Skobelef 
By Johan Bojer 
Translated from the Norwegian by Sigurd Bernhard Hustvedt 
Skobelef was a horse. 
This was in the days when the church bells of a Sunday morning 
sent out their summons, not over moribund highways and slumberous 
farmsteads, but over a parish waiting to be wakened into life by the 
sustained, solemn calling of those brazen tongues. The bells rang, 
rang, till the welkin rang again: 
Come, come, 
Old and young, 
Old and young, 
Rich man, poor man, 
Dalesman, fisherman, man from the hills, 
The forest, the fields. 
The strand, the fells. 
Mads from Fallin, and Anders from Berg, 
And Ola from Rein, 
And Mette from Naust, 
And Mari and Kari from Densta-lea, 
Lea, lea. 
Come, come. 
Come, come. 
Come . 
And so the roads grew black with people on their way to church, 
some walking and some riding. Old codgers wheezed past, stick in 
one hand, hat in the other, their coats under their arms, and their gray 
homespun trousers tucked into boots shiny with grease. The women 
trundled along carrying shawls and hymnbooks, and scenting the 
breeze with their perfumed handkerchiefs. Out on the lake, bordered 
with hills and farms, appeared row-boats driven over the water by 
sturdy oarsmen; from across the fjord swept the sail-boats; far up in 
the mountains it seemed as if the cattle even stopped grazing; and the 
boy who was watching them put the goat-horn to his lips and blew a 
stout blast down toward the folks at home. In those times Sunday was 
both holy day and holiday. 
Looking back after these many years, I have a vivid impression 
that all the world was sunshine and green forests on a day like that. 
The old church, brown with tar, standing amidst the crowns of mighty 
trees, seemed then to be more than just a building; there was something 
