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ity quite different from the light and playful Danish temperament. 
Holberg on his father’s side descended from a peasant family in the 
vicinity of Trondhjem, on his mother’s from a large and highly re¬ 
spected family which numbered many clergymen among its members. 
He was not especially Norwegian in the usual sense, but neither was he 
Danish. His ancestry was exactly of a kind to make him a genuine 
child of the community in which he grew up—the city of Bergen. 
The temperament of the Bergen people was very different from 
that of the Norwegian nation as a whole, and Holberg has himself 
given us a description of it, which is at the same time a key to his own 
nature. “Inasmuch as the people of Bergen,” he says, “are a conglom¬ 
eration of all races, they differ very much in manner of speech, customs, 
and habits from other Norwegians.” 
Bergen was then, as it remained until very recent times—in fact, 
until fifteen years ago, when the new Bergen railroad connected it with 
the rest of the country—isolated on a peninsula toward the western 
sea. It was easier to seek intercourse with people across the sea than 
with those on the other side of the Norwegian mountains. The country 
that lay nearest was the British Isles, and from the very foundations 
of the city, in 1070, we hear of relations with England. King Olaf 
Ivyrre granted the British freedom to trade in Bergen, where they had 
their own place assigned to them (for their trading-booths) by the in- 
The German Quay in Bergen, a Memento of Hanseatic Times 
