Part 2

Some of the fishermen use nets instead of lines. They go out in boats to set their nets.

Each morning the fishing boats with the fishermen go out to take the fish off the hooks on the lines and to put more bait on the hooks, or to empty the fish from the nets. Lars wanted to go out in the boat with his friend, but the old fisherman said that fishing was too dangerous for a young boy like Lars.

The fishing is so dangerous that the Government of Norway sends officers to the islands every winter to help protect the fishermen. No fishing boat is allowed to leave the shore to go to the lines or nets until the officer gives the signal that the waters are safe. But in spite of the help of the officers many lives are lost in those waters each year.

One morning Lars saw the flag which was the signal of the officer that the sea was safe for the fishing boats. Then he saw the thousands of boats start out to sea to look after the lines and nets. There were rowboats, motor boats, steamboats, and sailboats. He could see the boats far off the shores for hours as the men worked to load the fish they had caught.

Five hundred fish is a good catch for a boat, but sometimes a boat brings in a thousand cod at one haul. After a few days of fishing, fish are everywhere on the islands. They hang on poles along the shore. They lie stretched on the rocks. And everywhere is the smell of fish.

Lars watched the fishermen taking the livers out of the fish and boxing them. He knew that many of the livers would be sent to Hammerfest where he lived, and there they would be made into cod-liver oil.

The Giants of the North Lands

Once upon a time very strong giants lived on the high mountains of the North lands. So fairy tales of the far north say. And according to those tales, the giants pulled up great bits of earth leaving deep hollow places between rocky walls. Water from the sea filled those hollow places, so arms of the sea ran far back into the land. And those giants also tore great rocks out of the earth and tossed them at each other in their battles. So even the tops of the mountains are rough and uneven with the holes they tore in the earth and huge rocks lie on the ground where they tossed them.

Visitors to that part of Norway called Jotunheim, which means the “Home of the Giants,” might believe that those fairy tales were true. For they see the arms of the sea running between the mountain walls and the rough land on top of the mountains. Surely none but giants’ hands could have torn the land into such shapes!

But when they go to the tops of the mountains, they see some _real giants_ like those which, long, long ago, did cut the land of Norway and Sweden and Denmark into strange forms. Those giants are sheets of ice. We call them glaciers. Before travelers in the mountains get near the large ice-sheets, they see tongues of glaciers which look like rivers of ice running down the side of the mountain.

Fredrik is a Norwegian boy who helps many travelers see a glacier. His father drives an automobile for a large hotel in the mountains. He takes the guests from the hotel to see the glacier. When Fredrik is not in school, he goes with his father. Fredrik opens the many gates. For the car must travel through lands which belong to different farmers. The gates must be kept shut so that the cattle will not stray away from their own land.

Fredrik often tells the visitors what caused those rivers of ice. Snow and sleet fell on the mountains. The cold on the high peaks kept the snow from melting away, so year after year the snow gathered there. The load of snow became heavier and heavier. The snow melted a little, then froze again, until it formed a great ice sheet which we call a glacier.

Some of the ice moved slowly down the mountain side. It formed the rivers of ice which the travelers see on the mountain slopes. But as the rivers of ice got lower down the mountain, the ice melted, but it melted very, very slowly. Little by little, only a few inches a year, the river of ice has moved back. As the ice moved down the slopes it carried under it big rocks and fine gravel. Great heaps of the rock and gravel are left behind when the ice melts. From those rocks men can tell just how far the ice moves back each year.

Sometimes the ice melts in such a way that a cave is formed in the ice. As the sun shines on the thin walls around the cave the colors on the ice are very beautiful. The ice looks green, purple, and blue instead of white like the rest of the glacier. Some bits of the ice hang down, or stick up, like great icicles. The icicles too are bright colors in the sunshine.

Sometimes visitors to the glacier go into the cave or walk about on the ice. They do not stay long, for the ice cracks and pops and makes a great deal of noise. The visitors are always told that pieces of ice often break off the glacier and come sliding down.

Fredrik has been up to the top where the great ice-sheet lies for miles, and miles, and miles. You may be sure that Fredrik was not alone on the glacier. He went with a guide who knew where all the cracks in the ice are. Walking on a glacier is dangerous for a person who does not know the ice. The ice is most dangerous when soft snow covers the deep cracks in the ice. Then a traveler may step on some soft snow and drop several feet into the ice. But travelers say that a walk on a glacier is great sport for people who have learned how to walk there. Many travelers from different parts of the world go to Norway to climb glaciers.

Freezing and thawing made the rocks on the mountain crack and break. So after the glaciers passed, the low places between the mountains were cut deeper. Water from the sea came in to fill those low places and make the fjords.

So the great ice sheets were the _real_ giants that made the sharp peaks of the mountains, the waterways, and the lakes of the north land.

