The Saeter, c. 1900

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From When I Was a Boy in Norway, by John Oscar Hall, 1921.

One of the most interesting and special features of Norwegian national life is the saeter.

A saeter is a mountain dairy, where the Norwegian peasants spend their summer, pasturing their cattle and making butter and cheese. Each farm has its right of grazing certain parts of the mountains, or sometimes it happens that two or more smaller farms share a saeter between them.

When the spring work is finished on the farm a peculiar longing for the mountains comes both to the animals and the persons who are accustomed to spending their summers up in the mountain dairy. Preparations are then made for the migration to the saeter. It is a busy and most interesting time, which has formed the subject of many pictures and poems.

The time for this migration depends on the state of the weather and the amount of snow which fell in the mountains during the winter. But in many districts it takes place about St. Hans' Day (St. John's Day, June 24th).

The procession at last is ready to start. The milkmaid or "budeie" usually leads, and the cattle, sheep, and goats driven by the shepherd boys follow. Then comes the farmer with the pack-horses laden with all the domestic goods needed by the women for two or three months' stay in the mountains. There are no wagon-roads, and the churns, milk-cans, food, as well as vast oval copper pans used for the making of cheese, must all be loaded on the back of the sure-footed, gentle fjord horses.

Usually this first trip goes only as far as the home saeter, which is located close enough to the farm to enable the dairy-maid to take the herd home in case of bad weather. After they have stayed here a few weeks, another long journey is made to the high mountain saeter, where the warmest and longest part of the summer is spent. Then toward the fall they may have to move to the home saeter again on account of snow and cold weather, which prevents them from keeping the cattle in the high mountains.

There are two kinds of saeters. First, those that are nicely fitted up to accommodate tourists. Some of these are regular first-class mountain hotels. But the second-class, the most typical, are those that do not expect any tourist traffic.

It was a joyous day when I could make my first trip to the saeter. Starting from our home, we went with the cattle through narrow roads fenced off from cultivated fields, then through a forest of pine and spruce until we reached the open moors, where the only trees were dwarf birches and a kind of willow which grows flat upon the ground, and is embedded in moss and juniper.

We started at five o'clock in the morning and about noon we reached the saeter, after traveling for many miles over tortuous and dangerous mountain paths. The special danger was in crossing the mountain torrents, which run high and swift in the spring. After a fordable place had been decided upon a halt was made and all the young sheep and goats had to be picked up and carried across. We all arrived safely at the saeter, which has a picturesque location in a valley close to a mountain lake.

The buildings consist of a rude log hut with two rooms. Close by it runs a mountain brook and at a little distance are to be found sheds and pens and a barn with a hay-loft. The roofs of these buildings consist of rough planks on which are placed layers of birch-bark to fill in the cracks and on the top again are laid sods of earth to a thickness of about a foot. Grass and weeds soon cover the roof, binding it together and keeping the rain out.

We enter the saeter hut and find the inside log walls lined with boards. As we are seated on a corner bench we notice that in another corner are two beds built into the wall, one above the other like berths, only wider. Standing out about two feet from the third corner is the immense large fireplace. Its floor space is a square five by five feet, built of stone and it covers about twenty-five square feet. The two sides of this square are walls reaching to the ceiling and built of heavy soapstone. These two sides form the back of the fireplace. The other two sides make the opening up to five or six feet from the floor. There the stone walls begin for these two sides and they join the two other walls of the fireplace, thus making a perfect chimney by the time they reach the ceiling.

In this "peis,'' as such a fireplace is called, the log fire is built. From above, hung a couple of cranes for the heavier kettles and on the sides are smaller pot-hooks. The cook is obliged to step up into such a large fireplace in order to do the cooking.

In this room were two windows each with four small panes of glass and two doors, one by which we had entered, and the other leading into a small room where the milk, cheese, and butter are kept. There were rows of tubs of all sizes, containing milk in all stages of sourness and sweetness.

On a larger saeter you will find a detached hut for the dairy work. Every dairymaid (or "budeie") takes great pride in keeping everything scrupulously clean, the floor, the shelves, the walls, wooden vessels, kettles, everything is scoured, therefore they are working hard all the long daylight hours, and the work is arduous. The "budeie" is in charge of the saeter. This position is sometimes occupied by the farmer's daughter, and if it is a larger saeter, she may have one or two hired girls and a shepherd boy or two.

Each morning the saeter jente (girl) must rise early and proceed with the milking of a large herd of cows, and in many places a flock of goats, and when they are taken into the pastures the work is by no means over; the milk must be strained and put by in the dairy, the vast copper pans for preparing the myseost (a brown sweet cheese) have to be set over the fire, and churning and other work makes the time pass quickly until the cattle come home for the evening milking.

