34 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



antiquarian and poet. He possesses a valuable library in 

 Norse antiquities and will write a Saga while you wait. He 

 must have burned a good deal of midnight oil over the 

 splendid saga he wrote about our St Ebba which was rich 

 with historical reference to the amenities between Scots and 

 the Norwegians in ancient days. 



The slowest part of the outfitting for our whaler was, for 

 me, the customary expressions of hospitality. I hope my 

 Norwegian friends will understand and forgive my criticism. 

 It is the result of my being merely British, with only a limited 

 knowledge of Norse and a comparatively feeble appetite. A 

 quiet little dinner given to us as a visitor and representative 

 of our Whaling Company would begin at three P.M. and wind 

 up at ten eating most of the time plus aquavit and the 

 drink of my native land, which seems to be almost as popular 

 in Norway as it is in England. 



Think of it five or six hours' smiling at a stretch, pre- 

 tending to understand something of the funny stories in 

 Norsk and joining in the hearty laughter ! I could have 

 wept with weariness. They are to be envied, these Norse, 

 with then" jolly heartiness, the way they can shake their sides 

 with laughter over a funny story. The world is still young 

 for them. I remember that our fathers laughed and told 

 long stories like these people. 



One chestnut I added as new to their repertoire. I believe 

 it has spread north as far as Tromso, about the man with a 

 new motor who, when asked about its horse-power, drawled 

 in reply it was said to be twenty horse-power, but he thought 

 eighteen of the beggars were dead ! And as to speed, it had 

 three slow damned slow and stop ! It seemed to trans- 

 late all right saghte for-dumna-saghte, and, Stop I fetched 

 the audience every time. At least it did so when Henriksen 

 told the story, but he is a born raconteur, and infuses the 

 yarn with so much of his own humour and jollity that every- 

 one, especially the womenfolk, who are very attentive to him, 

 laugh till they weep. 



A perfect wonder to me is the way in which women here can 

 prepare meals and entertain a lot of people single-handed, or 

 with, say, the help of one maid, at a couple of hours' notice ; 



