Here, then, I obtained the certain knowledge of a custom--similar to one which still lingers in Wales--which I had suspected to be prevalent, but the existence of which the inhabitants of the country, for some reason or other, I found slow to admit. The above ordinance is a renewal of a similar one made 4th March, 1778, from which it appears that the immorality of “Nattefrieri” (night-courting) has long prevailed in Norway.
Eight English miles below this the Maan finds ample room and verge enough to expatiate in the deep Tindsö, which is, perhaps, one of the most dangerous lakes in Norway, being subject to frightfully sudden storms; while the precipitous cliffs that bound it, for the most part only afford foothold to a fly, or such like climbers. There is an old tale about this lake, illustrative of the dangers to which a clergyman is subject in the discharge of his duties. Many years ago, the parson of the parish had to cross over the lake to do duty in the “annex church” at Hovind. The weather was threatening; but his flock awaited him, and so he started, commending himself to God and his good angels. Long before he approached his destination, the wind had so increased in violence that the boatmen were overpowered, and the boat was dashed to pieces against the adamantine walls of the Haukanes Fjeld. All on board were lost but the priest, who was carried by the billows into a small cleft in the rock, far above the usual high-water mark. For three days he sat wedged in this hole, from whence there was no exit. On the fourth day, the winds and waves abated; and some boatmen, who were rowing by, as good fortune would have it, heard the faint cry for assistance which the captive gave, as he saw them from his “coin of vantage.” And so he was rescued from his terrible predicament; and the notch in the wall still goes by the name of the Prestehul, “Priest’s-hole.”
Bishop Selwyn, with his well-found yacht, sailing among the deep bays of New Zealand, confirming and stablishing the Maoris in the Christian faith, will have to wait a long time before he can meet with such an adventure as the Tindsö priest. But then you’ll say, in winter time it is all right, and the parson can dash along over the ice, defying the dangers of the deep and the bristling rocks. Not so, however; there are not unfrequently weak places in the ice, which look as strong as the rest, but which let in the unfortunate traveller. Not long ago, five men and a horse were thus engulphed. So in the Heimskringla Saga, King Harold and his retinue perish by falling through the ice on the Randsfjord, at a place where cattle-dung had caused it to thaw.