This book is intended to encourage a friendly attitude towards people of other lands. Fast steamers, airplanes, and the radio have made the people of all lands neighbors, and American boys and girls must become better acquainted with their neighbors across the seas if they are to understand and appreciate them. Through material such as is given in Near the Top of the World, children may come to know interesting and likable people of another country, and to regard them as people like themselves, not as queer or amusing.

The author traveled widely in Scandinavia for the purpose of gathering material. She watched the people, especially the children, at work and play. She visited homes, schools, libraries, farms, saeters, Lapp settlements. She talked with teachers, librarians, and other citizens of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, and they assisted her generously in seeing and interpreting life in their lands.

The pictures which illustrate the stories are photographs, some of them taken by the author. For other pictures she is grateful to the American-Swedish News Exchange, New York, the Norwegian Government Railway, New York, and the Danish Government Railway, New York.

The vocabulary is simple and although the book was written for no specific grade, the sentence structure has been adapted to third grade reading. The stories were tested in third grade classrooms and revised to remove any difficulties that were encountered. The vocabulary was checked with the Gates Word List and the Thorndike Word List with the following results: 74 per cent of the words in the random sampling fall in the Gates 1500 list; 84 per cent in Thorndike’s first 2000 list, 90 per cent in Thorndike’s first 3000 list, and 94 per cent in Thorndike’s first 5000 list. Very few unusual words have been used.

The material has numerous possibilities for classroom use:

The book will be of special service to teachers seeking material for units of study on other lands for social science classes. Curriculum makers for elementary schools have set up such units to break away from the more formal units of geography and history, but have found their attempts to be only partially successful because of the dearth of suitable reading material to put into the hands of the pupils.

Schools having separate courses in geography will find Near the Top of the World a valuable supplementary reader. From the story Greeting a Strange Sun to the story Planting of the Flag of Norway at the Bottom of the Earth, there are experiences to help children interpret how people make their ways of living fit the land in which they live.

In the folklore, the Viking tales, the descriptions of castles and open-air museums, the readers of Near the Top of the World see history as the background for the present-day life of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

Boys and girls, always interested in children of other lands, will find the book one to read just for fun. It will be especially liked by the children in America who are of Scandinavian origin or who have relatives in the Scandinavian countries.

In whatever way the book is used, the readers cannot fail to make interesting discoveries about the Scandinavian countries that have so generously contributed to American citizenship.

Children of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark live near the top of the world. Some of them dance round the Yule tree on a day as dark as night and round the Maypole on a night as light as day!

On the map of the top of the world on the next page you can find their lands.

Kari and Lars live near the top of Norway. They travel by boat. They see the fishing boats and the birds that roost on the rocky walls near the sea.

The little Lapp girl and her dog also live in that land far to the north. But to them it is the land of the reindeer. They wander from place to place. They live in tents or rude huts wherever the reindeer find food.

Olaf of Norway and Gerda of Sweden live farther to the south of those lands. To them in winter their land is a land of skis. And to many girls and boys Norway and Sweden in winter is a land of Christmas trees.

2 Harold lives in America, but he knows the lands near the top of the world. His grandmother lives in Norway and his cousin lives in Sweden. To Harold those lands make many a storybook tale come true. When he visited them he saw the old Viking boats 3 which were like the boat in which Leif Ericsson sailed to America so long ago. He saw castles where boys long ago were dubbed knights.

ON THIS MAP YOU WILL FIND KARI, LARS, OLAF, GERDA, AND OTHER CHILDREN OF THE NORTH LANDS

4 Christian lives on the flat lands of Denmark. Denmark was the home of the great story-teller, Hans Christian Andersen.

But now turn the pages of this book and let these children, and many others too, tell you stories from that land near the top of the world.

About noon, one day late in January, a group of school children dressed in warm coats, caps, and mittens stood in the snow eagerly waiting for something. Suddenly one of the big boys pulled a rope that sent the flag to the top of its pole. There it waved a greeting as over the edge of the earth peeped the sun!

While the children watched, the rim of gold became half a round ball. Then it began to drop and in an hour no part of that ball could be seen in the sky.

Those children live in a town near the top of the world. Weeks and weeks had passed since they had seen the sun. About the time that American children were having Thanksgiving the sun had dropped from sight. There was no sunshine in that northern town on Christmas day. The children went to school through cold dark streets lighted by electricity. Then 6 came days when there was a pale light in the sky, like the dawn that comes just before the sun rises. At last came that day in January when the sun appeared. No wonder the flag was raised to greet him!

As those children greeted the big shining ball they knew that now they would see the sun in the sky for months. Each day it would stay a little longer.

Time went on. One day about the middle of May the children saw the sun in the east early in the morning not to set again for weeks and weeks. Each day it seemed to move around the sky in a big circle near the ground. To girls and boys who live in the far north of Norway and Sweden the sun seems to go around their homes, not over them from east to west as we see it. The picture of the midnight sun shows just how the sun seems to move around low in the sky. Of course, as you know, the earth is really moving around the sun.

For many weeks the children had sunshine while they worked and while they played. No longer did they have to work in their schoolrooms by electric light. They ate their breakfasts, dinners, and suppers while the sun shone. They even had sunshine while they slept, sunshine all through the night. The 7 sun did not set again until late in July. And in July the sun was gone from the sky only a few hours each night.

THIS PICTURE SHOWS HOW THE SUN SEEMS TO MOVE AROUND THE HORIZON
An exposure was made every 20 minutes without
changing the position of the camera

Day after day the sun was gone for a little longer time until one day in November it set again not to return until the next January.

Hammerfest, the town in which those children live, is in Norway. It is farther north than any other 8 town in the world. It is a small town with only about six hundred homes.

The homes in Hammerfest are built of wood. Many of them are not painted and the wood has turned dark brown from the weather. Other homes are painted white, light green, pink, and blue. These colored houses are pretty with their roofs of red tile.

The streets are narrow and look very bare without trees, and few trees can grow in the cold of the far north. Hammerfest has a park with a half-dozen or more trees and just outside the town stands a lone tree—the most northern tree in the world. The school children are proud of those few trees even though they are no larger than shrubs. They point them out to the visitors who come to their town.

THIS TREE IS FARTHER NORTH THAN ANY OTHER TREE IN THE WORLD

Hammerfest faces the sea. The girls and boys of Hammerfest hurry to meet the ships that stop on their shores. They look to see what flag each ship flies. When they see the flag of a ship they are sure to know from what country it comes. They see ships with Swedish flags, ships with Danish flags, ships with Dutch flags, ships with English flags, ships with American flags, and many other ships with other 9 flags. The boys like to watch ships unload coal, machinery, grain, and foodstuffs; and to watch other ships being loaded with fish, cod-liver oil, and hides.

THE NORTH CAPE AND THE MIDNIGHT SUN

10 Both the boys and the girls like to go aboard the passenger ships that visit their port. Sometimes they try to talk to the passengers. They hear many strange languages—English, Dutch, French, German, and Italian. They see people from many different countries—England, Scotland, America, Holland, France, Germany, and Italy. People from almost all over the world stop at Hammerfest on the large steamers which carry them to the very top of 11 Norway to a big rock that sticks out into the Arctic Ocean. That rock called the North Cape is less than one hundred miles from Hammerfest. Many, many people visit the North Cape each summer at the time when the sun shines there at midnight.

During the summer the girls and boys play along the shores of the Arctic Ocean. Often they find wood that has been carried in by the waves. We call such wood driftwood. When the cool evenings come driftwood is fine for burning in open fireplaces. One day some of the boys found pieces of strange wood and bark. An old sailor told them that those pieces were from the great palm trees which grow far to the south where the sun shines all the year round. It had been carried to them by the warm stream of water which also keeps their shores from freezing even in the cold winters.

Visitors who walk along the streets of that town far to the north get a strong smell of cod-liver oil. Hammerfest has a big factory where men make cod-liver oil. They take the livers from codfish and press them to get the oil. Then they put the oil in large barrels ready for ships to carry it away to other parts of Norway and to countries far away. Many 12 girls and boys in America have tasted cod-liver oil from Hammerfest, as much of it is sold in our country.

Many of the children of Hammerfest have never seen a street-car nor a train. But they have electric lights in their homes and on their streets. Their town is too small to need street-cars and, because of the mountains and the great distances between the towns, no railroads have been built in that land so far north. But those children get their mail and packages from boats. They travel by boats too. Their boats come all the year round as regularly as trains in towns on the railroads.

Perhaps some children will think, “But surely ships cannot visit those northern shores in the winter when the sun is gone from the sky. The waters must be frozen.” But they are wrong about the northern lands near the sea. Ships come and go all the year round. Those waters are never frozen.

Those northern shores are warmed in a strange way. South of the United States of America is a body of water called the Gulf of Mexico. That body of water lies at a place on the earth where it gets warm sunshine all the year round. The water is 13 always very warm. It is that warm water which keeps the land near the top of the earth warm.

The Gulf of Mexico seems to act in a way similar to a tank in the basement of a large house which sends water to heat the rooms far from the basement. A stream of warm water from that warm gulf is carried thousands of miles across the ocean to the shores of this northland. This is called the Gulf Stream. And the Gulf Stream keeps those shores warm enough for people to live there comfortably even during the months when no sun shines.

Some people who have traveled in many parts of the world have visited this town farther north than any other town in the world. Some of them say, “Hammerfest is not only the town which lies farthest north; it is also unlike any other town in the world.” And perhaps that is what the readers of this book are thinking too.

Clang! Clang! sounded the bell of the boat. Lars and Kari hurriedly said good-bye to father and mother and ran over the narrow plank to the boat.

Lars and Kari live in Hammerfest. They were going to visit their grandmother who lives about a two-days’ ride to the south of their home.

Soon their bags were put into the cabins where they would sleep that night and they were on the deck waving their hands to their parents. Then in big comfortable chairs, they sat on the deck. It was August and the air was cool and pleasant.

Lars liked best to watch the boatmen do their work, but Kari wanted to see the land they passed. You might think that Kari could see land only to the left, for on the left is the coast of Norway, and surely there is only water on the right toward the sea. But much of the time Kari saw land on both sides. Sometimes, though, the land on the right was only huge rocks in the water, or small spots of land with water 15 all around them where only birds live. But part of the way the pieces of land on the right were so large that Kari could not see the ends of them. They were only small islands with water all around them too. Lars and Kari were going to an island. Their grandmother lived in a town built on an island off the coast of Norway.

LARS AND KARI ON THE DECK OF THE SHIP

For a long time both Lars and Kari watched the coast of Norway on their left. For miles and miles they saw rolling banks of earth covered with shrubs of birch not even as tall as the one-story houses 16 along the coast which were the homes of fishermen.

Soon they heard the whistle of the boat. Lars said that the whistle was blowing because they were coming to a town. They ran to the other side of the boat. By that time the boat was stopping, but it was still out in the water some distance from the town. A rowboat was coming from the town to meet the boat. The rowboat was bringing mail and packages for the large boat, and it would take back to shore the mail, packages, and passengers.

Lars and Kari had plenty of time to see the town. It was a fishing town. Fish were hanging on lines all along the bank, and more fish were stretched upon the ground to dry in the sun. The captain told Lars that the fish were herring. Perhaps some of the boxes that were loaded on the boat were boxes of herring which would be sent to America, for American merchants buy a great deal of herring from Norway.

The boat had not gone far from the fishing town when Lars saw a fishing boat. He called to Kari and together they leaned over the rail of their boat to watch the fishermen. They had never seen so many fish before. But they were soon watching the large 17 gulls that flew along after the fishing boat. Some of the birds left the fishing boat and followed their boat. The gulls came so close that Kari almost touched one as it floated along right over her head.

Kari told the captain about the gulls that evening when they were eating supper in the dining room on the boat. The captain said, “During the night the boat will pass a mountain where thousands and thousands of birds roost on the rocks.”

“Can we see the birds from the boat?” asked Lars.

“You could see them,” replied the captain, “if you were awake, but the boat will pass that rock at three o’clock in the morning. You will be sound asleep.”

But Lars and Kari begged so hard that the captain promised to have them called when the boat was near the bird roost.

Lars and Kari didn’t want to go to bed that night. They watched the sun on the mountain peaks of the islands to their right and then back of them to the north. At ten o’clock the sun was still sending a glowing light over the water. The captain said that it would shine until about eleven that night. But Kari thought that they should go to bed at ten 18 o’clock so that they could get a good sleep before three o’clock.

At three o’clock the steward of the boat knocked at the cabin door. Lars and Kari jumped up quickly. Each one pulled on warm stockings and shoes and coat and cap. They hurried to the deck. The sun was shining brightly again; in fact it had risen two hours earlier.

BIRDS FRIGHTENED BY THE BOAT

Suddenly the boat moved close to a rocky wall. Such a screaming of bird cries! There on the rocks 19 were so many, many birds that they never could have counted them. And many more, frightened by the boat, were flying about in the air crying wildly.

Lars and Kari were delighted to have seen the thousands of birds at their resting place on the rocks, but they were glad to go back to bed, even though the sun was so high in the sky. And they slept until eight o’clock too.

Before noon they reached the island where their grandmother lived. A boat came from the shore to meet them. They said good-bye to the captain and the other workers on the boat and went to the shore where their grandmother was waiting for them.

Lars stayed on the island with his grandmother that winter. He went to a larger and better school than the one in Hammerfest.

At first Lars thought, “How lonely I shall be when the days are short and the nights are long.” To his surprise he found that the days with little sunshine were the busiest days on the islands. Lars was on one of the Lofoten islands where thousands of fishermen catch fish during the time of the long nights.

Late in January the fishing boats began to arrive. Before many days thousands of boats had come. The boats brought thousands and thousands of fishermen. The huts along the coast were soon opened. The quiet spots were now noisy with the chugging of boats and the voices of busy people.

Lars soon made friends with some fisher people. One old fisherman told him many things that he wanted to know about the cod, for that is the fish those fishermen came to Lofoten to catch.

FISH HUNG ON POLES TO DRY

21 Why did the fishermen come at this time of the year? Were there no cod in these waters in the summer? Those were questions Lars asked the old fisherman.

Lars learned that the cod were great travelers. They had come from the big Atlantic Ocean to reach the Lofoten Islands. Great numbers of cod swim together. They reach those waters of the Lofoten late in January. By the time the water is dark with the fish, the fishermen are ready to begin their fishing.

22 But the waters in the Lofotens get many, many more fish than those which come in from the Atlantic. It is in the waters of these islands that the cod mothers lay the eggs from which baby cod are hatched. And millions and millions of baby cod are hatched each year.

Lars watched some fishermen fastening a fishing line on the shore. The line was a strong and heavy cord. Most of the lines used by the Lofoten fishermen are five or six thousand feet long. The long fishing line is held near the top of the water by corks which will not sink. The long line is taken far out to sea by the boats. The end of the long line has a heavy weight fastened to it. That weight is dropped 23 into the water and it holds the fishing line in the place that the fishermen want it. Short lines are fastened to each long line. The short lines have hooks upon them. More than a thousand hooks are dropped into the water from each long fishing line.

