The Modern Vikings

In a few seconds father and son have reached the bottom of the valley, and before them is a steep incline, overgrown with leafless birch and elder forests. It is there where they have their snares, made of braided horse-hair; and as bait they use the red berries of the mountain ash, of which ptarmigan and thrushes are very fond. Now comes the test of their strength; but the snow is too deep and loose to wade through, and to climb a declivity on skees is by no means as easy as it is to slide down a smooth hill-side. They now have to plod along slowly, ascending in long zig-zag lines, pausing often to rest on their staves, and to wipe the perspiration from their foreheads. Half an hour’s climb brings them to the trapping-grounds. But there, indeed, their efforts are well rewarded.

“Oh, look, look, father!” cries the boy, ecstatically. “Oh, what a lot we have caught! Why, there are three dozen birds, as sure as there is one.”

His father smiles contentedly, but says nothing. He is too old a trapper to give way to his delight.

“There is enough to buy you a new coat for Christmas, lad,” he says, chuckling; “and if we make many more such hauls, we may get enough to buy mother a silver brooch, too, to wear at church on Sundays.”

“No, buy mother’s brooch first, father,” protests the lad, a little hesitatingly (for it costs many boys an effort to be generous); “my coat will come along soon enough. Although, to be sure, my old one is pretty shabby,” he adds, with a regretful glance at his patched sleeves.

“Well, we will see, we will see,” responds Nils, pulling off his bear-skin mittens and gliding in among the trees in which the traps are set. “The good Lord, who looks after the poor man as well as the rich, may send us enough to attend to the wants of us all.”

He had opened his hunting-bag, and was loosening the snare from the neck of a poor strangled ptarmigan, when all of a sudden he heard a great flapping of wings, and, glancing down through the long colonnade of frost-silvered trees, saw a bird which had been caught by the leg, and was struggling desperately to escape from the snare.

“Poor silly thing!” he said, half-pityingly; “it is not worth a shot. Run down and dispatch it, Ola.”

“Oh, I don’t like to kill things, father,” cried the lad, who with a fascinated gaze was regarding the struggling ptarmigan. “When they hang themselves I don’t mind it so much; but it seems too wicked to wring the neck of that white, harmless bird. No, let me cut the snare with my knife and let it go.”

“All right; do as you like, lad,” answered the father, with gruff kindliness.

And with a delight which did his heart more honor than his head, Ola slid away on his skees toward the struggling bird, which, the moment he touched it, hung perfectly still, with its tongue stuck out, as if waiting for its death-blow.

“Kill me,” it seemed to say. “I am quite ready.”

But, instead of killing it, Ola took it gently in his hand, and stroked it caressingly while cutting the snare and disentangling its feet. How wildly its little heart beat with fright! And the moment his hold was relaxed, down it tumbled into the snow, ran a few steps, then took to its wings, dashed against a tree in sheer bewilderment, and shook down a shower of fine snow on its deliverer’s head. Ola felt quite heroic when he saw the bird’s delight, and thought how, perhaps, next summer (when it had changed its coat to brown) it would tell its little ones, nestling under its wings, of its hairbreadth escape from death, and of the kind-hearted youngster who had set it free instead of killing it.

While Ola was absorbed in these pleasant reflections, Nils, his father, had filled his hunting-bag with game and was counting his spoils.

“Now, quick, laddie,” he called out, cheerily. “Stir your stumps and bring me your bag of bait. Get the snares to rights and fix the berries, as you have seen me doing.”

Ola was very fond of this kind of work, and he pushed himself with his staff from tree to tree, and hung the tempting red berries in the little hoops and arches which were attached to the bark of the trees. He was in the midst of this labor, when suddenly he heard the report of his father’s gun, and, looking up, saw a fox making a great leap, then plunging headlong into the snow.

“Hello, Mr. Reynard,” remarked Nils, as he slid over toward the dead animal. “You overslept yourself this morning. You have stolen my game so long, now, that it was time I should get even with you. And yet, if the wind had been the other way, you would have caught the scent of me sooner than I should have caught yours. Now, sir, we are quits.”

“What a great, big, sleek fellow!” ejaculated Ola, stroking the fox’s fur and opening his mouth to examine his sharp, needle-pointed teeth.

