Chapter Thirteen:

"All vδrden δr God's Verk"

MY FIRST GIRLFRIEND was Kay Brelin. (She bore some resemblance to a young Shelley Winters...). Her father was Swedish – or "Swedish extraction," as I guess is said. And he was quite creative: across one whole wall of their kitchen, he had painted a mural of plants and flowers, topped by the arched quote above, in Swedish: "All the World is God's Work." (Which I think is from the Bible...).

At Helslinki, we again boarded the Baltic overnight "Polka Cruiser" and steamed west into the Baltic down the Finnish coast. Our destination now was Stockholm, and the next day or so, we entered the famous Stockholm Archipelago: thousands and thousands of rocky, pine-covered islands south of the Gulf of Finland. They are now home to thousands of residents as the Swedes build beautiful cabins and summer homes on them and boating and (in winter) ice skating are big activities. As the ship threaded its way through endless channels and passages among these islands, the Guides pointed out concrete remnants here and there of sub pens and anti-submarine blocks all dating from WWII when Soviet, Finnish and German subs contested these waters...

At dockside in Stockholm we were met by our Tourist bus and whisked off to a beautiful, modern hotel just at the edge of "Old Town," I think it is called. We had no sooner retired to our hotel room, than I heard a close buzzing outside our window and looked out to see a small sport plane flying dangerously low over and about and among the buildings! Zoom! – he shot right by our room at eye level and down the street then banked and zoomed over in another direction! Wow! Later we were to learn it was some errant pilot who had tripped out or something, and when the Air Force or whatever finally drove him to land somewhere, he was promptly arrested and taken into custody. Everyone, visitors and locals alike was abuzz –and it was said to have been a "first" in the city's centuries' old history...!

I don't remember a whole lot about Sweden, frankly. It was a beautiful place and the Swedes are different yet again from their Scandanavian brothers. They are self-centered, extremely prosperous, industrious, and much more numerous than the rest. On our trips around, we saw many large industrial plants and manufacturing centers. In vain I sought to be shown some "Viking ruins" or evidences – but none of our guides or the citizens we met seemed to know – or actually – much care about the Viking Era in their past. I thought this quite odd...

One trip I do recall us making was up to Uppsala (no pun intended!) – the great Swedish University, where no less than the great Linneaus himself once taught, and where he once established his famous "clock garden" which I remembered studying way back when in Biology 101... Our bus – and guide – pulled into a vacant parking lot on a hillside I recall, where some new housing development was a-building and the guide began to hold forth on same. Bored with this paen to progress, I got out of the bus and stretched and looked off over a blank expanse of land toward a beautiful, campus-like complex on a hill in the mid-distance.

"What is that?", I said to the guide.

"Oh, Sir! That is just the University of Uppsala is all..."

(Me) It is? (Then) "Will we be going there?"

Guide: "No"

Me: "Why not?"

Guide: "It is not on the schedule, Sir, and we do not have time!"

Me: "Schedule? The Great University at Uppsala? Linneaus? His "garden clock? What do you mean 'no time?' "

Several in the group had now paused and were listening to us.

"Sir! It is not to be permitted. Now everyone back on the bus!"

Later, several in the group came back and talked with me. "What is a "clock garden?," someone asked. So I told them about Linneaus, one of the greatest scientists who ever lived, father of the Linnean (Ha!) Latinized Binomial Taxonomic System for all the World's critters, and his celebrated circular garden of flowers planted so as to progressively open clockwise on the hour around a great circle.

Several agreed right off that we should have gone to see that! But Swedes you see, are a lot like Americans of the North and East and Metro Centers: they are all business and making money and little interest for the arts and sciences – at least as I saw them.

In the following days however, I did manage to treat myself to one spectacular display. Millie had gone shopping on her own: Stockholm has some firstrate fashion and department stores). Left to my own devices, I wandered on foot into Old Town and came in time to a huge old Musem of Science and History. I went in and was much gratified to see therein a large collection of Viking Age memorabilia and dioramas and objects and displays from achaeological excavation about the area.

