Of the Scandinavian nations, the Norwegians may be considered as the extreme type. While they differ from the Danes and Swedes considerably, they differ still more from the Germans. Their characteristics arise not only from race, but largely from surroundings and modes of life. The genuine Norwegian people have of old lived scattered over a vast area of country, separated by high fjelds and broad fjords, foaming torrents and dense woods, only sparingly communicating with each other, and still less with strangers, and hearing little of the outside world, they have grown into a silent, thinking, and deep-feeling nation. They have inherited from the old Viking times an unquenchable love of liberty, and all their institutions, their customs, their principles, have developed in freedom, and such virtues as they have and of which they are most proud, are the outcome of personal independence. Accustomed to personal danger on the snow-clad mountain-paths, in the vast forests, and in small open boats upon the stormy fjords, they have acquired an extraordinary degree of self-reliance. Unused to, and distrustful of, foreign ways, and seldom successful in foreign countries, they harbour an intense love of Norway and for anything Norwegian; and while they may conceitedly think that everything that is Norwegian is great and noble, they certainly endeavour to put a stamp of nobility and greatness on everything that is Norwegian. They are proud, generous, loyal, hospitable, and can never be persuaded that lowly circumstances or poverty could possibly be an excuse for an unroyal conduct. Born and bred amid snow-capped mountains, deep valleys, perpendicular rocks, a jagged, stormy coast—the whole wearing an air of solemn and lonely grandeur—the Norwegians are a meditative and highly imaginative people. The stirring natural phenomena peculiar to the country cannot fail to stimulate their imagination. The snow-storms, the ice-avalanches, the light summer nights, the brilliant moonlight diffused over the abrupt mountains, the dark forests and the glittering fjords, the raging storms from the Atlantic, the flaming midnight winter skies, the sunsets which so wondrously illumine the whole coast-line—such scenes, such pictures, sink into their minds and quicken their emotions. What wonder, then, if they are full of folk-lore and the supernatural has for them an irresistible charm? They are superstitious, and believe that their actions and lives are influenced by gnomes, fairies, and trolls. Old heathen ceremonies for the propitiation of the spirits are still in vogue. They are deeply moved by music and poetry, and have a strong predilection for all that is heroic and great.