White Christ. And at Ladir, on the site of the Godhouse, the king let build a church. A Romanesque doorway about a century later than his time still exists in the south wall of the chancel, under which is a crypt; but the present church is a very plain plastered structure, dated 1694; a porch was added in 1767.

Close by, in the year 996, King Olaf Tryggvison raised a city on Nid bank. He chose a site at the very mouth, almost surrounded by the stream, and he desired that his town should be such as he had seen in Christian lands. He would that the Norse should resemble other Europeans, should trow in Christ and dwell in towns and grow rich by trade. The new settlement was known as Nidaros, because it was at the mouth of the Nid, or else as Kaupstad, because it was a merchants' town. But during the sixteenth century it was called as we know it to-day, taking its name from the district round. At first it did not prosper, for though Olaf Tryggvison gave men tofts whereon to build them houses, they did not want a town, nor aught but their farms and their ships.

But when the holy bones of another Olaf, martyr and king and saint, were there enshrined and over them sprang the tall vaulting of Scandinavia's fairest church, pilgrims and trade and prosperity resorted to the mouth of the Nid.

Little of the saint was in Olaf Haraldson during his earlier years. The first story of him in the sagas displays him as a mischievous boy. "On a time it befell that King Sigurd would ride away from his house, and no man was home at the stead; so he bade Olaf, his stepson, to saddle him a horse. Olaf went to the goat-house, and took there the biggest buck-goat and led it home, and laid thereon the saddle of the king, and then went and told him he had harnessed him the nag."

A renowned viking he became, whose deeds men talked about in all the lands from Sweden to the British Isles. But as King of Norway he would have no peace but with believers in the White Christ. Perhaps his methods lacked charity and tact, and his temper lacked control, that he was wealth-grasping, the sagas distinctly say, but he was truly of a religious frame and in comparison with his faith he counted not anything dear.

At the time when he was establishing his power the city that Olaf Tryggvison had founded on Nid-bank was already in decay. King Olaf the Saint, we read in the Heimskringla "gat him gone at his speediest and held out to Nidoyce, where King Olaf Tryggvison had let set a cheaping-stead and reared a king's-house; but before that there was only one house in Nidness, as is writ before. But when King Eric became ruler of the land, he favoured Ladir, where his father had had his chief abode, but he left unheeded the houses which King Olaf had let build on the Nid; and some were now tumbled down, while othersome, though standing, were scarce meet for dwelling in. King Olaf steered his ships up into the Nid; and forthwith he let dight for dwelling the houses yet standing, and reared those up again which were fallen down, and had thereat a throng of men; and he let flit into the houses both the drink and the victuals, being minded to sit there Yule-tide over."

Thrandheim "he deemed was all the pith of the land" (and thither he fared at his speediest), "if he might there bring the folk down under him while the earl was away from the land. But when King Olaf came to Thrandheim, then was no uprising against him there, and there he was taken to king; and he set him down there in the harvest-tide at Nidoyce, and there dight him winter-quarters. He let house a king's garth, and reared Clement's Church there whereas it now standeth. He marked out tofts for garths, and gave them to goodmen, and chapmen, or to any others he would, and who were minded to house. He sat there with many men about him, for he trusted the Thrandheimer's good faith but little, if so be the earl should come back to the land."

A few chapters further on the court of the king is described.... "King Olaf let house a king's garth at Nidoyce. There was done a big court hall with a door at either end, but the high-seat of the king was in the midmost of the hall. Up from him sat Grimkel, his court-bishop, and next to him again other clerks of his; but down from the king sat his counsellors. In the other high-seat straight over against him sat his marshal, Biorn the Thick, and then the guests. If men of high degree came to King Olaf, they were well seated.... Withal he had thirty house-carles to work all needful service in the garth, and at whatso ingatherings were needful; he had many thralls withal. In the garth also was a mickle hall, wherein slept the bodyguard, and there was withal a mickle chamber wherein the king held his court councils."