THIS FISHING BOAT HAD A GOOD CATCH

Some of the fishermen use nets instead of lines. They go out in boats to set their nets.

24 Each morning the fishing boats with the fishermen go out to take the fish off the hooks on the lines and to put more bait on the hooks, or to empty the fish from the nets. Lars wanted to go out in the boat with his friend, but the old fisherman said that fishing was too dangerous for a young boy like Lars.

The fishing is so dangerous that the Government of Norway sends officers to the islands every winter to help protect the fishermen. No fishing boat is allowed to leave the shore to go to the lines or nets until the officer gives the signal that the waters are safe. But in spite of the help of the officers many lives are lost in those waters each year.

One morning Lars saw the flag which was the signal of the officer that the sea was safe for the fishing boats. Then he saw the thousands of boats start out to sea to look after the lines and nets. There were rowboats, motor boats, steamboats, and sailboats. He could see the boats far off the shores for hours as the men worked to load the fish they had caught.

Five hundred fish is a good catch for a boat, but sometimes a boat brings in a thousand cod at one haul. After a few days of fishing, fish are everywhere on the islands. They hang on poles along the shore. 25 They lie stretched on the rocks. And everywhere is the smell of fish.

Lars watched the fishermen taking the livers out of the fish and boxing them. He knew that many of the livers would be sent to Hammerfest where he lived, and there they would be made into cod-liver oil.

Once upon a time very strong giants lived on the high mountains of the North lands. So fairy tales of the far north say. And according to those tales, the giants pulled up great bits of earth leaving deep hollow places between rocky walls. Water from the sea filled those hollow places, so arms of the sea ran far back into the land. And those giants also tore great rocks out of the earth and tossed them at each other in their battles. So even the tops of the mountains are rough and uneven with the holes they tore in the earth and huge rocks lie on the ground where they tossed them.

27 Visitors to that part of Norway called Jotunheim, which means the “Home of the Giants,” might believe that those fairy tales were true. For they see the arms of the sea running between the mountain walls and the rough land on top of the mountains. Surely none but giants’ hands could have torn the land into such shapes!

FREDRIK

But when they go to the tops of the mountains, they see some real giants like those which, long, long ago, did cut the land of Norway and Sweden and Denmark into strange forms. Those giants are sheets of ice. We call them glaciers. Before travelers in the mountains get near the large ice-sheets, they 28 see tongues of glaciers which look like rivers of ice running down the side of the mountain.

Fredrik is a Norwegian boy who helps many travelers see a glacier. His father drives an automobile for a large hotel in the mountains. He takes the guests from the hotel to see the glacier. When Fredrik is not in school, he goes with his father. Fredrik opens the many gates. For the car must travel through lands which belong to different farmers. The gates must be kept shut so that the cattle will not stray away from their own land.

Fredrik often tells the visitors what caused those rivers of ice. Snow and sleet fell on the mountains. The cold on the high peaks kept the snow from melting away, so year after year the snow gathered there. The load of snow became heavier and heavier. The snow melted a little, then froze again, until it formed a great ice sheet which we call a glacier.

Some of the ice moved slowly down the mountain side. It formed the rivers of ice which the travelers see on the mountain slopes. But as the rivers of ice got lower down the mountain, the ice melted, but it melted very, very slowly. Little by little, only a few inches a year, the river of ice has moved back. As 29 the ice moved down the slopes it carried under it big rocks and fine gravel. Great heaps of the rock and gravel are left behind when the ice melts. From those rocks men can tell just how far the ice moves back each year.

WALKING ON A GLACIER

Sometimes the ice melts in such a way that a cave is formed in the ice. As the sun shines on the thin walls around the cave the colors on the ice are very beautiful. The ice looks green, purple, and blue instead of white like the rest of the glacier. Some bits of the ice hang down, or stick up, like great icicles. 30 The icicles too are bright colors in the sunshine.

Sometimes visitors to the glacier go into the cave or walk about on the ice. They do not stay long, for the ice cracks and pops and makes a great deal of noise. The visitors are always told that pieces of ice often break off the glacier and come sliding down.

Fredrik has been up to the top where the great ice-sheet lies for miles, and miles, and miles. You may be sure that Fredrik was not alone on the glacier. He went with a guide who knew where all the cracks in the ice are. Walking on a glacier is dangerous for a person who does not know the ice. The ice is most dangerous when soft snow covers the deep cracks in the ice. Then a traveler may step on some soft snow and drop several feet into the ice. But travelers say that a walk on a glacier is great sport for people who have learned how to walk there. Many travelers from different parts of the world go to Norway to climb glaciers.

Freezing and thawing made the rocks on the mountain crack and break. So after the glaciers passed, the low places between the mountains were cut deeper. Water from the sea came in to fill those low places and make the fjords.

A NORWEGIAN FJORD

31 So the great ice sheets were the real giants that made the sharp peaks of the mountains, the waterways, and the lakes of the north land.

Of course, much of the snow which falls on the mountains does melt and run off in streams. Sometimes the rivers flow rapidly down steep slopes. Sometimes the water tumbles over a high rocky bank and falls hundreds of feet to land below.

32 The people of the north lands have put some of the falls to work. For years the falling water has turned wheels that have run mills to grind grain and to saw logs. But now the water of some of the great falls has been turned into electricity. High in the mountains are large houses where the water is made into the new power. From the power-houses electricity is sent for miles and miles to light homes and to run machines in factories. Norway has no coal. The Norwegians turn the water into heat and power such as coal makes. Sometimes people in Norway call the waterfalls their “white coal.” So waterfalls are also mountain giants.

People who visit Norway and its mountains are almost sure to come away believing in giants—but not fairy-tale giants.

Near the Christmas season the mountain forests of Norway and Sweden become a fairyland of ice and snow. Then the forest rings with the sounds of voices and the blows of the axes of boys cutting trees that will be decorated for the Yule-tide feasts in their homes. And thousands and thousands of pretty little trees are cut at that time of the year.

Eric and Hubert are Swedish boys who live in that land of evergreen trees. Their father owns a farm in the northern part of Sweden, but he works nearly all the year round in the forests. Eric, who is twelve years old, often helps his father in the forest. Hubert is only nine, and too young to work with the trees; but he goes with his father and Eric many times to play about in the woods and to watch the others at their work.

During the winter the men cut down the big trees and saw them into logs which are easy to handle. Then Eric helps stack the logs as they fall from the saws.

34 But when spring comes Eric is one of the busiest workmen. The strong woodcutters load big logs on to sleds to be hauled to the river bank a mile away. Eric drives the horse which hauls his father’s logs to the river. Often Hubert rides with Eric. The boys sit on the big logs on the sled as the horse pulls them along through the snow on the mountain road.

EVERGREEN TREES IN WINTER

The logs are unloaded at the river bank. Soon the river will be flowing rapidly with much water from the melting snows from the mountains. Many farmers will then float logs in the same stream; therefore 35 at the river bank each of Eric’s logs must be marked so that his father can claim them at the end of the waterway. Sometimes Hubert stays by the river bank to watch the men who work for his father place his father’s mark on each of the logs. The mark is the initials E. K. in a circle.

The boys enjoy seeing the logs go tumbling down the swift-flowing rivers. They have often stopped at a spot below where the river spreads out into a lake. When the logs reach that spot they stack in the water. Men then go along with poles to keep the logs moving. Sometimes there are acres and acres of logs in the lakes of Sweden at one time.

The Swedish and Norwegian people make many things of wood—their ships, their houses, their furniture, their bridges, their telephone poles, and many, many other things. But many of the logs which are floated down the river from that mountain forest where Eric works are made into paper.

Eric and Hubert have been to the factory which stands near the bank of the waterway which carries their logs. Thousands of men work there. They put the logs through a mill which grinds them into coarse fibers. Those shreds are then mixed with water and 36 chemicals to make a pulp. The pulp is pressed under heavy rollers and dried to make sheets of paper—newspaper, writing paper, wrapping paper, and cardboard.

One day when Hubert was lighting a fire with a safety match, his father told him that the wood of the match had come from the big trees of the forests too. A Swedish man found the way to make safety matches. And Sweden was the first country to make the matches that will not catch fire unless the head of the match is scratched on a certain kind of rough paper. He told Hubert, too, that safety matches from Sweden are used all over the world.

In the school which Eric and Hubert attend the boys are taught to plant trees. And every spring they plant little trees to take the places of the big trees which the woodmen have cut down.

The school boys learn that about one fourth of Norway’s land and about one half of Sweden’s land are covered with trees. But they are taught too that the people can use up the supply of trees that Nature has given them. So they help obey the laws of their country which require that trees be planted to keep the forests from being destroyed.

MEN WITH POLES KEEP THE LOGS MOVING

A Norwegian story-teller wrote a story “How the Mountain Was Clothed.” This is his story:

Through a deep cut between two mountains, a river hurried down over the rocks. The mountain walls on either side were high and steep. But one side of the mountain was bare. But at the foot even of this side, and so near the river that it was bathed in its spray, stood a cluster of trees. They gazed upward and outward, but they could not move one way or another.

38 “Suppose we clothe the mountain,” said the juniper to the fir.

The fir looked up at the naked mountainside and replied, “If any body is to do it, I suppose it will have to be we.”

The fir looked over toward the birch and asked, “What do you think, Birch?”

The birch glanced up the bare mountainside. The wall leaned over so that it seemed to the birch as if it could scarcely breathe. “Yes, indeed, let us clothe it,” he said.

39 So the three took upon themselves the task to clothe the bare mountain. That was their goal, and they soon set out to see whether they could reach that goal. The juniper went first.

When they had gone but a little way, they met the heather. The juniper seemed to want to pass it by. “No, take it along,” said the fir. So the heather joined them.

Before long the juniper began to slip, “Take hold of me,” said the heather. The juniper did so, and whenever the smallest crack could be seen, the heather put its finger into it. Wherever the heather had first pried in a finger, the juniper put a whole hand. They crawled and crept, the fir working hard, the birch always behind the rest.

“This is a noble work,” said the birch.

The mountain began to wonder what kind of creatures these might be that came clambering up its side. And after it had thought the matter over for a hundred years or two it sent a little brooklet down to find out. As it happened, the brook went at the time of the spring floods. It crept down till it met the heather. “Dear, dear heather,” said the brook, “won’t you let me pass? I am so tiny.” The heather 40 was very busy, so merely raised itself a bit, and worked on. The brooklet slipped in underneath and away.

“Dear, dear juniper, won’t you let me pass? I am so very little.” The juniper eyed it severely, but since the heather had let the brook slip by, the juniper might do that too.

The brook raced on down the hill, and came to where the fir stood puffing, out of breath, on the hillside. “Dear, dear fir, won’t you let me by?” begged the brook, “I am so very small,” and kissed the fir on the foot, and smiled. The fir let it by.

And the birch made way for the brook, even before it was asked.

“Hi, hi, hi!” said the brook and grew. “Ha, ha, ha!” said the brook and grew larger. “Ho, ho, ho!” said the brook, and tore up the heather, the juniper, the fir, and the birch by their roots and flung them pell mell, head o’er heels, down the steep slope of the mountain.

The mountain sat for several hundred years after that and smiled at the memory of that day. It was plain to be seen: The mountain did not want to be clothed.

41 The heather fretted and worried until it grew green again, and then it set forth once more. “Courage!” said the heather.

The juniper half raised itself to get a good look at the heather. So long did it sit half raised that at last it sat upright. It scratched its head, set forth again, and dug in so hard for a foothold that it seemed surely the mountain must feel it. “If you won’t have me, then I will have you.”

The fir stretched its toes a bit to see if they were all right, raised first one foot and then the other, and finally both feet at once. It first looked to see where it had climbed, next where it had been lying, and finally where it was to go. It then went on its way, pretending it had never fallen.

The birch, which had soiled itself badly, got up and brushed itself off. Away they went, faster than ever, to the sides and straight up, in sunshine and in rain.

“What can all this mean?” asked the mountain, one fair day, all glittering with dew, as the summer sun shone down upon it, the birds sang, the hare hopped about, and the woodmouse piped.

The day finally came when the heather could peep 42 over the top with one eye. “Oh dear, oh dear!” said the heather, and away it went.

“Dear me,” said the juniper, “what is it the heather sees?” and just managed to reach high enough to peer over. “Oh dear, oh dear!” it exclaimed and was off.

“What is it the juniper’s up to today?” the fir wondered, taking longer steps in the heat of the sun. Before long it rose on its toes and peered over. “Oh dear, oh dear!” Its branches and needles rose straight up on end.

“What is it all the others see and I don’t?” the birch asked, as it carefully lifted its skirts, and tripped after them. “Oh—oh—! If there isn’t a huge forest of fir and heather and juniper and birch already on the other side of the mountain waiting for us!” it exclaimed. The glittering dew rolled off its leaves as it quivered in the sunshine.

“Ah, that’s what it means to reach our goal!” said the juniper.

Reindeer land! Surely the land of the far, far north in Norway and Sweden may be called reindeer land.

One man who traveled in that land tells of a strange sight he saw there. On snow ahead of him one day he saw something moving. It looked as if thousands of hares were playing in the snow. They seemed to jump, or leap, into the air and to come down in the same spot. But why should so many hares be there? And why did they move so strangely? The man went closer, and found that his hares were reindeer tails! Yes, just tails! And thousands of them! The bodies of the reindeer were buried in the snow and just the stubby tails stuck out. The reindeer had dug into the snow, throwing up a bank which hid their bodies from sight. They were eating the moss which they found under the snow and happily wagging their tails as they ate.

The reindeer are about the only animals that can 44 get a living in those mountains where little grows except moss. And the people, called Lapps, who roam about with them get their living from the reindeer.

The Lapps are small people. The men and women are not much taller than most ten-year-old boys and girls. They have yellow skin, blue or gray eyes, and brown hair. They dress in the skins of the animals or in coarse cloth. They look very much like the Eskimos.

The word Lapps means people at land’s end. And that part of Norway and Sweden which lies at their very tops is called Lapland. Most of the Lapps wander about, following the reindeer. Wherever the reindeer find plenty of moss, the Lapps pitch their skin tents, or build themselves a hut of sod covered with brush. In those huts they and their wolf-like dogs live until the reindeer begin to wander farther away.

The Lapps and their dogs sleep together in the huts on beds which are heaps of brush covered with reindeer skins. Getting ready for bed is a simple task for these people. They merely take off their moccasins and lie down to sleep in their clothes. They wear the same clothes, too, for months and months and very seldom take a bath.

45 A kettle of reindeer meat is always boiling over coals on rocks in the center of the hut. The Lapps get food from the kettle whenever they feel hungry and eat it with spoons made of reindeer horn from rude bowls or plates of wood or bone.

LAPPS TRAVELING WITH REINDEER

Day and night some Lapp and his dogs watch the herd of reindeer as they wander on the mountains. A few reindeer are kept near the hut to furnish milk for the camp.

46 The reindeer not only furnish the skins for clothes and covers and milk and meat for food, they are also the Lapps’ horses. The Lapp children like to go sleigh riding behind a reindeer. But sometimes the ride is rough. The children may be thrown out into the snow. The reindeer wears but little harness, so the driver cannot hold him if he cares to run.

