In England, people had more time to putter around the garden in the last couple years, and guess what? They uncovered old stuff. For example, Bob Greenaway from Oswestry in Shropshire found the Bulla sun pendant. “The retired engineer found the intricate piece while metal detecting in the Marches, unearthing one of the most significant pieces of metalwork ever discovered in Britain – around 3,000 years old.”
Loads and loads of stuff–one might even say hoards–have been found over the last few years.
Late posting today. I’ve been busy. Also not feeling real well. Not awful, just a little under the weather. And the work has started trickling in again, which is great. Left to my own devices, I’d probably be spending more time in bed, but money’s a good thing too.
Above is a little film about Fridtjof Nansen, about whom I posted last night. Thought it would be interesting to see him in motion, if only in old age. It feels odd to be hyping this guy, whom I don’t even like that much. Aside from his marital infidelities, he was one of those 19th Century scientific types who thought they’d figured everything out and transcended the need for God. He did some good stuff, too. But I get the sense he was always playing to the audience. In private, he felt free to be a jackass.
As do many of us.
As an aside, Fridtjof was never a common name, but it had a vogue in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. This was due to a very popular translation of a Norse poem, which I discuss in this old post.
Fridtjof Nansen in the personal uniform he designed and wore everywhere.Olaf Trygvesson, with Nansen’s face, in Heimskringla
It’s one of those awkward moments in the course of my blogging. I’ve embarked on reading quite a long book, so I won’t have a review ready for a few days. And yet I must post something, to assuage my crippling sense of obligation. So I’ll talk about the book’s author, in general terms.
If you weigh your scoring in terms of the availability and ubiquity of various media through the course of history, you can make a strong case that Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930) was the greatest celebrity Norway ever produced (though St. Olaf is a strong contender).
Nansen was a noted zoologist before he started doing Arctic exploration. And when he ventured into the far north, it was into terra still incognita. Nobody knew what was up there. Land? Pack ice? Open sea? These were among the things he set out to learn. And he did it in a bold, groundbreaking, hands-on way. Later, he became a diplomat (he had a lot to do with Norwegian independence from Sweden and the decision to become a monarchy). Then, as a League of Nations official entrusted with the relief of hundreds of thousands of people displaced and orphaned by World War I, he saved countless lives. Remember Young Frankenstein, where Igor breaks a jar containing the brain of “Hans Dalbruck, Scientist & Saint?” It might have been a description of Nansen, as he was perceived in the public mind.
When the artist Erik Werenskiold set out to illustrate the saga of Olaf Trygvesson in the classic edition of Heimskringla, the Sagas of the Kings of Norway, he put Nansen’s face on the ancient national hero.
But Nansen had a very dark side. When he left the ship Fram to attempt to ski to the North Pole with one companion, the two men spent four months living in close quarters, utterly dependent on one another. They became close friends. But once they returned to civilization, Nansen reasserted his rank. They’d been addressing one another with the intimate pronoun, “du” (thee). But now he went back to “de” (you), as befitted men of different social classes.
He was an international sex symbol, handsome and athletic. Wherever he traveled, the most desirable women (often married women) threw themselves at him. He did not resist, though he was a husband and a father. Eventually he commenced an affair with the wife of his neighbor, the artist Gerhard Munthe. They divorced their spouses and married one another, something Nansen’s children never forgave.
So he was no Hans Dalbruck. I remind myself, however, that I’ve been protected from fornication all my life by shyness and lack of opportunity. If I’d looked like Nansen, what would I have done? Best to contemplate the log in my own eye.
One interesting sidelight must be mentioned. In his international relief work, Nansen had a faithful right hand man, a young fellow named Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonsson Quisling. Quisling would later achieve dark immortality, and give us a new word for traitor, when he led the Norwegian Nazi Party during the Occupation.
As the new year begins, the great Presbyterian hymn, “The Sands of Time Are Sinking,” has been in my mind. It’s not a hymn I grew up with, but one I learned to appreciate as an adult. It’s about time, and our ultimate hopes as believers. Suitable, I think. The hymnwriter Anne R. Cousin based it on something the Scottish Presbyterian divine Samuel Rutherford said on his deathbed.
I heard somewhere, once, that this was Moody’s favorite hymn, and that they sang it at all his rallies.
Or it may have been Spurgeon. I wasn’t there.
Today, it should be noted, is J. R. R. Tolkien’s birthday. It is the custom for every Tolkien fan to take a moment tonight at 9:00 p.m. local time, stand, raise their beverage of choice, and say, “The Professor!”