His canonisation came to pass thus. His vigorous propaganda on behalf of the true faith was by no means universally approved in Norway, and he had to take refuge in Russia (p. [231]). Thence he returned to recover his kingdom, but even in almost desperate straits he would be succoured by none other than Christian men. One Arnliot Gellini offered his services and the king asked at once of his faith. "But he said this of his troth, that he trowed in his might and main. 'And that belief has served me full well hitherto; but now I am minded to trow in thee, O King.'

"The king answered: 'If thou wilt trow in me, then thou shalt believe in what I teach thee. Thou shalt believe this, that Jesus Christ has created heaven and earth and all men, and that to him shall fare after death all those who are good, and who believe aright.'

"Arnliot answered: 'I have heard tell of the White Christ, but I am not well learned in his doings, nor where he ruleth; so I will now believe all that thou hast to tell me, and I will leave all my matter in thy hand.'

"Then Arnliot was christened, and the king taught him as much of the faith as he deemed was most needful, and arrayed him to the vanward battle-array, and before his own banner."

On the field of Sticklestead, a few miles from Trondhjem, Olaf fell in fight against foes who were supported by English gold, for Knut the Rich, though a Christian himself, was planning a vast Empire of the North, and his political zeal was stronger than his enthusiasm for the holy faith (p. [115]). His viceroy in Norway was one Hakon, the last of the stout Earls of Ladir, to whom he gave a court-bishop named Sigurd, a Dane. "That Bishop was a man masterful, and pompous of speech; he gave King Knut all the word-propping he might, and was the most unfriend of King Olaf."

The Christian host went down before the troops whose faith was mixed, and after various adventures, the body of the king was buried at Nidaros, or Trondhjem, in Clement's Church, which he had built. "That winter uphove the word of many men there in Thrandheim[32] that King Olaf was a truly holy man, and that many tokens befell at his holy relic. And then many began to make vows to King Olaf about those matters whereon they had set their hearts. From such vows many folk got bettering." "Next summer there grew up mickle talk about the holiness of King Olaf, and all word-rumour about the king was changed."

When Grimkel the bishop caused the chest of the king to be opened there was glorious fragrance, and when the face was exposed the lips were as ruddy as if Olaf had just gone to sleep. And so by degrees, as miracles increased, and old sharp feelings wore away, Olaf became the patron saint of all the Norse; Churches were raised to him in many lands, including a fair sprinkling in English seaports from Exeter to York.

The Cathedral that rose to enshrine the relics of St. Olaf would be a striking feature of any city in the world, and it completely dominates this far northern, low-roofed town. Both from far off and near it is a Church of very English type, and it stands in a regular close amid fair trees and grass. The vegetation indeed seems more to suit the English south than a spot not far outside the Arctic Circle. It forms an impressive illustration of the influence that the warm currents of ocean exert upon westward looking shores. For the opposite point of America is north of Labrador.

It has been in the hands of restorers for about the same time that the temple was in the hands of builders, and very amply fulfilled is Du Chaillu's prophecy that it would lose the quaint old look so much esteemed by the lovers of antiquity (p. [223]). Much as some cry out against the restorer in England, that country is far ahead of the Continent both in reverence for the work of the past and in making serious efforts rather to bind up what is broken down than merely to present facsimiles of it to posterity. Trondhjem Cathedral has been rebuilt rather than restored, though Mr. Christie, the architect, has strictly followed the ancient lines. Sarcastic people might say that he has given us a building which ranks high among modern churches!

Shortly before the earliest part of the Cathedral was built, Nidaros became the seat of an Archbishop whose metropolitan jurisdiction extended further than did that of any bishopric before. In 1151 Nicolas Breakspear, once it is said a beggar at St. Alban's, afterwards the only English pope,[33] came to set in order the affairs of the Northern Church. He arranged for the formation of a province that should include all Christians of Norwegian stock. The other sees in Norway (Bergen, Stavanger, Oslo (p. 95) and Hamar) were placed under the supervision of the Primate of Nidaros. Far over the sea his authority was likewise known, by bishops midst the British Isles, of Kirkwall in Orkney and of Sodor (or the Southern Isles[34]) and Man, by the Bishop of the Faroes, whose cathedral was at Kirkebö (p. [23]), by the twin Bishops of Skalholt and Holar in Iceland and even by the first of American prelates, he who sat at Garth (or Garde) in Greenland[35] far away, knowing not that he lived in a different quarter of the world.