Several families of Lapps go every summer from Sweden across a body of water to a place in Norway where the moss on the mountains is very good. The reindeer swim across the water. The Lapps go in boats and join the reindeer on the other side.

One Lapp family that crosses the water from Sweden has built a hut of timber for its summer home in Norway. It is no larger than the skin or sod huts. Both the mother and the father have to stoop to enter the house. But the little Lapp girl and her dogs can run in and out easily.

But, even though the Lapps move about from place to place, the Lapp girls and boys go to school. The law of Sweden requires these children to go to school for six years. They begin their lessons when they are seven years old and go to school until they are thirteen. Each settlement has its own school. The 47 schoolhouse is just another Lapp hut. In the summer the children study their lessons sitting on the ground in front of or in the hut. The teacher lives in the hut and moves when the camp moves. Many of the teachers are Lapps who have been educated to teach; but some of the teachers are Swedes or Norwegians.

A LAPP HUT

The children must learn both the Lapp language and the Swedish language, if they live in Sweden. They learn both the Lapp language and the Norwegian, if they live in Norway. First they learn to read, 48 write, and work with numbers. After they can read and write a little, they begin other lessons. They learn about the plants and animals of the north land. They learn how to raise and care for the reindeer. They are taught, too, how to care for their own bodies—how to bathe, brush their teeth, cook their food, and clean their huts. But they do not learn those lessons of 49 cleanliness and care of the body well, because their mothers and fathers do not practise them in the homes. Perhaps in a few years when the Lapp children grow up they will be cleaner than their mothers and fathers are. At least that is what the teachers hope.

CHILDREN IN A LAPP SCHOOL

The Lapps make trinkets of reindeer horns and bone, moccasins of the skins and plaited grass, and dolls dressed as Lapp children dress. When the boats which carry tourists along the seas of Norway come near the camp, the Lapps go to meet the boats. They carry with them bags of the trinkets to sell to the people from other countries who are on the boats.

In Sweden many Lapps ride on the trains. Sometimes they carry boxes filled with trinkets which they have made. They put them in shops that sell such wares to visitors in Sweden. If you rode on a train across the northern part of Sweden, you would see many Lapps, and you would see their trinkets in the shops—bone letter-openers, fur moccasins, fur mittens, dolls dressed in fur.

Not all Lapps follow the reindeer. Some of them live in one place all the year and earn a living by 50 fishing and farming. Their homes are not much better than the huts of the wandering mountain Lapps, but they dress much like their Norwegian and Swedish neighbors. These people are called Sea Lapps.

As Roald climbed into the two-wheeled buggy beside his mother and sister Annie, he was too excited to speak. If only his father would let him drive the pretty dun-colored horse hitched to the buggy!

Roald knew little about horses. He lived in Oslo, a city in Norway. He had never owned a pony of his own, and really had never visited in the country where boys ride and drive horses.

Early that spring his father had said, “This summer we will take a vacation and go through the farm lands of Norway.” For weeks Roald waited for the day when that journey could begin.

Then one day in July the journey did begin. The family left Oslo by train. But to Roald the journey didn’t really begin until they left the train at a small town miles from the city and climbed into that two-wheeled buggy which Norwegians called a cariole.

The dun-colored horse took them only a short way. For most of their journey was to be on small steamboats on the waterways of Norway, called fjords, and 52 by automobiles on mountain roads. But Roald gladly climbed on the boat.

Their first boat glided along narrow waterways for miles and miles between mountain walls that in some places rise almost straight up from the water. Roald began to wonder whether this could be a part of Norway’s farm land. But now and then, even in this mountainous region, his father pointed out a lone farmhouse perched up on the mountainside.

Soon the boat passed shores that were less steep and Roald saw stretches of low and rolling land between mountain peaks. He caught glimpses of farms lying close together. This farm land was like the farm land he had seen near Oslo.

53 Roald wondered what farmers grew in this land of mountains and water. But he did not need to leave his boat to see some of the farmers’ products. As the boat stopped at a small town along the fjords to deliver the mail and boxes of foodstuffs, boys came on deck to sell baskets of fruit—cherries, raspberries, blueberries, currants, and apples.

A TWO-WHEELED BUGGY OR CARIOLE

After a day on the fjords, the family traveled in an automobile. Roald soon asked, “What are those strange fences we see everywhere in the fields?” But he needed no answer to his question, for in a few minutes he saw one of those fences loaded with grass. All along the way he saw men, women, and children in the fields making hay. The men cut the grass and 54 the women and girls and boys helped rake it into small stacks and hung it on the fencelike frames to dry in the sun.

A FENCE LOADED WITH GRASS

They saw farmers cutting grass on slopes that are covered with rocks. The farmers used scythes and hand sickles to cut around the many rocks. Farmers in many countries would call such rocky hillsides waste land, but in Norway no blade of grass can be wasted if the cattle are to be well fed during the winter.

Roald looked up at one place and saw a big bundle of grass dangling in the air. “Oh, Father, look!” he 55 cried. And his father smiled as he said, “You must not be surprised to see bundles moving along over your head. Farmers who live on the mountains send hay, baskets of berries, buckets of milk or butter down to the valleys on strong wires which have been stretched down the mountain slopes.” And in a few minutes Roald saw a woman hang a bundle of hay on a wire and start it sliding down to the barn below.

At one place the automobile stopped for an hour. Roald and his father took a walk. Back from the road were a farmhouse and the barns of a large farm. They walked along a narrow road up to the house. They saw people at work in the fields. In one field a man was raking grass. He was riding on a rake behind two horses. Other men were loading the grass on a low-wheeled wagon to haul it to the barn where it would be hung on the fences to dry. In another field girls were gathering potatoes which the men had dug.

Far back across the field was a wire pen which caught Roald’s eye. At first he thought that he was looking at a chicken house. But as he walked closer he saw that foxes and not chickens lived in the pen. What cunning foxes they were! Baby foxes lay 56 sleeping in the sun. Other foxes ran about the pen, jumping up on the box houses and off as they pleased. The foxes had long black fur. Down the back of each fox was a stripe of fur tipped with white. Such animals are called silver foxes because of the white tips on the black fur.

At first Roald felt sorry for the baby foxes. He imagined that they were unhappy and longing to be free to run away into the woods. But his father said, “These foxes have never lived anywhere except in this pen. They are well fed, and, no doubt, are very contented in the pen.”

Farmers in this northland often raise foxes for sale. The silver foxes are very valuable. People pay large prices for fox furs and they like the pretty silver tips on them. Ships that sail from Norway to other countries carry many fox pelts to those other lands.

57 But Roald soon forgot the foxes as he watched some boys busily working in another field. Rows of poles were sticking in the ground in that field and bunches of grain hung on each pole. The boys were pulling up the poles, turning them around, and sticking them back into the ground.

A NORWEGIAN FARM

Roald watched them for some time. From one of the boys he learned that grain in that part of Norway is usually dried on poles. By the time the oats, barley, and rye are ripe enough to cut summer is nearly over. The wet fall weather begins. The grain must be dried as quickly as possible. Stacking it in shocks on the ground would not do, for the rainy weather would rot it. The farmers in Norway fasten their grain on short poles to hold it up off the wet ground.

58 The grain on one side of the poles which Roald saw had received more sunshine than the grain on the other side of the poles. That is why the boys were in the field turning the poles. They wanted all the grain on the poles to dry quickly.

Roald was surprised to see other boys cutting small shrubs and branches of trees and hanging them on fence posts to dry. What would they ever do with those dry leaves? But his father told him that if he stayed on the farm during the winter he would see the goats eating the dried leaves and liking them too. And most farmers in Norway keep goats as well as cows, horses, and pigs.

Roald and his father and his mother and sister 59 then rode on a bus to the next town. They did not travel very fast, for the bus driver is also the mailman. He stopped at each farmhouse along the road for which he had mail. Sometimes he dropped the mail in a mail box by the side of the road, but often girls or boys were waiting at the farm gate to take the mail. Often the driver gave a sack full of mail to a farmer or a man who runs a small store in a village. That man delivers mail to the families who live farther back off the main road.

At one place the man who was to take a sack of mail was not outside his house to meet the bus. The driver and all the passengers on the bus were impatient. The driver honked the horn of his car, but still the farmer did not come. Then the bus driver went over to a post by the gate and pushed a button. He told Roald that by pushing that button he rang an electric bell at the farmhouse. So Roald was not surprised to see the postman come running after the bell had been rung.

Roald was ready to take the train back to Oslo after a week in the country, but he talked about the farms all the rest of the summer.

During the summer months you might hear a Norwegian girl, high up on a mountain, calling her cows with such a rhyme. She would, no doubt, call each cow by name, just as the girl does in the old rhyme.

Dotted here and there far up in the mountains stand lonely little huts. For months during the year, the roofs of those huts are covered with snow and no smoke comes from the chimneys. But as soon as the winter snows are gone and the tender green grass covers the mountain slopes, the girls take the cattle to the mountains to feed on the fresh grass. Those girls will live in the lonely huts until the snows of 62 the next winter begin to fall on the mountains. In Norway the people call a farmer’s mountain pasture his saeter (say ter).

LONELY LITTLE HUTS IN THE MOUNTAINS

Sometime in June many girls start on the journey to a saeter. The girls look forward to that day for weeks even though they will be very lonely up in the mountains. Anne and Hulda are sisters who go to a saeter each summer. Anne is only fourteen years of age and Hulda is seventeen. Sigrid, who is about the same age as Hulda, and Martha, who is much older, live on a farm not far from the farm where Anne and Hulda live. Anne, Hulda, Sigrid, and Martha take their cows to the same saeter. So the four girls live together for three months each summer.

One summer, Anne, Hulda, Sigrid, and Martha started for the saeter on June 25. They live in a part of Norway that is far from a fjord or a railroad, so they had to travel on foot. They did not go alone, for there was too much to take to the saeter. Their older brothers went with them. The girls dressed in heavy brown khaki suits and high-topped shoes, walked ahead with the cows, the sheep, and the goats. The boys came behind them with horses loaded with 63 food, churns, milk cans, bedding, and cooking vessels. At first they traveled along a main road and walking was easy. Only a few miles from their homes, they stopped for a week at a house near the road. The cows ate the grass off the mountain slopes near the house, and the boys planted potatoes on a patch on the mountainside which was level enough that crops would not be washed away.

At the end of the week they again loaded the horses and started on the rest of their journey. To reach the high pastures, they must walk up a narrow zigzag road. The small dun-colored horses climb the paths carrying the bundles. What a lot of turns the road has! One mountain path has twenty-seven turns. Of course, the many turns make a longer road than a straight one would be, but the girls are glad for the zigzags. They make the road less steep and they follow the smoother paths.

By the end of the day, the cattle reached their green pastures. And the girls opened the hut which was to be their home for almost three months. The hut was made of rough timber. It had a sod roof on which grew grass and small shrubs.

The boys helped the girls clean the hut which had 64 been closed for so many months. They unloaded the goods which the horses had carried up the mountain and put everything in place. In one corner of the one big room, they put the churn, the milk cans, and the tools. In another corner was a fireplace. On it they hung iron kettles on which the girls would cook their food and boil the milk to make cheese. On a table at one side of the room they put the crocks for the milk and on a shelf above the table, they placed the dishes. At one end of the room on wooden beds, they put the mattresses of straw and warm covers which look like small feather beds.

The next morning the boys set out down the mountain again. They must return to help gather the grain and cut the grass on the farm. The girls are left alone with the cattle.

65 All four of the girls got up early each morning. They milked the cows and the goats. After breakfast of cheese and bread and butter and milk, Anne and Sigrid each morning took the cattle to the pasture. While the cattle wandered about on the mountain eating the fresh grass, the girls lay in the sun or searched for wild berries—blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries.

A NORWEGIAN SAETER

Each evening Anne and Sigrid called the cattle. They knew each one by name, and perhaps some of their cows were named Rose, Birchen Bough, and Morning Pride like the cows in the old rhyme. They drove the herds back to the barns near the hut and went home for supper.

66 Hulda and Martha had supper ready. They had smoked herring, goat’s cheese (goat’s cheese is dark brown in color and tastes sweet), potatoes, bread, butter, milk, and fresh berries. Hulda and Martha were busy all day. They took care of the milk, cleaned the house, and walked two miles to the main road to meet the postman who passes in the afternoon each day. One day each week they got the milk ready for the man who came to take it to factories where butter and cheese are made.

The girls were glad when Saturday nights came. Then some of their relatives and friends came out to see them. Girls from other saeters came too if they were not too far away. On these nights sometimes the girls and boys sang songs and danced on the grass.

Ole, Kristian, and Sofie are other Norwegian girls who take cows to the high pastures. They live on a 67 farm near a fjord. They take their cattle part way up to the saeter on a boat. The girls, dressed in dark dresses and heavy shoes, carrying big knapsacks on their backs, travel on the same boat with the cows. When they leave the boat, they drive the cows a few miles up the mountain. They live much as Anne, Hulda, Sigrid, and Martha live on their saeter. These girls can go to the village by boat to buy groceries.

Automobile roads have been built in some parts of the high mountains. Tourists climb the high mountains in automobiles. Round and round they climb, sometimes on a road that is like a shelf sticking out from the rocky wall. And here and there they may go right through the wall itself, for holes, or tunnels, have been cut through the rocky banks.

Tourists who travel through those mountains are glad to find a hotel at a saeter on their way where they can get food or stay over night. And hotels have been built at saeters which are near the automobile roads. The hotel is a large wooden building. It stands near the huts which are the homes of the family which cares for the cattle.

Matti, Ingrid, and their brother Ole go each 68 summer to a large saeter called Grotli. Their father has a hotel there. Grotli means “Goat’s Hill,” and Grotli looks like a goat’s hill in the summer when the goats run about on the mountain.

MATTI, INGRID, AND OLE

Early in the spring Matti, Ingrid, and Ole, and their father and their mother move to Grotli. Sometimes the snow is still on the ground when they arrive. Then the children may think that Grotli looks more like reindeer hill. A farmer, who lives near the saeter, has a herd of tame reindeer. They wander about on the mountain. They rub the snow out of 69 the way with their noses and eat the fresh grass and moss which they find underneath.

Sometimes visitors in Norway ask, “Why must the cattle go so far away from the farm to the high pastures?” If they ask a Norwegian milkmaid, she might say, “The grass which grows on the farm must be saved for winter feed. Not enough grass grows on the farm for both summer and winter. Fresh, tender grass grows on the high mountains, so the cattle eat it in the summer. Then no grass is wasted.”

But the milkmaid may not know why the saeter is so far away from the farms. And, of course, it does seem strange to American girls and boys that a farmer sends his cattle to feed in high pastures miles from his farm, while in the mountains just above his own farm graze the cattle of another farmer who lives miles away. Why cannot a farmer graze his cattle on the mountains near his home? The answer to that question is a story of long, long ago in Norway.

Long ago the farmers in Norway found that they must use the grass on the high mountains for summer feed. The king said, “Each farmer may have a 70 part of the grass lands on the high mountains for his pasture. But each farmer must use only a certain amount of land and he must find a place which no other farmer has already claimed.”