I always recall one room: it contained the weapons and the remains (!) of a number of Middle Ages warriors who had been slain in some long ago battle either defending or attacking the city (I forget which), and had been excavated and reclaimed by archaeologists of the modern era. There were shirts and gauntlets of chain mail – often in bits and pieces where battle axes and swords had slashed them, and there were cases of those same battle axes and swords, as well. As I gazed into one case right at eye level, I saw someone or something gazing right back at me! I shook my head and could not believe what I saw: there hanging on the back wall of the case, was the conical iron helmt and cape of chain mail which some hapless warrior had been wearing when a fierce slash with a sword or axe had dispatched him forthwith – cleaving right down through the helmet wiht a great gash and slicing on into the chain mail.

The edges of the helmet were thus all sort of "curled in" from the entry of the cut – as you can visualize ...And! the mummified head of the late decesased was still stuck inside the helment remains, too! – staring out with hollow eye sockets through the onetime gash! Wow! What an exhibit and what a testimonial to the methods and technologies of Middle Ages warfare...

But the highlight of our visit to Sweden was – hands down! – the Vasa! This website here gives the whole story, so there is really no need for me to repeat it. But I remember vividly also the spectacular lineup of muzzleloading cannon (bronze – and now with ages of verdegris on them) outside the main entrance to the building. These tubes are supreme examples of state-of-the-art gunfounding for that period, and as blackpowder cannons happen to be one of my specific interests, you can imagine how elated I was to have this close-up examination of these ones.

And it was quite interesting how inside the building housing Vasa, the air is still held at a very high humidity as it will take many years for the timbers to stabilize, but unlike the original tourists some years ago, we did not have to wear raincoats and endure actual mist and condensing vapor on our tour through the ship. One of the things that tends tends to get ignored a bit in just looking at pictures of "Vasa" is the fantastic amount of intricate joinery and woodcarving all over it from stem to stern and every exposed timber and spar. It is just mind-blowing!

As we toured up forward, on the port side (back then, of course, larboard! LOL!), under the bow and just abaft the hawsehole, there was an almost lifesize, abject crouching figure of a man, very realistically carved, down trembling on all fours and clinging just barely to the ship's rail as I recall the details.

Whatever, I thought, would be the reason for such a carving so prominently displayed this way in the bow of a warship?

I asked our guide.

He said, "That is a Pole. One of the Emperor's first intended "attacks" with his new dreadnaught here, had it not turned turtle, was to be against the Polish Navy – and it was tradtion back then to carve abject and insulting figures on your war vessel as a further means to intimidate and cowe your would-be enemies!"

Much naval fighting took place at close quarters (the muzzleloading cannon were not yet that effective at longrange, and hand to hand fighting and boarding of each other's ships was commonplace. A scary, threatening mien added to it all... It put me in mind of the "Dragon" prow vessels of the Vikings and all, centuries before Vasa, and I would guess this is an old cultural tradtion up that way perhaps. I have never seen anything else on this but would not surprised...

My memory is not too clear at this juncture, but I think a day or so later, we then went by bus west from Stockholm and drove clear through overland to Oslo, Norway. I just do not recall a train – and I do recall vaguely, going through pine forests and mountains with many waterfalls here and there in the distance, and now and then the obligatory switchback road curves to go up and down the hills.

Oslo is no great shakes, being a modern, drab sort of city – like something out of our Midwest maybe... There is a Royal Palace and all and I believe our hotel was not too far from it. But of all the Scandanavians, the Norwegians were the friendliest. That is the Norwegians we met on our travels into their countryside – city folk tend to be sort of city folk the world around.

In Oslo, the star attraction in anyone's book has got to be the famousShip Museum. Again, please refer to the website, as this will fill you in without my need to repeat all details. The outstanding exhibit, of course, being the Viking Ship Burial, similar to that at Sutton Hoo in England... and the attendant "Burial of a Viking Queen" exhibit and the many objects recovered there.

And the final touch is, of course, Thor Heyerdahl's famous Kon-Tiki,which is on display at his museum Kon-Tiki just as she appeared when he rode the long Pacific swells in his attempt to derive the peopling of Polynesia out of Indians sailing westward from Peru...

