THE LOFODEN ISLANDS

EDMUND GOSSE

EDMUND GOSSE (1849- ) is an English poet and critic who has made a special study of Scandinavian literature.

I imagine that to most minds the Lofoden Islands are associated with little except schoolbook legends of 5 the maelstrom, and perhaps the undesirable savor of codliver oil. With some they have a shadowy suggestion of ironbound rocks, full of danger and horror, repulsive and sterile, and past the limit of civilization. So little has been written about them, and that little is so inade10 quate, that I cannot wonder at the indifference to their existence which prevails.

The Lofoden Islands are an archipelago lying off the Arctic coast of Norway. Although in the same latitude as central Greenland and Siberia, they enjoy, in common 15 with all the outer coast of Scandinavia, a comparatively mild climate. Even in the severest winters their harbors are not frozen. The group extends at an acute angle to the mainland for about one hundred and forty miles, northeast and southwest. In shape they seem on the 20 map like a great wedge thrust out into the Atlantic, the point being the desolate rock of Röst, the most southerly of the islands; but this wedge is not solid: the center is occupied by a sea lake, which communicates by many

channels with the ocean.

All of the islands are moun

tainous and of the most fantastic forms.

They are
There is

inhabited by scattered families of fishermen. no town, scarcely a village; it is but a scanty population so barren and wild a land will support.

But, quiet and noiseless as the shores are when the traveler sees them in their summer rest, they are busy enough and full of animation in the months of March and April. As soon as the tedious, sunless winter has passed away, the peculiar Norwegian boats, standing high 10 in the water, with prow and stern alike curved upwards, begin to crowd into the Lofoden harbors from all parts of the vast Scandinavian coast. It is the never-failing harvest of codfish that they seek. The number of boats collected has been estimated at three thousand; and as 15 each contains on an average five men, the population of the Lofodens in March must be very considerable.

Unfortunately for these "toilers of the sea," the early spring is a season of stormy weather and tumultuous seas; and when the wind is blowing from the northwest 20 or from the southwest, they are especially exposed to danger. It is, however, a matter of regret to me that truth obliges me to raze to the ground with ruthless hand the romantic fabric of fable that has surrounded one of these islands from time immemorial. The mael- 25

strom, the terrific whirlpool that

Whirled to death the roaring whale,

that sucked the largest ships into its monstrous vortex, and thundered so loudly that the rings on the doors of houses ten miles off shook at the sound of it, this wonder of the world must, alas! retire to that limbo 5 where the myths of old credulity gather in a motley and

fantastic array.

There is no such whirlpool. This passage is one of those narrow straits, so common on the Norwegian coast, where the current of water sets with such persistent force 10 in one direction that when the tide or an adverse wind

meets it a great agitation of the surface takes place. I have seen, on one of the narrow sounds, the tide meet the current with such violence as to raise a little hissing wall across the water, which gave out a loud noise. This 15 was in the calmest of weather; and it is easy to believe that such a phenomenon, occurring during a storm or when the sea was violently disturbed, would cause small boats passing over the spot to be in great peril, and might even suddenly swamp them. Some such disaster, observed 20 from the shore, and exaggerated by the terror of the beholder, doubtless gave rise to the prodigious legends of the maelstrom.

In ordinary years the snow disappears from the low ground in these islands before May, and the rapid sum25 mer brings their scanty harvest soon to perfection. A few years ago, however, the snow lay on the cultivated lands till June, and a famine ensued. These poor people

live a precarious life, exposed to the attacks of a singularly peevish climate. A whim of the codfish, a hurricane in the April sky, or a cold spring, is sufficient to plunge them into distress and poverty. Yet for all this they are an honest and well-to-do population; for, being 5 thrifty and laborious, they guard with much foresight against the severities of nature.

In winter the aurora scintillates over their solemn mountains, and illuminates the snows and wan gray sea; they sit at their cottage doors and spin by the gleam of it; 10 in summer the sun never sets, and they have the advantage of endless light to husband their hardly won crops. Remote as they are, too, they can all read and write it is strange to find how much intelligent interest they take in the struggles of great peoples who never heard of Lofoden. 15 I would fain linger over the delicious memories that the name of these wild islands brings with it; and especially do I recall the last sight I had of them on a calm sunny night in summer.

It had been a cloudless day of excessive heat, and the 20 comparative coolness of night was refreshing. The light, too, ceased to be garish, but flooded all the air with mellow luster. The surface of the fiord was slightly broken into little tossing waves that, murmuring faintly, were the only things that broke the silence. The edge 25 of the ripple shone with the color of burnished bronze, relieved by the cool neutral gray of the sea hollows.

The entrance to the sound was unbroken by any wave, unillumined by any light of sunset or sunrise, but was a somber reflex of the unstained blue heaven above. As we glided, in the same utter noiselessness of the hour when 5 evening and morning meet, up the Räfsund itself, the glory and beauty of the scene rose to a pitch so high that the spirit was oppressed and overawed by it, and the could scarcely fulfill their function.

eyes

Ahead of the vessel the narrow vista of glassy water 10 was a blaze of purple and golden color arranged in a faultless harmony of tone that was like music or lyrical verse in its direct appeal to the emotions. At each side the fiord reflected each elbow, each edge, each cataract, and even the flowers and herbs of the base with a pre15 cision so absolute that it was hard to tell where mountain ended and sea began. The center of the sound was the climax of loveliness, for here the harmonious vista was broadened and deepened, and here rose Iistind towering into the unclouded heavens, and showing by the rays of 20 golden splendor that lit up its topmost snows that it could see the sun whose magical fingers, working unseen of us, had woven for the world this tissue of variegated beauty.

Abridged.

Lofō'den. Röst the ö is pronounced like u in urn. limbo: according to an old belief, this was a place where departed spirits were confined. It was supposed to be on the borders of hell. · - the Räfsund (rěf ́soon): a narrow channel fifteen miles long. — Iistind (ēs'tin): a notable mountain peak.