Near the Top of the World: Stories of Norway, Sweden & Denmark

Part 1

Chapter 14,112 wordsPublic domain

NEAR THE TOP OF THE WORLD

Nelle E. Moore

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS

NEW YORK CHICAGO BOSTON ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO DALLAS

Printed in the United States of America

Foreword

This book is intended to encourage a friendly attitude towards people of other lands. Fast steamers, airplanes, and the radio have made the people of all lands neighbors, and American boys and girls must become better acquainted with their neighbors across the seas if they are to understand and appreciate them. Through material such as is given in Near the Top of the World, children may come to know interesting and likable people of another country, and to regard them as people like themselves, not as queer or amusing.

The author traveled widely in Scandinavia for the purpose of gathering material. She watched the people, especially the children, at work and play. She visited homes, schools, libraries, farms, saeters, Lapp settlements. She talked with teachers, librarians, and other citizens of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and they assisted her generously in seeing and interpreting life in their lands.

The pictures which illustrate the stories are photographs, some of them taken by the author. For other pictures she is grateful to the American-Swedish News Exchange, New York, the Norwegian Government Railway, New York, and the Danish Government Railway, New York.

The vocabulary is simple and although the book was written for no specific grade, the sentence structure has been adapted to third grade reading. The stories were tested in third grade classrooms and revised to remove any difficulties that were encountered. The vocabulary was checked with the Gates Word List and the Thorndike Word List with the following results: 74 per cent of the words in the random sampling fall in the Gates 1500 list; 84 per cent in Thorndike’s first 2000 list, 90 per cent in Thorndike’s first 3000 list, and 94 per cent in Thorndike’s first 5000 list. Very few unusual words have been used.

The material has numerous possibilities for classroom use:

(a) As a Social Science Reader

The book will be of special service to teachers seeking material for units of study on other lands for social science classes. Curriculum makers for elementary schools have set up such units to break away from the more formal units of geography and history, but have found their attempts to be only partially successful because of the dearth of suitable reading material to put into the hands of the pupils.

(b) As Supplementary to Geography

Schools having separate courses in geography will find Near the Top of the World a valuable supplementary reader. From the story Greeting a Strange Sun to the story Planting of the Flag of Norway at the Bottom of the Earth, there are experiences to help children interpret how people make their ways of living fit the land in which they live.

In the folklore, the Viking tales, the descriptions of castles and open-air museums, the readers of Near the Top of the World see history as the background for the present-day life of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

(d) For Recreational Reading

Boys and girls, always interested in children of other lands, will find the book one to read just for fun. It will be especially liked by the children in America who are of Scandinavian origin or who have relatives in the Scandinavian countries.

In whatever way the book is used, the readers cannot fail to make interesting discoveries about the Scandinavian countries that have so generously contributed to American citizenship.

THE AUTHOR

Contents

NEAR THE TOP OF THE WORLD GREETING A STRANGE SUN ON THE SEAS OF THE FAR NORTH FISHING ISLANDS THE GIANTS OF THE NORTH LANDS IN THE LAND OF EVERGREEN TREES HOW THE MOUNTAIN WAS CLOTHED REINDEER LAND THROUGH FARM LANDS OF NORWAY IN THE HIGH PASTURES ON THE FLAT FARM LANDS OF DENMARK A TELLER OF TALES A CITY IN THE MIDST OF SEVEN MOUNTAINS IN A CITY BUILT ON ISLANDS THE CHILDREN OF THE NORTH CELEBRATE WINTER SPORTS IN THE NORTH LAND AT SCHOOL IN THE FAR NORTH IN AN OPEN-AIR MUSEUM A TALE OF A WANDERING STORY-TELLER BURIED TREASURES OF THE OLD SEA KINGS TALES OF THE OLD SEA KINGS IVAR, A VIKING BOY PLANTING THE FLAG OF NORWAY AT THE BOTTOM OF THE EARTH BOOKS TO READ

