In spite of my anticipations, I find the path gradually unfolds itself as we advance, worming in and out of the rocks. More luxuriant shrub-vegetation I never beheld; a perfect Paradise of Sub-alpine plants. There were raspberries, and strawberries, and haeggebaer (bird-cherry), the wood of which is the toughest in Norway; besides many kinds of wild flowers, peeping among the fallen rocks. And then the ferns: there was the delicate oak-leaved fern, and the magnificent “polysticum logkitis,” with several others. Growing among these was a plant which appeared to be parsley-fern, specimens of which I stuffed into my book.
“Ay, that’s a nasty plant, sir,” said my guide. “En hel Maengde (a great lot) of it grows hereabouts. We call it Torboll” (I suppose from the destroying god Thor), “or Heste-spraeng (horse-burster). It stops them up at once, and they begin to swell, and the only chance then is a clyster.”
The cause of all this luxuriance of vegetation is to be found in the sheltered position of the valley, and the moisture caused by the
Thousand pretty rills That tumble down the rocky hills.
One wonders where so much water comes from; till, lifting up the eye beyond the tall cliffs that lie still in the shadow, the vision lights on a field of glistening snow, which the morning sun has just caught and illumined.
Each step that we ascend the flowers grow perceptibly smaller and smaller, but their tints brighter, while the scenery grows more rugged and sombre, and its proportions vaster--an apt representation of savage strength pillowing beauty on its bosom.
As we climb higher and higher, we pass a waterfall, over which hovers an iris, one of those frequent decorations of Norwegian landscape which a British islander but seldom sees in his be-fogged home. Looking back, and following the stream below with my eye, I perceive two figures approaching the water’s edge.
“That’s my son and daughter,” exclaimed Simon. “They are going to make hay on that slope on the other side,” said he, pointing to a little green spot high up the mountain.
If a crop was to be got there it would be one, methought, such as the Scripture describes, “with which the mower filleth not his hand, nor he that bindeth up the sheaves his bosom.” Such little matters indicate the wrestle that mankind here has to make both ends meet; in other words, to get a supply of forage enough to last from September to May.