Of course, much of the snow which falls on the mountains does melt and run off in streams. Sometimes the rivers flow rapidly down steep slopes. Sometimes the water tumbles over a high rocky bank and falls hundreds of feet to land below.

The people of the north lands have put some of the falls to work. For years the falling water has turned wheels that have run mills to grind grain and to saw logs. But now the water of some of the great falls has been turned into electricity. High in the mountains are large houses where the water is made into the new power. From the power-houses electricity is sent for miles and miles to light homes and to run machines in factories. Norway has no coal. The Norwegians turn the water into heat and power such as coal makes. Sometimes people in Norway call the waterfalls their “white coal.” So waterfalls are also mountain giants.

People who visit Norway and its mountains are almost sure to come away believing in giants—but not _fairy-tale giants_.

In the Land of Evergreen Trees

Near the Christmas season the mountain forests of Norway and Sweden become a fairyland of ice and snow. Then the forest rings with the sounds of voices and the blows of the axes of boys cutting trees that will be decorated for the Yule-tide feasts in their homes. And thousands and thousands of pretty little trees are cut at that time of the year.

Eric and Hubert are Swedish boys who live in that land of evergreen trees. Their father owns a farm in the northern part of Sweden, but he works nearly all the year round in the forests. Eric, who is twelve years old, often helps his father in the forest. Hubert is only nine, and too young to work with the trees; but he goes with his father and Eric many times to play about in the woods and to watch the others at their work.

During the winter the men cut down the big trees and saw them into logs which are easy to handle. Then Eric helps stack the logs as they fall from the saws.

But when spring comes Eric is one of the busiest workmen. The strong woodcutters load big logs on to sleds to be hauled to the river bank a mile away. Eric drives the horse which hauls his father’s logs to the river. Often Hubert rides with Eric. The boys sit on the big logs on the sled as the horse pulls them along through the snow on the mountain road.

The logs are unloaded at the river bank. Soon the river will be flowing rapidly with much water from the melting snows from the mountains. Many farmers will then float logs in the same stream; therefore at the river bank each of Eric’s logs must be marked so that his father can claim them at the end of the waterway. Sometimes Hubert stays by the river bank to watch the men who work for his father place his father’s mark on each of the logs. The mark is the initials E. K. in a circle.

The boys enjoy seeing the logs go tumbling down the swift-flowing rivers. They have often stopped at a spot below where the river spreads out into a lake. When the logs reach that spot they stack in the water. Men then go along with poles to keep the logs moving. Sometimes there are acres and acres of logs in the lakes of Sweden at one time.

The Swedish and Norwegian people make many things of wood—their ships, their houses, their furniture, their bridges, their telephone poles, and many, many other things. But many of the logs which are floated down the river from that mountain forest where Eric works are made into paper.

Eric and Hubert have been to the factory which stands near the bank of the waterway which carries their logs. Thousands of men work there. They put the logs through a mill which grinds them into coarse fibers. Those shreds are then mixed with water and chemicals to make a pulp. The pulp is pressed under heavy rollers and dried to make sheets of paper—newspaper, writing paper, wrapping paper, and cardboard.

One day when Hubert was lighting a fire with a safety match, his father told him that the wood of the match had come from the big trees of the forests too. A Swedish man found the way to make safety matches. And Sweden was the first country to make the matches that will not catch fire unless the head of the match is scratched on a certain kind of rough paper. He told Hubert, too, that safety matches from Sweden are used all over the world.

In the school which Eric and Hubert attend the boys are taught to plant trees. And every spring they plant little trees to take the places of the big trees which the woodmen have cut down.

The school boys learn that about one fourth of Norway’s land and about one half of Sweden’s land are covered with trees. But they are taught too that the people can use up the supply of trees that Nature has given them. So they help obey the laws of their country which require that trees be planted to keep the forests from being destroyed.

How the Mountain Was Clothed

A Norwegian story-teller wrote a story “How the Mountain Was Clothed.” This is his story:

Through a deep cut between two mountains, a river hurried down over the rocks. The mountain walls on either side were high and steep. But one side of the mountain was bare. But at the foot even of this side, and so near the river that it was bathed in its spray, stood a cluster of trees. They gazed upward and outward, but they could not move one way or another.

“Suppose we clothe the mountain,” said the juniper to the fir.

The fir looked up at the naked mountainside and replied, “If any body is to do it, I suppose it will have to be we.”

The fir looked over toward the birch and asked, “What do you think, Birch?”

The birch glanced up the bare mountainside. The wall leaned over so that it seemed to the birch as if it could scarcely breathe. “Yes, indeed, let us clothe it,” he said.

So the three took upon themselves the task to clothe the bare mountain. That was their goal, and they soon set out to see whether they could reach that goal. The juniper went first.