So each farmer hunted himself a mountain pasture. When he found a space which he liked, if it had not already been claimed, he drove stakes into the ground to mark it off. He put his name on the stakes and then the land was his. Many farmers had to take pasture lands which were far from their farms. They could find no other free land.

Years and years have passed since the days when a farmer drove stakes and marked off his pasture land. The farms have passed to other owners. Perhaps now the great-great-great-grandsons of some of the farmers live on the farms, or some farms may have been sold to other families. But the new owners of the farms are also owners of the same saeters that the old farmers staked off for the farm. And that is why many a farmer today takes his cattle to a saeter far from his home.

One day late in July, Christian was so excited he could hardly eat his dinner. School had closed for the summer vacation. The next morning Christian, who was only nine years old, was going to a farm to stay four whole weeks. In fact he would stay on the farm until time for school to open again in August.

Christian lived in the largest city in Denmark. We call that city Copenhagen, but Christian calls it Kjøbenhavn (Kuvn havn). Christian was not the only boy in that city who was excited on that July day. Many boys, and girls too, were leaving the city for a summer on a farm.

They were not going to visit aunts or uncles or grandfathers. No, their visits were going to be more exciting even than visits to aunts and uncles and grandparents would be, for many of them were going to be guests of families whom they had never seen.

72 Those boys and girls live in very poor homes in the city. When school closes for summer vacation, there is little for them to do. Their homes are small and there are few places near their homes where they can play. So every summer farmers invite boys and girls from the city to be their guests for four weeks of their vacation. The officials of the railroads and of steamship lines give those boys and girls free rides on the trains and boats to the farms.

Perhaps Christian was happier than many of the boys. Only a few weeks earlier a letter had come to him from the farmer whom he had visited the summer before. The letter said, “All of us here on the farm want you to come to us again this summer. I think that even the cows, the chickens, the ducks, and the geese missed you when you left last August.” No wonder Christian was excited and happy!

Morning came at last and Christian started very early on his journey to the farm. He carried only a small bag of clothes with him, so he and his mother went to the station on a street car. He passed through the gate at the station and waited on the platform for his train. Other boys and girls were waiting too. Soon they were on the train scrambling 73 for seats by a window for they were eager to see as much of Denmark as they could.

Christian had almost a whole day’s journey to the farm. Denmark is made up of hundreds of small bodies of land with water separating them. To reach the farm Christian had to travel on two trains and two boats.

Christian was interested in all that he saw. He was not surprised to see the wide stretches of flat land, but after visiting farms of Norway you may be surprised. Christian saw a field in which black and white cows were eating the green grass. He could see far, far away across that pasture. The land was as level as a floor, with not even a tiny hill in sight.

At other places he did see hills—no very high ones though. That hilly land looks very little like land of Norway made by the giants. But the same ice-sheets did make these hills. As the glaciers that covered Denmark melted, they left behind these piles of rocks and soil which we call hills.

Some sights which Christian saw are much like the sights in the land of the Dutch children. The land of Denmark is flat like Holland, so the Danes have long made the wind work for them just as the 74 Dutch have done. So Christian saw windmills which still pump the water off the low lands or grind the farmers’ grain.

Denmark has many small farms. Many of the farms have even less than two acres. A piece of land so small as that in America would hardly be called a farm. Of course Denmark has large farms also. But Christian saw many of the small farms as he rode across the country. The farm buildings form three sides of a square. Many times the buildings are of red brick and the roof of straw woven into a covering called a thatched roof.

The farmer was at the train to meet Christian. They rode out to the farm in a wagon behind two bay horses. After what seemed to Christian a very short ride he was opening the gate to the farm and could see the white farmhouse and barns far back across the fields.

Then began happy days for Christian. He liked the big light room at the top of the clean white house which was his own, but he liked best the big out-of-doors. He drank all the milk he wanted. He ate potatoes with heaps of butter, and eggs, and cheese, and sausages, and bread.

A FARMHOUSE WITH A THATCHED ROOF

75 But Christian worked too. One of his tasks was to help gather in the eggs. The baskets were so quickly filled with eggs that the farmer took them to town twice each week. Christian went with him. They took the eggs to a large building where eggs are packed for shipping. Such a lot of eggs in that building! Christian wanted to know what the workmen did with the eggs and before the summer was over he had learned.

Some of the workers sorted the eggs, putting the big ones in one box, the middle-sized ones in another, and the small ones in another. Other workers tested 76 them to see whether they were fresh. The fresh eggs were sent to other workmen who stamped on each egg in red the word “Danish” with a red line around it.

Christian asked, “Why do you put ‘Danish’ on the eggs?”

The workman said, “Many of these eggs are sent away from Denmark to other countries. We put the word ‘Danish’ on the eggs so that people will know that the eggs come from Denmark. Then if they like the eggs, they will know where to send for more. If they find bad eggs, they can tell us.”

77 Then the workman showed Christian some sheets of paper on which he kept records. From those sheets he could tell just what farmer brought in each box of eggs. He said, “You see, Christian, we keep such good records and each farmer keeps such good records that if a customer gets a bad egg, we can find the very hen that laid that egg.”

Christian knew that the workman was only joking, but the workman did know the date when the egg was laid. Christian knew too that the farmers knew which hens lay many eggs, and which hens lay large eggs.

Christian learned to milk cows too. He could milk only a little, as his hands got tired. He milked only cows that were easy to milk. But he could carry buckets of milk to the house.

In the large stable where the cows are milked, Christian saw a sheet of heavy paper tacked up over each stall. He read what was on some of those papers. They were the cows’ grade cards. There were good grade cards too, for they told exactly what each cow can do—how much each eats, how much milk each gives, whether that test is better or worse than other tests.

78 Christian felt sorry when the farmer showed him one record. That record was for a cow that was eating a great deal, but giving milk that tested low in butter fat. The farmer said that he would have to fatten that cow and use it for meat.

Christian went with the farmer to take big cans of milk and cream to the cheese factory and the creamery. The factory was in an old, old town. Christian liked to play on the narrow street near the factory.

But he always went with the farmer to take the milk and cream to the factories. Over those buildings he saw a word that he asked the farmer about. The word was the Danish word that means “Co-operative.” The farmer told Christian the “co-operative” means that the farmers are working together for the good of all. So instead of each farmer making cheese and butter on his own farm and selling it at whatever price he wishes, a group of farmers take their milk and cream to factories where cheese and butter are made for them. There the milk and cream are tested and each farmer is paid a fair price for his cans.

In the cheese factory were cheese balls marked with the word “Danish” in the oval just as the eggs 79 were marked. The man at the cheese factory said, “We put the name ‘Danish’ upon good cheese only. Anybody in any country may be sure that cheese marked ‘Danish’ has been tested before it is sold.”

AN OLD TOWN IN DENMARK

Christian began to feel that it was a splendid idea to have the name “Danish” put upon only good products. In that way people everywhere would come to trust their country. The farmer told him that the idea was the same for each person. He said 80 that Christian could make his own name stand only for good things. He said, “See to it always that the work upon which you write your name is the very best work that you can do.”

A CO-OPERATIVE DAIRY FARM

One day Christian went to visit a farm that had eight hundred acres. Eight hundred acres is a large farm even in America where there is much land, and is, of course, a very large farm in a small country like Denmark. On that farm Christian learned more about the word “co-operation” which means “working together for the good of all.”

On that big farm the farmer works with a college 81 which teaches young people how to run a farm. The young men who do the work on the farm for the farmer are studying with the college teachers how to farm. The young women who cook the meals and take care of the house are also studying with college teachers how to cook and care for a house.

Christian had already decided that he wanted to be a farmer when he was old enough. Now he thought he wanted to study how to be a good farmer on that large farm which worked with the college.

Almost every one has read the story of The Ugly Duckling. In the story, the little duck just out of the shell looked about him and said, “How wide the world is!” And his mother replied, “This is not all the world. The world stretches far across the garden, quite into the parson’s field.”

Now that duck might have lived in the back yard of a small house in the town of Odense, which lies in the center of an island in the middle of Denmark, with water all around it. That is where the man who wrote the story of The Ugly Duckling lived. That man was Hans Christian Andersen.

The boy Hans might have been that Ugly Duckling himself. At least the world in which he lived was as hard for the boy as the poultry yard was for the duck. Hans’s father was a poor man who made and mended shoes for a living. He died when Hans was only eleven years old. Hans’s mother washed clothes 83 for other people, to earn money enough to buy food. As she stood on the river bank washing, Hans sat by and dreamed his dreams of fairy people. Perhaps that is where he saw Thumbelina sailing on a water lily.

THE BIRTHPLACE OF HANS ANDERSEN

Other boys made fun of Hans. So the lonely boy made playmates for himself in his dreams. He made the darning needle walk and talk; his tin soldier became a great hero. He cut fairy figures out of scrap paper.

84 But Hans dreamed other dreams too. He wanted to do great things in the real world. His mother said, “You must go to work to earn money. The tailor will let you work in his shop.” Hans was unhappy at the thought of sitting on a stool all day sewing and sewing. So he left the town of Odense and went to the big city of Copenhagen. He said, “I’ll go on the stage and act parts in plays.” And he 85 tried to act, but he was so awkward that he never could act well. Then he said, “I’ll sing beautiful songs on the stage.” But the teachers said that his voice was not good enough.

He made some friends in the city. They helped him get money to go to a good school. By that time he was older than the other young people studying at the school. They were not friendly to him. So once more he forgot his loneliness by dreaming dreams, and writing the stories he dreamed.

Many, many children love the Snow Queen, and the Little Match Girl. Hans Christian Andersen wrote the stories about them. He wrote many, many other tales too and won even greater fame than he had ever dreamed for himself.

PAPER CUTTING DONE BY HANS ANDERSEN

He travelled much in other lands. Everywhere he went he found children reading his books or listening to his tales. Some men would have felt very important to have so much fame. But Hans Christian Andersen said, “When I see how far my thoughts have flown, I am frightened. I wonder whether I have kept my thoughts pure enough for so many children to read them.”

Little did he dream just how great was his fame. 86 He wrote those fairy tales more than a hundred years ago. And even today no stories are more loved by children all over the world than the stories by that great teller of tales.

But perhaps the children of Denmark hear the most about the man who wrote those tales, for he was born in their country. A few years ago, the children of Denmark celebrated the one hundredth anniversary of the birth of Hans Christian Andersen. At the schools they acted the stories that Andersen wrote. In Copenhagen movie cameras took pictures of the plays acted by the school children. Those pictures are still shown to many children in Denmark.

In the town of Odense still stands the house where Hans Christian Andersen was born. The people of Denmark have built a building beside that old house in which to keep the things which belonged to Andersen. The street in front of that house looks much the same as it looked when the little boy, Hans, played there.

On the shelves in Andersen’s old home are his fairy tales in Danish, in English, in French, in Spanish, and in other languages too. Andersen wrote the stories in the Danish language, of course. But 87 people in other lands wanted their children to read those wonderful tales too. So the stories have been rewritten in nearly every language in the world.

DOLLS DRESSED LIKE THE CHARACTERS IN ANDERSEN’S STORIES

When children visit that building, they like to look into the case in which stand dolls dressed like the characters in their best-loved stories. Those dolls were dressed by little girls who lived when Andersen was writing his tales. Many children like, too, the 88 fairy figures which Hans cut from paper. Some of those paper cuttings lie in a glass case, and beside them are the scissors Hans used when he cut them.

STATUE OF HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

In the hall of that building to the memory of 89 Andersen stands a statue of Hans Christian Andersen. Many other statues of Andersen have been erected, but none is liked better by Danish children than this one in which he is the children’s teller of tales.

From the deck of a boat nearing Norway, Harold, an eight-year-old American boy, watched the rocky shores. Harold’s father too was watching those shores. He was eagerly looking for familiar sights in the town where he had been born.

91 Harold was going with his father and mother to visit his grandmother who lives in Norway. She lives in the very same home in which Harold’s father had lived when a boy.

Harold had crossed the Atlantic on one of the big steamships that carry travelers from the United States to countries across the seas. He had left that steamship at a port in England. After a day’s ride on a train, he had boarded another boat to cross the North Sea to Norway.

THE CITY OF BERGEN

92 In a few hours after the shores of Norway came into sight, Harold saw the buildings of a town built in the midst of mountains. His father told him his grandmother lived in that town. It was Bergen (bear gen) which is surrounded by seven mountains. The houses of the town were all along the side of one of the big mountains and along the lower banks of the sea. Harold’s father was as happy as a boy to see again the red-tiled roofs of those houses among the green trees of the mountain slope.

The sun was shining when the boat pulled into dock at Bergen, but the captain told Harold to have his raincoat, rubbers, and umbrella handy, as rain might fall any minute. He said, “A year has three hundred and sixty-five days and rain falls in Bergen on three hundred and sixty days. That leaves only five clear days for Bergen in a year.”

Harold’s father said that rain did not fall quite so often as the captain said. But he told Harold that records show Bergen’s rainfall to be six times as much as the rainfall in the town where Harold lives. And Harold’s town gets enough rain each year to keep the grass green and to make the plants grow well.

Harold stopped along the water front to see the fishing boats which were standing there. Men and women were selling fish from more than a hundred 93 boats and from stands along the street near the boats. They sold cod, herring, and halibut. Harold’s father said, “Bergen is the largest fishing market in the world. The fish are brought to Bergen in boats which fish far to the north of Bergen in the waters of the Arctic.”

But they hurried away to grandmother’s house. Harold was eager to see the grandmother whom he had never seen. Grandmother was eagerly waiting for her visitors too. She showed Harold a room which was to be his room for the summer.

The room was small. Both the walls and the floor were painted light brown. A small bed of wood stood in one corner. Over the clean white sheets, Harold found a soft quilt. The quilt was so fluffy and thick that Harold thought it must be a small feather bed. His grandmother said that the quilt was stuffed with down taken from the nests of eider ducks.

Harold enjoyed the warm cover each night, for even in summer the nights in Bergen are cool. But that soft quilt was hard to keep in place, no matter how carefully it was tucked in.

A tall narrow stove stood in one corner of the room. Harold did not need a fire, but he found a box 94 of wood beside the stove ready for a fire when the cold days came.

In a few days, Harold knew his way around the old city of Bergen. Sometimes he walked along narrow streets between rows of wooden houses. Some of the houses are very, very old—even more than six hundred years old.

Some of the shops which Harold passed were on wide streets. Both the shops and the streets look much like shops and streets in American towns. Of course some shops sold raincoats, umbrellas, and rubbers. Other shops sold articles which the Norwegians think visitors from other lands will like. On the walls of those old shops hang bright-colored rugs woven on a hand loom. One day Harold saw girls dressed in old Norwegian costumes weaving a rug.

Harold bought a gift for his mother in one shop. It was a tiny Viking ship made of silver with a dragon’s head at its prow. Inside the ship was a little spoon. The shopkeeper said that the little ship was made to hold salt for the table. Harold bought himself some woolen mittens. They were very warm mittens made from the wool of the sheep of Norway—white sheep and black sheep. The mittens were 95 white with black figures on them. The shopkeeper said that Norwegian women who live in the country knit or crochet the mittens and weave the rugs during the winter when they cannot work in the fields.

