The Viking Bodleys; an excursion into Norway and Denmark ... With illustrations

Front matter

THE BODLEY BOOKS. This series of books consists of five volumes, each independent of the others, but since the characters are the same in all there is a natural connection between them, and the order of their appearance indicates also the gradual growth of the children who make up the youno-er members of the Bodley Family. The series is as follows : — I. DOINGS OF THE BODLEY FAMILY IN TOWN AND COUNTRY. This contains some of the doings of Nathan, Philippa, and Lucy Bodley, their father and mother, the hired man Martin, and Nathan's Cousin Ned, upon their removal from Boston to Roxbury. It introduces, also, Nathan's pig, the dog Neptune, Lucy's kitten, Lucy's doll, Mr. Bottom the horse, chickens, mice; it has stories told to the children by their parents, by Martin, and by each other. Martin's brother Hen is referred to occasionally.

II. THE BODLEYS TELLING STORIES. In this book Nathan's cousin, Ned Adams, a young collegian, is shown as much of the time living with his cousins, and Nurse Young becomes a part of the family. The children are entertained with a good many stories, especially from American history; they have a Mother Goose party, and go on a journey to Cape Cod. Hen remains in the background. III. THE BODLEYS ON WHEELS. The family enter a carryall and drive, accompanied by Ned on horseback, along the coast of Massachusetts Bay from Boston to Gloucester, and thence, through Ipswich and Rowley, to Newburyport, and so home again. Their drive leads them through historic places and by spots made famous in poetry and legend. On their arrival home they find Martin's brother Hen in the barn, just back from a long voyage.

IV. THE BODLEYS AFOOT. Hen entertains the children with yarns, and, Ned Adams suddenly appearing, it is pro posed that he and Nathan should take a walk to New York. They set out by Dedham and the old road to Hartford, through Pomfret ; but at Hkrtford, where they stay a few days with some old relatives, they are joined by Mrs. Bodley, Phippy, and Lucy, who go down the Connecticut River with them to Saybrook, and then go back to Boston, leaving the boys to continue their walk to New York. They are stopped, however, at New Haven, by a dispatch from Mr. Bodley, which brings them back at once by rail. V. MR. BODLEY ABROAD. The reason of the dispatch is that Mr. Bodley is unexpectedly called to Europe, and in this final volume of the series he goes abroad, while the rest of the family at first o-o for a fortnio-ht to Cape Cod, and then return to Roxbury.

Chapter I. Pilgrims Going Backward Little

party sat on the deck of the Rollo, which lay, with steam up, in the dock at Hull, just casting oii for a short voyage. It was the pleasant end of the last day of June, 1882, and the calm sky promised an agreeable passage across the much-dreaded North Sea. It was not yet dark, and the American travelers — for such they were — watched the progress of events with inter est. The Rollo was a long while getting out of the dock, two other boats being in advance. A series of wooden piers extended down the middle of the dock, to enable ships to warp out, and a boatman rowed to one after another, taking the Rollo's hawser, making it fast, and afterward casting it off. At last the final gate was passed, the tug which had been lending a helping hand turned aside, and the Rollo steamed down the Humber.

" Charles is getting ready to ask a question," said Sarah Van Wyck, the growing young girl of the party, the little snubber, as her cousin sometimes called her. " I can see it in his contempla tive face." " He inherits the faculty of asking questions, Sarah," said her mother. " Your Uncle Nathan and I used to be called the bothering Bodleys, because we were always teasing to find out something." " That is the reason, Aunt Phippy," said Charles Bodley, " why you and father can always answer our questions now. If you had not bothered grandfather and grandmother, you would be always making us read books, instead of telling us what we want to know. I like to find out things from people a great deal better than to read about them in books." " If we don't forget what is told us," said Sarah, " we shall be mines of information to our children.

Just think ! We know all that our fathers and mothers have told us, and they knew what grandfather and grandmother told them." " Don't put us to the test," laughed Mr. Van Wyck. " To be sure, I am to be counted out, for I had not the benefit of a Bodley education, and had gained my small stock of knowledge by more painful means." " We had the ' Rollo Books,' Philip," said Mrs. Bodley, who was his sister. " Yes, we had the ' Rollo Books,' Blandina, but so had the Bod leys." " Now that reminds me," said Charles. " I was not going to ask a question at all, as Sarah supposed. I was going to make a philo sophical remark. Cousin Ned Adams used to have a good deal to say about the influence of the New World upon the Old. I 'd like to know if it is n't a fine thing for a steamer running between Hull and Christiania to be named after a boy in an American story book !

