1936 On the Continent

Flöien, on the top of the mountain of the same name. A funicular railway takes one up in about ten minutes, and the views from the summit are memorable. One can see far out to the North Sea, beyond the maze of fjords and sounds and the massed line of islands. The Lövstakken mountain fills the horizon to the west, and behind rise the massive Ulrikken and Rundemannen.
    The café has a good dancing floor, lit up from beneath through glass panels. Its outdoor terrace is built out towards a spur of the mountain. A grand place to taste the good Hansa beer that they brew in Bergen and soak in the memory of the view.
    From Flöien, which is one of the lesser heights around Bergen, tracks lead up through the pinewoods to the higher ranges. Forty minutes’ walk brings you to thetop of Rundemannen, where there is a radio station. From here, if the weather is clear, one can see far inland over a succession of mountain ridges to the snowfields of Hardanger. Other tracks lead over the mountains in different directions, and there is one walk well worth taking—down to the Svartediket lake, a deep, lonely sheet of water prisoned amid the towering heights.
    In the past Bergen was an important centre of the Hanseatic League. The relics of these times are preserved along the Tyskebryggen quay, where a few of the old timber warehouses still stand.
    One of the buildings has been kept in its exact state with all its furnishings. A row of spirit glasses near the chief merchant’s desk tells of the “priming” by the astute German trader of the simple Norwegian fishermen who came to sell their catches to the Hansa organisation. The Hansa folk also kept two sets of scale weights—light for selling and heavy for buying.
    Seawards beyond the Tyskebryggen is the old fortress of Bergenhus. Its ramparts form a promenade for the citizens to-day, and it is pleasant to sit there, watching the shipping that is perpetually on the move in the fjord.
    From the Holbergs Plads, near the Fish Market, various motor-coach services start for outlying districts near Bergen. One of the best routes is that to Os, a townlet to the south standing at the head of a peninsula of the Björnefjord. The way lies for some twenty miles through attractive country. Several large lakes are skirted and some typical villages of the Vestland passed.
    A bay of the fjord near Os has been developed into a bathing resort—Solstrand, where there is a good hotel and restaurant.
Peasant Life in Norway
    From the earliest records of Norwegian history one can trace the importance, economically and politically, of the peasant freeholder or
bonde
. He is the direct descendant of Viking social culture, and the backbone of the Norwegian race to-day.
    Pride of his fine peasant ancestry, love of his soil, affection for his family and unbounded hospitality for the stranger in his midst, are his staunch virtues.
    There are two distinct types of Norwegian peasantry—the farmer or forester of the valleys and inland regions, and the fisherman-peasant of the coasts. Both of them pull an equal weight in the life of Norway.
    It is on inland rambles through the valleys and among the villages of the fjords that one comes into closest contact and truest sympathy with the lives of the country folk. By the Udal law of Norway the
bonde
is his own unassailable master.
The immediate possessor of the soil owns no superior. He is absolute owner and is not subject to any rents or duties or vexations of any kind whatsoever
. Such are the provisions of the Udal law.
    A homestead is best,
    Though it be small;
    A man is master at home,
    Though he has but two goats
    And a straw thatch. …
    Thus the Havamål—the versified moral code of the Vikings. The
bonde
of to-day clings proudly to its tenets.
The Norwegian Summer
    In the short and vivid Norwegian summer—the first wild flowers are often in bloom ten days after the snows have melted in the Spring, and the first crop of hay is sometimes ready in the fifth week—the peasant farmer has to produce sufficient for sale in the country markets and for the maintenance of himself and his family throughout the seven hard winter months. It is a tough task, but the
bonde
successfully achieves it. In this he is helped by an able wife and sturdy sons and daughters.
    Once the snow is clear of the ground, crops are sown and cattle released from long months under roof to graze and get fat in the open. And in June the migration to the
seter
, or mountain pasture,