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Introduction
In July 1834, Samuel Laing of Papdale (1780–
1868) left Orkney for Norway. He spent two years
there, travelling around and living for 16 months
in Levanger and Verdal in Central Norway—about
100 km northeast of Trondheim. Verdal was the
“valley so beautiful” that Laing compared to
Scotland and found the latter lacking. In 1836, he
published his Journal of a Residence in Norway
During the Years 1834, 1835, and 1836, presented
as an enquiry into the moral and political economy
of Norway and the condition of its inhabitants. It is
best known for its idealization of Norwegian independent
small-farm proprietors and the udal law of
succession without primogeniture, which he saw as
an example for other countries to follow. Although
his main concern was with “the social condition
and state of the Norwegian people”, he included
topographical-geographical observations on natural
and cultural history in the tradition of other European
travellers of the time.
The present paper concentrates on some of these
observations that have received less attention than
his preoccupation with legal and constitutional issues.
First, I present Samuel Laing’s reasons for going
to Norway and the literary context of his journal.
I then present the places he stayed at in Levanger
and Verdal. Following this, I discuss in more detail a
selection of his observations, on topics that overlap
with my own research interests. The objective of
this paper is to examine Samuel Laing’s Journal in
the light of contemporary and later ideas, using his
observations on earthquakes, land uplift, reindeerherding
“Laplanders” (i.e., Saami), and historical
monuments as illustrations.
Alongside my own field observations in the areas
of Central Norway that Laing lived in and visited,
this paper is based on an analysis of secondary
sources. Laing’s own accounts of his stay in his
Journal and in his Autobiography are the principal
sources. The Journal was published shortly after
his return to Britain, and went into a second edition
already the following year in 1837.1 The Autobiography
came to light only in 1957 when a typescript
copy was deposited in the Orkney Archives by
Alastair Laing, a collateral descendant of Samuel
Laing. It was published in 2000, having been edited,
annotated, and supplemented with biographical
material by the historian R.P. Fereday. I have also
made use of the short biographies of Laing in two
editions of the Dictionary of National Biography
(Baigent 2004, Rigg 1909), as well as that in W.S.
Hewison’s Who Was Who in Orkney (1998:88–89).
Information on the historical context of Samuel Laing’s
literary production has been gained from an
article by Bernard Porter in the Scandinavian Journal
of History (1998), from Andrew Wawn’s book,
The Vikings and the Victorians (2000), and from
Sebastian Seibert’s book, Reception and Construction
of the Norse Past in Orkney (2008). I refer to
the eighteenth-century travellers’ accounts of Norway
that Laing was familiar with in order to illustrate
how he was influenced by the prevailing ideas
of his time. To give an understanding of Laing’s observations
in the light of present-day knowledge, I
have drawn on historical and geographical sources
that have informed my own research on udal law
in Orkney and Shetland—the remnants of the Old
Norse legal system in the islands that have survived
vestigially until the present (Jones 2012)—as well
as on human responses to land uplift in Fennoscandia
(Jones 1977, 1978), and on the landscape of
Stiklestad in Verdal (Jones 2006).
“I do not know in Scotland a valley so beautiful …”: Samuel Laing’s
Topographical-Geographical Observations in Central Norway, 1834–1836
Michael Jones*
Abstract - In 1836, Samuel Laing (1780–1868) published his Journal of a Residence in Norway, an enquiry into Norway’s
moral and political economy. It is best known for idealizing Norwegian independent small-farm proprietors and their udal
law of succession without primogeniture. During 16 months at Levanger and Verdal in Central Norway, his main concern
was “the social condition and state of the Norwegian people”. However, like other contemporary European travellers, he
included topographical-geographical observations on natural and cultural history. The present paper examines topics that
have received less attention than his preoccupation with legal and constitutional issues. His Journal is examined in the
light of contemporary and later ideas, using his observations on natural phenomena, Saami reindeer-herders, and historical
monuments as illustrations.
Across the Sólundarhaf: Connections between Scotland and the Nordic World
Selected Papers from the Inaugural St. Magnus Conference 2011
Journal of the North Atlantic
*Department of Geography, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway; Michael.
Jones@svt.ntnu.no.
2013 Special Volume 4:207–218
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
208
Samuel Laing’s Journey to Norway
W.P.L. Thomson (2000:xiii), in his preface to the
Autobiography, writes that “Samuel Laing is remarkable
for two very different careers”. The two careers
were separated by his journey to Norway in 1834.
