It is usual when the gröd is eaten for each person to have two small bowls, one containing milk and the other the gröd, and then a spoonful of gröd is taken and dipped in the milk and so eaten. Our party afterwards dispensed with two bowls, the gröd and milk being put into one bowl, which saved trouble, with the same result.
The wooden bowl, and the wooden spoon, and the gröd-stick, which is made of a small fir sapling taken up by the roots and peeled, and the roots and stump cut to the length required, we purchased for twelve skillings next morning from the woman of the Ytterdals Sœter, and they are represented in the following engraving.
Some of the gröd we reserved for breakfast, and it is considered all the better after it has been kept for a short time.
Noah informed us at tea that he should let into the pobengree (gip., cider) when he reached England, and have a good soak. Gently, Noah, or there will be none left for anyone else.
The women of the sœter were all lightly dressed, a chemise and a petticoat being nearly all they had on; They keep about twenty cows, and make from thirty to forty cheeses in the summer season, which sell for four marks each. We counted forty-five goats near the sœter. The woman’s husband was engaged at the harvest in the lower valley.
[Illustration: GRÖD-STICK AND BOWL, LEIRDALEN.]
It was very dark as we went to the sœter, after our evening meal was concluded. We found three other women there. The room was scrupulously clean. It is certainly the most comfortable, and cleanly sœter, we met with during our wanderings; they had a good bedstead, convenient fire-place, and a very ingenious folding table. It was a curious scene, as we played our music by the fire-light and watched their interested countenances. The women were very fair. All mountain races are fond of music. It would seem as if the quickened instincts of the people, whose lot is cast so much in mountain scenes, are attuned to harmony with nature. The women seemed much pleased. The room was dreadfully hot and we had the door propped open, which was the cause of occasional contests with a tame goat, who seemed determined to come in. At last we were glad to escape the heat and went out into a dark, windy, rainy night. It poured with rain as we got to our tents, yet we did not envy Ole Rödsheim his night’s rest in the hot room of the sœter; but hot and cold seemed all the same to Ole; Then the rain came down so heavily it began to come into our tent, and a trench being now dug round it we soon fell asleep.