" Mr. Bodley laughed. " Are you sure the boy was not named after the steamer ? " he asked. " I always did wonder," said Mr. Van Wyck, " how Mr. Abbott came to name his very peaceful and reasonable Rollo after the old Northman." " By some law of contrasts, I suppose," said his wife ; " but I am not sure that I know exactly who Rollo was, Philip. Did he come from Norway ? " " He belonged to the race who have Nor in their name, but when he came to settle down after his rude rovings, he softened into a Norman. Rollo was his Latinized name. He was Rolf Ganger, or Rolf the Goer, when he was a Northman, and the French called him Rou. That is where Rouen gets its name, I suppose, for it was the capital of the duchy which Charles, the King of the West Franks, gave him, when Rolf was baptized and married Charles's daughter.

I fancy that Rolf did not lose all his old Norse blood when he was softened into Rou and Rollo, for the story goes that when he received his duchy he was bidden to kneel and kiss Charles's feet, in token of allegiance to the king. But Rolf stoutly refused to kiss any man's feet, and told one of his soldiers to do it for him. The soldier, thereupon, not having had experience in courtly ways, seized the king's foot and raised it to his lips. The poor king, who was sitting on his throne, was nearly tipped over backward by such a rough salute. The soldier, you see, should have kneeled." " There was not much likeness between old Rollo and our friend," said Sarah. " But, father, why was he called the Goer ? Did he go it all over Norway ? " "He was called the Goer, because he had such long legs that when he mounted one of the little Norwegian horses his feet touched the ground.

The Northmen had a great way of nicknaming each other, and I suspect the biggest of them laughed at Rolf when he first set off on the back of a horse, and called him Rolf Ganger the rest of his days." "And now his name is Rollo the Steamer," said Charles. "Such are the changes of history ! " " And we are all visiting Rolf's old home," said Sarah, in the same philosophic tone, " and have come to it from beyond the seas. It is the return of the Vikings." " Yes," said her mother ; " your Uncle Nathan has always wanted to get back to the very beginningest of American history, and I am sure he is on his way when he goes to the fjords of Norway." " Don't let us go too fast," said Mr. Bodley. " While you have been talking all this nonsense I have been trying to make out the shore line in this dusky light.

Do you know, we cannot be far from the place where our Pilgrim ancestors tried to make their es cape from England in 1607. They had bargained with a Dutch captain, who had a ship at Hull and was going back to Holland, to take them in at a point between Grimsby and Hull. Bradford says there was a large common there a good way from any town. I suppose he means an open tract of land where any one might go. They could not board the vessel at Hull, for the authorities had once before stopped them when they tried to sail from Boston. So they sent the women and children and goods down the river in a boat, while the men went by land, very likely in small companies and in the night-time. Everything turned out wrong. The water was rough, and the women and children were so sick that they per suaded the seamen, who took the boat down, to put into a creek and lie there in quiet water.

The ship came along the next morning, but unfortunately it was low tide, and the boat with the women and children could not get out of the creek. Meanwhile the men were on the shore, out of reach of the women, and the captain thought he would better be getting them on board while he was waiting for the tide to float the boat off, so he sent his own boat for the men. He had brought off one boat-load, and was about to send back the boat for another, when he saw a great company of armed men, some on horse and some on foot, coining across the country. It was clear that the news of this exodus had spread, and the Egyptians were after the poor Israelites. The Dutchman was no Moses, however. He hoisted his anchor, swore a big oath, set his sail, and was off for Holland. He* had no mind to get into a scrape, and cared very little, apparently, for the poor Pilgrims."

" But what became of the poor fellows who were left on shore ? " asked Sarah. " And what became of the women and children ? " asked Charles. "And what became of those who were carried off by the Dutch man ? " asked Aunt Blandina. " And what became of the Dutchman himself ? " asked Aunt Phippy. " And what is to become of us, if you answer all these ques tions ? " asked Mr. Van Wyck. " Have patience," said the story-teller. " You shall hear all. We are now, let us say, steaming past the flat land where the rest of the men were left. We can't see it, but it lies off yonder, where that dim light is on shore. When the Dutchman sailed away, the men who were left behind, seeing the plight they were in, scattered in various directions, a few only remaining to help the women and children as best they might.

These,' poor things, were helpless enough. They fell to weeping and wringing their hands ; ' their poor little ones were hanging about them, crying for fear and quak ing with cold,' as the old historian says. The posse of men with bill-hooks and guns who had scared the Dutchman away had no one to lay hold of but these poor women and children and the few men who stayed to help them. They marched them off to a magistrate, and he sent them to another. What totdo with them no one knew. It never would do to put them in prison. They had no homes to go to, for these had all been broken up ; and so at last, after the poor things had endured all kinds of trouble, they were left to shift for themselves, and made their way, one by one way, one by an other, till they had joined their husbands in Holland."