Trondhjem Cathedral is a great cruciform church about 325 feet long, whose nave and quire are aisled, and the western towers project north and south to widen the great façade: at the east end of the quire is an octagonal corona, and on the northern side, joined only by a passage, is the apsidal Church of St. Clement, recalling the position of the Lady Chapel at Ely. It is built of blue-grey saponite, a local stone easy to work, varied with marble from the island of Almenningen.

The oldest part is the transept which was raised by the great Archbishop Eystein. He was the foe of Sverre Sigurdsson, the knight-errant king, who in his youth had been ordained, still ignorant of his royal birth. In 1180 at a battle near Nidaros he contrived to establish his power and the archbishop fled to St. Edmundsbury in England, launching as a Scythian dart against the recreant priest a sentence of the excommunication of the Church. When no one seemed in the least impressed, and the king's power was waxing fast, the archbishop became more prudent. Making his peace with Sverre he returned to Nidaros and found less strenuous occupation in building his cathedral. He died in 1188, and the king gave his funeral address.

Each transept has the usual three storeys with corner turrets and a square chapel opening on the east. They are rich in shafts and arcading with plentiful zigzag moulding, and they are really striking examples of the style that the Normans brought to England. The upper parts display a certain restiveness to commence the development of later forms. The present tower arches are modern.

Not much later than the transepts is the little chapel of St. Clement, sometimes called the Lady Chapel and sometimes the Chapter House. Its nave is vaulted in two bays and flanked by western turrets; the roof of the apse is sustained by four clustered pillars bearing pointed arches.

The quire and nave and octagonal corona are fairly uniform in style but surprisingly otherwise in plan. They belong to that period of Gothic architecture when lancets were just giving place to traceried windows, and clustered shafts and foliage caps and deeply-moulded arches were more beautiful than after or before. The works were in progress through much of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and evidently dragged on long. A bad fire gave a serious set-back in 1328. It is doubtful whether the nave was ever done. It was begun as early as 1248 by Archbishop Sigurd, son of one of the brave birkebeiner or birchlegs, who had helped King Sverre to his throne.

The builders of each part seem to have been profoundly unconscious of what their colleagues elsewhere had been about. For they were working on the foundations of three little older churches. St. Clement's was built originally by St. Olaf himself, his son Magnus the Good raised a church over his later grave where now the corona stands, a stone church of St. Mary was erected by Harald Hardredy (p. [95]) on the site of the quire.[36] Most awkwardly St. Clement's joins the rest of the church; the beautiful aisle-encircled corona declines to meet the quire at any understandable angle, the walls and pillars of the quire itself trend apart on either side toward the east.[37] See plan opposite p. 246.

NORTH-EAST CORNER OF QUIRE, LOOKING INTO AISLE AND CORONA

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Over the great central tower, which long was cut off by a low metal roof, have been raised a tall spire of wood and four pinnacles of stone. It is largely this lofty steeple in the centre that gives the Cathedral so English a look. The magnificence of this fair church is all the more striking when one realises that, with a few most unimportant exceptions, it is the furthest north of all the buildings of the middle ages. Yet its equal is not to be found in any part of Europe further south, till the latitude of Glasgow is reached.

The most striking feature of Trondhjem to-day is that so large and thriving a town should be almost wholly of wood, even in the business section and including the vast palace of the king. In 1872 the city seemed to Du Chaillu (p. [223]) singularly cheerless from the large sections that had been burnt and not rebuilt, while grass grew in many of the streets. Things are very different to-day. The thoroughfares are broad and straight, most of them pleasantly fringed with trees, and there is all the character of a prosperous, substantial town. A few wooden buildings are two centuries old, for instance the vane of the Raadhus is dated 1710 and that of the Hospitals Kirken[38] 1704, but these do not in the very least affect the general character of the place, and the aspect of the streets as a whole is as modern as well could be. The Cathedral quarter by a river bend seems to exhale a quite different atmosphere from the whole of the rest of the town. It is almost as though an English close had invaded an American city.