I doubt the Professor would have approved of the orange soda I plan to drink, but I do what I can within my personal limitations.
Amazing Grace, sung by Carl Ellis with over 200 bagpipes
John Newton’s 1779 hymn is sung the world over. I believe some congregations sing it every Sunday. My congregation sings it after every communion, which we celebrate on the first Sunday of each month. Despite all of that singing, it’s still a good hymn for the new year.
The Hartford Selection of Hymns (1799) offers these three verses as 4-6, which may be where the most of the variations come in (they are not in the video above either).
The Lord has promis’d good to me, His word my hope secures; He will my shield and portion be, As long as life endures.
Yes, when this flesh and heart shall fail, And mortal life shall cease; I shall possess within the vzil, A life of joy and peace.
The earth shall soon dissolve like snow, The sun forbear to shine; But God, who call’d me here below, Will be forever mine.
I’ve been following, and generally enjoying, David J. Gatward’s Inspector Grimm mystery series, about a war-scarred police detective in rural Yorkshire. But I have to say I found Cold Sanctuary, the eighth volume, something of a disappointment.
The book opens in a memorable and – I must say – heartbreaking manner. On a beautiful morning, Bill Dinsdale, a Yorkshire farmer, bids goodbye to his loving wife and sets out to do one of his favorite jobs, baling hay. But we are warned from the start that this is the last day of his life. The dramatic tension builds to a shocking murder scene.
When Inspector Grimm comes to investigate with his team, they are quickly convinced that what looks like an accident is murder. In a particularly cruel form. Who would want to do this to Bill, a cheerful and popular member of the community? Could the murderer possibly be Bill’s son, who recently fought with him and is acting suspiciously? Or the mysterious person who’s been sending him threatening notes?
There were two elements of Cold Sanctuary that displeased me. One was a scene where Grimm makes an arrest, rather callously, which is treated as important – and yet turns out to be a mistake. A mistake for which Grimm does not apologize. Nor does he seem much concerned about the distress he caused.
The other element was the final solution. The puzzle all through the book was “Why would anyone kill Bill Dinsdale?” The problem is treated as mysterious and baffling. But it didn’t baffle me at all. It was plain as a pikestaff, based on the evidence. Not only was it obvious, it was actually a common trope. We’ve all seen it a hundred times before in novels, TV shows, and movies.
There’s the lesbian cop married to an Anglican woman priest, too. But when a novelist only inflicts lesbians on you these days, it’s a mercy.
I’m not sure if I’ll continue with the Inspector Grimm books or not. I came away kind of annoyed this time.
I have a lot of respect for Tony Woodlief, so I’m going to share his book promo video with no more knowledge of the book than what you see here. It’s probably a darn good book.
It’s almost New Year’s Eve, and I think I’ll alter my usual habit of posting holiday stuff on the holiday itself (which means most readers don’t find it until too late). Instead I’ll post this New Year’s song today. It’s Sissel Kyrkjebø, Charles Aznavour, and Placido Domingo doing Auld Lang Syne. Not as much Sissel as I might wish, but the other version I considered was in Norwegian. I figured you’d understand this one better.
“Auld Lang Syne” means “old long since,” or “old times.” If you’re a close reader, you may have noticed that I tend to use “long since” instead of “long ago” in my Erling books. It’s one of the archaisms I employ (lightly, I hope) to add a feeling of the past to the prose.
I bear an irrational grudge against Robert Burns, as you may recall. But according to Wikipedia, he seems to have adapted Auld Lang Syne from an old Scottish folk song. The melody is beautiful too.
A happy and blessed New Year to you, from the worldwide empire of Brandywine Books. I have some hopes for 2022. A book to release, a long trip I just might take, “tomorrow when the world is free,” as another old song goes.
I picked up a shovel in my garage today. Used it to clear some snow from in front of the door. I looked at the thing, an old sand shovel, and remembered how it had been around forever on the farm where I grew up. My dad gave it to me once, long ago, for my first car. “You should always carry a shovel in your car in the winter,” he said. Which is prudent advice in Minnesota. (Especially when you drive a Gremlin, which was what I did at the time.) I got to thinking how old that shovel is. I know it goes back to my dad’s time. Very likely my grandfather’s. Possibly even my great-grandfather’s. The rusty old thing is likely over a hundred years old.
Time passes, but we survive, so long as the Lord wills.
