NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 



they fpread butter as on bread ; befides which, they regale them- 

 felves with Draule, Myffebriim, Gummegrced, and other white 



meffes. 



How well the Norway grafs agrees with the fheep, appears 

 from Mr. Berndfen's book of the fruitfulnefs of Denmark and 

 Norway, where he fays, that it is no uncommon thing for twenty- 

 four or thirty-two pounds of fuet to be found in one ram ; and 

 it is a finking inftance of the fucculency and increafe God has been 

 pleafed to beftow on the Norway grafs, that a very fmall valley, 

 or dale, fuffices for the fupport of feveral families, and their cattle; 

 Davigen in Nordfiord, for inftance, is not above half a Norway 

 mile in circumference, yet as Mr. George Krog the minifter there 

 affirmed to me, it feeds very near two hundred people, and 

 twelve hundred cattle of different kinds. 



It is however to be obferved, that in the fpring the cattle do 

 not graze in the vallies and on the fkirts of the mountains after 

 Whitfuntide ; for when the feed time is over, and the people can 

 be fpared, they are driven on the fides of the mountains to Sa&ers, 

 or to Stols, as the country phrafe is, which at that feafon afford 

 them fumcient fodder, the mow being no fooner melted than the 

 grafs appears, at leaft a quarter of an ell high, grown under the 

 maffes of fnow, from which it derived both warmth and moifture. 

 When the diftance is within a'Norway mile, the milk is brought 

 home twice a day ; but if the diftance be two or three miles 

 to thofe paftures, they keep Saeterboe or huts on the moun- 

 tains, where a maid-fervant, diflinguifhed by the name of Buedye, 

 conflantly lives, for the fecurity of the cattle againft wolves, bears, 

 lynxes, and other wild beafts, who generally fly from fuch a weak 

 keeper. She is at the fame time employed in making butter and 

 cheefe, with which fhe goes down to the houfe once or twice a 

 week. Regulations againft difputes and quarrels with neighbours 

 or borderers, concerning this general right of common on the 

 mountains, are laid down in the Norway Statute-book f . 



f According to Dr. Shaw, both the milk and flefh of the eailern cattle, fed on 

 the mountains are the bell •, befides, that thus the whole country is turned to ufe, 

 another conliderable benefit is, that the milk of cattle thus fed is much fatter and 

 fweeter, as the fiefh. is likewife more palatable and nutritive. Travels to the Levant, 

 Tom. II. chap. iii. p. 62. 



1 The 



