Norzvegian Houses 



43 



This smoke-house, according to Eilert Suiidt, gives 

 us the type of the earliest form of Norwegian house. 

 Only, of course, in days when the building was used as 

 a house it would be furnished with table, seat, and bed 

 (board, bench, and bed), as in the accompanying wood- 

 block (Fig. A) the Nos. 1, 2, 3 in this figure, as in the 

 other two, represent table, bench, and bed. The bench is 

 always a fixed part of the house ; it always runs round 

 some part of the walls, and this appears to have been 



Fig. A 



/ 



F'g- B Fig. C 



the case in the old Saga-days just as it is to-day in 

 many houses in Norway and Sweden. 



In a dwelling-house of a similar structure, consisting 

 of but one oblong room, we should see the fireplace (/) 

 upon the ground, or only raised above it by a low 

 hearth of stone. A kettle hangs over the fire, sup- 

 ported by a pulley from the roof ; there is no chimney, 

 and the smoke escapes from a hole in the roof. I have 

 seen such a thing in the sceter houses.^ The place 



1 The sceter house almost always has behind and united to it a small 

 dairy. Hut tlie living-house often consists of one room only. 