Sometimes Harold did not get home at the right time for meals. His grandmother thought that queer for any boy. She said that Harold’s father had always been ready for every meal when he was a boy. But at first Harold just couldn’t remember what were the right hours for meals at grandmother’s house. He was always on time for the first breakfast, which was served very early. He ate bread and butter and drank milk, while his grandmother, his mother, and his father ate bread and butter and drank coffee. But Harold often forgot the second breakfast, which grandmother served at ten o’clock. Then to grandmother’s surprise he would come into the house at twelve o’clock expecting lunch. He got a lunch of course, and then might forget that dinner was served at three o’clock. Grandmother did not scold one bit though, and in a few days Harold learned to be on time for every meal. He liked grandmother’s tea, which she served at eight o’clock each evening. He always asked for some thick brown 96 goat’s cheese to eat with his bread and butter as he drank his tea.

How pleased grandmother was when Harold went over to her after a meal, kissed her on the cheek, and said, “Tak for maten.” He was saying, “Thank you for the food,” as his father had taught him to say it. All polite girls and boys in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark say, “Thank you for the food,” to their mothers after a meal.

One day Harold and his father left Bergen to visit Harold’s cousin Albert who lived in Stockholm, the capital city of Sweden. They traveled for a day and a night on a train.

The train crossed Norway on Norway’s longest railway which passed through the high mountains. The electric train climbed the mountains easily and Harold saw that part of Norway which his storybooks call “the home of the giants.”

Then the train left Norway and crossed Sweden. Harold thought the farms in Sweden looked much like the farms around his home in Minnesota. The fields were large. The houses were far apart. Sometimes the train went for miles before Harold saw a farmhouse.

When Harold reached Stockholm he saw a city which to him looked much like any other city. But 98 his cousin Albert said, “You will get your best view of Stockholm from high above the city.” So he took them to the top of a tall tower and they looked down on the city. “What a queer city it is!” said Harold. “It is spread out over many islands.”

Then Albert told Harold how Stockholm came to be built where it is. Albert had learned about the building of the city at school.

The city was built nearly seven hundred years ago. A rich nobleman planned the city in the days when many pirates sailed on the Baltic Sea, the sea which Stockholm faces. The nobleman wanted to build a fortress for protection from the pirates. All along the sea coast were islands—hundreds of islands. The nobleman chose three small islands back from the sea with many other islands in front of them and built a wall around them. He thought that behind the wall his people would be safe from the pirates.

99 A town grew up behind the wall. The days of the pirates passed. Stockholm became a city of trade. It grew and grew. Buildings spread over other islands until today the city covers a dozen islands in a large lake which opens into a channel of water which flows to the sea.

THE CITY OF STOCKHOLM

And Harold and Albert looked down on that city and watched the boats coming and going on the many waterways.

100 Albert took his guests to a little home outside the city. “This is where we live in the summer,” he said. Harold thought the place looked like a tiny city of playhouses, but as they came nearer he saw that the playhouses were real homes.

Harold’s aunt met them at the door of one of the cottages. It had two rooms and a porch. Vines and rose bushes grew over the porch. All the other cottages were much like the one where Albert lived.

Around each house was a garden spot. Albert said, “These are our ‘little farms.’” Albert does most of the gardening on his “little farm.”

The summer home though does not belong to Albert. The city owns those garden spots. A few years ago many countries of the world were at war. Sweden could not get the food from other countries that she needed. Stockholm began then the plan of renting garden spots to its citizens, so that they might grow the food that they needed. The plan proved so good that the city kept the garden spots after the war was over. And Albert’s father rents a little farm 101 for Albert each summer. He pays a very small sum for the use of the garden and cottage for the entire summer—a sum equal to about five dollars in American money.

ONE OF THE SMALL SUMMER HOMES

Albert showed Harold the vegetables, fruit, and flowers which he was growing on his farm. “In the fall,” he said, “I’ll take my best specimens to the fair in the city. I’m sure to get a prize for some of them.”

Each day after Albert had hoed his garden, he and Harold went to play with the other boys who also 102 lived on little farms. One day they went to the lake to swim and to ride on the rafts. The boys had made the rafts of logs. Between the two logs at each end of the rafts they had fastened a board for seats. Albert rowed the raft on which he and Harold rode while they rested from their swimming. Harold only laughed and swam away again when Albert tipped the raft and threw him into the water.

THE BOYS WITH THEIR RAFTS

One morning the boys went to the city again. They walked through the streets toward the quay—the 103 place where the boats land. Harold noticed that all the buildings were of white stone. He knew that Sweden, like Norway, was a land of many forests. Why then were there so few wooden houses? He asked Albert. His cousin told him, “The first city was built of wood, but fires came and destroyed the homes. People kept building of wood for many years, but again and again fires destroyed the homes. Wood is not Sweden’s only building material. Under the soil around Stockholm is a fine building stone called granite. So the buildings you see in this new city are of granite.”

The boys stopped along the street to visit a flower market. It was bright with many colors. For in that city so far north many flowers grow. In the market place were pinks, violets, sweet peas, roses, asters, dahlias, and long-stemmed gladioli.

About noon the boys got on a boat at the quay to go to the King’s palace. The palace of the King stands in an old part of the city. It is on one of the islands where the old wall stood so long ago. Near the King’s palace are a few streets of old buildings with sharp gabled roofs. That part of Stockholm is called “the city between bridges.” Day and night 104 boats pass under the bridges and move along the water in front of the palace.

The boys reached the palace about noon. Albert wanted Harold to see the changing of the King’s guards. As they neared the palace, they heard sounds of band music. In the courtyard beside the palace, they saw a line of guards dressed in uniform such as guards of the palace have worn for hundreds of years. Then the line of marching men came into sight. The band in uniform marched first, then the guards who were to take the place of those guards now at the palace. They crossed the bridge and entered the courtyard. The guards drilled for a few minutes at the command of the officer. The band played more music. Then the commander told the new guards what their duties were and the old guards marched away, leaving them to protect the king and his property.

The next day Albert was going on a long hike with his Boy Scout troop. The scout leader said that Harold could go with them. Early in the morning the boys gathered near the water front to wait for their leader. Soon Harold felt at home with the group of boys wearing khaki suits and carrying 105 knapsacks even though he could not speak their language. Many of the boys could speak a little English and they talked to Harold in his language.

CHANGING THE GUARD IN FRONT OF THE ROYAL CASTLE

The scouts hiked several miles that day. They stopped on the grounds of an old, old castle. In a few minutes tents were pitched for the night.

The leader took them into the castle, which had been built hundreds of years ago. They went to the banquet hall of knights of old. Harold had never seen such a beautiful room. The walls were covered with paintings of kings and knights. The ceiling was 106 of gold. The boys stood before the King’s throne and imagined a page kneeling there to be dubbed a knight. They could almost hear the words, “I dub thee knight. Be ever true to your country. Be ever strong; protect the weak; and do good deeds.”

Then outside on the courtyard of that old castle, the scouts took their oath—not unlike the one the knights of old had taken so many years ago. They too pledged obedience to the laws of their country. They promised to be strong and to go forth to do good deeds day by day.

Long, long ago, so the old stories of the North say, frost giants who lived on the mountains wanted to keep the earth in darkness and cold, and the gods who lived in the valleys fought with the giants to keep sunshine and warmth on the earth.

Early in January each year when the nights were longest, the people in the old days said, “Yule, the frost giant, has won in the battle against Odin, the god of the sun.” Now the people knew that Odin would win the next battle, which was always fought in the middle of the summer when the days were longest; therefore they celebrated Yule’s victory in the happy thought that Odin would soon triumph over the frost giant. They lighted fires and made feasts which lasted for weeks. And so began the Yule-tide celebration which the children of those northern lands today celebrate each year.

After years and years, the people who lived in 108 these lands became Christians. They began to celebrate the day the Christ-child was born. As the years passed, the Christmas celebration and the Yule celebration came to be one big feast time.

The weeks before Yule time are busy weeks. The houses must be cleaned. Cakes, cookies, and bread are baked. Sausages are made. Girls are sewing on gifts and boys are sawing and pounding, making gifts too. The stores in the cities and towns are bright with decorations and happy buyers crowd about buying gifts.

The day before Christmas comes at last. And for the girls and boys of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark the day before Christmas is a merrier day even than Christmas Day. Everybody is up early on that day. A tree of spruce or fir is set in place in the living room. No home is too poor to have a yule-tree in that land of evergreen trees. Norway and Sweden have enough trees in their forests to supply every home, and ships carry trees from their forests to the children of Denmark.

As soon as the Yule-tree is up the merriment begins. The girls and boys help decorate the tree with strings of bright paper, painted cones from the 109 evergreen trees, colored ornaments, and red candles, or bright electric lights. The boys place a big log in the fireplace ready to brighten the room with its glow.

CHRISTMAS BRINGS SKIS FOR OLD AND YOUNG

Another tree is then decorated in the yard for the birds. The boys set up a large branch of a tree and help the girls tie bunches of oats and barley upon it so that the birds will have their Yule-time feast.

After lunch the girls and boys stay away from the Yule-tree. But how excited they are! For it is then 110 that secret packages are heaped on the floor underneath the branches of the tree. Darkness comes early in the northern parts of these countries at Christmas time. In the far north the sun never shines at this time of the year. As early as three o’clock, Mother lights the tree and Father starts the Yule-log burning. Then all the family gather around the tree and the best fun of the day begins. Those children do not have to wait until Christmas morning to see their gifts. The packages are passed out as soon as the tree is lighted on Christmas Eve. Under the tree are presents for everybody—dolls, toy trains, books, knives, skates, sleds, skis, and candies and nuts and many, many other gifts too.

After the gifts are unwrapped sometimes Father and Mother and the children and the servants join hands and sing carols around the tree. By that time the dinner is ready. And that dinner is one of the best of the year with fish, potatoes, peas, flat bread, sausages, ham, or maybe a goose, pudding, and cakes. The children are tired and ready for bed at an early hour.

The next morning they are up early again. While it is quite dark they go to church for a Christmas 111 service. Pretty Yule-trees stand beside the altar and the children carry gifts for the poor and place them beneath the Yule-trees. They sing songs, repeat their prayers, and listen to the pastor’s story of the Christ-child.

Christmas Day is a quiet day in most of the homes in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark. But after Christmas is over the merrymaking begins again. There are more feasts and parties. The children skate, and ski, and coast on their sleds as much as they please, for school is closed during the whole of the Yule season.

American girls and boys sometimes dance around a Maypole and crown a queen on the first day of May. The girls and boys of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark have a midsummer holiday when they too dance around a gaily decorated pole, but they are not celebrating the coming of May. They are greeting the long summer day.

In the long ago people believed that June twenty-third was the day on which Odin, the sun god, won in the fight against the frost giants. So they danced 112 and sang in praise of Odin. And people of those lands have kept up the old custom.

DANCING AROUND THE MAYPOLE

The school children of one Swedish town were gay and happy on the twenty-third of June. The big boys set up a tall pole in a field near the schoolhouse. Then a crowd of girls and boys tied branches of fir, spruce, and pine on the pole. They put bright flowers among the green branches.

When the pole was bright with the evergreen and 113 flowers, a troop of girls and boys came from the schoolhouse and played games on the grass around the Maypole. But the greatest fun would come after dark. So early in the afternoon they hurried home to dress in their gayest costumes to be ready for the frolic that night.

SWEDISH CHILDREN IN NATIONAL COSTUME

Grown-ups came to the night celebration too. The 114 dance lasted far into the night, for all through those northern lands there is no darkness on the midsummer eve. The sun shines all through the night in the places far to the north, but even in the southern part of Sweden where these children live, the sun was gone but a few hours. During those hours while the sun was gone, the sky was almost as bright as day with twilight.

In one town in Denmark, some girls and boys are as eager for the Fourth of July as American girls and boys are. For, like many American girls and boys, on that day they are going to a picnic in a park. Yes, they are going to a Fourth-of-July picnic and a picnic as much like an American picnic as they can have. About the only things missing from their picnic are firecrackers. The law of Denmark will not permit firecrackers.

The park is called The American National Park. The bands play patriotic American music. The people sing American patriotic songs, “The Star-Spangled Banner” and “America.” Speakers tell about America and how our country won 115 independence. The Stars and Stripes float in the breeze with the Danish flag of red and white. People play ball and run races. They eat lunches from big lunch baskets.

One American visitor asked, “Who are the people celebrating our Independence Day?” If you asked that question at the park, and a Danish boy answered, the answer would be, “This is the Danish-American Club.” Have you ever heard of Danish-American clubs in America? The members of Danish-American clubs in America are people who have come from Denmark to live in America. The Danish-American Club in Denmark is made up of Danish people who have lived in America at some time and Danish people who have relatives living in America.

Svend is one boy you might meet at a Fourth of July picnic in Denmark. Svend was born in the city of Chicago in the United States. His father and mother were both born in Denmark, but they lived in America about ten years. Svend’s father studied in the United States and learned to be a librarian.

Svend was only four years old when he went to Denmark to live. Of course Svend could speak English then. But when he was old enough to go to 116 school, he began speaking Danish all the time. His father wanted him to speak English at home so that he would not forget the English words. Svend said, “Oh, if I speak English, the boys call me a foreigner.” Svend was only seven years old when he said that. When he is older he will study English in the schools of Denmark. Then perhaps he will be proud that he can speak English easily.

Svend’s father takes care of a library for the Danish-American Club. In his library are many, many books telling about how Denmark and America work together. Some of the books are written in Danish and some are written in English. Both Danish-American clubs in Denmark and Danish-American clubs in America give money to support the park and the library.

Svend’s father is glad to take Svend to the Danish-American picnic on the Fourth of July each year, for he wants Svend to love America, the land where he was born.

Karl is another boy at the picnic. He is fifteen years old. He speaks English very well from his study in school. Karl’s family go to the Fourth of July picnic because Karl’s uncle lives in America. 117 Karl writes to his cousins in the United States. From them he has learned many things about our country.

Travelers in Denmark sometimes go to the Fourth of July picnic. They cannot feel strange on that picnic ground with the many American flags and the American songs.

1. With the Ski-jumpers

No sooner had Olaf entered the room where stood his Yule-tree than his eyes lighted on a big package standing behind the tree. “Skis,” he thought, “surely no other present could make such a huge package. But was his name on that package?”

Finally the moment came when his father called, “For Olaf,” and the big box was in Olaf’s hands. Olaf lost no time in opening the prize package. His eyes shone as he saw the new skis. At last he had a pair of skis fit for any ski-jumper!

Olaf had often watched ski-jumpers leap in the air like a bird and land safely on runners many feet away and go sliding gracefully down a steep hillside. Now he too could learn to be a ski-jumper!

Like most children of Norway and Sweden, Olaf had learned to run on skis when he was very young. By the time he had started to school, he could run 119 very well. On that Christmas morning, Olaf’s little sister, only three years old, got a pair of skis too. Olaf gave her the first pair of skis he had used and she played in the snow on them, while Olaf tried his larger and finer pair.

