CHAPTER I

THE LAND AND PEOPLE

For those who wish to wander a little further afield than France, Belgium, or Italy, there are few more delightful places in which to spend a holiday than Sweden, for not only is this country a paradise for the lover of open-air life and every kind of summer and winter sport, but it is a land especially favoured in the variety and beauty of its scenery and unique character of its climate and geological formation, the peculiar charm of its atmospheric effects, and the appeal that lies in its strong national characteristics.

The Swedes hold of course that they were the originators of the various kinds of sport that are practised in Europe to-day, though they confess that the supremacy which they originally exercised in this field of human activity soon passed to other countries; in fact, that it is only comparatively of recent years that they have made any serious attempts to regain their lost laurels. Idrott, or sport, is an old Swedish name, and it cannot be denied that among the ancestors of the present-day Swedes sports were in vogue even in times beyond the reach of history, no ancient literature in the world containing so many descriptions of sport as the old Norse sagas. We read that greater assiduity was shown by the Vikings in perfecting themselves in strength, suppleness of limb, and courage than in promoting the culture of their mind by “exercise in the art of poetry and jurisprudence”. Their principal sports consisted of racing (either with or without armour), running and leaping of various kinds, wrestling, ski-running, tugs-of-war and throwing the spear, skating, swimming, riding, archery, and fencing with sword and shield play, and also many ball games. Every one of these sports, and also such typically British games as Association football and ice or ground hockey, are now played extensively in their proper season, the great importance that is attached to athletics being more than justified by the brilliant results which Swedish athletes have lately been attaining in the Olympic games. More truly characteristic of Swedish life, however, than any field game, or even than pure athletics, are certain branches of sport which perhaps thrive in Sweden better than in any other country in Europe owing to her peculiar climatic and geographical conditions; and also that system of physical culture which is associated with the name of P. H. Ling, the creator of modern movement therapeutics.

Sweden, thanks to the severity of her winter, is perhaps the country in Europe where winter sports can be practised to the best advantage; and not only is ski-ing the Swedes’ national pastime even more truly than it is that of the Swiss, through it having become in many northern provinces of their country the only method by which the people can conveniently travel from one district to another, but it can be practised with even greater frequency than in any part of the Swiss Alps, and for a far longer period in the year. The Swedes also excel in figure-skating, tobogganing, and bobsleighing, while I have seen nothing as exhilarating as ice-yachting among the skerries of the Baltic when a good breeze is blowing, the speed attained by the ice-yachts often exceeding that of any express train. To mention only a few places where Swedish winter sports can be played under ideal conditions, the ski-ing on the fjells of Jämtland, the skate and ice yachting among the skerries of Stockholm, rival, if they do not excel, any that can be found in other regions of Europe.

Thanks to her long indented coast-line, tideless seas, and a superabundance of large inland lakes, on the other hand, Sweden can offer ideal conditions during the summer months to those who like an open-air life and are not in need of the usual conventional amusements; and not only the Skärgård and the extensive Stockholm archipelago, but the coast of Bohuslän, stretching right up to the coast of Norway, provide ideal water playgrounds for those who are fond of swimming, boating, and yachting, the innumerable rocky islands surrounding the southern coast being perhaps unsurpassed for the opportunities which they offer in these respects. As sailing and motor boats can, moreover, easily be hired, and the air is magnificent, an extended stay during the summer months in this part of Sweden has much to recommend it, while there is always plenty of good and not too expensive accommodation to be found at such seaside resorts as Marstrand, Särö, Lysekil, or Fiskebäckskil, if only the prospective visitor applies for it in seasonable time.

[Illustration: THE KULLEN ROCKS, MÖLLE, ON THE KATTEGATT]

In the domain of gymnastics proper, lastly, the Swedes have long exercised supremacy, and not only has the system of physical culture which Ling devised during the time that he was teaching fencing and gymnastics at Lund University proved to be one of the main contributory causes of Sweden’s subsequent athletic prowess, but it has been generally adopted in other countries of the world, and more especially in this country and the United States, Swedish gymnastics having come to be recognised as the most efficient and valuable physical culture system so far devised by man. Physical culturists, in fact, hold the name of Ling in such esteem that when the Olympic Games were last held at Stockholm many of the foreign and all the Swedish athletes who had flocked to the Swedish capital to participate in the games paid a special visit to his grave in order to offer their floral tributes of affection and regard.

