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“And still the eye may faint resemblance trace

In the blue eye, tall form, proportion fair,

The limbs athletic, and the long light hair—

(Such was the mien, as Scald and Minstrel sings,

Of fair-haired Harold, first of Norway’s Kings);

But their high deeds to scale these crags confined,

Their only warfare is with wave and wind.”

—Scott.

Considering the latitude and its isolation in the north Atlantic, the climate of Faroe is comparatively mild. Fierce storms from the north beat down upon the islands and the heavy sea often surges for days together through these narrow channels making it impossible for boats to pass from shore to shore. Even in calm weather the tide currents often run at ten knots an hour so that it is necessary for the boatman to have an accurate knowledge of the currents in order to make progress. The high peaks are covered with snow frequently throughout the summer, but snow seldom lingers in the valleys over a fortnight even in the winter.

The temperature is low in summer and correspondingly high in winter. Heavy fogs cover the islands during the greater portion of the year and a perfectly clear day is rare. When the sun breaks through the mists, the effect of the shifting clouds, the areas of snow on the upper peaks and the myriads of waterfalls form a magnificent picture.

Seventeen of the islands are inhabited with a population of 16,000 people. The largest island is Strömö, Stream, which is twenty-seven miles long. The capital, Thorshaven, Harbor-of-Thor, with a population of 8,000 people, is located on the east coast of Strömö. These islands belong to Denmark and have two representatives in the Danish Parliament. All local affairs are conducted in the Lagthing, Law-Assembly, at Thorshaven. The people are exempt from conscription and of nearly all customs, duties and taxes. The members of the Lagthing are chosen by ballot for a term of three years. The President is appointed by the Danish King for life. The local taxes are collected by native sheriffs, who canvass their districts four times each year. The sheriffs also have charge of the division and distribution of the captured whales. Lawyers are resident at Thorshaven and at no other place in the islands. Criminal and civil cases are tried before a judge and without a jury. All petty cases come before the local sheriff. The head man of each village enforces the sanitary regulations and other local rules. There are no policemen in the islands and crime, unless committed by foreign sailors, usually Scotch fishermen, is extremely rare. The Faroese are peaceable and sensitive of any scandal if it passes beyond the borders of their own village. It is the duty of every man to see to it that the law is maintained, and they keep a careful watch of all foreigners when on shore.

There is only one jail in the islands and a Faroeman smilingly declared to me that it was for the sole benefit of the Shetland fishermen. The law permits a prisoner to diet only on bread and water. A man serving a sentence spends three days in jail and then enjoys three days of freedom alternately until the entire term of the confinement is completed. There is no danger of his making an escape.

Cutting up Whale Meat at Thorshavn.

Heads of the Bottle Nose Whale.

In Thorshaven and in the larger villages there are schools. There is also a Teacher’s College in the capital city. The people have local option in educational matters and many prefer to teach their children at home. If it is voted to have a school in a given village, then all the children must attend it, the parents must supply a teacher and provide sufficient pasturage for one cow for the use of the teacher, but the government pays the meager salary.

The results of their home education are excellent; the children study for the sake of knowledge. The most simple ones have a good knowledge of history and geography. The law requires that the church services, the village schools and the proceedings of the Lagthing be conducted in Danish. On all other occasions the Faroeman uses his own language. They use the Danish only upon compulsion. There is a strong anti-Danish feeling which is kept alive by the supercilious behavior and affected superiority of the resident Danes, who, however, in politeness, integrity and hospitality are inferior to the Faroese. The Danes in Faroe are not to be confounded by the reader with the Danes resident in Denmark.

The people are stoutly built, with fair complexions, usually handsome, mostly short in stature, broad shouldered and rugged, descendants of the ancient Norse Vikings who settled in Faroe prior to the settlement of Iceland. They have kept the race pure. If asked his nationality, the Faroeman proudly replies—“I am a Faroeman.”