In the period before 1834, he worked first as a
clerk and merchant’s assistant; he was then a soldier
in Spain and Portugal during the Peninsular War,
was later employed as a mine manager, and became
a merchant. He founded and organized the herring
fishery on Stronsay in Orkney in 1816. He inherited
the Papdale estate on the death of his brother, the
historian Malcolm Laing, in 1818. Samuel Laing
lived in Papdale House until 1834. As estate-owner,
he engaged in the kelp trade, and was an agricultural
improver. In order to introduce new crops and
improved breeds of cattle and sheep on the farm of
Stove on Sanday, he resettled crofters from the main
farm onto self-contained crofts nearby, a model that
was widely copied in Orkney. He was provost of
Kirkwall from 1822 to 1834.
After 1834, he lived primarily from his income
as a writer, making his mark as travel writer, political
theorist, and Norse scholar. The publication of
his Norwegian journal was followed by an account
of his visit to Sweden in 1838, published in 1839.
His travels in France, Prussia, Switzerland, and
Italy in 1839, 1840, and 1841 were described in
Notes of a Traveller, published in 1842. A second
volume in 1850 contained his Observations on the
Social and Political State of the European People
in 1848 and 1849. His account of his visit to Denmark
and Schleswig-Holstein in 1851 came in 1852.
As a Norse scholar, his great achievement was to
publish in 1844 his translation of The Heimskringla,
or Chronicle of the Kings of Norway, the first complete
translation into English of the saga of the
Norse kings from the original Old Norse (Baigent
2004, Fereday 2000, Hewison 1998, Porter 1998,
Rigg 1909, Røe 1986, Seibert 2008:89–97, Wawn
2000:92–116).
Samuel Laing’s reasons for leaving Orkney for
Norway were complex, the result of a combination
of circumstances. In his Autobiography, Laing explained
in some detail the debts and other burdens
that encumbered the estate he had inherited from
his brother. He had received the estate by testament
when Malcolm Laing had died childless. Although
Samuel was the youngest son, his other brothers were
passed over as they were well off and established on
their own estates elsewhere. His wife, Agnes Kelly,
whom he had married in 1809, had died in 1812,
leaving him with two small children to support.
The uncertainty of his future had led him in 1818
to consider emigrating with his family to America,
but the inheritance of the estate provided him with a
livelihood. However, he was unable to free the estate
of debt, a situation that was made worse by falling
kelp prices. The collapse of the kelp trade and the
cost of his agricultural improvements brought him
into serious financial difficulties. He had political
ambitions and stood as candidate for the Northern
Isles in the general election of 1833. He topped the
poll in Orkney, but the returns from Shetland tipped
the balance against him, causing a riot in Kirkwall.
For Samuel Laing, 1834 was a turning point. That
year his daughter Elizabeth married and his son
Sam started a career at Cambridge University. At the
same time, he quarrelled and broke with his sisterin-
law, Mary Kelly, who had lived with him and
managed his household after the death of his wife.
With his children settled, and freed of domestic obligations,
he resigned his bankrupt estate to trustees,
and, with an allowance from the trustees until the
estate was sold, embarked on his journey to Norway,
where he found he could live more cheaply (Baigent
2004; Fereday 2000, 2003; Hewison 1998:88–89;
Rigg 1909; Wawn 2000:92–116). Seeking a better
way of life and social organization, he wished to get
better acquainted with Norway, “… partly to investigate
the social condition of a people living under
institutions so ancient and peculiar, … and partly
from the historical interest which we attach to every
thing Norwegian” (Laing 1837 [1836]:2).
The Literary Context of Samuel Laing’s Journal
of a Residence in Norway
The literary context of Samuel Laing’s Journal
contains a number of strands that can be seen against
the background of the Scottish Enlightenment. Although
Laing may not have directly taken part in the
intellectual fervor of Edinburgh circles that characterized
the Scottish Enlightenment in the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, his work is in the Enlightenment
spirit. Features of the Scottish Enlightenment
included emphasis on observation and experience,
criticism of authority, comment on society
and its values, moral philosophy, critical thinking,
systematic recording of scientific observations, and
an applied dimension associated with the drive for
improvement, for example in agriculture and other
economic pursuits. It included also a strong interest
in history, liberal thought, ideals of civic freedom,
and criticism of religion (Broadie 2001, Keay and
Keay 2000:891–893).
Topographical-geographical description was
a feature of the Scottish Enlightenment. Sir John
Sinclair’s twenty-one volume Statistical Account of
Scotland, published between 1791 and 1799, gave a
detailed account of the geography, history, economy,
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
and society of every parish of the country. A volume
for the northern counties and islands, including
Orkney and Shetland, came in 1795. Systematic
topographical-geographical descriptions in Scotland
and elsewhere in Europe involved naming and
placing observations of geographical phenomena,
both natural and cultural (especially antiquities),
recording of empirical knowledge, and emphasizing
economic improvement (Eriksen 2007:9–30).