OLAF’S LITTLE SISTER

Skiing is the favorite play of the boys at Olaf’s school. Near the school are skiing grounds where Olaf and his classmates play at recess time. At first, of course, those boys ran on small hills. Then they practised on longer slopes. Olaf’s father had said, “You must know how to handle your skis well before you begin ski-jumping.” Now Olaf did know how to run well on skis and he had the best kind of skis for jumping.

120 Olaf lives in Norway and nowhere in the world do people have better skiing grounds. The snows come in November and stay until March or April, and the mountain slopes make long skiing tracks. The weather too is good for skiing. Although the weather is cold enough to keep the snow for many months, the cold is not severe enough to keep sport lovers indoors.

Skiing is not merely a child’s sport in Norway. Olaf’s father and mother both ski. Many business men and their wives ski; farmers and their wives ski; the King and Queen ski. Norwegians and the Lapps of the far north often travel on skis. Such travel is easy. With knapsacks filled with food and strapped to their backs, travellers make long 121 excursions in a short time. So Olaf lives in a country which might truly be called, “the home of the skis.”

IN BOTH NORWAY AND SWEDEN SCHOOL CHILDREN LEARN TO SKI

The first Sunday after that Christmas when Olaf got his new skis, Olaf, his father, and his mother went to a long skiing ground about a five-mile ride from their home in Oslo. They left their home very 122 early in the morning. They stood in line with many other men, women, and children waiting for the train. What a queer crowd it was! Sticking up over each head were the points of skis which looked like stubby trees. No wonder one passer-by said the sight was like “a forest of a thousand trees.”

Then the train came with a special car to carry the skis, and the merry crowd was off for the day. Olaf got his first lesson in ski-jumping.

But it was in February that Olaf got his greatest treat of the year. Oslo is near the bottom of the long narrow country and on the side away from the sea. The land around Oslo is hilly but the slopes are not very steep. One mountain for skiing is about an hour’s ride on an electric car from Oslo. On this mountain the youths of Norway gather in February each year to hold a skiing contest. So in February Olaf and his parents with thousands and thousands of people from all over countries of the north went to see the ski-jumping contest.

The jumpers gathered at the top of the long mountainside. Each contestant wore a number fastened across his chest telling his place in the contest. At a signal from an officer number one ran down 123 the hill to a bank of snow called the “take-off” station. When he got to the “take-off,” he jumped into the air. Olaf watched him breathlessly. Yes, he landed on his feet. The crowd cheered heartily. An officer ran out with a measuring rod to see how far he was from the “take-off” when he landed on his feet again.

A SKI JUMPER

Then the other jumpers came in turn. Several failed to land on their feet. But most of them 124 laughed with the people looking on over their failures even though they must have hated badly to lose.

The longest jump that day, and the longest that had ever been made at that time, was two hundred and thirty-five feet. That is a long jump, but, no doubt, some of the schoolboys who were watching the jumpers will beat that record in a few years. Some of Olaf’s playmates were able then to jump eighty feet. They are eagerly waiting to be old enough to enter the big contest.

The boys learned much by watching expert ski-jumpers. One of their favorite jumpers is the King’s son, Prince Olaf. Prince Olaf was in the big contest several times when he was a young man. The boys often saw Prince Olaf on skis. One day the Prince stopped where Olaf and his playmates were practising and told them how to hold their feet to make a safe landing. Olaf never forgot what the Prince said. And he was glad too that his mother had named him Olaf.

A line of skaters on a waterway of Sweden was set for a race. The skaters looked more like huge white 125 birds than the young boys they were. Each skater wore heavy skates and held tightly to a frame of a large white sail.

SAIL SKATING

Away they flew over the smooth ice! The strong wind which blows over the lands carried them along swiftly. Most of the boys were skillful in guiding their course with the wind and keeping on the clear ice. But here and there a skater had trouble. One 126 skater was tossed to the bank; another was sent sprawling on the hard ice, for the wind does not deal too gently with those who cannot follow its path.

SLEDS ON THE ICE

When the race was over, the winner was hoisted in the air and cheered. The skaters went their way to try again another day.

Skaters in Denmark use sails too. The flat lands have such strong winds that sail skating is great sport for Danish children. But even in the flat lands of Denmark there are days when the sail skaters are 127 disappointed. They gather for a race to find no wind that day; and, of course, no wind means no race.

But sail skating is only a part of the skating fun in those northern lands. Children all over Norway, Sweden, and Denmark skate during the winter months. In many places playgrounds are flooded to make safe skating grounds for the girls and boys. On the safe ice even the tiny girls and boys slide on the ice and ride on the chair-like sleds which are pushed along by the larger girls and boys.

The children of those northern lands learn early that outdoor sports help to build strong and healthy bodies.

As the clocks struck eight one Monday late in August the big gates to the school grounds swung open. With a shout waiting boys ran through one gate to a playground which they had not seen for several weeks. Crowds of girls ran through a gate to another playground on the other side of that same schoolhouse.

That August day was the first day of school for girls and boys in nearly every city and town in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.

Girls and boys who live in those countries do not have such long summer vacations as have American girls and boys. Many of them go to school until the first of July and come back to school again in the last week of August. They go to school more days each week, too, than do American children. They go to school on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

129 They start to school each morning after a very early breakfast. In winter all the children of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark must dress and eat their breakfast by electric lights, and go along the streets to school while the street lights are still burning. Of course, those girls and boys in the far northern part of Norway and Sweden work by electric light in their classrooms all the winter days.

THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

With such an early breakfast, the pupils are hungry by the middle of the morning. They are given a lunch time around ten thirty or eleven o’clock each 130 day. Many girls and boys eat a lunch at the schoolhouse, but others go home for a lunch which they call “breakfast” even though they had eaten an earlier meal. The younger pupils go home from school about one o’clock and the older pupils leave school each day about three o’clock.

SWEDISH BOYS IN SCHOOL

Schoolhouses in the lands far to the north look much like American schoolhouses. Of course all the schoolhouses in those countries do not look alike any more than do the school buildings in America.

131 1. At School in Norway

Harold lives in Oslo, Norway. He is in the third grade. All the pupils in his room are boys and the teacher is a man.

The first day of school was a busy one for Harold. When the boys were in the room the teacher said, “Write your name on the paper which I shall give you.” Harold wrote his name in clear letters.

After the teacher got the names of all the boys he said, “Now I shall tell you what lessons you will have each day. You may write them down on a time plan.”

Harold and his classmates knew what a “time plan” is. The storekeepers in the bookstores had given them pretty picture cards with blank places on them where the pupils could write the names of the subjects and the time at which each would recite. So when the teacher told them the lessons they would have each day they wrote them on their time plans. Harold’s time plan looked like the one shown here.

Most of the subjects the Norwegian girls and boys study in the third grade are the same as those which American pupils study in the third grade. American 132 girls and boys study English; but on Harold’s time plan instead of English is Norsk. Norsk is the name for the language of Norway.

In one of the reading texts which many children read the first picture is a flag of Norway. Across the page from the picture is a poem about Norway. The poem is in Norsk of course. Children in Norway learn that poem so that they can say it without looking at the words.

HAROLD’S TIME PLAN

134 On the seventeenth of May each year the Norwegian girls and boys march through the streets carrying flags and singing “Ja, vi elsker dette landet.” The seventeenth of May to them is what the Fourth of July is to us. It is their Independence Day.

NORWEGIAN CHILDREN CELEBRATING INDEPENDENCE DAY

For many, many years Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were governed by one king. But in 1905 Norwegians became free to govern themselves. They 135 chose a king for their country. On the seventeenth of May each year school children of Oslo and towns near Oslo parade past the palace of the King. The King watches their parade. The children stand very quietly then while the King speaks to them about Norway, their country.

Harold’s sister is in the seventh grade. Her time plan is shown on page 137.

Many pupils in the seventh grade find English to be their hardest subject. Only a few English words are like Norsk words which they speak. On the time plan you see the names of the days of the week—Mandag (Monday), Tirsdag (Tuesday), Onsdag (Wednesday), Torsdag (Thursday), Fredag (Friday), Lørdag (Saturday), Søndag (Sunday). They are much like English names for the days of the week.

Norwegian pupils soon learn the English word “summer,” for the Norsk word is “sommer.” They soon can say “come,” for in Norsk they say “komme,” and “Many thanks” which in Norsk is “Mange takke.”

The Norwegians did not get words from the English, however. The English got words from the 136 Norwegians. Long, long ago some people from these northern lands went to live in the land of the English people. From them the English learned to use some of the old Norsk words and they have kept some of those words in their language. English settlers brought the English language to America, so Americans too use those old Norsk words.

The Norwegian pupils have a hard time learning to pronounce words which have the letter “w,” for “w” is not used in the Norsk language. The English word “warm” is “varme,” “work” is “verke,” “wash” is “vaske,” “window” is “vindue,” “west” is “vest,” and “well” is “vel.”

But, of course, many, many other English words are not at all like Norsk words.

Greda was very happy one morning as she went to school. She carried a small bundle in her hand as she hurried along. When she entered her classroom she whispered to the teacher, “Today is my birthday.” Then the teacher brought out a small stand just big enough to hold the little Swedish flag which 137 Greda took out of her bundle. As Greda put the flag into the flag holder, her classmates said, “Happy birthday, Greda,” and sang a song to the flag.

A SEVENTH GRADE TIMEPLAN

In that Swedish school girls and boys study almost the same subjects as the Norwegian girls and boys study. When winter comes and snow covers the hills, the skiing teacher comes to school every day. Now skiing sounds like play, but it is a school study for girls and boys in those North lands.

138 Girls and boys of Norway and Sweden want to be good ski runners and ski jumpers. They begin to ski when they are very young. The young children run only on small hills near the school. The older girls and boys go out to longer mountainsides for their practice.

Of course many pupils get tumbles in the snow as they learn to run on skis. The teacher says, “To be a good ski runner, you must have courage to try, and if you fail, you must laugh and try again.”

Some children of the North lands go to school in the summer too. But the summer school is very different from the regular school. “Summer school is much more fun,” Martha, a Swedish girl, said after she had spent a summer in a camp and had studied 139 with a camp teacher. Her brother Nils likes camp school too.

Martha and Nils are twins. They were nine years old when they went to the summer camp.

MARTHA AND NILS PICKING BERRIES

That summer Martha picked gooseberries. She learned to make gooseberry pie, gooseberry jelly, and gooseberry preserves. Nils only helped to take the stems off the berries, but he thought that was fun when he worked with the other girls and boys of the camp.

NILS HELPING TO REPAIR THE ROOF

Nils helped to repair the roof on one of the 140 summerhouses. That roof was of red tile. Nils carefully measured and fitted each piece of tile into its proper place.

Nils helped some of the older boys to build a boat. He had his first lesson in rowing in that very boat too.

NILS HELPING THE BOYS TO BUILD A BOAT

141 But both Martha and Nils liked best the foot races which the girls and boys of the camp ran every day. Martha was the best runner of the girls and Nils had a good record too even though he ran with boys larger than himself.

If you were to see a group of school children in a Danish town you would find that they look very much like the Norwegian children and the Swedish children. They look much like girls and boys in America too.

142 Those children study about the same subjects that the Norwegian and Swedish girls and boys study. They study from books written in Danish. Danish words and Norwegian words are alike in print, but the Danes and the Norwegians do not pronounce them alike.

Since an island is a small body of land with water all around it, and Denmark has so many islands, many girls and boys in Denmark live near water. Since there is so much water in Denmark almost all Danish pupils learn to swim at school. They begin swimming lessons when they first enter school.

In Copenhagen, which is Denmark’s largest city, the schools have swimming contests. On the day of the contests classes from different schools gather at 143 the water front. A high board wall has been built around a part of the water so that the place for the contests looks much like a pool. Mothers and fathers sit on the platform near the walls and watch the contests. Danish flags fly in the breeze. Everybody is excited when the contest begins.

A SWIMMING CONTEST IN COPENHAGEN

The older girls and boys in the schools in Copenhagen, like those in Oslo, study English. One day each 144 month a librarian visits each school in the city to take books to the pupils. She takes story books written in Danish to the younger pupils. But to the older pupils she takes books written in other languages which they have studied. Some of the books are written in French, some in German, and some in English. Those Danish pupils read some of the same stories that American pupils read in their libraries.

Girls and boys always listen when grandfather begins a tale with, “When I was a boy.” But many times the girls and boys who listen to grandfather’s tales find it hard to make pictures in their minds of the houses grandfather tells about, of the games he played, or of the dances he and grandmother danced. And it is much, much harder to understand when grandfather and grandmother tell the tales that their grandfathers and grandmothers have told them!

Many Swedish children go to a museum each year to see how their great-great-great-grandparents actually lived. For in that northern country—and in Norway too—people have built museums which are different from America’s big buildings with their many showcases filled with things of long ago. They have built what they call open-air museums.

A Swedish man got the idea for such a museum. One day more than sixty years ago that man, a doctor, was far out in the country districts of Sweden. There he saw old, old buildings with furniture like 146 the furniture used long, long ago. He saw people dressed in costumes like those worn by their great-great-great-grandparents. The doctor said to himself, “Why not buy some of those old, old houses, their furnishings, and the costumes of the people, and put them where many people can see them?”

Very soon after, the doctor began carrying out his idea. Other people helped him. What a big task it was! They brought together old houses, old churches, old schoolhouses, old windmills, and other farm buildings from all over Sweden. On a large piece of wooded land outside Stockholm they rebuilt homes and constructed whole farms as nearly as possible like homes and farms of the long, long ago. That is the way they made an open-air museum.

One day a class of Swedish school children visited an open-air museum. Very soon after they entered the gate they saw a group of buildings. The buildings were made of rude logs which have turned dark brown with age in the sun and rain. The teacher said that the group of houses belonged to one family. The pupils asked, “Why did a family build a group of houses so close together like this?”

The teacher told them that in the early days a 147 family in Sweden usually had several houses. They had a house with thick walls and thick roofs where they lived in the winter. They had another house with lighter walls and roofs where they lived in the summer. They had a storehouse in which to keep their food and fuel. They also had a guest house, for in those days the people in Sweden gave their guests a whole house to themselves.

A ROOM IN AN OPEN-AIR MUSEUM

The pupils went inside one old, old house which 148 had been built about seven hundred years ago. It is a one-story house with a sod roof. Inside the children found furniture placed about the rooms as it had been placed in those early days. But, of course, there was little furniture. And strangest of all there were no windows in the house. The light the people could get from the sun came into the living room through a hole in the roof above the center of the room. That hole was just above an open fireplace. Through it the smoke from the fire could escape. A long pole hung from the hole into the room below. On that pole was a thin skin which could be pulled into place over the hole when the rains came.

But the children saw other houses more like those in which their grandfathers and grandmothers had lived. In those houses the fireplace was built in the corner of the room. They saw some fireplaces with kettles hanging just as they had hung in the days when a fire had blazed on the fireplace. In the room were rude chairs cut from large tree trunks. On the ceilings pictures had been carved and painted. The children knew the stories which those pictures told, for the stories were Bible stories which they had read many times.

