North by Norway

This week’s podcast tells how the tourism industry in Norway was given a kick-start by hordes of Englishmen fleeing the packaged tours and sweaty piazzas of Italy and Greece. 

From the middle of the 19th century, the newly-wealthy middle class of Britain invaded Norway. With them came their poetry collections, bottled porter, and jars of pickles. And they set about making the Norwegian wilds into a holiday destination fit for an Englishman. 

However, when they came face to face with Norway’s flattened class structure, it made them insecure. In the rural farm owners – a class of proud and independent people – they met their match.

CONTACT

Twitter: @northbynorway

Mail: [email protected]

Episode photo

The opulent Hardanger Hotel in Odda, built to cater for the flood of British tourists exploring Norway’s West Country.

Photographer: Unknown. Owner: Norsk folkemuseum. Licence: (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Music 

00:00 North by Norway 

written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle, adapting the Norwegian folksong ‘I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn’

03:25 Cattle Call 

Edvard Grieg, op. 66 

version arranged on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle

09:30  Land of Hope and Glory 

Edward Elgar, words by A. C. Benson. Sung by Clara Butt, retrieved from Wikipedia Commons 

10:55  Halling 

Edward Grieg, op. 17, no. 7 

performed on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle 

13:35  Don’t Dilly Dally on the Way 

Fred W. Leigh and Charles Collins

arranged and performed on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle

Sources

Johan Bøgh, Fra Bergenskanten (From Bergen and its Surrounds) (Bergen: Ed. B. Giertsens forl., 1888)

Peter Fjågesund and Ruth A. Symes, The Northern Utopia: British Perspectives of Norway in the Nineteenth Century (Amsterdam & New York: Rodopi, 2003)

 J. C. Phythian, Scenes of Travel in Norway (London: Cassell, Petter & Gilpin, 1877)

Frederick Metcalfe, The Oxonian in Thelemarken; or Notes of Excursions in that Country, (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1858. First edition, 1856)

 J. Ross Browne, The Land of Thor (New York: Harper & brothers, 1867)

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It is a jaw-dropping exception to the rule that wooden things dug up from the ground after a 1000 years are going to be in a bad state. Most Viking ships that have been excavated turn up a few scraps of timber and enough rusty nails to fill a bucket. And that’s it!

The survival of the Oseberg Ship and its artefacts is quite simply miraculous. Its survival – so far. For the fight is on to try and stop the ship dissolving into a pile of powder. 

This is the story of the flat-pack challenge from the 9th century that makes a TORNVIKEN kitchen island from IKEA seem like child’s play!

CONTACT

Twitter: @northbynorway

Mail: [email protected]

PHOTO

Archaeologist Gabriel Gustavson and his excavation team standing in the Oseberg burial mound, 1904. 

An artist is making drawings of the broken prow of the ship.

Photographer : Olaf Væring. Owner: Universitetsmuseenes fotoportal. (Licence:CC BY-SA 4.0)

LINKS

https://www.khm.uio.no/english/research/previous-projects/saving-oseberg/

https://www.khm.uio.no/english/visit-us/viking-ship-museum/exhibitions/oseberg/index.html

https://osebergvikingarv.no/eng/

https://www.visitnorway.com/listings/the-viking-ship-saga-oseberg/201556/?lang=uk

MUSIC

00:00  North by Norway 

written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle, using the Norwegian folksong ‘I Ola-dalom, i Ola-tjønn’

03:12  Dronningen 

written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle

09:55  Oseberg 

written on GarageBand by Andrew J. Boyle

14:05  Ja vel elsker dette landet 

Norwegian national anthem, music by Richard Nordraak

retrieved from Wikimedia Commons 

For more details, visit the episode website at

www.andrewjboyle.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.