These were all features of Samuel Laing’s Journal,
although he made no reference to the Statistical
Account or other topographical-geographical surveys.
There can be discerned in the Journal the two
interwoven modes of enquiry characteristic of the
period: accurate empirical description together with
the personal experiences of the individual traveller
(Fielding 2008:8–9).
Also associated with the Scottish Enlightenment
was Old Northernism—a developing interest in the
Norse contribution to Scottish history that gained
momentum in intellectual circles in the second half
of the eighteenth century and reached its culmination
during the Victorian era in the nineteenth century
(Seibert 2008, Wawn 2000). In Orkney, which had
been subject to Norway (later Norway–Denmark)
until sovereignty was transferred to the Scottish
crown in 1468, there began to appear references to
the Norse past and to udal law in descriptions of the
islands by landowners, ministers, and visitors during
the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries.
This interest was stimulated further by the Pundlar
Process, a lawsuit that began in 1733 and continued
to 1759. The case tested allegations by a group of
Orkney landlords that the Earl of Morton, who feued
the Orkney Earldom and Bishopric estates from the
crown, had manipulated in his own favor the historical
Norse weights and weighing beams—pundlars
and bismars—still then customarily used in Orkney
for determining feu duties and other taxes payable
to the earl. The lawsuit lasted longer and collected
more evidence than any other case heard by the Court
of Session (Scotland’s supreme court) in Edinburgh,
either before or since. In 1750, James Mackenzie,
an Orkney lawyer published anonymously a book
titled The General Grievances and Oppressions of
the Isles of Orkney and Shetland (Mackenzie 1836
[1750]), in which he produced historical arguments
supporting the claims of the landlords against the
earl. In 1759, the court found it not proven that the
Earl of Morton’s officials had increased the weights.
However, the case contributed to awakened interest
in Orkney’s Norse past in subsequent writings about
the islands in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries (Jones 2012:396, 399–402). There is no
direct evidence in his Autobiography that Samuel
Laing showed a special interest in Orkney’s Norse
history in his younger days, but he was familiar with
his brother’s general historical works and knew of
Orkney’s historical and later commercial links with
Norway. Possibly an interest in Norse history and
udal law was aroused when in 1826 Samuel Laing
headed the jury of magistrates that was instrumental
in replacing the Norse weights and measures by
Imperial weights (Fereday 2000:36–37, 219; Seibert
2008:89–90). Fereday (2000:231) writes:
“Thus in choosing Norway as his place of exile
he was attracted not only by its nearness,
cheapness and seclusion but also by ancestral
voices, historical connections and the opportunity
of seeing a country of which he had
heard so much. He was particularly fascinated
by the idea that it was a country without any
feudal aristocracy or inheritance by primogeniture,
a paradise for liberal peasants.”
The Scottish Enlightenment saw also a flourishing
of the arts—poetry and painting. With regard
to literature, there is some dispute as to how far
Sir Walter Scott, “one of the great sources of the
European romantic movement” (Broadie 2001:221),
belonged to the Enlightenment or whether his death
marked its end (Broadie 2001: 220–221, Keay and
Keay 2000:893). According to Thomson (2001:xiv),
Laing “was generally dismissive of painting, music
and romanticism”. Nonetheless, he read Scott’s novels.
He became captivated by the Norse sagas. His
idealization of Norway in his Journal and, later his
commentary on Norway’s Viking past in his translation
of Heimskringla, contributed greatly to the
romantic Old Northernism of the Victorian era.
However, Laing’s Journal became a treatise in political
economy. His main agenda was the utilitarian
one of examining the moral, political, and economic
status of Norway and the other countries he visited.
His travel books were unconventional compared with
those of many other travel writers of the time, who
were content to describe the sights (Porter 1998:153).
He was familiar with the diaries of a European traveller
who visited Norway during the Napoleonic Wars,
when Scandinavia became an alternative destination
since much of the European continent elsewhere was
either hostile territory or engulfed in war. He was
familiar with the chapter on Norway in the second
edition of Thomas Malthus’ Essay on the Principle
of Population, published in 1803. This chapter was
added after Malthus’ journey to Norway together with
his friend William Otter in 1799, the year following
the first edition of the Principle of Population, although
Malthus’ travel diaries were not published until
the middle of the twentieth century (James 1966).