The men have a national costume, which is shown in the frontispiece of this volume. This suit I purchased of Peter Arge in Thorshaven. I asked him where I could obtain one of these suits and he took me to the little bed room at the top of his house and asked me to try on his best suit. I did it and found that it fitted closely, and so it was in style in Thorshaven. He willingly sold it saying that he could make another during the winter when there was no work. A brief description of this costume is not out of place at this point. It consists of knickerbockers, slashed at the knee and secured with four silver buttons and a broad, double-hinged silver buckle. The waistcoat is scarlet, fastened with six silver buttons. A continuous spray of forget-me-nots, daintily worked with colored silk, extends down each edge of the waistcoat and across the two diminutive pockets. A tightly fitting jersey of homespun, with twenty-four silver buttons, twelve on a side, is put over the waistcoat and over this, in cold weather, is worn a short heavy jacket fastened with silver buttons of large size. This is used much as we use an overcoat. The cap is of closely woven material in fine stripes of red and blue; it has no visor, is cylindrical in shape and gathered at the top in the form of a rosette, which is pulled down on the right hand side and fastened at the edge of the cap. Thick, homespun stockings of soft wool and sheepskin slippers—or sometimes a Danish shoe with silver buckles—fastened around the ankles with red or white cord complete the costume. No—the Faroeman is not fully “dressed” without his beautifully inlaid knife in a highly ornamented sheath fastened to his belt with a twisted cord. This knife, as well as scores of similar knives from Faroe, was made by Mr. Arge, who is expert at inlaying shell, silver and wood. The suit was made in his own family and his daughter embroidered the waistcoat. The Faroese women, like the Icelandic men, have no national costume.

The people are very seclusive. Many families claim descent from the ancient Kings of Norway and Scotland, and will marry only among themselves. They are so clannish that the people on one island rarely marry with those of another island. To illustrate—A woman born on Strömö married a man from Nalsö. The result was that she was boycotted by all the Nalsö people. Contrary to the dogma of the medical fraternity this inbreeding has not produced extremely abnormal offspring. Mental, moral and physical degeneration has not resulted from this long series of close inbreeding.

The language of the Faroese must be classed as a dialect. Although having the same origin as the Icelandic tongue, it differs strongly in pronunciation. In the Viking days the same speech was employed in Norway, Faroe and in Iceland. Icelandic has remained nearly pure but Faroe, being in close contact with Shetland, Orkney and with the numerous fishermen, its language has been much adulterated. Faroe has its Sagas as well as Iceland, Norway and Orkney, but there were no Sagamen or historians as in Iceland. The modern Faroese dialect has been written less than eighty years. The ballads, folklore and traditions are now being reduced to writing by the scholars and many French, English, Danish and Icelandic works have been translated.

The Faroese have escaped the demoralizing influences of the continent and for centuries have lived simply and quietly along the lines of their ancient customs. Their hospitality is generous, their courtesy to strangers extensive, their inborn honesty is perfect. The people, when not engaged in fish curing or in whale dissection, are clean and their homes are models of tidiness. Their centuries of isolation and peaceful living have eradicated every trace of the cruelty, piracy and murderous tendencies of their Viking progenitors. They have some vices—what nation has none? They lack originality, their ambition and energy is at a low ebb, they take life as a matter of fact and do not worry. They surpass all other people in their love of gossip and in sarcasm. There is a lack of gaiety and a tendency towards melancholy. If climate has any effect upon the spirits of a race, surely the heavy fogs, that hang over these islands for weeks and saturate everything with chilling moisture, are responsible for the melancholy. The long, dark winters, the continuous roar of ocean through these ancient fiords is also responsible for the mental cast of the race. But, they have a peculiar humor and are fond of joking each other. This is a trait inherited from their Viking ancestors and this trait is strong in Iceland. The people dislike very much to be laughed at or to pose as objects of curiosity before the gaze of the foreigner. It was with the greatest difficulty that I obtained my series of one hundred photographs of these people and their homes.

Conservatism is their prevailing characteristic. Some European method or idea may be better than their own, but they cling to their ancient customs as their bird catchers to the cliffs. They build their houses as did their grandfathers because their grandfathers constructed their dwellings after the designs of more remote generations. Birch bark is still imported from Norway to cover the drift-wood rafters and over this is placed a layer of turf where the grass grows throughout the year and the flowers bloom in profusion in the long summer. The ancient wooden weighing beam, the quaint antique iron lamp for train oil, the implements of the forge, the fishing tackle, the boats and their rigging—all are constructed according to ancestral specifications. Modern ideas are scoffed at, the old ways are the best. The Faroese are happy in their own seclusion and they live in the shadowy paths between the superstitions of ancient Scandinavia and the vigorous, pulsing life of western civilization. They care little for the outside world and its problems. A local newspaper, in spite of the submarine cable, gives only a fourth of a column to news of the outside world; the remainder is filled with gossip which every one knew before the sheet issued from the press.

The streets of Thorshaven are narrow, uneven, crooked and crowded. The houses are built mostly of wood on high stone foundations, the walls are frequently coated with tar and in the summer time festoons of fish are suspended from the gables to dry. Within the home everything is neat and clean, the Norway spruce is sanded, colored by time and untarnished with paint and has become a beautiful chestnut brown.