" Then their husbands did get to Holland ? " " Yes, though they had a sore time of it on the way. They met a terrible storm, and were driven about the North Sea for fourteen days before they reached their port. They came close to the coast of Norway, and for a week saw neither sun, moon, nor stars. The sailors gave up more than once, and I suppose the Dutchman had some bad moments, thinking he was being punished for his coward ice, but the Pilgrims kept up their courage, and prayed to God, and cheered on the sailors much as the Apostle Paul did in his ship wreck." " And was that the way the Pilgrim Fathers left England ? " asked Charles. " Yes. Their troubles began at the start, but I think the failure of their attempt to make one general removal led them to get away after that singly and in small companies, so as to escape observa tion."

" What stories the old men in Plymouth must have had to tell to their grandchildren ! " said Mrs. Bodley. " I fancy they must have thought very often of St. Paul's words, ' in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by my own countrymen, in perils by the hea then, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea.'" The Vikings crossing the North Sea. " There is not much peril in this sea," said Charles. " Not on this voyage," said his father, " but the North Sea is gen erally a terror to travelers. I have crossed it when it was in a very disorderly state." The Rollo had steamed well past the scene of the Pilgrims' ad venture. The twilight, which still lingered, gave way slowly to night, and the air was so quiet and cool that all were loth to turn in for the night.

They sat, a little group, by themselves, and soon the talk drifted back to Rollo and the Norse-folk. " This is a peaceful voyage," said Mr. Van Wyck, " but I should think the good people of Hull must have looked out once upon the Humber with a deal of anxiety when they heard that the Vikings had been seen coming toward the coast." " Yes, I always think of them as great birds of prey, swooping across the North Sea and pouncing down upon the English coast," said his wife. " They must have had that look, Phippy, with their high-beaked vessels, and their broad sails. When they wished to make a pro digious onset they lashed three vessels together. The prow some times bore a dragon's head, or a serpent's ; for when men make a great deal of fighting, I have noticed that they are very apt to make common cause with animals, and call themselves lions or tigers or serpents or hawks or eagles or vultures or panthers or wild-cats or — " Do stop.

Uncle Philip, before you have named a whole menage rie," said Charles. " Very well, I '11 stop ; but I beg you all to notice what pleasure we take in looking on, at the safe distance of eight hundred years or so, at those dreadful Vikings who used to cross this North Sea in their Berserker rage. It is the very gentlest of our poets who has turned the old sagas into musical verse. Think of Longfellow looking out of his window upon the winding Charles, with its mud-scows and stone-sloops, and writing the poems in which he sets forth King Olaf and his doughty deeds ! It is the contrast that delights me. Listen, while I repeat his poem." THE BUILDING OF THE LONG SERPENT. Thorberg Skafting, master-builder, In his ship-yard by the sea, Whistling, said, " It would bewilder Any man but Thorberg Skafting, Any man but me !

" Near him lay tbe Dragon stranded, Built of old by Raud the Strong, And King Olaf had commanded He should build another Dragon Twice as large and long. Therefore whistled Thorberg Skafting, As he sat with half-closed eyes, And his head turned sideways, drafting That new vessel for King Olaf Twice the Dragon's size. Round him busily hewed and hammered Mallet huge and heavy axe ; Workmen laughed and sang and clamored ; Whirred the wheels, that into rigging Spun the shining flax ! All this tumult heard the master, — It was music to his ear ; Fancy whispered all the faster, " Men shall hear of Thorberg Skafting For a hundred year ! " Workmen sweating at the forges Fashioned iron bolt and bar, Like a warlock's midnight orgies Smoked and bubbled the black cauldron With the boiling tar. Did the warlocks mingle in it, Thorberg Skafting, any curse V Could you not be gone a minute But some mischief must be doing, Turning bad to worse V 'T was an ill wind that came wafting, From his homestead words of woe ,• To his farm went Thorberg Skafting, Oft repeating to his workmen Build ye thus and so.