Inspired by Malthus, Laing discussed checks to population
growth in Norway in his Journal. He would,
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
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however, have disagreed with Malthus’ characterization
of “Odel’s right” (udal law) as a “great obstacle
to the improvement of farms in Norway” (James
1966:288). Samuel Laing referred several times in his
Journal to Edward Daniel Clarke’s (1824 [1823]) description
of Norway in his Travels in Various Countries
of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Clarke had started
his journey to Scandinavia together with Malthus in
1799, and although their paths separated before they
reached Norway, Clarke borrowed Malthus’ diaries
and incorporated passages from them in his own
Travels (James 1966:16–22). Clarke also made use
of the German traveller Leopold von Buch’s book on
travels in Norway 1806–1808, published in 1810 and
in English translation in 1813 (Johnsen 1977:8). Laing
referred also to von Buch’s work, but found both
his and Clarke’s descriptions wanting. He began the
introduction to his Journal (Laing 1837 [1836]:iii)
thus:
“Norway has been visited and described by
Von Buch, Dr. Clarke, and other travellers of
science and talent; but these enlightened observers
have naturally directed their attention
to the geology, botany, and sublime natural
scenery which the country presents in the
most interesting forms, and bestowed little
of it on the social conditions and state of the
Norwegian people.”
Laing may not have gone to Norway with
the express intention of publishing a journal, but
the idea appears to have come to him under way
(Porter 1998:156, footnote 12). In an entry in his
Autobiography in October 1834, he wrote (Fereday
2000:164):
“I shall wander about for some time, and at
intervals enter in this book of which the few
leaves remaining will hold all I shall have to
say, where I am and what are my views and
intentions. I keep a regular diary, besides, and
these two books will be silent companions of
my old age. They may perhaps amuse Elizabeth’s
or Sam’s children at some future day.”
At the beginning of 1835, now living in lodgings
in Levanger, he was mastering Norwegian and wrote
that he was occupying himself “writing observations
on Norway” and reading what he could find in that
language. In October 1835, now renting a small
farmhouse in Verdal, he wrote: “I amuse myself with
fishing, shooting, reading, and writing observations
on Norway.” In April 1836, he wrote at Christiania
(Oslo), on his return journey to Scotland: “I have
written a volume of observations on Norway which
I think may sell for a hundred pounds or two …”.
Within a few weeks of his return to Edinburgh, he
wrote in June 1836 that he had sold his volume to the
publishers Longman & Co. on condition of receiving
half the profits, and the Journal was published later
the same year (Fereday 2000:164–167). Laing’s second
career as a writer was now established.
The Journal begins with extensive comparisons
of Norway and Scotland. Constitutional matters and
the survival of udal landholding became the central
themes of the Journal and the basis of his theory as
to why the Norwegian way of living was superior.
Fereday (2000:5) sums up Laing’s achievement:
“Samuel Laing had an enquiring mind and
his ideas are historically interesting. There
is much accurate observation and good sense
mingled with his exaggerations, contradictions,
and errors. Of course his opinions were
based not only on his travels, researches, and
reasonings but on prejudices formed during a
long and chequered career.”
Fereday (2000:231) writes further:
“Laing went to Norway with his own preconceptions
and, not surprisingly, he was soon
finding evidence to support them. He was not
an open-minded and scientific observer, but
he was active, deeply curious, and keen-eyed.
As he travelled north, keeping a journal, he
was increasingly satisfied that he could put
his necessary exile to good use and eventually
gain a better understanding of Norwegian
society than had been achieved by earlier,
transient visitors.”
Table 1. Some topics in Samuel Laing’s Journal of a Residence
in Norway.
• Property laws
• Norwegian constitution and Parliament
• Yule
• Law courts
• Udal estates and landholding
• Agriculture
• Forests
• Fisheries
• Buildings and architecture
• Taxation
• Union with Sweden
• Checks on population
• Manners and customs
• Station of females
• The Church
• Education
• Free press
• Food and spirits
• Winter
• Laplanders
• Wild birds and animals
• Orkneyinga Saga
• Battle of Stiklestad
• Earthquakes
• Landslip
• Raised beaches
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Despite its focus on legal and social issues, the
Journal contained a wealth of detailed observations
on other phenomena, including natural phenomena
(Table 1), many of which have received relatively
little attention in presentations of Laing’s work.
