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
If you were going to undertake an expedition to these high fjelds,
you would probably make a start from the lowlands by following
some well-worn track leading to a saeter. In nine cases out of ten
the track will be running by the side of a river, at first wide and
flowing lazily through the valley, but soon narrowing, until its upper
waters become a rushing mountain torrent, swishing between mighty
boulders. After a while you find that the path gradually begins to
ascend by zigzags up the mountain-side, and the scenery, whenever
you pause to look down, is magnificent. In time you reach the upland
pastures, with here and there a saeter-dwelling, and this is the end
of the first stage of your journey, for you probably will have climbed
some 2,000 feet and walked a dozen miles or more. Thus you will be glad
enough to accept the hospitality offered to you by the simple peasants.
All these saeter-huts are much alike, though, of course, they vary
in size and in the way in which they are fitted up; but as they are
only occupied during the summer months, luxurious fittings are not
considered a necessity. The outer walls are constructed of fir-trunks,
let into one another at the corners on the log-hut principle, and
the interior is lined with boarding. In some parts, however, where
timber is scarce the buildings are of stone.
The roof consists of rough planks, on which is placed a layer of
birch-bark to fill in the cracks; and on the top, again, are laid
sods of earth to a thickness of about a foot. Grass and weeds soon
cover the roof, binding it together and keeping the rain out.
The door opens into a dark hall or chamber, which serves as a
receptacle for rubbish of all kinds--fishing-nets, tools, skins,
empty milk-pans, and the like; and in the corner is a roughly-built
fireplace for boiling the milk and for cooking. On one side of this
hall is the door into the sole living apartment, which possesses
a window at one end, and against one of the side walls a couple of
bunks, wherein three or four dairymaids sleep.
Sometimes there is a separate room, or even a detached hut,
for the dairy work; but there is generally only the one room,
the milk being set in large, shallow wooden vessels on a number of
shelves fixed against one of the walls. Everything is scrupulously
clean, and the cattle women are working hard all the long daylight
hours. Periodically a man from the farm in the lowlands comes up to
the saeter with a couple of ponies and takes down butter and cheese,
and such visits are the only excitement in saeter-life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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