After long delays returning Came the master back by night ; To his ship-yard longing, yearning, Hurried he, and did not leave it Till the morning's light. " Come and see my ship, my darling ! " On the morrow said the king ; "Finished now from keel to carting; Never yet was seen in Norway Such a wondrous thing ! " In the ship-yard, idly talking, At the ship the workmen stared : Some one, all their labor balking, Down her sides had cut deep gashes, Not a plank was spared ! "Death be to the evil-doer!" With an oath King Olaf spoke ; "But rewards to his pursuer!" And with wrath his face grew redder Than his scarlet cloak. Straight the master-builder, smiling, Answered thus the angry King : " Cease blaspheming and reviling, Olaf, it was Thorberg Skafting Who has done this thing ! " Then he chipped and smoothed the planking, Till the King, delighted, swore, With much lauding and much thanking, " Handsomer is now my Dragon Than she was before !

" Seventy ells and four extended On the grass the vessel's keel High above it, gilt and splendid, Rose the figure-head ferocious With its crest of steel. Then they launched her from the tressels, In the ship-yard by the sea ; She was the grandest of all vessels, Never ship was built in Norway Half so fine as she ! The Long Serpent was she christened, 'Mid the roar of cheer on cheer ! They who to the Saga listened Heard the name of Thorberg Skafting For a hundred year 1 " After all," said Mr. Bodley, " there is not so very terrible a picture drawn. It is a New England ship-builder and a Boston mer chant who are represented, with a little veneer of antique rage." " But I don't understand who cut and gashed the Long Serpent," said Charles. " Thorberg says he did it, but why should he have done it ? or why should he have said he did, if he did not ?

" " I suspect," said his uncle, " that the mysterious hints of some warlock, or wizard, are intended to intimate that the mischief was done when Thorberg was away, and that he took the blame on himself to defeat the purpose of the -wizard ; but I confess I am not learned enough in this lore to give a satisfactory explanation. It is well that our pleasure in poetry is not measured by the accuracy with which every point is made." " Did the Vikings ever really reach America ? " asked Sarah of her father. " Fortunately we do not know, Sarah," he replied. " There is a delightful uncertainty about the matter, and we can discuss it and inquire into it to our heart's content. The probability is very great that they did land on our coast ; but although the Northmen had a very powerful influence on Europe, the time had not come for Amer ica to be discovered for settlement.

Greenland was long a part of Europe ; it is only in modern times that it has come to be placed on a map of the Western Hemisphere." " How differently we must look as we return to Norway," said Mrs. Van Wyck, " from what our Viking ancestors did when they came to America ; for I insist upon it, we are going back to hunt for our Viking ancestors." " And very rightly, Phippy," said her brother. " The Northmen or Danes, for they were all one people, made very decided settle ments on the east coast of England. All those towns whose names end in by" — " Grimsby," said Charles. " Yes, Grimsby is a case in point. The by is Norse for town, and the by towns show the marks of their Norse origin. Now our Pil grim fathers came from Scrooby and neighborhood, and may easily NATHAN BODLEY IN THE CHARACTER OF A VIKING.

CHRISTIANIA. have been of Norse descent, so that we can trace through them, if we do not wish to make a violent leap to Thorfinn and the rest." " Imagine Uncle Nathan as a Viking ! " said Sarah. " I should probably wear a belted shirt, Sarah, and carry a shield and sword, and a horn. I should wear a sort of metal helmet, and instead of a scarf pin carry an eagle, which your Aunt Blandina would embroider on my shirt-front. And all little girls would be terribly afraid of me." " Well, we bring back the Eagle, at any rate," said Charles. " Even if we do sail for the time being under the Union-jack, and are protected by the Lion and the Unicorn." " Do you know what time it is ? " suddenly asked Mrs. Van Wyck. " It is the tenth or eleventh century," said Mrs. Bodley. " It is the tenth or eleventh hour, Phippy, and your child and mine ought to be abed." And to bed went the Vikings, old and young.

Chapter II. Ciiristiania

All day Saturday the Rollo was crossing the North Sea, and the passengers sat comfortably in steamer chairs or walked the deck, and read, chatted, played checkers, or crocheted and knit. It was a summer sea over which they were steaming, and it was hard to believe that so often the waves were churned into a mighty pother. There was no adventure. One or two wearied sparrows lit upon the deck and dropped their little tails in an exhausted fashion; the other steamer of the line was passed midway, bound to Hull, and various sail were discerned near or far. Saturday passed, but when the passengers woke on Sunday they had reached the Norwegian coast. Charles, raising himself in his berth, looked out of the port-hole, and saw cold, rough rocks within biscuit-throw. He occupied the same state-room with his father, and they were shortly on deck, where the others joined them.