Samuel Laing in Levanger and Verdal
In July 1834, Laing voyaged by steamboat from
Hull to Gothenburg (Göteborg) in Sweden, and then
on the post boat to Christiania. Sending his baggage
ahead, he continued north by horse, travelling past
Lake Mjøsa and up the valley of Gudbrandsdalen,
with stops of up to several days on the way, writing
his diary as he went. In mid-August, he bought
a horse and cart and continued over the Dovrefjell
mountain plateau, where he described a Norwegian
farm watermill similar to those found in Shetland.
He reached Trondheim later in the month. A few
days later, he continued north along the Trondheim
Fjord to Levanger and Verdal. On 20 September, Laing
(1837 [1836]:92) wrote:
“I do not know in Scotland a valley so beautiful
as this of Værdal: the crops of grain so
rich and yellow; the houses so substantial and
thickly set; farm after farm without interruption,
each fully enclosed and subdivided with
paling; the grass fields so lively green, so free
from weeds and rubbish; every knoll, and all
the background, covered with trees, and a noble
clear river running briskly through it. …
I find that all these beautiful little farms,
with their substantial houses, and that air of
plenty and completeness about them which
struck me so much on my way up this valley,
are the udal estates, and residences of the
peasant proprietors, or bonder.”
We find here an example of Laing’s unqualified
praise of what he considered the free, upright Norwegian
peasant proprietors (Baigent 2004). Wawn
(2000:97) calls this eulogizing “hero worship”.
From Verdal, Laing carried on north via Steinkjer
to Snåsa, where he came across a Scot who had lived
there for six years and was tenant of a farm. Laing
was able to obtain detailed information of Norwegian
agriculture, and made a series of drawings of a Norwegian
plough. He then returned to Levanger, where
he found lodgings for the winter at Brusve gård, the
farm of the town’s sheriff, Ole Nilsen Lynum.
Figures 1–6 illustrate Brusve gård around the
time of Laing’s visit and at present. A plaque on the
wall of the main house states that Brusve gård was
built in 1803 for Bardo Westrum, Lynum’s predecessor
as sheriff, and that it remained an official’s
residence until 1882. It now belongs to the Town
Museum of Levanger. At 17 years of age, Lynum
came to Brusve in 1818 and worked first as a handyman,
later as an office clerk, and in 1824 married
Figure 1. Map of Levanger and environs drawn by the
cartographer and antiquarian Lorentz Diderich Klüwer in
1824, ten years before Laing’s visit. The map shows the
town’s location on an inlet of the Trondheim Fjord. Brusve
gård (spelt Brusveet on the map) lies across the river to the
south of the town. Source: Hallan (1964:235).
Figure 2. The earliest known photograph of Levanger, taken
between 1864 and 1868, about thirty years after Laing’s
visit. The long white-painted farmhouse of Brusve can be
seen in the distance behind the church. The photographer
is unknown. Photograph of print in Brusve gård © M.
Jones, March 2011.
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
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Figure 3. A portrait of Laing’s host, sheriff Ole Nilsen
Lynum. The portrait is unsigned. Photograph of original
in Brusve gård © M. Jones, March 2011.
Figure 4. The empire-style Brusve gård and its snow-covered
garden in March 2011. It is no longer a farm but is
surrounded by built-up land. Photograph © M. Jones.
Figure 6. Interior photo of the Court Room, Brusve gård.
The local court met here in Laing’s day, a topic on which
he elaborated. The room is today not exactly as Laing
would have found it, the interior having been reconstructed
and provided with late nineteenth-century furnishings.
Photograph © M. Jones, March 2011.
Figure 5. Weather vane stamped with sheriff Ole Lynum’s
initials and the date 1830, today nailed on to the outside
wall of the storehouse. Laing would have seen this in use.
Photo: M. Jones, March 2011.
Figure 7. Present-day photograph of the “valley so beautiful”
of Verdal, near Midtgrunnnan in early spring, with
a tractor and snow plough. Photo: M. Jones, March 2011.
Figure 8. The two present-day farms at Grunnan viewed
across the river. Midtgrunnan vestre, which no longer exists,
is thought to have been situated to the left of the two
present farms. Photo: M. Jones, March 2011.
