THE OXONIAN IN THELEMARREN..

THE Reverend Frederick Metcalfe's two visits to Norway described in his present volumes are more circumscribed than his previous tours. Instead of embracing the length of the land from Christi- ana to North Cape, with excursions into Russian Lapland, he mainly limits himself to a district lying west of Christiana and south of Bergen, in which the manners, language, and modes of life are more primitive, or as the sophisticated would say more • The Oxonian in Thelemarken, or Notes of Travel in South-Western Norway in the Summers of 1856 and 1857. With Glances at the Legendary Lore of that Dis- trict. By the Reverend Frederick Metcalfe, M.A., Fellow of Lincoln College, Ox- ford, Author of The Oxonian in Norway." In two volumes. Published by Hurst suit Blackett.

barbarous, than in other niiits ; and where no one could prudently venture save a practised traveller up to mountain work, willing th really rough it, and capable if needs be of walking his fifty or sixty miles in the day. The man who is equal to all this ; and is also like Mr. Metcalfe a master of the Norwegian tongue, and of a genial disposition ready to meet men as fellows, and learn what he can from them, may follow in his footsteps. He will behold scenes

of extraordinary grandeur, beauty, and at times of rugged and awful desolation. He ill meet in language with some remarkable resemblances to English words ; and in customs and ways of living with traces of old England, though old Norge is really the oldest of the two. He will have many thoughts forced upon him as to the economical condition, progress, and happiness of the mass of the human race ; and if he has a gift for investigating national literature and superstitions he may gather up some nursery rhymes and rustic ballads, andmany fairy tales —though it should be added that Teutonic and Scandinavian savans have latterly been there already. Still, unless the tourist feels, like Mr. Metcalfe, a pleasure in the pursuit itself, quite apart from any literary or philosophical results it may furnish, just as wild-fowl shooters relish a wintry night or morning ex- posure in a punt or lying perdu in marshes apart from the value of the game when shot, we should hardly advise a man to under- take a similar journey. He had better by half set off (at once) and take the regular steamer along the Norwegian coast to North Cape, not merely to see the sun at midnight, but to bask in con- tinual day and view the prospects at any hour of the four and twenty ; or if he must adventure on terra firma, let him drive a carriole over the high roads, rather than throw himself into Thelemarken, where there are frequently no roads at all, and sometimes not even a visible path discoverable by a stranger, while there is a continual risk of falls or drowning. This is a sample of an occasional day's work, and that not a very great way from Bergen.

"Having started later than we ought, we did not reach our destination before dark ; and as there was not the smallest vestige of a path through the morasses, we had nearly walked over a cliff into a lake before I was aware of our danger. Luckily, we at last found a cot, and a boy conducted us to our destination.

"After an uncomfortable night in a miserable hole of a cottage, I re- ceived the agreeable intelligence from my attendant, that he did not know the way any further, and wished to leave me. I informed him that he was quite welcome to do so, but if he did, he must go minus all pay. Uponthis, the giant put on a very inertial air, but seeing that I was not to be bul- lied, he prepared for the journey, employing a little maiden to show the way. It was lucky for us that he did so, for the road was intricate beyond de- scription. The old St. Giles's rookery may serve as a comparison, for want of a better one. Being ahead, I was marching straightforward, when I was recalled by the shrill voice of the bare-footed lassie.

"'On there,' she said, was a precipice, over which Brat-foss poured. There was not foot-hold for a goat that way. We must try and get through the bog to the left, and so round by Raune bottom.' "It was a bottom indeed—cliffs all round, with a treacherous swamp and streams flowing all manner of ways ; and then came another descent, the girl leading the pony, and the man pulling hard at its tail by way of drag."

