258 NATURAL HISTORY of NORWAY. 



mous for his great age, who, I prefume is ftill living at Copenha- ' 

 gen, kept his wedding at the houfe of his Excellency count Daune 

 Schiold about fifteen years ago, and then he v/as faid to be a hun- 

 dred and thirteen years old ; fo that he muft now be about a hun- 

 dred and thirty. His picture has had the honour a long time 

 fince to be put up in the Royal Mufeum. I cannot fay how far 

 that ancient pair are advanced in their years of which Mr. Wie- 

 land, quoted above, gives an account in p. 88. ad ann. 1727. 

 He fays, that the hufband, by name Hans Nanfen, was then ninety 

 feven, and his wife Maria Mads was a hundred and one years old ; 

 that they had then lived feventy years together in wedlock, at a 

 place called Steens-gaard, in the county of Jartfberg; that they 

 both enjoyed a very good ftate of health, and that the old man 

 could do the work of a labourer. In the year 1735, Nans Gaf- 

 mand, a labourer at Eegelands iron-works, died, being a hundred 

 and nineteen years old; at a hundred and two he married a fecond 

 wife, and was fo vigorous that he could walk from Eegeland to 

 the town of Dramen, which is about twenty Norway, or a hun- 

 dred and twenty Englifh miles. Wieland Relat. ad hu. ann. p. 7. 

 But there is ftill a more extraordinary inftance, an account of 

 which was delivered into the Royal Chancery in the year 1737, 

 An extraor- by his excellency de Witth, relating to a farmer of that province 

 dmaryma- ^ name KnU( j Knudfen, who, in the year 1705, and in the 

 eighty-firft of his age, married his deceafed wife's iifter, Ingri 

 Tallach's daughter, who was then thirty-nine years old, and were 

 both fentenced to death for the inceft committed. Upon this 

 they fled to the mountains and hid themfelves thirty years in the 

 woods, living like hermits, or rather like wild beafts upon what 

 they could catch by hunting, &c. They continued in this folitary 

 place till the woman was feventy years old, and the man a hundred 

 and eleven, and perhaps would have liv'd fome years longer, if the 

 minifter, whom he follicited to adminifter the holy facrament to 

 him, had not out of an indifcreet zeal, delivered this extraordinary 

 couple up to the hands of juftice, and put them into a prifon; 

 where the poor old man could not furvive the return of the king's 

 pardon, and the woman was obliged to do penance publicly in 

 the church. There is another moil remarkable account, and 

 perhaps, fo extraordinary an inftance is not to be met with in the 

 hiftory of any country, which I have from undoubted authority, 



and 