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
Trondheim in 1686 and 1792, as well as a catastrophe
in 1344, when the Gaula River “disappeared in
the earth, and on bursting out again destroyed fortyeight
farms, and above 250 persons”, recorded in
the Icelandic annals and occurring five years after
an earthquake in Iceland (Laing 1837 [1836]:114,
footnote). It is now known that the catastrophe in
the Gaula River was a quick-clay landslide that
blocked the river at Kvasshylla, about 40 km south
of Trondheim, creating a lake above the blockage,
which then broke and caused a flood downstream,
resulting in the worst natural catastrophe in Norway’s
history (Reite 1985:21). However, earth tremors
do occur regularly in Norway, and since 1980
have been automatically registered by seismographs
in the Norwegian National Seismic Network. Up to
the end of 2010, there occurred in Norway a total of
304 tremors above 2.0 on the Richter scale, that is all
those that could be directly felt by humans, with the
maximum registering 4.7 on 29 July 1982. Of those,
nine tremors in Central Norway were recorded in
the same period, the maximum registering 3.7 on
1 November 1987 (NORSAR 2011). Laing (1837
[1836]:115) remarked that “… it is impossible to
look at the features of this country … without being
impressed with the idea that at some period this
surface has been torn, and raised, and depressed by
earthquakes.”
Another natural phenomenon experienced by
Laing was a “landslip” that occurred on 23 February
1835 at Gustad in Ekne. He described it thus:
“A farm-house, with forty or fifty acres of land, was
suddenly swallowed up, or sunk in the earth, and
three people perished” (Laing (1837 [1836]:201).3
He walked 20 km the next day along the fjord from
Levanger to the spot where this “very remarkable accident”
had occurred. He discussed possible causes.
He did not think it was caused by water between the
superficial deposits and the underlying rock, because
Westrum’s daughter. The following year he took
over as sheriff, and was proprietor of Brusve gård
from 1834, the year of Laing’s visit. Lynum died in
1862 (Snekkvik 1997:92, footnote 1).
In May 1835, Laing left Brusve and rented the
small farm of Midtgrunnan vestre, which he called
Medgrunden, near the church settlement of Vuku
in Verdal. Midtgrunnan vestre no longer exists but
was amalgamated with a neighboring farm later in
the nineteenth century (Musum 1931:23–24).2 The
vicinity is shown in Figures 7–9. Laing stayed at
Midtgrunnan until January 1836, when he left to
return to Christiania and Scotland.
In the following, I will discuss Laing’s observations
of some natural phenomena, as well as of “Laplanders”
and of St. Olav and the Battle of Stiklestad,
the site of which he visited.
Natural Phenomena: Earthquakes, Landslides,
and Raised Beaches
In the autumn of 1834, Samuel Laing (1837
[1836]:114) reported two earthquake shocks in the
Trondheim area:
“Since I was last in Dronthiem, a distinct
shock of earthquake was felt there along the
coast, and in the islands to the north, on the
3d September; and one on the 17th September,
in the islands to the south. … A correspondent
of the Morgenblad newspaper, who has kept
a register of the weather for many years, says
he reckons seven distinct earthquakes in Norway
since 1797.”
Citing the historian Jens Kraft’s topographicalstatistical
description of Norway (1832), Laing
mentioned two earlier earthquakes recorded in
Figure 9. The site of Midtgrunnan vestre is believed to
have been close to Grunden mølle, a mill building moved
here in recent years. Photo: M. Jones, March 2011.
Figure 10. The site of the quick-clay landslide at Gustad,
Ekne, 1835. The steep slope picked out by snow below the
farm buildings in the background indicates the depression
left after the landslide. Photo: M. Jones, March 2011.
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
214
too large an area had slid out and the slope down to
the sea was too gentle. He concluded it was caused
by a sinking of the bedrock. We now know that it
was a quick-clay landslide. Land uplift after the last
ice age had raised marine clays above sea level, and
they became unstable over time as the salt content of
the clay was washed out. The site of the landslide is
still visible today (Fig. 10).
Fifty-eight years later, on 19 May 1893, a major
quick-clay landslide occurred in Verdal, causing
116 deaths and the destruction of a large number of
farms. A total of 55 m3 slid out from a 3-km2 area.
Liquid clay covered 9 km2 downstream. The blockage
caused a temporary lake upstream, and the lower
valley was flooded when the blockage was breached,
causing the river to take a new course (Fig. 11; Bendiksen
et al. 1993, Bjørlykke 1893). This was one of
the greatest catastrophes in Norway’s recent history.
Smaller quick-clay landslides are a frequent occurrence
in Norway, with occasional loss of life.
In July 1835, Laing made excursions to different
locations near the Trondheim Fjord and reported
finds at several places of raised beaches and shells at
60´ (20 m) above sea level (Laing (1837 [1836]:334–
337). We know now that this height corresponds to
the Tapes (known in the Baltic as the Littorina)
transgression about 6000 BC. Land uplift in Fennoscandia
is a result of the rebounding of the Earth’s
crust once the continental ice sheet that depressed
it melted. Land uplift still occurs at a rate of 9 mm
a year (90 cm per century) in the northern Gulf of
Bothnia, and in the Trondheim area at a rate of 4
mm a year (40 cm a century) (Eronen 2005; Jones
1977:18–44, 1978). The theory of land uplift due to
ice melting had not been developed in Laing’s time.
