NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 5 



well-tafted *. As for milk and butter, our cows afford but little, 

 according to their fize, about a gallon of milk a day at moft, but 

 this is very good ; yet that depends upon their grafing ; .and, as 

 I have before taken notice, we have as good butter as any where, 

 excepting in Marik Landeme. The peafant prepares for himfelf 

 milk, butter and cheefe, in different quantities, according to his 

 palate and fancy 5 and, particularly in fummer, his common drink 

 is whey. As the cows each give a little, they keep fo many the 

 more, and turn them out in the fummer fsveral miles diftant, to 

 places called fastcrs, on the high rocks ; where they keep a 

 woman-fervant in a hut to watch them. In the fpring, when 

 they are firft turn'd out, they make a large fire, which they call 

 Boe lid, in the fields, to which the cattle, from their farm- 

 yard, all run, particularly in the cold nights, and lay themfelves 

 round about it ; this ufes them to keep together, and to look 

 for the houfe when they are to be milked. The fmall fpot of 

 ground that thefe peafants have, is not fufficient for winter pro- 

 vender for their ftock of cattle ; to fupply which, in fummer 

 they cut off for them the boughs of feveral trees, by cart-loads, 

 and dry them tied up in bundles ; and, in the fpring, they 

 throw them the leaves and young branches, fprouts and boughs. 



In the Northland Manor, and fome towns in this diocele, 

 the Stranfiddere, which are thofe fettled on the coaft, who have stranfiddere, 

 large fifheries, for want of other food or provender, mix area j fo, j; of 

 cods heads, and other fifb.es bones together, which the cows live b y ^- 

 eat with a good appetite ; but the milk is not good, for nl farmers*"* 

 it has a very fifhy fmell f . It is not only fifh bones the cows £ a r f e any 7 

 here eat, but likewife the bones of their own fpecies, which they c[ty - 

 fwallow greedily, and gnaw them with their teeth as the dogs 

 would. This lingular circumftance was doubted, and the privy- 

 counfellor Van Often, who has been governor here at Bergen, 

 took with him a Norway cow to court, and gave proof of the 

 fa&, to the aftonifhment of the beholders. Nay, the eating of 

 bones is a cure for the cows of this country, when they have 

 broke their legs \ eating alfo the herb which Th. Bartholin calls 

 Gramen Offifragum Norv and in the defcription of which I have 

 before faid more on this fubjecl:. 



* The Englifh, who are fo partial to their own country, that they will hardly allow 

 any other to have the advantage in thefe refpects, when they come to Norway, mull 

 allow our veal is not inferior to theirs. 



f The Arabians at Balfora, and Indians in the fields of Gomron, alfo feed their 

 cows with heads of fifhes ; tho' I don't fay our Norway people have learnt it of them. 

 J. Bapt. Taverner takes notice in his Perfian Travels, cap. viii. p. 93, and cap. 

 xxiii. p. 287. Necemtas maxima magiftra is not feldom alfo Communis magiflra 

 gentium remotiffimarum. 



Part. II. C The 