Near the white square tower of the Frue Kirke (dated 1739) is a wide open space where on market-days stalls are erected and country and town deal directly with each other in those picturesque surroundings that are so largely the same all over the north of Europe. The harness of the horses looks primitive, and all the weight is on the shafts, but they race along like the wind, and when a destination is reached, the owner needs to do no more than to slip round the front foot of his beast a long strap attached to the carriage. Little of the Norwegian costume that is so attractive a feature of the fjord villages is to be seen in the city; the general life of towns is becoming distressingly the same all over the Western world. The atmosphere is, however, distinctly Norse by the quays, where the fish boats come in and large barrels of their catchings are rolled about, and also where high wooden warehouses, not entirely without picturesqueness, fringe the shores of the Nid and exhale a smell of fish and tar.

The days of Danish supremacy are recalled on a hill just east of the Cathedral on the other side of the river by the picturesque old Fortress of Christiansten, which dates from the seventeenth century, and displays rubble stone walls surmounted by grassy slopes and penetrated by brick-vaulted passages and rooms. This period and this district of Norway were chosen by Victor Hugo when writing his first romance, Han d'Islande, which he published anonymously in 1823. The scene is, however, laid chiefly in Munkholm, a small rocky island which rises out of the waters of the fjord immediately opposite the town. In very earliest days of Christianity in Norway a Benedictine cloister was reared there, and for half a thousand years the monks remained, but little beyond the name survives to indicate their occupation to-day. Fortifications have long existed where the psalter was chanted in days of yore.

Victor Hugo himself explains the object of the work: "I wished to describe a girl who might realise the ideal of all fresh and poetic imagination, the girl of my dreams ... you, Adèle, my beloved.... And beside her I wanted to set a young man, not such as I am but such as I would wish to be." He has certainly succeeded so far that his characters are entirely French, and he seems rather to have made a mistake in placing the scene so far from France. The nightmare, gruesome character of the book is bloodcurdling enough, but decidedly overdone, and though the work is very well worth reading as the early effort of one of the greatest of writers, it contributes little to his fame and still less, perhaps to the interest of a visit to Trondhjem. The local colour is extremely poor, a fact that is hardly surprising when it is remembered that the author had never visited Norway.

The hills stand about Trondhjem, as indeed about all other Norway towns; some of them display, five hundred feet above the sea, marks of former beaches where waves lapped cliffs unnumbered years ago, before the movements of the globe had raised the land so high. And from places within an easy walk of the city, there is a magnificent panorama, westward over hills riven in all directions by the jagged edged sea, and eastward to the snowy mountains of the Kiolen range that form the frontier of Sweden. Superbly beautiful at all times is the prospect of wooded hill and inland sea, particularly when seen in softer outline as the long Arctic twilight gradually gives place to the paler illumination of the moon, and little lights begin to sparkle over land and sea. But even in such dreamy conditions the city, beautiful from its verdure and striking from its position, declines to look like a mediæval or even a historic town. Though for more than a thousand years the landscape below has been the scene of the varied activities of mankind, and from it has gone out power by which the life of half Europe has been quickened, even yet there is rather the restless atmosphere of new settlements in a country still only half subdued, than that of quiet peace and sense of satisfied repose, such as broods over an ancient Italian seaport, where every corner has been transformed by untold generations of man and centuries ago even the rough hill-sides were terraced to enlarge his domain.

Some three miles from the city, amid pine forests of perpetual shade, the River Nid plunges over hard dark blue rocks to form the Lerfos Falls. Most Norwegian cascades are chiefly spray, and by their great resemblance to bridal veils are associated with the happiest events in the lives of most of us. But these are more business-like waterfalls, which are not left in peace by mankind. The Lower Fall, or Lille Lerfos, is a rather average sort of thing: in a broad open place where much naked rock is exposed the water of the stream plunges over a sort of stairway to descend abruptly for nearly eighty feet, and the effect is not improved by various works in cement. A path along the wooded river bank leads to the Upper Fall, or Store Lerfos, which is one of the most beautiful anywhere to be seen. The stream leaps down a hundred feet, and both high and low the surging mass of whitened waters is cleft by tree-bearing rocks, while mist-like foam spreads far and wide.

