Oslo

“ These trained men should then proceed with all speed to Norway, where details would then require to be further discussed. Some important centers in Oslo would have to be taken over immediately, and at the same time the German Fleet, together with suitable contingents of the German Army, would go into operation when summoned specially by the new Norwegian Government in a specified bay at the approaches to Oslo. ”

“ The stalwart arms of the Norsemen, organised in the Vaeringian Guard, propped the Byzantine Empire against its Asian foes and gained for the Scandinavians much wealth. Among others the founder of Oslo (p. 95) had in that realm gotten enormous riches. "But when Harald came to Holmgarth, King Jarisleif gave him a wondrous good welcome, and there he tarried the winter over, and took into his own keeping all the gold which he had sent afore thither from Micklegarth, and many kinds of dear-goods. That was so mickle wealth, that no man in northern lands had seen such in one man's owning. ”

“ A long period of peace was something new in the history of the country, and the people therefore gave King Olaf the surname Kyrre, i.e., the Quiet. He preserved law and order with firmness, and did a great deal to promote commerce and the prosperity of the towns. Before his time there were three towns in Viken (Tunsberg, Oslo, and Sarpsborg) , and one in Throndhjem (Nidaros) . King Olaf founded the merchant town of Bergen (then Björgvin) , where many wealthy people settled down, and the place was soon regularly frequented by merchants from foreign countries. ”

“ The peasants in Viken revolted under Amund Sigurdson Bolt, captured Oslo, and drove some of the Danish and other foreign officers out of the country. In a proclamation issued, after this uprising, by the Norwegian Council of State, calling upon the people to be loyal to King Erik (1436) , the council promised to request the king in the future not to appoint foreigners to the high offices unless they had married into Norwegian families.
In Denmark also the people complained of the heavy taxes and the many Germans who were imported and given high positions. ”

“ The miraculous cross was removed from its original site in 1701 and placed in the crucero of the church of this convent, Espinosa, Cron. Apost., i. 19; Glorias de Quer., 39. ↑ Oslo had previously proved himself a munificent benefactor by his liberal donations to numerous religious institutions, in several instances defraying the entire cost of the erection of chapels and convents. He was a captain of infantry, became alcalde mayor of Querétaro, and was finally ordained priest. He possessed a large fortune which he devoted to such purposes and charity. ”

“ Language: Norwegian (official) ; small Lapp- and Finnish-speaking minorities
Literacy: 100%
Labor force: 2,164,000; 33.6% services, 17.4% commerce, 16.6% mining and manufacturing, 8.4% transportation, 7.8% construction, 6.8% banking and financial services, 6.5% agriculture, forestry, and fishing (1986)
Organized labor: 66% of labor force (1985)
Government
Long-form name: Kingdom of Norway
Type: constitutional monarchy
Capital: Oslo
Administrative divisions: 19 provinces (fylker, singular—fylke) ”

“ It is a fine building, but with nothing remarkable about it. In the lower house, the students seated themselves in the chairs of the members, and Mr. Mapps took the speaker’s desk.
“Christiania was founded in 1624, on the site of the ancient city of Osloe, which was destroyed by fire. It is the residence of the king during his sojourn in Norway, and the new palace, which you saw on the hill, was completed for his use in 1848. The city, as you have seen, is regularly laid out, and the buildings are either of brick or stone. ”

“ If Norway is glorious, Greenland is in truth no less so. When one has once seen it, how dear to him is its recollection! I do not know if others feel as I do, but for me it is touched with all the dream-like beauty of the fairyland of my childish imagination. It seems as though I there found our own Norwegian scenery repeated in still nobler, purer forms.
It is strong and wild, this Nature, like a saga of antiquity carven in ice and stone, yet with moods of lyric delicacy and refinement. It is like cold steel with the shimmering colours of a sunlit cloud playing through it. ”

“ In this scene I at once recognised the wild landscape by the pencil of Dahl, the Norwegian painter, which had made such an impression upon me in Copenhagen. In Guldbrandsdal, we found at once what we had missed in the scenery of Ringerike—swift, foaming streams. Here they leapt from every rift of the upper crags, brightening the gloom of the fir-woods which clothed the mountain-sides, like silver braiding upon a funeral garment. This valley is the pride of Norway, nearly as much for its richness as for its beauty and grandeur. ”

“ We will sit in the Stone Hall, where the pine logs blaze, and drink mead out of the golden horns of the old Norwegian kings. The river god gave me a couple. When we sit there the mountain sprite comes to pay us a visit, and he will sing you the songs of the Sæter girls. The salmon will leap in the waterfalls, and beat against the stone wall, but it won’t get in. Ah, you may believe me when I say that we lead a merry life there in good old Norway. But where are the lads? ”

“ It is the largest and most important settlement in northern Norway, being the capital of Norwegian Lapland, and having about six thousand inhabitants. It rises to the dignity of a cathedral, and is the seat of a bishopric. In the Market Place is a substantial Town Hall, and a neat though small Roman Catholic church. There is also here an excellent Museum, principally of Arctic curiosities and objects relating to the history of the Lapps and Finlanders, with a fair zoölogical department, also possessing a fine collection of Alpine minerals. ”

“ At last, then, I bade farewell to my brethren, sisters and friends, and to Nordland with its many islands, fjords and great and beautiful mountains, forming a landscape so brilliantly equipped that it does not stand second to any that I have seen. The impressions which became stamped upon my mind during my mission up among the people of northern Norway, in the days of my youth, will never, I believe, leave me, for one might learn more up there than can be learned in a university. ”

“ Town-dwellers in all Norway number no more than the inhabitants of Manchester, and though force of circumstance necessitates their living in the towns, their thoughts are ever of the country—of the fjeld, the fjord, the forest, the mountain lake, or the salmon river. ”

