148 
THE AMERICAN-SCANDINAVIAN REVIEW 
above it, which could, at need, be closed by a shutter formed of a semi¬ 
transparent membrane stretched on a frame. A few of these aca estuei > 
in the style used alike by king and peasant more than a thousand yeais 
ago, have survived to the present time, and it was in them that Tide- 
mand found the wonderful suffused light which he utilized in his paint¬ 
ings, notably in the famous canvas Haugianerne, where the preacher 
stands in the light from above, while the room lies in semi-darkness. 
Next came the rogovnstue in which the fire-place was moved to 
a corner of the room. This would seem a step backward, for inasmuch 
as the chimney was yet unknown and the smoke still had to make its 
way out through the hole in the roof—accelerated sometimes by open¬ 
ing the door to let in a current of cold air—the rogovnstue must have 
been the most unpleasant of human habitations, far worse than the 
older aarestue. \ et there were two marks of progress. A small 
window was introduced, and a hood was put over the fire to collect the 
smoke and sparks. 
After that some bright inventor conceived the idea of piercing 
the hood over the fire to let the smoke out; a chimney was built, and 
therewith the modern fire-place was evolved, in the shape that we have 
it yet when we turn from steam-pipes to satisfy our primitive craving 
to see the fire that warms us. The fire-place had again become the most 
prominent object in the room, and, shaped as it often was on very fine 
lines, it was decorative 
whether glowing with a 
fire on the hearth or filled 
in summer with freshly- 
cut birch boughs. The 
house now began to 
assume a more modern 
aspect. The windows 
were made larger, and the 
furnishings were more 
elaborate. The one-room 
house, of course, persisted 
as long as the fire-place 
was the only means of 
heating, but we begin to 
see sporadic attempts to 
secure privacy. 
These attempts re¬ 
sulted in an interesting 
type of house known as 
the ramloftstue, from its 
The Fire-Place in the Old “Aarestue” at Bjornstad embryo loft. It WaS the 
Without a Fire Is Like a Socket with the Eye . ..mo 
PuT 0uT maiden s bower that was 