When they had gone but a little way, they met the heather. The juniper seemed to want to pass it by. “No, take it along,” said the fir. So the heather joined them.

Before long the juniper began to slip, “Take hold of me,” said the heather. The juniper did so, and whenever the smallest crack could be seen, the heather put its finger into it. Wherever the heather had first pried in a finger, the juniper put a whole hand. They crawled and crept, the fir working hard, the birch always behind the rest.

“This is a noble work,” said the birch.

The mountain began to wonder what kind of creatures these might be that came clambering up its side. And after it had thought the matter over for a hundred years or two it sent a little brooklet down to find out. As it happened, the brook went at the time of the spring floods. It crept down till it met the heather. “Dear, dear heather,” said the brook, “won’t you let me pass? I am so tiny.” The heather was very busy, so merely raised itself a bit, and worked on. The brooklet slipped in underneath and away.

“Dear, dear juniper, won’t you let me pass? I am so very little.” The juniper eyed it severely, but since the heather had let the brook slip by, the juniper might do that too.

The brook raced on down the hill, and came to where the fir stood puffing, out of breath, on the hillside. “Dear, dear fir, won’t you let me by?” begged the brook, “I am so very small,” and kissed the fir on the foot, and smiled. The fir let it by.

And the birch made way for the brook, even before it was asked.

“Hi, hi, hi!” said the brook and grew. “Ha, ha, ha!” said the brook and grew larger. “Ho, ho, ho!” said the brook, and tore up the heather, the juniper, the fir, and the birch by their roots and flung them pell mell, head o’er heels, down the steep slope of the mountain.

The mountain sat for several hundred years after that and smiled at the memory of that day. It was plain to be seen: _The mountain did not want to be clothed._

The heather fretted and worried until it grew green again, and then it set forth once more. “Courage!” said the heather.

The juniper half raised itself to get a good look at the heather. So long did it sit half raised that at last it sat upright. It scratched its head, set forth again, and dug in so hard for a foothold that it seemed surely the mountain must feel it. “If you won’t have me, then I will have you.”

The fir stretched its toes a bit to see if they were all right, raised first one foot and then the other, and finally both feet at once. It first looked to see where it had climbed, next where it had been lying, and finally where it was to go. It then went on its way, pretending it had never fallen.

The birch, which had soiled itself badly, got up and brushed itself off. Away they went, faster than ever, to the sides and straight up, in sunshine and in rain.

“What can all this mean?” asked the mountain, one fair day, all glittering with dew, as the summer sun shone down upon it, the birds sang, the hare hopped about, and the woodmouse piped.

The day finally came when the heather could peep over the top with one eye. “Oh dear, oh dear!” said the heather, and away it went.

“Dear me,” said the juniper, “what is it the heather sees?” and just managed to reach high enough to peer over. “Oh dear, oh dear!” it exclaimed and was off.

“What is it the juniper’s up to today?” the fir wondered, taking longer steps in the heat of the sun. Before long it rose on its toes and peered over. “Oh dear, oh dear!” Its branches and needles rose straight up on end.

“What is it all the others see and I don’t?” the birch asked, as it carefully lifted its skirts, and tripped after them. “Oh—oh—! If there isn’t a huge forest of fir and heather and juniper and birch already on the other side of the mountain waiting for us!” it exclaimed. The glittering dew rolled off its leaves as it quivered in the sunshine.

“Ah, that’s what it means to reach our goal!” said the juniper.

(Adapted.)

“Björnstjerne Björnson,” from Norway’s Best Stories, published by American-Scandinavian Foundation, New York.

Reindeer Land

Reindeer land! Surely the land of the far, far north in Norway and Sweden may be called reindeer land.

One man who traveled in that land tells of a strange sight he saw there. On snow ahead of him one day he saw something moving. It looked as if thousands of hares were playing in the snow. They seemed to jump, or leap, into the air and to come down in the same spot. But why should so many hares be there? And why did they move so strangely? The man went closer, and found that his _hares_ were reindeer tails! Yes, just tails! And thousands of them! The bodies of the reindeer were buried in the snow and just the stubby tails stuck out. The reindeer had dug into the snow, throwing up a bank which hid their bodies from sight. They were eating the moss which they found under the snow and happily wagging their tails as they ate.

The reindeer are about the only animals that can get a living in those mountains where little grows except moss. And the people, called Lapps, who roam about with them get their living from the reindeer.

The Lapps are small people. The men and women are not much taller than most ten-year-old boys and girls. They have yellow skin, blue or gray eyes, and brown hair. They dress in the skins of the animals or in coarse cloth. They look very much like the Eskimos.

The word _Lapps_ means _people at land’s end_. And that part of Norway and Sweden which lies at their very tops is called Lapland. Most of the Lapps wander about, following the reindeer. Wherever the reindeer find plenty of moss, the Lapps pitch their skin tents, or build themselves a hut of sod covered with brush. In those huts they and their wolf-like dogs live until the reindeer begin to wander farther away.

