Tag Archives: Norway

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Cold day chronicle (also, Norway is open!)

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Most of what’s below can be skipped without any loss to the diverse richness of your life. It’s just the account of my day, offered here for your perusal because I can’t think of anything actually interesting.

No, wait, I do have one interesting fact. Norway has opened its borders again. The requirement that people traveling from countries outside a certain short list must go through a quarantine period before entering has been lifted. You still need to show proof of vaccination, but this is a big relaxation. A step back toward normal life, one fervently hopes.

“Following a recommendation from the National Institute of Public Health, the government is abolishing the requirement for entry quarantine because it is no longer considered necessary for infection control,” the Norwegian Ministry of Health stated.

You may recall that I predicted something like this just a few days ago, based on the amount of translation work I’ve been getting – which would seem to indicate a belief inside the film industry that freer association and travel are coming. I didn’t expect it to happen this fast, though. No doubt the movie moguls I serve in my small way have friends in high places, who tipped them the high sign.

Today was my first day without translation work since… I don’t recall. Probably less time than I think. But it’s been a string of days. I’d marked today out, whatever my work situation, for shopping and errands. (Note: it’s in times like these that I contemplate finding a wife. Only I know she’d retaliate with a Honeydo list.) The coldest day of the week isn’t prime time for such activity, but there are moments when you just need to go to the store, or else you’ll run out of some staple, like chocolate or beef jerky or pigs’ feet.

As I planned my day, I realized a lot of stuff had piled up on my list. It called for careful trip planning and logistics. Aside from the gym in the morning, which was a separate excursion, I must:

Go to the post office. Take my suit to the cleaners. Run my car through the car wash (not optimal on a day with a high around zero, but on the other hand there wasn’t much of a waiting line). Go to Wal Mart for a new computer monitor (because I knocked the old one over and broke the screen. Nothing to do with old age and clumsiness, of course – I was just as clumsy at twenty. And the piece of junk was always unstable. Which should teach me to buy computer components at Wal Mart). Get groceries. Stop at the drug store for immune system supplement. Then get the new monitor working, which is always more complicated than you expect, if you’re over ten years old.

I’m planning to work on the novel tonight. If God gives me strength. And the monitor doesn’t fall over again.

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Rare Runes from Oslo

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“Solveig Thorkildsen and Ingeborg Hornkjøl of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research (NIKU) found the objects—a bone featuring a Norse inscription and a rune stick with both Latin and Norse text—during ongoing excavations at the site. According to a statement, the rune bone is the first of its kind found in Norway’s capital in more than 30 years.”

Smithsonian Magazine describes their excitement over the discovery and preliminary translations of the runes. The stick may have a prayer written on it.

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The Saga of Ola, not my ancestor

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Barbary pirates with their European slaves.

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.

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Celebration in a time of Covid

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From last year, a “distanced” celebration of 17 May, Norway’s Constitution Day. No doubt today’s celebrations were similar. The tall old man on the balcony is King Harald V, the little boy on the “Atlantic Crossing” miniseries.

“Ja, Vi Elsker,” the Norwegian national anthem, says this (roughly translated by me):

Yes, we love this land, as it rises, tree-covered and weather-beaten, over the water, with its thousand homes. Love it, love it, and think of our fathers and mothers, and the saga nights that descend with dreams upon the land.

Norwegians in houses and cottages, thank your great God. He will protect the land, however dark things may appear. All our fathers have fought for, our mothers have cried over, the Lord will quietly alter, so that we will have our rights.

I don’t know the third verse.

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The king’s back-story

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King Haakon VII and Crown Prince Olav shelter from a German air raid in 1940. Photo credit: Per Bratland (1907-1988). From Wikimedia Commons. Public domain.

I was busy translating yesterday (got some work done on the novel too; it was a good day). So I don’t have anything to review tonight. Of what shall I write? Well, there’s a miniseries running on PBS, to which I have a personal connection. I’m sure you’re following this excellent production closely. I’ll share some of my vast personal store of knowledge to give you some background information, illuminating and enriching your viewing experience.

You may recall a scene where King Haakon and Crown Prince Olav discuss whether to remain in the country, risking capture and capitulation, or to flee to England, which could be construed as abdicating. “This could mean the end of the monarchy,” one of them says. (Maybe not in those very words; I translated it but I don’t have eidetic memory.)

