Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 22, 1911.djvu/248

 214 Collectanea.

of the Norwegian army. They come from various parts of the country, and are mainly typical of farm-life. They were best translated into Lowland Scots, but the following plain English may suffice. The burning question in Norway during the past few years has been the relative value of the literary language and what is called Landsmaai, or country speech. The former is practically Danish, and does not represent the speech of the people. Lands- maal as recognised by the authorities is an attempt to preserve in a uniform speech the innumerable excellencies of word and phrase which have come down into modern dialects from Old Norse. It is one remove from any one dialect, but lies very close to all. It partakes of the pliable and practical nature of Old Norse. It is infinitely richer in resource than the literary language, which ekes out its poverty with foreign words and phrases in a very ungainly manner.

The Landsmaal party is strong in the land, though bitterly opposed by the professional classes, especially of Kristiania. More and more books are being published in Landsmaal, and the leader of the party is Arne Garborg, the poet, whose works, especially Haugfussa, give an intensely characteristic representa- tion of Norwegian country life.

Captain Sagen himself is an ardent worker in the cause. His special aim hitherto has been the introduction of Landsmaal into army orders, in place of the bombast which is so often quite unintelligible to the man in the ranks. He has issued a Dictionary of military phrases. He speaks and writes only Landsmaal, on principle, and it may be interesting to quote from his letter to me covering this list of proverbs.

" De bad meg senda nokre ordtoki. Eg sender her ei liti samling. Det er korkje av dei beste eller av dei klenaste. Men det finst daa inkje so faa sanningar, og niykje morosamt er det og so. Skrifti mi er desvarre inkje god aa lesa. Men eg vonar like vel De skynar det meste. Det maa vist finnast i tustindtal av slike ordtoki her i landet. Men dei er ingen stad samla alle saman. Det skulde vera forvitneleg aa sjaa ei samling av vaar beste proverbs. Det ligg mykje livsvisdom og livsroynsla goymt i deim. Men arbeidet med norsk maal, norske erveminne, norsk soga, norske ordtoki, norske fornleivder, er enno berre i sin barndom. Her er enno vidsveimte vidder aa dyrkja. Eg skulde ynskja De kunde finna eit og annat godt korn mellom desse ordtoki."

" You asked me to send some proverbs. I send herewith a little collection.