The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1889-07-18
NORWAY'S TARAlDOM,
A Condensed Historical Review BY tt
Greatest Of Norwegian Poets.

A Condemned Historical Review by the
Greatest of Norwegian Poets.
During the long period that Norway
was united with Denmark (145O-1814)
all official positions in the country were
almost exclusively held by Danes, and
it frequently happened that they were
totally unfit for their post, and did not
even understand the language of the
peasants.
Less than the many errors and the
insolence of these officials was needed
to arouse the independent spirit OF the
Norwegian peasantry, who during the
long union with Denmark never for a
moment had allowed any encroach.
ment upon their independence, which
the feudal right to their farms, in
herited from their forefathers, had
for generations-nay, for centuries
maintained.
An attempt to bind Norway more
closely to Denmark was made by in
ducing some of the sons of the old
peasant families on the large farms to
stay for some time in Denmark. Most
of these farms are found in the heart OF
the country, and in the Throudhjem
district, and many are found on the
coast as far up as Nordland. These
sons were to be made noblemen-which
they, however, thought they already
were. They were at first to go through
u course of military discipline and to
learn "good manners" but the attempt
proved a miserable failure, for the lads
gave the officers and their teachers a
sound thrashing, and got up a mutiny.
and had at last to be sent home again.
An attempt to organize Norwegian
corps of Lifeguards, in attendance
upon the King at Copenhagen. was just
as unsuccessful, and terminated in the
same way. Such occurrences, how
ever, tended to strengthen the claim OF
the country for national independence.
What was Norwegian could not be
made Danish; this was gradually being
understood.
Thus the yearning for independence
developed quietly, and soon found a
mouth-piece in the Norske Selskab (the
Norwegian Society, literary gather
ing of Norwegian students at the Co.
penhageu University; their victorious
fisticuffs with their Danish brethren
became in time spiritual alliance for
the welfare of the father-land. The
ancestral pride of these Independent
odel-peasants had long been the nat
ural foundation for this awakening
patriotism; now it also became the
historical-legal ground for their claim
for political self-government. In due
time it attained its end, when Norway
in 1914 became an independent king.
dom.
Then the people entered upon a new
era, which quickly discovered them
from their old barbarous customs, and
in which the natural strength and abil-
ity of the people reached to attain
ments which united what hitherto had
been disunited and hostile.
Under this gradual growth, with self
made laws, and with municipal as we'll
as national self-government, with an
increasing enlightenment and good
schools, with newspapers, with liter
AZURE, with lectures, meetings, political
and social movements, the people havc
made astonishing progress, and under
this newly awakened life the old-fash-
Toned religious intolerance has become
an archaism. -Bjornstjerne Bjornson,
in Harper's Magazine.
The Cause Of -Fweddy's Solicitude.
''Cholly, I'm in a doosid bad pickle,
bah JOve!''
What's the mattah. Fweddy7''