Their concern here is greater than it would be for ordinary monarchs. The Norwegian monarchy was actually still experimental, and a little shaky. Haakon and Olav had spent their entire lives inventing and sustaining a modern Norwegian royal tradition.

Norway, as I’m sure I’ve mentioned, lost its independence for a period of about 500 years – from the mid-14th Century to 1905. Roughly 400 of those years were spent in union with Denmark, and then it was transferred to Sweden by the Congress of Vienna in 1814.

With independence coming, the question was, what form of government would Norway have? A lot of Norwegians admired France and the US, and favored a republic. But republicanism was unpopular among the European elite. Republics were notoriously unstable; France was suffering a string of government turnovers.

When the Norwegians voted to become independent, Sweden was uncertain whether to oppose the move or not. Military action was not off the table. They let it be known that they were more favorable to having a monarchy next door than a republic. So when Norwegians (the explorer/diplomat Fridtjof Nansen among them) went to speak to their favored royal candidate, Prince Carl of Denmark, they explained that if he agreed to become king, he might very well secure Norwegian independence and prevent war.

Prince Carl had his reservations. The brother of the king of Denmark, he had a perfectly fine career as a naval officer, and had never meddled much in politics. Accepting would involve radical lifestyle changes and new responsibilities for his wife Maude (daughter of Edward VII of England and not an outgoing person) and his young son Alexander.

But they were won over. They began with a brilliant public relations move. Knowing that the last two kings of Norway had been named Haakon VI and Olav IV (Olav had died young of a congenital condition, ending the independent Norwegian dynasty), Carl changed his own name to Haakon, and his son Alexander’s to Olav. So they became Haakon VII and Olav V. Symbolically, they were picking up the dynasty precisely where it had left off half a millennium ago.

The Norwegian constitution granted the king a fair amount of power. Haakon deliberately refused to exercise it, keeping himself to ceremonial and non-political activities. Even when the Labor Party (Arbeiderparti), dominated by Communists and inclined against monarchy, took power in 1927, Haakon insisted on working with them.

The decision to evacuate and form a government in exile lost them a measure of support. Some Norwegians who joined the Nazis actually blamed the king and the crown prince for abandoning them.

But they persevered, and when they finally returned victorious in 1945, they were more popular than ever. Olav in his turn was highly regarded (and accessible. Have I mentioned I saw him in person once?).

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“Except for the porridge”

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In pursuit of my mission to enlighten the world on Norwegian Christmas customs, I offer the clever TV commercial above, complete with English subtitles.

It will help your comprehension to know that the “nisse” is roughly what the English would call a brownie, or possibly a gnome. He is distinguished by his characteristic red cap. Every farm has at least one, and they control the farm’s luck. Get on his wrong side and he’ll sour the milk, sicken the livestock, sabotage the equipment, etc. My maternal grandmother’s father, according to my mother, blamed everything that went wrong on his farm on the smågubbe, the “little old man,” who was the same as the nisse (like the elves, they prefer it if you don’t use their name).

One matter of supreme importance in coexisting with the nisse is the Christmas porridge (julegrøt). The nisse expects to get a bowlful of the family’s Christmas porridge every Christmas Eve. You leave it out in the barn for him. He especially requires that a generous pat of butter be placed on top. Neglect that, and you can expect a very bad year. Sometimes it’s the farm owner’s fault, and sometimes the fault of a lazy servant. It makes no difference. The nisse must have his due. (I wonder who screwed up last Christmas.)

Tine is a popular brand of butter in Norway, and they did themselves proud with this charming and technically excellent ad, a few years back.

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Concerning garlands

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I posted this video of Sissel singing “Det Lyser i Stille Grender” the other day. Watch it if you missed it before, or watch it again; it’s worth it.

There’s one detail I wanted to comment on. That concerns the Christmas tree standing behind the singer. Note what they did with the shiny garlands.

In America, it’s customary to wind the garlands around the tree, top to bottom (or bottom to top, if you prefer; I’m not dogmatic on the point). The effect is similar to what snow looks like as it lays on the branches of an evergreen after a snowfall. But in Norway it’s common (though not universal) to arrange the garlands as you see here – hanging straight down from the star (or angel; again, I’m not dogmatic) at the top. The idea here (I believe) is to suggest the rays of the star shining down from Heaven. If you set a Nativity creche underneath, that works even better. I did a search for pictures of Norwegian Christmas trees, and often they look very much like ours, but I’ve rarely seen the star-ray configuration on an American tree.