“Yes,” replied Nils; “I have saved the rascal the trouble of hunting until he has grown fat and secure, and fond of his ease. I had a long score to settle with that old miscreant, who has been robbing my snares ever since last season. His skin is worth about three dollars.”

When the task of setting the snares in order had been completed, father and son glided lightly away under the huge, snow-laden trees to visit their traps, which were set further up the mountain. The sun was just peeping above the mountain-ridge, and the trees and the great snow-fields flashed and shone, as if oversown with numberless diamonds. Round about were the tracks of birds and beasts; the record of their little lives was traced there in the soft, downy snow, and could be read by everyone who had the eyes to read. Here were the tracks telling of the quiet pottering of the leman and the field-mouse, going in search of their stored provisions for breakfast, but rising to take a peep at the sun on the way. You could trace their long, translucent tunnels under the snow-crust, crossing each other in labyrinthine entanglements. Here Mr. Reynard’s graceful tail had lightly brushed over the snow, as he leaped to catch young Mrs. Partridge, who had just come out to scratch up her breakfast of frozen huckleberries, and here Mr. and Mrs. Squirrel (a very estimable couple) had partaken of their frugal repast of pine-cone seeds, the remains of which were still scattered on the snow. But far prettier were the imprints of their tiny feet, showing how they sat on their haunches, chattering amicably about the high cost of living, and of that grasping monopolist, Mr. Reynard, who had it all his own way in the woods, and had no more regard for life than a railroad president. This and much more, which I have not the time to tell you, did Ola and his father observe on their skee-excursion through the woods. And when, late in the afternoon, they turned their faces homeward, they had, besides the ptarmigan and the fox, a big capercailzie (or grouse) cock, and two hares. The twilight was already falling, for in the Norway winter it grows dark early in the afternoon.

“Now, let us see, lad,” said Ola’s father, regarding his son with a strange, dubious glance, “if you have got Norse blood in your veins. We don’t want to go home the way we came, or we should scarcely reach the house before midnight. But if you dare risk your neck with your father, we will take the western track down the bare mountain-side. It takes brisk and stout legs to stand in that track, my lad, and I won’t urge you, if you are afraid.”

“I guess I can go where you can, father,” retorted the boy, proudly. “Anyway, my neck isn’t half so valuable as yours.”

“Spoken like a man!” said the father, in a voice of deep satisfaction. “Now for it, lad! Make yourself ready. Strap the hunting-bag close under your girdle, or you will lose it. Test your staff to make sure that it will hold, for if it breaks you are gone. Be sure you don’t take my track. You are a fine chap and a brave one.”

Ola followed his father’s directions closely, and stood with loudly palpitating heart ready for the start. Before him lay the long, smooth slope of the mountain, showing only here and there soft undulations of surface, where a log or a fence lay deeply buried under the snow. On both sides the black pine-forest stood, tall and grave. If he should miss his footing, or his skees be crossed or run apart, very likely he might just as well order his epitaph. If it had not been his father who had challenged him, he would have much preferred to take the circuitous route down into the valley. But now he was in for it, and there was no time for retreating.

“Ready!” shouted Nils, advancing toward the edge of the slope: “One, two, three!”

