The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1874-03-21
NORTHERN ANTIQUITIES.

strong hand had been made to prevail in
Copenhagen and Stockholm Yet the con-
tents of the small and ill-kept rooms,
though without the benefit of a catalogue,
Enthusiastically declare their worth. Most
exceptional are the pieces of old wood
carving for which, in fact, Norway among
the nations stands alone. Here are about
eleven doorways, and it is said twenty
more exist either still in old churches, or
in the museum OF Bergen. Besides there
are other carvings, domestic as well as
ecclesiastical; the uses differ, but the style
is all but identical, according to the COM
mon law throughout the world, that art is
essentially the same in the cottage and the
church. What strikes the stranger as re
markable in these semi-carvings, is that
! Pagan forms project themselves into Chris
tian periods. The apparent anomaly, how
| ever, may be scarcely exceptional; for
remember, a quarter of century ago
when first in Rome, to have had pointed
out to me Pagan devices in the doors of
| St. Peters. That these doors, carved in
/ pine and brought from the oldest wood
churches, should derive their style and
| subject matter from period anterior to
the introduction of Christianity, is but the
ordinary history of these northern schools
of ornament. The finest of the eleven
/ collected portals is from the wooden church
of Flaa. destroyed in 1854, because too
I small, and then enlarged in the modern
( style. The date given me in Christiana was
the twelfth or thirteenth century; but in
! the South kensington Museum the east
Of this doorway is labeled as of the
eleventh or early twelfth century; in the
Paris International Exhibition the work
was absurdly made to pass rs an example
| of the Byzantine style; it's historic value
consists, of course, in its essentially North
ern character. | mention these discrepan-
ces to show how in Northern capitals
chronology, and even national styles be-
come conjectural. Such doorways are so
remarkable, and yet SO representative Of
a universal art, that am tempted to give
my notes, taken before this the most char
! acterstic specimen have seen in Norway.
| The form is that of an ordinary upright
and oblong door entrance, pierced with a
churches was naturally small. On either
side the base is composed of circles of
| foliage and buds all mixed together and
treated conventionally; from this ground
] 1ar
| growth, with the overcoming serpent
/ tortuously entwined, and Selling with it's
bird or griffin like beak the folated orna-
ment nearest within reach. At the sum-
nit is grand display of dragons, supplied
with wings, dcvouring jaws, and other
fearful appurtenances. One point to be
! noted in this and other like works is that
the age Of the individual object is as moth
/ ing to the antiquity Of the style. When
/ a mode of ornamentation is taken direct
from nature, it may be but of yesterday:
but when, on the contrary, as here, every
! form is conventionalized, and the monsters
! introduced are far removed from existing
| types, we may be sure that long and I'M
| fashionable periods were needed for devel-
| opment. Among wooden chairs is a work
as far back as the twelfth century, one of
| the earliest specimens of wood work in
| England, the Coronation Chair, in West
minister Abbey, is about two centuries
| later. In this piece of domestic furniture
the burden of the story is again the STAY
ing of dragons. This mode of ornamental
ton continued down to tho fifteenth CEN
| fury, but the bas-reliefS became still lower.
! the foliage also grew freer, and at length
the dragon was left out, possibly in defer
ence to Christianity. A door from the
house of peasant, in the fourteenth GEN.
! fury, also other domestic portals are all of
interest, in proof of the universal law
already stated, that in all true art epochs
the church and the private dwelling have
one and the same style of decoration
The late period at which Norway became
| Chrstianized may be an additional reason
why no expressly sacred style was formed.
I will rapidly enumerate few other OBJ
jects which struck me as remarkable
Here are large bundles of wooden calen-
dars from Iceland, similar to those already
mentioned in Copenhagen. The gold
ornaments are naturally surpassed in the
richer countries of Denmark, Sweden, and
Ireland; but worthy OF remembrance is a
massive gold collar supposed to have
adorned the statue of Odin, and then hid
den away when heather temples were
spoiled on the introduction of Christianity
There arc also coin-like pendants for neck
laces, some showing Northern and other
silver diadems, supposed to date about
900 A. d., found with early Arabic coins;
likewise gold chains of perhaps the same
period, found with crowns in bog. Such
- finds - recall the bog buried treasures of
Ireland. In Norway, indeed, have been
dug up Irish brooches and other Irish or
Scotch metal work; similar specimens are
in the Dublin Museum. Lastly, l must
mention the magnificent series Of fibul;e
or morse, bronze gilt and inlaid with sill,
yer; the dates are said to range from 700
to 1000 A. d. The ornamentation, which
is very fine, has character akin to the
surface decoration on the wooden door
ways. The style, in fact, had become
stereotyped, and was used for metal and
for wood alike. l may add that the
museum is arranged under the several
epochs of stone, bronze, and iron, CLASH
lication now all but universally adopted
From an -irt tour in Northern Capitals, By
j. Beacington Atkinson.
! HARD on THEM" If you can't i'm
prove such small matter as women S
dresses, you certainly can't improve their
social and political situation. Idiots and
Indians don't vote, nor babies. What's
the reason? It's because they are all alike
in being undeveloped in mind, all sub
stantially savages. You women your
| dress is savage. It's out of the question
| for a man to vote as long as he is so savage
as to stick feathers in his top knot and
paint his face and tiutter himself out with