42 N orway and the Norwegians 



where they themselves live as in a sort of encamp- 

 ment. It is the temporary character of the life led 

 in the sceters, combined with the fact that the months 

 passed there are all summer months, which has kept 

 the houses built in them more primitive in form than 

 the houses in the valley. 



But, as I have said, in the interior likewise, in parts 

 of Norway where wood is most plentiful, and where 

 there has been consequently less temptation to depart 

 from the ancient fashion, there may be found still more 

 striking examples of the early method of building. In 

 the Grudbrandsdal, which many Norwegian travellers 

 pass down on the route from Christiania to the Eoms- 

 dal, there are some good examples of this multiplica- 

 tion of small houses in place of a multiplication of rooms. 

 One example given by Eilert Sundt, who has devoted a 

 work to the subject of the peasants' houses in Norway, 

 shows as many as thirty -three of these separate buildings. 



jMany houses in Norway have attached to them a 

 sort of smoke-house or wash-house. It is called 

 Ildhus or Roghus ; or, at any rate, these used to be the 

 names of it. These houses are not very common now- 

 a-days in the more civilised parts of Norw^ay. There 

 used to be one at Vossevangen. The house is simply 

 a square building, with a fire in the centre of it, on an 

 open stone hearth. There is no chimney, but a hole 

 (Ijore) in the roof through whicli the smoke may 

 escape. When it is shut, the apartment becomes full 

 of smoke, and these smoke-houses are used for smoking 

 the meat which the Norwegians preserve dried for a 

 long period. The only other opening to the room 

 besides the Ijorc is the door. 