And like an arrow he shot down over the steep track, guiding his course steadily with his staff; but it was scarcely five seconds before he was lost to sight, looking more like a whirling snow-drift than a man. With strained eyes and bated breath, Ola stood looking after him. Then, nerving himself for the feat, he glanced at his skees to see that they were parallel, and glided out over the terrible declivity. His first feeling was that he had slid right out into the air – that he was rushing with seven-league boots over forests and mountain-tops. For all that, he did not lose hold of his staff, which he pressed with all his might into the snow behind him, thus slightly retarding his furious speed. Now the pine-trees seemed to be running past him in a mad race up the mountain-side, and the snowy slope seemed to be rising to meet him, or moving in billowy lines under his feet. Gradually he gathered confidence in himself, a sort of fierce courage awoke within him, and a wild exultation surged through his veins and swept him on. The wind whistled about him and stung his face like whip-lashes. Now he darted away over a snowed-up fence or wood-pile, shooting out into the air, but always coming down firmly on his feet, and keeping his mind on his skees, so as to prevent them from diverging or crossing. He had a feeling of grandeur and triumphant achievement which he had never experienced before. The world lay at his feet, and he seemed to be striding over it in a march of conquest. It was glorious! But all such sensations are unhappily brief. Ola soon knew by his slackening speed that he had reached the level ground; yet so great was the impetus he had received that he flew up the opposite slope toward his father’s farm, and only stopped some fifty feet below the barn. He then rubbed his face and pinched his nose, just to see whether it was frozen. The muscles in his limbs ached, and the arm which had held the staff was so stiff and cramped that the slightest movement gave him pain. Nevertheless, he could not make up his mind to rest; he saw the light put in the north window to guide him, and he caught a glimpse of a pale, anxious face behind the window-pane, and knew that it was his mother who was waiting for him. And yet those last fifty feet seemed miles to his tired and aching legs. When he reached the front door, his dog Yutul jumped up on him in his joy and knocked him flat down in the snow; and oh, what an effort it took to rise! But no sooner had he regained his feet, than he felt a pair of arms flung about his neck and he sank, half laughing, half crying, into his mother’s embrace.

“Cheer up, laddie,” he heard someone saying. “Ye are a fine chap and a brave one!”

He knew his father’s voice; but he did not look up; he was yet child enough to feel happiest in his mother’s arms.

One of the most popular winter sports in Norway is skee-racing. A steep hill is selected by the committee which is to have charge of the race, and all the best skee-runners in the district enter their names, eager to engage in the contest. The track is cleared of all accidental obstructions, but if there happens to be a stone or wooden fence crossing it, the snow is dug away on the lower side of it and piled up above it. The object is to obtain what is called a “jump.” The skee-runner, of course, coming at full speed down the slope will slide out over this “jump,” shooting right out into the air and coming down either on his feet or any other convenient portion of his anatomy, as the case may be. To keep one’s footing, and particularly to prevent the skees from becoming crossed while in the air, are the most difficult feats connected with skee-racing; and it is no unusual thing to see even an excellent skee-runner plunging headlong into the snow, while his skees pursue an independent race down the track and tell the spectators of his failure. Properly speaking, a skee-race is not a race – not a test of speed, but a test of skill; for two runners rarely start simultaneously, as, in case one of them should fall, the other could not possibly stop, and might not even have the time to change his course. He would thus be in danger of running into his competitor, and could hardly avoid maiming him seriously. If there were several parallel tracks, at a distance of twenty to thirty feet from each other, there would, of course, be less risk in having the runners start together. Usually, a number fall in the first run, and those who have not fallen then continue the contest until one gains the palm. If, as occasionally happens, the competition is narrowed down to two, who are about evenly matched, a proposal to run without staves is apt to result in a decisive victory for one or the other.

It can hardly be conceived how exciting these contests are, not only to the skee-runners themselves, but also to the spectators, male and female, who gather in groups along the track and cheer their friends as they pass, waving their handkerchiefs, and greeting with derisive cries the mishaps which are inseparable from the sport. Prizes are offered, such as rifles, watches, fine shooting equipments, etc., and in almost every valley in the interior of Norway there are skee-runners who, in consequence of this constant competition, have attained a skill which would seem almost incredible. As there are but two things essential to a skee-race, viz.: a hill and snow, I can see no reason why the sport should not in time become as popular in the United States as it is in Norway. We have snow enough, certainly, in the New England and Western States; neither are hills rare phenomena. If I should succeed in interesting any large number of boys in these States in skee-running, I should feel that I had conferred a benefit upon them, and added much to their enjoyment of winter. But before taking leave of them, let me give them two pieces of parting advice: 1. Be sure your staff is strong, and do not be hasty in throwing it away. 2. Never slide down a hill on a highway, or any hard, icy surface. It is only in the open fields and woods and in dry snow that skees are useful.