Europe has cathedrals statelier than that of Trondhjem and mediæval cities of greater intrinsic charm, but the interest of nearly everything is affected chiefly by its position, and it is startling indeed among the wildness of the northern fjords to come upon this history-haunted spot, to see this fair cathedral rising from the trees and grass of so English-looking a close. And in the long-drawn aisles of the ancient Metropolitan Church it is strange to reflect that the saint who was here enshrined in one of the stateliest of Gothic fanes was the doughty Olaf the Thick, famed in life for his wild viking career, who knew the craft of the bow, and of all men was the best in shooting of hand-shot, who was but twelve winters old when he first stepped on a warship to begin the harrying and burning in which so much of his life was spent! And as the bright sunlight streams through the lancet windows to illuminate and shade chaste arcading and hanging foliage carved in stone, with the deep mouldings of arch and vault, it is difficult indeed to realise that one is hardly more than three degrees outside the Arctic Line.[39]

CHAPTER IV

CHRISTIANIA

And now to all the brave ones here,
And to the maids that love us—

To men who never knew a fear,
Maids pure as saints above us.

The Norway maidens! fill on high—

The Norsemen, brave to do and die!

And shame to him who passes by

The pledge to Love and Freedom.

For Norge, translated by Lady Wilde.

Cleaving the Skager Rak from the Cattegat the small peninsula of Jutland projects far into the large gulf by which the Scandinavian mountain mass is riven on the south. And at the head of the gulf a lovely island-dotted fjord penetrates far among the hills that encircle the long and narrow Norway Lakes.

The shores of the fjord are rocky, in places eaten into cliffs, pines cover all the slopes from which they are not cleared. Just here and there distant mountains of more jagged outline overtop the lower hills. For some miles the seaway is narrow, but it broadens out again before the end is reached. Less wild and rugged, less grand and awesome, than the high-walled fjords that cut into the western coast, but not less beautiful in some respects.

By many coves the sea runs in among the woods, and during saga days here lived sea-kings who never slept under sooty roof-tree, nor ever drank in hearth ingle. Into one of the arms of the branching fjord, the water then called Drafn and now known as Drammensfjord, hove Olaf the Thick, the Holy, with his host in 1028, for he had heard that Knut the Rich, England's all-wielder, was close upon his heels. Knut was planning a great Norse Empire; he had made himself master of Norway, and held Things in every folk-land that he reached. Olaf could not meet him in warfare, but he held him in Drafn water in safety till he heard that Knut was gone south into Denmark, and then he fared forth, only to find that for the time at least the land was beguiled from under him.

A few miles from the arm of the sea that had sheltered St. Olaf another saint was born, related to himself, Hallward, a worthy merchant of those parts, who got his bane while trying to protect a woman who was being attacked by men. Him Harald Hardredy, the same who met his end at Stamford Bridge in 1066, chose to be the patron saint of the new southern town which he founded to rival the capital far north.

In the Heimskringla we read how "King Harald let rear a cheaping-stead east in Oslo, and sat there often; whereas it was good there for the ingathering of victual, with wide countrysides all round about. There he sat well for the warding of the land against the Danes no less than for onsets at Denmark, which he was often wont to, though he might have no great host out."[40]

After his death we learn that "it was the talk of all men that King Harald had been beyond other men in wisdom and deft rede, no matter whether he should take swiftly, or do longsome, a rede for himself or others.... King Harald was a goodly man, and noble to behold; bleak haired and bleak bearded, his lipbeard long; one eyebrow somewhat higher than the other; large hands and feet, yet either shapely waxen; five ells was the tale of his stature. To his unfriends was he grim and vengeful for aught done against him."[41]

To this appreciation we may add that Harald was no bad judge of the best site for a town; for with the rocky forest-covered hills rising all round, and the lake-like sea with its many islands gently rippling in front, this capital has one of the best situations enjoyed by any European town. Nothing but huge advantages of site and greater nearness to the communications of the world could have reconciled Norway to her Government's abandoning the myriad associations of the far more historic city in the North.