The climate of Sweden is almost unique. Lying between the 55th and 69th degrees of latitude, it stretches nearly two hundred miles north of the Arctic circle and in line with the south of Greenland, while its most southerly point is not far north of Hamburg, and somewhat lower than parts of Northumberland, this length of coast implying great extremes of climate; yet so magical is the potency of the Gulf Stream, which fortunately flows in a north-eastern direction right across the Atlantic towards Scandinavia, that the lower layers of air are able to absorb sufficient heat to make even the extreme north habitable in the winter months, the weather north of the Arctic circle being, moreover, often delightfully warm during the summer. The average July temperature in Kiruna, the most northerly town in Sweden, for instance, is well over 55 degrees: that is to say, equal to the mean May temperature in England; and the sun never sets here or in Northern Lapland for a period of six weeks. Stockholm, on the other hand, has days which last nearly eighteen hours in June, with a temperature equalling that found in Paris at the same time of the year. Swedish climate possesses consequently the dual advantage of being sufficiently warm in summer to attract even the most exacting lover of sunshine and warmth, and yet of being cold enough in winter to provide an ideal playground for winter sports of every description, the period during which these can be safely practised being appreciably longer than in Switzerland or any other region of Europe.

Geologically, too, Sweden is one of the oldest parts of the world, its formation differing materially from that found in other European countries. It is, generally speaking, a very rich land, but its wealth usually entails a considerable amount of work to become productive, as the greater part of it consists of granite, timber, lime, and iron-stone. Everywhere, except perhaps in the south of Skåne, you will come across towns that are built on granite or even iron-stone rock, there being such a profusion of the latter that there are actually some localities like Kiruna where the iron mines serving as foundation do not consist of underground veins, but of mountains of ore from which the iron has to be blasted from the surface almost in its natural state. The spring water issuing from these rocks is strongly tonifying, moreover, and at such places as Porla has been converted to practical uses, its healing and curative qualities in all cases of debility or anæmia being remarkable. Next to iron, Sweden’s greatest asset lies in her timber land, and dense forests abound which cover an area greater than the British Isles. It is estimated that over 52 per cent of the soil is covered by trees the greater part of which consist of pine, fir, and birch, while immense quantities of timber are cut every year for the wood pulp and other industries. Much more than the above might here usefully be written concerning Sweden’s great industrial resources, but as the writer of the present volume is not concerned with writing a book on Swedish industries but is merely seeking to offer some illustration and account of the many beauties and points of interest, artistic, historic, and social, of this little-known country, we will readily leave off considering such matters to find ourselves upon more congenial and, we will venture to say, more artistic ground.

The greatest appeal which Sweden makes on all those who pay it a visit, however, lies in the beauty of its scenery, this being as varied as the climate or the character and appearance of the people that are found on its shores.

Fringing the southern coast are the principal seaside resorts of the country, mostly in the province of Skåne, this province being the most fertile and thickly populated district of the kingdom. Skåne, which is called the granary of Sweden, not only produces enough sugar-beets to supply the whole of Sweden with sugar, but boasts a vegetation and flora that are usually only found in more southern climes, its climate being so mild that peaches, apricots, and even grapes are found ripening to perfection, while it also abounds in old historic castles and manor-houses as well as dolmens and archæological remains that, like those found in Brittany and Cornwall, evoke prehistoric ages. Further north we come to Bohuslän and Halland, provinces that if a little barren in vegetation nevertheless possess a coast-line whose rugged wildness of scenery never fails to make a special appeal to the mind of those who are attuned to its beauty: dense groups of bare and often treeless red granite islands which when illumined by the setting sun become visions of beauty and hold the eye as surely as does the silver of the moon on running water. North of these provinces is Gothenburg, the second city of the kingdom and the starting-place of the famous Göta Canal that takes you through the very heart of the country, linking up in one continuous waterway of river and lake the capital of Sweden with the west coast; an idyllic journey that, lasting three days, conveys you along peaceful rivers, across shimmering lakes and past lush meadows overgreen from the bounty of the waterways near by. Then, after passing Stockholm, most beautifully situated of all cities, we proceed north through Dalecarlia, the home of folk-lore and peasant costume, a smiling, fertile country of rich farm-land and pleasant homesteads, until we reach the province of Norrland with its great wide valleys and undulating plains, boundless forests, roaring waterfalls, and barren mountain-tops on whose surface the colours of the sunset are ever playing in constantly varying flushes of crimson and rose, silver or grey. Here is the home of the timber industry, and here too winter sports and game of every description abound, the landscape evoking in turn the endlessness of the Russian steppes or the mountain scenery prevailing in Canada or Norway. And continuing our way north we finally reach the province of Lapland, a vast barren country of high mountains and immense forests, iron hills and foaming waterfalls, where live the strangest and perhaps the most primitive people to be found west of the Caucasus, and where, incidentally, a nine months’ bleak and bitter winter is followed by a delightful summer, during six weeks of which the sun never sets.