There was instead a debate between the Neptunists,
who believed that the sea level was decreasing, and
the Vulcanists, who believed in land rise due to volcanism
(Jones 1977:19). Laing supported the latter
theory, which he had from Leopold von Buch. He
discussed the differential rates of uplift between the
Atlantic and Bothnian shores of the Scandinavian
peninsula, and concluded that this showed that the
phenomenon could not be due to the retiring of the
sea as suggested by some “Swedish philosophers”
(Laing (1837 [1836]:337). Laing was not, however,
aware that the earth tremors and quick-clay slides he
observed were also related to land uplift.
Samuel Laing’s Encounters with “Laplanders”
One of the objects of travel for European travellers
to central and northern Scandinavia was to
visit the Saami (Lapp) nomadic reindeer herders—
variously termed Laplanders, Laps, Lapfins, or Fins.
Malthus and then Clarke visited Saami encampments
near Røros in Central Norway in 1799. Clarke (1824
[1823]: 167–171, 252–256) was particularly derogatory
in describing their appearance: they were “all
dwarfs, with long, lank, black hair” and inflamed,
bleary eyes. They were of diminutive stature, and
“their little ferret eyes, and want of eyebrows, added
to their high cheek-bones” and gave them an Asiatic
resemblance. They had feeble, effeminate voices.
They were regarded as cunning knaves and considered
inferior. He also wrote that they were liable to
intoxication.
The stereotypes reflected the views of contemporary
Norwegians that the “Laplanders” were
“actuated by no motives but the love of brandy and
Figure 11. Map of the quick-clay landslide in Verdal, 1893, made by the Norwegian Geographical Survey (Norges geografiske
oppmåling). Dark red indicates the area from which the quick clay slid out. Light red indicates the area covered
by quick clay as a result of the landslide. Blue indicates the area temporarily flooded by the blockage of the river caused
by the landslide. The map also shows the change in the course of the river due to the landslide. Source: Bjørlykke 1893.
215
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
Samuel Laing on Historical Monuments and the
Cult of St. Olav
My final example is Samuel Laing’s account of
his visits in autumn 1834 to Nidaros Cathedral in
Trondheim and the medieval stone church at Stiklestad
in Verdal. The cathedral was built over St. Olav’s
grave, while Stiklestad church was erected at the
place where he was killed at the Battle of Stiklestad
in 1030. In the first half of the eighteenth century,
the cult of St. Olav was being revived as part of the
Norwegian national romantic movement, after being
the fear of the wolf”, as Laing put it in November
1834, continuing: “As practical shepherds, these
poor Laplanders are so imbecile that they will not
shoot the wolf, which in one night might tear a
flock to pieces, but seek only to frighten or fly from
him; and not from cowardice, since they will shoot
the bear, but from a superstitious prejudice” (Laing
(1837 [1836]:145). He described them selling
reindeer products at the Levanger Fair in December
and March—frozen venison, reindeer skins, and
cheese. In April 1835, he related an encounter with a
drunken Laplander. He went on to give the following
negative characteristic ((Laing (1837 [1836]:247):
“The Laplander has, certainly, beyond all
other Europeans, peculiarities of features and
appearance, not easily described, but which
decidedly indicate a separate breed or race.
The slit of the eye running obliquely from
the temples to the nose; the eyes small and
peculiarly brown, and without eyelashes; the
forehead low and projecting; the cheekbones
high and far apart; the mouth wide, with illdefined
lips; the chin thinly furnished with
scattered hairs rather than a beard; the skin
decidedly of a yellow hue, as in the crossbreed
of a white person with a mulatto,—all
these peculiarities strike the eye at once, as
distinctive of a separate race. The structure of
the body also seems different. The bones are
considerably smaller as well as shorter than
other races … They also have that peculiarity
of a distinct race, the odour from their bodies
being to our sense different from ours, and to
us raw and wild …”
However, seven months later, in November,
Laing’s attitude changed. He related (Laing 1837
[1836]:409–410):
“A Lapland beauty, and really a pretty girl,
came into our kitchen to-day on her way from
the Fjelde. She was dressed very smartly …
This young woman came to sell me fur shoes
and mittens. …”
He described meeting the reindeer herders as they
moved through the valley preparing for winter.