“ Fiords, lakes, rivers, waterfalls, snow-mountains, soft, rounded hills alternating with low but savage precipices, cultivated and peaceful valleys—these are characteristics of the scenery in Eastern Norway. We desired to take an easy trip into the interior, admitting us to the heart of the country, with the minimum sacrifice of comfort. The problem was how to get a good miniature impression of the natural features of this region in four days? Fortunately, there was (and still is, I hope) a man in Christiania able to solve this problem to the entire satisfaction of the anxious inquirer. ”

“ In an age when strength, bravery, and an adventurous spirit made a nation eminent, Norway played a great rôle upon the arena of the world, founding and destroying kingdoms, mingling her vigorous blood with that of other nations, and infusing her love of liberty, restrained by law, into their souls. Since powder and modern strategy have subordinated heroism to discipline and numbers, Norway must resign herself to the fate which her numerical weakness imposes upon her. A people of scarcely two millions can cut no very great figure in the world, as it is now constituted. ”

“ In the heart of Norway lies this country. Is the soul wearied with the tumults of the world or fatigued with the trifles of poor every-day life—is it depressed by the confined atmosphere of the room,—with the dust of books, the dust of company, or any other kind of dust (there are in the world so many kinds, and they all cover the soul with a great dust mantle) ; or is she torn by deep consuming passions,—then fly, fly towards the still heart of Norway, listen there to the fresh mighty throbbing of the heart of nature ”

“ Little of the Norwegian costume that is so attractive a feature of the fjord villages is to be seen in the city; the general life of towns is becoming distressingly the same all over the Western world. The atmosphere is, however, distinctly Norse by the quays, where the fish boats come in and large barrels of their catchings are rolled about, and also where high wooden warehouses, not entirely without picturesqueness, fringe the shores of the Nid and exhale a smell of fish and tar. ”

“ Olaf gave a brief account of his life and adventures, from his boyhood up to his discovery of Thorir Klakke's treachery, his coming to Norway, and the death of Hakon, and concluded with:
"I believe that there is no man in Norway who by legal right and descent has so much right to the crown as I. But I must be made King by you, the Assembly of the People, and if you do so I will protect you and rule you according to the ancient laws of Norway." ”

“ There are here some neat public squares, a public park, wherein a military band plays occasionally, and half a dozen churches. There is also a theatre, royal palace, musical institute, public library, and museum; but there is hardly a trace of architectural beauty in Norway, with the exception of the cathedral at Tröndhjem, which is formed of a mixture of orders, the Norman predominating. The Church of St. Mary at Bergen is only interesting for its antiquity, dating as it does from the twelfth century. ”

“ Norway is a strange country. There is a little king here and a little king there—hundreds of them scattered about. Now in Denmark there is but one great king over the whole land. And it is so in Sweden. Is no one brave enough to make all of Norway his own?"
She laughed a scornful laugh and walked away. The men stood with open mouths and stared after her. Could it be that she had sent that saucy message to King Harald? They looked at her foster-father. ”

“ But the king we now have allows no one to talk with him of anything but what he himself desires to hear. He wants to have Norway laid under him, which no Swedish king before him ever desired, and thereby causes many men to be alarmed. But now it is the will expressed by us peasants that thou, King Olaf, make peace with the king of Norway, and give him thy daughter Ingegerd in marriage. If thou wilt reconquer the countries on the Baltic which thy relations and ancestors had there, we will all go with thee. ”

“ This is the first time that Norway, as an integral kingdom, treats with a foreign power. The kings of Sweden and Denmark who claimed descent from Ragnar Lodbrok and through him from the gods, had never until now recognized the descendants of Harold the Fairhaired as rulers of a united realm and their own equals in dignity. Norway was to them merely a collection of small, scattered communities which, having once been united, made haste to fall to pieces again, and had at different times recognized the overlordship of the kings of Sweden and Denmark. ”

“ This was the testimony to the charm of Norway which Queen Maud gave me, when I saw her in her little home near Christiania in the autumn of 1913. She spoke with enthusiasm of her adopted country, and I was not in the least surprised, for Norway is undoubtedly the happiest and most progressive country in Europe. Indeed, if anybody wants to know what life will be like in the good time that is coming, when Capitalism will be dead and Democracy triumphant on both sides of the Atlantic, let him go to Norway and study its institutions and the life of its people. ”

“ It is a genuine delight to study and visit these lands, because they are the least, perhaps in Europe, affected by the leveling hand of cosmopolitan ideas. Go where you will,—to England, about Germany, down into Italy,—everywhere, the same monotonous sameness is growing more oppressive every year. But in Norway and Sweden there is still an originality, a type, if you please, that has resisted the growth of an artificial life, and gives to students a charm which is even more alluring than modern cities with their treasures and associations. ”

“ Olaf being the most prominent characters among the rulers of Norway, receive special attention from the saga-writers, but there is no lack of works giving the history of other Norwegian kings, and efforts were soon made to present continuous sketches of the lives of several kings as the preparation for a genuine history of Norway. By far the greater number of these sagas were produced in Iceland, though, as a matter of course, the materials on which they are based came mostly from Norway, or in other words were communicated by Norwegians. ”

“ What I had seen in Norway made me not quite unprepared for what I found at Copenhagen; nevertheless it was somewhat startling. The evening being fine, the whole of the broad shady walks between the west gate of the city and the palace of Fredericksberg, two miles off, were crowded with groups of people in their best clothes; not merely peasants and artisans, or even shopkeepers, but persons of superior condition, though perhaps not in such great proportion. The peasant women, with their gaudy gold-laced caps and ribbons, gave a striking character to the scene. ”