Illustrations

The top of the world Map of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark How the sun seems to move around the horizon This tree is farther north than any other tree in the world The North Cape and the midnight sun Lars and Kari on the deck of the ship Birds frightened by the boat Fish hung on poles to dry The fishing boat had a good catch Fredrik Walking on a glacier A Norwegian Fjord Evergreen trees in winter Men with poles keep the logs moving Lapps traveling with reindeer A Lapp hut Children in a Lapp school A two-wheeled buggy or cariole A fence loaded with grass A Norwegian farm Lonely little huts in the mountains A Norwegian saeter Matti, Ingrid, and Ole A farmhouse with a thatched roof A Danish egg An old town in Denmark A co-operative dairy farm The birthplace of Hans Andersen Paper cutting done by Hans Andersen Dolls dressed like the characters in Andersen’s stories Statue of Hans Christian Andersen The city of Bergen The city of Stockholm One of the small summer homes The boys with their rafts Changing the guard in front of the royal castle Christmas brings skis for old and young Dancing around the Maypole Swedish children in national costume Olaf’s little sister In both Norway and Sweden school children learn to ski A ski jumper Sail skating Sleds on the ice The first day of school Swedish boys in school Harold’s time plan Norwegian children celebrating Independence Day A seventh-grade time plan Martha and Nils picking berries Nils helping to repair the roof Nils helping the boys to build a boat A swimming contest in Copenhagen A room in an open-air museum Another room in an open-air museum Folk dancing at a museum The Viking ship as it was found A Viking ship rebuilt Captain Andersen’s ship, Viking, leaving Oslo An old rock picture of a Viking ship Treasures of the old sea-kings Amundsen’s equipment, now in a museum

STORIES OF NORWAY, SWEDEN AND DENMARK

Near the Top of the World

Children of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark live near the top of the world. Some of them dance round the Yule tree on a day as dark as night and round the Maypole on a night as light as day!

On the map of the top of the world on the next page you can find their lands.

Kari and Lars live near the top of Norway. They travel by boat. They see the fishing boats and the birds that roost on the rocky walls near the sea.

The little Lapp girl and her dog also live in that land far to the north. But to them it is the land of the reindeer. They wander from place to place. They live in tents or rude huts wherever the reindeer find food.

Olaf of Norway and Gerda of Sweden live farther to the south of those lands. To them in winter their land is a land of skis. And to many girls and boys Norway and Sweden in winter is a land of Christmas trees.

Harold lives in America, but he knows the lands near the top of the world. His grandmother lives in Norway and his cousin lives in Sweden. To Harold those lands make many a storybook tale come true. When he visited them he saw the old Viking boats which were like the boat in which Leif Ericsson sailed to America so long ago. He saw castles where boys long ago were dubbed knights.

Christian lives on the flat lands of Denmark. Denmark was the home of the great story-teller, Hans Christian Andersen.

But now turn the pages of this book and let these children, and many others too, tell you stories from that land near the top of the world.

Greeting a Strange Sun

About noon, one day late in January, a group of school children dressed in warm coats, caps, and mittens stood in the snow eagerly waiting for something. Suddenly one of the big boys pulled a rope that sent the flag to the top of its pole. There it waved a greeting as over the edge of the earth peeped the sun!

While the children watched, the rim of gold became half a round ball. Then it began to drop and in an hour no part of that ball could be seen in the sky.

Those children live in a town near the top of the world. Weeks and weeks had passed since they had seen the sun. About the time that American children were having Thanksgiving the sun had dropped from sight. There was no sunshine in that northern town on Christmas day. The children went to school through cold dark streets lighted by electricity. Then came days when there was a pale light in the sky, like the dawn that comes just before the sun rises. At last came that day in January when the sun appeared. No wonder the flag was raised to greet him!

As those children greeted the big shining ball they knew that now they would see the sun in the sky for months. Each day it would stay a little longer.

Time went on. One day about the middle of May the children saw the sun in the east early in the morning not to set again for weeks and weeks. Each day it seemed to move around the sky in a big circle near the ground. To girls and boys who live in the far north of Norway and Sweden the sun seems to go _around_ their homes, not _over_ them from east to west as we see it. The picture of the midnight sun shows just how the sun seems to move around low in the sky. Of course, as you know, the earth is really moving around the sun.

For many weeks the children had sunshine while they worked and while they played. No longer did they have to work in their schoolrooms by electric light. They ate their breakfasts, dinners, and suppers while the sun shone. They even had sunshine while they slept, sunshine all through the night. The sun did not set again until late in July. And in July the sun was gone from the sky only a few hours each night.

Day after day the sun was gone for a little longer time until one day in November it set again not to return until the next January.

Hammerfest, the town in which those children live, is in Norway. It is farther north than any other town in the world. It is a small town with only about six hundred homes.

The homes in Hammerfest are built of wood. Many of them are not painted and the wood has turned dark brown from the weather. Other homes are painted white, light green, pink, and blue. These colored houses are pretty with their roofs of red tile.