ANOTHER ROOM IN AN OPEN-AIR MUSEUM

149 Some of the boys found an old bed which amused them very much. It had three stories. The first story stood out into the room about a foot farther than the second story, and the second story stood out about a foot farther than the top story. In that way there were two steps up to the upper bed. The girls and boys laughed, then the teacher lifted the lid into the lowest bed and said, “This is where the cats and dogs slept.” Then he showed them the inside of the 150 middle bed and said, “This is where the children slept.” The children then guessed that the top bed was for the mother and father.

FOLK DANCING AT A MUSEUM

That afternoon the pupils went to see the folk-dances. Some of their older brothers and sisters were in the dances. They wore costumes such as Swedish people long ago wore, they danced the dances that were danced in those days.

151 When the school children got back to their school the next day, they wanted to dance some of the old Swedish dances. The gymnasium teacher helped them learn the steps, and the sewing teacher helped them make their costumes. Then one day they danced for their mothers and fathers and their grandmothers and grandfathers.

When the teacher of those children told them about the man who had made the gift of the museum to Sweden, the pupils agreed that the man who built the open-air museum was a citizen of whom Sweden may be proud.

“Suppose we pretend that we are in the feast hall of one of the old guest houses of the Norsemen long, long ago,” said one teacher to her children after they had visited an open-air museum.

Then as the teacher told the children about an evening in a guest house such as they had seen at the museum, they imagined people seated around the long table eating from the rude bowls and drinking from an old drinking horn, while they listened to a tale told by a wandering story-teller.

A story-teller in those northlands was an important person in the old days before stories had been written in books for people to read for themselves. In those days, story-tellers went about from place to place telling tales. They were always welcome guests in any home, for people had little entertainment.

In the very earliest days, people knew little about why things happen as they do on the earth. They 153 did not know why we have day and night, or summer and winter. They did not know why the rains fall, or the lightning and thunder come. Since they did not know the true reasons for these things, they made up stories to tell why they happen as they do. They said that many gods ruled over the earth. One god, called Wodin, caused the day. Since day has but one sun, Wodin had but one eye. The god Thor caused the lightning and thunder. Another god ruled over the summer, bringing the warm days when plants could grow. He was called Frey. And the god Tye ruled over war and brought victory in battle.

We use the names of the four gods, Tye, Wodin, Thor, and Frey, even today. From them we got the names for four of the days of the week: Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday—Tye’s day, Wodin’s day, Thor’s day, and Frey’s day.

Those early people believed, too, that huge giants lived on the mountaintops and tiny dwarfs lived under the ground. The old story-tellers told many tales about fights between the gods and the giants. One of the favorite tales was about Thor, the god of thunder and lightning. The tale that Norwegian teacher told her pupils was about Thor and his 154 Hammer. Her pupils listened almost as eagerly as those old Viking families had listened around the feast table hundreds of years ago.

Thor lived in a beautiful palace in the valley of the gods which lay between two mountains. Thor had a beautiful wife with long golden hair. She was called Sif.

One day when Sif was sitting in the sunshine with her long hair hanging down over her shoulders she fell asleep. Loke, the god of mischief, passed by and saw her. Now Loke liked to play tricks on Thor, and when he saw Sif asleep, he thought, “Thor loves Sif’s beautiful hair. He will be very angry if anything happens to it.” Then he stole up, cut off Sif’s hair, and carried it away with him.

When Sif awoke, she was very unhappy. She ran and hid herself. She did not want Thor to see her without her hair.

Soon Thor came. Sif was not there to meet him. The strong god’s heart was filled with fear. What was wrong with Sif? He ran quickly about the palace 155 to look for her. He found her weeping bitterly. When he saw what had happened he was very angry. Fire, like lightning, flashed from his eyes. The floors of the palace trembled under his angry footsteps.

“This is the work of that rascal, Loke,” he cried. Then, like a thundercloud, he strode away from the palace.

He soon found Loke, and, no doubt, would have choked him had not Loke promised to give back Sif’s hair as beautiful as it had ever been.

Now Loke knew some skillful dwarfs who lived far underground. They made wonderful things of gold. He hurried away to find them.

When he came to their smithy, he asked, “Can you make me a crown of golden hair which will grow just as any natural hair grows?”

These dwarfs were very clever. Of course they could make such a crown. They set their fire ablaze and began pounding with their hammers. In a short time they had Loke’s treasure ready for him. But that was not all they gave him. Two other gifts were his. One was a magical spear; and the other a ship that was more wonderful than any other ship the dwarfs ever had made.

156 Loke went back to the land of the gods carrying his three gifts. When he reached that valley he began bragging about the fine work the dwarfs had done. “No other dwarfs can do such wonderful work,” he said. “All other dwarfs are stupid compared with these.”

A dwarf named Brok heard Loke’s boasts. Now Brok had a brother who was a clever workman too. Many of the gods thought him the best workman of all the dwarfs. Brok was angry when he heard Loke’s bragging. He said, “My brother can make more wonderful things of gold and iron and brass than your dwarfs have made.”

At that Loke laughed and laughed. “Go to your brother,” he said; “if he can make three such precious gifts as the golden hair, the spear, and the ship, I will give him my head.”

Brok at once went down to the underworld where his brother lived. He declared that he would get Loke’s head if any magic could be worked. He told his brother what Loke had said. Soon that dwarf was hard at work. In a few hours Brok started off with a golden boar, a shining ring, and a mighty hammer as his three gifts to the gods.

157 When he reached the land of the gods he found all the gods waiting to see what his gifts would be. The gods appointed three judges to decide whether Loke or Brok had the more wonderful gifts.

Loke brought forth the golden hair and gave it to Thor. Thor placed the hair upon Sif’s head. Behold it began to grow, and again Sif was the beautiful maiden she had been. Then Loke brought out the spear and gave it to the judges. It was a spear that never missed its mark. Then he gave the gods the wonderful ship which would sail wherever its master wished to go no matter which way the water ran or what direction the wind blew.

Loke was very proud of his gifts. Brok would not have any treasures so fine.

Then Brok came before the judges. He brought out the shining ring. “This ring,” he said, “will throw off many other rings as bright and shiny as this one.” Next he brought out the boar, saying, “This animal can run faster than the fastest horse. On dark nights its bristles will shine so that the night will be as light as day.” Then he gave Thor the hammer. “This hammer,” he said, “will crush whatever it strikes, and it will never fail to come 158 back to your hand no matter where you throw it.”

Thor took the hammer and swung it round his head. Lightning flashed through the skies and peals of thunder filled the air. The gods gathered round to see the hammer. Surely such a hammer would be the greatest protection against the giants. So they said that the hammer was the greatest gift of all. Brok had won.

But how was Brok to get Loke’s head! He started toward that young braggart. Loke growled, “I will give you whatever you want, but not my head.”

“You promised your head, and your head I will have,” answered the angry dwarf.

“Come and get it,” shouted Loke as he ran away. But when Brok told Thor what had happened, Thor went and brought Loke back, for Thor always saw to it that the gods did as they promised.

“Cut off my head if you will,” said Loke, “but you must not touch my neck. I did not promise you any of my neck.”

Then Brok saw that he could not take Loke’s head after all. For how could he get the head without touching the neck! But still he was determined to punish the rascally Loke. So he sewed his lips 159 together, saying, “I cannot have your head, but I can close your mouth so that you can no longer go about boasting.”

From that day on the gods felt safe from the frost-giants who were always trying to get into the valley of the gods. Those giants for more than half of the year kept the world covered with ice and snow. They hushed the flowing of the waters and the singing of the birds. They hated the warm sunshine which made the flowers bloom, and covered the mountains with grass, and brought the songs from the birds. They hated the god of the sun. They hated Thor, for it was Thor’s hammer that kept them from the land of the gods.

Then a morning came when Thor awoke to find that his hammer was gone. He searched and searched, but the hammer could not be found. Then in great fear he thought, “The giants have stolen the hammer while I slept.” At that thought he was very angry. Fire flashed from his eyes and the earth trembled under his angry voice. “Come, Loke,” he called, “we must be off at once to the land of the giants. The gods can never be safe if the hammer is in the hands of our enemies.”

160 Loke thought of a way to get into the home of the giants. He dressed himself like a huge bird and on its magical wings flew straight to that high mountaintop where the giants lived.

The giants were surprised to see Loke, but they gave him welcome. Loke soon learned that the giants did have the hammer, but search as he would, he could not find it. At last the mighty giant who was greatest of all the giants said, “Thor may have his hammer when the gods bring me a beautiful goddess to be my wife.”

Loke returned to tell Thor what he had heard. Thor was puzzled, for what goddess would ever consent to be the bride of a giant? Then Thor thought of a plan to outwit the giant. He would dress as a maiden and go to the land of the giants with Loke. Perhaps he could trick the giants.

Soon the broad wings of the huge bird were again carrying Loke to the home of the giants. With Loke, this time, rode Thor dressed as a maiden, wearing a heavy veil over his face.

They entered the land of the giants and were greeted by the mighty giant, who was pleased that a goddess had come to be his wife. He said to his 161 servants, “Make a great feast and invite all the giants to come to see my bride.”

The giants came and the feast was spread. But all the time, the maiden kept the veil over her face. The mighty giant begged to look upon the face of his bride. Then Loke said, “The hammer must be ours before I can take the veil from the maiden’s face.”

So the mighty giant brought the hammer and placed it on the maiden’s lap. At that moment, Loke took the veil from the face and the giants saw before them the mighty Thor with the powerful hammer in his hands. They ran away in fear, as Thor whirled the hammer round and round and balls of fire flashed through the sky and peals of thunder filled the air.

Thor and Loke lost no time in getting back to the land of the gods. All the gods were out to greet them, and great was their joy to see the wonderful hammer. Once more the gods were safe from the wicked giants.

Many secrets of the long, long ago lie buried deep under the ground. In every land there are people who dig for such buried treasures. Only a few years ago some men in Norway dug down to a most wonderful treasure. What do you suppose they found? It was an old, old ship that the early sailors of that northland had sailed upon the seas more than two thousand years ago.

You can imagine how eagerly they worked to get every piece of the old ship out of the ground and to patch the pieces together to rebuild the old craft. And what a beautiful ship they finally had!

That ship, called the Oseborg Ship, stands today in a shed in an open-air museum near Oslo. School girls and boys go there with their teachers to see the old ship. They almost always look the longest at the big dragon’s head that rode on the front of the boat, or at the prow of the boat as sailors call it.

How many, many questions those pupils ask about 163 the old ship and about the old kings of the seas, who were called Vikings. And you can imagine how eagerly they listen to the tales of those daring sailors who ventured far, far out into the unknown seas in their long, black boats, each of which looked like a huge animal with its head sticking up out of the water.

THE VIKING SHIP AS IT WAS FOUND

Other treasures have been dug from the earth in 164 Sweden too. One old chest had in it many queer things. One object from that old chest which interests Swedish girls and boys is a large gold ring with eight small rings upon it. Those rings of gold had been used for money long ago before people made coins. In those early days a man buying something would break off a piece of gold from one of the rings to pay for his purchase.

A long black boat, floating a red flag with a large black raven upon it, glided through the fjords and out to the open sea. At its prow stood a dragon’s head; at its stern was the animal’s tail. Along its sides, which looked like the body of a huge beast, were rows of big round shields painted red, black, and white. Behind those shields, on each side of the long boat, sheltered from the sprays of water, sat forty men who rowed the boat.

So the old ship of the sea kings which now stands in the museum had glided in the long, long ago.

Those old kings of the seas who sailed such boats are sometimes called Vikings. They got that name from the waterways which are now called fjords, but which were called viks in the early days. The Northmen who kept their boats along the viks were called Vikings.

Nearly every Northman in those early days had a boat. They needed boats to go about on the fjords, but they also loved the open sea and sailed out upon 166 it. Finding the material with which to make a boat was an easy task, for many great trees grew on the mountainsides of their lands.

Some of the ships that sailed on the seas reached the shores of other lands. In those lands the Vikings saw shining gold and silver and sharp weapons of bronze. The Northmen had no such treasures in their land. After hearing about such riches, the Vikings were not content without them. Some of the braver ones said, “We will sail our boats to those lands and take the rich treasures for ourselves.”

So the Vikings became sea rovers, or pirates, as sea robbers are often called. Those early Vikings believed that the riches of the world belonged rightly to the people who were strong enough to take them for themselves.

During the long winters, the Vikings stayed at home. In the daytime, they mended their boats, or built new boats. In the evenings they gathered around the feast table and listened to tales of adventures at sea. But when the warm days of sunshine came, they hastened to plant their crops and then to sail away to rob their neighbors.

The Vikings had no instrument with which to tell 167 the direction they were sailing. They had no glasses through which to sight land. They took big birds, called ravens, with them on their boats to help them. When they wanted to find land, they would turn loose one of the birds. The raven would fly to land. By following the bird, the seamen too found land.

THE OLD VIKING SHIP REBUILT

When one of the dragon-like ships came near the shores of another land, the people on the shores were filled with fear. Sometimes they tried to keep the 168 robbers from landing on their shores. Then the Vikings would get their battle axes and their shields and fight their way into the land. They were cruel fighters. Often they left whole towns in ruin—people dying, and homes and crops in flames. For years the Vikings kept up their life as sea robbers.

After a time, some of the Vikings thought, “We will take our families and build new homes for ourselves in the rich lands we have visited.”

So Viking boats sailed away from the northland carrying whole families. Some went to nearby lands where the English live. Others went to live on lands that belong to the French. But many others sailed farther away and built homes on an island which is called Iceland. Other families followed them to Iceland. Before many years there were more than a thousand Vikings living on the island.

Some of the Vikings who had gone to live in Iceland still liked to sail the seas. Stories say that one of them, a very daring seaman called Lief Ericsson, sailed and sailed a very long way from his home. He found a land with many green trees and green grass and grapevines loaded with fruit. Lief called the land Vinland because of the grapes. But now people 169 believe that the shores which Lief Ericsson found were really the shores of our land, America. Lief’s voyage to Vinland was made about five hundred years before Columbus found the new world.

Some people have said, “The story that Lief Ericsson found America cannot be true. A Viking ship could not have crossed the big ocean.”

But there was still a “Viking” living in Norway. He was a young Captain Andersen. He believed that the old Viking ships could cross the ocean. Even as a boy he had dreamed of how fine it would be to cross the ocean in a real Viking ship like those of the old Viking days.

About the time Captain Andersen was dreaming his dream, one of the old Viking ships which now stands in the museum was found buried deep under ground. Captain Andersen saw that ship. A few years later, the young captain heard of a World’s Fair to be held in Chicago, a city in America. Then he got an idea. He thought, “I’ll build a ship that will be a true copy of the old Viking ship—I’ll build it the same size as that old ship and will sail it with the same equipment across the Atlantic Ocean to America. I’ll sail the ship through the waters of 170 North America to Chicago and show it to the visitors at the World’s Fair.”

CAPTAIN ANDERSEN’S SHIP VIKING LEAVING OSLO

And the young captain set about the task of building the ship. Of course he had difficulties. He had to have money, but he got it. Finally the ship was 171 built. It was named the Viking and Captain Andersen was made its commander.