THE SKERRY OF SHRIEKS

I

People live even within the Polar Circle, although grown-up folks are apt to think it a poor sort of life. But to boys the “land of the midnight sun” is a veritable paradise. Every season of the year has its own kind of sport; and as schoolmasters are rare birds so far north, the boys are to a great extent left to follow their own devices until they are old enough to be sent away to school in the cities. From morning till night the air is filled with a screaming host of birds, which whirl in through the fiords like an approaching snow-storm. The eider-ducks lie gently bobbing upon the water, the black surf-scoters dive in the surf and make short work of the young whiting, and the puffins sit in long soldier-like rows on the rocks, and plunge headlong into the sea at the first signal of danger. In this glorious region the fish and fowl from all quarters of the globe seem to have appointed an annual meeting about New Year’s; and the Norwegian peasants, who are dependent upon the inhabitants of the sea and the air for their living, are on the lookout for them, and hasten to the coast to give them a fitting reception.

Harry Winchester’s motive, however, for visiting the Arctic wonderland was quite a different one. He had made the acquaintance of the Birk boys during the previous summer, and he had struck up a warm friendship with one of them, named Magnus. His parents, who lived in New York, had permitted him to accept the invitation of Mr. Birk to spend the winter with his sons, and Harry was so completely fascinated with the sports and adventures which every day offered in abundance that he would have liked to prolong his stay indefinitely.

Hasselrud, the estate of the Birks, was a fine, old-fashioned mansion, which peeped out from the dense foliage of chestnut and maple trees. Mr. Birk conducted a large business in fish and lumber, and manned every year several boats and sent them to the Lofoten fisheries. His three sons, Olaf, Magnus, and Edwin, were brisk and courageous lads, who had been accustomed to danger from their earliest years, and could handle a gun and manage a sail as well as any man in that region. Olaf was nineteen years old, and wore the uniform of a midshipman in the navy, and by courtesy was styled lieutenant; Magnus, who was sixteen, was a fair-faced, curly-headed lad, with frank blue eyes, a straight, handsome nose, and a singular talent for getting into mischief. Edwin was but twelve years old; but, as he does not figure conspicuously in this narrative, there is no need of describing him. But altogether the most important person at Hasselrud, next to Mr. Birk, was Grim Hering-Luck, a hoary, bow-legged fisherman, who was Mr. Birk’s right-hand man and captain of his boat-guild. Grim had a stern, deep-wrinkled face, framed in a wreath of grayish whiskers. He had small, piercing eyes, and bushy, gray-sprinkled hair. On his head he wore a sou’wester. The seat and knees of his trousers and the elbows of his coat were adorned with great shiny patches of leather. The leathern girdle about his waist did not quite fulfil its duties as suspenders, but allowed the trousers to slip down on his hips, leaving some four inches of shirt visible under the border of the waistcoat. Grim was a gruff old customer, but it was commonly believed that his bark was worse than his bite. He liked the bright American boy better than he cared to confess, and therefore neglected no opportunity for quarrelling with him. In fact, everybody admired Harry’s enterprising spirit and was entertained by his lively talk. Olaf was fairly dazzled by his knowledge and experience of the world, and little Edwin copied his walk and his picturesque recklessness to the extent of his small ability; but among all the family there was no one who was more ardently attached to Harry than Magnus. The two were inseparable; from morning till night they roamed about together, setting traps for hares and ptarmigan, spearing trout in the shallows of the river, trawling for mackerel in the salt water, and sometimes tacking in and out of the fiord in a furious gale. At such times, however, they were sure to have Grim in the boat, and Grim was a capital man to have in a boat in case of an emergency. Thus they spent the beautiful autumn months until the November storms began to blow, the snow began to fall, and the air, when they looked out the fiord, was thick and the sky threatening. The great trees bent in agony and howled in the blast with voices of despair. Then Grim would begin to investigate and to mend the nets which hung in long festoons along the walls of the boat-houses, and, with his friendly grunt, he would say in reply to Magnus’ queries:

“Wal, Mester Yallertop, the Lord he looks out fer them as they look out fer themselves. He puts the cod in the sea, but I never heared of his puttin’ it in yer mouth fer ye. He made the land poor up here, but he made the sea rich, jest fer to make the average right in the end. He lets ye starve like a toothless rat if ye have a taste fer starvin’. But thar ain’t no call for anybody to starve here north, ef he can bait a hook and ain’t afeared of bein’ late to his funeral.”

