The Forgotten Countries—I
" RUT we do not forget them ! " So am I liable RUT be answered by readers who will give most cogent proofs to show that Norway, Sweden, and Den- mark, far from being forgotten, are in the very fore- front of the British mental map of the Continent. The fjords . . . the Vikings . . . ski-ing . . . the Midnight Sun . . . Hans Andersen . . . Ibsen . . . Amundsen...
With all respect, I shall stick to the charge which I have implied. I admit that it is perfectly true that thousands of British people visit Norway for the winter sports at Finse or Holmenkollen, or for the salmon fishing, or for the summer cruises. It is also true that, ever since Ibsen stormed his way into our consciousness, ire have done homage to a whole dynasty of Scandinavian authors. Yet, when we think of modern Europe and her problems, we persistently leave Scandinavia out of our reckonings. We do not forget the Balkans ; Poland and Hungary have their own ways of reminding us of their existence. But the three kingdoms of the north, with their twelve millions of people and their astounding intellectual and artistic activity, remain at best shadowy and ill-focussed on the rim of our appre- hension. It is deplorable. If Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark is bad, Europe without the Danes, the Swedes, and the Norwegians is worse. In a way, it is natural enough. We take account of those who annoy us or worry us. Now if only Norway and Sweden would stage a really good war But, alas, when they had every opportunity of doing so, in 1905, they declined to oblige. If people will behave like that, what hope have they of getting into the papers and so into our consciousness ? There arc not even any sensational dictatorships or political assassinations. The Scandinavians in such respects behave so like our- selves that we do not think of them as Continentals at all, which is one reason why we forget them—and precisely the reason why we ought to remember them !
For us, Europe is the War and the countries we fought with or against. The Scandinavians, by remaining out- side that catastrophic entanglement, displayed a shrewd- ness and enlightenment which we may admire, but they also cut themselves off from the main currents of European life. It is difficult for them to influence for good or ill the great movements which arc changing the Continent. Yet their aloofness corresponds to a geographical fact. Norway and Sweden are, in effect, an island off the northern coast of Europe ; Denmark is a small peninsula belonging by race and language to the Scandinavian " island " and not to the European mainland. In many aspects, Scandinavia is a self-sufficing entity, with enough interplay of culture and circumstances within its area to ensure that fresh and vigorous blood is kept pulsing through the veins of the whole body.
One of the most surprising things which the foreigner finds, who knows little more of Scandinavia than that it consists of three entirely distinct kingdoms which have no more to do with one another than Belgium and Holland, is the number of links between one member of the trio and the others. To begin with, there is the question of language. The Dane and the Norwegian can under- stand one another as easily as the Scot and the English- man, although the spelling and pronunciation of the two speeches differs somewhat. Swedish can be read without much trouble by Danes and Norwegians, but conversation is apt to be halting. Still, the fact remains that these three peoples can communicate with one another or read one another's newspapers with comparative case.
There are numerous scientific and. cultural associations common to the three which hold conferences in each of the capitals in turn : the Scandinavian Authors' Association has recently been meeting in Oslo. Sport —football, hockey, and athletics—again provide the occasion for common action. There are international contests as important as, say, the Rugby matches of the four British countries. And in the great Northern Games, the three compete in all the known forms of winter sports. Even the music-halls contribute something to the impression of a family life—with family jokes. The mean Scotsman beloved of English audiences finds his counterpart in the boastful Norwegian at whom I have heard Copenhagen audiences laughing, the naïve and placid Dane who delights Oslo, and the ]eavy, dignified Swede that amuses both cities.
Even in the realm of politics and the state, the sense of family exists. It does not take form as a military alliance, though both Norway and Sweden felt themselves entitled to be interested when the Danes proposed to abolish their army, but for postal purposes the other two Scandinavian countries count as " inland " and not as " abroad " in any one of them, and labour legislation is lighter for the immigrant workman from another Scandinavian country than for the rest of the world. And during the War there was an agreement between the three that no action should be taken by one government without informing the others. Scandinavia is, then, a world apart, as Britain is a world apart. Like us, it has anxieties in Europe but no ambitions. Its attitude to peace and war and the League of Nations is the civilized, humane, disinterested attitude characteristic of post-War British statesmanship. It is a notorious fact that the only people with whom our dele- gates at Geneva feel an instant and complete under- standing and identity of moral outlook are the Scandin- avians. Yet this feeling of affinity has never become an active thing in British policy.
The Briton in search of the inner truth about the three northern peoples would probably feel himself nearest to the heart of the Danes in the Tivoli in Copenhagen. The Tivoli is a sort of Prater in little, with switchback rail- ways, and sideshows, restaurants of every kind and almost every price, bands, open-air music-hall entertainments, and hundreds of solid citizens of the Danish capital, rather short, rather stout, with cigars, throwing balls at Aunt Sallys and laughing like schoolboys. It is all very amus- ing and innocent and just a little childish. Its spirit is that of a simple, kindly, and well-behaved village on the day of a fair.
The Danes are an essentially middle-class nation, hard- working and a shade lacking in the finer sensibilities of life. But they know how to relax ; their leisure is not the bored intermission of Main Street. In their restaurants you will find one of the two or three great cuisines of Europe ; no amateur of gastronomy has any right to consider his Grand Tour complete until he has visited Krogh's Fish Restaurant in Copenhagen. When you go there, insist on having your national flag displayed on your table and do not leave before you have tasted the famous " standing pancakes " (staa-pandekaker).
The contrast between Dane and Norwegian is con- siderable. There is always a critical, pawky, bourgeois element in the Dane, saving him from exuberances. But the Norwegian is a creature of passion and adventure, wildly enthusiastic at one and the same time for the latest in American motor cars or fencing materials and for the oldest in Norse fabrics and houses and even language. His is a land of extremes, of village streets where the electric lights blaze in the shop-windows all night and where a campaign to restore the old peasant dialect to the status of an official speech has already met with some success !
To see the Norwegian at his most characteristic you must go to sonic country railway station at the start of the shooting season and look at those tall, striding men going off alone with their dogs to hunt on the mountain wastes ; or to one of the fjord islands in summer where everyone lives in or on the water all day and where you may sit for hour after hour, watching the sun set with exquisite and intolerable slowness—to rise again half an hour later !
But as for the Swedes, they are not so easily to be dis- covered. For Sweden has known the industrial revolu- tion, and it still has an aristocracy. Yet amid the yellow glow of those renaissance buildings in old Stock- holm, where the superb uniforms of soldier and policeman give distinction to a crowd that is otherwise badly enough dressed, you may begin to get an inkling of the truth about this nation, the most complex and richest in texture of all
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