The people retain some of their ancient superstitions and believe that the result of a day’s fishing, or success in bird-netting, will depend upon some chance of minor importance. The trolls, underground people of diminutive stature, elves and fairies live largely in the imagination and the folk stories relative to these phantoms have a strong influence upon the children. Where the cliffs rise directly out of the sea, there are many isolated columns, like the “Old Man of Hoy” in Orkney, which have been left standing by erosion of the waves. The water surges around them and they stand erect in the mists, solitary and unpressed by human foot. The Faroese call them the “Fingers of the Norns” and the fishermen hold them in deep superstition. This northern superstition, the control of mortals by unseen powers, has been made use of by Sir Walter Scott in that mysterious character in the Pirate, Norna of the Fitful Head.

The people are chiefly occupied in fishing, sheep raising and bird catching. The codfish abound in these cool northern waters, especially on the Faroe Bank. They not only secure enough of them for their own consumption but export large quantities to the Catholic countries of the Mediterranean. As in Labrador and in Iceland, so in Faroe, the fishing is done by the men, while the splitting, cleaning, curing and packing is the work of the women.

The one time in the year when the Faroese are moved from the even tenor of their way is during the whale drive. This is a yearly affair that takes place during the latter part of July or early in August. It is the one great sport of the country and upon its success depends the condition of the larder during the long winter. This is the bottle-nose whale, Hyperoodon rostratum, a small species from fifteen to twenty-two feet in length. They frequent the north Atlantic in large schools. The Faroese are constantly on the look out for them and when the whales enter the channels the summons by signals and telephone is rapidly passed from island to island. In an incredibly short time the school is nearly surrounded by the boats of the excited fishermen with harpoons and spears. Because of the great shouting and the closing together of the boats, the whales become frightened and frantically rush to the shore where most of them are stranded, few ever escape. From the boats, from the shore, and in the water, the slender harpoon is hurled with deadly aim. The whale once struck is securely anchored and the harpooner hastens to secure another victim. When the slaughter is over, the heads are cut off and numbered, the bodies cut up and distributed under the direction of the sheriffs and an equitable distribution of the flesh and fat is made according to law. Not only do the people actually present at the whale slaughter receive their portion but all the people in the district receive their just share. The flesh of these whales is similar to dark colored coarse grained beef, but when nicely broiled is a palatable and nutritious dish. The body is enveloped with two to six inches of fat, which has the consistency of hard fat pork. This is salted and used by the people as we use salt pork. The flesh is smoked, dried or salted. Owing to the scarcity of grass the Faroese cows sometimes subsist upon dried whale meat in the winter and often eat dried fish heads.

The third occupation of the people is bird catching. This is followed by a restricted portion of the population. The great cliffs of Faroe, ranking with the finest in the world, are the homes of myriads of sea birds. Bird catching is an art as well as an occupation and has descended from father to son through many generations. The skua, puffin, guillemot and eider duck are among the more numerous birds. They are taken for their flesh, oil and feathers. Many of the birds are captured in nets similar to a butterfly net, except that the net is flat and spread between two forks at the end of a long pole. I measured one of these nets and found the handle to be eighteen feet long and each of the Y-shaped prongs was six feet. Between the arms of the Y is stretched the net. In use the fowler sits upon a rock and when he sees a puffin flying directly towards him he elevates the net, the bird is clumsy, unable to quickly change his direction and flying into the net becomes entangled. I sat by one of the fowlers in Iceland one day who was working with one of these nets and in thirty minutes he secured forty birds. Often times the record of two or more a minute is made, when the birds are flying well. The puffin burrows in the ground like a rabbit and there rears its young. During the day they haunt the sea, collect small fish and then fly in great companies in long files to their nests.

The fowler is also an expert cragsman and whether he creeps along the narrow shelf hundreds of feet above the sea and works his way from point to point on the overhanging cliffs, or is suspended like a pendulum on a rope four to five hundred feet, he is cool, collected, skillful, and always successful. In fact he is the best cragsman in the world.

There are a few domestic arts that have reached perfection, as far as their purpose is concerned, such as spinning, weaving, fulling, embroidering, boat-building and metal decorating. The Faroeman is an expert at wood and bone carving and at metal inlaying. My Faroese sheath knife, made by Peter Arge, is a model of skillful construction, deftly inlaid with the mother of pearl and silver. The sheath is of ebony, inlaid with silver in the form of a whale boat, harpoon and fish hooks.