“Being late to your own funeral, Grim!” Magnus would exclaim, in amazement; “how can a man be late to his funeral?”

“Wal, now, Mester Yallertop, that I’ll tell ye. Fur that ain’t no uncommon case here north. Suppose ye go out in the mornin’ with the fishin’ fleet, and it blows up right lively, and ye don’t never come back again. Then after a week or so the parson reads the sarvice over yer name and prays fer ye, and the next mornin’, likely as not, yer legs drift ashore, quite independent-like, jest because the cod found yer tarred top-boots indergestible.”

“And do such things ever happen, Grim?” the boy would ask, shuddering at the ghastly picture which his friend’s words suggested.

“Do they ever happen? Wal, I reckon they do. I might jest mention to ye that I ain’t in the habit of tellin’ no lies. My father – God ha’e mercy on his soul – he sent only his legs fur to represent him at his funeral; and my grandfather – wal, the cod turned the tables on him; he had meant to eat them, but – it ain’t no use bein’ squeamish about it – they ate him. It war in the great storm of the 11th of February, 1848, when five hundred fisherman cheated the parson out of his funeral fees.”

“How terrible, Grim! How can you go to the fisheries every winter, when both your father and your grandfather lost their lives there?”

“Wal, now ye are puzzlin’ me, Mester Magnus,” Grim replied, taking his clay pipe from the corner of his mouth, and looking up seriously from his labor; “but I’ll tell ye a yarn I heared when I was young. I reckon it is true, because I have never heared nobody say it warn’t. Some city chap axed a fisherman purty much what ye have axed me, and the fisherman says, says he: ‘Whar did yer father die?’ ‘Why, he expired peacefully in his bed,’ said the city chap. ‘And yer grandfather?’ axed the fisherman. ‘Wal, he had jest the same luck,’ says the city chap. ‘And yer great-grandfather?’ ‘He, too, turned up his toes in the same style.’ ‘Wal, now,’ says the fisherman, ‘if I were you I wouldn’t never go to bed again, sence all yer forbears come to their death in it.’ Now, I reckon that is the way with all of us. Ef the Lord wants us he will know whar to find us, wharsoever we be.”

When the Christmas holidays, with all their old-fashioned hospitality and sports, were over the question was seriously debated whether the boys should be permitted to accompany Grim and the housemen (tenants) to the Lofoten fisheries. It was decided that three boats should be manned, and Grim was as usual elected captain of the whole guild. The “tokens” had been uncommonly good this year, and a profitable fishery was expected. Mr. Birk, who well knew the dangers connected with this enterprise, was very unwilling to let the boys start out in the open boats, and suffer the discomforts which were inseparable from the life on these barren islands, where thousands of people were huddled together in booths and shanties, and quarrels and fights were the order of the day. Harry, however, argued that such an experience would scarcely offer itself to him a second time in his life, and that it was easy to avoid danger while still observing all that was interesting and instructive in the lives of the people. Olaf and Magnus, too, added their powers of persuasion to those of Harry, and in the end Mr. Birk (after enjoining a hundred precautions) had to yield, stipulating only that Edwin should remain at home. Grim promised to keep a careful look-out over the movements of the boys, but he refused to be responsible for their safety, because, as he remarked, “they were too lively a lot to be controlled by a stiff-legged old crab like himself.”

It was a gray morning in January that the long eight oared boats were made ready, the chests containing provisions and clothes were placed in the stern, and the sails with a rattling noise flew up and bulged before the wind. The sky had a peculiar whitish-gray color, which has always an ominous look and promises squalls. Yet it was a glorious sensation to feel the boats shooting away over the crests of the waves, dashing the spray like smoke about them and yielding like living things to the slightest prompting of the rudder. Grim himself sat in the stern of the first boat, which the boys had named “The Cormorant,” holding the tiller in his left hand and the sheet in his right. Magnus had found a rather elevated seat in the prow, from whence he could observe the captain’s manœuvres and take lessons in seamanship. Harry and Olaf sat on the middle bench, watching the horizon and seeing the squalls dash down from the mountains and sweep their trails of smoke across the fiord.

“It must be dangerous sailing here, Grim,” Harry observed, uneasily.

“It ain’t no joke – fer goslings,” answered Grim.