The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-12-24
WAKEMAN'S WANDERINCS.
Peeps at Some Of the Most Interesting
Features Of Norway.

The Everlasting Pine of Norway.
'Eagle-Nest'' Farm Houses, Bond
ers' Homes and Ancient Churches
That Have Outlasted the Famous
Oak of England-The Quaint "Stave-
kirker" of Central Norway and Their
Weird and Picturesque Surround
ings-Bonders and Udalmen and
Their Village-Iike Homes.
(Copyright)
London, Dec. 7.-Some of the archi-
tectural features of Norway are exceed
ingly distinctive and curious, when it is
remembered that, contrasted with the age
of civilization in southern Europe, the
Morse are comparatively newcomers in
this Arctic land. There are what might
be termed three zones of buildings and
edifices, each giving an almost universally
different example of structural style and
material. In the remote and desolate
north all ancient structures are of stone.
In southern Norway Oaks and beech have
been utilized. In the central districts
everything has been, and is still, built of
pine.
If one has grown to believe that oak
represents all that is enduring and al
most everlasting among the nobler woods
serviceable to man, his ideas must be
modified when he has come to know the
ancient pine-built structures of Central
Norway. One gazes with admiration and
wonder when the strong, perfect beams
in the old Sir Walter Raleigh house at
Youghal, Ireland, in the ancient houses of
the gentry in other portions of that
country, and in almost awed admiration
upon the oaken stalls, screens and tim
bers of English cathedrals, and par
ticularly those in the very ancient parish
churches like those of Stoke Poges, where
Gray wrote his "Elegy," of Gras-
mere, and of Crossthwaite, at Kes-
wick These have stood staunch and
true for two, three, four and perhaps
500 years. 1t is no uncommon
thing in Norway to find eagle-nest farm
buildings, city warehouses, bonders' or
large farmers store houses, as well as
homes, and curious old pier houses beside
the tiords, built wholly of pine, still we'll
preserved, which are quite as old; while
the strange, little old churches of Central
Norway, also entirely constructed of pine,
possess surprising number of their orig
inal timbers placed where they stand to-
day long before the venerable minister of
York or the mellowed cathedral of Sails
bury assumed anything like their present
forms.
In visiting an ''eagle-nest" farm above
the clouds beside the gloomy Naro Fiord
| noticed that the Oldest portion of the
farmers home-a long rambling structure
which seemed to have had built upon it
a new annex for each generation or cent
ury-was by far the stoutest, sturdiest
and best. questioned the farmer as to
its age. The family legendary mem
cries and finally the family records
agreed that it must have been built
sometime in the sixteenth century, or
perhaps $50 years ago. In the Thele-
marken district are many quaint old
wooden mills which found to be from
$50 to $50 years old. In bonder's home
| visited in the Trondhjem country the
low, wide liVing-room, around which had
been added other huger modern apart
ments and two-story high halls, was over
400 years old, and as perfect from decay
in any of its tim berS as the day it was
built; and when among the saeters of
Romsdal and Gudbramsdal nights. l
even found saeter huts, the habitations
of the saeter-girls who tend the mountain
herds in summer, which had been built
from $50 to $50 years ago.
/ soon began to notice that if the Oldest
portion of all these structures was not
the best, it was still, considering it's age,
incomparably the best preserved and an
other curious fact, that such portion
was invariably of different construction,
become apparent. The pine timbers in
these structural portions of greatest au-
tiquity were invariably placed on end in
the formation of walls and never laid to-
gether horizontally. This ancient method
of building, finally learned, is what the
Morse call "reisvark," that is, raised
work, or "stood-up work" and in this
peculiar method of building lies the
~. 4
famous wooden churches of Norway.
Every portion is constructed from Nor
wegian pine, so enduring beyond any his
torically known oak that it has withstood
the furies of the Norwegian storms, the
rigors of almost Arctic winters and again
the searching heat of almost tropical
summers, through periods ranging from
five TO 500 years.
The appearance of both these curious
old churches and the older class of mills
and storehouses would indicate almost an
Oriental origin. ] have been repeatedly
impressed with the quite startling SINH
larity. Coming suddenly over some lone
ly mountain path npon a cultivated
valley. where, as in the Thelemarken and
Hardanger districts, little innovation has
found its way, the various groups of farm
houses and outbuildings dark and wealth
er beaten, or here and there newly stained
with a kind of red tar much used upon
buildings in Norway, have strongly sug-
gested Oriental atfinitieS in color an ar
chitectural style. The most prominent
object in all these huddled structures is
always the farm "storhaus," which rises
story above story, each upper story pro-
jecting beyond the one beneath it, like a
huge pagoda turned bottomside upward
and stood upon it's roof, Continuous hang
ing balconies often extend entirely around
each story. Curious outside stairs as
cend to each. The quaintest of carving of
demons heads and serpents often orna-
ment every available portion of outer
space; and fantastic carved wooden
horns project from the corners of
the caves, or seem ready to blare from
the peaks of the roof In out-of-the-way
places water mills Of equally curious and
almost barbaric design will be found.
These structures are all very ancient;
but the fiattened arches of the Moors, the
peculiar natural and reversed forms of
the Chinese pagoda, and that profusion
of grotesque carvings characteristic, in
wood and stone, in all of the most ancient
hamlets of the Mediterranean countries,
reappear in this stern northern land with
surprising frequency and certainty Of
recognition
The ancient and tiny pine churches of
Norway are regarded by travellers as
among the most interesting curiosiNes of
the country. The best examples are those
OF Borgund, in Laerdal, the Hitterdal
church, that of LON, near Andvord, Ur-