Of such is Swedish scenery, its main appeal lying, I fancy, not so much in the contour of its landscapes, beautiful though they be, as in the peculiar clearness of atmosphere that appears to endow every object with an almost magical quality of colour; and whether you visit the more southern regions and the enchanted island of Gothland in the Baltic, or travel north to Lapland, you will invariably find, not only sunsets whose beauty so transfigure every crag, island, or peak, that you begin to feel as if you have been transported from the common world into some wondrous world of phantasy, but a crystalline limpidity of atmosphere that makes every detail and contour of the most distant landscape stand out with faultless definition. It is this continual drama of surprise and delight that captures one’s very soul and that gives a visit to Sweden its characteristic charm.

Almost as great a diversity is seen, however, among the people who inhabit this country as in the scenery which I have just described; and though no other nation surpasses the Swedes in the patriotism, pride, and love of country which have always been some of their dominant characteristics, few present as many different racial features.

In South-west Sweden, and especially in the province of Skåne, we find a population which strongly resembles the Danes living across the Sound in physique and character, the two races having for centuries constituted one political unit. Further north, and extending from Gothenburg to the Norwegian frontier, is a race of Goths who, like the sturdy inhabitants of Gothland in the Baltic, claim descent from the Vikings, the greater number of these famous sea-rovers having hailed from these two localities (this province is now called Viken). Further inland and to the north of the lake district of Vättern, Vänern, are the Sveas, a race of Swedes who, like the Dalecarlians and the men of Småland, constitute an element of the Swedish nation whose ethnological purity has been little affected by either Norwegian or Dane. The Sveas, unlike their southern neighbours, are distinguished by a liveliness and pleasure-loving temperament that makes them ideal hosts and boon companions, and also by a love of art and beauty which they share in common with the Dalecarlians. Like the inhabitants of Skåne and Viken, however, they are an easy-going and industrious folk, but extremely combative and stubborn if roused. Even more attractive in disposition are the Dalecarlians, who are found clustering on the shores of Lake Siljan, and nowhere in Sweden will you come across a finer race of peasantry or one less spoilt by the modern spirit of industrialism.

[Illustration: ARILD, A FISHING VILLAGE NEAR MÖLLE]

As for the other branches of the Swedish nation, if exception has been made of the Roos Swedes who are found about the capital, and the men of Småland, to the north of Blekinge, whose proverbial honesty, truthfulness, and hardihood are as pronounced to-day as they were in the days of Charles XII., none can be said to be of pure Swedish stock. Norrland is inhabited by a race which either strongly resemble their Norwegian neighbours (in Jämtland) or ethnologically are not unrelated to the Finns and Lapps, with whom there has been some slight intermarriage; while you meet in Lapland a Mongolian people that are entirely alien to the remainder of Sweden in both manner of living and race.

In spite of ethnological distinctions which, it should be stressed, are in any case not any more strongly marked than those at present existing in the British Isles, the Swedish nation remains to-day as of old one of the most united countries in the world as well as one of the most distinctive, its highly marked national characteristics never failing to impress the visitor.

If I were now asked for the dominating impressions which the Swedish nation generally leaves on the mind of people visiting their country, I would say that the first is of a highly practical, hard-working, and cultured race, which not only considers efficiency as one of the cardinal virtues, but also manages to ensure such a quality being the one outstanding characteristic which any foreign observer never fails to remark whenever he comes into contact with Swedish national or civil life. I strongly question whether towns more efficiently run, and citizens more profoundly imbued with civic or public spirit, are to be found anywhere in either Europe or America than in this country, the result being a husbanding of resources and a co-ordination of public and private activities that certainly makes for prosperity and contentment. Nowhere have I seen cleaner or more orderly streets, tramway or telephone and public services better run, public squares or parks more beautifully laid out, educational and cultural institutions better designed to promote the welfare of the race; hospitals, prisons, and public institutions better organised or conducted, and public buildings and business undertakings conceived on a larger scale. The second impression, of a general standard of living vastly superior to that found in any country in the world outside the United States, with the additional advantage of a comparatively small difference between the standards attained by the rich and poor respectively; and the third, of a people that combines an almost excessive formality of manners with the most lavish and whole-hearted hospitality, there being few countries, moreover, where an Englishman is more certain of being well received wherever he may go.