"Pleasure in the way we like it " ; and unless the excursionist likes it in some such way as this, he had better accompany Mr. Metcalfe on paper, than follow his footsteps in Thelemarken. One of the most interesting features of the book is the illus- trative light which its facts often seem to throw on the moral and social state of England in the olden time, especially as re- gards the condition of the poor now and of yore. There is a constant tendency in the human mind to dwell upon the superi- ority of the past, and this peculiarity is not only observable i

among mere sentimentalists, -but even n statists. There is a class of economists who consult old acts of Parliament for the scale of wages ; take prices as preserved in several authorities; estimate the weight of metal as contained in coin' and the com- parative value of that metal in relation to later times (owing to the then greater scarcity of silver) ; and from these calculations they draw the conclusion, that the English labourer under the later Plantagenets lived in clover, Parliament having enough to do to limit his extortions by law. Dr. Twiss, on the other hand, has shown from an extensive collection of statistical results, that the condition of the poor appears to have been continually im- proving since the middle ages. In some things that pass beyond the mere necessaries of food and possibly clothing, we know they must, for the simple reason that many physical comforts—tea and sugar for example and other things, which though material lii their nature are not eaten, could. not be procured some centssies ago. It seems difficult to reconcile the terrible famines of t.,...)se remote times, or the devastations of pestilential disease with much of ease or comfort in the masses. The present state of the pea- santry in Norway, and the rude way of life among the farmers, seem to favour the idea that the condition of the mass of the people in this country has been advancing. It may be said that the soil and climate of England are naturally superior to those of Norway; which is true. Whether they are actually more availabk may be another question. Whether all things being considered–: the proportion of population to cultivable land, the absence of clearing, draining, and improving, England was a much better country for a poor man to live in during the middle ages than Norway is now may be doubted. However, this is the specimeti of a Norwegian's summer life, a sort of horse and cattle herd, whom our traveller fell in with by the way. " 'And who is Ambrose ?' inquired I. Where is his SUR ? I see ns symptons of one.' " StO1 ! bless you, langt ifra (far from it.) Ile is a flytte-maend. comes up on the mountain with a lot of horses and Nod (Scohoe now!" horned cattle,) for about six weeks in the summer. He has kbag of and he lives upon that and the milk of one milking cow, which he has with him. At night, he sleeps under a rock or stone, flitting about from place to place, wherever he can find grass for the cattle. He receives a small um a-head for his trouble, when he has taken-them back safe and sound.' "Hard life of it, thought I. Bad food and worse lodging ; not to men- tion that the beasts of prey occasionally diminish the number of his charge, and with it the amount of his earnings."

But whatever may be decided as to the mere raw material of food and clothing, there can be no question about modern supe- riority in all that concerns the application of mechanical, medi- cal, or artistical science to the comforts or habits of life. Our innumerable domestic luxuries have not reached Norway ; but that country has improved in houses. This was the former ac- commodation of the upper classes in Norway and of the lesser if not the greater barons of Englanfl.

I picked up another very intelligent Cicerone in Mr. Sunsdal, the Lehnsman of the district. " ' You would, perhaps, like to see one of the old original dwellings of our forefathers,' said he ; there are still mauy of them in this part of Norway. The name is Rogstue, 1. e. smoke-room.' "We accordingly:entered one of these pristine abodes, such as were the fashion among the highest of the land many hundred years ago. The house was built of great logs, and its chief and almost only sitting-room had no windows, the light being admitted from above by an orifice (ljaaren) in the centre of the roof, over which fitted a lid fastened to a pole. Through this the smoke escaped from the great square fireplace (aaren) in the middle of the floor, enclosed by hewn stones. Round this ran heavy benches, the backs of which were carved with various devices. A huge wooden crane, rudely carved into the figure of a head, and blackened with smoke, projected from a side-wall to a point half-way between the hearth and chimney-hole. From this the great porridge-pot (Gryd-hodden) was suspended. Kettle is hodden' in old English.

"On this smoke-blackened crane I discerned two or three deep scars, in- dicative of a custom now obsolete. On the occasion of a wedding, the bride- groom used to strike his axe into this as he entered, which was as much as to gay that peace should be the order of the day ; an omen, be it said, which seldom came true in practice.