The streets are narrow and look very bare without trees, and few trees can grow in the cold of the far north. Hammerfest has a park with a half-dozen or more trees and just outside the town stands a lone tree—the most northern tree in the world. The school children are proud of those few trees even though they are no larger than shrubs. They point them out to the visitors who come to their town.

Hammerfest faces the sea. The girls and boys of Hammerfest hurry to meet the ships that stop on their shores. They look to see what flag each ship flies. When they see the flag of a ship they are sure to know from what country it comes. They see ships with Swedish flags, ships with Danish flags, ships with Dutch flags, ships with English flags, ships with American flags, and many other ships with other flags. The boys like to watch ships unload coal, machinery, grain, and foodstuffs; and to watch other ships being loaded with fish, cod-liver oil, and hides.

Both the boys and the girls like to go aboard the passenger ships that visit their port. Sometimes they try to talk to the passengers. They hear many strange languages—English, Dutch, French, German, and Italian. They see people from many different countries—England, Scotland, America, Holland, France, Germany, and Italy. People from almost all over the world stop at Hammerfest on the large steamers which carry them to the very top of Norway to a big rock that sticks out into the Arctic Ocean. That rock called the North Cape is less than one hundred miles from Hammerfest. Many, many people visit the North Cape each summer at the time when the sun shines there at midnight.

During the summer the girls and boys play along the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Often they find wood that has been carried in by the waves. We call such wood driftwood. When the cool evenings come driftwood is fine for burning in open fireplaces. One day some of the boys found pieces of strange wood and bark. An old sailor told them that those pieces were from the great palm trees which grow far to the south where the sun shines all the year round. It had been carried to them by the warm stream of water which also keeps their shores from freezing even in the cold winters.

Visitors who walk along the streets of that town far to the north get a strong smell of cod-liver oil. Hammerfest has a big factory where men make cod-liver oil. They take the livers from codfish and press them to get the oil. Then they put the oil in large barrels ready for ships to carry it away to other parts of Norway and to countries far away. Many girls and boys in America have tasted cod-liver oil from Hammerfest, as much of it is sold in our country.

Many of the children of Hammerfest have never seen a street-car nor a train. But they have electric lights in their homes and on their streets. Their town is too small to need street-cars and, because of the mountains and the great distances between the towns, no railroads have been built in that land so far north. But those children get their mail and packages from boats. They travel by boats too. Their boats come all the year round as regularly as trains in towns on the railroads.

Perhaps some children will think, “But surely ships cannot visit those northern shores in the winter when the sun is gone from the sky. The waters must be frozen.” But they are wrong about the northern lands near the sea. Ships come and go all the year round. Those waters are never frozen.

Those northern shores are warmed in a strange way. South of the United States of America is a body of water called the Gulf of Mexico. That body of water lies at a place on the earth where it gets warm sunshine all the year round. The water is always very warm. It is that warm water which keeps the land near the top of the earth warm.

The Gulf of Mexico seems to act in a way similar to a tank in the basement of a large house which sends water to heat the rooms far from the basement. A stream of warm water from that warm gulf is carried thousands of miles across the ocean to the shores of this northland. This is called the Gulf Stream. And the Gulf Stream keeps those shores warm enough for people to live there comfortably even during the months when no sun shines.

Some people who have traveled in many parts of the world have visited this town farther north than any other town in the world. Some of them say, “Hammerfest is not only the town which lies farthest north; it is also unlike any other town in the world.” And perhaps that is what the readers of this book are thinking too.

On the Seas of the Far North

Clang! Clang! sounded the bell of the boat. Lars and Kari hurriedly said good-bye to father and mother and ran over the narrow plank to the boat.

Lars and Kari live in Hammerfest. They were going to visit their grandmother who lives about a two-days’ ride to the south of their home.

Soon their bags were put into the cabins where they would sleep that night and they were on the deck waving their hands to their parents. Then in big comfortable chairs, they sat on the deck. It was August and the air was cool and pleasant.

Lars liked best to watch the boatmen do their work, but Kari wanted to see the land they passed. You might think that Kari could see land only to the left, for on the left is the coast of Norway, and surely there is only water on the right toward the sea. But much of the time Kari saw land on both sides. Sometimes, though, the land on the right was only huge rocks in the water, or small spots of land with water all around them where only birds live. But part of the way the pieces of land on the right were so large that Kari could not see the ends of them. They were only small islands with water all around them too. Lars and Kari were going to an island. Their grandmother lived in a town built on an island off the coast of Norway.

For a long time both Lars and Kari watched the coast of Norway on their left. For miles and miles they saw rolling banks of earth covered with shrubs of birch not even as tall as the one-story houses along the coast which were the homes of fishermen.

