Anna Hansdatter: Hunger In the Dale

OK, so I’m stalling. Part 2 will start soon.

I just came across a great Wikipedia article. It’s either new, or was a major oversight by me. The title is Norwegian Farm Culture. Like most Wiki articles, it represents a single author’s perspective. Its citations are less than rigorous, consisting mostly of other Wiki articles. But I really appreciated the depth to which it explores the history of Norway’s farm society. If you are even 1% as interested in the topic as I am, it is a must-read.

For the most part, Norway (unlike the rest of Europe) did not have a system of towns and villages; the primary social connective unit was the farm. The next stratum above was the parish, which did not include a centralization of common services such as blacksmith, grain mill, etc.

I also liked the article’s characterization of the culture as one of equals. As one quoted author puts it,

Mary Wollstonecraft, the mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, described its characteristics in a book published in 1796[4]: “The distribution of landed property into small farms produces a degree of equality which I have seldom seen elsewhere; and the rich being all merchants*, who are obliged to divide their personal fortune amongst their children, the boys always receiving twice as much as the girls, property has met no chance of accumulating till overgrowing wealth destroys the balance of liberty.

“You will be surprised to hear me talk of liberty; yet the Norwegians appear to me to be the most free community I have ever observed.

However, I cling to the notion that some were more equal than others. That is, while the rich (read: landowners) may have shared in the hardships, and even gone hungry, it was the poor who sometimes faced actual starvation.

*This division of wealth may have applied to cash (the main wealth of merchants), but land (the wealth of farmers) went entirely to the eldest son, while the younger sons and all the daughters inherited none. This unfortunate (but perhaps necessary) practice continued well into the twentieth century.