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236 THROUGH NORWAY WITII A KNAPSACK.
weeks old—the cows being all at the saeters above—and
some very dry raw ham and fladbröd. This very stale
milk, which I have heard of on the way as one of the
Norwegian beverages, but have not tasted before, is
rather remarkable: it has a tart saline taste, more like
some kinds of ale than anything of milk. I suspect
that it is fermented and slightly intoxicating; that by
means of the acid and casein, the sugar of milk has
been converted into grape sugar, and has then
fermented : it is evidently used as a substitute for
beer. On account of its excessive tartness,
amounting to acrid pungency, I was unable to take
sufficient to test its stimulating properties. My bed
was made specially for me of a couple of planks
across a bench, a bag of straw upon these, a
sheepskin over all, and a broken window above my head
for ventilation.
The family, which consisted of the master and six
or seven housemen and women, supped altogether on
cement, spooned, as before described, out of a common
bowl. The bowl stood oil a rude table or block, and
they stood around it, dipping by turns scrupulously spoon
and spoon about. It was dark, and the large timbered
room was lighted only by a blazing band of resinous
pine-bark, twisted together into a long stick or scroll,
which was held at arm’s length overhead by an aged
man with long white beard and silver hair, who stood
so still and looked so withered that he seemed like a
frozen mummy, fitted with gray glass eyes and glued
to the ground as a permanent candlestick. He was
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