Peeps at Many Lands: NorwayMockler-Ferryman, A. F. (Augustus Ferryman)
History
Peeps at Many Lands: Norway
Mockler-Ferryman, A. F. (Augustus Ferryman)
Norway -- Description and travel
With regard to the national costume, mentioned above, it is,
unfortunately, a fact that it is gradually disappearing. There are
parts, however, where there are no railways, no steamboats, and few
tourists, and in such places the people still live much as they did
a hundred years ago, even the men wearing clothes similar to those
worn by their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and some of these
are quaint in the extreme.
Perhaps the quaintest dresses are those of the people of Saetersdal, a
district in the South of Norway, between Christiansand and Telemarken;
and, when properly turned out, the men are quite as "dressy" as
the women. They wear a pair of trousers buttoned with half a dozen
silver buttons tight round the ankles, and coming right up to the
armpits. Several broad stripes adorn the legs from top to bottom. And
the coat takes the form of a curious little cape, richly embroidered
with silver, and having sleeves, fastened at the wrists with more
silver buttons. Shoes, with buckles, white stockings, and a cut-down
tall hat, gaily decorated with ribbons and embroidery, complete the
costume. The women wear short skirts--only a little below the knees--of
dark blue, with a bright trimming round the bottom; coloured stockings;
a bodice laced with silver, and covered with silver brooches and
other ornaments; a waistbelt, which is sometimes entirely of metal;
a kerchief tied over the head, after the fashion of the bandana of
West Indian negresses; and on occasions a shawl of many colours.
A step farther north, in what is called Lower Telemarken, a similar
kind of dress still exists, though the man's waistcoat-jacket is of
a somewhat different pattern and colour, and the women wear their
skirts a trifle longer. On Sundays and great occasions the latter
also put on cloth stockings and gloves, embroidered tastefully with
trails of flowers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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