Saeters are frequently built in groups for company's sake, but more often they stand alone and always close to a small lake or a stream of running water, a good supply being needed for all their cooking and scrubbing.

There is no doubt that the life at the saeter is a lonely one, for visitors are rare, except, perhaps, on Saturday evening. If the "budeie" is a popular one, scores of young men will chance to meet on the saeter green. At such times the girls from the neighboring saeters would be sent for, and the night would be sure to end with a whirling spring dance. In the crowd will be found one or more who can play the violin.

At such occasions the fair maidens dance gracefully as the leaping shadows, but the boys when going home must beware lest they are charmed by the mountain Hulder. (The Hulder is a kind of personification of the forest.) She is described as a maiden of wonderful beauty and only in this respect different from her mortal sisters, that she has a long cow's tail attached to her beautiful frame. This is the grief of her life. She is always longing for the society of the mortals, and often she ensnares young men by her beauty, but again and again the tail interferes by betraying her real nature. She is the protecting genius of the cattle.

Probably it is after such gatherings and dances that the life at the saeter, though health-giving in the highest degree, seems very monotonous, and the girls often long for the society which the life at the farm affords. They will get a horse and ride far enough to be able to see the valley below from the mountainside. This phase of saeter life has been immortalized by the plaintive melody which the great violinist Ole Bull wrote for Jorgen Moe's beautiful poem, "The Saeter-Maid's Sunday," of which the first and last stanza reads as follows:

“The sun is on high, now church-time is nigh, and shorter the shadows are growing,
That I were free, to-day and could be, to church with the worshippers going!
When over the edge of yonder broad ledge, the sun on his journey is climbing.
The church bells, I know, in valleys below, in chorus are calling and chiming."

Then the poet describes the saeter maiden as she is sitting on the mountainside and looking down into the valley on a Sunday morning. She hears the far-off echo of the church bells and she wishes that she were free to go to church with her young friends and especially with her sweetheart, Odd.

She says in the last stanza:

“What boots it to bring my hymn-book and sing,
A psalm for my lonely devotion?
The loft is too high, the notes seem to die,
And vanish like drops in the ocean.
‘Twould make me rejoice to mingle my voice
In singing with Odd and the others,
God grant it were near the end of the year!
Grant God I were home with my brothers!"

But personally I know of no place so enjoyable as the saeter. There you can see the most beautiful sunset on the lakes and snow-capped mountains. Then the dairymaid takes her "loor," a straight birch-bark horn, about six feet long and widening toward one end. On this instrument she will call the cattle home as follows:

“Come, children all,
That hear my call,
Brynhilda fair
With nut-brown hair!
Come, Little Rose,
Ere day shall close;
And Birchen Bough,
My own dear cow;
And Morning Pride,
And Sunny Side; —
Come, children dear.
For night draws near,
Come, children."

You hear their lowing answer as they come running, and a mixed sound of cow-bells, goat-bells, sheep-bells, and baying of dogs mingled with the hallooing and singing of the mountain girls. Life on the saeter with the invigorating air, picturesque scenery, peaceful work, and solemn stillness of the evening, after the work is done, is the happiest a Norwegian peasant knows.

Even King Oscar II, of Norway and Sweden, wrote the following appreciative and beautiful description of a visit which he made to a saeter in Sogn:

“How strange the saeter life and dwellings appear. How poor at first sight and yet how hearty and unexpectedly lavish is the hospitality which the simple children of the mountains extend to the weary travelers. Milk warm from the cows, fresh-churned butter, reindeer meat, and a couple of delicious trout which we have just seen caught in the lake below form a regal feast indeed, and spiced with the keen appetite which the air here creates, the meal can be equaled only by the luxury of reposing on a soft couch of fresh fragrant hay.''

On our way home from the saeter, one of our company must take time to gather some of the beautiful flowers. The tiny rivulets which trickle down from the hills are lined with ferns and forget-me-nots, and in other places are to be found flowers of every hue, as the red Alpine catch-fly, blue meadow cranesbill, hawksweed, wild radis, and about six thousand other species makes up the variegated flora of Norway.

Personally I was more interested in the berries. Norway produces and has of late years exported immense quantities of wild fruits and berries.

The "blaabaer" or bilberry grows everywhere, and the "tyttebaer" or red whortleberry, which resembles the American cranberry, is found in many places, also the wild raspberries of delicious flavor abound in sheltered spots. But what we longed for most is the delicious "multebaer" (cloud-berry), which grows in swampy places on the mountains, particularly in the far north.

This is a juicy, yellow berry, larger in size than even the garden blackberry, and with a flavor which is much esteemed by most people, although it is so unusual that perhaps the taste for it must be acquired.

We found all we could take care of and enjoyed the berries and the trip immensely.

Hall, John Oscar. When I was a Boy in Norway. Lee & Shepard Co., 1921.

John Oscar Hall

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