The Lapps and their dogs sleep together in the huts on beds which are heaps of brush covered with reindeer skins. Getting ready for bed is a simple task for these people. They merely take off their moccasins and lie down to sleep in their clothes. They wear the same clothes, too, for months and months and very seldom take a bath.

A kettle of reindeer meat is always boiling over coals on rocks in the center of the hut. The Lapps get food from the kettle whenever they feel hungry and eat it with spoons made of reindeer horn from rude bowls or plates of wood or bone.

Day and night some Lapp and his dogs watch the herd of reindeer as they wander on the mountains. A few reindeer are kept near the hut to furnish milk for the camp.

The reindeer not only furnish the skins for clothes and covers and milk and meat for food, they are also the Lapps’ horses. The Lapp children like to go sleigh riding behind a reindeer. But sometimes the ride is rough. The children may be thrown out into the snow. The reindeer wears but little harness, so the driver cannot hold him if he cares to run.

Several families of Lapps go every summer from Sweden across a body of water to a place in Norway where the moss on the mountains is very good. The reindeer swim across the water. The Lapps go in boats and join the reindeer on the other side.

One Lapp family that crosses the water from Sweden has built a hut of timber for its summer home in Norway. It is no larger than the skin or sod huts. Both the mother and the father have to stoop to enter the house. But the little Lapp girl and her dogs can run in and out easily.

But, even though the Lapps move about from place to place, the Lapp girls and boys go to school. The law of Sweden requires these children to go to school for six years. They begin their lessons when they are seven years old and go to school until they are thirteen. Each settlement has its own school. The schoolhouse is just another Lapp hut. In the summer the children study their lessons sitting on the ground in front of or in the hut. The teacher lives in the hut and moves when the camp moves. Many of the teachers are Lapps who have been educated to teach; but some of the teachers are Swedes or Norwegians.

The children must learn both the Lapp language and the Swedish language, if they live in Sweden. They learn both the Lapp language and the Norwegian, if they live in Norway. First they learn to read, write, and work with numbers. After they can read and write a little, they begin other lessons. They learn about the plants and animals of the north land. They learn how to raise and care for the reindeer. They are taught, too, how to care for their own bodies—how to bathe, brush their teeth, cook their food, and clean their huts. But they do not learn those lessons of cleanliness and care of the body well, because their mothers and fathers do not practise them in the homes. Perhaps in a few years when the Lapp children grow up they will be cleaner than their mothers and fathers are. At least that is what the teachers hope.

The Lapps make trinkets of reindeer horns and bone, moccasins of the skins and plaited grass, and dolls dressed as Lapp children dress. When the boats which carry tourists along the seas of Norway come near the camp, the Lapps go to meet the boats. They carry with them bags of the trinkets to sell to the people from other countries who are on the boats.

In Sweden many Lapps ride on the trains. Sometimes they carry boxes filled with trinkets which they have made. They put them in shops that sell such wares to visitors in Sweden. If you rode on a train across the northern part of Sweden, you would see many Lapps, and you would see their trinkets in the shops—bone letter-openers, fur moccasins, fur mittens, dolls dressed in fur.

Not all Lapps follow the reindeer. Some of them live in one place all the year and earn a living by fishing and farming. Their homes are not much better than the huts of the wandering mountain Lapps, but they dress much like their Norwegian and Swedish neighbors. These people are called Sea Lapps.

Through Farm Lands of Norway

As Roald climbed into the two-wheeled buggy beside his mother and sister Annie, he was too excited to speak. If only his father would let him drive the pretty dun-colored horse hitched to the buggy!

Roald knew little about horses. He lived in Oslo, a city in Norway. He had never owned a pony of his own, and really had never visited in the country where boys ride and drive horses.

Early that spring his father had said, “This summer we will take a vacation and go through the farm lands of Norway.” For weeks Roald waited for the day when that journey could begin.

Then one day in July the journey did begin. The family left Oslo by train. But to Roald the journey didn’t really begin until they left the train at a small town miles from the city and climbed into that two-wheeled buggy which Norwegians called a _cariole_.

The dun-colored horse took them only a short way. For most of their journey was to be on small steamboats on the waterways of Norway, called fjords, and by automobiles on mountain roads. But Roald gladly climbed on the boat.

Their first boat glided along narrow waterways for miles and miles between mountain walls that in some places rise almost straight up from the water. Roald began to wonder whether this could be a part of Norway’s farm land. But now and then, even in this mountainous region, his father pointed out a lone farmhouse perched up on the mountainside.

Soon the boat passed shores that were less steep and Roald saw stretches of low and rolling land between mountain peaks. He caught glimpses of farms lying close together. This farm land was like the farm land he had seen near Oslo.