It was only seven o'clock, and the steamer was making fast to the pier at Christiansand. They fortified themselves with coffee, and finding there was an hour to wait, went ashore and sauntered through the town. The first glimpse of a new country always quickens the traveler's sense. He expects so much more strangeness than he finds ; he does not take into account the likeness that man has to his neighbor. There was at first glance a curious suggestion of New England in the plain wooden houses which they saw. Except for their tiled roofs, the houses would have been at home in a Maine village. There was one difference, however ; nearly every window had plants in pots. The houses and shops were mingled together, the shops distinguished only by modest signs and small show of goods in the windows.

" How few people there are about," said Charles. " What would you have ? " asked Sarah. " It is only seven o'clock, and Sunday morning too. Don't you suppose they breakfast half an hour later Sunday morning in Christiansand ? I wonder, though, why they have so many shops for the sale of oil." " You must begin your Norwegian studies, Sarah," said her father. " That is ale or beer that looks on the signs like oil." The streets were straight and broad, and the little town was quickly surveyed. They came to a bridge crossing an arm of the CHRISTIANIA. 25 sea, and on the other side found themselves more in the country. They followed a little lane which led to a pile of rocks where a poor farmer was raising a few cabbages, and from the top of the rocks they had a pretty extensive view of the town and surrounding country.

The sky was overcast, and the view was a somewhat dreary one. " This is not the country in which to look for large towns," said Mr. Van Wyck. " Christiansand is one of the larger sort, but it is not so large that one could easily be lost in it." " We must go back to the boat," said his prudent sister ; " but I suppose that if we were to spend the summer here and get acquainted with the people, we should get very much attached to Christiansand, and be sorry to leave." " What a charitable imagination you have, Blandina ! " " Mother never wants to leave a place," said Charles. " She al ways begins to think about the people and how they live, and adopts one or two forlorn children, and then she is ready to settle down for the rest of her life." The party found the Rollo ready to leave the pier when they re turned, and when they went below to breakfast the boat had already steamed out of the harbor.

All day long they coasted, sometimes near, sometimes at a distance from the land. The smaller steamers ran in and out among the islands, calling at fishing villages and little stations, but the Rollo made its way, without stopping, to Christiania. At dinner-time it passed round the point into Christi ania fjord, and then land could be seen on either side, the shores gradually drawing closer together. For the most part pine-clad, rocky hills rose with more or less abruptness from the fjord, though now and then some gentle slope would appear, some nicely kept place, or a little village would peep from behind an island. " So this is a fjord," said Sarah, after they had been sitting some time in silence. " I always wanted to see a fjord since I read Miss Martineau's ' Feats on the Fjord.' " " I don't think we see the characteristic fjord landscape here, Sa rah.

We must wait until we get farther north." " But, Uncle Nathan, what is a fjord ? what makes a fjord ? why do not we have them in America ? " " If we had mountains coming down to the sea, with arms of the sea running up into the land, we should have them. The word is the same as firth or frith in Scotland. The Frith of Forth is a fjord." " I suppose it is the fret of the sea," said Mr. Van Wyck, " or the land fretted by the sea." " But why are not the lamps in the light-houses lighted ? " asked Charles. " What need ? It is daylight still, though it is past eleven o'clock. They put out their lights on the coast when summer-time comes, but they make up for it by keeping them lighted a long time when winter returns." Not a light was to be seen in the city which now lay before them, dimly descried, to be sure, for the sky was over cast, and it was not so light at this hour as it might otherwise have been.

As the Rollo rounded an island and came within the inner harbor, the people on board the steamer could make out the buildings, and could see persons moving about the streets and on the quay. The tide was high, and the Rollo, as it was warped up to the quay, towered high above it. Our little party was somewhat taken by surprise. They had been so occupied with watching the shore and trying to make out the ob jects in the strange twilight, that it had not occurred to them, until just as they came near the quay, that they need not pass another CHRISTIANIA. 27 night on board the steamer, and now they hurried together their wraps and small articles, meaning to leave their larger pieces on board until the morrow, while they made their way to the Victoria Hotel for the rest of the night. With other passengers, they passed down the steep gangway to the pier.

It was nearly twelve o'clock. The streets were lively with people walking about ; even small children were out, but no lamps were lit. " Do you suppose all these people are homeless ? " half-whispered Sarah to her cousin. " They are probably all returning from various excursions into the country, Sarah," said her father, who overheard her. " But how spectral it is," said Mrs. Van Wyck, in a low voice. " These people look like ghosts, gliding along the streets. Will it be no darker than this to-night ? " " No. It will remain very much like this for an hour, when it will begin to grow lighter again." "It is not exactly twilight," returned Mrs. Van Wyck. "I can't describe it, but there is a mystery over everything. All the shades are deepened. Look at those green trees ; they have almost a pur plish tinge."