"One side of this pristine apartment was taken up by the two beds (kvillunne) fixed against the wall' according to the custom of the country, and in shape resembling the berths on board ship. Between them was the safe or cupboard (skape). On the opposite side of the wall was a wooden dresser of massive workmanship, while round the room were shelves with cheeses upon them. They were placed just within the smoke-line, as I shall

call it. The smoke in fact, having havg draught enough, descends about half way down the walla, rendering that portion of them which came within the lowest smoke-mark of the sooty vapour as black as the fifty wives of the King of the Cannibal Islands ; while the great beams below this preserved their original wood-colour."

The extensive prevalence of leprosy in Europe during the middle ages is perhaps the best evidence against the general well- being of the people. This terrible disease still exists in Norway, the Government statistics showing that upwards of two thousand persons are afflicted with it. Mr. Metcalfe visited the new Leper Hospital at Bergen, and gives an interesting account both of the hospital and the disease ; but too long and in a degree too special for quotation. In the country districts he picked up a good many illustrations of another old subject ; stories exhibitive of various superstitions. These are often similar in kind to those of other parts of Europe ; but then Mr. Metcalfe holds Scandinavia was their fons et origo. The idea of the following is not new ; but the story itself was taken down near the place of its alleged occur- rence.

"There was a peasant up in the west whose mill (quern) was burned down two Whitsuntides following. The third year, on Whitsun Eve, a travelling tailor was staying with him, making some new clothes for the next day. 'I wonder whether my new mill will be burnt down tonight again?' ?' said the peasant. 'Oh, I'll keep watch,' exclaimed the tailor ; no harm shall happen.' True to his word, when night came on, the knight of the shears betook himself to the mill. The first thing he did was to draw a large circle with his chalk on the floor, and write Our Father' round it, and, that done, he was not afraid, no not even if the fiend him- self were to make his appearance. At midnight the door was suddenly flung open, and a crowd of black eats came in. The tailor watched. Be- fore long the new comers lit a fire in the chimney-corner, and got a pot upon it, which soon began to bubble and squeak, as if it was full of boiling pitch. Just then, one of the eats slily put its paw on the side of the pot, and tried to upset it. 'Mind, nasty cat, you'll burn yourself,' said the tailor, inside his ring. 'Mind, nasty cat, you'll burn yourself, says the tailor to me,' says the cat to the other cats. And then all the cats began dancing round the ring. While they were dancing, the same cat stole slily to the chimney corner and was on the point of upsetting the pot, when the tailor exclaimed, 'Mind, nasty eat, you'll burn 'yourself." Mind, nasty cat, you'll burn yourself, says the tailor to me, says the cat to the other cats. And then the whiskered crew began to dance again round the tailor. Another attempt at arson was made with no better success. And all the cats danced round the tailor, quicker and quicker, their eyes glowing, till his head spun round again. But still he luckily kept his self-possession and his sense. At last the cat which had tried to upset the pot, made a grab at him over the ring, but missed. The tailor was on the alert, and next tune the cat's paw came near he snipped it off short with his shears. What a spitting and miauling they did make, as they all fled out of the mill, leaving the tailor to sleep quietly in his ring for the rest of the night, In the morning, he opened the mill-door and went down to the peasant's house. He and his wife were still in bed, for it was Whitsun morning, and they were having a good sleep of it. How glad the miller was to see the taifor. 'Good morrow to you' he said reaching out his hand, and giving the tailor a hearty greeting. Good morrow, mother,' said the tailor to the wife offering her his hand. But she looked so strange and BO pale, he could, not make it out. At last she gave him her left hand, and kept the other under the sheepskin. Ay, ay, thought the tailor, I see how the ground lies.'

" The miller-wife was one of the subterranean people, then,' I put in. " No doubt of it,' said Miss Katinka."

_ The traveller displays the same literary qualities as in The Oxonian in Norway. His style is lively, his matter real, and he occasionally rises to picturesque description or vivid disquisition. Whether he does not give too free a rein to his pen and may not mention things in too much detail is a question, especially when the things lead to nothing and illustrate little. It is, however, by the continuous exhibition of his daily progress and observa- tions that the writer succeeds in impressing the country and its inhabitants upon the reader's mind. It is not therefore very easy to settle what portions should be omitted. If a result is to be attained by continual dripping, it will not do to stop particular drops. The narrative is always readable even when the matter is slight.