Another difference is in the use of flags. A popular decoration in Norway is a garland of little paper Norwegian flags on a string. You arrange them on the tree as you would any other holiday garland. That sort of thing’s pretty much unknown in America, even in Republican households. We try to separate Church and State – but in Norway they had a State Church up until fairly recently. And the flag, after all, does feature a cross.

It’s common to deride American conservatives as flag-worshippers, but really the Norwegians have us beat on that point. Through the periods of agitation for independence under Denmark and Sweden, the display of a “pure” Norwegian flag (one not quartered with the flag of the “parent” country) was subversive, but relatively safe. During the Nazi occupation, having the flag was less safe, but that made it all the more precious. To this day, old people get tears in their eyes when they remember the day it was finally safe to display the flag again.

No doubt, as that generation dies off, this passion for the flag will diminish.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Jossing Affair,’ by J.L. Oakley

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The title of this book probably requires a little explanation, and I’m just the man to do it (though I actually had to look it up in Norwegian Wikipedia).

“Jøssing” was a common word used in Norway during World War II to describe patriots, those who opposed the Quisling collaborationist government. It arose after an incident in 1940, when British commandos attacked a German ship in the Jøssingfjord, rescuing 300 British POWs. The incident was one of the incitements for the German invasion, and the Nazis themselves originated the term as an insult against anti-Nazis. Like the name “Christian” in Roman times, the people who were being laughed at adopted it and wore it with pride.

The hero of J. L. Oakley’s The Jøssing Affair is Tore Haugland, a Resistance agent. He lives in the Norwegian town of Fjellstad, working as a fisherman’s helper. He poses as a deaf-mute. In fact he’s a University graduate and a former athlete, trained as an agent in England. He operates a secret radio transmitter and organizes “imports” and “exports” through the Shetland Bus – which at this point in the war (late 1943) no longer consists of Norwegian fishing boats, but of English submarine chasers.

Anna Fromme is the widow of a Resistance hero, a man who was tortured to death by the Gestapo. He was also a close friend of Tore’s, though Tore keeps that a secret. In spite of her husband’s heroism, single mother Anna is a pariah in Fjellstad – because she’s German. No one is sure of her loyalties, and no one trusts her.

Tentatively and almost involuntarily, the two of them slip into friendship, and then love. But that love – and much else – will be threatened when Tore is betrayed into the hands of the Gestapo, and the Nazis, aware they’re losing the war, crack down harder than ever on the Resistance, exploiting love, friendship, loyalty and trust to crush all opposition.

Author J. L. Oakley is – based on my reading of this book – a good storyteller, but a less good writer. The story had lots of dramatic tension, and I cared about the characters. It illuminated splendidly a part of World War II history that most people don’t know, and I myself wasn’t entirely aware of – the time at the end of the war when German armies were surrendering all over Europe, and the free world rejoiced – but in Norway the Nazis held on fiercely, declaring their determination to defend Fortress Norway or die in a Götterdämmerung, taking the Norwegian people down to hell with them.

What I liked less about the book (and I’ve been complaining about this in my reading reports here) was the sheer length of the thing. I thought the story could have been told faster and more simply. I had trouble keeping the characters straight (even the hero – he uses multiple aliases). Also, there were a number of word mistakes and typos in the text.

Some sexual content, but it was fairly mild. All in all, The Jøssing Affair was a good book and I’m glad I read it. (Some of the action takes place on the island of Hitra, where one of my great-grandmothers was born. I also liked the absence of pro-Communist cant, which you often find in such stories.) But it sure took a while to read. (There was a strange sense of déjà vu as I read about a population suffering deprivation, looking for liberation by Christmas, but having to wait until spring for relief. Hmm, what does that remind me of?)

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Fishing in Lofoten

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I have a lot of translating work to do (a good thing for me), and I spent about an hour already tonight trying to post something that didn’t work. So here’s a short clip of a from the 1950s, Norwegian fishermen at work in the Lofoten Islands. I think it’s herring, but I’m a landlubber.

Have a good weekend,

and watch your health.