Soon they heard the whistle of the boat. Lars said that the whistle was blowing because they were coming to a town. They ran to the other side of the boat. By that time the boat was stopping, but it was still out in the water some distance from the town. A rowboat was coming from the town to meet the boat. The rowboat was bringing mail and packages for the large boat, and it would take back to shore the mail, packages, and passengers.

Lars and Kari had plenty of time to see the town. It was a fishing town. Fish were hanging on lines all along the bank, and more fish were stretched upon the ground to dry in the sun. The captain told Lars that the fish were herring. Perhaps some of the boxes that were loaded on the boat were boxes of herring which would be sent to America, for American merchants buy a great deal of herring from Norway.

The boat had not gone far from the fishing town when Lars saw a fishing boat. He called to Kari and together they leaned over the rail of their boat to watch the fishermen. They had never seen so many fish before. But they were soon watching the large gulls that flew along after the fishing boat. Some of the birds left the fishing boat and followed their boat. The gulls came so close that Kari almost touched one as it floated along right over her head.

Kari told the captain about the gulls that evening when they were eating supper in the dining room on the boat. The captain said, “During the night the boat will pass a mountain where thousands and thousands of birds roost on the rocks.”

“Can we see the birds from the boat?” asked Lars.

“You could see them,” replied the captain, “if you were awake, but the boat will pass that rock at three o’clock in the morning. You will be sound asleep.”

But Lars and Kari begged so hard that the captain promised to have them called when the boat was near the bird roost.

Lars and Kari didn’t want to go to bed that night. They watched the sun on the mountain peaks of the islands to their right and then back of them to the north. At ten o’clock the sun was still sending a glowing light over the water. The captain said that it would shine until about eleven that night. But Kari thought that they should go to bed at ten o’clock so that they could get a good sleep before three o’clock.

At three o’clock the steward of the boat knocked at the cabin door. Lars and Kari jumped up quickly. Each one pulled on warm stockings and shoes and coat and cap. They hurried to the deck. The sun was shining brightly again; in fact it had risen two hours earlier.

Suddenly the boat moved close to a rocky wall. Such a screaming of bird cries! There on the rocks were so many, many birds that they never could have counted them. And many more, frightened by the boat, were flying about in the air crying wildly.

Lars and Kari were delighted to have seen the thousands of birds at their resting place on the rocks, but they were glad to go back to bed, even though the sun was so high in the sky. And they slept until eight o’clock too.

Before noon they reached the island where their grandmother lived. A boat came from the shore to meet them. They said good-bye to the captain and the other workers on the boat and went to the shore where their grandmother was waiting for them.

Fishing Islands

Lars stayed on the island with his grandmother that winter. He went to a larger and better school than the one in Hammerfest.

At first Lars thought, “How lonely I shall be when the days are short and the nights are long.” To his surprise he found that the days with little sunshine were the busiest days on the islands. Lars was on one of the Lofoten islands where thousands of fishermen catch fish during the time of the long nights.

Late in January the fishing boats began to arrive. Before many days thousands of boats had come. The boats brought thousands and thousands of fishermen. The huts along the coast were soon opened. The quiet spots were now noisy with the chugging of boats and the voices of busy people.

Lars soon made friends with some fisher people. One old fisherman told him many things that he wanted to know about the cod, for that is the fish those fishermen came to Lofoten to catch.

Why did the fishermen come at this time of the year? Were there no cod in these waters in the summer? Those were questions Lars asked the old fisherman.

Lars learned that the cod were great travelers. They had come from the big Atlantic Ocean to reach the Lofoten Islands. Great numbers of cod swim together. They reach those waters of the Lofoten late in January. By the time the water is dark with the fish, the fishermen are ready to begin their fishing.

But the waters in the Lofotens get many, many more fish than those which come in from the Atlantic. It is in the waters of these islands that the cod mothers lay the eggs from which baby cod are hatched. And millions and millions of baby cod are hatched each year.

Lars watched some fishermen fastening a fishing line on the shore. The line was a strong and heavy cord. Most of the lines used by the Lofoten fishermen are five or six thousand feet long. The long fishing line is held near the top of the water by corks which will not sink. The long line is taken far out to sea by the boats. The end of the long line has a heavy weight fastened to it. That weight is dropped into the water and it holds the fishing line in the place that the fishermen want it. Short lines are fastened to each long line. The short lines have hooks upon them. More than a thousand hooks are dropped into the water from each long fishing line.