One of the most interesting tours out of Oslo was up to Lillehammer – some distance north of the city. Here there is a "collection" of oldtime and period Norwegian farm and village houses, barns, and structures from Norway's early days. The actual site is called Maihaugen and I urge you just to click on the various photos to get some idea of what you see.

Another day we visited an old Stave Church. I cannot remember just where it was – I dont think it was the one at Maihaugen but rather somewhere else. The Stave Churches date back to the 1100's and earlier – the Viking Ages. They were built by the shipwrights and woodworkers who made the famed Dragon boats themselves. Christianity was just displacing Paganism throughout Norway at the time. This often led to strange juxtapositions of both Christian and Pagan art and decorative motifs in these all-wood, timber-and-beam churches. I remember, for instance, the one we visited, where the Guide pointed out the roof beams high above us in the gloom. One the end of each exposed beam, the woodcarvers had carved a face of one of the Twelve Apostles.

"But look now," the Guide said, "...at St. Andrew - the end of the last beam there – in under the roof ... What do you see?"

We all craned and stared. And there high above us was a somber-faced St Andrew indeed, but what was this?: He wore a black patch slipped down over one eye!!!!

The Guide laughed and explained, "You see," he said, "that is really Wodin – not St. Andrew. Wodin of course, was the Viking Pagan God, whose pet falcon once pecked out his eye, according to the Sagas. (This was sort of worked into the movie, "The Vikings" some years back you may recall – where Kirk Douglas played a warrior chieftain who loses his eye the same way...). "The early monks had to sort of go easy on the volatile Norsemen," he said, "...and not push them too hard. Thus, you see here and there throughout all - the art and decorations, occasional symbols, signs and evidences of the carvers' former beliefs..."

And one or two nights we were put up out in the country with "families" – usually old widows or spinsters – and stayed right in their guest rooms in their native homes. (This all, of course, arranged by the Tour Company). Once we stayed with an old lady and her cat in a little cottage just back from the edge of a great fjord down below. It was a gorgeous place. I remember the cat here, also, sitting on a wall again – this time a Norwgian "farmer" cat, and he bore a striking resemblance to the Communist cat we have met earlier in Leningrad, and even to distant cats way back home...

We had a very small bedroom – with two beds. But I never could get over the standard way these country Norse make up the beds each day: it is what in college days, used to be called a "short sheet": what looks like two sheets – an upper and lower, with folded-back counterpane and all, is really just one sheet which goes down beneath the blanket just half way, and is then folded back up and into a counterpane. If you don't remember this, you are apt to jump in bed, stick your legs down and BAM! – you are in luck if you do not jam your legs right through the sheet altogether!

Why this should be thought to be anything but a "prank" sure beats me – but that's the way they do it in rural Norway!

The bathroom was "odd", too. It had modern fixtures and all quite nice, but the shower was the entire bathroom itself! That is, there was a drain in the middle of the bathroom floor, which sloped ever so slightly downward from all sides. In the ceiling was a showerhead, and on the wall were the hot and cold valve handles. To take a shower, you had to clear out any clothes, towels, toiletries or whatever that you did not want to get wet, for when you turned on the shower, it sprayed all over everything: basin, toilet, a tub, cabinets, down the walls – everywhere! LOL! Some washdown! Sheesh!

One day we went inland way up above the fjord country into the ice- and snow-covered mountains. It was beautiful mountain country all right – and reminded me somewhat of my native Colorado far away. Once we made a rest-stop and everyone got off the bus to stretch and use the nearby "facilities." Out of a little cottage across the road came an old woman and an old man with a cane. They hobbled over to the bus (they only see one or two such maybe a week way back up here) and greeted us in Norwegian and all. And the little old lady had fresh-baked cookies which she insisted on giving to all the passengers! Gratis! Later, the bus driver told us that she always does this – and has for years and years. Norwegians are mostly fisherman and farmers and not the "city slicker" type you get down in Denmark or neighboring Sweden. The Norskis are much nicer people to deal with, in my book.

