o -y 



Norivay and the Norzvegians 



it, make it as easy for one of two rival fleets to avoid an 

 engagement — or, on the other hand, to obtain a surprise 

 — as the varied character of the interior makes it easy 

 for two rival armies to do so. 



Here, then, is the true history of Norway told in a 

 moment. A land whose sons have done great things 

 abroad, and formed a heroic character at home. But 

 a country likewise, it must be owned, which has 

 had scarcely any political history of importance. No 

 other country, save Ireland, has had such a turbulent 

 domestic history as Norway has had, or been more 

 constantly the threatre for the struggles of rival 

 factions. Thanks to the unrivalled beauty of the 

 northern saga literature (an Icelandic literature rather 

 than a Norse), some of the makers of Norse history, 

 Hakon the Good, Olaf Tryggvason, Olaf the Saint, 

 stand out in a heroic guise before us. But we must 

 not make the mistake of thinking that this glamour 

 which literature has cast over the history of Norway 

 makes that country great, as in political matters we 

 estimate greatness. It is great in beauty, but not 

 politically important; as the land of Norway is to-day. 

 For the very causes, which have kept the country so 

 long divided, and have left it so little opportunity for 

 great national movements for a wide culture or for the 

 creation of great monuments, such, for example, as the 

 architecture witli which the Middle Ages covered other 

 European countries, is precisely the cause of the ex- 

 ceeding attraction of the country to the traveller of 

 to-day, who is tired of seeing on every side of him the 

 signs of a too solid material prosperity from which the 

 reign of nature seems quite shut out. 