The Viking set sail on April 30, 1893, with a crew of twelve men. On June 13, it reached America. Captain Andersen’s dream had come true.

The Viking was taken to Chicago. Thousands and thousands of visitors at the World’s Fair saw the old ship.

The Viking was left in Chicago. It still stands under a shelter in Lincoln Park. On the old ship is a message which says that the ship came across the ocean under its own sails. It came to carry a message of good-will to the people of the United States of America.

In the days of the Vikings, a son was born to the noble and bold Hjorvard and his wife Sigrlin. A feast day was set on which the babe was to be named. This was the custom for “name fastening” in Viking homes.

On the day for the “name fastening,” people for miles about gathered at Hjorvard’s home. Hjorvard took his son on his lap. A vessel filled with water was brought in and Hjorvard poured water on the child. Then he said in a loud voice so that all the people could hear him,

“Ivar, the boy shall be named after his grandfather. He will fight many battles. He shall be fair like his mother, and be called his father’s son, for he will wage war from an early age and wander far and wide.”

Hjorvard placed a sprig of garlic around his son’s neck, as a “name fastening,” meaning that as the 173 garlic stood high among the grasses so would little Ivar stand among men. Then he placed by Ivar’s side a double-edged sword and a coat of mail, a shield, and a helmet of silver. Every animal born on Hjorvard’s farm on the day of the birth of little Ivar was to belong to the child.

From “The Viking Age,” Paul du Chaillu.

Pictures have been found cut into rocks in Norway and Sweden. This is an old rock picture of a Viking ship, made many, many years ago. It shows a Viking defending his ship against two smaller ones.

Ivar grew well. There was great joy in the family when he cut his first tooth. His father, as was the Viking custom, gave him a “tooth fee.” The gift was a knife in a gold sheath. This was fastened to a leather belt sewn with gold thread. He gave him also a large farm where he would live when he became a man.

174 As time went on Ivar grew to be a beautiful child; he was fair and had blue eyes. Like all boys of his age he loved to play. Nothing pleased him more than to put in the water a toy boat with a sail and watch it go out to sea.

When Ivar was six years old his parents began to think of sending him to be fostered. Boys who were to be great warriors were not brought up at home but sent to some friend who was wise and brave, to be educated. Ivar’s father and mother chose a brave man named Gudbrand to educate Ivar.

Ivar’s father made ready to send a messenger to Gudbrand. On the day when the messenger was to sail, a fleet of fifteen boats was seen coming towards the shore. Each ship carried a white shield on its mast. This meant that they were friendly and peaceful.

As the vessels came nearer shore they made a beautiful sight. Along the sides of the boats were the colored shields of the warriors. The sails, too, were striped in bright colors. Ahead of the other ships was a dragon ship flying a flag with an eagle on it. By this flag every one knew that this was Gudbrand’s ship.

175 Hjorvard and Sigrlin were glad to see Gudbrand’s ship coming at this time. Hjorvard went out to meet the great warrior. There were great feasts that day.

The next day when Gudbrand was talking to some of the warriors, Hjorvard came up to him with Ivar in his arms. He put Ivar on Gudbrand’s knees. It was an old custom that the man upon whose knee a child was seated was bound to become his “fosterer.” Hjorvard’s men shouted with joy to see Ivar seated upon the knees of Gudbrand, who was known for his wisdom and bravery.

At last the day came when Ivar was to leave his mother. Sigrlin was sad to see him go for he was to be away for long years. Ivar walked down to the shore between his parents, chatting merrily. As the ship left the shore Sigrlin stood on the headland watching it go. Then, with a deep sigh, she went homeward.

The wind was fair and after a sail of three days Gudbrand’s ships reached home. Sigrid, his wife, was well pleased when she saw Ivar. She prepared a room for him close to her own.

For a few days Ivar was homesick. He missed his father and mother and his playmates. Everything 176 was new and strange. Soon, however, he grew to love his new home and his foster parents.

Gudbrand and Sigrid had a son named Hjalmar. He was a year older than Ivar. The two boys became good friends and learned together. As they grew older they were taught gymnastic exercises, games of ball, running, wrestling, jumping, and swimming. They learned how to steer and sail a boat. They learned how to ride. They even learned ship building and worked in the ship yards. Both boys were taught how to write on birch bark and to engrave letters on stone, gold, and silver.

Ivar and Hjalmar were better at sports than any other boys of their age. They could swim like eels and could shoot straight.

When Ivar was fifteen years old Gudbrand gave him a beautiful ship called Stallion of the Surf. Hjalmar also received a beautiful ship called Deer of the Surf. Gudbrand took the two boys sailing with him and trained them to build camp and to cook for themselves.

Ivar began to wish to see his own people again. Then the two boys sailed to the home of Ivar’s father and mother. They were greeted with great joy by Hjorvard and Sigrlin, who treated Hjalmar as kindly as if he were their own son.

177 TREASURES OF THE OLD SEA KINGS
(a)Dragon’s head from prow of boat. (b) An old chest.
(c) Old coins. (d) Gold rings which were used for money

178 After three years Ivar and Hjalmar were ready to sail the seas on expeditions of their own. They were Vikings, brave and bold.

Crowds of people stood on the banks of the fjord at Oslo in Norway. Bands were playing and flags were waving. Cheer after cheer arose from the crowd as the boat, the Fram, came into sight. On the Fram was a brave Norwegian named Nansen who was returning from adventures in Eskimo land.

In the crowd which cheered Nansen was a lad seventeen years old who also dreamed dreams of adventure. That lad was Roald Amundsen. “Some day,” said Roald, “I’ll travel as far north as I can go. I’ll stand at the North Pole—the spot at the very top of the world.”

People had known for a long time then that the earth is a big ball. The spot at the very top of the big ball is called the North Pole and the spot at the very bottom of the ball is called the South Pole. No matter which way a person standing at the North 180 Pole looked he would be looking south toward the other end of the ball. If he stood at the South Pole, no matter which way he looked, he would be looking north towards the top of the ball. But when Roald was dreaming his dreams no one had stood at either the North Pole or the South Pole. Roald thought, “Perhaps I can be the first to visit the North Pole.”

How would he know when he reached a spot which no one had seen? Roald had seen the instrument which sailors use to tell direction when out at sea. It is a needle that always points toward the north star and that star is almost directly overhead at the North Pole. Roald knew that he could carry such a needle with him. With it he would be able to tell when he came to the North Pole. For there the needle could no longer point north, so it would move about trying to find north.

But Roald was then too young for such an adventure. Ten years passed after Nansen’s return before he began to prepare for a journey to the North Pole. He was to sail in the same boat that Nansen had used, the Fram. Amundsen’s party was almost ready to start from Norway when news came that an American, named Peary, had reached the 181 North Pole. Already the Stars and Stripes floated over that spot at the top of the earth.

Roald Amundsen still longed to visit the North Pole, but he decided not to go at that time. He said, “No one has yet reached the South Pole—at the bottom of the earth. We will go to the South Pole. Perhaps the Norwegian flag may be the first to float there.”

On a bright sunny day in August, 1910, about a year after Peary found the North Pole, Amundsen and his men set out on the long journey from Norway to the South Pole at the bottom of the earth. He knew that the Antarctic (ant ark tic)—the land and water at the bottom of the earth—is a place of ice and snow. Amundsen knew much about cold lands of ice and snow as he had always lived in Norway. He had traveled on skis ever since he was a small boy. He had read many books about the land to which he was going.

He planned everything very carefully so that he and his men would have every chance to succeed. He said, “If a person starting on a hard task prepares for the task carefully, he is likely to succeed—and then people say he had good luck. If a person 182 does not prepare carefully, he is likely to fail—and then people say he had bad luck.”

On the deck of the Fram were ninety-six Eskimo dogs. Amundsen said, “The Eskimo dog is the best animal to endure the cold and to pull sledges over the ice and snow.” Amundsen gave each man in the crew a number of dogs to be in his care. The men named their dogs and began making friends with them as soon as the journey began. They must have the dogs ready to work well with them by the time they reached the Antarctic.

On the deck of the boat too were skis and snowshoes, heavy blankets, suits of Eskimo clothes, suits of reindeer skins, canned meat and other foods, and lumber ready to fit together for a house. Amundsen had tried to make sure that he and his men would be lucky.

The first part of the journey was through the North Sea along the coast of Norway. Then the Fram sailed into the Atlantic Ocean. As they traveled farther and farther south, the weather got warmer each day. The men saw the sun get higher and higher in the sky each noon. Then they came to a place where the sun at noon was almost directly 183 over their heads. They were then halfway between the North Pole and the South Pole.

AMUNDSEN’S EQUIPMENT, NOW IN A MUSEUM

The men put on light summer clothes. The dogs kept under the shelter built for them, but still they suffered from the heat.

The Fram went on farther south, but the weather began to grow cooler and cooler. The farther the boat went from the place where the sun was almost directly over head at noon, the cooler the weather 184 was. The men put on warmer clothing and the dogs left their shelters.

By New Year’s Day the Fram was in the icy waters of the Antarctic. The men saw huge pieces of ice floating in the water. The boat had to make its way through the ice. In about two weeks more, they reached a wall of ice about one hundred feet high. Amundsen was expecting that wall of ice, which was the edge of the great field of ice called The Great Ice Barrier.

The Fram could go no farther. The men unloaded the supplies on the ice. Not far from that spot, they dug into the ice and made a cellar where they stored their supplies. Over it they set up the house they had brought from Norway. They called their new home Framheim, which means Fram home.

In January the weather in the Antarctic is much like June weather in the far north. Day after day the men watched the sun go in a circle around their home on the ice. The sun there moved much the same as they had seen it move in the Arctic where Hammerfest lies. At Hammerfest, that town which is farther north than any other town, the sun is in the east in the early morning, in the south at noon, in 185 the west in the late afternoon, and in the north at midnight. But in the Antarctic the men saw the sun in the east in the early morning, in the north at noon, in the west in the late afternoon, and in the south at midnight.

The men knew that after April twenty-second the sun would not be seen in this land at the bottom of the earth for four months. They would not have time to reach the South Pole before that long night came. They must wait for another summer.

During the long night the men lived comfortably in their house on the ice. They looked over every sledge, every piece of harness, their clothes, and their skis to make sure that everything was in shape for the trip over the ice to the South Pole.

The sun appeared in the sky for only a few minutes on August twenty-fourth. Each day after that it crept a little higher and stayed a little longer until at last the long day came when the sun was in the sky for weeks and weeks without setting.

For weeks after the sun appeared, the weather was bitter cold. The men watched for signs of warmer weather. Late in September they saw a seal crawl out of the water. They then knew that they soon 186 would have warmer days, so they began to prepare for the journey to the pole.

On October twentieth, Amundsen and four other men with four sledges and fifty-two dogs set out from Framheim. The sledges were loaded with provisions enough to last four months. As they journeyed south, they stopped at different places and built up piles of snow blocks. The heaps of snow would help them find their way back. Under the blocks of snow they put supplies which they would need as they came back.

The dogs made good time over the ice of the Antarctic. They traveled about seventeen miles a day. The men on their skis easily kept up with the dogs. But by the middle of November they came to snow-covered mountains. Some of them are two miles high. Travel was then harder. The party traveled up about one mile. They then rested. Travel was easier for a few days as they had reached a high level stretch of land which we call a plateau (pla tō). They then began to climb mountains again. Early in December they were up two miles high. From that time on they traveled on another plateau. Travel was easy on this level stretch of land. The men knew that the South 187 Pole was on this plateau. The end of their journey seemed near.

On the night of December thirteenth, they had that strange feeling that something was going to happen. And at three o’clock the next day they were on the spot which they reckoned to be the South Pole. The happy men seized each other’s hands. How glad they were! They then did the most important act of the journey—they planted the flag of Norway on that spot.

The hands of all five men held the flag as it was set into place. Amundsen would have it that way. He said later, “It was not for one man to do this; it was for all who staked their lives in the struggle, and held together through thick and thin.”

As the men put the flag in place, they said, “Thus we plant thee, Beloved Flag, at the South Pole, and give the plateau on which it lies the name King Haakon VII’s Plateau.”

So while the Stars and Stripes floated at the top of the earth, the red, white, and blue flag of Norway floated at its bottom.

In about six weeks the happy men were back in Framheim. About a week later the Fram set sail for 188 the long return trip to Norway. But early in March the Fram reached land from which messages could be sent and the whole world soon knew that the flag of Norway had been planted at the South Pole. And the whole world did honor to the brave men from the north who planted it there.

While you are studying about Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, you will enjoy reading one or more of these books.

1. Aanrud, H., Lisbeth Longfrock. Ginn and Company: Boston.

A story of farm life in Norway long ago. Note.—A new translation of this is published by the John C. Winston Company, Philadelphia, under the title, Sidsel Longskirt and Solve Suntrap.

2. Asbjornsen, P. C., Fairy Tales from the Far North, Burt Publishing Company.

Stories that children of the far north read.

3. Aulaire, Ingri M. d’, and Aulaire, Edgar P. d’, Children of the Northlights. Viking Press: New York.

Stories of Lapp children with many beautiful illustrations.

4. Bay, J. C., Danish Fairy and Folk Tales. Harper and Brothers: New York.

More stories that children of the far north read.

5. Burglon, N., Children of the Soil. Doubleday, Doran and Company: Garden City, New York.

A story of Sweden, which tells of old Swedish customs.

6. Everson, F. M., and Everson, H., Coming of the Dragon Ships. E. P. Dutton and Company: New York.

Two Viking children, their adventures and everyday doings.

7. Falkberg, J., Broomstick and Snowflake. Macmillan Company: New York.

Fairy tales with one especially amusing story about a giant.

8. Hamsun, M. A., Norwegian Farm. Lippincott Company: Philadelphia.

Translated from the Norwegian—a picture of farm life of present-day Norway and of the doings of a lively family of children.

9. Lagerlof, S. O. L., Wonderful Adventures of Nils. Doubleday, Doran and Company: Garden City, New York.

An interesting story by one of Sweden’s best story-tellers. Nils flies over Sweden on the back of a goose. This book was written to help in making geography interesting for Swedish children.

10. Lattimore, E. F., Seven Crowns. Harcourt, Brace and Company: New York.

A little girl visits her grandmother in Copenhagen and spends seven crowns as she pleases.

11. Palm, A., Wanda and Greta at Broby Farm. Longmans, Green and Company: New York.

This is translated from the Swedish and tells what happened to two little girls and their dog.

12. Scott, G., Kari. Doubleday, Doran and Company: Garden City, New York.

A story of a girl in Norway.

13. Schram, C. W., Olaf, Lofoten Fisherman. Longmans, Green and Company: New York.

Olaf lives in the Lofoten Islands and goes fishing.

14. Thorne-Thomsen, G., East O’ the Sun and West O’ the Moon. Row, Petersen and Company: Evanston, Ill.

A collection of Norwegian fairy and folk tales.

15. Zwilgmeyer, D., Johnny Blossom. Pilgrim Press: Boston.

A story of a little boy in Norway some years ago.

16. Zwilgmeyer, D., What Happened to Inger Johanne. Lothrop, Lee and Shepard: Boston.

An amusing story of the doings of a Norwegian girl.