valanche, as, after a drifting storm, a mass of snow, too heavy to
keep its place, slides and tumbles from the mountain peak. There is
also, now and then, a loud crack of the ice in the nearest glacier; and,
as many declare, there is a crackling to be heard by those who listen
when the northern lights are shooting and blazing across the sky. Nor
is this all. Wherever there is a nook between the rocks on the shore,
where a man may build a house, and clear a field or two;--wherever there
is a platform beside the cataract where the sawyer may plant his mill,
and make a path from it to join some great road, there is a human
habitation, and the sounds that belong to it. Thence, in winter nights,
come music and laughter, and the tread of dancers, and the hum of many
voices. The Norwegians are a social and hospitable people; and they
hold their gay meetings, in defiance of their arctic climate, through
every season of the year.

On a January night, a hundred years ago, there was great merriment in
the house of a farmer who had fixed his abode within the arctic circle,
in Nordland, not far from the foot of Sulitelma, the highest mountain in
Norway. This dwelling, with its few fields about it, was in a recess
between the rocks, on the shore of the fiord, about five miles from
Saltdalen, and two miles from the junction of the Salten's Elv (river)
with the fiord. It was but little that Erlingsen's fields would
produce, though they were sheltered from the coldest winds, and the
summer sunshine was reflected from the rocks, so as to make this little
farm much more productive than any near which were in a more exposed
situation. A patch of rye was grown, and some beans and oats; and there
was a strip of pasture, and a garden in which might be seen turnips,
radishes, potatoes, lettuce and herbs, and even some fruits,--a few
raspberries, and a great many cherries. There were three or four horses
on the farm, five cows, and a small flock of goats. In summer, the
cattle and flock were driven up the mountain, to feed on the pastures
there; and during the seven months of winter, they were housed and fed
on the hay grown at home, and that which was brought from the mountain,
and on a food which appears strange enough to us, but of which cows in
Norway are extremely fond:--fish-heads boiled into a thick soup with
horse-dung. At one extremity of the little beach of white sand which
extended before the farmer's door was his boat-hous