Faroe is the stepping stone to Iceland. I have visited it on seven different occasions, have passed through nearly every one of its numerous channels, wandered through the villages, attended a country auction much like that held in the rural districts of New England, climbed the lower slopes of its hills which overlook the fiords, witnessed the marvelous bird life and learned a little about the quaint inhabitants and my experience has been such that I can cordially recommend these lofty islands as a delightful spot for a summer’s holiday. The tourist will be given all necessary assistance and information, whether he desires to paint, fish in the little lakes of the glacial valleys, accompany the fowler in his dangerous occupation upon the cliffs or journey from island to island through the wonderful channels with the fishermen. He will obtain homely but clean and nutritious food, and when the crust of conservatism is broken and the confidence of the host is secured, he will pass many an hour in delightful conversation which will store his mind with quaint anecdotes and ancient myths. He will leave the islands with regret and in after years will sometimes long for the serene and peaceful life of the Faroese, where worry, care and social duties do not intrude and he will count among his warmest friends the stoical Faroese.

With the ever changing mood of sea and sky these isles present a kaleidoscopic picture. The frowning cliffs alive with sea birds, where “clouds on clouds arise,” the higher pinnacles obscured or banded with drifting cloud ribbons, the patches of pristine snow high up in the mountain clefts from which numerous waterfalls leap the cliffs to fall in silver spray upon the sea, the quaintly garbed Faroese swinging like pendulums from the projecting lava to net the birds, or, bobbing in their boats upon the waves, the tiny homes set in a bit of emerald vegetation in an angle of the mountain wall, the changing panorama of sea, cliff and sky as the boat raced with the current through the tortuous channels and turned the last rockspire into the northern ocean and the fading of the mighty headlands in the purple haze of a midnight twilight—these were the elements of a picture well worth ten thousand miles of travel. Faroe with the quaintness of twelve centuries of isolation dropped below the horizon and the next land to delight the eye was to be Iceland.

I was with the mate on the bridge at five the next morning and as anxious as was Ingölfr and his foster brother, Hjörleifr, eleven centuries before, to discover what secrets these northern waters held—when the dim outline of land was seen through the shifting fog. An enthusiastic Dane, an Icelandic maiden and her Swedish lover started the national anthem of Iceland.

“Eldgamla Ísafold,

Ástkaera fósturmold,

Fjallkonan fríð,

Mögum pín muntu kaer,

Meðan lönd gyrðir saer,

Og gumar girnast maer,

Gljár sól á hlíð.”

At that time I did not distinguish the Icelandic from the Danish but I knew the tune, America, and I mingled the good English words of Dr. Smith with the lisping gutturals of the Scandinavian. Norse and Yankee are well met in this Icelandic sea and I doff my cap to the descendants of those sturdy mariners who discovered Iceland, Greenland and America before Columbus was born, who Anglicised Celt and Britain and eventually made possible our own dear New England.

The morning vapors are scattered. The ocean is a thing of life. It rolls in all the wild freedom of the north, rich in livid shades of blue and green in the nearer circle of our vision while on the far horizon it is a sparkling amethyst beneath the deeper azure of the bending sky. To the north, the circle is broken by the abrupt basaltic towers of Ingölfshofði. Beyond these rise the red and brown fragments of extinct craters, and yet beyond and towering far above them are the glaciated Jökulls down whose sides rush mighty torrents to dash in uncounted waterfalls into the impatient sea. It was at this point that the foster brothers cast overboard the temple pillars of Ingölfr, who vowed by Odin, that upon whatever coast they were cast, there would he found his colony. Hjörleifr went to the neighboring islands, the Westmans, where he was soon afterwards murdered by his Irish serfs. Ingölfr tarried here for about three years and sent parties along the coast to search for the lost pillars.

This bold promontory is also noted in the Saga of Burnt Njal as being the place where Kari, the blood-avenger of Njal was wrecked when returning from his exile. Near here stood the house of Flosi, the lifelong enemy of Kari. The incident shows the sacredness of hospitality among these savage people. Kari went boldly to Flosi and asked for succor from the storm. The Burner, in spite of the sworn enmity to Kari, granted his request, welcomed him with a Scandinavian welcome and afterwards they became lifelong friends.

We came close in under the bare black walls of Eyjafjalla, Island-Mountain, and gazed up to Skogafoss, Forest Waterfall, tumbling one hundred and eighty feet of unbroken water into the breakers which boiled with the black volcanic sand. At length we came to Vestmannaeyjar, Westman Isles, which, like the fingers of the Norns had been beckoning to us all the morning.