During the reign of Sigurd Jerusalem-farer (1121-1130) to Oslo came from Ireland one Harald Gilli, who said he was a Norse king's son, but he did not claim the kingdom for himself. And Sigurd said that Harald should tread bars for his fatherhood, and that ordeal was deemed somewhat hard, but still Harald yeasaid it.

"He fasted unto iron, and that ordeal was done, which is the greatest that ever has been done in Norway, whereas nine glowing ploughshares were laid down, and Harald walked them barefoot, and was led by two bishops. Three days thereafter the ordeal was proven, and his feet were unburnt.

"After that King Sigurd took kindly to the kinship of Harald, but Magnus his son had much ill-will to him, and many lords turned after him in the matter. King Sigurd trusted so much in his friendship with all the folk of the land, that he bade this, that all should swear that his son Magnus should be king after him; and he gat that oath sworn by all the land's-folk.

"Harald Gilli was a tall man and slender of build, long-necked, somewhat long-faced, black-eyed, dark of hair, quick and swift of gait, and much wore the Irish raiment, being short-clad and light-clad. The northern tongue was stiff for him, and he fumbled much over the words, and many men had that for mockery. Harald sat on a time at the drink with another man, and told tales from the west of Ireland; and this was in his speech that in Ireland there were men so swift-foot that no horse might catch them up at a gallop. Magnus, the king's son, overheard that and said: 'Now is he lying again, as is his wont.'

"Harald answers: 'True is this, that,' says he, 'those men may be found in Ireland whom no horse in Norway shall outrun.'

"On this they had some words and both were drunk. Then said Magnus: 'Now here shalt thou wager thine head, if thou run not as hard as I ride my horse, but I will lay down against it my gold ring.'

"Harald answers: 'I say not that I run so hard, but I shall find those men in Ireland who so will run, and on that may I wager.'

"Magnus, the king's son, answers: 'I shall not be faring to Ireland, here shall we have the wager, and not there.'

"Harald then went to bed and would have nought more to do with him. This was in Oslo.

"But the next morning when matins were over, Magnus rode up unto the highway and sent word to Harald to come thither; and when he came he was so dight that he had on a shirt and breeches with footsole bands, a short cloak, an Irish hat on his head, and a spear-shaft in hand.

"Now Magnus marked out the run. Harald says: 'Overlong art thou minded to have the run.' Magnus forthwith marked it off much longer and said that even so it was over-short.

"There were many folk thereby. Then took they to the running, and Harald ever kept at the withers.

"But when they came to the end of the run, said Magnus: 'Thou holdest by the girth, and the horse drew thee.' Magnus had a Gautland horse full swift. They took again another run back, and then Harald ran all the course before the horse. And when they came to the end of the run, Harald asked: 'Held I by the girth now?' Magnus answers: 'Thou didst take off first.'

GAMLA UPSALA

Details of Runic Stone and Plan of old Cathedral]

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"Then Magnus let the horse breathe a while; and when he was ready, he smote the horse with his spurs, and he came swiftly to the gallop. Then Harald stood still, and Magnus looked back and called: 'Run now,' says he. Then Harald swiftly overran the horse, and far ahead, and so to the run's end; and came home so much the first, that he laid him down, and sprang up and hailed Magnus when he came."[42]

Oslo stood on the Akers Elv, and was chiefly on its eastern bank; Oslo-havn still exists, by the mouth of the stream just eastward of the railway-circled cape on which frowns the castle Akershus. Less than a mile to the north, not far from the river's western shore, stands a small twelfth century Romanesque structure that belonged to a suburb of Oslo and is prosaically known to-day as Gamle Akers Kirke.[43]