On our return we stopped in yet another village lower down. Way up behind this village on a cliffside, I could make out a huge painting of the Norwegian national flag. I asked someone – the guide I suppose – about it.

"That is very interesting you notice that, " he said. "For there is quite a tale goes with it."

It seems that back during the German Occupation in WWII, the villagers all got together one night in a sort of show of defiance, and moving quietly, a band of them – men, women, and children – sneaked out of the village with paint, paintbrushes and a number of torches to light their way. They climbed up this mountain face in the dark, and then the men worked their way out over the cliff face in the dark with ropes – and they painted this huye Norwegian flag there!

Then they sneaked back down and everyone went to bed.

When the dawn broke, and the German "Gauleiter" saw what had happened, he was fit to be tied! After berating the local Mayor and threatening all manner of dire consequences, he ordered some of his men to ascend the mountain and obliterate the flag. But try as they might, the German soldiers assigned to the task could not do it: they were completely untrained for moving around such heights and just lacked the rock-climbing and other skills.

Then, so the story goes, the Gauleiter pulled some strings and called High Command and a few days later a crack German Alpine outfit showed up to remove the flag once and for all – and restore the German National Honor. (You can see what is coming, I am sure)...

But they had no more luck than the poor German regulars who had been assigned the job the first day! Try as they might, and with yodeling and hallooing and running up and down the mountain, they just could not get lowered down right into position to wipe out the flag.

And so it remained there throughout the Occupation – and its traces were still visible when we were there! LOL!

Sieg Heil! (Said to be true story, Gang...)

The fjiords of course, are just breath-taking and we saw them both from up on the heights where giant waterfalls spil lover the cliff faces and fall thousands of feet to the sea below – and also from water-level itself where we toured a fjord one day in a ferry boat. A ferry boat which, by the way, broke down in mid-fjord, and had to send for another ferry to take us all back. To cross over from one boat to the other took a bit of doing: we had to negotiate a narrow jury-rigged gangplank between the two ships with no rails to hand and a slight chop on the water... But we all made it, though one or two old ladies were distincltly unhappy about the whole thing. Whenever I think of this, I also think of that same Viking movie – remember? – where Kirk Douglas and his Vikings are returning up the fjiord and to celebrate, Douglas jumps over the ship's side and begins to run up and down the length of the ship on the oars... Been there, done that! LOL!

And since it was while touring the upcountry high above the fjiords that I at long last found my Viking ruins, this may be a good uncture to introduce same here. Actually, "same" has long since been "introduced" elsewhere here - namely in Book Four, Chapter One of these portentious "Chronicles" - but since the tale there related applies specifically at this point of our trip, I shall post the link once again for the interest of any who care to follow: More Viking Ladies....

And no account of a trip to Norway is complete without a nod to the Bridge Trolls! - immortalized perhaps in the classic Norwegian tale here of the "Billy Goats Gruff". You wanna have an argument with an adult, educated Norski: just express doubt that there are such things as trolls! Wow! Streams and waterfalls and cross-crossing roads make this a land of innumerable bridges, you see. And since time immemorial, Norwegians have believed that under each bridge (even the culverts of modern times! Sheesh!)dwells the resident troll - and it is best not to offend same. Troll-doll-mania rules the Gift Shops and all over the world people now bring back or collect Norwegian troll dolls...

Well, all good things and all good trips alike must come to an end sometime. We departed from the Oslo Airport for a direct flight to Kennedy as best I recall. I think we took the usual North Atlantic flyway which has homed-in ever since WWII or maybe before on Gander in Newfoundland and then angled off south from there to the Big Apple. It was a daylight flight and I had a window seat. I remember once looking out the window and it was a cobalt, featureless blue streching away to the North Pole as far as I could see. I chanced to look down through the window though right at the very bottom edge before the plexiglas distorts the view, and what did I behold but the entire English Isles passing right below us – and the topography and outline – sure nuff! – was exactly like that in the geography books! Dang!

Later, I amused myself with counting icebergs drifting in the ocean so far beneath us. Soon I dozed,and then I slept all the way to Kennedy.