Reading

Eystein’s therapy

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King Eystein I of Norway, carving in the Bergen Museum. Photo credit: Nina Aldin Thune, Creative Commons LIcense.

I’ve been doing a little translation lately (I’ll tell you more about it later) which reminded me of one of my favorite passages from Snorri Sturlusson’s Heimskringla.

This story involves King Eystein I, far from the most renowned of Norway’s kings, but very possibly the most likeable.

He was part of a set, sharing a joint monarchy with his brother, Sigurd Magnusson. They were both the sons of King Magnus Bareleg, who never got the memo that the Viking Age was over, and died young and outnumbered in Ireland, declaring, “Kings were made for glory, not for long life.”

Eystein and Sigurd were very different men. Eystein, the older, was handsomer and friendlier, as well as more thoughtful. Sigurd was taller and stronger, and mercurial in his temperament. Some historians suspect, based on saga descriptions, that he may have suffered from bipolar disorder.

Sigurd was actually the first European king to go on a crusade, heading out in 1108 and returning in 1111. He fought in various places in the Mediterranean before helping King Baldwin of Jerusalem capture Sidon. He went home by way of Constantinople. Meanwhile, Eystein stayed home and watched the store.

One memorable scene in their saga has them together at one of Eystein’s estates in the Upplands. During the feasting they decide to amuse themselves by “mannjevning,” what we might call “ranking” today. A bragging competition.

Sigurd boasts about his prowess in war. He tells of his battles in the Holy Land, and all the honors he received from great princes.

This is how Eystein answers:

“I have heard that thou hast won many battles in foreign lands, but it might have been more useful for the land what I meantime did at home. North at Vagar I built booths for the fishing folks, so that poor people could get help, and earn their living. There I founded a priest’s garth and endowed the church. Before this the place was almost heathen. These men will remember that Eystein was King of Norway. The road from Trondheim went once over Dovre-fell, where people were lost in bad weather or had to sleep out of doors and suffer hardships. There I built a mountain inn and gave it an income; those people will know that Eystein has been King of Norway. At Agdenes there is a dangerous rocky coast and no harbour; and many ships were lost every year. There is now a harbour and a landing place for wintering ships, also a church. Afterwards I raised beacons on the high fells and this I hope will be useful for the country. I built at Bergen a king’s hall and the church of the Apostles, with an underground passage between the two. The kings that come after me will remember my name for that.

“I built St Michael’s Church and a monastery besides. I have also, my brother, shaped the laws so that the people can now obtain justice, and when the laws are kept the country will be better ruled. I have set a warping pole with iron rings in Sinholm sound. The Jämtland people are again under the Norse king’s rule, and this was brought about by blithe words and wise persuasion and not by force or fighting. Now these matters are of small importance, still I do not know, if the people in the land are not better served by them, than if thou hast killed black men in Serkland and sent them to hell…”

As good a “guns vs. butter” argument as I’ve ever read, I think.

But though that’s a memorable story, it’s not the best Eystein story. That comes earlier {and is not included in some translations). It represents one of those weird moments you occasionally experience in reading old books when time contracts and you encounter a historical character who seems like someone you might know, and would like to know, today.

There was an Icelandic poet in King Eystein’s court whose name was Ivor Ingemundson. Ivor was a witty conversationalist, and the king enjoyed his company. But a time came when Ivor’s mood changed. He grew quiet and sad, and the king noticed it.

The whole passage is quite long (in Monsen’s translation), but the essence of the story is that Eystein spoke to Ivor privately. Ivor was reluctant to talk at first, but the king asked a series of questions, finally working out through deduction that Ivor was lovesick. He had counted on marrying a particular girl back home, one he couldn’t help thinking about, but his father had arranged for his brother to marry the girl.

King Eystein then proposed a series of remedies – he offered to introduce him to suitable young women; he offered give him property; he offered money to enable him to travel. Ivor replied that none of those things appealed to him. So the king says this:

“I have suggested everything that comes to my mind. There is but one thing else that might help thee, although it is little compared to what I have offered thee. Every day when I am not taken up with important matters, thou shalt come to me and we will talk over this matter about the maid, for it often happens that sorrow shared is sorrow lessened, and every time I shall give thee something before thou goest away.”

The saga says that Ivor agreed to that. “He was thereby consoled in his sorrow and became glad again.”

Talk therapy. We Norwegians invented it.