So Christmas is done, and winter, as it always does, snuck in while we were distracted. Winter is no less annoying before Christmas day, but it always seems like part of the festival. As if God is setting up His holiday department store window display. But then the holiday ends (I know it goes on till Epiphany, and I electrify my tree accordingly. But you know what I mean) and winter remains, like Styrofoam peanuts from the box Christmas came in. We didn’t get a white covering until Dec. 26, but the snow is here to stay now (I believe) and I have the snow shoveling muscle aches to prove it.
I was able to gather with family (not the whole family, but some, which beats last year), and we had a low-key but pleasant holiday. As part of my duties as Weird Old Uncle at the celebration, I shared a story I’d gotten in a letter from a distant cousin in Norway. He’s been doing some research on family history, and he found a story worthy of Hollywood. I paraphrase it for you below:
On a warm summer day around the year 1800, a young man named Ola was watching his father’s cows on a hillside with a good view of the sea near Ogna, in southern Rogaland. He noticed a square-rigged ship becalmed offshore. On a whim, he left the cows behind, walked to shore, appropriated a boat, and rowed out to the ship. He then signed on to the crew. He left his lunch bag hanging from one of the cows’ horns, so his family would know he’d left voluntarily. (They also noticed a boat was missing.) He later wrote his parents from Amsterdam. As a merchant sailor, he sailed with his ship to the Mediterranean, where they were attacked and captured by Libyan pirates. They were taken to Tripoli as slaves. One dark night, along with a French boy, he escaped. They swam in the sea for a while, then went ashore, walking and running the 2,200 kilometer distance (something under 1,400 miles) to Alexandria, Egypt, eating whatever they could scrounge. They stowed away (I think that’s the meaning) on a ship to Istanbul. From there it was an 1,800 kilometer (a little over a thousand miles) walk back to Amsterdam. Ola went into the shipping transport business. When Napoleon blockaded European ports to British shipping, rates for cross-channel commerce skyrocketed, and Ola made a fortune in that business (smuggling, I guess you’d call it). He married a British woman and settled down in Bergen as the owner of a shipping company once the war was over. Around 1830 he went home to Ogna to visit his family. He gave his siblings, two sisters and a brother, what amounted to a small fortune at the time, enough to build a nice little house.
Some years later, his nephew Helge received a letter from him marked, “Do not open until my death.” After a few more years another letter arrived without any instructions outside. This document itemized his property. Ola had no children of his own, and he was concerned that his wife might conceal some of it when the estate was divided. Finally, in 1843, a letter came announcing Ola’s death. Helge the nephew then opened the first letter. It said that he and his sister had each been left $100,000. But they had to do a sort of treasure hunt to collect the money. The letter said the money was buried in two small pots concealed under flat stones beneath the kitchen floor of Ola’s house in Bergen. Being honest people, they went first to the Bergen police for permission, and then dug the floor up, found the flat stones, and discovered the pots, each with the amount of money promised. Helge also hired a lawyer in Bergen, to look after their interests until Ola’s widow died. In the end they got half the estate, worth about $600,000 in modern money.
I was quite excited to read this story, and wrote back to my cousin to ask if this adventure came from my side of the family. Sadly, no. All he could find about my side was that one of my ancestors was involved with the Moravian religious movement even before the Haugean revivals (which I’ve written about here often ), and that another was the last person to die of leprosy in Randaberg parish (near Stavanger).
My family history, so far as I’ve been able to learn it, has been relentlessly unromantic. But I still reckon I’m descended from Erling Skjalgsson. Prove me wrong.
Had I opened Kawabata’s novel, Thousand Cranes, with the knowledge that the Japanese use a thousand cranes as a symbol for happiness or good fortune, I would have seen a moment sooner the disaster that was coming.
Kikuji Minari is a wealthy young man who lost both his parents four years ago. He responds to an invitation to attend a tea ceremony, something his father did for many years, because the invitation suggests he will be introduced to a woman. He notices her on his way in; she has a pink kerchief with a thousand cranes pattern on it. Plus, she’s attractive, graceful, and is willing to marry him with as little investment as a couple meetings. Smart money says he should receive her and make a good life with her.
But, no, he dwells on sordid details of two other women with whom his father had committed adultery years ago. Like an idiot.
Perhaps the natural outrage one feels as Kikuji indulges himself here and refuses someone there is what drives this story. He loves the wrong person effortlessly and constantly returns to the ugly when he has opportunity to hope. His father’s sins have bound him, and he doesn’t see it.
How much does the guilt of our parents’ sins define us? If it’s entirely their own, we can put it behind us when they pass away. If it clings to us and becomes part of our own guilt, what can we do to be free of it? Kawabata asks these questions but gives no answer to them in this work, no answer except perhaps the ruin Kikuji makes of his own life.