Unlike the Norwegians, who looked upon them
with contempt and would not eat, sit or associate
with them, Laing made them welcome. He bought
a reindeer, watched it being slaughtered, and gave
them dinner. He wrote: “They were much gratified
at being treated like other people and set down to
a table regularly, instead of getting the victuals in
their hands to eat in a corner or take with them, as
is the usual way” (Laing 1837 [1836]: 416). He was
given a present of reindeer cheese and, at Christmas,
a reindeer-skin pelisse.
Figure 12. Gerhard Schøning’s drawings of Stiklestad
church and the St. Olav’s monument, 1774. Original drawings
archived in the Royal Library, Copenhagen. Source:
Gjone (1968).
M. Jones
2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
216
arch … similar to those … in the cathedral of Dronthiem”
(Laing 1837 [1836]:91). In 1807, a second
monument had been erected. Laing was critical of
the inscription on the new monument, which praised
St. Olav, and stated that: “The silence of the ancient
monument is more honourable, and true to history”
(Laing 1837 [1836]:89). A contemporary painting
(Fig. 13) gives an idea of the two monuments and the
church at the period of Laing’s visit.
However, it was the national romantic view of
Stiklestad that came to prevail in Norway, and today
it is the venue of the annual St. Olav’s Festival, including
Norway’s oldest extant open-air theatre and
a rapidly developing tourist industry (Jones 2006). In
contrast to Samuel Laing’s critical remarks in 1834,
Stiklestad has today become a product of “Viking
tourism”. Paradoxically, Laing’s translation and
idealization of the sagas, like their translation into
modern Norwegian by Jacob Aall in 1838, can be
considered to be symptomatic of the forces that have
contributed to laying the foundations of this industry.
Conclusion
Although there is little direct evidence of the
literary influences on Samuel Laing’s Journal of
a Residence in Norway, it reflected the prevailing
legacy of the Scottish Enlightenment. The Journal
combined elements of topographical-geographical
description, Old Northernism, romanticism, and
forbidden for more than 250 years after the Reformation.
In contrast to his hosts, Laing (1837 [1836]:68–
69) had a more realistic view of Olav’s death:
“King Olaf Haraldsen, who appears to have
been the most blood-thirsty tyrant who was
ever canonised, was killed by his subjects at a
place called Stikklestad, north of Dronthiem.
... As this monarch introduced Christianity
by fire and sword into his dominions, and
was killed by the peasants whom his cruelties
had driven into revolt, he was canonized;
his shrine became the most distinguished in
the north of Europe, and one of the most frequented
by pilgrims.”
On Stiklestad, he wrote (Laing 1837 [1836]:88):
“It is a place celebrated in Norwegian history,
for here king Olaf the saint was slain in the
battle with his subjects.
Never was a monarch opposed and cut
off by his people on juster grounds.”
Laing was familiar with the topographical writings
of Gerhard Schøning, who visited Stiklestad
in 1774 (Schøning 1795) and was the first to make
drawings of the church and the monument to St.
Olav (Fig. 12). Laing was not impressed by the
church, writing that: “The only part that struck me
as curious, although, from my not knowing the date,
of little interest, is the entrance gate, a round Saxon
Figure 13. Two monuments to St. Olav and Stiklestad church, ca.1840. Lithograph by C. Müller. Source: Stiklestad National
Culture Centre, archive no. 46:4.
217
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2013 Journal of the North Atlantic Special Volume 4
political economy. Laing was an autodidact in literary
matters. Like many travellers, he kept diaries. He
was an avid reader and he taught himself Norwegian
in order to read works in that language. He was an
unusual travel writer. His concern with legal and
constitutional issues reflected his moral and political
agenda of liberty and improvement. He idealized the
Norwegian peasantry and their udal landholdings.
Through his saga translation, he became a pioneering
Norse scholar. Although he was a utilitarian at
heart, together these things contributed greatly to the
romantic Northernism of the Victorian age. Nonetheless,
despite his biases, his detailed observations
of society and of natural phenomena are comparable
to the best travel writers of his time.
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Notes
1A complete translation of the Journal into Norwegian by
Kåre Snekkvik, based on the 1851 edition, appeared first
in 1997.
2Thanks are due to Stein Otto Bjørkeng, Nord-Trøndelag
University College, for assistance in obtaining information
on Midtgrunnan vestre, 6 April 2011. Further details
on the history of the farm, including a Norwegian translation
of Laing’s account of the property, can be found in
Musum (1931:18–34).
3According to a local historical work on Ekne, four people
are named as having lost their lives in the landslide (Finsvik
1978:289–290).